“I told you I’d kill you if I didn’t get what I asked for,” she said, and then I saw them—a few of the creatures were crawling over the platform now, trying to get to us. Alexis had her back to them, so she had no idea what was going on.
Rodriguez turned around and swallowed hard. He waved his hand, and sparks escaped from his fingers. Energy streamed around him as he tried to chase the beings away. He had no idea that this was only going to make matters worse.
Alexis was going to suffocate me, and she didn’t look like she was bluffing this time around. I had less than a minute, maybe more, to get the fuck out of here, but this was almost impossible now.
“Alexis, I think you should see this,” Rodriguez said, realising that his magic wasn’t working as well as it should have.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman with long black hair crawling toward where we stood. Then she shifted into a man with dark, slimy skin. It was glowing with blue light, and her eyes were focused on Alexis’s magic.
My heart rate slowed down because oxygen wasn’t getting into my lungs. I slipped into the darkness when she suddenly released me.
My back slammed on the ground. Nausea rolled through my stomach when I tried to get up. Alexis threw a few spells, trying to scare the creatures away, finally noticing that there were suddenly so many of them around. She didn’t realise that they were getting stronger every time her energy pulsated through her system, feeding on her magic. The Eurynomos loved weakness and fear. I counted at least a dozen all around us.
My pulse pounded in my skull and then I saw black eyes and felt someone trying to grab me.
“I’m here for you. There is nowhere to escape,” a voice hissed in my ear.
Alexis and Rodriguez had their backs to each other, and they looked pretty freaked out. The creatures were keeping them occupied.
I screamed when a female Eurynomos slashed my back with her sharp nails. I kicked her with my left leg and then swung back on my feet, ready to pass out as the blood poured down my body. Moments later I started running along the rail track, not even looking back.
I had no idea how I was even able to move. It was probably the rush of adrenaline that kept me on my feet. My muscles screamed for me to stop and ease the agonising pain. Alexis’s spells were still active, and the female Eurynomos was chasing after me. I couldn’t sense it anymore, but I could hear its raspy breath behind me.
My chest was burning, and I was pushing myself to keep up the speed. I might have gotten away from Alexis, but my situation didn’t improve in any way. The sound of an oncoming train warned me that I had to get off the tracks.
That short moment of hesitation cost me a lot. I stopped just to rest for a bit, and a male Eurynomos got inside my head. I felt him penetrating my thoughts, telling me to stay on the tracks.
All of a sudden, I wanted to end my life, either be hit by a train or torn apart by a wild animal. I felt this desire consuming my soul from the inside out. The pain shifted into raw flames, exploding over the surface of my skin. My pulse pounded loudly in my ears, my heart pumping too much blood to my veins.
The train was approaching; it was close, and I thought that its impact could ease my craving for death. Somewhere close I heard Alexis’s voice. She was threatening to come after me. She must have bound herself with charms somehow, and I didn’t even realise it.
The creature was taking away my hope, the good memories of Summer, and the fact that I had friends who were willing to help me. Then I saw the approaching lights and suddenly death felt comforting. Sharp pieces of metal were nibbling over my skin. There was blood on my hands, too much blood.
The train whistled loudly, speeding over the tracks, and my thoughts began racing away. It was so close, I was going to be wiped away any second.
I shut my eyes, held by Hell’s creature, ready for the end. Alexis got what she wanted. The speeding train was only several meters away, when someone screamed. Then a strong body launched me off the tracks, and I landed face down on the ground as the speeding train rumbled past me. The noise brought me back to reality. Its hissing sound faded in the background.
Birds or bats flew off the nearest tree. A ball of light exploded, and the warmth brushed my face. I kept on breathing, trying to get back on my feet, now lucid and fully alert.
“Maxine, we need to run now. More of them are coming,” a voice said that I recognised. I parted my lips to ask what he was doing here, but then the same desire for death returned. I had to end my life.
