Eternally Forsaken: An Eternal Universe Book (The Eternal Series Vol. 4)

by Candy Crum

  “This is bullshit!” I cried.

  “We know this isn’t the best situation, but we thought we were only dealing with Vampires and Immortals. Immortals follow Khia, and since she has backed down for now, they won’t dare risk exposing themselves for fear of repercussions from her. And Vampires need you to live in the open because you are the only thing powerful enough to protect them, so they won’t dare risk exposing themselves until they have you. The Forsaken do not care who sees. They are impervious to bullets and blades and only removing their heart or their head can kill them. Humans are not a big threat to them.”

  I found myself pacing as I took in their words. At the moment, I hated the world and everything in it that was magical—even them, and I hated myself for hating them as well as for being magical. Racist against my own kind—pathetic. But I had no choice. My kind had done nothing more than cause three thousand years of pain and torture for thousands of innocent people. Rogue Vampires were even worse.

  A very guilty part of my mind traveled to think that Khia was right for wanting to wipe out their kind—minus a select few—but I quickly cleared it. I was angry and upset, obviously not thinking clearly. Taking a deep breath, I truly let the situation wash over me. Anger would do nothing and neither would freaking out. Remaining calm and mapping a logical course of action was the only wise thing to do. Regardless of my hate for the situation, they were right. If I am what everyone says that I am, what Death believes me to be, then I cannot be allowed to die. Death himself told me that, and he is one of the Kings of the Netherworld. I trust him, and I trust my family, even if I despise the situation.

  “Then this is what is going to happen,” I said. Everyone focused on me, fully attentive. “I have a midterm that I am forced to take in the classroom in about two hours. I missed the first one because of everything going on, but because my teachers love me, they have allowed me to make it up. But it has to be today, or I will fail this class and have to start the semester over again in four months. Sounds fun, right?”

  Everyone looked as though they were about to protest, but I started in again. “I understand the situation. It pisses me off to no end that I have to disrupt the lives of everyone that I come into contact with because I’m not strong enough to save my own ass, but I understand. So, this is the plan. Wendy still has privileges at the college, so she will go with me. She will be my bodyguard.”

  Everyone seemed to be pleased so far. Wendy lightly smiled and gave me a quick wink. “Aeric, you and Sayen come up with exercises that I can do to strengthen my spiritual abilities and my elemental abilities. The spirits want me to use them, but I’m still unable to get past the barrier to speak to them the way an Immortal should be able to. Brett, I want you to come up with a diet and workout that I can do so that I can lean out and get faster. I also want you to train me in hand-to-hand combat. I don’t have full use of my powers yet, so both physical strength and quickness sure as hell aren’t going to hurt.

  “This was the plan before, and we fucked it all up and look at the cost. I died. Twice, in fact, considering I died when I was attacked upstairs, and I had to fight my way back through the Netherworld that my spirit created to my body. I refuse to allow that to happen again. I will do what you say and keep a bodyguard, but it will not be because I’m weak. It will be because I’m weak right now, and I’m working toward a goal. Is that understood?”

  When I mentioned dying upstairs, I saw questions in their eyes, and I realized then that it was because they didn’t know that I had actually died. Possibly that I’d lost consciousness or had been delivered to the brink of death, but they’d thought that I’d awoken safely. Though their minds clearly wanted answers, they ignored it and nodded in agreement.

  “Spoken like a true warrior goddess,” Wendy said. “Your demands are noble and are thoughtful. They should be taken seriously and will be now that you have grasped the very real situation that you are in.”

  “I agree,” Aeric said. “We cannot lock you up, and this is the best thing for now. We’ll have a schedule for you when you return, and we’ll get started right away.”

  “Thank you, Aeric,” I said. “Rachel, could you get Amanda to come?”

  “Of course,” she said with a smile. Her recently darker auburn colored hair glistened in the bright light of the living room. She ran over and pulled me into a hug. “I love you. I know we don’t get a lot of time to talk with each other or really hang out anymore, even though we see each other every day, but I love you. We will all get through this. You are something incredible, and I am honored to be your friend. You’ve always been the sister I never had.”

