Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1)

by Jane Dougherty

  “This is not Eblis.” The hollow voice rang out in anger, and the formless hell-creatures reared up like a rogue wave. Matt spun around, and his face was deformed with terror, as if he was aware at last of the horror towering over him. He gave a single, hopeless scream before the black slime engulfed him.

  The Burnt Man turned to where Carla and Tully, the last to jump, stood poised on the brink of the dark hole, his arm raised. Again he hesitated and called out one last time.

  “Eblis, come!”

  Tully snatched at Carla’s hand, but she turned as if drawn by something in the voice. For the first time, she looked into the face of the Burnt Man. The color drained from her face as her horror-struck eyes met the red gaze of the Light-Bringer. The ruined face registered the same shock, and the hand halted in its murderous arc. Carla screamed out just one heart-rending word before Tully pulled her after him into the Sacred Hole.

  “Babbo!”

  Epilogue

  The Burnt Man stared impassively at the black hole, his body growing in mass and in power as the demon wrestled with the man inside, jolted into futile resistance, and pushed him back into the depths. The man’s soul shrank and huddled deep in the body that the demon had stolen, and felt his very thoughts wrenched from his control. Only one thought remained in his grasp, Carla.

  The image of the girl darted back and forth like a silver fish, bouncing against the prison walls of his mind, until the picture faded and all that was left was the name, Carla, echoing. The man hung onto the echo with all the strength he still possessed. All that remained of Lucio Bellini, his daughter’s name. Beyond was oblivion.

  * * * *

  Black slime rose in a furious wave and crashed down on the wormhole that had swallowed Eblis and his accomplices. Dagon and Belial roared in anger, and the dead souls cowered. The Light-Bringer spurred his mount forward, his hollow voice chanting words that had never been heard on the earth before, and the black hole roared and whined, expanding to fill the hillside, to engulf an entire army.

  Then, all of a sudden, the wormhole was still.

  The Light-Bringer’s voice became a torrent of murder and torment, penetrating even the primitive senses of the black slime. But the hole was silent. Worse, it began to shrink. The muttering and clicking of mandibles was the only sound to be heard in its depths as the worms delved deeper, closing their tunnel behind them as they retreated, pushed back into time and space by an unseen force. Soon only a hole the size of a rabbit burrow remained.

  The demon waited, his brow furrowed in annoyance, until the irritation passed, and he turned to the scourges. “The passage will reopen. No power can command the worms for long. We have waited millennia. We can wait a moment longer. Until then, the earth is yours. Should Eblis still be hiding in this world, find him. All else, kill and destroy! Leave only ash and dust! When you have done, we will take the dark path. For wherever Eblis is hidden—in this world or another—he must accept his destiny. It was written before the world was made, how it would end, and who would end it. He has no choice.”

  Dagon and Belial needed no more encouragement. They both pulled brutally on the reins of their mounts and whipped them forward across the tangled ruins. The souleaters followed, black slime rippling like an oily wave to engulf the battlefield around the shopping mall, sucking and rending the dead that still lay scattered, surging in pursuit of the survivors.

  More dead souls dragged their mangled limbs out of the razor wire and the firetraps and joined the silent host. Whatever still lived and breathed in the dying world would soon join them.

  Behind the heavy clouds full of ice and dust, the stars still burned. But silently, one by one, they began to fall.

  Also available from Finch Books:

  Blood Empire: Blood Princess

  Rebecca Piercey

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  I awaken to the sounds of chaos. A terrified scream pierces my sleep-clouded thoughts and adrenaline immediately pushes me to action. The first scream is shortly followed by a second and a third, and I hear guards shouting in the courtyard below my open window. Whatever is happening, screams and panic in the middle of the night are never good.

  I hastily throw my covers onto the floor and grab a knife from my nightstand. I tuck it into the waistband of my leggings and pull a jacket over my shoulders. As I crack my door open and peek into the dark hallway, a shrill alarm begins sounding, echoing off the walls. I recognize the sound immediately.

  The palace is under attack.

  Fear creeps into my mind for a brief second but I push it away and resolve to find my brother. There’s no reason to be afraid for myself. I’m a trained assassin and I’ve survived an attack before, once, when I was eleven. Still, it’s better to remain together, so I check to make sure the hallway is clear before I silently move toward my brother’s room, which is just three doors down from my own. He’s standing in his doorway in a T-shirt and boxers, a befuddled look plastered across his face.

  “Laura? Why’s there an attack drill happening at three in the morning?” He yawns, stretching his arms.

  “It isn’t a drill, Eight,” I whisper, shoving him back into his room and flipping off the lights. I don’t want to draw any attention to us.

  “What do you mean? It isn’t a drill?”

  “We’re under attack,” I say, searching through my brother’s things for any weapons he may have. Recently, he’s taken to being quite the pacifist and wants to avoid any and all conflict. How unfortunate for him.

  I hand him a gun and a knife, and stick the other three knives that I find into the waistband of my leggings with my own weapon. It won’t be comfortable, but they’ll stay put until I need them.

  “By who?” he replies, taking the weapons from me without hesitation. I suppose training and instinct supersede pacifism. Good.

