“Is that so?” The soldiers fanned out around him.
“Yeah, it is.”
His hands started to glow, blue magic dancing around his fingers.
Blue magic? What the fuck? It was only ever green for witches or purple for warlocks. Never blue! Ever!
A long strip of blue was forming in his hands. “You see, Akira, we’re the same, you and I. Both of us slaves to a higher power. At least, I was once until I knew freedom.”
What did that mean? “You don’t know me.”
“Oh, but I do. I see you. All of you, half-wolf.”
Shit. The way he finished his sentence with a rising breath like he was hinting at something else, something big, had my nerves dancing the tango.
The thing in his hand had grown into a dagger-shaped blue light and kept on growing some more.
Was he making a sword?
His liquid white hair seemed to brighten as the dagger became more of a short sword.
Words were on holiday for the time being as I waited for him to finish. Was this it, the answer I’d been hunting all my life?
A mega sardonic smile, and then, “What a strange combination you are, Akira.”
Oh, shit…
“Your blood stinks of oddities.”
My mouth was suddenly dry.
“Half-wolf, half-tenshi… How bizarre.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gabriel
Mitesh had created an impressive loincloth of blue denim and peach bath towels, sewn together with yellow threads, and long enough to reach my knees.
More of a kilt really, but great all the same.
It would only last for as long as I didn’t shift, which I didn’t anticipate being anything less than short.
Jessie and Mitesh were armed with knives and a rolling pin each, while Joji carried two daggers he’d stored in one of his kitchen drawers. They were beautiful things, black and red hilts, both with a decently curved steel blade. Deadly. I liked deadly. He also had the flexible wooden raft fixed to his back, along with a paddle attached, rolled up to fit on his back. Intriguing thing. He assured me it could withstand weight and float on water.
My weapons were my fists, strength and wolf. There wasn’t anywhere for me to put a rolling pin anyway.
Gerald and Mrs. Wallace were back at the house now that we were on the streets, waiting it out. I didn’t like leaving them behind, but it would be worse to drag them along. The plan was to get Aki and the last bone key piece, come back to the house, and then aim for the place in the forest that was pinpointed on Joji’s maps.
The place in the forest where the door to paradise was.
We kept to the shadows, passing a small Tunnelrail station called Pine Square, which sat on the edges of a small shopping precinct comprised of bakeries and grocery stores. There was a small green with a duck pond next to it, with no ducks floating on the inky surface of the water, and a tall pine tree slightly bent over the roof of the station building—which looked like a hut more than a working railway location.
The precinct had a few people popping into the stores, stopping to talk. Even though it was a small area, it took a while to reach the station, weaving in and out of shadows and parked cars, avoiding approaching folk all the way to a bridge crossing an exposed part of the railway.
“The trains don’t come up for air much,” Jessie pointed out.
A green and blue train pulled out of the station, rumbling along the tracks beneath our feet.
Marching footsteps.
“Take cover,” I said, leading them to the duck pond and the foliage behind it, crouching in front of a fence partitioning off the railway tracks below.
Hidden by the bushes and shadows, we watched a party of soldiers march across the bridge, then across the precinct, over to the street we’d entered this place from. Something wriggled across my bare feet. A worm, slick and sticky and black. I let it wriggle off my skin to the soil, where it buried itself into the cool and dark places.
The air was balmy, close, thick with the stench of the nearby river. That pond was pretty whiffy too.
“That was close,” Mitesh said.
Once the coast was clear, and the two men walking slowly past the pond were safely inside the station, I lead my companions on, zipping over the bridge as another train rumbled beneath, straight onto the edges of Willow Street.
We hid again, down a small service alleyway for a shop selling umbrellas. It rained here, then?
Once the soldiers had gone, we followed the path at the end of Willow Street, which was a big street, and came to the edge of the city.
This spot was different. I’d come into this dead world in a different place outside the city, high on a hill, the river stretching east and west, just as it did here.
Here there was a huge expanse of forest spreading for as far as I could see, a path leading up into it, and a large lake—the water as still as the duck pond had been, and as the river was.
But the real show-stopper was the ivy-covered mansion on the edge of the river, a beacon of evil. Were those black roses?
There were no soldiers here, but that wouldn’t last for long. These things never did.
To the right of the bridge was a slope of dirt that became a muddy riverbank dipping low, perfect to hide us from the city and the windows of the mansion.
I took point, and we hurried down until Joji whispered for us to stop.
My eyes were on the river, watching for activity. There were things crawling in there—I could smell them, sense them rolling over one another. The surface remained still, the stench of decay wafting upward.
“I’ll get this onto the water.” Joji removed the raft from his back, unrolling it and placing it onto the river.
Directly opposite from where we stood was a grate in the wall, rusted, breakable, a few feet above the narrow riverbank on that side.
A weak spot.
The water was wider here. I’d be able to clear it with a jump, but that would mean one of the others coming over on the raft alone. That wasn’t happening. No one was being put in a vulnerable position on my watch. These things needed care and low-risk actions. Me leaping over the river may trigger some reaction from beneath.
The things in the water pushed against the raft. A black arm broke the surface, fingers of melting ooze testing the wood before sliding back into the depths.
