Rise of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 3) Read online

  “When your brother shot you, something happened,” Merry continued. “Your mother thinks it was because of energy that he harnessed, energy from that bloodline or whatever. She says that much energy can be used to change things. She says it was how she was brought back to Earth, probably how your brother was too.”

  “No amount of energy can take my curse away,” I answered. “Trust me. I’ve tried.”

  “No,” she said. “But maybe it could change it. Maybe it opened a door inside of you. At least, that’s what your mother thinks.”

  “My mother’s a liar,” I shot back. “A liar who very nearly killed you if you remember.”

  “Of course I remember,” she answered, standing to meet me. “And I didn’t say I trusted her. She doesn’t know where Amber is either. But it’s not like we’re swimming in offers of help. When she brought you back, she said she’d seen magic like the kind that’s surrounding you. She said that magic is tied into past acts, past evils. That’s why your soul was pulled into the Nexus when otherwise it would have stayed in your body. Something that your brother did made it so your soul is yearning to atone for past sins. That’s why we came here. We figured that, if you actually did come back to your body, then you’d be able to set an evil right and, if this is the evil the spell is connected to, it might make it so your damn soul stays put.”

  I thought about what Andy had said before when I was pinned against the wall, about me having to do this myself. It made sense now. If I had to make past wrongs right to fix my current situation, then he wouldn’t be able to help me with that. No one would. Of course, that left a rather huge question on the table.

  “How did she know?” I asked. “How did my mother know about this evil when even I didn’t?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that,” Merry conceded, shaking her head.

  “We can’t trust her,” I reiterated.

  “I didn’t say we could,” merry answered. “But, until we see if undoing this evil did the trick, she’s the only weapon we’ve got. My daughter is still in danger, Callum. We have to see this through.”

  “Of course we do,” I said, walking toward her. “But how. You said you want to see if this did the trick? How are we supposed to do that?”

  She looked at the floor and then back up at me. “There’s only one way we can know for sure, Callum. We have to test it out,” she said. “We have to kill you.”

  11

  “This is a bad idea,” I said, pacing back and forth in the foyer of my two-hundred-year-old, newly exorcised house. In the time that I had been unconscious, both Aria and Clint had shown up, which put me at ease. If my mother turned on us, which she was very likely going to do, it would be nice to have some supernatural muscle around to help deal with it. However, it came to pass, she was a pretty powerful witch now. So taking her out wouldn’t be an easy task. As it turned out though, my resident wolf and vampire didn’t see eye to eye with me about this particular subject.

  “It’s the only idea, unless you want to get locked up again.” Clint was looking at me from across the room, his arms crossed as though he didn’t know whether or not to believe that I was actually myself. “You smelled the same, you know,” he barked. “Even with that other thing inside of you, you still smelled the same.”

  There was fear in his voice that struck me as oddly misplaced.

  “You’re a werewolf,” I reminded him. “You were the alpha of one of the most fearsome packs in the Southeast. You could rip my throat out with your teeth and, if I lose control again, I’m expecting you to do just that.”

  “And then what?” Aria chimed in from beside him. If there was genuine fear in Clint’s voice, Aria’s was tinted with a similar amount of bemused frustration. Her lips thinned into a straight line as she paused, perhaps to consider what to say next. “He could rip your throat out. He could rp your arms off. Hell, I could tear you into tiny pieces and scattered them along the seven seas. You would still there and, sooner or later, you’d find a witch or a djinn, or something that would help you reassemble yourself.” She shook her head. “You didn’t see yourself. These people haven’t known you long enough to remember the man you used to be, the man without reservation or concern. They have no idea how dangerous you can really be.” She shrugged. “Or, at least, they didn’t until your brother shot you. You want to know why he’s afraid? You want to know why they’re all afraid? It’s because you never stop coming. You’re an unkillable beast who have the luxury of eternity on his side. If we lost you, if that thing returned to your body and we couldn’t get it out, then none of us would be safe. Not ever. One year, one hundred years, one thousand years; you’d always be coming.” She sighed. “That’s why they’re scared.”

  “They?” I asked, arching my eyebrows as if to ask if she put herself in that group.

  “Oh, you don’t scare me, silly,” she balked. “You don’t have the balls to take me out.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” I muttered. “But that’s exactly what I’m saying. If I’m such a threat, if having some sadist running around in my body is so horrific, then why chance it?”

  “Because until we know the truth, you’re off the board,” Merry answered, breathing heavily. “This is a really dangerous game, Callum, and you’ve always put yourself squarely on the front lines. It would be ridiculous to think you weren’t going to hurt again before all of this is over. Hell, Abel could come back in here and shoot you in the chest again for all we know.”

  “I wish he would,” my mother murmured. “I need to give that boy a talking to.”

  “The point is,” Merry continued. “I need you and my daughter needs you. You never stop. Aria was right when she said that makes you a real threat. It also makes you our best asset though. It makes you my daughter’s best chance, Callum. And she deserves all the chances she can get.” Merry sighed heavy and looked at the floor. “I know it’s difficult and dangerous, and maybe we’re not the on;y ones who are afraid.” She looked up, making eye contact with me. “But we all know we have a fight ahead of us, and I’ve heard the stories, Callum. I know you were never one to shy away from a fight.”

  A reminiscent smile drug its way across my face. “I’m asking you to do this, for her and for me.” Merry sighed. “So what do you say?”

  I stared at the woman for a long moment. Obviously, there was no way I could turn her down. Whether she was aware of it or not, I’d have done nearly anything she asked of me.The fact that she made sense in her argument was an unexpected (and frankly unnecessary) bonus.

