A loud crack cut through the tranquility, followed by the rat-a-tat of a drill bit hammering at the walls. Our surroundings shook as we shared uneasy glances. Our party of four wasn’t alone in experiencing the majesty of the Tributary’s source. MagiTekk was already mining it for all its worth—on Malcolm Roark’s orders.
Ready to transport it back to headquarters, for use in creating more super soldiers.
I raised my finger to my lips, taking the lead. The group fell in line behind me, except for Argos, who I picked up and handed to Kalos. The dog wasn’t a warrior, and his splashing footsteps might as well have shouted our arrival to whoever lurked deeper within the grotto. Many years ago, when I’d first met him, we had tried to set a forest trap for an alpha werewolf.
He had been enthusiastic, but useless. Our plan had been, needless to say, unsuccessful.
Clutching the pistol, I followed the magical glow further into the cave. Now, the essence strands wove together through the air, like a kaleidoscope of wisps painting a brilliant picture. I knew they weren’t my own, since I was still feeling the suppressive effects of Aiko’s blue vial.
I whispered, “Do you guys see this?”
“It’s incredible,” Argos said with a low, affirmative growl. “This energy might be as old as time itself.”
I stopped abruptly, peering beyond the rainbow display. On the walls, in brilliantly bold color, were the same pictograms from the catacombs. In awe, I silently followed the glowing strands of essence, following the story of Ragnarök and the Tributary.
I reached the panel which predicted the Realm’s reopening—and the barbarian hordes flowing in. Peering next to it, I found one final carving that had been absent in the catacombs.
“It’s a story of rebirth,” Argos said behind me. I saw the border collie’s snout poking through my legs. “Rising from the ashes long after Ragnarök.”
“A prophecy?”
“More a hope.” Argos edged further through, studying the final panel up close. “That one day, far in the future, someone would finally right the wrongs of that awful time.”
But it still didn’t answer the main question.
“How?” I brushed my hands along the glowing cracks. The magical energy tingled on my fingertips but no ancient wisdom or messages flowed through my veins.
Argos said, “Someone will know the way.”
“That’s it?”
“The gist of it, yeah.” Up ahead, MagiTekk’s industrial extractors pounded away, strip mining the source for its precious water. Each thud intensified in magnitude, like the person running the machines was in a hurry to get things done.
Walking in silence along the bank of the clear, cool pool, we continued onward.
Up ahead, the magical glow died, replaced by man-made floodlights. The grotto-like tunnel opened into a brilliant cavern stretching high up in the air. Drill bits and equipment glinted like assassin’s daggers from the craggy rafters, slicing into the ancient rock at odd angles.
Then I saw it.
The source.
A fountain upon a pedestal embedded in the far wall. Right at our level, perfectly accessible without climbing. Surrounded by teeming flowers and life that even MagiTekk’s grinding machines couldn’t kill, it looked positively radiant.
But everything was too good to be true.
For Malcolm’s voice cut above the pulsating drills.
“I guess we don’t have a deal, then.” A grenade bounced along the bank, rolling up to my feet.
And then I dove into the perfect water as the world shattered around me.
38
A cold wave crashed over me as I swam to the opposite bank. I blinked away the mist. I could sense the source’s infinite possibility as I tasted the droplets. Far more powerful than what flowed into the forest stream below.
Unfortunately, my own source of power had vanished into the pool. For the pistol was gone.
Another explosion rocked the cavern. Rocks fell from the ceiling, peppering the shore. I huddled in a ball, debris falling around me. I heard the machinery whir to a grinding halt somewhere above.
Malcolm yelled, “Don’t stop, you fools!”
But the drills didn’t restart. Maybe his lackeys had realized the truth: that this operation would enrich Malcolm Roark, but would do little to change their own lives. Or it could have been that the everything had been destabilized by the explosions.