  “Don’t know. If you see someone you don’t recognize, shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “But what if—”

  “I don’t care. Until we know what’s going on, shoot first.”

  Eight nods, a piece of his shaggy black hair falling over his ice blue eyes. My brother is tall, pale and lanky with an angular face. The two of us have similar features except I am shorter and my eyes are golden rather than blue.

  “Good. Let’s go then,” I say, motioning for my brother to follow behind me.

  I tiptoe down the hallway, staying close to the wall. Our palace is five stories high so attackers could be lurking anywhere. I hear the screams of our servants and the shouts of the guards, attempting to direct people to safety, coming from floors below us. Eight and I live on the fifth floor, so it’s unlikely that the attackers have gotten to us quite yet. Still, I remain on the lookout, listening for any sounds of movement nearby.

  When we reach the end of the hallway I hear hurried whispers coming from around the corner. I reach back and put my hand out to stop Eight in his tracks. Without making a sound, I look around the corner and my golden eyes widen at what I find.

  My sister.

  My sister, Alicia, has been out of Karkonia for two years, trying to work out a diplomacy contract with our neighboring country, Malibah. It is only a ruse, of course, but there’s still no reason that my sister should have returned. It’s not part of our father’s plan.

  “Is that—” Eight begins to whisper, but I elbow him in the stomach before he can finish.

  “Shhh.” I want to listen and I need my brother’s complete silence if I’m going to hear my sister’s soft words.

  “My sister’s and brother’s rooms are at the end of the next hallway. I need you to keep them busy while I find the Emperor and kill him. If we want to stop this war, we need to do it tonight,” Alicia says to a blond man dressed all in black.

  “Sister? I thought you and Prince Eight were Emperor Peter’s only children,” the man asks, confused.

  I roll my eyes. I’ve grow tired of my identity being kept secret. I cannot strike fear into the hearts of t
hose who don’t even know I exist.

  “Did I stutter? I’ll explain later. Just distract them,” Alicia commands.

  I don’t wait for his response. Before the guard comes our way, I open a nearby door and shove Eight inside the room.

  “When this guy comes for you, you shoot him. And don’t give me any of that ‘I’m a pacifist’ nonsense. Kill him.”

  “I don’t kill people. You do it,” Eight huffs.

  “No. I’m going after Alicia. You need to do this, Eight. If not to save yourself, do it for me,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Just stay hidden as long as you can. You only need to kill him if he finds you.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it,” Eight says, drawing his gun. Satisfied with his answer, I quietly look through the cracked door. The blond enemy has made it halfway down the hall, so I slink through the small opening of the door and walk against the wall until I’ve turned the corner. I see my sister’s figure running down the hallway and I hurry after her, swiftly and silently.

  I don’t understand how she could do this to us, betray us as if we weren’t even her own blood. But it’s evident to me that she has and the knowledge is heavy on my shoulders, making my heart ache. The pain pushes me to chase her harder and I carefully avoid stepping on a servant’s body as I run after her. An innocent servant who has done nothing but care for my family. The sight causes an untamable rage to course through my body, only adding to my adrenaline.

  In moments, I catch up with my sister and grab her thick brown ponytail, throwing her to the ground before she has the chance to react. She turns over and pulls out a knife, but her brown eyes widen when she realizes that her attacker is me.

  “Laura, let me explain,” she begs, her eyes full of horror. She knows what I am capable of. She’s seen the way I kill.

  “It better be a damn good explanation,” I threaten, holding my knife to her throat. She squirms and tries to get out from underneath me but she’ll never overpower me. She may be older, but I’ve always been stronger.

  “Father’s planning to start a war with the Malibahians,” she says, trying desperately to push my knife away from her neck.

  “What does that have to do with anything? You’ve known that for years.”

  “We can’t go to war with them, Laura. I have to stop it.”

  “Then you really are a traitor,” I growl, pressing the point of the blade into her neck.

  “Laura, no. Please don’t hurt me. Please. I’m your sister. Please. We’re family,” she cries, tears flowing down her fair cheeks, “I’m doing this to protect you and Eight, I swear.”

  I lessen the pressure of the knife against her skin, but don’t let her free, “What do you mean?”

  “I…I can’t explain it to you now, but I promise you it’s true. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you or Eight,” she says, her voice pleading.

  I am the kind of person that believes in black and white, right and wrong—no gray areas. Unfortunately, they exist, and this is one of them. Maybe I should at least hear my sister out. She’s right about one thing. She’s family and you don’t betray your blood, even if your blood betrays you.

  I don’t let her see the crack in my resolve. “Killing Dad would hurt Eight and me. I haven’t seen you in at least a year and now you’re here with people trying to tear apart our family and stop our country from being an empire. Why should I believe a word you’re saying?”

  “Because you do believe what I’m saying. You know me, and you know I’m telling the truth,” Alicia says.

  She knows I’m faltering because she does know me. She knows just what to say to prevent me from killing her. And it works. I can’t kill her. I’ve killed more people than I can count, but never my family. Never my blood.

  “You’re wrong. I don’t believe you,” I say, removing the knife from her neck completely. “But if you can explain to me how exactly you’re trying to protect us, I might let you live.”

