by J. R. Thorn
Devon plucked my folded clothes from the bed stand and offered them to me. The scent of freshly washed linen tinged with roses made me both grateful and annoyed. I didn’t do roses. “The spell has waned,” Devon told me, “but it accelerated the tidal wave you’re supposed to outrun. If we don’t stop it, then death will come for us all in twenty-four hours.”
I balked. “One day? You’re telling me I have one fucking day to stop the end of the world?”
All three of my protectors stared at me, none of them looking too hopeful.
Jeffery offered me a smile, but his fangs had slipped out again. That seemed to happen when he was horny, angry, or in this case, stressed. “Just don’t do any more teleportation tricks and you’ll be fine.” I frowned, because none of them had chided me for running off on them. My portal spell had sped up time, and I hadn’t even thought about the damage I might have done had I gone too far. If time was short, I didn’t need to be wasting another second.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “Won’t happen again. Just tell me what I need to do.” We were talking about the end of the world. I wasn’t too proud to admit I needed some direction.
He offered me his hand. “Get dressed. We’re going after death… on foot.”
The last place I wanted to go was back to the occult shop, but that’s where the spell had originated and that’s where I’d find the portal to death itself.
“You’re going to have to make a choice,” Edwin said as he walked a step behind me, allowing me to take the lead.
My boots crunched against the wet cement that officials had attempted to clean when they’d carted off a thousand dead birds. All that was left was a clinical-sweet musk and gritty asphalt with a deep ruby hue. My stomach rolled when my boots caught a bone that had been missed.
“What kind of choice?” I asked. We passed my mother’s fortune shop and I refused to look inside. There would be evidence of my stolen time with Devon, as well as the empty heart I’d left somewhere inside that only my mother could awaken again. She was gone, taken by death to a place I’d never get her back.
Edwin brushed my arm and beckoned me to stop. I wanted to both run towards and away from the source of my pain. Death hung its heavy musk here like the wet fog that came in after a long rain. It wasn’t distinctive like the rotten-egg stench of hell-bound creatures. The scent of death snuck in like a thief in the night and wrapped me in its cloak until my eyelids grew heavy and all I wanted to do was sleep.
Edwin’s touch brought me back to my senses, strengthened by Jeffery and Devon placing their hands on me. I drew on the bond I held with each of them, each bond unique and vital to help me survive what was going to come next.
Edwin’s eyes sparkled with that eerie crystal warning. Ever since our bond had awakened, he looked like he was about to give in to the part of himself that craved power and destruction as much as my Empress did. “Once you enter into death’s domain, you’ll be faced with everything that gnaws at your soul. It’ll know how to get to you in ways no one else would. Draw on your connection to us and do what you must to survive.”
I frowned, because this sounded too much like goodbye. “You aren’t coming with me?”
He shook his head and a blade of light appeared in his hand. Wings ghosted at his back and the crystal in his eyes solidified. “We’ll be tackling the demons and their masters who’ll try to stop you.”
I swallowed and surveyed what was left of Fortune Street. There wasn’t a soul to be seen, literally. “What demons?”
He nodded and the metallic blonde locks fell into his eyes. “You’ll see. Just know that we have your back, no matter what happens. No matter what choice you make, you make your choice as our Keymaster.”
Frowning, I tried to get some sense out of Devon and Jeffery. Jeffery simply flashed his fangs at me and Devon his wicked grin.
Jeffery wrapped his arms around my middle and tested my neck with his teeth, but didn’t break the skin. “You and I share a blood-bond. Don’t be afraid to use it.”
Devon took my hand and kissed it, flicking his tongue out so that a flame licked at my fingertips. “And we share hellfire that burns as hot as my passion for you.”
Edwin steadied his blade. “And we share the bond of rights and of justice. Let it guide you in the battle to come.”
