Forgotten Destiny 5

by Odette C. Bell

  By the time I opened it, Peter had picked himself up from the coffee table, glass shards sticking into his skin. He appeared to rip them out with magic as he sent a charging pulse of green power slamming over his form. He practically unhinged his jaw and started screaming.

  He sounded like the undead.

  Me? I didn’t stick around. I threw myself out of the door and closed it tightly. Then almost immediately, I thrust it open, expecting it to lead to somewhere else in the city. After all, Max had told me that every single door in the house would now lead to Madison City, and that I, as the only sorcerer, would be the only person able to use it.

  I didn’t open the door to Madison City. I opened it to the sight of Peter barreling toward me.

  I screamed and jerked the door shut just in time, keeping a hand locked on the handle.

  Though I didn’t have that much magic to give, what I did have I sunk into the handle, forcing it to lock.

  I also pushed magic over the wood, trying to protect it from what I knew would happen next. And sure enough, I was right. The door shook as if it had just been struck by a tank.

  Even though it was thick, I could still hear Peter screaming from the opposite side.

  What had happened to my map spell? Had it degraded over time? Or—

  A thought struck me and practically knocked me off my feet.

  Then I heard it. The sounds of a magical fight further into the house.

  Jason. He must have penetrated the walls. And when he had, he must’ve broken the spell.

  Peter kept screaming as he threw himself at the door over and over again. He was holding nothing back, and with every charge of magic he slammed into the wood, I lost more of mine.

  I had to get out of here.

  I had to hide. And… then what? Find a way to destroy the seventh set right underneath everybody’s noses? I doubted they’d stand around peacefully while I did that.

  But I had to give it a try.

  With no other option, I closed my eyes, sank my last charge of magic into the door, and finally pushed off.

  I expected it to shatter behind me and for Peter to come barreling out, but obviously my sorcerer magic was holding up. For now.

  I knew it wouldn’t hold up much longer.

  I threw myself at the closest set of stairs, running up them, not down. After all, down was where the sounds of battle were coming from.

  By the time I reached the third-floor landing above, I finally heard the sound of wood shattering and Peter bellowing through the house. If I’d had any hope that he wouldn’t have announced our arrival for everyone to hear, that hope was well and truly dashed.

  So I threw myself forward.

  I tried to make every single footfall quiet so I didn’t advertise exactly where I was.

  It was hard. I’d never been so scared in my life. Because this was a different fear to the one I’d experienced on that parapet as I’d stared up at the chaos.

  Even then… I swear I’d had the impression that the chaos wasn’t bad. It was just chaos. The hearts of twisted men, however? They could be bad in every way.

  As one such twisted man was barreling after me. Though I’d hoped Peter would get confused and head downstairs, I quickly heard the pounding sound of his footfall as he raced up to me.

  Sweat drenched down my brow as my heartbeat thumped in my chest.

  I reached for the closest door, opened it, and shoved in.

  I closed it behind me and locked a hand on the handle.

  A few seconds later, I felt Peter’s charged body barrel into it.

  I almost lost grip on the handle.

  Tears streaked down my cheeks.

  Why had I done this? Why had I come back here with the book? I’d sensed an opportunity, but….

  “Beth?” someone said from behind me.

  I jerked my head around, almost losing grip on the handle.

  Because it was Max.

  He was seated on the edge of a couch, his arms held loosely between his knees, his body hunched forward.

  He had the expression of a defeated man.

  No, wait. He had the expression of a betrayed man.

  But I didn’t have time for this. “Max – Peter Mercure is here – he’s trying to get through the door. He wants the seventh set. You have to help me.”

  Max’s eyes locked on the book under my arm, and slowly, he shifted his gaze to me. He looked betrayed on every level. Like a man who’d given his heart to someone only to see it crushed and left over in the trash the next day. “You betrayed me, Beth. You found the seventh set rather than destroying it. You always wanted power, didn’t you? You always wanted to be special, didn’t you, Beth?” his voice arced up high.

  “Max, snap out of it. Peter is after the seventh set. I know he’s your estranged uncle,” I added with force. “He was waiting for this opportunity—”

  “And so were you, weren’t you? We could have found that book and destroyed it together. But you betrayed me.”

  What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he see reason?

  He looked like a man trapped in a nightmare.

  He wouldn’t push off his seat to come and help me, even though it sounded as if a raging bull was assaulting the door. He just sat there, his arms between his legs, his face awash with betrayal.

  “You betrayed my brother, and now you’re betraying me. Was this always your plan?”

  “Look, Max, I have no idea what you’re doing right now, but you need to listen to me,” I said, my voice dipping down low with force as I scrounged the power to keep the door closed. “There is a madman on the opposite side of that door. And once he gets in, he will steal this book. I don’t have the power to take him on at the moment.”

  “Then just use the seventh book. That was always your plan, wasn’t it? From the very start, you wanted more power, Bethany Samson. You never fitted in. From your looks, to your intelligence, to everything else – it didn’t work. And now you have the means to change all of that. Well done. I won’t stop you from using the seventh. I can’t stop you from doing anything, can I?”

