The Grimm Files Collection Boxed Set

by Selene Charles

  A cold chill ran down my spine.

  “How do you plead?” Jacamoe raised his voice, causing me to startle and twitch.

  “Jacamoe! That is enough!” Anahita lifted her hand in an imperious manner, glaring at him sternly. “Have you lost your senses? Since when do we— ”

  That was all she got out before all hells broke loose.

  “Not guilty,” he growled, and then lifting his hands, he held up his unshackled wrists, and I knew. Dear gods in the above and below, I knew everything.

  And I wasn’t the only one. The crowd gasped, murmurs beginning to roll through them. I saw the high elders at the table, looking at one another with wide panicked eyes. They knew it too, the truth that Crowley had clearly already reached.

  The one we’d been looking for had been under our noses all along. Jacamoe was a Djinn, one in a very unique position. He was bound to a man in a comatose state who could not stop him from enacting his planned retribution. And if Father didn’t check him, no one else could.

  Is that why he’d done what he’d done to Father? To get him out of the way? As father’s Djinn, Jacamoe could not actually harm him. But what if Father had been the one accidentally slammed by the Sea Witch’s magic and not Aquata, as I’d first thought?

  What if Jacamoe had been present for it, had seen what had been done, and in a split second had acted upon his sudden reversal of fate? What if my sister had seen it too, and she’d tried to stop him?

  I stared at Jacamoe’s robe, and my breath caught in my throat. Upon his neck, he wore a hammered golden necklace with gold triangles that were nearly identical to the ones that Crowley had found, and that I had seen in the palm of Aquata’s little sea otter.

  I trembled as the puzzle pieces fitted together more swiftly. She’d been found in the gardens, which meant that Jacamoe would likely have tossed her pet off of him with such force that he’d instantly killed the little beast, who, in his death grip, had never released the hammered bit of gold. He could have stopped it then.

  He hadn’t needed to proceed with this ill-thought plan of his. Rather than admitting he’d not actually injured Father but had merely planned to twist the circumstances to his advantage, he’d taken his first real step over the line.

  He’d killed her. Snapped her the small bone in her neck, leaving virtually no outward sign of damage to her body that her spirit would look fully intact. But he’d still been cuffed, which meant he would have done it at great personal cost to himself. That explained why his limp was profoundly worse than it had ever been before. The lack of scent at the scene still baffled me, but I knew I had figured out most of the timeline. It all fit. It was right. And in my gut, I knew that was how it had to have happened.

  The Sea Witch would have had to travel through there, but she was severely weakened from her battle with me. Maybe she was still in Undine, though I doubted it. If I were her and as magically depleted as she must be, especially after slamming what dregs remained of her into Father, I would have chosen to get far away as quickly as I was able.

  “Jacamoe, stand down,” my sister said slowly, softly, unmoving and unblinking as she looked upon my father’s advisor. Behind her, Ebonia suddenly appeared, holding onto a glowing staff, pointed at the tip. Her look was hard, formidable. Around me, I saw a contingency of soldiers began to slowly rise and creep toward Anahita, encircling her, shielding her from Jacamoe’s reach. Sealing him off from her, their queen.

  To the layman, it should have looked as though Jacamoe had nowhere to go, but I’d witnessed the ease and strength of his magick and knew in my soul that it was far too little, too late.

  His full lips curled into a smirk. “No.”

  All the color leeched from my sister’s face. She swallowed forcefully and shook her head. “You do not want this. You do not want to do this.”

  There was a long, fraught pause, and stupidly, I hoped that the male whom I’d once thought of as my only friend would listen and stop. But Jacamoe was like a dog that’d been poked one too many times. Whatever kindness he’d once had—and I knew in my soul it had been there—had slowly eroded until all that remained were spines and thorny barbs of hate.

  “Oh, but I think I do, my Queen ,” he spat the title like poison from his mouth. “I really, really think I do. For too long, I have been forced do endure the brutality and anathema of this dictatorship in silence. I’ve had to sit back and watch as Triton bullied, belittled, and destroyed anything that stood in his path to glory and complete domination of all of Undine. No more.”

