Shadow Realms- The Complete Series

by Kelly Carrero

  Nothing about that task was going to be easy. Sure, we could—as one—take her down, but if I knew anything about Orphelia, nothing was ever as it appeared.

  We had one shot, and we couldn’t blow it.

  39

  I’d imagined this moment for so long. Once, I’d thought this place—the Society—would be the saviors of the human world. That what they were fighting for would one day be the demons reckoning.

  How wrong I was.

  But today was our reckoning.

  The six of us marched toward the front gates. They would’ve already known we were coming, and this time, we weren’t going to hide.

  Armed guards stood on the other side, their weapons raised, aimed at us. A man in his thirties stepped forward. “Stop right there. This is private property. Move and you will be shot.”

  I snickered, wondering who the hell these morons were if they thought they could stop us.

  Bullets exploded from their guns, pelting us.

  Just as I was about to raise the wall, the bullets stopped in midair, frozen in time.

  I glanced to the side and saw Kyla’s hands raised and one hell of a grin on her face.

  The earth rumbled under our feet, vines shooting up the gates, entwining themselves around the iron bars. The sound of metal twisting reverberated through my spine, making my skin crawl as the iron gates buckled.

  Both Sky and Kyla had awesome elements. I had yet to see Alex’s or Almira’s in action. And mine? I still wasn’t sure what good a spirit element was.

  The guards stared at us with absolute fear in their eyes. It was obvious they were just as clueless as Max had been when he sided with the Society and were now just understanding how out of their depths they were against us.

  Kyla stretched her hand out toward the guards. A second later, their guns flew toward us, then stopped in midair, turned around until they were pointing at their owners, making the guards almost shit themselves.

  “They’re innocent,” I said under my breath.

  “Go,” Kyla sneered.

  They didn’t need to be told twice. The guards moved gingerly past us as if we were going to change our mind at any given second if they moved too quickly. Once they were through the gateway, they sprinted down the street.

  The grounds were eerily quiet as we headed toward the front entrance, knowing damn well our presence had been noted.

  “Where are they all?” Almira asked as we made our way up the steps.

  “They’re most likely inside,” Max said. “Strategically, they’ll be waiting until they have us contained. Then they’ll unleash hell on us.”

  It was handy having someone on our side who’d once worked closely with our enemy.

  Stopping outside the open door, we glanced at each other, making sure everyone was ready. Not having a spirit element I could use to fight with, I withdrew my babies from their sheath as Max grabbed his as well.

  Almira rested her hand on the hilt of her dagger, tucked away in a sheath around her waist. Unlike Sky, Kyla, and Alex, she also wasn’t confident enough with her element to forgo a weapon.

  Stepping inside, the door slammed closed behind us, and the ground began to rumble, the wooden floors starting to crack.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper-shouted to Sky, wondering why she was using her earth element now.

  Eyes wide, she said, “I’m not doing anything.”

  Like a bomb going off, the floor beneath us exploded, shards of wood splintering our skin as the floor collapsed.

  My stomach dropped. We fell and landed with the grace of cats in a rocky pit beneath the compound. Rocky walls one hundred feet high surrounded us, with little caverns of darkness around them.

  I gripped my daggers tighter as I caught a shadowy movement in one of the caverns. “We’re not alone.”

  40

  Demonic screeches wailed around us from above as vampires emerged from the caverns, wisps of demon shadows snaking their way around them, before slithering into the darkness and disappearing into the rocky walls. Then, a slick black slime-like substance spread across the top of the pit, enveloping us in darkness, trapped inside with the evil monsters.

  Forming a circle with our backs to each other, we eyed our prey, thankful we could all see in the dark.

  Hundreds of vampires rained down on us in an almighty storm, their savage mouths snarling with unrelenting thirst.

  Remembering what Nessa had told me to do, I drew on the life of the earth and threw up a wall directly around us, protecting us from their attack.

  A demented roar ripped from the throat of a vampire behind me, sending my blood cold. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see three of them lunging toward us, teeth bared, ready to tear us apart.

  I’d been careless when I put up the wall, and now I’d trapped them inside the dome.

  Max thrust his dagger behind him, stabbing the vampire in the stomach as I rammed my dagger up through his jaw until the tip of the blade emerged through the top of his head, blackened blood covering the blade.

  I yanked him forward and sunk my teeth into his neck, drawing his tainted blood into my mouth, devouring his evil soul until his limp body was all that was left.

  I ripped my dagger out of him, and the vampire collapsed to the ground, revealing the two other vampires that had been ripped apart by my girls.

  I threw my hands up, sending a million orbs of light into the air outside the bubble, allowing us to see in greater detail than we’d previously been able to.

  Demonic monsters that looked almost half human, half furless dog, darted on all fours out of the caves, then raced around the walls like something out of a horror movie. “What the hell are they?” I asked.

  Max swallowed hard, readjusting his blade. “I have no idea.”

  “Stay behind me,” Alex instructed. Fire ripped across the ground, spreading up the walls, the flames licking the black slime covering us in this hole. It seemed to morph outward, trying to get away from the flames as if it were a living, breathing organism. Something that Sky couldn’t control with her earth element, which is why they used it—whatever the hell it was.

