Sacrifice of the Septimus: Part 1 (Afterlife saga Book 7)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “I read it once, it wasn’t one of my favourites.”

  After this I said goodbye and she told me that her thoughts would be with me on my quest. I walked out of there feeling deflated, knowing it had been an utter waste of time. I had to wonder if Ari had seen her would it have ended up being just as frustrating for her as it had been for me. All this time she had been on a journey to discover herself and it looked as though she was only going to come back knowing as little as she did when she left.

  I slammed my truck door and let my head fall back to the headrest as I replayed our brief conversation. At one point it seemed as if she was getting excited, as if I was close to cracking her code. I understood there were things she couldn’t tell me and as she said, not all knowledge was power. So for some reason, because the Fates decreed it necessary, I had to figure it out on my own.

  So why Ari? Why had the Cult of the Hexad needed her? I knew in some way it was to keep me under their control and without me to fulfil their plan they had used Ari instead, but what if that was it? What if she was always meant to be a backup plan? No, there had to be more to it than that!

  “Think Keira!” I scolded myself, hitting my palm on the steering wheel. It was like looking through a telescope with the wrong lens so all I got was a blurry picture of the truth. Then my thoughts turned to why she was needed on my own journey to the past and as soon as I tried to connect the two, I suddenly had my answer!

  “Holy shit…that’s it!” I said out loud and before I knew it I was out of the car and racing back to the Library. I quickly realised that she hadn’t yet locked the doors behind me so I just ran straight in.

  “I know what it is!” I shouted running down the centre of the two long rows of tables.

  “Pythia, I have it, I know why they needed Ari!” I stopped running as soon as Pythia didn’t come back out, instantly knowing something was wrong.

  “There’s always a reason.” I whispered to myself suddenly piecing together why Pythia had to let me figure it out on my own, giving me enough clues so that I would figure it out in time…

  In time to run back in here.

  A shiver snaked through my body as dread filled my blood with ice. Something was wrong.

  “Pythia?” I uttered her name walking slowly forward until a figure emerged and I stopped moving.

  “Stay where you are, we have only come for the girl.” A man’s voice spoke and it wasn’t one that I recognised. He stepped further from the shadows, showing me he was easily double my size and one word came to mind…henchman.

  He was quickly followed by another man, even bigger this time and over his shoulder he had a tied Pythia who couldn’t speak due to the duct tape over her mouth. Her panicked eyes looked towards the door, no doubt telling me to run. But this was something I was no longer programed to do. I knew why Katie had needed to come into my life, right there and then, I knew. I felt it coming, like a current of anger coursing through me in the form of electricity. I started to get that familiar tingling in my fingers and I knew it was coming.

  And now thanks to Katie, I welcomed it.

  When Katie had unleashed these powers within me I knew it was like knocking down the last wall that I myself had spent a lifetime building. I didn’t even realise all that time ago, back when I tried to keep the monsters out, that I had been guarding myself and creating protective barriers. Only the difference now was that I fully understood that it wasn’t against the monsters as I first thought…

  It had been against myself.

  But as Katie, I had been free to explore my new powers without fear or doubt. The simple reason being, there was no need to ask as Katie, because as far as she was concerned, she had no walls of protection.

  And now, neither did I.

  Katie had freed me and now these thugs were going to pay for it.

  Pythia recognised the signs before the two lackeys did as she started twisting and murmuring, probably for me to stop or, who knows, even to warn them of the immediate danger coming their way.

  “Just deal with her.” The one holding Pythia said, nodding to me. I grinned at them both for I knew what they didn’t. I knew the level of power I felt pulsating off of me like my heart had doubled in size. It was pumped around my body until I looked down at my hands and saw it for myself. It reminded me of being a kid and putting a torch behind your fingers to try and see the bones. That red glow of your blood and the veins you saw there, it had been fascinating, just as it was to me now.

  I lifted up my hand and that same current I felt started to flicker into little sparks before forking out into bigger ones, like tiny lightning bolts were travelling around my flesh, growing bigger and extending outwards. For a small moment in time everything stopped around me and it seemed as though I was the only one moving in real time. I was stuck between a place of wonder and amazement but also real anger that they thought they could just come in here and take her. As soon as my thoughts shifted over to my rage it started to spark and crackle as if building up power.

  Then everything seemed to happen at once. I turned my head just as the thug was reaching out to grab me and the second he saw the power I held, was the second he also knew it was too late. All I needed to do was to extend my fingers and whoosh, the current of power shot from my hand in an explosion of light.

  “By the Gods!” The other man screamed at the sight of his friend being catapulted backwards as though he had been standing next to a bomb when it went off.

  “Oh the Gods can’t save you now…let’s play.” I said in a voice that didn’t belong to me, but it was still my choice to speak the words. Then I raised both hands, holding them apart until they started to vibrate as the power built. I then slapped them together, creating a thundering shockwave to ripple from my joined fingertips and travel towards the other man. It tore up the floor as though it had been made from paper, splintering wood and arching it backwards as though heavy machinery had just ran a line through it.