  I would be well and truly justified in walking over to him and slapping him, but I really didn’t have the time right now. “Max, I have absolutely no idea what’s wrong with you—” I began.

  A mistake.

  He finally pushed up. “You betrayed me. That’s what’s wrong with me. You betrayed my trust. I shared with you the truth,” he said, struggling to swallow. “I told you everything about the Zero Prophecy, about my family – about our destiny,” he added, his voice becoming so constricted, I could barely make his words out. “And you betrayed me. You were only after the books.”

  I stared at him. This was not the Max I remembered. Though it would be easy enough to give into anger right now – considering how much I’d just been through – I held onto hope.

  And even as I thought that, subconsciously, my hands tightened around the seventh book. “I didn’t betray you, Max. I realized this was the only way to save you.”

  He had a wild look in his eyes now.

  “How is this saving anyone? You’ve stolen the seventh set—”

  “I don’t have time for this,” I spat. “Either help me or stand there. Do what you want to.”

  “It is you who has always done what you want to—” he insisted, taking a step toward me, making it clear that he was going to continue the argument no matter what.

  “Goddammit, Max. Your angry estranged uncle is on the opposite side of the door. And when he gets in, we’re toast. Can you just drop it already?”

  “You always wanted a convenient life, didn’t you? Fortunate that you became a complete finder. Now you can find a way to do anything and get whatever you want.”

  I was reminded instantly of Max’s favorite saying – that an opportunity for one person may not be an opportunity for another.

  And I was reminded instantly of the strategy I developed around that conundrum.

  The truth.

&n
bsp; Just thinking of it brought me back to the chaos – reminded me how the truth had opened up a path through that swirling black mass until I’d regained a body once more.

  The truth had set me free.

  Now, as I looked at Max and struggled to keep hold of the door handle, I wondered if the truth could set Max free, too.

  “Your father lied to you, Max. The Zero Prophecy was never anything more than a myth. One designed to keep the Knights family in power.”

  Max twitched. It was a bodily movement, and for a face usually as handsome as his, it contorted every feature until he looked as if he were a caricature. “Stop lying. Stop trying to justify whatever you want to do with fiction,” he spat as he gestured to the seventh set.

  “Listen to me, Max. I don’t know what’s going on with you – I don’t know what kind of spell you encountered when you opened that door in the tunnel – but it’s done something to you. You can’t see reason anymore. You’re stuck in your head. In your dreams,” I added. As soon as I added that, something clicked.

  I tilted my head to the side, and my lips parted.

  That’s when I heard something slam into the door.

  This time, I couldn’t hold it. I was forced forward. I fell onto my face several meters away, the book still clutched in my arm.

  The door was blown off its hinges, and wood shards erupted everywhere. They were laced with magic, and anything they struck singed immediately.

  Peter pounded in. His body was green all over.

  “Give me the book,” he snarled.

  He didn’t bother to take it off me – he demanded it.

  I still had it hooked under my arm, pressed against my chest protectively.

  And it still weighed nothing more than a feather.

  “You were never trustworthy, Beth. You were always a fake. I see that now. You could’ve had a history with me, but you chose not to, because you are greedy,” Max continued.

  It was as if he either hadn’t seen the massive, growling, evil warlock in the middle of the room, or he simply didn’t care that Peter had burst in.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I spat under my breath.

  I pushed to get up. That’s when I heard footfall.

  Jason.

  At the sight of him, I swore my heart sang. Yeah, okay, I get it, there’d never been anything real between us, but at least he could help me now, right?

  Except at the sight of the book, something happened to his face.

  He looked at me with just the same amount of betrayal as Max had. “I was going to protect you from that, Beth. I was going to keep you safe. Why couldn’t you trust me? Why couldn’t you trust anyone, Beth?”

  “This is insane. This was utterly insane.” I knelt there on the ground, keeping the book protectively hugged against my chest as I shook.

  Peter continued to stand there, snarling at me, as bright as a star as both Max and Jason stood either side of him.

  None of these men got on, but apparently that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was me and the book.

  I shrugged back, my shoulders banging against the edge of the couch as I now wrapped both arms around the book.

  “Give me the book, or everyone dies,” Peter snapped. “You don’t care about that, do you? You don’t care that I have Susan and Olivia and the rest of your family. You will happily see them die. You are a worthless individual. You are worse than the criminals you hunt down. You are worse than the kingpins. You know better, but you don’t act.”

  “Why couldn’t you have just waited, Beth?” Jason tried.

  “Why couldn’t you have trusted?” Max added with a bitter hiss.

  I closed my eyes, squeezed them tightly shut, and screamed.

  This was insanity. This was some strange form of purgatory….

  Purgatory?

  I opened my eyes.

  I couldn’t still be in the chaos, could I?

  Even as I thought that, I shook my head. The chaos felt unique. And as I’d already concluded before, it wasn’t that scary. This?

  It was hell.

  All three of these men seemed to be in a world of their own, trapped by their own lies.

