Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4)

by Amos, Richard

“I’m not going to slap you, Aki. You’re as awake as I am.”

  “No comeback. Slap me. Make it count. Wake me up.”

  “You’re awake.”

  I knew he was right. I didn’t want him to be. How could it still be night when it was morning?

  “Shit.” I got out of bed, my head much better, the sleep I’d gotten helping me out. Now there was more shit to deal with. From one poisoned lily pad to another, I was the frog who couldn’t catch a break for five minutes.

  Frog?

  Frogs are cute.

  I pulled on some faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt, my trainers, and hurried downstairs. The Teacup would be open already, serving the early birds. They were day vampires, so they rose with the sun. It was morning. They’d be up and—

  I couldn’t smell anything cooking as I hurried down the stairs. They were never late.

  Outside on the street, some of the regulars had gathered, including Mrs. Wallace.

  “They’re not here,” she said as I approached. “They’re always here. It’s the moon, isn’t it? Sleeping still because of the moon.”

  This had to be a dream! “I think so. I’ll go check on them.”

  I hurried upstairs to grab the spare key to Lucy and Polly’s flat next door. We did that, being good neighbors in case of any locked-out emergencies. G was on his phone, growling at somebody.

  Key in hand, I flew back down to the street, then shoved the key into the green door next to mine, taking the steps up to the flat above The Teacup two at a time.

  “You in here?” I called. “Lucy? Polly?”

  I found them in their bedroom, fast asleep.

  I left them there, not knowing what to do. What about feeding? They’d need to get some blood in them. Shit. I needed to figure this out.

  As I closed the door and locked it, there was shuffling behind me. “Why is the moon still out?”

  I turned to face the old woman. “I don’t know, Mrs. Wallace.” She was wobbling on her cane. “Let’s get you sat down.”

  “Are they alright?”

  “They’re asleep.”

  There was a public bench along this tiny parade I called home, and I led her to it. Of course, there was one press photographer still snapping away. This was gonna be crap for my hunting business.

  “That’s it, sit there,” I said. “Do you want some tea? I can get you some tea.” She’d never make it up the stairs to my flat. “Do you want some tea?”

  “No, thank you, dear.”

  I looked up into the night sky full of beautiful stars and that spectacular moon. Not one bit of it seemed real.

  “Aki?”

  Snap went the cameras as Gabriel came outside. I glared at the press wanker, the café regulars sticking their fingers up at him. In fact, Mr. Jones, a right sweetheart who loved sausage baps, went over and started gobbing off at the snapper, a woman joining him.

  Brilliant!

  “Aki, your phone,” G said.

  “Hello,” Mrs. Wallace greeted him.

  “Hi,” he replied.

  I took the phone. It was Mama Rita. “I know,” I answered, “the moon—”

  “Help me! You need to—”

  A huge crash and the line went dead. My skin broke out in gooseflesh.

  “G—”

  “I heard.”

  In an instant, we were moving.

  * * *

  Every window of Mama Rita’s house was broken.

  No…

  I charged inside, stomping through the house with my swords drawn.

  “Rita!”

  It was silent apart from me and Gabriel, and the approaching SCU sirens.

  The kitchen, the bedroom, the basement we’d only been in not many hours ago to clean my swords, the bathroom—everywhere was turned over, broken glass scattered all over the place.

  “I should’ve made her come back with us,” I said. “What sort of friend am I?”

  “We’ll find her, Aki.”

  I sent my babies around the house to find something, anything.

  Gabriel got there first. I saw him as I re-entered the bedroom. Bob and Rose were circling him, sniffing.

  Blood.

  Silver.

  Silver wouldn’t hurt my bestie, but there was blood. Anything sharp could hurt her, though.

  It was her blood. My babies told me that.

  “It’s her blood,” G echoed my brain.

  Here came that anger again. “What the fuck is going on?” I swung a katana, hitting nothing but air, Bob and Rose retreating back inside me.

