When those speaking with Sayer departed and he headed toward his waiting limousine, Maura motioned for Liam to wait on the other side of the grave sites.
Sayer stopped when she ground the cigarette at his feet. “That was some speech,” she said, his eyes connecting with hers.
His face paled at her widening smile, fangs grazing her lips. She slapped enchanted handcuffs onto his wrist that prevented the use of magic.
Sayer gulped. “I thought you were dead.”
She chuckled and yanked at the handcuffs to lead him to the empty rows of chairs. “Surprise, surprise.” She stopped. “I have another surprise for you, Sayer.” She dropped a dagger hidden within her sleeve into her palm.
Sayer acknowledged the glint of silver, his jaw loosening. “You wouldn't think of killing me on Erewhon grounds.” He tried to strengthen his voice with a clearing of his throat. “You'd be arrested and condemned to death for the murder of a high-ranking Keep official.”
“There's the thing, you're no longer a Keep official. Besides,” she leaned in close, waving the blade from side to side. “There's no one here to see.” In one blinding motion, she made a solid connection with his side. Warm blood oozed over her fingers. He bent forward to catch her shoulder for support. Using his weight, she pushed him back. “Consider this your penance.” She kicked him into the empty coffin below that opened with a spell.
Sayer moaned.
“Don’t worry, Sayer, I won’t kill you.” Maura motioned for Liam to close the casket. “Time will.”
Epilogue: The Beginning of the End
Evrene stood in a vast wheat field where stalks rustled in the soft air. She ran her fingers through them as she walked toward a clearing. She shifted the color of her hair to match the sunlight, jeans and a blouse melting into a floral dress that came to the knee. It's all in the looks. She stopped before the border and peered between wheat stalks.
A dark-haired male wandered into the small clearing. His arms swung lazily at his sides, his feet shuffling to kick up dirt that collected on the hem of his pants. A gun on his right hip was bound tightly in a leather holster. The Collector scanned the area without much attention, and his baby face emulated his inexperience. All in the looks.
Evrene curled locks of blonde in her fingers and flung them down her shoulders. She painted a smile on her face and relaxed, adding innocent sway to her hips as she walked into the clearing. Her footfalls fell quiet in the wake of the man's loud shuffling. She held an Allurement charm close.
The man whipped around on his heels, and Evrene let the magic free into the air. It hovered like rain in a vacuum, tickling their skin, releasing all tension. She smiled at the man in his daze and strutted forward, biting her lower lip.
He took a step further away, his fingers on the latch of his gun holster.
“You wouldn't want to do that,” Evrene cooed, lacing her fingers with his. “Now would you?” She pressed against him, forcing her lips to his.
His internal resistance, masked beneath the Allurement charm, sizzled between the kiss. She ripped away, his lips still between her teeth. A small trickle of blood dripped from his mouth. She giggled, licking her lips of his taste and turned to the darkening sky. A wave of magic from her fingertips tore open the portal into Abysm.
Adrian's last words reeled in her head, tingled on her lips. ‘Lead Abysm when I'm gone.’
Black liquid surged from the portal and flooded the small field. With a hard wind, she guided it over the rolling hills. Smokey silhouettes rose from the waves and charged across the fields, their backs arched, their fangs drawn.
“Code red! Code re–”
Evrene choked the man. “Too late.” She flung him into the black waves. His screams drowned in its hold.
She smiled and materialized on a beach, the black horizon stretching closer. The evil roared onto the sand, dead fish in its grasp. The mass rose, taking form. The line of darkness grew until it encapsulated the beach.
“Who's hungry?”
Its growl pierced the air.
Evrene charged into the forest campgrounds. They swarmed the first area, Mystics fleeing in different directions.
The black split at their screams.
Evrene ran after the tallest male, jumping over logs and weaving between trees. His scent swirled in the air that ignited a burning thirst. She pushed off the ground harder, fangs bared, a hiss ripping into his dying hope. She tackled him to the ground where he flailed under her grasp, elbows scraping into the dirt, fingers trying to pull him free, legs kicking at her backside. She flipped him onto his back and pinned him beneath her hips. She silenced his cries with a quick clench around his throat.
Blue eyes, full of Mystic magic, widened, his pulsing blood turning the whites of his eyes red. He reached for her wrist.
