Forgotten Destiny 4

by Odette C. Bell

  All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Forgotten Destiny Book Four

  Copyright © 2017 Odette C Bell

  Cover art stock photos: licensed from Depositphotos.

  www.odettecbell.com

  Forgotten Destiny

  Book Four

  Finding the truth will come at a cost….

  It’s time to find out who murdered Josh’s sister. But there’s a problem. And his name is Jason.

  Beth is thrust into a new case. Max’s ex-fiancé has gone missing. If the fact she’s Max’s ex isn’t bad enough, it turns out she was a prosecutor who went after the gangs.

  Beth rapidly finds out everything is connected. From the prophecy to the murder of Sandra McIntosh – this mystery is a tangled web. A web designed to catch her….

  Forgotten Destiny Book Four is the thrilling fourth instalment in the five-book Forgotten Destiny Series.

  Chapter 1

  “Beth, dodge!” Josh screamed at me from my side.

  I managed to jerk back, but it was only just in time to save my arm. I couldn’t dodge the magical blow completely, and a searing blast of heat sliced down my arm. Blood splattered over the wall beside me.

  “Dammit,” Josh screamed as he threw himself at me. In doing so, he stepped out of the circle. The same circle he’d been creating for the past half hour.

  There was a crack that sounded like a thousand strings that had been pulled as tight as rubber bands. It echoed down the darkened laneway.

  Magic cascaded off Josh as he threw himself at me.

  Though I tried to dodge another attack from our assailant, I wasn’t in time. My eyes widened as I saw a sudden blast of yellow flame slice toward the center of my head.

  Josh didn’t bother screaming at me again. Instead he reached me, wrapped an arm around my middle, and hauled me to the side.

  I felt heat searing around us, but it didn’t burn me to a crisp.

  Josh pulled me to my feet, grabbed me around the middle, and yanked me to the side just before another blast of magic could slam into me.

  This was insane.

  “I hate fighting elementals,” I managed.

  This actually elicited a snort from Josh – it was a surprise he had the breath considering this frenetic fight.

  “Not as much as me,” Josh spat.

  Just out of the corner of my eye, I saw another slice of magic heading toward us – as bright as a flare on a dark night.

  I didn’t have the time or the breath to warn Josh, but he didn’t need it.

  He suddenly charged with magic, his entire body looking like a star – a green one. An angry one, at that. His face was marked with an unholy frown as he charged forward with his magic, using his body like a battering ram. He slammed it into the elemental’s spell, and the yellow bolt of force extinguished.

  “Keep up,” Josh screamed at me.

  I pushed forward. As I did, I did it – allowed a little magic to spring over me. Just fine charges of blue here and there. It was patchy, and it probably looked entirely hilarious to a full warlock like Josh. But that wasn’t the point.

  It was magic. And the first indication that one day I would become a sorcerer too.

  Now wasn’t the time to think about that – hell, I didn’t know when was a good time to think about the fact that one day soon I would become a sorcerer. But while I was being attacked by an elemental certainly wasn’t ideal.

  Still, I couldn’t stop that thought from striking and wheedling in, feeling like some kind of parasite as it parted my flesh and settled close to my heart.

  This made it all real. These little charges of blue that now danced across my hands made the prophecy so goddamn real.

  Once upon a time, I thought that if I’d just found the prophecy, I would have been able to use my finding magic to find a way out of it. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  Now as that blue magic charged a little brighter across my skin and protected me from the brunt of the heat blasting around us, it told me there wouldn’t be a way out of this prophecy – there would only be one through it.

  “Keep up,” Josh screamed again as he darted hard to the side.

  I always stayed in his wake, a meter behind, but that was still enough to be protected by the outer layer of his protection spell.

  There was something I was learning – okay, something I’d been learning ever since I’d met Josh. He truly was one of the most powerful warlocks in Madison City. Sure, he was pretty crusty, quite arrogant, and definitely annoying. But importantly, he could hold his own. And just as importantly? He was the only man in town who could hold my protection order.

  Well, except for Jason.

  But Jason?

  Was another matter.

  Just thinking about him made me want to close my eyes until the skin crumpled permanently, but I didn’t exactly have that opportunity.

  Josh suddenly darted hard to the left and pushed into a roll. Though I wasn’t usually the most athletic of souls, several months working with Josh McIntosh had taught me a thing or two, and I had no trouble in pushing myself into a roll, too.

  As my back pounded against the pavement, it transferred suspicious stains across my jacket. Fortunately, I was wearing a leather jacket – one Josh had bought me. Hell, when he’d taken me to the store and made me pick out one, he’d looked like a proud father handing down his business to his kid.

  It wasn’t the most stylish of things, but Josh had been right – it was damn useful. It protected my back not just from the suspicious stains on the pavement, but the stray charges of magic and heat, too.

  By the time I pushed to my feet, Josh had already charged again, his body now completely covered by his unique yellow-green magic. “We have to do this together,” Josh had the time to say before another bolt of yellow magic slammed out of nowhere and struck his body.

  He brought both arms up, holding them like a frigging superhero as he met the elemental’s attack head-on.