I allowed them to caress me, sensing that this could be the last time I felt their touch. Adoration and fearless protection was what they offered me and I took it greedily. I fluttered my eyes closed and breathed out a long sigh until I found the strength to push them off.
Fortune Street wasn’t so soulless anymore. The end where the tattered remains of the occult shop waited billowed with shadows and a metallic orb swept out in a shockwave, locking us in as another realm merged with ours. A news helicopter drummed in the distance, but something—or someone—made it turn away.
I pulled my cards from my jacket and readied my deck. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter 11
I sensed the demons closing in around us as we approached the occult shop. Darkness loomed over us and blocked out the sun in a haze, but there were no clouds. I took one last look at the sky before I entered into the lopsided building. It was as if light itself struggled to slip through the heavy weight of madness and magic that encased this place. While the helicopter I’d spotted was long gone, I spotted something else watching us.
“Looks like my brothers came after all,” Edwin said, keeping his voice low as he tested the weight of his blade.
I shivered. Angels were supposed to be righteous and awe-inspiring, but their silhouettes only served to block out the sky and disperse what little sunlight had found its way through. Wings beat with a steady rhythm like war drums in the distance.
I set my jaw and turned from the spectacle. “Why are they here?” I asked.
Edwin followed me inside. Jeffery and Devon came too, but their footfalls were so light I couldn’t hear them. Devon whispered between the shelves and shadows, soon disappearing from sight. Jeffery nodded at me, then blurred, vanishing into thin air as he used his vampiric speed to survey the grounds.
“They come every cycle,” Edwin whispered. “They’ll wait for death to take its price, and then they’ll pick up the pieces.” He glowered. “They never help, if that’s what you’re wondering. We’re on our own.”
I wasn’t sure what I felt about the Legion, but I decided I didn’t much like them. This was my world, and I was going to fight for it with or without their help. “Whatever,” I hissed. “They’d just get in the way.”
A low, pulsating sound drew my attention and I stalked towards it. No demons had come out to stop us and it was starting to put me on edge. “Why aren’t the demons attacking?” This witch had put a whole nest of demons under her control before they ripped her apart. Any that were left should be livid and ready to attack.
As if on cue, a claw streaked out of the shadows and Edwin chopped it clean off at the elbow. The demon shrieked just long enough for Edwin to swipe his blade up, slashing blood and gore in one swift movement that severed the creature in two. I grimaced as it fell to the ground in a sickening puddle of ooze and sinew.
“The witches are holding them at bay,” he said as he flicked his blade and splattered blood on the ground, “at least as much as they can. They want you to face death, but they don’t want you to win.” He nodded to the portal that I could see clearly now. It continued to pulse and send the air around it warping in slow, rhythmic beats like a heart that pumped the world around us with shadow and malice instead of life.
“Death is on the other side of that thing?” I asked. I wasn’t ashamed that my words came out shaky. I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t afraid of something as powerful and final as death incarnate.
He nodded and readied his weapon as a new row of demons appeared through the blackness. They stepped through crinkled papers and charms that littered the floor. Some screeched and abruptly went silent, only the swift blur between their ranks betraying th
at one of my protectors was hard at work.
For every demon that went down, two more seemed to take its place. They hadn’t outright come after me, not yet. “Once I’m on the other side, how do I get back?” I asked.
Edwin met my gaze and sunlight flashed behind his irises. “Your bond to us. If we die before you make it back, then you make sure you use that sacrifice to do what you must. You cannot let death have its way with the world or all will be lost.”
I swallowed hard. So that was the ploy. Get me distracted in a battle I couldn’t win and then cut off my one link back to my world—my heart and soul that now rested with the three men I’d bonded with on every level. I placed a hand on Edwin’s arm and my fingers dug into his skin. “I don’t like this.”
He smiled, transformed from fearless warrior to a lover who could melt my heart in an instant. He kissed my cheek, his lips forming to my face. “I know you can do this,” he urged. “You can do anything.”
