Cade looked at Dunyasha. His sire stared at the massive smoke cloud; her head moved with an occasional twitch.
“Union. Confederate,” Dunyasha said coldly. “Why do you hang on to such useless labels, childe?”
“I’m proud of my heritage, my mistress.”
“Are you? And after all I have taught you and given you, you still relate to your American heritage the most?”
“I do,” Cade answered. “I’m a proud American. I’ve always fought for what I believe in.”
“And have you always won?”
“Not always,” Cade said, although he did not like to admit it.
“Did this Union’s trick succeed?”
“Yes and no. In the end, we pushed the Federals back.”
“My champion… You recreated a failed plan.” Dunyasha pointed. “And all failed plans are doomed to fail again.”
Cade turned and looked to where she motioned. The smoke cloud had begun to clear and from the giant crater in the ground oozed a flood of sewage and oil.
“It can’t be…”
“Yo, man, you blew it up and all, but more of it was underground than above ground, capisce?”
“How big is this thing, Joe?” he asked seriously.
“How big is Los Angeles? How big is California?”
“No,” Cade said incredulously.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you say something before, Joe?”
“Hey!” The slime in the shape of a rat squeaked loudly. “I did!”
The crater where Moselle’s home once sat began to expand. Slowly, it swallowed up everything. Cade had failed.
“Dunyasha…”
She left his side and walked away from the limo, past the fire engine, and toward the destruction. Before he could ask what she was doing, a flash of purple light blinded him and she was suddenly gone.
“Dunyasha!” Cade shouted as he ran to the spot she had just stood and then looked back at Nico. “She left us?”
Nico nodded; a grim look on his face.
Cade felt his legs weaken, as if he might pass out. “We have no choice left—”
“Every slime for himself!” Joe screeched before he launched himself out of Cade’s pocket and scurried off.
“We have to retreat.”
“Where to, Cade?” Sabrina snapped as she pointed at what was quickly becoming a tidal wave of oncoming slimes and living oil.
He wanted to look at Sabrina, but his eyes settled on Moselle first. It looked like Moselle was crying. But he knew that wasn’t possible. The undead couldn’t cry.
“Where to?” Sabrina repeated impatiently.
“I…I don’t know.”
Coronation
Sabrina had seen and heard enough. Once again, she climbed out the moon roof of the limo, but this time, once on top, she unfurled her wings. The flash of energy disintegrated the back of her hoodie. What remained of the thing fell away from her; edges aglow with red embers. Her wings were hotter than normal. She was getting stronger now…much stronger.
Her bra clasps had been reduced to ash too. But luckily the straps held and the thing dangled loosely over her breasts. Sabrina heard Natalia’s voice echo in her head, the line about keeping her undergarments on—it pissed her off.
It’s not my fault my wings make it nearly impossible to wear anything except a backless dress, she thought. What do you know of bras anyway, you flat-chested bitch?
“Comfort cushion straps.” She may have found Weston’s familiarity with her and her needs annoying when he’d handed her the ugly bra back at Walmart, but now she was happy she had it on. “Fucking Weston…”
“Go Sabrina!” Jackson said from beneath her. “Fly as far away from here as you can.”
“No. No more trying to escape my destiny.”
“Sabrina, please,” he pleaded as he grasped her ankle.
“Let me go, Jackson.”
“You’re going to die. I can’t let you die.”
“I’m not,” she said it, but when she took in the sheer enormity of the sinkhole and the rush of Tainted, like giant waves about to crash upon her, she felt the opposite. “We’re all fucked if someone doesn’t do something.”
“That someone doesn’t have to be you.”
“Yes, it does.”
Sabrina rose up higher, out of Jackson’s reach. Once in a steady hover, she cleared her throat and shouted as loud as she could. “My name is Sabrina London. I am the heir apparent of the Water Kingdom and my power grows stronger by the minute!”
