“I will kill them all instead.”
“But you won’t get what you want.”
“I can control this island without you, Eden.”
“Doesn’t look that way,” I said. “Someone will replace the DSA, the FBI. Over and over and over, until one of them kills you.”
“I have rebuilt before. I will rebuild again.”
That’s when I realized that the hunt for Lucille and jockeying with the FBI had done more damage than I’d thought. The endless legal fees. The thirteen million being stolen. Moreland turning on him. All the problems, big and small, that had cropped up over the last five months.
Chip, chip, chipping away at an empire, until it teetered on a thin foundation.
Those hundreds of men, waiting to back him up?
They weren’t coming.
He needed me.
He needed Lucille’s soul.
Otherwise there would be no rebuild.
I said, “What happened with Loki?”
Aldric looked like I’d shoved poison in his mouth. “I should never have worked with him.”
And now Aldric even owed something—favors, a helping hand—to a god.
I could see it so clearly, now, that I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before.
But fear had blinded me: the unknown terror of what might happen.
Of what cards he held.
But I could see now that he had a hand full of shit the whole time.
They all had: Aldric, the DSA, the FBI.
“You don’t know where the sword is, do you, Eden?”
Movement caught my eye on the ground.
Kai, bleeding, his right arm broken, reached for his gun on the nearby asphalt.
I lowered mine. “And you won’t, either.”
“And why is that?” The vampire warlord’s gaze burned into me with intensity.
“Because you’ll be dead.”
One shot.
The vampire clutched his throat and fell to one knee. A blue trail faded behind him.
The wound was already beginning to heal, but Kai’s magic slowed the process.
I burst forward, ignoring the searing pain in my leg.
I snapped out the Reaper’s Switch and swiped, the shiny edge glinting in the high-powered lights.
Aldric snapped at me, sinking his fangs into my arm.
The blade clattered out of my grasp.
My phone buzzed twice.
Two minutes.
Two more shots burst out, and the vampire’s body seized for a moment, his jaw releasing.
Blood streaking down my arm, I fumbled on the asphalt for the open switchblade.
His icy grip yanked me away.
Another shot, and his fingers loosened.
Blue streaks hung in the air like shooting stars as I clawed my way back to the blade.
I felt the cool duct tape in my hand.
Dress shoes tapped on the road.
I rolled over, slashing him across the chest with the knife. He stumbled, and I sprang up, still feeling the effects of Scott’s ill-advised epinephrine booster.
“This one’s for killing me once,” I said, thrusting the blade right above his heart.
He tried to dodge, but the magically-assisted bullets dulled his reflexes to those of a normal man’s. The knife carved right through his skin.
I popped, and his soul—dark as the night and run through with a gold core symbolic of greed—spiraled out of his body to the ground.
Blood dripped from the knife’s sharp edge.
My phone buzzed once.
Only one minute until I was his servant forever.
Aldric punched, this one faster, catching me in the lip. He stumbled toward the fallen soul.
Vision blurring, I pushed myself up and jumped on his back.
He reared—his strength normally enough to throw me ten yards or more.
But with my own increased strength, and his powers diminished, I clung on.
“And this is for trying to kill me again.” I jammed the blade through the bottom of his jaw, straight through the roof of his mouth.
I wrenched it forward.
His fangs popped out as he staggered over and fell.
A voice whispered, You’ve killed your Master.
Other voices—real, and not in my head—swirled around me.
Then I heard Zoe say, “Open your fucking mouth and eat this.”
It tasted foul.
Like a nuclear-burned swamp, and harder than a two-hundred-year-old loaf of bread.
One of my teeth cracked as I chewed.
I spit.
And, on the black pavement, I saw a splintered fang.
My own.
64
“So this is goodbye.” Kai brushed his long black hair away from his eyes. A soft cast was wrapped around his right arm.
An agent mumbled a greeting to him in front of the Getaway.
What was left of it, anyway. The entrance was a twisted mangle of concrete and steel, and its innards weren’t much of an improvement.
I’d heard rumblings over the past week that they were going to demolish and rebuild.
After all, there was supposedly a portal to the land of the gods lying beneath.
Not supposedly.
There was.
The past tense was important there.
Because, after I’d used it, the gods had decided to seal it for good.
Following the aftermath of the siege on the Getaway—where the FBI had lost over thirty agents, including two dozen demons—I’d taken the liberty to check out the rumors. Deep in the service tunnels beneath the old hotel, there’d been a small doorway walled off by bricks.
