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

by Amos, Richard

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gabriel

  A bullet to the leg. Nothing serious, no major arteries struck. No chance of bleeding to death. My werewolf healing was already kicking in. No silver bullets had been used on me, which was always a good result.

  Inside the café, the last of the Crimson Army soldiers were preparing to leave after questioning us without much success. She was the head of her squad, it seemed, and the one who’d shot me.

  “No one leaves here for the rest of the day,” she ordered. “Try going outside, I’ll blow your brains out. You’ll await further instructions.” She shook her crimson-covered head. “The king is furious.”

  I’m sure he was.

  The woman left, leaving me, Gerald, Jessie, Mitesh, and Mrs. Wallace inside our new prison.

  Gerald and Jessie started to draw the curtains across the windows, only for the door to fly open.

  “No curtains!” a male solider barked. “No hiding!”

  Father and daughter obeyed.

  “We’re surrounded,” Jessie said. “There’s no getting out of here.”

  I was sure they’d take me to the mansion after proclaiming myself a friend of Aki’s.

  Aki was dead.

  Here and dead.

  His mission to break the curse on the moon failed.

  Dead.

  At the Butcher mansion.

  I had to get to him.

  There was talk of him having killed the Butcher hound. If he had, then good for him. But also not a good thing at all, seeing as he was now in the hands of those who unleashed this beast on the city every day.

  Aki dead and at the mansion. Him and the bone key. Was this a sign? We never got to experience the trial of Mount Tate, failing the world, but we’d get a chance to be together in paradise if we pulled off the mission for the bone key.

  This all seemed strange, though, as if I was missing something completely again and again.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” Gerald said.

  “Lovely,” Mrs. Wallace replied.

  Ignoring the throbbing in my leg, I walked across the café and took a seat beside Mrs. Wallace at a table she was sat at. When it came to pain, I always thought it best to create boxes for it in the mind. Lock it all away, ignore the rattling lids and carry on until those boxes disintegrated or could no longer be contained. I had a high level of tolerance. You had to when you were the beta werewolf to the High Alpha.

  “We’re trapped,” Mitesh said as he and Jessie gathered around the table.

  “There’s always a way out,” I said. “I’ll need a layout of this place, including the neighboring streets. Any maps here? I’ve misplaced mine.”

  “I can draw you a full diagram if you want,” Jessie offered. “It’ll be better than any old map.”

  “Sure. That would be great.”

  She was beaming. “I’m on it.” She strode over to the café counter.

  “Who was that man?” Mitesh asked me.

  “A friend,” I answered. “Looks like we did die together. I was hoping we hadn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “He was—” I stopped, and Mitesh didn’t push the subject.

  “I’m devastated,” Mrs. Wallace said. “Poor Akira. I wanted so much more for him.”

  “Me too.”

  “What dreadful people. I hope that don’t hurt him.”

  “They will,” Mitesh said, then covered his mouth. A muffled apology followed.

  “Don’t worry your head, dear,” Mrs. Wallace said to him. “I’ve seen many bad things in my life.”

  Mitesh dropped his hand. “But he’s your friend. I don’t want to upset you.”

  “But you’ve already told me about the hound and the workings of the Butchers. I know what will happen to him. Yet I can only hope, as his friend, that he’ll be okay.”

  The Paradise Games. There was a possibility he’d be chosen for those, or… He’d possibly killed the hound. A possibility for a worse outcome.

  Those were distracting thoughts. I wouldn’t let him suffer anything for long. I was killing two birds with one stone—the bone key and getting him out of the clutches of the Butchers. Then we could escape this place and be… Be us again. A new us, maybe.

  Hold on, Aki…

  Jessie came back to the table with a notepad and pen from the counter and started to draw.

  I kept my attention on the windows, focusing on the back of the heads of the soldiers who looked left and right to scan the streets, peering inside to make sure we were all still here.

  Six windows.

  Gerald brought coffee over.

  “May I take a look at the kitchen?” I asked him.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re planning something?”

  “Yes.” I got up and limped over. I didn’t need to limp but was feigning the severity of my injury for the benefit of our unwelcome guards.

  A charming kitchen with corn painted on the beige tiled walls, a spider plant on the windowsill, everything clean and tidy and in its place. Pine cupboards and worksurfaces and a general sunny demeanor. It was a kitchen I could fully get behind with its buckets of charm.

  Another guard at that window, red helmet distorted by the plant in the foreground.

  I nodded to the backdoor. “Is that the only way out?”

  “No,” Gerald said. “There’s the basement too. It opens into a subterranean alleyway that serves three streets. No one uses it anymore.”

  “Does that include Beech Street?”

  “It does. What’re you planning?”

  “Bear with me, Gerald.”

  I exited the kitchen, hobbling back to the table where Jessie had drawn up her map. A solider was watching me. I didn’t directly look but kept an eye on him in the corner of my vision.

  I could smell the sweat on him from here, and the fear. He was afraid. Maybe not of me, but of the death of the hound.

  The stench of fear was always a pleasant aroma for a werewolf. In fact, every single soldier reeked of it, which made them dangerous, unstable.