I hardly had such faith in myself, but that confidence coming from Edwin made me stand a little straighter.
Demons hissed and shadows whispered at my feet as I approached the portal that thrummed with challenge. The pulse quickened and the low beat slammed against my chest.
I gripped my deck and readied myself for the challenge of my life. If I’d thought my visions of my grandmother’s death were unbelievable, then fulfilling the nightmare I’d lived over and over again since I was a child was terrifying.
Red splayed out across the portal like flames, and just like in my dreams, I stepped through even though my stomach dropped with dread.
Disorientation swept over me as I transitioned to another world. No, not another world. This was more like a pocket between worlds that rested outside of time or space. I felt both heavy and weightless here and I flexed my fingers as a deep ache spread throughout my body.
The connection to Edwin solidified first. He was always able to keep me in one piece even when I thought I might splinter into a thousand tiny bits.
I thought of Devon and how he might have liked to have been here. Tufts of flame licked out at my feet at the mere whisper of him, revealing a dome that rested around this stolen space that shouldn’t exist.
When the crushing screams hit me, I reminded myself of Jeffery and his immortal strength he’d found in death. I communed with it and let the echoes run their course through my body, harmlessly escaping and leaving me intact.
The shadows unfurled as if I were in a glass bottle and a giant had blown the darkness away. A woman stared down the sharp arch of her nose as she thrummed her fingers across the arm of a throne. She towered over me, resting atop a flight of steps that all led to her and amplified her grandeur.
Her eyes, they were so black that I thought I could get lost in them if I met her gaze directly. Instead I focused on her long curls of midnight hair and a glimmer of cards resting in her lap. She began to shuffle them when my brows shot up in recognition.
“So, blood-kin of mine,” she growled, her words both otherworldly and terrified as they crashed over me like a wave, “you finally meet death.”
I stared at her, too shocked to be drawn in by the endless void behind her empty eyes. Now that I’d gotten a chance to look at her, I spotted the similarities that had thrown me off guard. A sprinkle of freckles over her cheekbones. Long, graceful fingers that expertly moved her cards, and a voice with a hint of edge in it that had magic of its own.
This woman was death—and a member of my bloodline.
“Who are you?” I hissed and readied my deck. I wasn’t sure which card I’d need to draw against one of my own kind who’d somehow turned into the most powerful force in history. I’d relived a nightmare over and over again where I faced myself in this very throne, but the vision still didn’t make any sense. I suppressed a shiver that said I was about to figure out what my nightmares had meant.
She spread her fingers out on the long, chalky white edges of her throne as she stood. Dark wings spread out behind her and she lifted a weapon that had been resting against her throne. The blade had been faced lengthwise and slipped my attention, but now I gaped at the long, gleaming blade of a scythe fit for death itself.
She grinned as the blood drained from my face. “Why don’t you come a little closer and I’ll show you exactly who I am?”
In spite of the terror running through my limbs, the enticement in her voice compelled me to lift a boot up one of the steps that led to her throne.
I tugged on the bond to my protectors that spanned away from this pocket where death hid behind a witch’s spell. It didn’t belong here, or anywhere. Death was an ethereal and elusive power. When I drew a sliver of strength through the bond and forced myself to still, I noticed the line of strain across her jaw. It wasn’t easy for her to stay here, which meant all I had to do to weaken her was keep her talking.
“Tell me a little about yourself, first,” I said and shuffled my deck. “You have a deck, as well as a scythe. So what are you, death, or a witch?”
She frowned and flicked her wrist, sending her deck puffing into smoke. The remaining pile of ash drifted down the flowing layers of her dress. “I have no use for the trinkets you cling to. Death is all I know now, and each death I claim makes me stronger.” She bared her teeth. “This is precisely the problem. I want out, and you’re going to be that for me.” She twirled the scythe and the air itself seemed to part under her dance. “It’s time for another Keymaster to take my place.”