  “… Are you serious?” I managed, bringing up my own arm, but not looking anywhere near as dramatic as I rather tried to save my face from the brunt of the heat blasting around us.

  Elementals, as I was quickly learning, were a seriously crazy breed of witches. They could actually turn themselves into elements. I wasn’t lying there. Unlike a general warlock who had the ability to use magic to do pretty much whatever they wanted, an elemental turned into an element. If their magic was water based, then they turned into water. If it was heat – like this guy – then they actually turned into heat.

  Before you take a gasp and conclude that elementals must therefore be the most powerful form of witches, they aren’t. They were certainly powerful – but they were nowhere near as strong or versatile as a finder.

  And elementals had weaknesses.

  You know that saying meet fire with fire? Yeah, that’s pretty stupid. You know what you need if you want to extinguish fire?

  “We need water,” Josh roared.

  He was twisting his head this way and that, and I knew he was looking for some kind of underground water source – maybe a mains or a set of pipes that was close to the surface of the pavement.

  And that would be where I would come in. Josh didn’t even need to say it – I started doing it.

  Still staying behind him and allowing him to protect me with the bulk of his form and his powerful magic, I half closed my eyes, centered my attention, and tried to find water.

  “Just over here,” I said. It was just to my left, and rather than direct Josh to it, I pushed over, skidded down to my knees, and punched a hand at the pavement. As I did, I really focused my attention on my magic, allowing those blue
sparks to pick up, rush down my arm, cover my knuckles, and protect them as I slammed them into the asphalt.

  If I were Josh, this would be an easy, practically instantaneous task. For me, it took at least three punches – but Josh protected me, allowing the time.

  After the third punch, enough of my weak magic pushed into the pavement that it cracked. Beneath it was a water pipe.

  “He’s right behind you!” Josh bellowed.

  I didn’t really need that warning – I could feel the heat. It was searing everything, and if it weren’t for the leather of my jacket, my back would be a welting red mess.

  I ducked forward, throwing myself face-down on the pavement just as I struck my hand into the exposed water pipe.

  It was enough to break the metal.

  Water pressure did the rest.

  An enormous spire of water shot out of the pipe and cascaded around me, taking me from almost burning, to freezing in an instant.

  I didn’t care – and I smiled as I heard a most satisfying sizzling sound from behind me.

  “That’ll put him out,” Josh said with a happy growl. “Leave the rest to me,” he promised.

  I had every intention of leaving the rest to him. I was bone-tired. It wasn’t the finding magic that had done that – I was learning to conserve my power more and more around finding magic these days. That being said, I still had no hope of using truth magic without consequences. Truth magic – even if I was a sorcerer – would still be extremely expensive to practice. The point was, every time I tried to use my new growing skills as a warlock, it tired me out. It was the equivalent of running a marathon in a day.

  I was panting, and my shoulders shook with every inhalation.

  “Stay on the ground,” Josh called.

  I couldn’t complain about that. I felt like going to sleep – I was that damn tired.

  Still, I had a job to do, and rather than close my eyes, I rolled onto my back. It allowed me to see Josh as he sailed forward.

  Until now, the elemental hadn’t been visible. He’d just been invisible heat that had been giving us a hell of a pounding. Now, with the introduction of a steady stream of ice-cold water, we could finally make out the outline of his form.

  It was some seriously terrifying stuff to see a half visible man made out of wavy lines of heat. But there you go – I’d seen a lot of terrifying stuff as a bounty hunter.

  “I’d stay put if I were you. It’ll be easier—” Josh roared. He threw himself up, allowed magic to cascade over his fist, then landed down as he slammed his fist against the elemental’s jaw.

  The only reason the elemental now had a jaw was the steady stream of water cascading around him as it canceled out his magic and made his body solid once more.

  There was a suitable click – just the click you would expect if bone struck bone. It echoed out around the laneway. The guy yelped and staggered back. He almost staggered out of the water, but at the last moment, I brought my foot up, kicked him on the butt, and forced him back into the steady stream.

  “Atta girl,” Josh growled proudly. “Almost got him,” he added. He charged another hand and slammed it once then twice across the guy’s jaw.

  The guy sank to his knees.

  “Finally,” Josh said. He got down to his own knees, spread his arms wide, and started to chant, his hands held in a very specific way – one of the many sacred symbols of the warlocks.

  Josh had been teaching me them for the past two weeks. See, now I was coming into my warlock powers, I had to learn them. It was all part of the game.

  I couldn’t hope for a better teacher.

  Or maybe I could? Maybe it would be even quicker if Jason taught me how to become a warlock. But Jason?

  I shivered as I forced my mind not to think of him.

  I concentrated, keeping my leg half in the air in case the guy staggered back once more. But he was down on his knees, and Josh was doing the rest.

  With a quick, easy spell, Josh thrust his hands to the side, and a magical circle appeared around the elemental. As soon as it was in place, I heard a very specific sizzling sound. It was the sound of hot coals thrown into an ocean.

  For the first time since the fight had begun, I saw the elemental in full. His form returned to that of an ordinary man. His clothes, however, were smoking.