  “Oh shit.” This was all the man had time to say when he and Pythia were split apart, with the thug flying one way and the Oracle travelling the other. The difference was I caught Pythia so that she wasn’t hurt.

  I suddenly had hold of her in what was acting like an extension to my fist and I lowered her down gently, seeing that she was unconscious. I was so preoccupied by watching the Oracle that I didn’t realise what was happening to the side of me. Not until I heard the tables burst upwards into the air and come flying my way. I turned my head in anger and snarled at the glowing Angel who was trying to hurt me and my friend. But I was too late, the tables crashed into me, smashing my body backwards and catapulting me into the checkout desk, destroying it as though I had been a human wrecking ball.

  I shook my head asking myself why I wasn’t dead from the impact when I noticed the electric ball that surrounded me. I looked as though I was inside one of Draven’s orbs of power and I reached out to the surface seeing it react to me in a sort of communicating purr. It wanted the comfort that I was alright and I had no clue how I knew that, as it was just a feeling.

  I put my hand down, trying to get a stable footing in the rubble I was currently entangled in and I felt my wrath rise up, causing the snaking forks of power to react, getting bigger and changing to a deep amber colour. I got to my feet just as both men were back on theirs and trying to get to the Oracle. Before they saw me I shot an arm out to Pythia so that she slid away from them down one of the aisles, safe from both of them but more importantly, safe from me and what I was about to do.

  “My turn.” They both turned to me in shock and I felt the same when I saw them morph into their other forms.

  “Angels…um, this will be novel.” I told them as they both rose up with their massive wings on display. One drew a long glowing blade from his back and the other drew twin axes which looked to be made of carved silver. They both looked as beautiful and surreal as they did deadly, but instead of my fear engaging, my brain filtered out the risks, leaving fury in its place. />
  “Last chance, mortal,” one warned and the new demonic side of me tipped my head to the side and said,

  “Do I look like a fucking mortal to you, dickhead?” Then I unleashed the full force of my powers outwards, with arms outstretched so it had a wider range to target them both. One of them only just managed to escape my blast but the other froze in the air as I held him suspended by the force I had released from my hands. His body shook as though he was having a fit from the electric current I was sending through his body. My eyes widened as if the sight of this was feeding something deep inside of me, like a caged beast was clawing to make it to the surface and finish what together we had started.

  What was happening to me?

  What had I become?

  This wasn’t me!

  I wasn’t a cruel person. Suddenly these thoughts penetrated through the anger and the Angel I had trapped in the air fell with a thud to the ground. I looked down to see the chords of power unravelling around my hands as if being sucked back deep within me, back to the place I kept it hidden for the safety of others.

  I wanted to fall to my knees as the energy was sapped right out of me and I had to hold onto a half broken chair just to stay upright. I reached up with my free hand and put it to my pounding head, hoping this would somehow help. But I hadn’t accounted for the two Angels who still wanted to see me dead and buried under a pile of splintered wood. And now I had lost my anger and along with it any chance of surviving. I knew this when I looked up and saw them both coming at me with gleaming weapons of God, raised high.

  I knelt down and raised my arms above my head, curled in a protective ball ready for their killing blow…

  But it never came.

  What did, however, was a roar so powerful that it shattered the windows, exploding thousands of shards of glass outwards. I looked up just as I saw the blur of a flaming body travelling insanely fast, throwing itself at the two attacking Angels. I watched in utter shock as the hooded figure had the two men in his deadly grasp in seconds. One was on his knees with a solid arm clamped around his throat, ready to have his neck snapped in one swift move if he refused to come to heel. The other was dangling up in the air held by his neck and was currently having the breath choked from his lungs.

  I got up from the broken floor and at the first signs of my movement my saviour’s head snapped up to look at me. Then he dropped the two men, releasing them and I almost shouted at him to ask what he was doing. I was sure they would take this opportunity to fight back or get him now his back was turned to them. But he didn’t care, he simply continued to walk closer to me and I held my breath hoping I hadn’t got it wrong. Because what if he wasn’t here to save me at all, but simply wanted the Oracle for himself…

  And I was still in the way.

  “Boss, we tried not to hurt the girl…but she…” one of the men said trying to get up from the floor but the hooded man snarled in anger back at him,

  “Don’t say another fucking word!” He said slamming his hand down through the air, so that the man spluttering excuses slammed back down onto the floor, having no choice on the matter. So this was the man they were both working for and had been ordered to retrieve the Oracle. Suddenly I felt the familiar tingle return to my hands and I curled my fingers into tight fists, getting ready for the fight.

  The hooded figure stopped a short distance away from me and cocked his head to the side, looking down at the sparks of power firing around my hands.

  Then he pushed the hood back as he said,

  “I wouldn’t try it, my little Keira girl… not the way I like to play.”

  My mouth dropped in astonishment before forming but one name…

  “Lucius?”

  Chapter 24

  Ice meets the Sun

  “Hello, Pet.” Lucius replied smirking and if I wasn’t looking at that trademark bad ass grin of his I would barely believe I was stood opposite him right now.

  “Lucius?” I said repeating his name, making him roll his eyes at me.

