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

by Amos, Richard

  My mum.

  Dead. Killed giving birth to me. She’d been hidden from me all my life. A secret. So many secrets. Too many fucking secrets. Lies, lies, lies. Always the lies, always the pain, always the being made to feel I’m not good enough.

  “That’s right,” Caramel Man said. “But you are good enough. Better than them, better than anyone else. You are the ultimate power right now. Who else could claim that? No one. All should bow to you.”

  I looked up into the night sky, smothered in rain clouds fringed with silver. They couldn’t block that powerful, radiant moonlight. It was the most brilliant moon I’d ever seen, and the closest. So pretty, even if it did make me itch a bit. Silver does that to me. Just an itch. Not death.

  I scratched at my arms as the rain pelted me. Man, I was soaked right through to the bone. I think that might be literally—like the actual literally. Didn’t matter. I was outside, I was free and claiming what was mine.

  “What’s mine?”

  “Revenge, Akira.”

  “Oh, yeah. Revenge.”

  “And freedom.”

  “Freedom is cool.”

  Bob and Rose appeared in the road before me as a car approached. It didn’t stop as I stepped back onto the pavement, picking up speed as it tore past and headed for the crossroads up ahead.

  My destination.

  “Why her, Caramel Man?” I asked. “Is she here?”

  “She is, Akira. A coward sheltering in her nest of mazoku, licking her wounds.”

  “I’ll give her more wounds.”

  “You will.”

  “I’m destruction.” I tilted my head. “Death.”

  “Yes. Pure death.”

  It shivered against my back, that wicked power, just waiting to be out and doing its thing. Oh, man. Mama Rita was gonna get the top-notch treatment when I sent it her way. Hell to the yeah!

  “Get ready, bitch,” I said.

  “Only for her.” Caramel Man coughed. What the hell? He was too smooth for a cough.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, worried about my buddy.

  New buddy.

  Buddy?

  He was my buddy?

  G was my buddy, and now my…what? Boyfriend? Whoa. Was that what I called him now? We were in love—

  “Don’t think about him.” Caramel Man was back.

  “Why?”

  “He can’t be in your life now. He won’t understand what you’re doing. It might have been easier to have killed him.”

  “No fucking way, bruv!”

  “That was too loud.”

  I winced at his gentleness. “I’m sorry. But G doesn’t die.”

  “Then, you will have to empty your heart of him.”

  Caramel Man wasn’t happy I’d let G live. He kept bringing it up. But he wasn’t the king of everything. G was a no-go zone you just didn’t touch. I loved G, and that was final. No dying. He got to live. And, yeah, Caramel Man was right. I did have to let G go so he could go live his life and be happy with someone who wasn’t a fruitcake like me. A nice guy with no baggage and bullshit and who didn’t act like a total cock when we first met and—

  “You’re thinking too much,” Caramel Man said.

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Gabriel will be happy.”

  “He should be happy. He so deserves it. I want him, though.”

  “You can’t have him.”

  “I know.”

  “Not with the way things will soon turn out.”

  “I know that.”

  “You should have killed him. It would have been easier.”

  Button pushed. “Stop fucking talking about killing him!” My voice was thunder complimenting the rain.

  “You mustn’t shout. You’ll give yourself away.”

  “Then shut up.”

  “Please don’t be rude to me, Akira. I only have your best interests at heart.”

  See! There you go being a cock again. G is so much better off without you.

  “Sorry. I just love him.”

  “You do. And that’s beautiful. It really is. Not everyone is lucky enough to find love in this life.”

  I pushed wet hair back from my forehead. “Loads of people are unlucky enough to lose it. Like I’m gonna.”

  “That’s right. Another victim of that foolish mission to stop the silver moon. Who was the victim? The real victim? G. He was used like you have been used.”

  Caramel Man had been strolling down the paths of my mind, prodding and poking, have a good look round like it was a library. What’s on this shelf? This one? That one? He was soaking up all the knowledge, all the memories of me. And I let him, playing the helpful librarian. It was fine. I liked him. He made sense and was so soothing when he spoke to me. Funny how some people just grab you like that. The spark. Insta-friends. Insta-trust.