  “Aki.” Gabriel kept a safe distance. “We’ll—”

  “Spare me, bruv. I’m losing my shit here!”

  “Calm down. Don’t swing those blades anymore. Swinging katanas in the wrong place can lead to more trouble.”

  Yeah, he was right. Deep breaths. Having a hot head was bullshit. It didn’t do nothing but raise the blood pressure.

  Deep pissing breaths…

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said quietly.

  “Let me make some calls.”

  “To who?”

  “Just let me—”

  His phone rang. The sirens of the SCU were so close now. In a few minutes, this whole place would be swarming with agents in black. There were people outside taking pictures of the house, gossiping, talking into their phones. Someone would’ve hit up the SCU, the press—all that shit.

  Fingers should be pointing at Violet or one of her crew. Maybe her next in command having taken her place if she’d killed herself with that spell.

  No. Something else was going on.

  I sent Bob and Rose out again to patrol the general area.

  “Ready for the next thing?” G said, pocketing his phone.

  Not words I wanted to hear. “What?”

  "Zach’s gone.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What do you mean he’s gone? How the hell can he be gone?”

  “He’s gone. Not there in his cell. It gets worse.”

  “Go on.” My grip was mega-tight on the hilts of my blades.

  “Five SCU agents are dead, and there’s a great big hole in his cell wall, tinged with silver.”

  Deep breaths… I’d be calm. “What now?”

  “He hasn’t done himself any good with this.”

  “Even more guilty-looking.”

  “Yes. Phi is at their caravan, under elf protection.” G sighed. “It really kicked off last night between the wolves and the elves. Fighting in the street, threats, nearly another arrest. The elves are back in the tunnels now, but The Chief is getting involved, and you know she never comes over this side. Now that the moon’s stuck, or whatever it is, I don’t know what’ll happen.”

  “I don’t care, G. Sorry, but that’s my dad’s problem. He wanted to act that way, he can deal with it. That’s what you get for reacting first. Anyway, I’m more caught up in the disappearance of my best friend, and her blood being on the floor.”

  “I’m sorry, Aki. I didn’t mean to be so insensitive.”

  “It’s okay. You’re not, I’m just a hairpin away from going loco.”

  G’s phone rang again as the SCU trucks rolled up. I watched them through the broken windows—them and the gathering crowd. No press, though, from what I could make out.

  This moon business was a better story.

  The moon.

  Mama Rita.

  Seven wolf murders.

  Zach.

  Violet.

  So many balls in the air, and only one pair of hands to catch them with.

  “Thanks.” G hung up. “Okay, this just gets weirder. The moon is stuck all over the world.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It is. Everywhere is night.”

  “Not freaked out at all.” My babies had found nothing, no trace of Mama Rita’s scent. “She can’t just disappear.”

  “We’ll search the area.”

  “You sure? Dad doesn’t want you with him?”

  �
�No. He insisted I stay with you.”

  Man, that geezer was confusing. “Cool. Let’s go.”

  He followed me outside. The SCU let us pass, G giving them the quick lowdown.

  “I want to sleep!” some night vamp was screaming. He paced, pulling his curly black hair, face whiter than the moon. “I want to sleep! It’s bedtime! Where’s the sun? I don’t want the moon! I want the sun!” He laughed madly. “The sun! The sun!”

  “Sir, you need to calm down,” an SCU guy told him.

  “Easy for you! Everything’s wrong. I’m a night vamp, and I need to sleep at this time of day!”

  It’d be like a form of insomnia for a vamp—the moon like extreme caffeine never letting them sleep. Or, in the case of the day vamps, the white disc holding them a prisoner in their dreams.

  I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure I wasn’t sparko in my bed. It’d be so much better than this bullshit reality.

  “Come on,” G said. “Let’s patrol.

  The vamp ended up being arrested after taking a swing at the SCU bloke.

  Mama Rita had to be okay. She had to carry on being the constant in my life, the ship that never tipped over. I’d called her that once, and she’d agreed.

