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

by Amos, Richard

I dodged a club, sliced into that guy’s stomach. Rock hard tummy didn’t save him. I stabbed him through the skull, killing him quick. Couldn’t be dealing with him screaming in agony with his guts hanging out.

  More sparks. I ducked, got caught on the right shoulder by green energy, and spun backward, cracking my right knee on the stairs. Pain exploded, sure, but I was ready to kill, to destroy.

  I pushed through, swords twirling, and took the head off the next ax guy with one blade, the other skewering the second club man right in the groin. I spun and cut his head off too. As I did, I let the other katana fly, catching the warlock in the stomach.

  He yelped, the blade sucking down his power as he fell backward. The wide-eyed witch got ready to fire as I surged up the stairs, diving forward as she did, cleaving through her shin.

  With both of them on the floor, I killed them quick, katanas pregnant with their energy and carried on drenched in sweat, aware of the pain in my knee and the crazy creature outside.

  “Akira!” Then a scream, a burst of white light radiating through the glass structure.

  Shaking again, a real boom. Man, this whole damn building was gonna come down.

  Something had distracted her, that was clear. SCU mazoku trap? Tenshi, please! That’d be awesome. It wouldn’t beat her back for long, but I had a chance to get to the top before she could crush me.

  Hopefully.

  Nice one, people!

  Mama Rita was arrogant and an idiot. She should’ve put more peeps in my way, or crushed me when she had the chance rather than try and act all big and scary. Okay, she was big and scary, but whatever.

  I rushed into the roofless top space, not stopping, charging up the rubbish pile towering above the walls of the place where everything had changed.

  The silver moon was brighter here than anywhere else I’d been. Almost sizzling, the junk beneath my feet glittering like a confetti cannon had gone off. My skin itched, my head grew a little fuzzy. This would leave a full werewolf nothing but ash.

  Behind me, half the building came down. The rubbish pile started to slide away.

  “Shit!”

  She was back, her big body rising up to loom over me, her neck curling towards me with her eight pals, their teeth bared.

  I jumped forward as the rubbish kept sliding, and set the warlock and witch magic free, white fireworks screeching in her massive face.

  Distracted again! And I thought I was bad.

  Boom for me, she was a total dick.

  This was it.

  Crossed katanas, me facing upwards, sliding down the receding trash pile again. The power of death stirred, hungry to be free. Pure death. The deadliest power I’d ever had at my disposal—a thing to kill the living curse.

  “No!”

  She threw herself forward as I unleashed the energy at the moon.

  Chapter Thirty

  Gabriel

  White rope tangled the mazoku as it went to slash at me again. It shrieked and tumbled to the side, thrashing wildly as the anti-magic rope tightened. All of the creatures did, each one snagged by the mazoku trap, nothing now but uselessly snared beasts. They were all over the bonnet, piled up on top of each other to block the moonlight. There were more in the back of the van, two of them in the driver’s cab with us.

  “Move quickly!” a male voice yelled. Was that Dan?

  I looked down at my wound. Not too bad. Three gouge marks to match the ones I’d had on my arm in Japan—healed by Formula GX. Bleeding, yes, but not deep enough to get to the bone.

  The slicer was still so close to me, red eyes flaring, body still. It hissed, hungry to tear me apart, bound in white rope.

  Every bone ached, my skull thundering from the crash. Blood trickled across my lips and down my chin.

  Moaning from under me. I was still crushing Ryoka and Zach.

  I pushed myself forward and grabbed the steering wheel, fingers inches from a bound mazoku mouth that rested there.

  With a grunt, I hefted myself up and off Ryoka, twisting, getting some footing on the handbrake and the edge of the passenger seat.

  Beneath Ryoka, Zach was squished up against the passenger door below. They were both conscious, noses bleeding too, Ryoka with a gash to his forehead. I helped him up, Zach pushing from below, and he yelped.

  “You okay?”

  “My leg,” Ryoka wheezed.

  Casting my eyes down revealed the shin bone of his left leg bursting through the skin.