  Screams ripped through the air as the monsters burned alive, falling to the ground like flies. Just as soon as they fell, more came as if the caverns were a gateway to Hell—or the Shadow Realms.

  A gust of air ripped past us, pushing against the demonic dogs, lifting them higher and higher into the air, pressing against the film over us along with the fire that simply couldn’t burn through and was trapping us in an oven.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a new cavern open on ground level, and a sea of dogs and vampires flooded out.

  The wall around us had to go. There were simply too many of them, and if we didn’t kill them soon and get out of there, we would be buried alive.

  Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead as I removed the protective wall and broke away from our pack, ready to slaughter whatever came my way as Sky tried to close the caverns. But just as soon as one closed, two more opened.

  Jumping over a ball of flames eating into the flesh of a demon dog, I aimed my daggers, bringing them down on a dog as it leaped into the air, snapping and snarling at me.

  Blood spurted from the monster, coating me in its demonic essence that was almost as good if not better than a vampire’s.

  I instantly knew the difference.

  Vampires were from Earth, and these things simply were not. Their blood was raw, undiluted, yanking on that part of me that wanted to devour every last drop of the evil monsters.

  I licked my lips as I thrust my dagger into a vampire coming toward me.

  Just as the blade entered him, razor sharp teeth clamped down on my ankle then jerked me to the side. Losing my footing, I fell to the ground, landing on the burning corpse of a dog.

  I looked up and saw Max and my girls in head-to-head combat, our elements no longer a strength in this trap Orphelia and the demons had created.

  Snapping my fo
cus back to my own fight, I sat up and slammed my dagger into the monster’s skull, accidentally piercing my own foot in its mouth.

  I winced as I withdrew my dagger from the skull and tried to free my foot, but it was clamped shut.

  More vampires and dogs were coming for me, and I had to think fast. Taking down a vampire as it lunged at me, fangs bared, ready to rip my throat out, I pushed up on my feet then brought the blade down on the dog, severing its head.

  Under any other circumstance, it would’ve been comical that I was running around, fighting demons and vampires with a dog’s head stuck to my ankle, but I didn’t find it funny at all. And I was determined not to let another dog get its teeth into me.

  I thrusted my daggers into more vampires and dogs than I could ever imagine, and just when I thought Sky had the caverns under control, more opened. I had never seen such an immense population of vampires, and I somehow knew within my heart that this was what the Society was working on while we were running around trying to figure out a way to expel them from our world.

  We should’ve moved faster. We shouldn’t have run. We should’ve gone after them sooner.

  I should’ve been stronger.

  Something hit me hard in the back, pushing me to the blood-soaked ground, droplets spraying into my face and eyes on impact.

  I closed my eyes then opened them, trying to clear my vision, but it was no use. Clouds of blood obscured my vision, and there was no way in hell I was putting down my weapons to try to clear my eyes. I had to trust my instincts if I wanted to get out of there alive.

  Drawing on all that was living, energy buzzed under my skin sending shockwaves through my body, allowing me to feel what I could not see.

  A beast landed on top of me, its claws piercing my flesh as a throaty growl blew against my ear.

  Trusting my instincts, I lifted my hands back over my head, thrusting the daggers into the beast’s head, silencing it on impact.

  Before it collapsed and pinned me to the ground, I twisted to the side, moving faster than the gravity pulling the dog down.

  Rolling into a standing position, I ripped the blades out of his head and sliced them through the head of another vampire, decapitating him, then moving onto my next.

  Darkness clutched around my heart, scaring the ever-loving life out of me, its icy claws digging in to my soul.

  Without having to look, I knew something was wrong.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and upon opening, my vision became clearer, allowing me to see what had my heart in its icy clutches.

  Fire spread across the floor, lighting up the bodies of the fallen where Sky, Alex, and Almira were knee-deep in bodies, fighting a war that seemed impossible to win, trapped in a hole that the demons controlled.

  But that was not what had stolen my breath. It was the dog that had pinned Max to the ground, his teeth ripping into Max’s flesh as he desperately tried to fight off the dog and the vampires.

  Absolute fear ripped through me, knowing I should never have allowed him to come. And now, I may never get the chance to walk out of here with the other half of my heart.

  No. That was never going to happen. While there was still breath within my…

  My eyes widened as something Almira said about finding and using elements in the most unlikely of places, slammed into my thoughts with full force.

  Could it be that simple?

  41

  Planting my feet firmly on the ground, in a pool of blood, I stabbed my daggers into the earth. Then I drew on everything that was alive and dead, drawing not just the magic from the earth but also the demons surrounding me. As Almira had said, I drew on the demon’s life. Reaching out my hand toward the dog on top of Max, I sucked the life out of him, because I didn’t just draw on life; I could also draw on death.

  The demonic dog released its grip on Max and lifted its head into the air, its body withering as I continued to drain its life until the beast looked as if it had been dead for months.

  And that was my element—spirit. The power to control life and death.