  Before I could blink, he was looking at me, and there was magma burning in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” was all he mouthed before I was suddenly caught up by an invisible force and tossed with such force that I wondered how every bone in my body hadn’t snapped.

  He couldn’t do magick. He was cuffed. Same as me. He couldn’t do this, but he had. He had done it.

  “Elle!” Crowley roared. “Noooo !”

  That was all I heard. I screamed as I fell. And fell. And fell. It dawned on me that I should have crashed into the ground or slammed against a wall. But there was nothing but cold, rushing, arctic air.

  That was when the panic gripped me in its fist, and my screams turned to howls of desperation. He’d tossed me into the endless pit, an eternal fall that would end with my eventual painful, slow demise.

  Blinking, my eyes tearing from the rush of air all around me, I fought the panic beating in my chest and forced myself to think. The fall wouldn’t kill me. No, the lack of food and water would eventually do that. That meant I had time to think.

  What do I know of the pit?

  It was endless. Eternal. But it was a hole, which meant there was a side to it.

  It was dark as the void in here, and there was no sound other than my own breathing and the whistle of air shrieking past my ears—very few sensory details to help me see my way out.

  I wet my lips, and my stomach dove down into my knees. If I can’t see and I can’t hear and there are no smells, then how the devil am I to get out of here?

  I started to shake as adrenaline coursed like a geyser through me. “Stop, Elle. Think. Think. Thi— ”

  I gasped then gripped my wrists with opposite hands. I held them close to my eyes, but the darkness was complete and impossible to see through. But I sensed the lack of their weight upon me. The golden cuffs that immobilized my powers were gone. Had Jacamoe meant for that to happen when he’d tossed me? Had he intended to give me a fighting chance here? Why had he said “I’m sorry”? Was it not me that he wanted to hurt? What is he doing to them now? To my sister? To my Hook? To Crowley?

  I clutched at my chest and shook my head. Going down that path would make me freeze up again, and I couldn’t afford to do that. I had to get out of there, and there was no one else to help me. But what can I do?

  My gown had flipped up from the heavy rush of displaced air around me. I wish I had light or protection to stop the whistling shriek so that I could think. So that I could—

  I blinked.

  You are a detective of the realm, Arielle. You must learn this spell. It could save your life one day…

  He’d said that to me during one of our few sessions together. My skin went cold all over, and my hands turned numb. There was a loud ringing in my ears, and my stomach heaved violently. I’d laughed at him for wanting to teach me such a ridiculous spell: how to create a bubble.

  What a silly thing to learn in the two hours we’d been given. How to summon my familiar had been great, but I wondered what good a bubble was. Yet, he’d been so insistent that I learn how to say the words precisely.

  He had meant for me to survive. “Oh my gods,” I whispered, shaking my head softly. He’d been teaching me what to do to get out of the void when the time came.

  The words that had seemed so foreign to me the first time I’d said them rolled easily off my tongue: “Videre lucem caeli, et usque ad internicinem .”

  I’d struggled so hard for hours after my batt
le with the Sea Witch, fearing all was lost. But this time, the power surged out of me like a tide. I felt strong, powerful, and able.

  My familiar, who had ignored me just the day before exploded from my hands, filling the pit with light, and a completely formed bubble encased me. My downward fall was completely halted.

  For the first time, maybe ever for any citizen of Undine, I looked at the eternal pit. It was nothing but hollowed out limestone. It wasn’t filled with the souls of the damned. There was no boogeyman in there to grab me. It was just a pit. There was nothing special about it.

  Jacamoe had saved me, and he’d done it intentionally.

  I looked above me. The sea otter rested just above my head, burning like the sun in the thick darkness that surrounded us.

  I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a novice spellcrafter. I’d not learned much of any use. I’d barely started. I wasn’t falling anymore, and that was good, but I didn’t know how to get back up. I did know that I was running out of time. Whatever Jacamoe had planned, he was doing.