  “Grab hold of me,” I said, helping him, locking him in my grip.

  Zach covered his lower half, supporting him by his legs.

  This wasn’t the ideal position to be in at all, but at least we weren’t shredded to pieces.

  “You good?” I said down to Zach.

  He watched me, then touched the back of his head. His fingers came back bloody.

  “Come on!” the man outside called again. Yes, that was Dan.

  Shrieks and booming, the sounds of chaos, were still rife beyond the van. The city was still facing the unthinkable, the mazoku out in force, Mama Rita raining down her horror show.

  “Aki…”

  Mazoku were dragged off the bonnet, letting light back in, and exposing Dan’s dark, black-bearded face.

  “Hey!” he yelled at me. “It’s so good to see your faces. Don’t worry, we’re getting you out. We—”

  “Akira!” Mama Rita’s voice thundered.

  A terrific crash followed, the van shaking as if trapped in an earthquake.

  “No!” someone cried. “She’s crushed it! She’s crushed it!”

  I saw the smoke cloud burst, puff up into the night.

  The building…

  The point of the curse.

  Mama Rita had crushed it…

  No…

  No…

  This wasn’t happening…

  Aki…

  No…

  Aki…

  “Aki!”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I was sucked upward as the building crashed and crumbled beneath me.

  The SCU agents… They’d be crushed.

  I was hurtling upward like a rocket on a space launch, no sign of stopping. My swords were attached to a chain of white energy with a massive skull on the end of it. Bit like a comet, and almost hilarious if I wasn’t gaining altitude by the second.

  Holy shit! Popsicle time! I was gonna either freeze or burn up or maybe both if my twisted imagination had anything to do with it. Whatever was gonna happen, I couldn’t get off this runaway train to space.

  So, I did what anyone else in this situation would do.

  I screamed my lungs out.

  THIS.

  WAS.

  SOME.

  REAL.

  PROPER.

  SERIOUS.

  MEGA.

  BULLSHIT.

  It wasn’t long until I left Earth, soared through the inky black sprinkled with stars, making a beeline straight for the moon.

  I wasn’t frozen or on fire. Air was still getting into my lungs between screams. Alive. I was alive.

  This must’ve been the fastest journey to the moon ever. I mean, when did it ever take two minutes to get there?

  My arms wouldn’t move, stuck in a forward point, aiming directly for the metallic silver cratered surface coming up to meet me.

  This is where I was gonna die.

  * * *

  Er, nope. Still not dead.

  It was the weirdest shit. I didn’t slow down, and I went straight into a crater, down into silvery darkness. When the blades stuck into rock, I just stopped, upside down, floating over them with their hilts still in my palms.

  White energy broke into a million rivers, quickly spreading out from where the blades stabbed, engulfing everything. Drowning the silver.

  Flicker of…

  What?

  Falling…

  The building…

  Tumbling…

  Rocks and dust and glass and pain. Coughing, choking, darkness…. No way out
…

  * * *

  I wasn’t on the moon but lying on top of rubble. The image of the moon blinked away, reality coming back to bite me in arse.

  What a bite it had.

  My back was agony, spine pressed against rock. I was outside, the dark sky above me, iron rain drenching me.

  Had it worked?

  The moon… It was… Where was it? There was light coming from somewhere, but not that same wolf-killing light. Normal moonlight. Right? Was that what I was seeing?

  Shit. Had I imagined my spaceflight? I didn’t know, my head pounding.

  Okay. Reality check. I was defo fucked up on the rubble pile of the fallen building. The pain in my spine, legs, and arms made that clear. As did the dust, the smell of burning and the glass sticking out of my left leg.

  I tried to sit up, yelping as all the pain went from ‘Hello’ to ‘HELLO, BITCH!’.

  Ugh.

  So that was defo cracked ribs, maybe one of the legs broken, maybe even the spine. No, not the spine. Really? I didn’t know for sure. The back of the head wasn’t feeling healthy.

