All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Forgotten Destiny Book Two
Copyright © 2017 Odette C Bell
Cover art stock photos: licensed from Depositphotos.
www.odettecbell.com
Forgotten Destiny
Book Two
Everything is complicated now. Except for Max. He knows exactly what he wants….
Beth is just settling down to being a finder. But everything is about to change.
Something is going down in Madison City. Someone’s shipping more D 20 in, and they want Beth to help. When they kidnap her, Beth is pushed into a fight for her friends, her life, and, critically, her future. You see, it’s time to find her future husband. Or will he find her?
Chapter 1
“I said keep up, Missy. Don’t drop behind! We’ve almost got him,” Josh spat as he threw himself further down the laneway.
I was only just keeping up. I was panting as if I’d just run a marathon.
This was ridiculous.
But I couldn’t afford the opportunity to tip my head back and scream that at Josh – he just turned another corner.
We were chasing a suspect. A witch who’d skipped out of remand.
He was a big bounty. And Josh, apparently, needed the money.
Me?
I needed a new lung.
I was wheezing badly, and the only thing keeping me going wasn’t, weirdly, that Josh kept shouting at me. It was because I’d tracked this guy down. I’d found him. After a couple of hours inundating myself with his story – everything that I could find on his file – and staring at his photo, I’d started to feel my magic.
It was coming stronger and thicker and faster these days. No, I still didn’t have the ability to find lost treasure or sunken gold.
But bounties?
Even though I knew Josh wouldn’t admit it, I was rapidly becoming his best employee. Okay, his only employee. The point was, I was worth my while.
Now?
I stopped for only a few seconds, pushing myself against some old brick wall beside me as I half closed my eyes and tried to desperately suck in a few breaths.
“I said move!” Josh bellowed, using a spark of magic to ignite his voice until I swore it echoed throughout the entire city.
“Goddammit,” I spat as I pushed myself off the wall and ran once more.
The guy we were after was a petty criminal. No, that was an understatement – he was a magical petty criminal. He wasn’t one of the big-time gangsters in the city, though. He just stole. Everything. From jars of jam from the local corner store, to rugs, to cars, to houses. And I’m not kidding you on the last one. A family woke up several months ago to realize that the roof and walls had been stolen from their house.
The guy – Jeremy Rodriguez – liked a challenge, apparently, and according to his backstory that had been provided by the police, he had the crazy ambition to steal every category of object before he was dead.
I wanted to point out that that was insane and impossible, but then again, I didn’t have the same skills as Jeremy Rodriguez.
He was an illusionist. That meant he could project images.
Illusionists were rare, but nowhere near as rare as finders.
There was a limit to their power, too. Jeremy couldn’t kick back and make the whole city think it was being invaded by aliens. What he could do, however, was walk into a shop, grab a packet of cigarettes off the wall, and use his powers to make it look as if the cigarettes were still there.
He was the perfect thief.
He was also, apparently, the perfect escape artist.
He’d saved his power up for several days while in remand until he’d seen his opportunity. Then he’d re-created a perfect image of himself, walked right out of his cell behind another inmate, and somehow managed to get out of the station.
Now he was on the run.
But though there were a lot of people that Jeremy could hide from, I was not one of them.
“I told you to get over here,” Josh roared for the thousandth time.
I put on a burst of speed.
Don’t ask me how I could do it. I’d never been a particularly athletic soul. But in the past month or so of working with Josh, my cardio had increased by default. It wasn’t just helping Josh track down criminals all across Madison City. It was the sheer amount of lung power I often needed to fight with him.
You see, Josh hadn’t gotten any more pleasant since the incident at the stadium. He still argued with me at any opportunity, and he was still as irritating as any childhood bully.
And though most of the time I just ignored him, when it mattered, I would put my foot down, and we would shout at each other until the cows came home.
Now I didn’t have the lung capacity left over to do anything other than wheeze.
I allowed my eyes to close for half a second, then I put on another burst of speed.
I rounded a corner until I could finally see Josh. Jeremy was just in front of him.
Except there were two Jeremys.
“The one on the left,” I screamed just as both Jeremys reached a T-intersection where two laneways crossed over, and each Jeremy went in opposite directions.
“Got it,” Josh roared. He was glowing with green-gold magic. It made him look as if he were a flare or a radioactive candle.
As soon as Josh pivoted to the left, the illusion of Jeremy disappeared, and the real Jeremy let out a hissing, frustrated breath. “Bitch,” he said.
“Don’t you dare swear at her,” Josh snapped, his voice echoing out.
Despite the fact I should really be concentrating on running, the smallest smile spread my lips. You see, when it mattered, Josh was actually on my side. He was probably always on my side, and he just liked to appear as if he was a brute.
Right now he put on a burst of speed, and he almost reached Jeremy.
But that would be when I felt Jeremy drop down.
It took me a few confused seconds to realize what had just happened.
The image of Jeremy remained completely stable. So did the image of the street. But my sense of where Jeremy was suddenly changed as it felt as if he was dropping through the very ground.