Sabrina pointed to the sky above the house, and when she did, it instantly spilled out heavy rain.
“Sabrina, what are you doing?” Cade asked as he backed toward her.
“You’ve been spraying these gross things with water. I am that element’s Queen now.”
“Salt water—”
“Does it really matter?”
“Yes,” Cade said with conviction.
Sabrina willed the rain to pour harder, and it did. She had never owned such power before, but her father had, and he had explained to her time and time again, when she came of age, just how to control it. “The power will be yours one day, Sabrina.”
“They’re stopping!” Jackson shouted from within the limo. “Look!”
Sabrina saw it. The slimes and living oil that had rushed across Moselle’s front yard en masse suddenly came to a halt about one hundred feet from the limo. Sabrina watched the masses lurch and then slowly separate, several huge ones becoming thousands of small ones.
“You killed my parents!” Sabrina shouted. “You will not kill me too.”
When there was no response to her bold statement, she gazed down at Jackson. He was out of the limo and motioning to the sky.
What is he doing? Has he gone crazy…or maybe he’s talking to Weston.
Frustrated, Sabrina shouted. “What do you Tainted want? Why have you done all this? Tell me.”
There was no answer. Only the formation of more and more individual Tainted. Suddenly, she felt like she stood on stage, her eyes on a crowd of blurred people. This was not at all how she imagined her first performance.
“What do you want from me?”
Still no answer. Instead she heard Cade yell something to Nico and glanced up to where Cade pointed: right at a collection of large storm clouds which had suddenly darkened the sky.
“Answer me now,” Sabrina demanded as she dropped her gaze. “One of you things must be able to speak.”
Nothing.
“Fine.”
She concentrated on the ground water, the moisture of the fallen rain, and the ambient water in the grass. Then, she focused on the raindrops that still fell. Her father had described the trick, when she was young, as imagining the layers of water as two slices of bread. What exists in-between is the meat in the sandwich, she thought, repeating his words in her mind.
Sabrina lifted her hands and with an exaggerated gesture she clapped them together.
The Tainted directly in front of her suddenly rose up from the ground a foot, hovered a moment, and then were instantly crushed under the weight of several hundred psi.
“I can do this all night,” she said. “If I have to.”
“We got incoming!” Cade yelled as he and Nico made a dash for the car. “Get inside the limo now!”
Sabrina felt her skin tingle, but then it was too late. Three bolts of lightning struck the ground around her—one in the space she had just cleared, the others to her right and behind her.
The lightning spread out across the Tainted, and cooked the slimes as well as set the living oil aflame.
“Go!”
She heard Cade the moment before the limo’s engine revved. The car was in motion and moved underneath her again. Nicodemus stood on the backseat, squeezed his big body through the moon roof, and reached up for her.
“Grab her, Nico!” Cade yelled.
Sabrina looked down. She was just above his reach, yet shocked when his fingertips brush
ed the soles of her feet.
“Get out of here!” Sabrina yelled down at the car. “While there’s a clear path. Drive out of here.”
“Not without you,” Jackson answered.
“I’ll follow you,” she lied. “Just go.”
While the limo did a three-point turn, she fluttered her wings and rose up higher. She nodded at Cade, who stared out the back window. She wanted them to escape; however she had no intention of following them.
The limo’s tires spun over the wet grass before they finally caught and it lurched forward. Sabrina had not realized the driveway was destroyed until then.
Jackson will have to stay on the grass until he reaches the gate… He should be fine. He’ll get away. I know he will.
The limo had moved about three hundred feet before it was struck suddenly from underneath and catapulted up into the air. Sabrina watched in awe as the car landed on its nose and cartwheeled end over end until it crashed violently into Moselle’s wall.
Sabrina would have screamed had she not been scared into silence. Out of the ground, where the car was launched, rose a shiny black mass. Roughly shaped like a sledgehammer, the thing was easily three times the size of the car it struck, and it rose up to the height of Moselle’s trees before it pivoted.