  I sucked in the air greedily but coughing violently each time the agony blazed in my ribs and lungs. I had to get up, get out of here. Was help coming?

  Could’ve been buried under all this…

  “Hello…” I said weakly.

  The fact I could move my feet, wiggle toes and fingers and stuff was a good sign. No broken neck, but I’d defo cracked my head. The worst of mega throbs was going on in my skull.

  How many bones had I broken?

  Okay, Akira. Think. How do we get off this shit pile?

  One question of many…

  Where the hell was Mama Rita?

  Had I actually been to the moon? Doubtful now. Probably some fun metaphysical kick-back from releasing the power. I’d gone down with the building, but I got a fun space show before I had to face the music and hurt.

  Were my people okay? G? Zach? Ryoka?

  Was the curse broken?

  Had they found my dad?

  Gah!

  This sucked.

  Sirens, so many sirens. Shrieking too. Mazoku still at it. But there were no booming footsteps of Mama Rita.

  I lifted my head, almost puking at the effort. A mass of rubble, the acrid stench of burning really wafting at my nostrils now. I blinked, trying to focus on the skyline beyond—the lack of.

  Fuck. Had Mama Rita leveled the city? Had the mazoku ripped it apart?

  What the hell was I gonna do?

  “Hello…”

  The moon! There it was. Still the same sliver, but weaker. Was it cracking?

  The silver distorted and puffed outwards, a dandelion head blown to make a wish, the seeds spreading. Silver seeds, drifting away into nothing and leaving behind the regular moon I’d known all my life.

  “Is this real?” I said. “I did it?”

  The night sky vanished, did a proper color fade from inky back to a pale, daylight gray. It didn’t stop the rain, but the sun was there, behind those iron clouds.

  The sun.

  Oh, tenshi!

  I started crying because why the hell wouldn’t you?

  “It worked…” I breathed.

  The sun was back, the curse was gone. I’d done it. I’d fucking done it! The sun was here, and I was hurt real bad and crying and in so much pain, but I was so damn happy I didn’t give a shit.

  I’d broken the moon curse.

  Man, I almost passed out with relief.

  Movement, tumbling rocks.

  “Hello…” I lifted my head again, casting my eyes to the right where the sound was coming from.

  She staggered forward, almost naked, if not for the mazoku covering her up. Her hair was burned off, smoking, the right side of her face charred. In her arms was the dead body of Violet Cross. A really messed up, horribly burned Violet Cross. At least, she looked dead to me.

  Mama Rita.

  Oh, crap.

  “You!” She dumped the witch’s body and stepped over it. She’d been through the wringer. Had her spell thingy backfired? Had the SCU got one over on her? Whatever the answer, it was cool to see her fucked up.

  Not so cool that she bent over, picked up a nasty, jagged shard of glass, and kept staggering toward me.

  Shit. No way was this gonna be my ending.

  “Why couldn’t you have died the first time?” she seethed.

  The hilts of my katanas landed in my hands in that magnetic way they did. Problem was, I couldn’t lift them.

  Come on, now! You have to lift them!

  “This time, I’ll make it stick.” She stopped, swayed, and pointed the glass at me.

  I played a really dumb card in desperation. “We used to love each other.”

  She frowned, the burned skin on her forehead cracking open, blood oozing through the blackened sores.

  “Love? You think I loved you?”

  “When we were friends.” This was pathetic. Where was the cavalry? If they weren’t coming, I had to summon the strength to fight back.

  “Are you stupid?”

  “I—”

  “And you must think I’m stupid.” She laughed, then winced, obviously in pain.

  Good!

  “Time to come apart, Akira.”

  She fell forward, landing on her knees next to me, coughing and spluttering. Mazoku burst from her body, recoiling, still scared of me and my tenshi blood.

  Sunlight started to break through the clouds, a beam striking this spot. It was warm and made the dull iron rain sparkle.

  Mama Rita lifted the glass shard. It glinted, catching the sunlight. She brought it down on my right shoulder, the sharp edges sticking into my flesh.