She moved so fast that I almost didn’t have time to react, but my connection to Jeffery and vampiric speed helped me dodge her blow. She wasn’t aiming for my body. Her target was the thin, translucent streaks of light that represented my bond to my protectors. I growled and flicked out the dagger card. It folded over itself and produced a blade that flashed as I grabbed its hilt and sliced at her in return. She was fast, but so was I. Steel knocked the perfect marble of her neck and a streak of black ooze bled from her wound.
She shrieked and lashed out at me, but I knew how enemies like this worked. They only knew anger and rage and I could use that lack of focus against them.
“I’ve endured thousands of years! Your mother left me to rot, and so I vowed to take her firstborn.” A wild grin overtook her face as she lashed out at me again. I jolted back, but the air split an inch from me and left an icy shockwave that rattled my bones. “You were mine before you even drew your first breath.”
I drew another card, this time the portal card and tossed it on the ground. A whirlwind exploded and I jumped into it. I didn’t need to jump far, just far enough to disorient her.
Slipping through the portal, I targeted reentry on the other side of the throne where she wouldn’t immediately see me.
A frustrated shriek sounded. “You can run all you like, but you have nowhere to go!” She circled the path, but I moved, keeping my steps soft and silent as I stayed on the opposite side of the throne. “You only ensure their suffering, you selfish witch! I’ve gained a following these long years and they’ve all come to assist in my victory.”
Echoes of battle cries and wounded screams sounded through the pocket-realm, making me wince with guilt. A grunt, then a growl and a flash of pain behind the backs of my eyes. Devon had been the first to be injured.
I gripped my deck in one hand and dug my fingernails into my palm with the other. If I couldn’t wear her out, then how was I supposed to win?
A flash cracked, followed by a boom like lightning as cracks streaked through the pocket-realm. This prison wouldn’t last forever. All I had to do was have faith that my protectors could take care of themselves—but I feared that this was too much for even them to handle.
I gazed up at the throne, noting now the chalky white was because it was made of bones. Three skulls perched atop each miniature spire and my eyes went wide.
If this was my relative… did that also mean she had once been a Keymaster?
I drew the cavern card and tossed it into the air. “What was it l
ike?” I asked, my voice echoing out in all directions. “Failing those who were supposed to protect you?”
Her robes noisily swished as she whirled, trying to find me. Even if she couldn’t pinpoint my location, she made enough sounds that I had no trouble staying on the other side of her throne and out of sight.
A low, warning growl sounded from her and was nothing like a sound I’d expect from anything even remotely human. “You know nothing of my protectors. They died for me and I live with the weight of their deaths every day.”
“How ironic,” I said, my voice splaying out in all directions, “even death cannot avoid the inevitability of her own power.”
Another snarl as she sliced her weapon, serving only to form another crack in the edge of the small realm. “I knew my place! I knew when I’d met my match. Death cannot be challenged. It can only be accepted.”
She surprised me by doubling back and vaulting over the throne. Her scythe gleamed and had I been just a witch of the Fate Coven, I would have certainly fallen victim to death’s inevitable rage. But I wasn’t just a witch. I was a Keymaster and I had my own weapon.
I had the weapon of life.
I drew on the connection to my protectors and their love for me. They lived each day with determination and ferocity in spite of the limitations their worlds tried to put on them. Jeffery was limited to shadows and secrets, but he’d braved all that to find me again. Forgiveness didn’t come easy, but I forgave him for what he’d done to become a vampire strong enough to serve me now.
Devon, an angel of hell, was the loneliest creature I’d ever met. I didn’t realize it until this very second, but his life was all about dispatching punishment and endless suffering and death. He’d never known the loving touch of a woman. Even if he’d tried, a human or even a witch would have succumbed to the passion of hellfire and burned on the spot. I was his only chance at being loved and adored and there was so much more I had to offer him. I wanted to fulfill his every desire and give him a life worth living.