  “Fuck the waves,” she’d said, “let them come for me. See what they get.”

  Yeah, we’d been on the wine heavy that night—stuffed with red vino and curry.

  If she wasn’t alright, the world would never be the same again.

  * * *

  Nothing.

  Not a thing.

  All day, we’d searched, G had made calls. Nothing. All that was left was investigating the slums, grilling the gangs. But my dad had stopped us after getting wind from one of Gabriel’s contacts on what’d gone down. That was that. I had to go home, stay there until I was allowed back on the streets.

  Well, he’d tried to get me to go to The Spire, but I’d managed to wangle staying at G’s after I picked up some of my stuff.

  I’d sent my babies out to find Mama Rita, to see if they could track Zach. Nothing. And I was wearing them out. Too much demand on them would do that.

  A detail of werewolves was escorting me and G. Five black cars, loaded with muscle, covering G’s car as we parked up outside my flat.

  Mrs. Wallace was still sitting on the bench where I’d left her this morning.

  The hell?

  “Mrs. Wallace?” I hurried over. “Don’t say you’ve been there all day.”

  Her nose was red, but it wasn’t exactly cold.

  “Why is this happening?”

  “You should go home. It’s not good for you to sit here.”

  She was staring at the café. “Every morning I come here, Akira. Every single day. They’re always here when the daylight shines—gray or bright.” Mrs. Wallace looked up at me. “This world has gone wrong.”

  “It has. But there’re people trying to fix it. Now, come on, let’s get you home.”

  “I want to stay here.”

  “Please, Mrs. Wallace.”

  “Respect the wishes of your elders, boy. I mean it. I’m not moving until I want to.”

  “Okay, okay. At least let me make you some—”

  Why was my front door ajar? Not loads, but a little. A little was enough.

  “—tea,” I finished, rushing over.

  “No.” A huge wolfman—Ray—stepped in front of me. “You’re not going in there first.” He sniffed the air. “Silver.”

  “Then, you defo can’t go in there.”

  “Aki.”

  Ignoring G, I darted round Ray. He was big and gruff, I was slim and quick, and I got past him easily, rushing up the stairs to find my flat door also ajar.

  I drew my blades, opening the door the rest of the way with my foot. “If you’re still here, let’s have ya.”

  It was quiet inside, and nothing had been touched by the looks of things. Not an item out of place.

  But it stank of silver and elf.

  Zach? Was Zach here? Oh, shit! What if I’d got it wrong, and he was the killer? He could’ve played me. I sniffed again, letting out a slightly tired Bob and Rose.

  The elf scent was familiar. All that silver, though. I had to pick through the layers.

  “Aki?”

  “It’s okay,” I said to G. “I’m okay. Don’t come in. This place is toxic.”

  The silver was airborne, rife, the particles invisible but thick enough to make a wolf sick.

  “I can feel it,” G replied from the doorway.

  Bob and Rose found something on the kitchen table, and it smelled of Mama Rita.

  That was all I needed to move quicker, with super-vigilance in case of surprises. But there was no one else in my flat. Not anymore.

  The pink box sat on my table, tied with a silver ribbon. After one more scan of my flat, Bob and Rose doing another round too, I sheathed my katanas and pulled the ribbon on the box.

  It reeked of my best friend and blood.

  The ribbon came loose, sliding off the shiny cardboard.

  Deep breaths…

  The silver and blood were making me a little woozy, but I held it together. Mama Rita was all over this box, and I had to see. Maybe it was a clue.

  So much blood…

  I lifted the lid.

  One thing I got from my father was the ability to hold my nerve in most situations. I wasn’t an expert in it, but I also wasn’t a rookie. Like in this moment as I looked down into the box, the severed head of Mama Rita sitting there, her wide eyes staring back up at me, tongue lolling from her mouth.

  Yeah, I held my nerve hardcore. Didn’t flinch, didn’t react. Just stared down at my dead elven friend.

  Mrs. Wallace was so right.