“Oh no…” was all she could say when she realized it was about to aim itself at the wreck. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.
A tiny voice squeaked from the ground. “You better give yourself up, yo.”
Sabrina looked down; there was the rat she had seen Cade talking to. She knew it was a slime, but it was also Cade’s ally. Or at least she figured it was until now.
“Give myself up?”
“Pollution’s gonna pound your friends into paste.”
“Cade’s in there.”
“And you still love his toothy mug, right?”
Sabrina didn’t answer; instead she said, “Cade’s your friend too, isn’t he?”
“Look. Ain’t no one gonna be my friend when this thing finally shakes down.”
“Then—”
“All I’m saying is, you better make your move now. Now or never.”
Sabrina looked up at the black mass. This is Pollution. And it’s going to kill them all: Cade, Nicodemus, Jackson, and…
Wait. “Where’s Moselle?”
When Sabrina turned to face the sinkhole, a bright flash of purple light blinded her. It was Dunyasha, she had returned—and she was not alone.
There was a sudden stillness in the air when Cade’s sire came back. Nothing, save for the skinny Russian woman, moved. When Sabrina’s eyes cleared, she saw who was with her. Clutched by the back of its thick stony neck was one of those evil rock men, like the ones Jackson said exploded at the storage facility. It was gangly, with jagged skin—monstrous—just looking at it made her heart race.
“What is this?” Sabrina asked. “Why did you bring that—that thing here? Are you working with them?”
“Quiet, fairy.” Dunyasha’s words echoed loudly in the night sky. “Tell her,” she said to the creature.
“Tell me what?” Sabrina asked impatiently.
“You must die in order for the Tainted to be taken seriously. With the Water Kingdom gone, my kingdom of filth will finally have a place at the table.”
“What?”
“The elementals do not respect the Tainted. But now they will have to accept us.”
“You killed my parents so that the otherworldly assembly would accept you?”
“Precisely.”
His response made her skin crawl, but she was determined to find more answers. “Who the hell are you?”
“I am called Raion. Lord of the Tainted.”
“And you want my father’s seat?”
“I do,” the creature said. “For all my people.”
Sabrina shook with nervous energy. “Then fucking take it!”
“Not until you are dead. All must be dead. King. Queen. Princess.”
“I’m giving you the seat, damn it.” Sabrina still shook.
“The seat cannot be given.”
Sabrina looked back at the limo. Smoke rose from the engine. She could see movement; someone was trying to crawl out one of the windows on the driver’s side. It wasn’t Nicodemus, she was sure of that, and it wasn’t Moselle.
Where’s Moselle?
“Yes, look to your friends. See how they cannot help you. Pollution will—”
“Will do nothing to my clan, irradiated earth spirit,” Dunyasha stated and then shoved the thing from behind.
“Your kind is not immune to our powers, vampire.” Raion pointed one of his long sharp fingers at Dunyasha.
“You wish to weaken an alliance that has stood for generations? Remember your beginnings, lesserling.”
“And you, elder vampire, you are no better than the Elemental Kings.”
“I am far better.”
Sabrina gazed at the limo again, and this time she spotted movement far beyond the front gates. It was Moselle.
Where is she going?
Lonely Woman
Moselle had slipped away during the chaos. She’d been devastated by all that had happened, but when she saw him, the same mysterious falcon-headed figure she had sworn she saw in the basement during the first earthquake, she realized her loss was not without reason—it was a sign.
Great Horus, beloved sun god, have you come for me? Come to escort your humble servant away from this and to her rightful future? Have these days been my trial? Have I passed?
Her god called to her with a wave and although stunned, she followed.
Moselle had retrieved the was sceptre from the trunk of her damaged limo just after it had crashed and walked on, deaf to Jackson’s cries for help and unmolested by the invading Tainted, toward her front gate. None of it mattered to her anymore.