  Squeezing her tightly, I kissed her cheek before wiping her tears away. “I love you, too. You always protected me because I was too shy and weak to take care of myself. It’s my turn to take care of you now. I just need the tools to do it. So, make sure that boyfriend of yours does his job.”

  I winked at her and she smiled, giving me a light laugh that warmed my heart. I made my way upstairs and gathered my books to do a last thirty-minute run-through of my notes. As planned, Wendy escorted me to the school. There was a class being held in the large university-style lecture room in the campus next door, and my professor asked that I attend that to take the midterm.

  I’d sit in the back, a few rows behind the other students so she didn’t have to worry about me cheating, and Wendy could wander around talking to her friends while keeping a spiritual eye on the area for any unusual characters. About forty-five minutes in, I’d already finished my test and decided to sit in on a few minutes of the lecture. This was a class that I’d wanted to take, Advanced Physiology, but I decided on a Chemistry class instead—stupid.

  My right eye began to twitch, and I rubbed it a few times, trying to relieve the annoying movement. I quickly discovered that it was doing no good and tried to ignore it. As the twitch became worse, a headache started to set in; dull at first, but quickly intensifying to an incredibly sharp, stabbing pain. Warning bells began ringing, and I used my power to search for Wendy, coming up empty. Without hesitation, I put my test on the desk next to me, grabbed my backpack, and stood, ready to get the hell out of there.

  As soon as I stepped into the aisle, a pain like no other ripped through my head, causing me to scream as I fell to my knees. Heads twisted all around as they stared at me, no one moving as I was paralyzed in pain. I wanted to laugh at the fact that these men and women were going to be nurses or paramedics, but I was unable. What could possibly cause such a violent reaction in me? Even Khanae herself couldn’t cause that reaction anymore. With her, if she flared her energy, I simply passed out.

  Within moments, the horrifying sound of screeching, whining metal sounded out as the heavy, steel emergency exit door was ripped from its hinges and thrown out to the stairwell. Somehow, I managed to lift my head long enough to see the massive creature making its way into the room, and my heart nearly stopped. How did Wendy not see it or stop it?

  The creature looked exactly like every picture of the god Anubis that I’d ever seen. It looked even taller than Wendy had told me, maybe closer to eleven feet tall than nine. It was tannish brown with incredibly broad shoulders and arms as thick as my waist. In only the quick flash of a look that I’d had, I’d had enough.

  The room erupted into screams, everyone ducking in their seats, trying to seem invisible. As I forced myself to move backwards, out of the way of a stampede if they took off running, I saw the Forsaken grab a wooden chair from up front, breaking it with its powerful hands. I attempted to stand, but could only lean forward on the chair in front of me, praying that I didn’t fall down the stairs in the large lecture room.

  A loud growl sounded out over the screams, and I heard a sharp whine just before my vision was completely blurred. My shoulder ached terribly, and I was completely soaked. I wiped my eyes with my hands only to find that I was covered in blood. Looking down, I saw why and tears immediately came to my eyes as my fears became a reality.

&n
bsp; One of the students, probably in his early twenties, lay before me. His chest completely blown apart, his eyes wide open and lifeless, his blood soaking me from head to toe. Looking down to the floor, I saw his heart lay nearly ripped in two as it rested near my feet. Another pang of guilt hit me along with an intense dull throb in my shoulder. Slowly reaching up to touch it, I felt something large sticking out of it.

  It was a part of the chair that the Forsaken had broken. He’d thrown it at me, more than likely aiming for my heart to paralyze me long enough to carry me out. Instead, this innocent soul had tried to run and stepped in the way, dying for me. Dying for nothing. The sound of the double doors opening behind us gave me hope, and it somehow seemed as though the heavy spiritual weight that had been crushing me was lifted.

  I quickly turned to see a beautiful woman with intricate tattoos along her upper arms and long, black and purple hair step into the room; a hazy violet aura surrounding her. Again, over the sounds of the horrified screams, I heard a loud, guttural growl sound out from the Forsaken whose aura I now saw was a seething, dark, blackish-violet mass of obvious anger and hatred.