  Trust… I don’t trust easily…

  Until now. This was the true me like he kept telling me. It was the first time in my life I’d finally embraced who I really was.

  Is this me?

  More cold spreading through me from the sparkling icicles that were Bob and Rose. They were the core, my center. Ha! I’d kind of shifted. Nah. Not shifted. Fuck that. Didn’t want that label.

  New me.

  Is this me?

  Course it is!

  “Take a moment, Akira.”

  No more pain, then why was it trying to break through the new ice across my heart?

  “Let it all go,” Caramel Man soothed. “In fact, close your eyes. Let the rain wash over you. Imagine all the pain coating you in mud and dust. Go on, picture it.”

  “Messy.” There was me on the street, coated from head to toe in crap.

  “Now, let the water do its work.”

  There’s something about standing out in the rain. It works best on a hot and sticky summer’s day when the rain clouds finally roll in after way too much, well, stickiness. The heatwave gets broken, and you stand out in the street, dancing like a crazy person, cackling. Water at last. It’s totally healing and awesome. Water is magical. A hot shower or bath can combat the aftermath of a shitty day, and the rain can wash away the pain.

  All of it?

  “It will,” I whispered, rainwater spilling into my mouth.

  “Enjoy this moment, Akira. Then be ready to implement our plan.”

  * * *

  Much better. Refocused. I knew what I had to do.

  “Sorry about that, Caramel Man.”

  He chuckled. “Not at all. I’m here to listen, to be your guiding light.”

  “Thanks.” My babies came for a head rub, then we walked some more. “It’s really coming down.”

  “Yes.”

  Water rushed past me in the gutters. The drains would probably lose control soon. There was just too much water coming down.

  “Hope it’s not a flood.”

  “I wouldn’t worry, Akira.”

  Yeah, he was right. Always right. “Is that it?” I pointed to the tall apartment building on my right as I approached a crossroads.

  “Yes. That is where she’s cowering.”

  I looked up. Twelve balconies with windows next to each one. It was abandoned, mostly boarded up, some of the windows broken and letting in the rain.

  Mama Rita was in there.

  I crossed the road. The other residential spaces in this area were in use, locked up tight against the permanent night, and the dangers that had come to the city.

  Every corner was empty of life. Not one vehicle’d came past since that one car. It was just me and the heavy downpour, my babies silent as they paced before the entrance to the grubby white building.

  The door wasn’t protected well, the board there loose. Easy access for squatters.

  “Go have a look,” I told my furry cuties.

  They went inside, scoping out the corridors as I pulled on the board. It gave easily, allowing me to slip inside the darkness.

  I waited, fully immersed in my connection with Bob and Rose, listen
ing, watching the dark, smelling the damp air, and the…blood?

  As they poked their heads in an out of flats, carnage revealed its ugly head. Explained the stink. It really was decay—the dead human sort.

  Dead squatters, brutally slaughtered, their insides painting the rooms.

  “Poor bastards,” I said to the silence.

  The air also stank of demon. There was one creature that could really tear a victim up like that.

  My eyes functioned better with my babies out, and I took in what I could of the hallway. Damp, threadbare brown carpet, peeling beige wallpaper, a real sense of decay, like, all over the bloody place. What a shit hole. Literally stank of shit within the damp, of dirty bodies and rot.

  Drip, drip, dripping nearby, then that familiar hiss, the darkness lit up by scarlet orbs in the distance.

  “Peekaboo,” I said.

  Mazoku floating in the dark, keeping a safe distance, giving me the full-on eye-fuck. Gross. Scratch that. Wary stare? Yeah, that sounded much better.

  Bob and Rose reached the top floor, passing through a door and into an apartment with a candle burning, a gentle sobbing coming from somewhere. They went down a short entrance hall, passing a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. No one in there.

  Hissing.

  “Yeah?” I said to the slithering shadow demons, my focus breaking from the apartment. “You want some?

