Nine Lives: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part THREE

by Akeroyd, Serena

  In less than five minutes, we’d eradicated a huge threat. How couldn’t we be proud of our achievement even if it had gone easier than anticipated?

  And what Eve had done? The way the branches had appeared like that? Man, that was beyond intense. It was like something from a movie, and it had me wondering if the motif on her belly would do the same thing.

  Clue, script, and weapon all in one.

  Talk about multitasking.

  I rubbed her arm as I said, “You know, when I looked up Drekavac, he was listed as a Slavic demon.”

  “So, in this area, they’ve always known to fear him,” Eve mused.

  “I’d never heard of him,” Stefan countered stiffly, but that was him at the moment. Stiff. He’d been in a mood since we’d landed in Romania, and that mood stank.

  Still, I got it. This was not the home London was for me.

  “Doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t, to be honest. He’s in the old tales. But the legends had him nicknamed as the Screamer, could lure pretty girls into sinning and, some say he could shift into a canine,” I offered.

  “Traits that are based on creatures,” Frazer mused.

  “Exactly.” I laughed. “Does that mean all the demons in the world are Ghouls?”

  Eve shuddered. “Don’t talk about it. It creeps me out.”

  I snorted at her words. She’d just killed millions and had ‘creeped out’ a few billion more. The nightclub had borne the brunt of Eve’s Jannah half. When we walked out, we saw that a lot of humans had been injured in the fires that had started when Drekavac’s line burned to ash, but I believed, more than anything, it was the spontaneous combustion of hundreds of people that would disturb them a little more.

  And I had to think that the rest of the world was just as concerned if this had happened on a mass scale, and there was no reason to think it hadn’t.

  “We might have to get in touch with Caelum,” I stated, speculating out loud. “I have to think that Nicholas would prefer to be kept in the loop now that we’ve done what we have.”

  “That would involve telling him about his parents, wouldn’t it?” Eve questioned, sounding uneasy on Bartlett and Avalina’s behalf.

  I shrugged. “He has to know at some point. Plus, now we’ve rid him of a third of the world’s Ghouls, he should be grateful for our assistance. We did in five minutes what he hasn’t been able to achieve in a lifetime.”

  And his lifetime went beyond the average four scores and ten.

  “I don’t know,” Frazer stated warily. “Nicholas holds a grudge. You and I both know that.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not going to give him our location, Fraze. I just mean that we should keep him in the loop. This one was relatively easy—”

  “Easy? The fuck? You weren’t the one who had to break into a fucking bank!” Dre growled, twisting in his seat in the SUV so he could glower at me.

  “No, I was the one that had to hack into the bank’s mainframe, security, and client systems,” I snapped back. “You think you guys were sweating bullets—”

  Before I could finish, Eve’s hand was on my thigh, and she was rubbing the muscle there, kneading it almost like my cat, Greta, had when I was a kid. The memory popped up out of nowhere, and I had to stop myself from smiling, or the others would have thought I was insane for just smirking in the middle of an argument.

  “Let’s calm down, everyone,” Eve said, but I noticed her tone had changed. The Lorelei was in play today, but more than that, there was steel behind each word too. Sometimes it was easy to think Eve was the same ingénue who’d traipsed into Caelum all those weeks ago in a white sack for a dress and a mud-brown cape, but she wasn’t.

  She was so much more than any of us had anticipated.

  At her statement, her demand, everyone huffed. The tension had brewed quickly among us in that moment, and I knew that was from a blend of adrenaline and stress.

  We’d knocked off one Original, but we still had two to go and we didn’t even know how difficult the next ones would be to find. With a third of the Ghouls gone, security would have increased, surely? This one had been easy, but the rest… not so much. That was why I wanted to contact Nicholas. He had teams, systems in place that would help us.

  But I understood my brothers’ unease. Caelum had a habit of eradicating those who didn’t fit in, and Eve was the antithesis of ‘fitting in.’ Even if she was Jannah, like Nicholas’s father, that didn’t mean the principal of Caelum would embrace her with open arms.

  With a sigh, I decided to wait to see how hard it would be to solve the next clue on Eve’s markings. There was no point in going to war with my Pack over something that might not be required.

  But, if Eve’s markings had told me anything, it was that roots were important. We’d already had to return to my home city and Stefan’s on our path. I couldn’t see that changing any time soon, and I knew the rest of our Pack would have to face their origins as well.

  6

  Eve

  Seven wishes to destroy the Crow,

  The feathered serpent where Raum rests,

  Old ‘souldiers’ shall fatten your ranks.

  As I looked at the pictures on my screen, because it was easier than peering down at my belly, I recognized two things.

  One, I seriously needed to work out more. My tubby belly distorted some of the letters etched into my skin, and when I thought how all the men seemed to have metal beneath their stomachs whereas I was all soft and squishy, it made me uncomfortable. Especially when I thought about how all the other girls at Caelum were the same.

  Toned and taut was the fashion there.

  Two, God was a seriously good tattoo artist.

  The amulet on my stomach was beyond surreal. Large enough that its triangular peak rose between my breasts, wide enough that it sat across my not insubstantial hips. It was craggy, formed from bricks in a style that, when he’d seen the ink, had Dre frowning.