  “Enough!” the mysterious woman shouted.

  The Forsaken growled once more as he positioned himself to attack, his massive pawed feet gripping the floor as he readied himself to run for the new woman. In a flash, her lighter violet aura flared, and she all but exploded into an incredibly large, sleek, black wolf. She was easily fifteen feet tall at the shoulders, and I was happy that we were inside the large, two-story-tall room, or the two creatures would not have fit.

  With a single huff and another flare of her aura, every human in the room dropped, completely unconscious. The Forsaken howled out a battle cry, and instead of going for her, he charged for me. In only one blink, his large jaws snapped only inches from my face as the Anubian locked hers around his waist and tossed him down the stairs and into the chalkboard, breaking it into thousands of pieces.

  I stood in time to see the Forsaken correcting himself and head for me once again. The Anubian wrapped her powerful jaws around my waist, throwing me back and into the double doors that she’d come through just before catching the Forsaken’s head in her mouth, flipping him up and then back down as one would a clean t-shirt just out of the dryer. The forceful movement snapped the Wolf’s neck in two.

  She laid him on the ground before her, placing one massive paw on his back and then tore his head from his body. I nearly gagged as I saw the muscles, tendons, and part of his spine dangling and dripping from the severed head, the nearly black blood soaking everything around it.

  She spat the head to the ground and licked her large mouth. Her aura swelled again, covering her body. When it pulled in tight once again, she looked just as human as she had when she came in: only naked. Slowly, I stood, the broken chair leg still wedged in my shoulder. A few of my ribs felt broken, and I wondered how long it would take to heal.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Good, considering. Have you seen another Immortal?”

  She nodded. “She was incapacitated by the Forsaken. He was much older than she thought, and she didn’t protect herself properly. She’s fine. I’m Erin.”

  “I’m Kailah,” I replied through gritted teeth.

  She smiled. “Here, let me help you with that.” She pulled the broken wood from my shoulder before I could protest, earning a loud yelp from me, though I managed not to fall to my knees. “It should start to heal now.”

  “Thanks,” I said, breathlessly. “Are they okay?” I asked.

  “Minus the tragic death of the male over there, yes. They will all be fine. I am the oldest daughter of Queen Nicole, and my spiritual powers are very great. Anubis has blessed me. I overwhelmed them, and they passed out. When they awaken, they won’t remember anything at all. Are you powerful enough to help me with a cleanup?”

  “What do I need to do?” I asked.

  “I’ll move the bodies. I need for you to purify the blood. If you are strong enough, it should burn away and leave no evidence.”

  I grimaced a bit. “I’m still very new to this, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  With that, we set out to clean the area before the class awoke, and it was time for the next batch of innocents to come in. I knelt down and placed the tips of my fingers along the edge of the pools of blood. I could feel the living energy still inside even though it was no longer within a body. It would take a few hours for that to die away on its own. I felt the tingle of power in my hands, and I pushed it forward.

  Just as Erin had suggested, the blood began to burn away from the floor, vaporizing into thin air. The human blood was significantly more difficult, but because most of it was mixed with my own, I was able to remove it as well. When Erin returned, she was fully clothed in a set of scrubs, and I knew she’d raided the nursing wing at the campus.

  “We need to talk,” she said. “There is a lot left for you to know of your kind. Mine as well, but you should know more about yours first.” She placed her hand on the small of my back and led me out. She took her spell off everyone once we knew the evidence was disposed of. I felt hideous thinking of that poor innocent man that had died because of me.

  “Hello, Erin,” Wendy said with a smile, making her way to us as we hit the sidewalk. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  “And it is always good to see you again, too, my young friend. I was just about to tell Kailah some of the things she has yet to learn of our kinds.”

  “Ah, yes. I suppose now is as good a time as any. There are a lot of things we haven’t told you about Khia and Khanae,” Wendy said. “We haven’t kept those things from you to be secretive or to harm you. We did it because we thought it may endanger you if you knew. There are a lot of things Khanae has expressed her deepest wishes for you not to be aware of yet, but things have changed and we saw fit to discuss it with you.”

