Violet Abyss (A Blushing Death Novel Book 7)

by Suzanne M. Sabol

  “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted as algae and swamp water flooded my mouth again.

  “Don’t stop!” Dean grunted as he wrestled with the beast. He was actually wrestling an alligator.

  I put my head down and kept going, knowing the other one was catching up to me and fast.

  The platform I’d fallen from was just ahead, it was so close but still too far out of reach. Evidently, in my thrashing, I’d put some distance between me and the walkway. I wasn’t going to make it. Dean roared behind me and I heard a gigantic splash that sounded like a 400-pound belly flop hitting the water. Turning my head for a quick glance, the alligator was close but Dean was headed my way behind him. The gator he’d had in his grip resurfaced from behind him and was quickly gaining on us. I guess the beastie hadn’t had enough yet.

  Glancing up, I stretched to grasp the edge of the wooden planking. No good. I sunk down into the slimy depths and tried propelling myself up and out. Only problem, the lake was too deep. I was pretty much fucked. As I spit more algae out and wiped my hair from my face, something sharp ripped through the back of my shirt and burned across my skin.

  “Stop playin’ around, Dahlia,” Dean snapped, his voice closer than it had been.

  I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with as much air as I could hold and dropped beneath the surface. I swam down and away until I touched bottom. One more try. If I didn’t make it, I was pretty much gator food and I didn’t want that. It took longer than I’d thought to swim to the bottom and there was a moment my brain clicked over to panic mode as my lungs burned for fresh air.

  I fought my instincts not to gasp as I turned and planted my feet on the sludgy bottom. With all the force and power I had in me, I shot myself up and out of the water, catching the edge of the wooden planks lining the walk. My feet dangled and my back throbbed but I took a deep breath and used all the strength I had left to do a chin up and lift my sodden body from the water. Inching one arm up and over the edge, and then the other, I slung myself up, one leg at a time. I rolled away from the edge, soggy and waterlogged just as the alligator launched itself up to bite me. A torpedo of hard reptilian muscle and prehistoric teeth slammed into the walkway. Claws scraped the wooden planks and gigantic jaws snapped at me as the beast thrashed. Not able to find purchase, the giant bastard fell back into the water.

  Scrambling back, I hissed, “Holy fucking shit.” As the splash from the gator’s impact coated me again in algae.

  The fucker circled once before heading for easier prey on the other side of the lake. Hoping the coast was clear, I dangled over the edge head first, searching for Dean.

  About ten feet from me out in the water, Dean had his massive arm, wrapped around the alligator’s snout like he had him in a headlock.

  I flung my wet hair from my face and reached down as far as I could. “Come on, Dean,” I shouted. “Get your ass outta there. You wanna buy the zoo a new alligator? Cause we’ll have to if we have to kill it.”

  “Not buying a new one,” he grunted as he tightened his hold on the huge reptile bashing against his grasp.

  “Behind you,” I shouted, unable to keep the panic from my voice.

  Dean was quickly being surrounded by the other two gators. He glanced over both shoulders, assessing, and then punched down with all his might and struck his captive in the side. He drove a second blow to the head and released the gator’s snout. Using the big firm body as a stepping stool, he got one foot on the gator’s belly and jumped.

  Catching his hand in mine, Dean swung back up toward me and solid ground. He held onto the edge with his foot, then his other hand, and let go of mine. As he rolled away from the edge and toward the center, I laid on my side perpendicular to his sprawling form. For a long, breath-heaving moment, we both lay there panting.

  As the adrenaline began to ebb, the sting from my back crept out from the center of the wound and pain wrapped around me. I hissed and moved to try and get comfortable. Below us and underneath the walk, the gators snapped and tussled together.

  “What’s wrong with them?” I groaned.

  “You’re bleeding into the water,” Dean growled, sitting up and crawling up beside me.

  “What?” I cried, tilting onto my side with my back to Dean.