“Get it together and run,” the same voice shouted, shaking me. I saw Ronan and nodded to him, sucking in a deep breath. My legs started moving before my head alerted me to act. Soon we were both racing through the gloomy forest.
The Eurynomos, or at least one of them was behind us, snarling and howling loudly. Tears filled my eyes; the cold air stung my lungs. I didn’t feel any pain anymore. The adrenaline must have numbed me completely, but I remembered the cuts on my back. The worst pain was emotional, tearing me apart, while the same voice in my head ordered me to turn around.
Ronan stopped at some point, releasing some kind of liquid on the ground. Then he whispered a few words. A loud shriek broke somewhere in the forest. It sounded like an animal was caught in metal chains. I cried out with longing for something or someone that I couldn’t explain.
“We are half an hour from safety. Focus, Maxine. Part of the beast is still in your system. Stop thinking about death,” he ordered and slapped me hard.
That helped. I became much more lucid and told myself that I had to keep going if I wanted to live. After some time, I felt like the influence of Hell’s creature wasn’t affecting me anymore. I held on to those good memories and kept following Ronan.
“Alexis and I are somehow connected. She’s using her energy to track me down,” I said, between my laboured breaths.
“We should be fine if we hurry,” Ronan said. “I have a red liquid in the car that should sort you out.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that this time the red potions wouldn’t work on me. I was no longer magical, and we had to find another way, but then moments later we ended up at the edge of the forest. Ronan told me to stand still for a moment. He must have figured out that my magic was gone, but he was using his own charms to break Alexis’s spell.
I didn’t care what was going to happen to me now—what mattered was that I was finally free.
Chapter 22
“That beast—you cry out at the very sight—lets no one through who passes on her way. She blocks their progress; and there they all die.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“How did you know where to find me, Ronan?” I asked after I opened my eyes and realised that the car was moving through the busy motorway. My hair was plastered to my face, and my back hurt every time I moved. The dried blood was stuck to my shirt, but I was ignoring the fact that at some point, I was going have to get it off.
It was a hell of a relief that Alexis wasn’t tracking me down. She had proven way too many times that she was much stronger than I thought.
I had no idea how Ronan knew I needed his help. He had been missing for some time, or that’s what he wanted everyone to believe.
“I’ve been following your tracks for some time now. I came back to London, and shortly after, I realised that Alexis was keeping you prisoner. I followed Rodriguez from the palace,” he explained, and kept glancing at the rearview mirror. I hoped we weren’t being followed and he was simply oversensitive.
“Someone had broken into your cottage up north,” I said, resting my head on the back of the seat. “I was tracking Matilda there a few weeks back. People in the village believed something had happened to you.”
“My own son held me against my will after the events in Gjoll. I was weakened by Alexis’s magic,” Ronan said, sounding uneasy.
My jaw dropped, and I stared at him not believing that Nameless had betrayed us both.
“That piece of shit managed to tri
ck us all. I trusted him, and he turned me over to Alexis.” I went through everything that had happened since I left Ronan with Ricky in Gjoll. Apparently Nameless waited until he was left alone with his father. I felt bad that I never tried to look for him. His letter should have roused my suspicion. I had spent enough time with Ronan to know that he wouldn’t have just abandoned me.
My mentor wasn’t particularly shocked that Lucifer had turned out to be my father, or as usual, he just wasn’t showing it.
“He must have been under her influence for a while. Even Zachary’s sister didn’t notice anything. She trusted him, and I truly believed that he loved her,” I said, yet again going over Arthur’s death. A lot of drama and anguish could have been prevented. Ronan didn’t fail me in any way; he was injured after Alexis had used him to get to me, and then his son turned on him.
“Yes, it certainly looks that way, but tell me what’s happened to your magic?” he asked.
“She paralysed me and then poured some potion into my mouth. I don’t know what it was. I have never heard of it. I woke up later on, drowsy and disoriented without my magic. I hate this new me, Ronan. I always thought that I could be human, but now I truly want to get my half-demon self back.”