  … And yet none of them were attacking. It was obvious they all wanted the seventh book, and yet it seemed equally as obvious that they couldn’t pull it from my grasp.

  … Did I have to give it to them freely?

  It was almost as if somebody was connected to my mind, because as soon as I thought that, Peter took a jerked step forward and snarled. “You’ve condemned everybody, all because you are too weak.”

  “If only you’d allowed others to protect you, Beth, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” Jason added.

  “You should have trusted me like I trusted you,” Max spat.

  I pinned the book against my chest.

  And I pulled in on myself.

  I didn’t allow their words to affect me, even though they could have. They were all things I’d thought. Yes, I knew I wasn’t as attractive as Max, and yes, I knew my style of dealing things with things wasn’t popular, either. In many ways, I wasn’t worthy. But in every way that didn’t frigging matter. The only thing that mattered was the truth. And it seemed as if somebody was controlling this entire situation to pull me away from it.

  So I clutched hold of that book tighter. “You’re still out there, aren’t you? Still controlling the situation, even from beyond the grave. Just like you twisted your sons and your brother, you’re still twisting them. So come out, Paul,” I snapped.

  If any of the three men in front of me were in their right minds, they would probably legitimately conclude that I was going crazy.

  They weren’t in their right minds, and that was the point.

  I swore I felt something constricting in the room, something moving through the air like an invisible snake. It was Paul, wasn’t it? Maybe the stress of the situation really was sending me insane, or maybe I was onto something.

  I clenched my teeth. “You’re still controlling them from beyond the grave – just what you always wanted to do, right? That’s what powerful men can do with powerful stories, isn’t it? You write a compelling enough narrative and you give each person a role in it, like you did with both your sons, and you get to ensure they will never break free. You craft a living prison for them, all so that one day they will find you a complete sorcerer,” I clutched the book tighter, “who can finally grab you the seventh set. All so you can come back from the grave. So you can continue controlling everybody through their dreams.” As soon as I said that, I stopped. For that was the power of the seventh, wasn’t it? To control others through their expectations. And that was precisely what Paul had been doing his entire life. From Max and Jason, from the Zero Prophecy to Internal Affairs – he’d been controlling everybody in this game to ensure they could never see past his dreams for them.

  Neither of the three men present said anything anymore. They all had the strangest glassy-eyed looks about them.

  “You… invented this entire thing, didn’t you? All to ensure that one day you could come back from the grave and control people completely.”

  “You understand nothing,” I heard a voice from right beside me.

  I didn’t need to turn over my shoulder to see his stone-gray blue eyes.

  It was Paul. He was now seated on the couch. There hadn’t been the crackle of portal magic to announce his arrival – he’d simply appeared as if he’d always been there.

  He stared out at his sons and brother.

  I had no idea what the look in his eyes meant.

  I stared at him breathlessly, then clenched my teeth. “You got lost looking for the seventh set, didn’t you? Lost in the chaos,” I added. “Everyone thought you were dead, but you weren’t. You were just waiting.”

  He nodded. “I managed to find a way to access the chaos without all six sets present. But it turned out to be dangerous,” he said through stiff lips. “I got trapped there. But no trouble. I just h
ad to wait for you to come along. In claiming the seventh set, you pulled me back into reality.”

  He thumped his hands on his knees. They sounded real.

  Fear shot through me. It was alarm the likes of which I had never experienced.

  An externally controlled Peter and Jason were one thing. A terrifying thing. But Paul? Was a full sorcerer.

  He stood to his full height. He opened his hands then clenched them. Magic sparked over his body. It was blue, just like mine.

  I was still seated there, back pressed up against the couch, body shaking.

  “It wasn’t all a lie,” he suddenly announced as he turned to face me. “It all depends on how you define a lie.”

  “What are you talking about?” my voice shook.

  “Tell me where the line is between your dreams and reality?”

  I shook my head and blinked hard, sweat stinging my eyes.

  “The line is ever-shifting. Take your vision,” he said, voice biting down low. “The first time you had it, you believed it was true, didn’t you? Because it felt true.” He clutched a fist, brought it up, and tapped it on his chest twice.

  “… You… created that vision somehow, didn’t you? With D 20 – with those fictitious stories from Max’s mother’s diaries – it was all just a fabrication.”

  “I planted the seeds. Your mind did the rest. Now tell me, what is the difference between a dream and reality? When you close your eyes at night, you fall asleep, and you experience,” he emphasized that word, “another world. Who are you to say that it is not true and real?”

  “It’s not real,” I said flatly. “It’s nothing more than imagination.”

  “But it feels real. So I’m asking, what’s the difference? When you had that vision, it felt real. So it was real. When my sons,” he said, tilting his head to the side as he walked around their still, locked forms, “found out about the Zero Prophecy,” he said as he brought a hand up and patted some dust off Max’s shoulder, “they chose to believe it. With all their hearts. And in every subsequent action, they made it true. So let me ask this – doesn’t that make the Zero Prophecy real?”