  “Yep.” His delicate touch across my back stung and I hissed as the pain shot across my skin.

  I gazed out across the murky water where the torn-up corpse of a vampire bobbed, his head disconnected from the rest of his body. “Well,” I said, sitting up and straightening my back as best I could. “There goes that lead.”

  “Yep.”

  “Something knocked me into the water,” I said, slowly getting to my feet. We were going to have to wash out my back and hopefully stop the bleeding but I’d leave a trail back to the SUV, no matter what. There was a first aid kit back in the Escalade but that seemed like such a long way away now.

  “Did you see who?” Dean asked, standing beside me as he turned my body to take a better look at the open wound. “That gator got you pretty good.” His fingers trembled as he caressed the edge of the gash.

  My back hurt from my shoulder blade clear down to the soft flesh around my kidneys. I glanced over my shoulder, trying to see what he saw. Blood ran down my backside and my leg in a warm rush, diluted by the swamp water and chasing the wet chill away.

  “No. Plus, I couldn’t smell anything over the algae, animal shit, and the big cat enclosures over there. So, who knows who or what it was. Did you see?” I shrugged, and even that hurt.

  “All I saw was you,” he answered. “Big cat, huh? I don’t smell that?”

  “You don’t? That’s all I can smell. Beside the algae, anyway,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at him.

  “Let’s go back to the car so I can clean this before it gets infected. We’ll figure it out.” He let me go first and didn’t try to help, bless him. He let me stand and walk on my own two feet, no matter how slowly I moved. He simply kept pace beside me. As we made our way around the alligator exhibit, the path opened up to a little exhibit of nutria and raccoons.

  “Hey,” I said too loudly in surprise. “They have raccoons!”

  “You see enough of those at home.” He snorted and continued walking in an effort to keep me moving. If I focused too much on the pain burning across my back, I might never make it to the SUV so I talked about raccoons.

  “You’re right. I’ve just never seen raccoons in a zoo before. The nutria, sure. I get that. The raccoons though, it’s just weird.” I hobbled along trying not to cause myself any more pain. It seems, however, you unfortunately use your back muscles quite a bit when you walk. So, each step hurt like hell.

  “Better the raccoons than you, huh?”

  “I guess,” I agreed, still eyeing the rodents. As we moved from the raccoons to the leopard enclosure, my phone vibrated in my back pocket. Miracle of miracles, I managed not to lose my phone.

  Dean glared down at me. “It still works?”

  I dug the thing out of my back pocket. It proved harder than I thought since my jeans were soaked and clinging to me. “Waterproof,” I said. “I’m knee deep in gore too much to not have a waterproof phone.”

  Dean snorted, and I read Patrick’s text aloud. “Two more bodies in the Marigny. Police have already arrived.”

  “Police?” Dean asked. “Already?”

  I texted Patrick back, telling him we were on our way.

  “You gonna call Pat and let him know what happened?” he asked, a little surprised as I slid my phone into my back pocket again.

  God, I stunk. The stench of wet vegetation and swamp clung to me. In my hair and on my clothes. I wanted a shower more than I could express in words but the most I would get with a time crunch and bodies waiting would be a clean wound.

  “No,” I said, peering
up at him. “Patrick’ll just get angry that I was hurt and worry. There isn’t anything he can do about it. All we can do is bind it up and head to the Marigny.” I kept moving, my back burning all to hell. “What are we supposed to do if the police are there? It’s not like I can just call Derek.”

  Detective Derek Hamlin, my friend and contact on the Columbus PD. I helped him with the weird shit cases, as he called them, and he didn’t ask too many questions about the preternatural bullshit. He was my normal and sometimes, I needed a dose of normal.

  “Dunno,” he said, resting his hand on the small of my back and digging my phone from my back pocket. “But Garrett can scope it out until we get there.”