The clock on the dashboard was showing a few minutes after midnight. If I hadn’t come up with that silly plan and remembered Ronan’s story, then I would still be in that cell.
“Immortal spell,” Ronan said. “She removed your demonic DNA from your body.” I knew that this didn’t sound good.
Alexis was smart, and she had made my life a living hell. It was clear that getting my magic back wasn’t going to be easy.
“Ronan, I’m no one without my magic. I have to get it back,” I said, dreading that he was going to tell me I had no chance of being my old self ever again. The past had taught me that there was usually a way out of even the worst situation.
“It’s an advanced dark spell, something that I have never seen done. I have no idea how to help you or even where to start,” he finally said, and I inhaled sharply, shaking my head. This wasn’t a no. He just simply didn’t know how to help me. “Unfortunately, there are other things that you should be more concerned about.”
“Like?”
“The whole of London believes you murdered Prince Arthur. A few bounty hunters are after your head.”
I wasn’t shocked; this was to be expected. I was locked up for some time and couldn’t act.
“Yeah, Alexis framed me. I’m not planning to sit around and do nothing. That bitch had me locked up for two weeks. Ricky, Paul, Emma, and probably Zara are in prison, too. We need to get them out.” I clenched my fists, thinking about all my options.
There was only so much that I could do without my magic, and I really hoped Ronan was planning to stick around for a while.
“Nameless is my son, but he’s going to pay for what he’s done. He betrayed his own bloodline,” Ronan said, sounding furious. I was blaming myself for this. I should never have trusted him after Gjoll, but then Ricky was hurt, and I was so lost. I willingly trusted anyone then. “Obviously your father is the key to all this. This is the right time to ask for his help.”
“No, Ronan,” I said quickly. “Lucifer doesn’t owe me anything. He gave me a task and I failed him. I’m not going to ask him to help me.”
Lucifer’s influence would only go so far, and Alexis had made this personal. I needed to take care of her myself, with magic or without.
“Well, that will only complicate matters. You can’t be seen in public. Every demon in the capital knows you,” my mentor said. “Do you even know where Ricky and the rest are being kept?”
“Not right now, but I’ll find out. There are people out there who are still loyal to me,” I assured him, but deep down I knew that people always believed what they wanted to hear. I couldn’t go back to my flat or even Ricky’s place. Alexis probably found the way out of Suicide Lane, and she must have helped Rodriguez to get out, too. I would have sensed if she died out there. Unfortunately, I was never that lucky to think that the Eurynomos had taken care of her. She was still a threat.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. There were a lot of things we had to discuss. Ronan didn’t say anything, but I knew he wanted to help me. We both decided to stop in the Broken Shoe. If Paul was locked up, I had a feeling that no one would look for us there. And the pub was still central.
Ronan agreed, probably for my sake. I hadn’t eaten properly in over two weeks and I really needed to heal.
An hour later he parked his car, that he apparently rented out in Brixton, out in the alley and then we walked a short distance to the pub. The message on the door stated that the Broken Shoe was temporary closed. We used the back entrance to break in. It felt odd knowing that the retired Watcher wasn’t waiting for me there.
The space upstairs was small, and, in the end, I took Paul’s bed and Ronan told me he was happy with the sofa. We talked over a few things, but we were both too tired to come up with any solid plan, so we went to sleep.
After I lay in Paul’s bed, my tears started. I didn’t want to cry, but I felt like everything had fallen apart and there was no way out of this. I told myself that tomorrow I had to come up with a new plan or a solution. It was that, or I didn’t want to wake up at all.
“You shouldn’t leave the pub. Too many people are looking for you right now,” Ronan said when I showed up in Paul’s tiny living room in the morning ready to conquer the new day. I tried to ignore the fact that my head was throbbing with pain and my muscles felt ridiculously stiff. Ronan had given me some magical paste for my back, and that helped with the pain.