Pushing myself off the shore, I saw Malcolm darting down, hopping from rock to rock like an agile goat. His suit or the recent bullet wounds didn’t slow him. Indeed, he seemed more powerful than before, if that was at all possible.
I spotted the knife on the opposite bank and plunged back into the water to retrieve it. My weary bones felt soothed, the water whispering for to me to stay.
But I had to get the blade.
There was no sign of Roark. Kalos and Argos had washed up near where we had entered, by the tunnel. I couldn’t tell whether they were still alive or not. Clambering up the muddy bank, I scrambled for the knife, feeling the familiar hilt in my hand.
Malcolm landed on the opposite shore with what seemed like a seismic impact. His suit was torn from the bullet holes, the blood still wet on his shirt. But there no entry wounds dotted his skin.
His silver hair slick with sweat, an angry, vengeful expression twisting his stern jaw, he looked like the Malcolm I knew.
Only moreso.
“You could’ve stopped this, Ruby.” Malcolm clenched and unclenched his fists, the sinews and bones crack with raw power. “When they all die, it will be on your head.”
“They’re not going to die.” Using some reserve of adrenaline and energy I didn’t know existed, I charged into the source with a ragged cry. Malcolm stood his ground on the opposite shore, watching me swim across but making no effort to meet me in the water.
I stumbled up the bank and swung the knife at his head. He sidestepped the blow and launched a hard, flat palm into my solar plexus. I reeled into the cavern’s rock face, temporarily stunned, barely hanging on to the knife. Gasping for air, I limped around to face him.
Malcolm hadn’t moved.
“You cannot win.” He removed his bloodied suit jacket and loosened his tie. “I have planned for this day for over twenty years.”
“I bet it didn’t end with a knife in your throat.”
“It always ends the same,” Malcolm said. “With absolute power.”
Throat raw, I summoned a feral scream and charged again, this time slashing for his ankles. He jumped backward, dodging the blade once more. I hurtled by harmlessly, and he tripped me, sending me to the rough ground. The blade clattered from my grip, falling into the pool. With a sinking feeling, I watched as it disappeared in the clear water, leaving me unarmed.
Malcolm finally moved from his post, striding over to hoist me up by the collar of the loose blouse. I bit him on the hand, and he punched me in the face.
“I told you I’d watch you die slowly.” His hands wrapped around my throat. I could feel the hatred, the years of killing, in his rough thumbs as they cut off my windpipe.
“Fuck…you.” Not the best use of my limited oxygen, but immensely satisfying. I flailed and kicked with my feet, the sensible shoes coming loose on the rocks.
“Do you want to know why I was willing to sacrifice my son? Both of them?”
Because you’re a psychopath.
But the question was rhetorical, seeing as how I was all out of breath.
Malcolm’s fingers pressed deeper against my neck, his short nails digging into my throat. “Because they didn’t have the stomach for what needed to be done to succeed.”
“It’s called a soul.” Roark’s voice cut through the cavern like a chime. From the edge of my blurry vision, I saw him emerge from the pool, water dripping from his lean body. He spat on the shore and cleared his throat, brandishing a pistol. “A funny thing happens when you drink from the source.”
“You see the truth.” Malcolm’s grip rel
eased slightly, allowing me a gasp of precious air.
“I saw you, down in the Underworld. Trading your soul to become part Shade. To make sure Solomon Marshall was trained as a necromancer. And then returned to Earth. You caused panic for your own gain.”
“Nothing sells like fear, son.”
Roark cocked the hammer. “I should’ve shot you in the head.”
“Well, now’s your chance, Colton.” Malcolm finally released my neck. I let out a wheezing cough and slumped to the rocky ground. MagiTekk’s CEO raised his hands over his silver hair, his imperious eyes urging his son to pull the trigger. “Come on. Do it. Kill your old man. Prove you have what it takes.”
“Revenge won’t fix anything.” Roark’s voice was surprisingly steady. Maybe what he had seen beneath the stream’s placid surface had told him that carrying that burden would be unbearable. Even if his father was an evil man, Malcolm was still his father.