Evrene knocked his hand back with a deflection charm that left a radiating jolt within his bones. She breathed him in deep, trailing her nose along his cheek, following the lines of his veins to his neck. She pulled away, staring into his eyes. “I want to keep you.” She sank her teeth into his neck, the black surrounding them. His blood coated the back of her throat, bringing with it a rush of satisfaction.
Evrene rose as the black tainted his blood, turning it magenta, his blue eyes gray and red. First of many. She slunk between the thinning trees to the border of the forest.
Beyond the rising sun was the heart of Erewhon. Glass buildings cut into a perfect blue sky. Children's laughter filled the summer air and Mystics carried on with their morning routines. And somewhere beyond the smiling faces, inferior world, and unsuspecting Mystics were Maura Leroux and Liam Winston. The hunters. The cause and effect of the future. The bull’s-eye.
“Ready or not,” Evrene grinned. “Here I come.”
The Phoenix:
New Dawn
Prologue: The Infection
Reed Clark wanted to go home. Another late night spent at work meant that his newly-wedded wife would be angry their dinner had gone cold waiting for him. She'd called during lunch to say she was cooking steak, a subtle threat to come home on time. Between the wedding, the new house, a new car, and double the bills, money was tight. He hoped the lilies he’d bought curbed her anger when he walked through the front door at eleven instead of five. They were her favorite. During their first few months living together, the apartment had been filled with them. Every vase, every inch of dirt in their two-by-two garden had been crammed with lilies. He’d learned they made her smile, and if lucky, they sometimes diminished her anger. A twinge in his stomach told him their magic was wearing thin. He’d used flowers as a means of placating her too many times since starting his new job. He worried she might just throw them in the garbage. Or, at him.
His cell phone rang from the cup holder in the center console. Elizabeth, the touch screen read. The image of his wife on their wedding day brightened the car with its artificial light. Fourth call in the last hour. She’d moved from the texting phase after countless messages to relentlessly calling. He hadn't answered the initial call. His first mistake. Too afraid to answer now, he silenced the phone. The flowers wouldn’t work. She’ll place them on my grave.
With the road wide open, Reed pressed harder on the accelerator.
The lit street curved into a service road that wound around the highway. Indecipherable darkness hovered along the road like a thick curtain.
Reed switched his high beams on, only able to see a few feet in front of him. He slowed, unsure of where the road turned or when others intersected. His palms went sweaty, his body hunched over the wheel for a clearer view. The darkness left behind black precipitation on his windows that thickened the further he drove.
Fog? Living close to the water, he'd encountered heavy fog throughout his travels. It'd wash over the town in the morning and return in the late night hours when the humidity rose and the temperature dropped with the incoming tide. But, never black fog.
He shook his head. I'm just tired. Temptation to push the car f
aster itched in his foot. He refrained and gripped the wheel tighter. He imagined his wife waiting for him, mad again, screaming again how he should’ve never taken this job, cursing out his boss again. How many fights did other couples have their first year? He never remembered fighting with her this much when they were engaged. Then again, they’d lived in an apartment, not a house. Had separate bills, not a shared mortgage. He didn’t want to fight, not tonight. He prayed she’d left work late too, and pressed down on the accelerator.
A rush of shadows whizzed past his headlights. The car made impact with a solid force that shattered the windshield. Reed ran over the object with all four tires before finding the brake. The tires screeched, the car coming to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road.
Reed sat in his car, counted his breaths until they turned so shallow he thought he'd faint. Then he exited, adrenaline making his grasp weak and his limbs shaky. He walked through the black fog that seemed to howl at his presence. He approached a man, broken and twisted, lying in a pool of blood.
“Oh…God,” Reed choked out, pulling at his hair. He turned his back to the man and began pacing.
Thoughts spiraled in his head like a whirlpool. He looked over his shoulder, the body still there. His arms began to shake as he glanced down either end of the road. Nothing. He thought about calling the authorities, an Elixir, someone to help make sense of everything. He hadn't seen the man, didn't know what business someone had being on an empty road. Will I go to jail? The thought clenched his stomach tight. No, he calmed himself. It was an accident.
The urge to leave made his skin crawl. No one would know it was me. His conscience spoke louder than his wants. I can't leave him here.