  “You can keep saying my name sweetness but it won’t change who’s stood in front of you.” He answered in that overly cocky tone of his, proving with words alone it was true.

  “Unless of course you want to say it over and over in a breathy, needy type of way then, in that case, go right ahead,” he added winking at me.

  “Oh yeah, it’s you alright.” I told him, smirking and then quickly giving up the act and running at him. He looked taken aback for a moment but I didn’t care as I ran into his arms and he caught me.

  “Lucius,” I whispered, breathing into his neck as I reached up on tiptoes to hug him.

  “See, it sounds much better said that way,” he teased, holding me just as tight to him. The smell of leather from his jacket combined with his natural scent of sandalwood and desert sands was so familiar to me. He wore a hooded zip up underneath and I gripped the soft cotton in my hands, hanging on to him.

  “I missed you,” I confessed and I felt his stomach muscles get tight as if my words meant something to him.

  “I’m glad you made your way home, pet,” he told me, stroking the back of my head as he still held on to me. I looked up at him and said,

  “You missed me then, eh?” His steel blue coloured eyes flashed amber for a second before he replied,

  “Katie didn’t get my sense of humour, although she did want to sleep with me, so I’m not sure…what was the question again?” I rolled my eyes at him, pulling back saying,

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever…keep on dreaming Lu…” I was about to say his name when suddenly a memory I had lost, one that wasn’t my own, hit me with enough force to make me stumble back a step. A conversation between the two of us, sat close with the world whirling by.

  “We were on a bus,” I said as if lost deep in the past.

  “Keira, I…” Lucius started to say, but I interrupted him as the sight of us both continued, almost as if we were back there.

  “We were talking…you had come to find me…no, that’s not right. I didn’t know that at the time. Then you spoke of a friend.”

  “Keira don’t…”

  “You were looking for his wife, you admitted to liking her…I, Katie asked if her husband knew…” I turned back to face him and said,

  “You said ‘He knows’.”

  “Alright love, you’ve made your point, now let it go.” He told me gently and I would have listened to him if not for the very last image I had of us on that bus…

  ‘Oh fuck it! I’m not that good a friend anyway.’ He had said before crushing his lips to mine. I gasped letting him in and I lost myself in that first kiss feeling. I felt intoxicated as the taste of him burst across my tongue and I fell deeper under. His growl made me nervous and he could feel me about to pull away. He didn’t allow it and embedded his hand in my hair, wrapped an unforgiving arm around my waist and held me captive to his lips. Then it ended and he spoke words that as Katie I would never understand, but as Keira, well only I could remember our past…

  “Your Salvation.” I whispered softly raising my eyes to him and for long moments we simply looked at each other in silence. Lucius breathing heavy and me not breathing at all.

  “If I could take it back…” he started to say and I didn’t want to hear the rest, so I said his name to stop him.

  “Lucius…”

  “I wouldn’t… not for the fucking world,” he told me firmly enough to make it sound like a promise and I closed my eyes as the emotions swept through me.

  “It’s a shame you missed it my little Keira girl, it was one Hell of a kiss.” He said purring the word ‘Hell’ and winking at me before running the back of his hand down my cheek. I knew when I saw his usual grin back in place that this was his way of putting an end to what would, no doubt, be a painful conversation for both of us.

  So I too decided to focus on something else, like why the Hell was he here and why did the goons at the back call him ‘Boss’. I followed him as he walked to where one of them was s
till sprawled on the floor and I watched as he stepped over the man as if he was just another piece of furniture stuck in his way.

  “Lucius, what the Hell are you doing here?” I asked him and instead of answering me he looked down at the goon and said,

  “Ficken Blödmann.” (means ‘Fucking dumbass’ in German) I frowned down at the unconscious Angel, stepping over him myself as I followed Lucius to wherever it was he was going. He moved over to the aisles and started walking back towards the entrance, giving each one a look down as he went past. It only now occurred to me that he was in fact looking for Pythia.

  “Pythia,” I muttered remembering her and I started to run ahead of him in search of her. I could only hope that she was still alright after my freak out and that the worst injury I had inflicted was only a little knock to the head. I soon found her lying down the centre of one of the aisles where I had pushed her to protect her from the fight. I ran to her and skidded to a stop, dropping to my knees beside her.

  “Pythia,” I said her name as I shook her shoulder slightly to try and get her to wake. Then I gently pulled the tape from her mouth and untied her hands. She remained in the foetal position, holding herself in a protective ball whilst I did this. I felt Lucius standing behind me but I ignored him, when really I should have been demanding what he was doing here.

  “That’s it, come on back to us.” I told her softly when I noticed her eyelashes were fluttering as she started to come round. She opened her eyes a fraction, taking in the sight of me. I smiled down at her and helped her as she tried to sit up, which was when she noticed Lucius behind me. Her eyes got wide and I quickly knew that look…because I recognised fear when I saw it.

  “Hello again, Pythia,” Lucius said calmly and Pythia became anything but calm. She tried to scrabble backwards like a crab just to get away from him.

  “Pythia what are you…?” I cut myself off, instead whipping my head around to Lucius and demanding,

  “What have you done?” He scowled down at me before informing me quite openly,