I’d knocked through it with a sledgehammer and waltzed right into the Pantheon.
The assorted deities—Loki and Ares among them—were surprised to see me there. The entrance had originally been a way to check on Lucille and make sure she was keeping everything in order.
Over time, most of the gods ceased giving a shit and decided it was easier to just patch the whole thing up and make sure no mortals stumbled through.
Until me.
With the remnants of Lucille’s soul in hand, I’d been able to make a deal.
Tamara was to be released from her service to Loki.
And the gods, in light of the disastrous shitshow that had transpired over the past six months on the island, would allow the citizens to maintain law and order.
It was decided that no gods would ever visit Atheas unless it proved necessary in the future.
Not quite a guarantee, but I felt I was already crashing the party by dropping by unannounced.
Loki had also been punished for being a meddling asshole. Ares got to do the honors.
And one other thing: They’d shaved off a piece of Loki’s soul to dissolve Aldric’s shitty contract with me. That thing didn’t die just because he had.
So now I was a free woman.
And also unemployed.
Kai put his arm on my shoulder, and said, “Eden?”
I came back to reality. “You can rebuild without me.”
“Aren’t you a pet owner now?”
“Khan likes Sierra better anyway,” I said.
The cat had been crestfallen when I’d announced I was leaving.
I’d endured an endless stream of stupid humans for hours out in Sierra’s tiny home.
“Won’t be the same if you go.”
He meant it.
I wanted to stay.
But, at least for now, I had to leave.
Because I knew if I stayed here with him, then I’d never leave again.
I turned away from the converted hotel to stare at the rough-and-tumble street. “Paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“We did all right.”
My mind flashed briefly over the last six months.
Reuniting with my sister after four years. Meeting Kai, Cross, Rayna, and everyone else.
Being framed for murder and
escaping the charge by the skin of my teeth.
Investigating the guardian’s murder and preventing the immolation of the island.
And the roller coaster that had been the past week, culminating in a vampire-and-rain-goddess-free chunk of land in the South Pacific.
The FBI had even survived their corruption scandal. The brazen downtown attack had shifted the focus from questions of impropriety to sympathy.
Saved by the news cycle.
“You have a fucked up sense of all right,” I said.
“Always possible?”
“Raincheck,” I said with a smile.
“Raincheck?” His deep voice lilted in confusion.
“You said you were going to sleep with me,” I said.
“I think you said that, actually.”
I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “Whatever you say, man.”
I started walking up the damaged road, and he called after me, “When will I see you again?”
“When this place doesn’t hurt to look at,” I said.
Then I shoved my hands in my jeans and headed on up the road.
In search of what, I didn’t know.
Maybe it was right in front of me all along.
I heard boots pounding across the pavement.
I whirled around to find a two-hundred twenty pound man rushing me like a bull. Kai stopped agilely and picked me up.
“I don’t care who said what.” His lips were close to mine. “I’m not letting you leave.”
Right before they touched, I said, “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Keeping me from doing something stupid.”
Epilogue
Three years later
I rubbed my jacketed arms, trying to get warm. Even in the dead of summer, the temperatures this far up Mount Danube were well below freezing.
Kai cut in front of me, brushing icicles out of his long hair.
“It should be just over that ridge.”
“That one?” I followed his gloved finger, my heart sinking. We’d been out here for days, and still hadn’t found the exact location.
Another meal of tinned ham and crackers didn’t sound appetizing.
“Promise.”
A few hundred yards behind us, I heard Dante Cross and my sister giggling. And what I thought were the groans of Rayna, Zoe, and Magnus, who were tagging along to see what the culmination of this treasure search would be.
Good thing I hadn’t needed the blade to kill Aldric.
I would’ve been indoors right now, hiding from the sunlight. Waiting for orders to murder some poor bastard and reap their soul.
The last soul I’d reaped was his.
I felt like there was something poetic about that.
I willed my tired legs forward. My right leg ached in the cold, a reminder of how I’d almost lost everything.
After half an hour, we were over the ridge.
In front of us stretched a cave, long shards of ice looming above the entrance like spikes.
“Looks promising already.” The cold air seared my lungs.
“What will you do with the sword, Eden?”
“Not really my call, I guess. I’m not the one who paid thirteen million to decipher a map.”
“You have a plan.” Kai ducked into the entrance and I followed.
“Oh, do I?”
He turned, wearing a small smile. “I can see it in your eyes.
“Bullshit.” I pushed ahead of him and looked around. “This is it?”