Reed doubled over, hands on his knees, heaving. He tried to take a deep breath. The air, stinging like poison, did little to clear his head. After a few breaths, he straightened, head still swimming. He turned to the body, hidden within the fog that grew closer, darker, thicker. It clung to his skin like hungry leeches. Howls echoed from the distance, the dark rippling with it.
Reed backed away as the fog swallowed the man.
***
Reed walked into his quiet, dark home. A lone lamp in the dining room illuminated his wife’s anger. A single place setting, void of food, sat at the head of the table. He walked into the kitchen. Empty. Clean. No tinfoil wrapped servings of dinner. No note on the fridge that told him how long to put the food in the microwave.
He pressed his pounding forehead against the fridge. Its cool surface helped to ease his headache and lessen the sweat that collected on his brow. His eyes shut on instinct and the dark welcomed him.
Images from the night – killing a man, disposing of a body – flickered between the shadows of his subconscious. He winced with each vision, as if reliving the impact of the crash again and again.
“You’re late,” Elizabeth said, voice tired. “Again.”
Reed turned, and her eyes widened, head tilted to the side.
“What happened to you?” she asked, walking forward, arms outstretched.
He looked around, at his hands – bloodied and dirtied. His pant legs were crusted with dried soil, shoes covered in muck. He’d rubbed his face after parking in his driveway, trying to wipe away the night, convince himself he was simply returning home from a normal day’s work. But the darkness that followed him home, stuck to his skin in a cold sweat, had brought his hands harder against his face. He imagined the dirt smears across his cheeks, the streaks of another’s blood across his forehead.
“Reed?” Elizabeth said slowly. She caressed his cheek while reaching beside her for a towel. “Baby?” Concern made her lips quiver. Silence drained her face of color.
Reed forced a smile that made his stomach churn. “I bought you flowers.”
Elizabeth’s eyes darted from side to side, an uneasy laugh pushing past her lips. “There’s no flowers, babe.”
Reed furrowed his eyebrows. “I…” He looked at the counter, at his hands again. The brownish-red blood sent his head spinning. He breathed through the oncoming nausea, the air sharp with Elizabeth’s floral perfume.
“Reed?” Elizabeth caught him as he stumbled into the counter. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her voice drifted into the back of his mind where fire and ash expanded to consume his thoughts. Left and right, shadows flooded his vision to bring darkness. His magic fired off of his fingertips against his will and struck the wall.
“Reed!”
***
Reed hadn't felt well since last night. His stomach churned and heaved until empty. A fever and chills had him tossing and turning throughout the night, aggravating and worrying his wife. His hands, usually steady and smooth, trembled and sweated. He dismissed his symptoms as nerves. Nerves from what? He wiped his forehead of perspiration as he waited for the train.
Last night reeled in his mind like a reoccurring nightmare. His stomach flopped. Dark road. Black fog. A man. Screeching tires. The sound of the impact – the crunch of the man, the shatter of the windshield, the piercing silence that followed – riled his stomach again, his sweat colder.
They'll find him. His memory of discarding the man in the weeds faded, becoming a mix of panic, fever, and vomiting. The black fog that covered his secret on the road seemed to follow him home. Everywhere he looked, he saw it, felt it, like a constant reminder of the night he'd never speak about.
Elizabeth questioned him all night, asking what was wrong, what had happened. He played it off as nothing. Stress. The flu. A stomach bug. He hadn’t thought about what excuse he’d give for the car damage, why there was blood on his clothes. His mind couldn’t wrap itself around the reality. Elizabeth would ask, and he’d mumble a disjointed sentence. Flat tire. Fell in the parking lot. Car – stuck in the mud. He’d left before her, took the car to the shop, lied that he’d hit an animal, and then waited at the train station for his ride to work.
“Caution, train entering station,” the robotic speaker announced, a train squealing to a stop in front of Reed.
He forced a smile to those that exited, his stomach in his mouth. He sat in a corner seat and held his head in his hands. The incessant throbbing from last night returned, bashing harder against his temples. Shadows. He rocked back and forth. Crunch. The cold sweat turned hot. Silence. His stomach quivered, his body doing the same.
As the train lurched forward into a tunnel, Reed fell into darkness.
Contact the Author
Author Website: www.sophiamadison.weebly.com
Author Blog: www.sophiatmadison.wordpress.com
Twitter: @SophiaTMadison
Blue Ruin (The Phoenix Series Book 1) Page 28