  As we walked, slowly, back to the SUV, Dean made the call to Niyati and Garrett. Neither would look for the same things I would. Hell, they wouldn’t look for the same things Dean would but someone on scene was better than no one, I guess.

  Chapter 23

  “Grimaldi saw us,” Celeste hissed.

  “Don’t worry about him. He knows nothing,” Varick’s tone was smooth and soft, attempting to soothe her anxiety. “At the worst, he saw exactly what it was,” he said with a sly grin turning up the corners of his delicious mouth. “A man, very interested in a lovely woman.” Wrapping his arm around her waist, Varick tugged her against his hard body. He buried his nose in her neck, breathing deep of her scent as his hands roamed over her flesh.

  “That man has a long memory, Varick. He’ll understand the implications.” She sank into his embrace, unable to resist. Her nipples hardened with the pleasure of his touch. She’d always responded to him this way. Oh, she’d had other lovers. So had he. But, between them, there had always been a fire that burned bright and fierce.

  Parting from him three decades ago had been difficult, had pained them both. However, they both knew to achieve the level of power they both wanted—needed to keep from being slaughtered if anyone found out what she could do—this was their play. Konyam was very strict on his rules about turning witches but Varick had seen her and had had to have her. He’d known what she was but hadn’t hesitated. He could be impetuous at times, one of the things she adored about him.

  Turning a witch into a vampire could also be dangerous. They’d managed to keep it secret for this long but Varick had begun to suspect that others on the board were starting to question his quick rise and acquisition of wealth as well as power. She’d done quite a bit for him, for them. They’d both known her heritage and her powers couldn’t stay a secret forever. This was better. Killing them all was better. Safer.

  “You worry too much. We have the Chalice. With its power, no one can stop us,” he growled close to her ear, sending shivers of delight down through her core.

  Turning in his arms, she met his hungry gaze. “Varick, that Chalice has magic like I’ve never felt before. But I haven’t been able to access it.”

  He reared back, a confused expression furrowing his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve tried everything but it’s dormant in my hands.” She shook her head and thought about how much power radiated through the gold to the point she could almost hear it vibrate. So much magic without a key. “It’s as if it’s waiting for something.”

  “Have you gone through the rites?”

  “Yes, I’ve performed everything according to the passage described in the Book of the Dead. But nothing. The Chalice of Isis’s magic isn’t responding to me. I don’t know what else to do.” Her voice was soft and uncertain. Without the Chalice’s power, she knew they couldn’t defeat Konyam. If he found out, he would kill her and Varick. She’d heard stories of what happened to those that crossed Konyam and she didn’t want that for either of them.

  “It has to work. This is our only option,” he growled, flashing his fangs at her.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” she shouted, frustration making her voice sharp. “How was I supposed to know that my magic wouldn’t have any effect on it?” She shoved hard on his chest to put some distance between them. “That damned thing’s been underground for the better part of a century! How was I to know?”

  “Celeste.” He cooed her name, soothing her anger and terror. “We’ll figure this out and all will be as we planned.”

  Perhaps she had overreacted but she didn’t think so. The last time she’d tried to perform the rites of the Chalice and unlock its magic, she’d felt the wrongness of it . . . of her.

  “Varick, I’m afraid,” she admitted. “We’ve started something. It’s too late to turn back now.”

  He took a step closer and stroked her face, his fingers gently caressing along her jaw. “Celeste, you worry too much. Don’t forget, we have a Plan B.”

  She sighed, almost in relief. Yes, they had a Plan B and that was unfolding exactly as she’d designed. “You’re right,” she answered with a smile. “Yes, we have another way out.”

  Chapter 24

  Dean and I strode up to the crowd surrounding the police tape, my jeans chaffing since the swamp water refused to dry. But luckily, my shirt was dry. Back in the SUV, Dean had thrown a shit-ton of hydrogen peroxide on my wound from the gator—I’d called Dean a dirty cock-sucking sonovabitch—then he’d patched me up. Once I’d changed my shirt and pulled my hair into a dirty ponytail, off we’d gone.