And he was the only family Roark had left.
“I’m seeing a lot of talk. Whining. Who made you an FBI Agent? Who made you a Ghost? That was me. My blood. My bullets. My tears.” Malcolm pounded his chest angrily, his aura turning savage. “I built an empire. And you’re nothing but an ungrateful little insect. A coward.”
He stepped forward on the bank, tempting Roark to shoot.
“I’m not my father’s son,” Roark said. “On your knees.”
“Shoot me.”
“I’m not like you.”
“You’re right.” Malcolm’s eyes gleamed with intense disappointment. “You have no spine.”
Then he charged forward like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Roark didn’t have the opportunity to shoot before his father was upon him, driving them both into the deep pool. The surface churned with bubbles before Malcolm emerged, his short gray hair slicked down to his skull.
His hands were beneath the surface, holding Roark down in the cold water.
I crawled toward the pistol, focusing my energy as Pearl’s written words echoed in my ears.
When the time comes, Ruby, you will have to kill the father. Even if it means risking the hatred of the son.
But if I was going to do this, I had to be sure.
A vision fired through my synapses, showing two divergent paths. Malcolm Roark in jail, awaiting punishment for his crimes. The media in a frenzy, people wondering if he deserved the worst. After all, he had protected them against the supernatural in a time of upheaval—there being no playbook for such matters. His sentence drawn out over years, dividing and cracking the Realms until there was nothing but fractured souls and hatred left.
And then the alternative—what Pearl had always warned me about. Roark unable to look me in the eye. But not because I’d killed his father, but because he knew who I was.
That I would do bad things to prevent worse ones.
The vision faded, leaving a dull thud in my temple.
I grasped the pistol, feeling the slick grip in my palm as I aimed it carefully at Malcolm’s head, right between the eyes. Shades were hard to kill. The cold water would help solidify his form, make sure the bullets didn’t pass through. But I needed to ensure that whatever restorative magic coursing through his veins couldn’t fix the damage I was about to inflict.
Whatever Malcolm had used to block my shotgun rounds in the construction yard must’ve been technologically based. Stopping bullets clearly wasn’t part of his magical DNA, because Roark had perforated him only an hour ago.
“Hey, Malcolm.” The silver-haired man stiffened in the clear water. “Let your son go.”
“What are you waiting for?” Malcolm didn’t comply. Roark still thrashed in his father’s unrelenting grip, the water churning.
“Just savoring the moment,” I said, telling him the truth.
“Little bitch. You’re responsible for all this. You.”
“I doubt that.”
“We studied you all those years in the camp, like a little rat running through a maze. Found out how to transport the water between realms. Found out the weak points between them. All from you.” Malcolm looked at me with a crazed grin. “We knew everything. But in the end, I underestimated you.”
I steadied the shaking gun with my free hand. “That was a mistake.”
“You’re more than a killer. You actually care.”
“Or maybe you found out exactly who I am.”
I pulled the trigger, staining the river red.
39
I finished draining the source’s water after dragging Roark to the rocky bank. Upon climbing up the cavern’s precarious path, I had found the proper machines and turned on the requisite conveyer belts. The precious water was shuttled through the rift—but not to Malcolm Roark’s compound. Instead, I redirected the cache to the Fae Plains. MagiTekk had apparently figured out how to reopen the entrance through which I had originally come.
Prince Martin would hopefully know what to do. And wouldn’t get punch drunk with the possibilities of the water.
Given that everyone else had tapped out of the fight, it was my decision to make. MagiTekk had large drums stocked and ready for just this purpose. Why they hadn’t emptied the reservoir already was a mystery.
Perhaps even Malcolm knew to tread carefully around such power.
I didn’t waste time reflection.
I still had one last job to do.
The Tributary, idyllic as it was, wasn’t fit for humanity. I knew not what other power lurked in its verdant trees, but I doubted the source alone was the only thing lurking with this abandoned city of the dead gods. People would come searching for this power, as they were wont to do.