We were in an almost square space with ice covering the dark walls. It might’ve been the size of a large family apartment.
The walls were featureless. I held up my phone’s light and scanned around.
“Don’t tell me it was a different ridge,” I said with a groan.
But Kai wasn’t standing by my side. He was off inspecting in the corner.
I felt a change in the air.
I shivered.
“Come here,” he said, motioning me over with his hand.
“Find something?”
“Just come and see.”
I shuffled over, the winter gear starting to chafe. Treasure hunting had never been my bag, and this just confirmed why.
Looking for a god-killing sword in a sub-zero ice cave?
No thanks.
The air itself seemed to displace as I stepped up next to Kai.
“Feel that?”
“What’s going on?” I asked in response.
“Wards just dissipated.” He ran his fingers along the wall, searching for something.
“Why for us?”
“It’s fate,” Kai said.
“Cut the crap.”
“I think they were designed to unlock for certain magical signatures.”
“The worthy,” I said, recalling the cipher’s message. “So all that shit about a woman who has seen the dead—”
“It doesn’t refer to you specifically,” Kai said. “Or me. But we fit the description.”
“Why bother with the extra hoops?” I asked.
“So the wrong person didn’t find the sword, if I had to guess.”
Kai’s fingers stopped running over the surface, finally finding a notch in the smooth ice.
He pulled. A carbon-copy of his spear sigil flashed across the perfect ice.
Then the wall began to melt before our eyes, revealing a small shelf.
There was no sword.
Instead, there was a single note and a plain gold band.
“If there’s another fucking cipher, I swear I’ll find a way to time travel just so I can kick Drake’s ass.”
Kai said, “Seems like a lot of effort.”
“You know I missed two poker games for this. Two.”
“It’s not like you can win money. You own the casino.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s like saying the point of fucking is to have babies. Obviously there are other reasons.”
“You do have a point.”
I held out my phone light so he could read the note.
His eyes skimmed over the ancient parchment, and he sighed. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Please don’t say that.”
Kai’s deep voice boomed through the empty ice cave. “Thou hath no doubt heard spoken many rumors about the gilded treasures that await thou in these hallowed halls. It shall be known, henceforth, that the greatest treasure is not gold, nor silver, nor magic. It is the love of another. This golden band shall forever symbolize a special bond—one that hath allowed you to triumph over the many trials thou hath endured.”
My pulse rose in heated anger.
I let out a groan that threatened to trigger an avalanche. “No.”
“It was really more about the thrill of the chase.”
“No.”
“You’re not taking this too well.”
I turned to him, finding that he was smiling. “What’s so funny.”
He handed me the parchment.
I read the first line and said, “Asshole,” before punching him in the arm.
“Just wanted to see if I could bluff the Casino Queen of Atheas.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, reddening.
“Full profile in a national magazine,” Kai said. “But still easily fooled.”
“Watch it, buddy.” I flung the note in his face and picked up the ring.
The power within its core was evident, even through the gloves.
It was true: there was no Sword of Damocles, per se.
Instead, wearing the ring allowed any weapon—blade or firearm—to channel the deicide arcana within. Effectively making anything from my Reaper’s Switch to Kai’s Glock .22 a god- or goddess-killing machine.
Which meant everything was the Sword of Damocles.
My heart rate returned to normal, and I snorted. “You know, this would’ve been way more helpful three years ago.”
Kai said, “Oh, you never know.”
“That soun
ds ominous.”
“Everything goes in cycles,” Kai said, rubbing frost from his face. “The storms will come again.”
“You’re on your own when that happens, Mr. Director. Maybe Rayna will cancel all her book tours and come back to the Bureau.”
“Oh, you won’t let me die.”
“Someone’s feeling confident,” I said.
“I just know who you are.”
“And who’s that?” I asked, turning to meet his slate-gray gaze.
He said nothing.
But in that silent moment in the frosted, dim cave, I understood that he saw the truth.
Not the Reaper. Or the con artist. Or the FBI consultant.
But just me.
And if the storms came back to the island—when the storms came—we’d ride them out together.
Because true loyalty didn’t come from a bite or a spell.
A book or a magazine.
From gold or silver.
It came straight from the soul.
And that would never change.
THE END
I hope you enjoyed the Eden Hunter Trilogy. While Eden’s adventures have come to an end, I have plenty of new stories to tell—so if you liked this trilogy, be sure to sign up for my (free) author newsletter to hear about my upcoming novels.
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Soul Bite Page 21