I must follow…
When she passed the gates, she was compelled to look back, but not out of regret. She looked back to accept her sign once more. Her family home was obliterated and with it her sarcophagus, her precious cats, her cherished clothes, her journals—her everything. All her worldly possessions were gone, save for one: the glowing staff in her hand.
I put these things before you, Great Horus, and now they are all gone. This can mean only one thing: it is my time. Lead me, my Gods. I am bound no longer. This vessel is yours to command.
You are the master of my fate.
Save Yourself
Cade crawled out of the damaged limo. He looked hurt, but Sabrina was unsure how badly. She had witnessed the effects of the pull, and she had firsthand knowledge of his hunger, but Sabrina had never seen Cade seriously wounded before. With the exception of Lonzo, she had never seen a vampire in bad health.
From where she hovered, it appeared Cade’s arm was broken and he had several deep cuts on his face. He’s tough. He can manage. But Jackson… Sabrina feared Jackson was dead.
The Tainted’s leader shouted, drawing Sabrina’s attention back to the argument before her.
“Pollution could swallow this entire region, all of Los Angeles, you included. You are powerless here, vampire!”
Dunyasha chuckled in response. “For a similarly hive minded people, you forget. You cannot sever my connection to my people without repercussions, Lord Raion.”
“Pollution has already killed one of yours on the road. Two more are hurt and cannot fight. The rest of your kind…underground where they belong.”
“What of The Four who will come down from the mountains? What of The Four who will usher death to all? They are watching. They see all. They see it all through my eyes. They see it all through the eyes of my childe and his childe.”
“Myths,” Raion said disregarding her.
“If you do not believe, then do it.” Dunyasha said calmly. “Kill me and set forth the apocalypse. Enjoy your kingdom during the end of days.”
“Always so bold,” Raion said. “I do not fear—”
“The wraiths?” Sabri
na interjected. “All this death and destruction you’ve caused. You must not fear the wraiths.”
The Tainted’s leader and Dunyasha both looked at Sabrina.
I got your attention now.
“They’ve surely been dispatched,” Sabrina said as she fluttered her wings. “The deaths of an Elemental King and Queen—assassinations. Things like that no longer happen. It’s the very reason why the Assembly was formed.”
“My spies are everywhere.” Raion opened his arms wide. “The death of your parents was made to look like an accident. They will never—”
“They will never ignore it. Especially when their daughter, the very heir to the vacant throne, goes missing after her home is destroyed.”
“We—”
“You’ve made a real fucking mess.” Sabrina pointed at Raion.
“This operation has been underway for years. We’ve planned for everything.”
“Maybe you started your operation with a scalpel. But look around. You’re ending it with a god-damned sledge hammer. You’ve failed, you red-eyed, ugly fuck!”
“I—we have not!”
The ground began to shake more violently than ever. The pillar of Pollution that rose above the limo began to take aim again. Sabrina knew she had angered the Tainted; she knew they wanted her dead. But she also started to believe she had a way to stop all of this.
“The wraiths will come like grim reapers. All they touch will die. But like my father, I alone have the power to stop them. They will listen to me.”
The ground beneath her crumbled and new tears formed all around. Pollution would swallow everyone up soon—she would see all her friends die. And Sabrina could not live with that.
“You do not hold the title yet. There must be an official coronation. You—”
Sabrina hated what she was about to say, but there was no choice.
“Marry me.”
Raion’s monstrous face turned suddenly solemn. “What did you just say?”
She gazed at the limousine, but only briefly. Just long enough to see that Cade had helped Jackson out of the damage. As best as she could tell, he was okay. Thank the gods he’s alive.
“Marry me. Join our people.”
“Join our people,” he scoffed.
“Our union will ensure that the Tainted become a part of the Elemental Kingdom,” Sabrina said; feeling like her father at the negotiating table. “Killing me offers you no such assurances.”
Two Polluted Black-Heart Romances Page 36