  But then, Dre was a frowner.

  He was going to get premature wrinkles from the way he was constantly puckered up. He continuously looked like he was either getting his tooth yanked out at the dentist or as if Eren had tricked him again and given him sour candy instead of the regular kind—not that we were supposed to have that stuff, but freedom came with the chance to make bad choices.

  Anyhow, the sides of the amulet were the least detailed of the markings. Around the inner rim was the clue to finding Raum, but also the wish we had to utter to take him from this world.

  Unlike before, we had more to go on than just a mountain range. In the foreground of the amulet, there was a temple. Or, I supposed, a pyramid. It just wasn’t like the ones I’d seen on the National Geographic channel documentary about Egypt’s ancient edifices. It had a flattened top that had four solid lines sticking out of it.

  In the background, there was a map, and when Dre had seen that, he really had turned grumpier than usual.

  Still, there was no need for a lot of heavy planning. No need to stop off anywhere or grab gear that we might need.

  The second we’d returned to our hotel in Romania, Sam had taken pictures of my stomach and had sent them to Bartlett and Avalina. We’d all crashed, had a good night’s rest to preempt the storm that was about to hit us—and I wasn’t just talking about with Raum, but with millions of folk spontaneously self-combusting, there was bound to be trouble brewing—and had woken up to a call from Bartlett with their translation.

  Now, an hour later, I’d showered and was waiting on the others to get ready as well.

  Though we could afford a larger hotel room or even several on the same floor, Frazer and Samuel only ever requested the largest suite available. I’d come to think that was down to the hotel size itself, but when we’d first landed in Bucharest late at night, they’d done that, and then when we’d found a smaller hotel in Ploiești, they’d done the same thing.

  I wasn’t complaining, but all eight of us taking a shower really took a long time.

  “It�
��s like GPS, isn’t it?” I mumbled to Reed, who was lying beside me on the bed, his attention on the TV that was detailing the mass panic and the chaos outside these walls.

  Piles of dust were everywhere, inside and out of buildings the world over. Each one was a fallen Ghoul, one that we’d destroyed, and something the humans should be grateful for if they knew the threat those ashes represented.

  “What is? The ashes?” His brow puckered, and his blond hair tumbled down over his forehead. I reached over, so happy I had the right to move the strands out of his line of sight, and brushed them aside. As my hand moved away, he sneaked a kiss to my wrist that had me thinking about last night.

  His eyes darkened at the sight and he grumbled, “Behave.”

  “Like you did in the bathroom last night?” I teased, biting my lip as I thought about how he’d taken me against the wall after we’d returned from the bar.

  “I did what any respectable citizen of the world should,” he retorted.

  That had me snickering. “Oh, what’s that?”

  “We conserved water, didn’t we?”

  He was being serious.

  My snickering turned into a belly laugh that had me rolling onto my side as his seriousness hit home. After a few guffaws that gained the others’ attention, and earned me a few grins and a smirk here and there, I managed to bite out, “We wasted more water than we saved!”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “And you’re unanimous in that statement, huh?” I wheezed. More water had gone down the drain last night than had hit us, for God’s sake. Plus, whenever I’d tried to keep things PG, he’d soaped up my boobs and things had derailed.

  I mean, I wasn’t about to complain… I’d had three orgasms, and that was like a law. You couldn’t bitch at a man who’d given you three orgasms during a twenty-minute shower.

  Or could you?

  I was still new to this man-woman stuff. Or, in my instance, men-woman stuff. What I’d learned at the compound taught me that they could beat me if I didn’t fall into line, and that I’d have to cook for them and wash up after them every day of my life.

  Thus far, we’d eaten out every day, and the hotels did the cleaning. It wasn’t an example of how the rest of our lives would be, nonetheless it boded well, in my opinion.

  “I’m definitely unanimous. We saved the Earth last night, even while I rocked your world.”

  I hooted at his cocky grin, then slapped him on the stomach to shut him up. “Don’t. Seriously,” I wheezed; my own belly was aching from laughing so hard.

  He winked at me. “What’s this about GPS?”

  When my laughter had burned off some, I managed to drawl, “God-Positioning-System.”

  He groaned. “That has to be the worst joke ever.”

  “It’s not a joke! It’s true. He’s telling us where to go, isn’t he? That beats the satellites the humans use.”

  “True,” he retorted, sliding his arm around my shoulder and hauling me close. “Can I talk you into another shower? It’s my turn in the bathroom next.”

  “Nope.” I stuck out my tongue. “Nestor asked me first.”

  His eyes darkened again, but this time, in a way that told me his Hell Hound was present. Everything inside me tensed. Not in concern, but with need.

  Goodness, he was delicious when his beast surged forth.

  Stroking my fingers over his brow, I murmured, “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be better when this is all over with.”

  I couldn’t blame him, and knew we were all on edge over what Bartlett had explained to us in their last call.

  That he and Avalina were so knowledgeable, not just from their time on Earth, but also from the things they’d studied and lectured on, was a great boon.