It was going to take a while before I’d feel like myself again. My magic was still gone, and I refused to think that I would never get it back. For now, I was just a human girl who needed to heal, at the same time, I was ready for anything.
“I have to find out where Ricky and the rest of the team are being kept,” I said, rubbing my eyes and trying to focus. “You know I won’t be able to sit around. This will drive me absolutely insane.”
It looked like Ronan went out this morning, because there were some groceries in the fridge and freshly brewed coffee.
“Some demons in the area have set an award for your head, Maxine. If you want to go out, you have to change your appearance,” Ronan said, and my jaw dropped. I couldn’t bloody believe it. I was only gone a few weeks. Things were looking bleak for me. This was the time when I needed to rely on my magic, regardless, and that bitch had taken it away.
“I changed my appearance in order to get into the palace. Ricky had brewed a specific potion for that,” I told him.
I also had to get in touch with Cyril, hoping that he was still in Rodriguez’s good graces. He hadn’t been in the meeting with Nameless and the rest of the group, and he was the only other person I trusted.
Ronan offered to get the ingredients that we needed. Shortly after that he left the pub. I hated that Alexis had forced me into hiding. She really had managed to screw with my life big time.
I switched on Paul’s TV and started changing channels, looking for something to do.
“Maxine Brodeur is armed and extremely dangerous. If you spot her call this number immediately.” A handsome reporter was saying, and for a second, I thought I was seeing things.
My face was plastered across the main news channels. Ronan wasn’t exaggerating when he said that everyone in London was after me. Now I had no other choice. I needed to change my appearance.
It was a miracle I had managed to escape last night. That must have really pissed her off. I knew if it weren’t for Ronan, the human police would have been scraping my parts off the rail track.
I sighed loudly and started brushing my tangled hair. That way I was able to clear my head. The pacing wasn’t helping me anymore.
Rodriguez most likely used his influence from the palace to get to Zachary’s boss, too. Nameless must have reported to Alexis
that the detective was helping me all along.
Ronan was right: I couldn’t even think of leaving the pub as the real Maxine Brodeur. Some of my clients had always been loyal to the agency, but the media had put me in such a bad light that now it was going to be very hard to prove that I was innocent.
It took Ronan two hours to come back with everything we needed. He said Ricky’s apartment seemed in order, but it was too risky to go back there. I was itching to get out, to head straight over to the palace, but Ronan convinced me that it was another suicide mission. Alexis was still very much alive, and that was exactly what she was expecting from me.
“It will take me a few hours to prepare this potion. Have you got any idea who you want to turn into?” Ronan asked, unloading all the stuff on the table in the kitchen. My stomach tightened when I thought about all the people I had met and interacted with. Emma was the first choice, but she was most likely locked up, too.
“Paul’s barmaid. She works for him from time to time. He should have a photocopy of her ID somewhere,” I said, knowing that this made perfect sense. After that, I could easily move around London undetected.
I had a slight panic or anxiety attack when I went downstairs to fetch that ID. My hands started to shake, and I felt like my chest had cracked open. I hated seeing the pub empty, hated the fact that I couldn’t get out. Paul had been building his business for years, and now it was my fault that it was falling apart.
By the time I went back upstairs, I was drenched with sweat and my breathing was laboured. This had never happened to me before and I really needed to get myself together. My friends were counting on me. Ronan was brewing the potion on the kitchen work surface.
“Ah, we might have missed a very important detail, Maxine,” Ronan said, staring at the tar-dark liquid that was bubbling slowly away.
“What is it?”
“You are no longer a mongrel, which means that the potion might not work,” he pointed out, and I was ready to scream. I didn’t think about that, and in a way, Ronan was right. What if that potion wasn’t going to work?
Doomed Cases Box Set: The Complete Collection Books 1- 4 & Prequel Page 87