  Before Alicia can respond, the man she ordered to distract Eight and me turns the corner. He freezes when he sees me.

  “Alicia… I’m… I… I couldn’t find the girl, but I found the brother. He tried to shoot me, but I got him before he could,” the man says, bending over to catch his breath.

  My eyes widen in anger and my mouth forms a thin line as I scramble to my feet. I throw one of my knives toward the ground forcefully and it sticks into the wooden floor only centimeters from Alicia’s head. “If Eight is dead, I swear I’ll kill you so slowly and painfully that you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

  Alicia’s mouth drops open with surprise, but I waste no more time paying attention to her. I take off running down the hallway and I turn the corner where I find my brother lying in a pool of his own blood.

  “Eight! Eight, no,” I say, tears welling in my eyes and falling down my pale cheeks. I take his pulse. Faint, but still there.

  Suddenly, I hear footsteps round the corner and I pull a knife from my waistband, prepared to launch it at whoever is behind me.

  “Is he okay?” Alicia asks, tears falling down her cheeks. I throw the knife at her with all my strength and it makes contact with her arm, sticking into the tan flesh. She cries out in pain and quickly pulls my weapon out of her skin, blood rushing down her arm.

  “Get out of here before I kill you,” I command.

  “I just wanted to—”

  “Get out!” I scream, throwing another knife at her in my anger.

  This time she dodges it, backing away from me quickly. I turn my attention back to my brother, who lies on the floor, unconscious and bleeding.

  “Eight, just hold on. I’m going to get help. I’m going to get Dad. I’ll be right back,” I say to him, hugging him before I stand and run to find assistance.

  I waste no time with the elevator. I run past Alicia and my brother’s shooter and to the stairs that will lead me to my father’s second floor bedroom. More carnage covers this floor of the palace, but most of the fallen appear to be the enemy. The smell of spilled blood nearly chokes me as I frantically run from room to room, searching for my father. Finally, I find him standing over the body of an attacker who now has a knife through his heart.

  “Dad! Dad, please help! Eight’s been shot. Eight’s been shot,” I cry, running toward him and grabbing his arm.

  “Laura?” he says, turning to me with furrowed eyebrows. “Where is he? We have medics on the way. The palace nurse was killed.”

  “Of course she was,” I say, kicking the wall in frustration. “Come on. He’s this way.”

  My father follows me as I run upstairs to Eight’s side and fall on my knees beside him, grabbing hold of his hand. My father flips on the hall light and kneels down beside my brother, squinting his golden eyes as he examines my brother’s wounds.

  “It appears that the bullet entered his right shoulder. He’s probably unconscious either from shock or from hitting his head as he fell. Unfortunately, he’s lost a lot of blood,” my father says, pulling his shirt over his head and pressing it to Eight’s wound. Some of his long black hair falls onto his bare chest, and he pushes it behind his shoulders with an irritated sigh. “Hold my shirt on his wound and put as much pressure on it as you can. The medics should be here any moment. I’ll lead them up here as soon as they arrive.”

  “Okay,” I say, shaking and putting all of my weight onto my brother’s wound. His blood soaks through my father’s white shirt and gets onto my hands, but I focus on the task.

  “I’ll be right back. Just keep holding that to Eight, okay. It’s going to be all right,” he says, kissing the top of my head and patting my shoulder. He hurries back down the hall and out of view.

  I use all of my might to hold his shirt against Eight’s wound but the blood still flows until the white shirt is stained completely red. I don’t know how many minutes pass before I see the medics running toward us, but it feels like years. They crowd around my brother and I jump out of their way as they lift him onto a stretcher.

/>   “Is he gonna be okay?” I ask my father, trying to keep the tears from stinging my eyes. I’m surprised he’s not scolding me for showing weakness in a time of uncertainty, but if he’s angry at my tears, he kindly keeps his comments to himself. I can’t help but shed tears for my brother. Eight is my best and only friend. If I lose him, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  “I hope so, Laura. These are the best medics in the city of Karkay. They’ll take care of him,” he says, putting his arm around me.

  As I watch the medics carry my brother away, the weight of the night’s events finally begins to crush me. Eight could die from his wounds and if he does, it will be our own sister’s fault.

  I don’t know what happened to the girl that used to be my friend—the girl that trained with me and kept me company when the stresses of my secret identity nearly destroyed my spirit. And right now, I don’t care. The Alicia that I once knew has been replaced, and the version that showed up at our palace tonight is out for blood. Her family’s blood.

  She will not get away with the pain that she has caused us tonight. I will find her and I will kill her, no matter what it costs me—whether it be my life or even my soul. The only blood left to be spilled is hers.

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  About the Author

  Jane Dougherty is a product of the Irish diaspora, brought up in Yorkshire, educated at Manchester and London, before moving to Paris to work in the wine trade. She now lives in Bordeaux with her family, a Spanish greyhound, and a posse of cats. She writes fantasy with a touch of history and mythology and enjoys retelling Celtic legends. She is a sucker for anything Viking. Following a family tradition, she also writes poetry and short fiction and has been published in several anthologies, literary journals, and webzines.