Josh ran forward, chasing the illusion.
I skidded to a halt.
“I said hurry up,” Josh bellowed from over his shoulder. “We’ve almost got him.”
I looked down at my feet. I brought my foot up, and I slammed it down. It hit metal – not pavement.
“The sewers. He’s gone into the sewers. He’s split again!” I managed as I got down on one knee and started hammering on the metal manhole beneath me, even though Jeremy had spelled it to look like another section of pavement.
It was Josh’s turn to skid to a halt. He turned it into a perfect pirouette, not that he would be happy if I told him he was a proficient ballet dancer. Josh threw himself back toward me. He skidded down to his knees and brought a hand up. His fingers were charged with green-yellow crackling sparks of magic.
I yelped and jerked out of the way just in time before Josh slammed his hand down on the manhole – or at least where it should be.
Jeremy’s illusion spell broke, sounding like a thousand mirrors shattering.
You know what? So did the manhole.
Fortunately red-hot shards of metal didn’t spew out in every direction, catch me, and shred me to pieces. Instead, every single scrap of metal burnt up in Josh’s magical flames.
He was showing a heck of a lot of power today. It wasn’t just because Jeremy would be worth a few bucks. It was because Josh had chased Jeremy all across town. And even though Josh wouldn’t dare show it, he wa
s probably getting tired.
“Come on,” Josh snapped. He reached forward, grabbed me up without my permission, and then sailed down through the manhole.
I didn’t even have time to squeak before we landed and Josh pretty much dropped me. “Which direction?” he snapped.
It took me a few seconds. “That way.” I pointed with confidence down the left section of the path.
This was the first time I’d been in the sewers.
And I ardently hoped this would be the last time I would visit them.
Madison City was an old place. A lot of downtown was new, and a lot of the sprawling outward suburbs were new, too. But the rest of it – the bones – or guts, in this instance – were at least 300 years old.
That may be nothing compared to a lot of historical European cities, but it was plenty old enough to ensure that these sewers weren’t modern affairs.
There were pits dug into the center and paths around them. The pits didn’t have raw sewage in them or anything – this wasn’t the 1500s. There were old pipes, and they stank to high heaven.
“This is gross. This is so gross,” I muttered to myself.
“Less chattering and more running. Or do you want me to pick you up again?” Josh snapped.
I didn’t bother to tell him to piss off. I put on another burst of speed. At this rate, after a few months of working for Josh, I’d be a marathon runner.
We kept coming to different sections of tunnel, and Josh would always pause before I told him where to go.
Before too long, we heard the sound of Jeremy’s footfall again. And this time it was Jeremy. No more illusions.
“He’s getting tired,” Josh snapped out of the blue. “I can feel it. And I can hear it. He sounds like he’s lost a lung. Now I’ve almost got him. Stay close.”
Jeremy wasn’t the only one getting tired. But I knew if I pointed that out, Josh would either leave me behind, or worse – pick me up.
So I scrounged every scrap of energy I had.
Before too long, we had Jeremy trapped.
Both Josh and I ran around a section of tunnel and reached a dead end in the sewerage system.
There was Jeremy, his back to us as he madly dashed up a ladder to a closed manhole above.
“Bingo,” Josh snapped. “You’re mine—”
I couldn’t tell when Jeremy cast a spell. I didn’t detect magic. I just found things.
So I didn’t see this one coming – and neither did Josh before it was too late.
Josh took a step to the side. The only problem was, there wasn’t actually a path there. Jeremy had spelled the illusion of a solid section of concrete.
Josh sailed down, and I heard a wet squelch.
Jeremy’s illusion abruptly ended, and I realized the reason this section of the sewer was blocked off, was because it was broken.
A good section of the path in front of me had cracked off, and the pit below that housed the pipe was in utter disrepair. The pipe itself looked old, and not as if it was in current use. It had massive cracks in it, and there was an unholy old sludge in the pit. Obviously when the pipe had broken, the maintenance workers had decided not to bother to clean the sludge and to just divert the system.
Which meant Josh was now standing knee-deep in old, old shit.
Josh let out a roar.
Then he jumped up. I’d never seen him show such agility. He was using magic to extend his natural abilities. And that was a unique skill. You see, not every warlock could use their magic to bolster their body. Most warlocks only used magic for direct physical attacks – you know, fireballs, jets of water, bolts of lightning, that kind of thing.
Josh could actually use his magic around him like armor. That’s what he did now as he leaped up the distance between the pit and back onto a solid section of the path. In doing so, he splattered sewage everywhere.
I turned to the side and gagged as something splashed against my pants and jacket.
Before I could shriek at Josh that he should have been more careful, he reached around, grabbed my arm with a squelchy hand, and pulled me forward.
Jeremy had already made it to the top of the ladder, and there was a grating sound as he pulled the manhole cover out of the way.
Don’t ask me how he did it, but Josh managed to haul me up the ladder, either showing how magical he was, or how determined he was to get Jeremy.