Mitesh shuddered beside me.
Joji had shown me the plans for the mansion. The grate covered an old servants’ tunnel leading up into the main building. There’d once been a time, Joji said, when the river was fertile and full of fish. It hadn’t lasted long, soon becoming toxic and deadly, the fish replaced with dark and terrible things.
“It was as if such a beautiful spot had been forgotten,” Joji had said before we’d left his home, “and then rectified when discovered. There one day, gone the next—a mistake fixed. I used to eat such wonderful trout. A second death can come from hunger, Gabriel. I sometimes wonder if the king will one day starve us all to death if he ever grows bored of his games.”
I stepped onto the raft first. It held my weight with no issues, bobbing and drifting slightly. There was a rope attached, which Joji held up over the water.
Jessie came next. I took her hand to steady her as the raft wobbled.
The creatures of the river stirred but didn’t break the surface.
“Let’s not linger,” I said, took the paddle from Joji, and crossed the water.
Jessie and I reached the other side without incident. The bank was a few feet higher than the raft, so it required a lunging step to get up. I placed the paddle on the raft, and Joji pulled it back to him slowly, quietly. The surface rippled with the movements, but nothing else came up.
Mitesh and Joji stepped onto the raft, hand in hand, helping one another with balance. Good, good. Everything was going smoothly, and that had me on edge. Those things writhing in the dark were too stirred, too active.
Joji didn’t dawdle, moving as effic
iently as he could.
A black arm broke the surface and clutched the edge of the raft. It was a head of mud—a black and slimy humanoid shape.
“Go!” Joji hissed at Mitesh.
Mitesh moved forward and reached for me. I took his hand, aiding him across the last gap with a hard pull that did that job, and didn’t break his arm.
He landed beside me.
Joji was next as the muddy thing crawled onto the raft, moaning, pawing at him, spewing black ooze from the shape in its head that acted as a mouth, another creature coming up and tipping the raft.
Joji gasped as I lunged forward, grabbing him and hefting him onto the riverbank.
“Thank y—”
He slipped, landing on his face, his lower half in the water.
“No!” Jessie yelped.
Joji thrashed his legs, blood pouring from his nose. I was on him instantly, grabbing him under the arms and dragging him up.
Something else was dragging him down.
Joji grunted, kicking at the slimy hands at his ankles. The creatures were strong. For every inch I got him up, he’d be pulled back down again.
One creature opened its gloopy maw wide, exposing rows of black teeth, ready to clamp down on Joji. The water bubbled and stirred, more heads surfacing, smelling the blood that ran down Joji’s chin.
I wasn’t losing him. “Hand me a knife!”
A blade was offered straight away. I moved quickly, grabbing the knife while keeping a tight grip on Joji. I went down onto my knees and drove the knife into the head of the creature about to bite, withdrew it, then stabbed it again. Its mouth widened even further, a hollow groan, acrid breath escaping. It eased its hold. I dragged Joji out of danger as another monster lunged, smacking its face off the edge of the bank, tumbling away.
“Get back,” I ordered, helping Joji to the wall.
Three muddy creatures slapped onto the raft, vomiting, moaning, and pulled it down into the water.
“I guess we’re not going back that way,” Jessie said.
I watched the water churn and bubble, then grow still once more. They were gone. For now.
Flashes of Mama Rita, of the banshee screaming with delight as they took my life. The place with the pagoda, stabbing me repeatedly, slicing my throat, cutting my—
“Thank the tenshi,” Mitesh breathed. I could hear his racing heart, the beats shattering my thoughts.
“Don’t thank them,” Joji retorted.
His bitterness was as sharp as the rotten stench of the river. I couldn’t say I blamed him for it—for this supposed abandonment by our creators.
Did prayers fall on deaf ears?
Jessie tore off a piece of her sweater and applied it to Joji’s nose.
“Did it get you?” I asked, examining his wet and muddy jeans. His shoes were still there, no bleeding other than his nose.
“I’m fine,” he said, voice altered from pinching his nose. He patted his pockets. “The flashlight. It’s gone.”
The river was bubbling again. It was the blood. It was always the blood.
I examined the grate—a crisscross of rusted bars over a tunnel entrance. They came apart easily as I removed three for sufficient access.
“We can’t stay here,” I said. “Come on. I’ll be our eyes inside.”
They didn’t need telling twice, following me into the dark. My vision worked well in dark places, and this was a straightforward upward slope. No offshoot tunnels, just straight up to a door at the end.
“Ground is wet,” I said, “so take it easy. It’s not far.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Mitesh whispered behind me. “We’re actually inside the Butcher mansion.” He gulped. “Really inside it.”
We reached the door. “Stop,” I said. “We’re—”
The door opened, a man clad in a black butcher apron, a blue cap on his head, brandishing a hacksaw. “Welcome to my home.”
“The mayor…” Mitesh gasped.
He had one the most malicious grins I’d ever seen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I almost passed out. I must’ve heard him wrong.
“But… What?”
“Surprise,” he said. “I could tell you had no idea.”
What the actual fuck? Half-tenshi?
No.