  Releasing the full power from my soul, I spread my hands wide and watched as every demon and vampire I touched dropped to their knees, wailing as their lives were sucked out of them until their soulless carcasses collapsed to the ground.

  Max lay limp on the ground as Sky, Alex, and Almira swept their gaze over the dead monsters.

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked.

  “It’s Kali,” Sky said, without a doubt in her mind. “You did this, didn’t you?”

  I nodded, then tipped my head back and focused on the moving, breathing slime sealing us in this hellhole. I raised my hands and drew on its life-force, splintering it’s physical makeup until there was nothing left but sprinkles of dust.

  Lowering my gaze, I stalked with a limp toward Max with a theory I was almost afraid to test, that damn dog’s head still on my foot.

  Tears pooled in my eyes as I heard the faint beat of his heart trying to hang on to this life as best he could. And I was going to do everything I could to help him.

  Kneeling beside him, I placed my hand over his forehead, understanding his life force was in there, not his heart as I’d believed for my entire life. Closing my eyes, I released the energy from the lives I’d stolen into Max.

  With my heart in my throat, I watched as a thin, glowing cord reached into Max’s mind, bringing him to a higher level of life, igniting the burning ashes within him until it was a raging furnace.

  Opening my eyes, tears slipped down my cheeks as I stared into Max’s brown eyes, which were once again filled with life. I ran my gaze down his body, as it began to heal with rapid speed until he was once again his perfectly scarred self.

  He pulled himself into a sitting position and shook his head before locking his gaze with mine, thanking me without saying a word as he lifted his hand to my face, caressing my cheek.

  Max knew exactly what I had done. I could feel it within my soul like this extra sense, a higher understanding that I couldn’t see or had ignored right up until I saw him dying.

  Giving myself a moment amongst this chaos, I leaned into his hand then rested my forehead against his and closed my eyes, steadying my soul as the pain in my heart and the fear of what had almost became of him slowly subsided.

  No matter how much I wanted to stay in that moment forever, we had to keep moving. Pulling away, I grabbed his hands and helped him to his feet as the girls made their way to us, jumping and stepping over—or on top of—the corpses surrounding us.

  “What the hell happened here?” Max asked, his gaze drifting over the mounds of corpses.

  When I didn’t answer, Sky said, “Kali killed them all.”

  His gaze locked onto mine as I was freeing my leg of the demon dog’s head. “How?”

  “I’ve discovered what a spirit elemental can do.” Kicking the head away, I looked up at the scorched pit and the old nuthouse above, knowing this wasn’t the end of it. “We need to keep moving.”

  Having nothing trapping us anymore, Sky raised the earth, lifting us higher and higher until we were at level with the main foyer.

  Gingerly, we stepped onto what remained of the wooden floor, relief flooding through us all when we weren’t sucked back into the void. We headed down the hall and up the stairs, slowly making our way to the top of the building where Orphelia normally sat, a prime position to cast magic on this estate.

  When I reached the landing, an uneasy feeling spread through me. Panic set in as I looked over my shoulder and saw that none of my friends were there.

  I spun around, searching desperately for them, not understanding how they could be there one second and gone the next.

  Their energy seemed to have been dispersed around the building, and I could feel the panic in their souls. “Max!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, no longer caring about being discreet. That ship had sailed the moment we walked through the iron gates.

  “Kali!” His voice carried through the house, from nowhere
yet everywhere.

  “Max!” I screamed again at the same time I heard the girls calling to me and to each other. “Where are you?”

  “On the stairs right where I was before you all disappeared.”

  “You’re not there,” I said. “I’m looking right at the stairs.”

  “It’s a fractured reality,” Kyla said. “She’s separated us, hoping that apart we are not as strong.”

  “Or she’s just fucking with us,” Alex said.

  “Oh, she’s definitely fucking with us,” Sky said with a frustrated laugh, telling me she was about two seconds away from losing her shit.

  “We need to make our way up to her,” Max said. “Follow my directions.”

  The location of Orphelia’s room was etched into my mind with a burning knife. I shuddered just thinking about going there. But I was no longer the girl I was the last time I was there. She would not get the upper hand on me again.

  “At the top of the stairs, turn left. Then go to the end of the hallway,” Max instructed. “Now turn right, and keep going until you see another set of stairs.”

  A few moments later, Alex said, “There are no stairs. It’s a dead end.”

  “Shit,” Max said. “She’s altering what we see because there’s definitely a set of stairs about halfway down the second hallway.”

  “Max is right,” Kyla said. “There should be a set of stairs, but I don’t see them either.”

  “Okay,” Alex said. “I’m going to run my hands along the walls.” A few moments later, she cursed. “I’m back at the stairs leading down. There are no stairs leading up.”

  I shook my head, trying to work out how we were going to do this. We needed to be together. The strength of one and all that shit. “Everyone, outside. Find the closest exit point, and take it.”

  For me that was a giant bay window that overlooked the gardens below. Bracing myself for what I was about to do, I sucked in a sharp breath, took off, and jumped toward the window.