  Hiss, hiss, hiss.

  “Wankers.” There were three sets of eyes now.

  They didn’t move. “Scared of what runs through here, eh?” I gestured to myself. “Tenshi blood, eh? Creepy. Woooo…”

  “Concentrate,” Caramel Man said.

  “Sorry. Okay.”

  Back upstairs, my babies reached a living room. Ding, ding, ding! There she was, sprawled out on a sofa, sobbing as a figure knelt beside her, stroking her hair.

  Violet Cross comforting Mama Rita. Ugh. What a stomach-churning sight.

  There was a male in the room. Warlock. Rose turned to him. Sean.

  That prick.

  “I want to be strong again,” Mama Rita whined. “Oh, Violet. What has he done to me?”

  “He’ll pay, I promise you.” The witch/gang lord dipped a cloth in a bowl of water sitting between her knees and patted the wannabe queen’s forehead gently.

  “He keeps squirming his way out of everything.”

  She was skinnier than she’d been when we were besties. It didn’t suit her. She looked ill, worn out, proper haggard. The glow she’d once had had dulled to a pallid sheen.

  It threw me for a minute or two. She’d been someone I loved deeply, shared all my shit with, sat and stuffed my face with, while gorging ourselves on romance and horror movies. Mama Rita had been everything to me that a friend could be. And now she was my enemy. Top of the list.

  How the fuck did this happen? How does a love like that go from Point A to Point WTF? I still didn’t get it, no matter how much I hated her.

  “Because she is like everyone else who has left a stain on your life,” Caramel Man whispered softly. “She manipulated you in the worst way, more so than anyone else. At least your father never made you think he cared like she did.”

  “She really did. It hurts.”

  “Turn that pain around like you have with the rest of it.”

  “I have. Before you.”

  Before him? What does that mean?

  I closed my eyes, thinking. Was it natural to be this cold? What lived in ice and moved around? Oh, yeah. Me. But was it natural?

  “Why am I here?”

  “Akira?”

  “I don’t understand why I’m here. I promised…” I took a step back, mazoku hissing behind me.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Are you really that scared of getting my blood on you? Is that it? Even one splash of tenshi juice, even if it is watered down, and you’ll blow up. Cool idea, huh? Shall we try it?”

  From the corner of my eye, I watched it move to my side, then to join the others down the end of the corridor. That was four sets of eyes now.

  “They’re gonna go tittle-tattle on me,” I said. “Want them too. Waiting for it.”

  “You need to focus, Akira.”

  Right. Focus. What had I been thinking about? Ugh. Groggy. Hated groggy. Shouldn’t be groggy out on the field.

  Too much…

  “Akira? Are you okay?”

  “No.” My arms dropped to my sides, their points slamming into the carpet. “I don’t understand why I’m here. I told G I wouldn’t be a dick. And I was gonna stick to it. I really was. I was gonna wait inside to be moved and break the curse and take no risks and be good and mature and stay by his side because that’s the right thing to do. That’s what I’m supposed to do for the greater good even though I just wanna save my uncle because he’s… Elves! Mama Rita! Fuck ‘em all!”

  I was so torn. “Warm, cold, warm, cold. What do I do?”

  “Hold still,” Caramel Man said.

  “I want to go. I shouldn’t be here.” Warm.

  “Remember the mission.”

  Mission was cold.

  My babies yelped, skulking away from wherever they were upstairs. Upstairs? Where was I?

  “Babies?”

  Warm and cold, warm and cold.

  Mission? Kill Mama Rita… No. End the curse? No. End Mama Rita with the power of death… What? That’s not how it works…

  Bob and Rose were crying, confused. It stung. Didn’t want them distressed.

  Silver wolves… Gray. Should be gray, not silver.

  I wanted to see them. “Come ba—”

  Cold drifted over the warm spots in me, a blissful caress.

  “Blissful,” I said out loud.

  “That’s right, Akira.”

  I blinked, drew in air deeply, released it. “What happened?”