This wasn’t…
No.
A wave of dizziness overcame me, my legs heading in the way of being wet clay.
“But—”
“Aw, poor wolf. How shocking. Is it really, though? If you really think about it?”
I looked up at him, my throat closing up.
The mazoku. They were always afraid of me, always weird, and never lashing out when they should be gunning for my guts. But putting it down to being half-tenshi? It’d never crossed my mind.
“Shit.”
“A lot to take in, isn’t it?”
I barely registered his blue sword was now a katana.
“But… That means. My mum… My dad…”
My dad. He knew… That was his big secret—hiding the fact my mum was tenshi, that I was half-tenshi. What the fuck? Why’d he do that to me? Why? This wasn’t—
How the hell had my mum been tenshi? They didn’t walk on Earth, hadn’t been seen in a long time. They were just there, not lurking creatures like the mazoku.
“I see I’ve shaken your foundations.”
I couldn’t speak, wave after wave of dizziness struck me. The tenshi were our creators, holy. I was a mortal lad, not an angel, not some divine being. No way.
“This can’t be—”
“True?” The king laughed. “Then I suggest you have a serious discussion with yourself. Wait. You won’t be able to with the distractions coming your way.”
Stuck. Frozen to the spot. Locked right down. Unmovable me. My head was full, my heart racing, throbbing with aches. No one was half-tenshi. Not even Mama Rita was half-mazoku. They’d merged with her, yeah, but she wasn’t born like it.
Right?
Lost. In this moment, I was lost.
Me, a half-tenshi.
The king…
“You said… You said…” Slave. “Slave to a higher power.”
“Yes, Akira. You, not me anymore.”
Did he mean this trial? All of this? “You—”
Glass exploded behind me. I spun in time to see the white-hilted katanas fly at me. On a weird extinct, I lifted my arms, braced for a catch.
Boom. Caught my precious pointy pretties in one smooth move. Then the white holder with the gold tenshi symbol for prayer (祈り) joined them, landing at my feet. A bit grubby, but intact. Really didn’t think I’d see that holder again. I hooked my foot under a strap and kicked it upwards. I moved quickly, strapping it on without putting my blades down.
Talk about awesome timing!
King Daichi’s eyes widened, his face twisting into a sneer. Not a surprise he liked. Ha ha! Colin and the guards were shook. Always a good thing for Colin to be stunned—a mega good thing.
But then the king was smiling again like he’d won suddenly.
We’d see about that.
“The blades that killed the hound,” he said. Quite polite actually. Threw me off a bit.
“Er, yeah.”
“Beautiful.”
“I know.”
Pretty and they’ll cut your head off, wanker!
“I don’t know why you’re here, Akira,” he said, shadows forming over his brow, “but I will not stand down for them, for anything. This is my domain.”
Them? The tenshi? I blinked, taking in the blue sword held battle-ready in the king’s hands. That was one big katana he had. Holy shit.
He rushed at me, and I brought my blades up just in time to meet his swing, snapping into fight mode.
Shit!
Metal and cerulean light clashed, exploding with sparks. We pushed at the same time, two forces pressing together. I gritted my teeth, putting everything into holding him off.
Half-t
enshi… I had to hold on, to fight.
We both shoved off one another. He spun, and our weapons met again. I went for his legs with a slice, but he moved quickly, meeting my swing, and I had to move mega fast as his blade came at my neck. I smacked it away, jumping back. He came at me. I parried his cuts, dodged his sweeping kick, and his stab for my guts—barely. Parry, parry, and a backflip, then I dashed across the room, leaping onto the dining table, ignoring the heads of the kitchen staff.
King Daichi had some moves.
The soldiers didn’t move, just watched. It was unnerving. One move of their gun, a bullet aimed for the right spot, and that was me done.
“They didn’t deserve that,” I said, nodding to Nina and her crew.
The king leaped up on the table and kicked Nina’s head across the room. “They betrayed me. Took a bite of the hand that feeds. They were exempt from the hound because of my kindness. Yet they decided to follow you, a mixed-blood stranger who reeks worse than even the foulest of mazoku. A creature destined for nothing more than second death. This is not a second chance, Akira, no matter what your plans are.”
It hit me then. King Dickhead didn’t know about the dreaming death. The tenshi stuff, yeah, and he had some insight on me because of Colin. But he thought he was gonna give me a second death.
Not so fucking insightful after all.
Half-tenshi…
He moved forward, kicking another head across the room, twirling his blue katana.
“You are not the only one proficient in swordplay,” he said.
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
It started again, clash, clang, spin. I jumped off the table, meeting his triple thrusts, the top of his sword catching my shirt but not touching skin.
Parry, parry, sweeping kick. He went down on his arse as I delivered the move.
The soldiers lifted their guns.
Bring it…
He sprung back up, proper furious, pointing his blade at me. “You will not do that again.”
The guns lowered.
“We’ll see, bruv.”
We danced across the room some more, neither him nor me getting the upper hand. We went on and on, a song of pants and grunts, sweat going for the hardcore drench, my skin a wet mass stretched over my skeleton. It was proper knackering, but I wasn’t giving into this—
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 54