  The world had gone wrong.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Everything was about silver and the fucking elves.

  I’d been whisked off to G’s penthouse in Hackney Wick, holding onto my cold firmness. In my flat, I’d become a statue, standing there while the air was cleaned by the SCU so the wolves could get in, so G could grab some of my stuff and carry me out into the street. Even when my bestie’s head had been taken away, I still stared at the table where her head had been.

  On G’s sofa, things weren’t much different. I couldn’t speak, say a word, not even think much because it didn’t feel real. And I couldn’t explain sweet fuck all about what’d happened. Everything was mired in the runniest shit in the world, and everything had changed.

  She was gone.

  I listened, though. Gabriel was shouting down his phone, at the wolves who were here with us. Stuff about the moon, about Zach, about the elves, and how furious my dad was.

  Zach was missing, and everyone now believed he’d killed those wolves, maybe even Mama Rita, because there was silver in her wound. He must have used his weapon to kill her, leaving behind a trace. It wouldn’t hurt her, but what else was he gonna use if he only had that instrument to hand?

  Why would Zach kill Mama Rita, though?

  Nothing made sense, and there was no way I was gonna figure this shit out. Not now. All I could do was sit and stare out the window into the wrong night sky.

  A body next to mine. A hand on my thigh.

  “Aki?”

  I blinked at the sound of his voice. “G?”

  “Do you want something to eat?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You sure. You haven’t eaten for hours.”

  I guess seeing my bestie dead was enough to kill my appetite for a while.

  “No.”

  “Okay. I won’t push you for the next hour, but then I will. Then, you’ll have to eat.”

  I kept quiet.

  “I’m so sorry, Aki.”

  “You’ve already said that.”

  “I know. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Me neither.”

  He patted my thigh. “I’ll leave you alone. If you need me, I’m here.” His hand left my thigh, then went to my cheek. “Okay?”

&nb
sp; I turned my head to look at him. I barely registered his face, his touch. Mama Rita’s head was in the place of his, bloody and dead. “Okay.”

  He got up and left me alone, making another call.

  I went back to staring at the night.

  Life ain’t fair. That’s a given. It shafts you in the bad way over and over again. What’s the point of anything if it gets taken away? Loving a bestie—why? For her to be stolen by some twisted fate? How was that fair? The same could be said from the peeps who’d met the sharp end of my sword. To them, I was the bad guy who lived while they were dead in the dead places of the universe.

  Punishment. Is that what this was? I’d taken that banshee’s power, let it be handed over to another to do bad things to her with. Karmic retribution? I take and cause pain, and the same shit gets flung back in my face. If so, there was a lot to come my way.

  Tenshi, show me the way. Guide me to the truth.

  Did I deserve the truth?

  G had some tenshi candles in the kitchen, and the 天使の書, so I went to get them from the drawer they lived in. A wolf guard standing in the kitchen got the hell out of my way as I lit the wick.

  Eyes on the tiny flame, hand on the book, I prayed in desperation.

  There had to be an answer to all of this.

  * * *

  The petals again. The white noise. The shape of the mountain on the horizon.

  It was the same as the last dream, and I woke up on G’s sofa, him sleeping beside me.

  When had I nodded off?

  I stood and stretched, scooping up my katanas that rested on the coffee table. There was snoring coming from upstairs, and Ray was standing by the door, lit by the lights that’d been set to a dim glow.

  I nodded at him, getting a pack of chocolate raisins from the kitchen cupboard. Gabriel had told me he had a stash for me, and the info had caught in my brain, ready to be used when I needed it. Not that I was hungry, just a craving, something normal to anchor me back into a bit of a nicer reality.

  Snoring aside, it was quiet. I checked my phone. It’d just gone midnight.

  Shit. Mrs. Wallace. In all the drama, I hadn’t even thought of her. Gabriel’d not brought her up. Someone would’ve seen to her, taken her home. My place was a crime scene. Yeah, an SCU agent would’ve sorted her out. Bless her.