  We made our way out to our car, away from innocent ears, before resuming our conversation. “Before this war began, and before Egypt was the cradle of immortal civilization, Khia was merely a human princess,” Erin began. “She was the only legitimate child of the Pharaoh and his queen. The queen had an illegitimate daughter through an assault, but the Pharaoh loved his queen so much that he let it go. Unfortunately, the queen’s illegitimate daughter was never able to live in the public eye. She was pure of heart and loved by the kingdom, but she was nothing more than a trusted and cherished slave to the Pharaoh and the queen. The Pharaoh, however, did love her like his own daughter because of her pure heart and sometimes wished that she was his daughter.”

  I could see Wendy seemed a bit uncomfortable with the topic. I wanted to ask if she was okay, but Erin quickly began again.

  “The Pharaoh was never able to father a son with his queen or any of his concubines. Because Khia knew she was the only choice they had for their heir, she believed that she was capable of doing anything she pleased. She snuck off many times to the dungeon that was built off to the west of the main palace for prisoners. There was a thief she was particularly interested in. Along with the thief, there was something else in the dungeon that she was courting.”

  “Something else? That sounds kind of… not good,” I said.

  Erin smiled a knowing smile and nodded. “This is the part where I tell you where your kind really came from. Khia was evil from the beginning; even before her Immortal birth. That dungeon was evil and that was why she wanted to be there. Hundreds of men were sentenced to die in that dungeon. They were locked down there until they simply rotted away and died. The Pharaoh and his queen were just in their rule over Egypt. Those who murdered, raped, pillaged, and harmed children were sentenced to death, with no questions, either by the hands of the Medjay or by suffering in the dungeon.

  “The Pharaoh and his queen were genuinely good and loved by their people. That was why they saved the dungeon for the cruelest of criminals. They didn’t realize that some of the Medjay weren’t good. They were framing inno
cent men to darken their spirits by torturing and killing them. They wanted to feed the dark spirit—by Khia’s wishes, of course. When those men died, their souls were deeply angry and black. For this reason, their spirits were unable to escape the dungeon. Death after death created more and more angry and vengeful souls occupying the dungeon until eventually, the souls merged into one horrifying, seething, hating spirit capable of terrible things.

  “There was a thief that Khia had been acquainted with on more than one occasion that was sentenced to the dungeon after attacking her and her illegitimate sister. Khia had desperately tried to save the thief from being sentenced to death right away because she had plans and went to see him in the dungeon daily. She wanted to make sure he was progressing like she wanted so she could feed the spirit.

  Erin continued. “She had a plan in mind and believed that with that dark power, she would be capable of anything. In the end, Khia had him killed, and the spirit became powerful enough to do terrible things. Khia allowed it to possess her. This possession was something so deep, so binding, that the evil spirit immediately cast out Khia’s human soul and put itself in the empty space. Because this spirit was so dark and so powerful, it rendered Khia immortal from that day forward.”

  As Erin finished, I felt confusion and sadness washing over me. “So, we are bad?” I asked.

  The thought that I was born for evil rattled me deeply. My mind was going in different directions. My soul was something evil and dark. I remembered back to that room when Jacques’s blood began to take over, and I felt that dark pull. I thought it was his blood trying to take over, but was it actually my own soul? Was it actually me?

  “No, Kailah, please never think that again,” Wendy said. “There is nothing inside of you but purity. This was Khia’s soul, not yours.”

  I shook my head lightly and opened my mouth to protest but Erin interrupted.

  “She is right. You aren’t evil. If you were, I would have destroyed you, too, instead of just that Forsaken. The dark soul wasn’t planning on the effect that being inside of a human body would have on it. The dark soul devoured spirits and that is how it survived and even grew stronger. However, once inside of a body, the soul’s power was dulled. The dark soul gave Khia a presence that commanded attention from those living and the spirits of the dead. That is why Immortals can control spirits and the elemental power those spirits possess. The dark soul possesses Khia and Khia alone, not any of you. You are technically not even related to her.”