  The crowd was thicker than I’d thought, at least seven or eight deep, as well as bystanders sitting on front stoops with giant plastic cups and swirly straws of every color in their hands. Just another night in the Marigny for the hipster crowd. As we shoved and jostled our way to the front, I tried like hell to keep my back straight and away from wayward elbows and clumsy human hands. The thing still hurt like hell. But the first time I got elbowed in the back, I hissed at the stab of pain that shot through me. It almost brought me to my knees and was worse than when the stupid alligator had clipped me.

  Dean took over bulldozing people out of our way after that. “He’s over there,” he growled in my ear, uneasy with the crowd as Dean tried to keep a three-foot protection barrier around me. It wasn’t working.

  I raised on tiptoes and peered over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Garrett along the edge of the crowd on the opposite side of the crime scene. His shoulders were relaxed and his hands in his pockets, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Standing next to him, tall and lithe with her long onyx hair streaming down her back was Niyati. Garrett had a casual air to him, everyone’s buddy. Niyati was just the opposite. Even though her hands were at her sides, her shoulders were stiff and pushed back, letting the world know not to mess with her.

  Noticing the parting crowd and the angry shouts from the people Dean had nudged out of the way, Garrett glanced our way and nodded in greeting. Niyati just seemed relieved.

  As we made our way around the circle of onlookers, I moved through my pain, taking deep, cleansing breaths to keep my eyes from watering as my skin slowly, and excruciatingly knit back together. There had been a time when my healing was just as fast as any vampire or werewolf. But I’d traded that ability to Baba Yaga in her black forest to save Dean’s life. Everything had a price in Fairie.

  The air carried scents that made my stomach turn and like most of the Quarter was overwhelming. The reek of alcohol and body odor permeated freely on the thick humid air, lingering without a breeze to circulate the stench. Underneath the obvious odors though, there was something familiar that shouldn’t have been present: the aroma of rich earth, of sweet copper, and the faint decay of the grave . . . of death.

  Normally, I would attribute all those things to the dead body lying face down on the street. The scent wasn’t quite right just for decomp, however. We were standing far enough away that the lingering fragrance of the grave didn’t come from the body. It was coming from somewhere in the crowd.

  Glancing around, I tried not to look to obvious about it but I didn’t see anything o
r anyone that appeared out of place. I didn’t even feel that icy stab of power that usually accompanied the undead. Unfortunately, that could be for several reasons. Maybe I was mistaken and the scent was old. I wasn’t very good at determining how old a scent had lingered. Maybe the vampire wasn’t very powerful and their signature didn’t radiate far from their own personal space. Some of the lower-level, a.k.a. lackey, vampires were like that. I didn’t feel their power prickle across my skin until I was almost standing on top of them. Or, maybe I was just wrong. It could happen. I would never admit that out loud, but it did happen. Occasionally.

  I turned back to face Garrett and Niyati but kept my hands free to draw my weapons, just in case. Dean nodded to both and motioned for them to follow as we left the confines of the crowd. A few moments later, we were free from human eavesdroppers and the occasional jab in the back which had me breathing easier. Especially when Niyati followed at my rear and blocked any wayward humans from bumping into my wound.

  “You’re bleeding,” she leaned in and whispered.

  “Gator got me.”

  “Only you,” she huffed but didn’t say another word about it as she shook her head.

  “What’d you find?” Dean asked.

  “Not much,” Garrett said. “The police were here before the bodies were cold. From what I could make out, no one saw anything. In fact, the people on the street at the time can’t remember anything after ten-thirty p.m. Nothing. Not even how they got here in the first place.”

  “And no one finds that odd?” I asked, sarcasm heavy.

  “I do,” Niyati said, crossing her arms over her ample chest.

  “Yeah, but they can’t do anything about it,” Garrett answered.