  This time was different than the last. Amid the leaves and branches on my body, the thousands of tiny letters and words had crafted together one wish. The amulet? Written into its design were two wishes. Two. That meant things were getting complicated, and it also meant that Sam was likely going to get the action he’d been so keen on seeing…

  More than that, the amulet’s clue had referenced the feathered serpent, which was an Ancient deity from the Toltec, Aztec, and Mayan civilizations.

  Apparently, there was a major pyramid in San Juan Teotihuacán in Mexico that was dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, but Bartlett had explained that the clue in the markings on my belly indicated a different location. One on a site called Tula in Hidalgo, Mexico.

  So, we had two wishes to worry about uttering and a destination to fret about reaching.

  Dre, whether he wanted to or not, was going home, and from the grim expression he’d been wearing ever since our early morning wakeup call from Adam and Eve, he was looking forward to it as little as the rest of us were.

  After Eren was done in the shower, Reed got up after giving me a kiss and headed for his own ablutions. Within the hour, we were all ready to rock, and as we headed out of the hotel, the true devastation we’d reaped on the world became evident.

  The news was calling it Armageddon, and it was damn inconvenient, actually. It meant that most flights were canceled, and that we’d been scrambling to find a carrier who was flying to Mexico today.

  Thank God we were rich, because Frazer had spent a small fortune on the tickets!

  The streets of Ploiești were dead as we made our way to Bucharest airport, and driving from the small town and onward to the capital was definitely an eyesore. People suddenly being incinerated left a mess behind, not unsurprisingly. Ghouls who’d been driving cars had crashed and caused pileups, which were a major source of the chaos. Getting through the traffic jams they’d caused, meant we were running late as we approached the airport, having spent most of the journey using back roads to get there.

  As we left behind a world torn by chaos and fear, and soared into the sky to head back to London, I released a relieved breath to be in the air and away from the mayhem on the ground.

  I thought about the people, the innocents, who’d perished last night, and guilt filled me, and I knew I wasn’t alone in that. Everyone was quiet. For most of the journey, truth be told. Heading to London, then on to Atlanta, and finally into Mexico City, we traveled nonstop and grabbed a rental at the ghost-staffed airport before setting on our way for Tula.

  Mexico was just as badly affected as Romania had been, and why wouldn’t that be the case?

  Drekavac’s line had roots that spanned the globe. Every country in the world was feeling the force of his death.

  Still, it was like driving through a warzone. Cars pulled off at the side of the road, and people wandered as though they were lost and aimless, heading for somewhere that was known only to them. They were armed with random stuff—signs from the roads, and things from the jungle that lined some of the paths we had to drive down.

  “It’s like something from Mad Max,” Stefan grumbled, as we hit Ocampo, and were around twenty minutes from Hidalgo.

  Eren whistled. “Jesus, you’re right.”

  “Or Die Hard,” Reed mused, and so began an argument between the two as we drove into the city and made our way to Tula.

  Hidalgo was a strange mixture of small and large. A bit like Ploiești in its feel, but nothing like the major cities of London and Geneva. The buildings were small, somehow, a little ramshackle. I wasn’t one to judge, but I had a feeling that this particular area we were driving through was poor. Everywhere seemed to need a lick of paint, and the roads were tight with the abandoned vehicles, which made things even narrower, and even the cars looked older.

  As we headed over a bridge, we saw clusters of men gathering at one end of the street and I felt the car quicken up as we crossed onto the other side of the riverbank.

  “What were they doing?” I asked Eren, who was at my side.

  He curved his arm around my shoulder. “They looked like they were going to start looting.”

  “People, no matter where you go, are bastards,” Frazer stated, his tone cond
emning as he over-revved the engine in his agitation. “They’ll take advantage of the chaos the world over to try to make a quick buck.”

  “They’re going to steal?” I theorized.

  “Yeah. Knock down doors and break windows to get inside stores.” He grunted. “The bitch of it is, we’ve killed one source of evil but humans… there’s just no helping them.”

  His words, though they’d been throwaway, affected me as we carried on driving toward the ancient site. The bridge had let me see the colorful houses up ahead, which shone in bright jewel-like colors amid gray brick frontages that had spray paint on them. Not as graffiti, but for advertising a business, and I could only assume that the business belonged to the house owner.

  When we finally parked the car, aware that we’d have to walk the rest of the way to the site, it amused me to see a Catholic church opposite one of the smaller trails we were taking.

  Either they were trying to spare the souls of those who dared to believe in ancient deities or were looking to pick up donations from visitors, I wasn’t sure which. Just knew that today was going to be a slow day for them considering most of the world’s population was concerned more with hiding out than heading to church.

  It was hitting four o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky. My skin felt slick from the heat, and the last thing I wanted was to be walking toward a temple that might or might not be the place of our deaths, but sometimes, ya just had to suck it up and get on with shit.

  At least, that was what Nestor said.

  I didn’t necessarily agree, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

  “I hope this is the right fucking place,” Frazer mumbled as he grabbed a backpack that was loaded with water and other stuff. ‘Stuff’ because I hadn’t been there when he’d packed it after we’d made it into Mexico City and had hit a camping store.

  I had a feeling he thought we were going to have to camp out here, and that was the last thing I wanted.