  My family depended on my getting back up there. I didn’t give a damn about my father, but I wasn’t heartless. If he didn’t have to die, I didn’t want him to. And my sister... Ebonia was more than an able warrior, but even she was no match for a Djinn as powerful as Jacamoe.

  I could easily imagine the slaughter taking place above me, and my hands started to shake.

  “Go up. Move!” I yelled, but the bubble just floated where it was.

  My nostrils flared, and I clenched my fists. It was bullshite. He gave me the means to not fall, but I didn’t know what I was doing. What am I supposed to do now? Just wait around for him to pull me out of here?

  The second I thought it, I realized that as likely to be the case. If I had been up there, I would have been doing everything in my power to stop him, and he’d known it. But he didn’t want me dead. Jacamoe really had loved me.

  That meant that I was one of his few and only weaknesses. If I could get up there, I could exploit that. But just that thought made my insides tremble and heat flood my eyes, because I loved him too. Even after all of it. He was so wrong for all he’d done, but dammit, I understood why he’d snapped, why he’d lost his shite that way. No one could be treated like an animal and not eventually break, no matter how good, honorable, or kind. We all had a breaking point.

  Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill Aquata, but he held no love for Anahita, and she had none for him.

  My heart squeezed, and I growled. He would kill her.

  I had to stop him at any cost.

  The bubble wouldn’t move at all, at least not with magick. But when I swung my arms, I did feel a tremor of movement, sort of like swimming through mud. It wasn’t fast, but it was something. If I stroked upward, I would tire quickly. I’d fallen for far too long to even attempt it.

  But… I glanced toward my left, at the limestone wall of the pit. There were natural crevices in the pit itself, places where I could find finger- and toeholds. Maybe I could climb out.

  But to do that, I would have had to drop my bubble, leaving me in a precarious position with no safety net below me. I would fall again, and I wasn’t all that confident I’d be able to get the bubble to appear a second time. My magick wasn’t always the most reliable.

  I looked back up at the endless, yawning darkness above my familiar’s light and shook my head. “Impossible.”

  Don’t be a bitch, Elle, and climb!

  I jerked, looking up, swearing I’d just heard Crowley’s angry growl, but there was no one above me, no moving shadow, nothing. And yet, it was as if he’d been standing over my shoulder.

  Move your ass, Fish !

  I snorted, but my lips twitched. I was seriously losing my marbles if I heard him. And yet, I did move.

  I used a swimming motion to move the bubble in excruciatingly slow increments. Sweat was pouring down my brows and into my eyes as I doggy paddled, even kicking my legs as I heaved and grunted my way over toward the side of the pit’s wall.

  By the time I reached it, I resembled a drowned rat—the effort had been so straining that my muscles quivered from the effort. I would have to drop the only protection I had down here and hope that I timed my jump just right, or I would fall again, and the gods only knew if I could stop myself a second time.

  I swallowed hard. I could give in to the fear and the paranoia and all the what ifs, or I could just turn off my thoughts and move my ass.

  I looked at the wall, studying it for any weaknesses or places where I could easily and sturdily hang on. I’d gone years without a tail, which meant I’d developed my leg muscles enough that I hoped I would be able to bear my weight. One way or another, I was about to find out.

  “Okay, okay, here goes nothing,” I muttered after locating a spot where I was sure my toes could fit.

  I maneuvered the bubble just inches away from it then took a deep and fortifying breath, shoving down the terror and panic as best I could.

  And then I released myself from the bubble and I jumped. “Ahh !” I screamed. I couldn’t help it.

  My cheek crashed against wet limestone, and I gasped, my arms trembling. My fingers had found the wrong holes, and I was just barely holding on, but my toes were curved like claws into the recess. I looked up again.

  “Elle! Elle! Damn you, bitch, you’d better not die on me. Or I swear I’ll kill you myself! Answer me, Fish! Holy hells!”

  My eyes widened, and I craned my chin upward, trying as hard as I could to peer through the darkness. I hadn’t imagined it. That was Crowley’s voice. The echo of his desperation was a tangible and palpable thing.