Collapsing the Realm was the only way to prevent future bouts of extreme megalomania.
Before I set paradise ablaze, however, I needed to make sure my allies were safe. I awakened them one by one, feeding them water directly from the fountain on the pedestal. The purest and most potent liquid of all. The magic seemed to cleanse their very souls, rejuvenating them beyond full strength.
Kalos examined the once sparkling pool, which was now a deep chasm. “Where’d the rest go?”
“Executive decision,” I said. “We need to leave.”
Roark said, “We can build a new world here. Use the resources for good instead—”
“You almost sound like this idiot,” I said, throwing a nod at Kalos. “It’s done.”
“We should’ve discussed this together,” Roark said, looking hurt.
“You either trust me or you don’t.” I glanced at my three companions. “I made the call.”
“I don’t know, Ruby.” Argos laid down on the cavern’s rocky steppes and flicked his pointy ears back. I had a mutiny on my hands. That was what I got for saving all their asses.
But it was a big decision. I didn’t expect everyone to agree. But in the vision, I’d seen something else: a future free of the gods’ legacy, and an alternative—one resembling our own, still tainted by it. I, for one, was sick of ancient secrets biting me in the ass.
It was time for the world to rise from the ashes on its own. Wherever that path led.
“You don’t have to agree,” I said, placing the pistol on the craggy rocks before heading down the narrow path. I stepped over Argos’s prone body. “But you should know something.”
“What?” Kalos and Roark asked in suspicious unison.
“I set the machines on a timer.”
“To do what?” Kalos asked.
“To drill at maximum capacity, until they overheat.” Without turning around, I mimicked an explosion with my hands, sending the cloud high over my head. “So you can stay, or you can go.”
Alone, I walked back through the grotto, close to the edge of the empty pool.
The Realm’s brightly colored wisps greeted me one last time, enveloping me.
I couldn’t read anything in the rainbow of light.
I’d just have to trust the Tributary was telling me I’d made the right choice.
40
Kendrick
patted me on the shoulder and said, “Well, you did good, lass.” He stamped out his cigarette against the bar’s wooden door.
“Things ended up okay, didn’t they?”
“I still got customers.” Kendrick reached down and handed me one of the glasses he’d brought out for my send-off. I was moving on, moving out. The call of the nomadic life whispered in my ear once again. “One more for the road?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” I clinked the tumbler against his and tasted the cheap whiskey. “Cheers.”
“Don’t be gone too long, now,” Kendrick said, his wild white hair waving in the easy breeze. “You know Colton can’t handle everything.”
He disappeared into the bar, the heavy wooden door slamming shut with a loud thud behind him.
I winced. Pearl’s prophecy had contained more truth than I’d like. Roark didn’t agree with my handling of the Tributary. Nothing in this life came free, though.
Not even being a hero.
But I think things had turned out well, considering.
Sending the source’s water to Prince Martin proved to be the right call. He was a fair ruler—and if he had any delusions about stealing it all for himself, and fashioning himself king of all the realms, I sure as hell never saw them.
Upon taking the agreed upon share—I insisted on a full barrel for his troubles—he arranged for the rest to be transported back to Earth. After that, I squared my debts with Aiko, even dropping off a gallon of the liquid for Serenity as a thank you. She’d kept me in the fight with the booster shots, after all. And the FBI crawling up your ass was never fun.
It was the least I could do.
Ever the good elf, she’d tried to give me a check-up, but I’d waved her off. Bed rest wasn’t my style. If I hadn’t died by now, I figured I was resilient. Besides, I’d drank a little from the source myself. It had healed the cuts and bruises, rid me of the radiation poisoning’s lingering effects, closed the gunshot wounds in my shoulder, and even smoothed away the light scars on my back.
Blood River (The Ruby Callaway Trilogy Book 3) Page 16