  “Goddammit, that was hard,” Josh said as he slammed his hands onto the ground, finished the chant, and pushed more magic into the magical circle until it glowed as brightly as a ring of fire.

  Only when it was fully in place did Josh push to his feet. He staggered back, brought an arm up, wiped the sweat and water from his mouth, then looked at me.

  Josh grinned.

  I didn’t bother grinning back. Instead I flopped onto my back, tilted my head to the sky, and tried to stare at a glimpse of the moon through the darting clouds above.

  I heard Josh mutter a few things under his breath as he grabbed the handcuffs he always kept compressed in his back pocket. As soon as he pulled them out, there was a grating click as they grew to their real size.

  He got down on his knees. There was a rustle of fabric, the sound of more steam, and then another click as Josh handcuffed the guy.

  “It’s back to remand for you, buddy. You elementals are a hell of a lot to handle, but when you’re trapped – you’re trapped. Now go repent – or whatever the hell you’re going to do in prison.”

  With that, I felt a rush of magic that signaled a portal opening up.

  My back itched with the excess magic, and I closed my eyes, squeezing them tightly shut. It wasn’t that I didn’t like portals anymore – it was just that I had to be careful around excess magic. It would always remind me of what happened back down in those infinity tunnels. Specifically, of the vision.

  I didn’t need to be reminded of the vision. I relived it every single night. I was no longer aware of where Max was in my dreams – I was back in that vision, holding onto that parapet, my long skirts whipping around my legs as he stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders.

  It was so damn easy to settle into that feeling – as if I was back there right now.

  As if….

  Suddenly and quite rudely, Josh kicked my leg.

  “Ow!” I growled.

  “Get the hell up. You can’t sleep on the job. The city is paying us. Do you want me to—”

  “Are you about to threaten me with noncompliance?” I opened my eyes but didn’t bother to jump to my feet.

  Josh snorted. “Noncompliance? That’s so yesterday. You’re clearly a compliant witch. You’re just lazy,” he announced out of nowhere.

  This induced a rattling snort from me – too long hanging out with Josh had taught me his bad habits.

  “You sound like a bull,” he complained.

  “That’s rich coming from you. You know what else is rich? Calling me lazy. How many times have I saved your life now? How many times have I saved the city?”

  “Only a handful,” he said. “What’s your point?”

  “That I am anything but lazy. I’ve been dealing with this prophecy, the end of the world, and…” I trailed off, about to add that I’ve been dealing with a certain sorcerer, but I became incapable of pushing his name out of my mouth.

  Josh chuckled quietly. “Just because you were busy before, doesn’t make up for your laziness now. Now get to your feet. You do know what you’re lying in, don’t you?” he added.

  Of all the things he could’ve said, this actually got to me. I shifted up, crunched my stomach, leaned in, and smelt my jacket. I made a face. “What the hell is that?”

  “I like to call it city scum. That unusual collection of debris and slime that picks up along city streets and gets baked in by summer heat. You’ve now rolled all the way through it. It’s gonna take a heck of a long time to get it off your uniform.”

  Josh was very fond of calling my leather jacket a uniform. To be fair, it was the closest thing we had to an official garb.

  Sighing, I finall
y pushed up. I stood, patted down my clothes, then promptly gave up when I realized he was right – and the smell was baked in.

  I made an attempt at neatening my hair but gave up when I realized it was completely matted like a rat’s nest.

  I stared glumly at the spot where the elemental had disappeared. “That was hard. I thought you said it would be easy?”

  Josh shrugged.

  “To be fair, I thought it would be easy as well. You’re a freaking sorcerer,” he pointed out.

  I frowned at him – exactly the same frown I’d been using on him for the past two weeks. “I am not a sorcerer. I’m… learning,” I said.

  He chucked his head back and laughed hard. “Great come back. You really put me in my place. But I’m still right – you are a sorcerer – or at least on your way to becoming one. So you can buy dinner.”

  I shook my head. “What kind of logic is that?”

  “It’s the logic of the guy in charge – and that’s all that matters.”

  Though I could fight Josh on this, I gave up. I shoved my hands into my pockets and shrugged forward. “Where exactly do you want to go that we won’t be kicked out because of my stench?”

  Josh shrugged as he looked up. I fancied he too stared at that slice of the moon for a few seconds. Though Josh often gave you the impression that he was nothing more than a buffoon, he had a soft side. I saw it occasionally. Whenever he quieted down, whenever he caught a really bad bounty – someone he was proud to have taken off the city streets.

  Then you’d see the real Josh. I understood now why he kept himself hidden most of the time, too. His sister.

  I hadn’t forgotten about her. Despite all the crap that had happened to me in the past three weeks – I still remembered my promise that I would find who’d murdered Josh’s sister.

  I’d tried to question Josh about it a couple of times, but he’d always found some way to distract me, as if he no longer wanted me to track this down.

  “You’ve gone all quiet again – what are you thinking about?” Josh said as he frowned hard.

  “Serious things,” I admitted.

  “… Jason hasn’t forgotten about you,” Josh said out of the blue, mistaking what I was thinking of.