  “Crowley. Crowley, how… are you?” And I saw him, a moving shadow. He was moving like a panther down the wall with a graceful ease that made me jealous.

  His face moved into the light, and I couldn’t help the smile that stretched from one corner of my mouth to the other.

  When he saw me, he stopped moving, and the look on his face was one I knew I would never forget. It was shock, hope, relief, and most of all… joy.

  “Oh, fuck you,” he murmured before resting his forehead against the wall. He was on the opposite side of me, and I could see tremors work through his back muscles.

  I might have been offended, except I knew that “fuck you” hadn’t meant that at all. Crowley didn’t know how to handle his emotions, and it was as close to his saying “thank the gods” as anything could be.

  “What’s happening up there?”

  He swallowed once, wiping some sweat out of his eyes as he shook his head. “It’s a godsdamned shitstorm. Jacamoe has gone apeshit. Dead bodies are everywhere. And—” He stopped, staring at me with open hunger and pain. He didn’t want to tell me whatever he’d been about to say.

  “What?”

  There was a pause. “I-I know what he was planning with Anihita. About Hook. He’s controlling him. Like… like the witch did. He’s soulless, Elle. He can’t be stopped.”

  He didn’t have to tell me what Hook couldn’t be stopped from doing, because I already knew. If he was being controlled in the same way the Sea Witch had, it meant he was killing—he was Jacamoe’s puppet, doing the dirty work. And without a soul, he was basically an immortal shell, like a golem. He was a monster on a string, nearly indestructible and incapable of feeling pain, empathy, anything.

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “I gotta get back up there. I have to stop… I have to stop him.”

  I wasn’t even sure who the “him” was. “Why did you come for me?” I suddenly asked.

  “Because you wouldn’t leave me,” he whispered. “Now, hurry the hells up.” Without looking back at me, he began to scale back up the wall with the ease of a monkey, moving out of sight of my familiar in seconds.

  Crowley was so much more than I’d ever known. And if he could do it, then so could I.

  No longer fearful, I began to climb, forcing my muscles to work beyond the point of endurance. I was practically screaming from the agony of the climb
when I finally began to near the top and no longer needed the light of my familiar to find my way.

  I was gasping and panting for breath when a hand suddenly reached down into the darkness for me. It was strong and powerful, and I instantly recognized it. With a cry, I latched on. When he pulled me up, I instantly wrapped my arms around him. My body was nothing but pain. I could barely stand.

  But I clung to Hatter’s jacket with fingers that could barely feel. “How… When… How?”

  His hands were on my face. Crowley stood just behind him, a hard gleam in his eyes, before he turned and scanned our surroundings.

  Where there’d been an amphitheater full of sirens earlier, there was nothing but bodies piled on top of broken, bleeding, dying, and dead bodies. There was smoke and rubble everywhere.

  “Oh my gods,” I said, once it clicked in my head.

  “It’s bad, Elle,” Hatter whispered. “It’s really bad.”

  My gaze shot to his. “How did you find me?”

  He grinned softly. “I’ll always find you. But now we have to go. We have to go, and we have to stop him.”

  As if to punctuate his statement a scream rang in the air, and my soul clenched. “That’s Anahita. She’s in trouble. I have to— ”

  “I’ll go,” Crowley growled, and then he was loping off, moving as though he had energy to burn for days. It was as if he hadn’t just crawled down and back up from a tunnel leading straight to the bowels of the twin hells themselves.

  I tried to move as he did, but everything screamed. My toes were cramped, and my legs, which never enjoyed carrying that kind of weight, nearly buckled under me.

  Hatter’s hands were on my waist in an instant. “Hang on,” he said with a grunt, and then he was moving. I rested most of my weight on him as I tried to run beside him.

  When we exited the theater, there were yet more bodies and what looked to be an army of the dead slashing and hacking at anyone running away.

  My jaw dropped. “Oh my god.”

  What had once been a bustling and active castle had been transformed into a living hell.

  I spotted Crowley. He was spectacular as he fought, half transformed into his beast mode, plowing through the undead without a care as he received one brutal slash after another from swinging swords.