The whole time, I tried not to breathe too hard.
We reached the top of the ladder, and Josh lurched out of the manhole, pulling me along with him.
I had no idea where we were.
I didn’t have a perfect blueprint of the city in my head.
But I thought we were still in the tightknit alleyways that made up the backbone of downtown.
We weren’t.
It was a pleasant day. A lovely day, in fact. And before news of Jeremy had come in, I’d had plans to go to the local park to hang out by the gorgeous man-made lake.
I needed some time off, you see. It wasn’t because I was finding it hard to be a finder – if you’d pardon the joke. I actually found it liberating to explore my powers. No, what I was finding hard was everybody else. You see, there was a lot of interest in me. It wasn’t simply that I was the only other finder in Madison City other than Madison City’s most powerful witch, Maximus Knights. It was that I was a locator finder, and we were extremely useful.
Though I wasn’t the kind to shove my head in the sand and pretend my problems didn’t exist, I was the kind who needed to get away every now and then.
And even though there was no way to get away from the fact I was a finder and this city would do anything to use me, I’d just wanted to hang out in the gardens for a while, pretending my problems were as far away as the rain clouds.
Well, guess what? I was about to get my wish.
Because we didn’t pop up downtown. We appeared in the botanical gardens. Near the rose gardens, to be precise. If you’re wondering why the sewer system connected to the botanical gardens, it was because there was a large, old conservatory that was used for functions at the back of the park. We were now right in front of said building.
And you know who else was right in front of it?
The glitterati of Madison City.
When Josh had pulled me out of the sewers, he’d pulled me on top of him. And here he was, covered in crap, glowing with magic, with a finder smooshed on his chest.
As far as entrances went, we would never live it down.
And as far as my day would go? This was just the beginning.
Chapter 2
Someone cleared their throat.
Just as I tried to wither and die on the spot in an attempt to get away from this insanely embarrassing situation, a man cleared his throat again just behind me.
Oh God, Max.
It’s not as if I’d heard Maximus’ voice that much over the past several weeks. He’d been keeping his distance since he’d dropped the mysterious comment about me trying to track down my husband.
But that didn’t matter. You see, my stupid mind had been doing it again. For the past several weeks, every time I went to bed and slept at night, I would try to locate Max in my dreams. It wasn’t something I was doing consciously – it was driving me insane. It was also something I couldn’t switch off.
I didn’t have normal dreams anymore. I had dreams of Max.
So yeah, I knew the exact sound of him clearing his throat.
“Well hullabaloo, is this the yearly rose garden charity function? I wonder why I wasn’t invited?” Josh quipped as he shoved me off him.
It was as if I’d tackled him and he hadn’t latched hold of me and pulled me on top of him while jettisoning out of a manhole like a dolphin jumping out of the ocean.
I fell to the side roughly, hit my elbow on the pavement, and groaned.
“Get up, Missy,” he snapped.
Josh was acting exactly like he always did around me. Which shouldn’t be a surprise. There were only two things that w
ould stop Josh from being an absolute prick to me. One of them was Susan. And one of them was behind him. He just hadn’t seen Max.
“I said get up. We need to find—”
“If you’re talking about the illusionist, he’s already contained,” Max said.
I was still down on my elbows. I looked up and stared at Josh’s face, not wanting to miss a second. Sure enough, it was worth it.
Every muscle in his face twitched as he slowly turned. He looked as if he was a pig on a rotisserie.
His eyebrows peaked as he saw Max.
Josh might be in his usual bounty hunter garb – a leather jacket, torn stone-gray jeans, and an army shirt with big brown leather boots to cap off the grunge look, but Max was in another world. He was in dinnerware. A perfect black suit with a crisp white shirt. He had a silver blue-gray tie on that shimmered with different colors with every movement.
The tie brought out the confusing but powerful blue storm-gray of his eyes.
And those eyes were now locked on Josh.
Josh ticked his gaze to the side. There was Jeremy. He was down on his knees, staring at his hands as if he’d just been told off by the principal and he was now having a good look at his life.
Max had obviously done it again. Despite the fact he wasn’t a warlock and didn’t technically have strong, physical magic, that didn’t matter. It seemed that every single criminal in Madison City was scared enough of him that all Max had to do was show his face and they would crumble into dust.
Or maybe I was wrong. Because as I tilted my head past Josh’s long legs, I saw there was a faintly glowing yellow magical circle around Jeremy’s form.
That’s when I looked up to see none other than Peter Mercure, one of the three kingpins of Madison City. I’d never met him in person before, but I knew who he was. He headed up the largest private security company of warlocks in the country.
He was standing close to Jeremy, and Peter’s hand was held in a very specific way, his middle finger crunched into his palm as his pinky touched his thumb.
I didn’t know too much about symbology and ritual in warlock attacks, but I could appreciate that that particular move was meant to produce a containment spell. Josh had made me brush up on warlock practices – considering warlocks were easily the most dangerous scum we tracked down.
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