  What a useless army. Fear wasn’t a bad thing. It built strength. But to let it sweat and stink you up to the point where being in possession of any weapon was a detriment to your teammates, then that was bad. The misuse of fear. Something had gone wrong with their training.

  The men and women outside would rattle easily.

  I planned to jump on that.

  On Jessie’s impressive map, Beech Street was two streets over. Excellent.

  Now to put my plan into action.

  Chapter Nineteen

  G was alive, still inside the café.

  Yeah, there were soldiers around, but the relief was enough to make my limbs turn to jelly as I was laid on a bed.

  I say bed. Not a fluffy happy thing. Nope. It was metal and murder on my back, my arms and legs strapped down, my head too.

  And I was naked, the metal cold as hell. My butt cheeks were clenched up against the chill, balls retreating like a freaked-out sea anemone.

  The light was bright in here, proper blinding.

  A surgical room, but without the reassuring surgeons and equipment. The walls were a grim, pale yellow, splattered with blood. Fresh blood. Deliberate for my benefit. And the equipment on the table near my head was not of the saving your life variety.

  The mayor and mayoress were looming over me wearing black butcher’s aprons.

  Appropriate.

  The mayoress, Winnie, was all smiles and wearing goggles. Was that spinach stuck in her teeth? In the harsh light of this room, I got a rude close up of a face stretched so badly over a skull it looked like it’d snap.

  Plastic surgery gone wrong in the afterlife too.

  I took that as a win. Dunno why. Just made me feel good that she looked like a complete dickhead. Not saying I was an oil painting, but at least I didn’t look like her. Either of them—him being Mr. Leathery Botox. They made a right pair.

  “How did you enjoy the screaming, peasant?” Winnie asked.


  The suffering, the pleading, these two dickheads laughing and laughing and laughing the whole time they tortured those poor souls… It’d never leave me in any life.

  Winnie brought her head closer, within head-butting distance if I could’ve actually moved. Ah, what a shame.

  “It did bother you, didn’t it?” Her breath stank of tuna fish. “Yes, I can tell. I can always tell.”

  She couldn’t tell fuck all, but arguing with her was a waste of time. She held all the power, and the king’s castle seemed like the best place to be if the trial was to bring this place down.

  “I hope the king makes you suffer,” she added. “For the sake of my poor baby.”

  She stepped back, letting her husband do some solo looming.

  “Now, then, you will feel a pinch.”

  Got them roaring with laughter.

  His breath was loaded with onions galore.

  Glad it was so fucking funny.

  “Oh, darling,” Winnie said off to the side. “You always know how to brighten the moment.”

  Harold turned his head. “The moment isn’t already bright?”

  “It could be brighter.”

  “All in good time, my dear.”

  Ugh. These two.

  Harold didn’t talk anymore. Yeah, I felt a pinch. Holy shit! He was sliding something sharp into my wrists. Despite my determination not to squirm, I fucking did. I grit my teeth as the sharp things went deeper, trying not to make a sound when they hit bone, hooks bursting through my veins.

  Winnie was clapping. “Oh, goodie. This is wonderful. Look at him, darling. Look at him!”

  My eyes were scrunched shut. What was he gonna do, bleed me out? What happened to seeing the king?

  Shit.

  “Not such a tough man after all,” the mayoress added. “Everyone cracks a little when it comes to the knife.”

  “They do,” her husband agreed.

  I got a fog of onion breath to the face

  I opened my eyes. His nose was almost touching mine. “How does that feel?”

  “Tickles.”

  Why did I have to say that?

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  It didn’t, and it got a whole lot worse as he cranked up the pain levels.

  Holy fucking shit! I was seeing spots behind my eyes—bright flashes of agony.

  Yay for me for not screaming the place down.

  * * *

  Shackles at my wrists. Silver. Yeah, joke was on them. My wolfy nature wasn’t affected by silver. Just itched a little bit. Joys of having watered down blood, I guess.

  Spikes were crisscrossed inside my wrists, attached to the shackles. The spikes pierced my veins, went through bone, locked down tight.

  “If you try and run, you lose your hands,” Winnie had told me. Man, she looked so smug about it. Her hubby too.

  Ugh.

  Chains hung from each shackle, joining to one big chain the mayoress held me by as we stepped out into the city air.

  The mansion was a big bastard of a house, smothered in ivy and black roses that climbed over every inch it. Weirdly, the front garden was tiny. What, they ran out of money after building their huge home?

  I followed Winnie, who was now all dressed up in a black and silver ball gown, complete with matching fascinator. She was following her husband in his tux and top hat. He even had a cane.

  Dick.

  Down a pebbledash path cutting through grass and weeds taller than me that made up their small garden, passing through a tall open gate that sat between high walls, and out onto a road.

  Forest to the right, trees ringing a lake straight ahead of me. To the left was the river again, a bridge and the city beyond.

  The mansion was on the edge of the city as I’d been told. G was so close, over in Willow Street.

  The lake was as dark as the rest of this city, the surface of the water still. What lived in there? Something did. Creepy lakes always had a nasty surprise waiting at their watery center.

  An owl hooted somewhere in the forest. The trees were tall as hell, beastly trunks, dense green leaves creating a thick, impenetrable mass as far as the eye could see.