  “You tell me,” Caramel Man countered. “What’s the mission?”

  “Kill that bitch.”

  “And what else?”

  “Let the world be new.”

  “Good.”

  “What else is there?” I asked. “I mean, this is the one and only way. You told me that.”

  “Correct.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “As long as you are, I’m fine.”

  “I’m good.” I lifted my swords, pointing them at the mazoku. “These fuckers won’t be, though.”

  “How can we make him stay dead?” That whining voice… Mama Rita. I focused on her again, done with looking at the creepy dickheads glaring at me.

  “We blow him to pieces,” Violet replied.

  “That would be wonderful. Keep telling me—”

  Hissing, a swirl of shadow. A mazoku had joined them. It hissed some more, Mama Rita sitting up suddenly, knocking Violet’s hand away.

  “He’s here?” she said.

  Ha! Didn’t look so sick now. Well, she did. Guess a shock can get your arse in gear and pull you out of your self-pity.

  “I’ll go, my queen,” Sean cut in.

  My queen? Someone pass me the sick bucket. Actually, make it two!

  As Sean moved across the room, Mama Rita said to the mazoku, “Check outside for any backup. Kill them on sight.”

  She was good and scared. “Come back, babies,” I said.

  They obliged, and I smiled.

  Time to kill myself a warlock.

  Chapter Ten

  Gabriel

  We paused under the concrete canopy of a convenience store to check the tracking device, sheltering from the endless rain.

  What was this coming attack? High Alpha had said to be ready for the rain. What did it mean? Was this just the start? Conditions were certainly a lot worse outside now than when we’d left the safehouse. Scarily worse. There was a real possibility of the city flooding.

  I hopped from foot to foot as Zach and Junto huddled over the device. Primed with adrenaline, I wanted to keep moving. The energy within me was rife, slightly overwhelming, but the more energy I had, the better an instrument I was
for Aki.

  “Where is he?” I asked a little too impatiently.

  “One moment,” Junto said, brushing raindrops from the screen.

  Shelter my foot! The wind was blowing most of the water this way.

  I peered into the store window. It was all brightly lit but closed, shelves colorful and fully stocked.

  The temperature was really starting to drop. It didn’t bother me, though. I barely felt it, just a tickle of chilliness. This was the highest level of adrenaline I think I’d ever had flowing through my system, and I’d been in some seriously adrenaline-stirring situations. It was a strange combination of floating on cloud nine from the pain relief suppressing my injury, the tingle from the advanced healing properties Formula GX brought, and the constantly spiking energy. Tenshi! It was incredible but brought with it plenty of frustrations. Especially when taking a pause like we were right now. I know it was essential to keep a proper tab on Aki, but it wasn’t action. It was waiting. I was so sick of waiting and being useless and injured. I was better now, ready to fight. To hell with it being a placebo, with the inevitable crash waiting around the corner once these shots ran out. I was back to myself.

  Not really…

  “Apartment block,” Junto said. “Abandoned. He’s just gone inside.”

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “Follow me.”

  I kept pace on his left, Zach on his right. We headed down a dark street of closed stores and parked cars, apartments above them towering over us, snaking a way towards our destination. Whatever street we crossed, no matter how tall the buildings were, how narrow the space felt, the silver moon was always there, a hanging disc of doom, a reminder of the death it would be inflicting on me right now if I was still lupine.

  Consumption by silver sickness was a slow, painful death if the quantity of silver was beyond a certain point, yet the brightness of this moon would bring the end much quicker, I’d wager. Burn the skin, a special kind of toxic UV ray searing through flesh, down to the bone, burning everything to dust.

  Just a grim thought. I really didn’t want to see what it could do to a wolf. I’d lost a friend to silver sickness. A werewolf called John. Really sweet guy who had been destined for great things in the world of science. He’d been testing silver at a lab he worked at in Chicago when the accident happened. The silver exposure had been so high, so potent, that there was no coming back from it. Not even his werewolf healing could save him. That’s what too much did. And it really did have to be a lot to end a wolf’s life.