  I yelled as a new pain was born, trying to move my arms to cut her. They wouldn’t move.

  She grunted and started to saw. I screamed, making her laugh, my blood spraying her face as she cleaved through muscle and bone.

  “Take you apart. Take these arms that took so much. No more fucking katanas for you.”

  Mazoku circled overhead, watching at a safe distance as their wannabe queen took my arm off.

  “Help!” I cried, cut off by another scream.

  “Take you apart,” she groaned. “Take you apart piece by piece.”

  Clusters of rainbow spots burst behind my eyes, the pain unbearable, my body flooding with the coldness of shock, wanting to tap out because it was too much. Way too much. I tried to scream, but my voice was a ball lodged in my throat, unable to get free.

  My chest was on fire, along with the rest of me. I coughed up blood, convulsing violently. I was completely helpless and totally screwed. Silent tears leaked down the sides of my face. With one final grunt, she ripped my arm free, the last tendon giving away.

  Was this the end? What a crappy way to go down!

  She held my arm above her head, the katana clattering to the ground. “Part one done. Now for—”

  A crack and a small hole appeared in her forehead.

  Bullet hole.

  Mama Rita, once bestie, now sworn enemy who’d just hacked off my arm, fell off to the side with a bullet hole in her head.

  Dead.

  She was dead.

  The mazoku shrieked and shot forward.

  The last thing I saw before the pain dragged me into unconsciousness was a trap going off.

  The last thing I heard was G calling my name.

  FIVE DAYS LATER

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Painkillers flooded my system most of the day and night, as well as the anti-biotics and all those other lotions and potions helping my body get better. I mean, it had to sort out broken ribs, a shattered knee, big gash on the back of my head, cuts all over my face, neck, and back, and cope with a severed arm and infection from the dirty glass and debris.

  I was getting there. The stuff I was on was powerful shit, and today I could actually sit in my wheelchair and face the grim scenery outside.

  So much destruction. The mazoku had spread t
hrough London, tearing it apart. Their prison of Hyde Park had fallen. To add to it, Violet’s followers had also taken to the streets, along with magic users. Thank fuck the rain had held the elves back. Hadn’t stopped their followers, though.

  And it wasn’t just here. London was the hardest hit, yeah, but cities across the world had the walls of their mazoku prisons fall, along with crazy peeps joining in the fun and getting torn up by the demons at the same time. Mazoku had no loyalty. They wanted to kill, to spill blood. They were…what’s the word? Anithe-something…. Antithesis of tenshi, of light and creation.

  The sky was proper blue and clear today, the sun really shining brightly over everything. The iron rain had finally stopped overnight. Should’ve been happier for a sunny day, but all it highlighted was the devastation, casting light to really show how badly the city had been beaten, how it was still smoking and reeling.

  As soon as the silver moon had died, the werewolves had burst free, and all hell had broken loose. I’d heard it outside this room in Hitoshi Hospital, the cannons and gunfire and screams, the helicopters and tanks and tenshi knew what else. I’d seen it too, the mazoku army in the sky, more buildings falling, and the skies lit up with an onslaught of anti-magic, of witch and warlock magic. I was almost evacuated out of here for fear this building would be next.

  The official death toll figures hadn’t been released yet, and my dad, along with Sarah and Riku, was still missing.

  Five days was too long to be missing.

  I sighed before the floor-to-ceiling window, all cried out for now.

  My arm couldn’t be saved. The cut too savage, and the infection preventing a rescue. I had to process that along with every other thing kicking at my heart. But I wasn’t in a place of dealing. Empty again, I guess, but not seized up like before. My part of the world had stopped spinning for now. I’d applied the brakes myself, needing to pause before I had a complete breakdown.

  “I’ve got you some cola,” G said, joining me at the window.

  Things to be grateful for: Zach and Ryoka were hurt, but doing okay, recovering in their own private rooms. And my G…my G. Scraped and bruised but still standing, the pillar of fucking strength as always. He’d been the one to pull the trigger and kill Mama Rita even after being in that van crash.