  I hadn’t heard an owl hoot since I was a kid. A holiday to Yorkshire with my dad and a big chunk of the pack. The wolves had gone to the Yorkshire Moors for a run. We’d camped up, and I’d been bored out of my brain with some bodyguard guy I hated. Think I’d been about seven.

  I’d always remember the owl. White with blue wings. Never seen anything like it, and not the color I’d expect an owl to be. And its eyes. Wow. Proper turquoise. Stunning. It’d landed outside my tent and let me feed it some crackers I had. Even let me stroke its super soft feathers. My new mate for five minutes until my dad had shooed it off when he’d returned to camp.

  On the road outside the mansion was a car. A black Rolls Royce with a cream interior. There was a guy in the driver’s seat and another one holding open the back door for Winnie.

  Harold was already getting into the front passenger seat.

  The door holder didn’t look at me. Was probably forbidden. Poor guy. He seemed hollow.

  I shivered, and Winnie tugged at the chains. “Get in.”

  I did as I was told, the guy closing the door behind me. I was secured into my seat. At least they hadn’t kept me naked, giving me black trousers, a white shirt, and black tie. And stupid shoes.

  Hadn’t been fun to get dressed by Harold, who’d also slicked my hair back with some oily gunk.

  “Not exactly handsome,” Winnie said next to me. “What a horribly crooked nose. But at least you’ll be presentable for his Majesty.”

  Off to see the king.

  Cool.

  Couldn’t wait to meet the dickhead.

  And anyway, my crooked nose was a war wound!

  The driver started the engine and headed down the road—which curved around the lake and vanished into the trees.

  Winnie and Harold started chatting about food—namely baking. Was this to wind me up? Because neither of them had any clue about making brownies. Zero clue.

  “They are terribly common anyway,” Winnie said to her husband. “So it doesn’t matter how bad my attempts have been.” She chuckled. “A momentary lapse of reason indeed.”

  “I enjoyed them,” Harold answered.

  “Well, it was a bit of fun, wasn’t it?”

  For real? Brownies were a lesser class of cake? The fuck? Man, these two. Like there was some caste system of cake. If it was good, and you liked the style of cake, then it was good.

  Yeah, this husband and wife duo were on a whole other level of stupid.

  “Not as fun as when we laced them with poison.” Harold glanced at me over his shoulder.

  “Yes.” Winnie clapped her blinged-up hands together. “What a marvelous poison that was. A pity that woman died, though. I really believed she was set to go to the games and would have withstood the effects. Never mind.”

  “There will be more, my dear.” He turned to scowl at me. “Because loss does not break the Butchers.”

  “Never,” she replied. “An endless spirit we have.”

  “No matter the pain.”

  “No matter.”

  I drowned them out as they started to talk some more about killing and torture. Suffering their chat was torture enough.

  Prove your worth for the Paradise Games by getting tortured by two crazies. Right. Okay. What a load of donkey bollocks.

  The driver was silent, not even making the sounds of normal breathing. He was staff. Not everyone got hit with a second death. I’d seen a few maids in the mansion too. I don’t know which fate was worse. Being a slave to these wankers left no way out.

  I had some quiet as we made our way to the castle. Time to think through my next steps.

  First off, where the hell were my katanas? Vanished. Cool. But how would I find them again? Not like they had a call button or something.

  Secondly, these shackles.

  Ah, nuts. What was
I gonna do?

  No. None of that doubt. There was always a way—fuck doubt. I just needed to think harder.

  I had this. G being alive was a constant boosting agent for the soul.

  Joke was still on all of them.

  I wasn’t dead.

  I so had this.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gabriel

  Jessie had just finished telling her dad about the bone key. It was amusing to see Gerald fake his surprise, but Jessie didn’t seem to notice the bad acting.

  He’d supplied yet more coffee.

  Mrs. Wallace was delighted with the news. “We could all get out of here? That’s wonderful.” But she was frowning within seconds. “If only those idiots outside weren’t ruining everything.”

  “I have a plan to get us out of here,” I said.

  While studying the map Jessie had made, it’d come to me.

  A bit of chaos went a long way.

  “Save my friend, find the bone key.” I just started to talk some more. “My friend Aki, Akira. He’s special to me. He was supposed to save the world but ended up here. Dead. I’m so sad, so fucking devastated to see what’s happened. I wanted him to win, to live a long and happy life, bake so many wonderful things, maybe even become a baking superstar with his own TV show. Though I think he’d hate that.” I chuckled, picturing him on TV—how cute and awkward he’d be in front of the camera. But then he’d get to his magic, creating pure bliss in a mixing bowl.

  I missed his kitchen table, the way we would sit and talk together.

  The way we’d kissed…

  How his touch had felt…

  Aki…

  “What was he saving the world from?” Jessie asked.

  There was no point deflecting, but not enough time for the full story. I’d already been talking too much rather than implementing the plan. So I gave them the abridged version about Mama Rita and her curse on the moon, the mazoku, and Aki’s mission to break that curse.

  “All of the wolves,” Mrs. Wallace said. “They’re all going to die?”