  “I say okay,” I answered, and watching Merry visibly relax did me good. If this was a mistake, then it was a mistake I was going to make for the right reasons. And that was more than I could have said about a lot of my decisions. “There needs to be at least a few precautions in place though. Clint and Aria are wonderful starters, but Aria is right,” I said, looking over at the two of them. “If I really wanted to, if I cut loose, I could take both of them down without much of a sweat.”

  For an instant, I thought about the old me, the one who knew every form of lethal combat in the world, the one who knew how to use an opponent’s strength (supernatural or not) and size against them. I thought about the way I had watched people for thousands and thousands of years and how I knew what their next moves were going to be before they did. I thought about the way I used to be more than willing to use all of that to defeat my opponents, even if it meant their deaths.

  “There needs to be something else,” I said uneasily.

  “What do you think I’m here for?” my mother asked, blinking at me.

  “I shudder to think,” I admitted. “But fine. I might not trust you, but I trust my people, and if they think you’re on the up and up right now, then I’ll forgo my reservations. At least for right now.”

  “It doesn’t hurt that I’m the most powerful person in this room either,” my mother said.

  “Don’t push it,” I answered. “Before we do this, I need t
o be restrained though.”

  “Unfortunately, our holding cell is a sinkhole now, thanks your nephew and his flagrant use of your name.” My mother glared over at Andy. “It’s a pity. I always liked that name. It seems a shame that I’m the only one who can use it.”

  “Focus,” I answered. “If you can’t take me back to the dunge- to the basement,” I said, a new wave of guilt crashing into me as remembered what I used to call that place. “Then you’ll have to hold me with magic. Can you do that?”

  My mother rolled her eyes. “I think you’ll find that, in my current iteration, there’s not much I can’t do.” She grimaced. “Though, I think you’re forgetting that you’re condemning me to a punishment sevenfold times more than what I do to you.”

  “No,” I answered quickly. “I’m not forgetting.”

  “Fine,” she muttered, waving her hands as if to dismiss the notion. “The things we do for the people we lo-”

  “Don’t say it,” I cut her off. “Just don’t.” I marched over to the other side of the room. “If I’m remembering correctly, that’s a load bearing wall,” I said, pointing to the spot I’d just left. “If something goes wrong, I’d rather keep the house intact if at all possible. Especially since all of you are standing inside of it.” My eyes flickered back over to my mother. “How are you going to do this?

  “Kill you?” mother asked, bright energy encasing her hands. I could feel it tying me to the floor, making it so that my body remained stone and still, unable to obey my commands. This was good. It was safe. “In the most painless way possible, Son.”

  I felt a presence beside me. Looking over, I saw Andy standing next to me, his pistol pointed directly at my head. “I’m sorry, Uncle C,” he said.

  Then he pulled the trigger.

  12

  The human brain is sort of a work of art. Even after all these millennia bouncing around in my skull, my brain still does what is necessary to protect itself. As soon as I saw Andy, gun in hand, he pulled the trigger. I heard a loud pop and, for whatever reason, focused on his face and the way it flinched in pain as the bullet fired.

  I didn’t feel a thing though. I guess my mother was right. It was painless.

  In fact, the only reason I even realized I had been shot was the fact that Andy was going lopsided. Wait no. That was me. I was falling quickly, streams of red coloring and covering my eyes. As my body hit hard against the floor, darkness creeping in to take the place of the crimson, the only emotion I could feel was worry. If this didn’t work, if I found myself waking up back in the Nexus, then the people around me would be in grave danger. I worried about Amber, about what would happen to her if I couldn’t be counted on to protect her. I worried about Merry and what the loss of her daughter might do to her. Strangely enough, I also worried about Abel. He might have shot me and, for whatever reason, set all of this in motion, but he was still my brother. Wherever he was, he was still running around in a world he knew nothing about all alone. I had to make this right for all of the, for the world at large. TO do that though, I had to be whole.

  Maybe my mother was right though. Maybe freeing Blanche and the others was the key to freeing myself from whatever was going on with me. Maybe I’d wake up back in that old bedroom with Merry and Andy standing over me, and it would be like old times. That could happen, right?

  Wrong.

  Once again, I found myself floating in the Nexus. “Damnit!” I screamed loudly as I took stock of my floating, incorporeal spirit ‘body’ and the amass of souls travailing through this place. Unlike me, they all had purpose, they all had drive. These spirits were headed to the next life, to be with the Big Guy and do all that cloud based harp playing you’re always seeing in cartoons.

  I guessed that was what Heaven looked like. I had never actually been there.

  That was the rub, wasn’t it. That was the reason all of this was so different for me, so useless. These people all had destinations. These souls (save though who- for whatever reason- had gotten stuck and twisted themselves into wraiths and echoes of what they used to be) had a purpose.

  My life was purposeless and, it seemed that the glimpses of afterlife I would have were purposeless too.

  It was hard for me to tell how much time had passed when I felt it. Time moved differently here, if it moved at all. Still, when a shock of cold air brushed passed me, accompanied by a shadow so large and imposing it stole my sight for a moment, I took notice.

  As I turned to look at the cause of the anomaly though, an intense shudder ran through my body. My heart (or the incorporeal version of my heart) filled with a dread I had never known in all of my thousands and thousands of years. It was true. It was real, and it was debilitating.

  My entire being shook as I turned to take the thing in. I found myself panicking, fearful of my own safety even though I had basically just let me nephew shoot me point blank in the head. This was different though. Whatever this sensation was, I knew the cause of it could do more damage to me than any simple bullet ever could.

  I bullet might tear through my body. This thing could destroy my soul.

  Looking in the direction of the sensation, I saw only darkness. A moving block in reality. It was as though, whatever this thing was didn’t want me to see it and, because of that, I couldn’t. Either that or I couldn’t process it, even in this state.

  Even through all of that, through the debilitating fear and strange perceptive issues, I noticed something out of place. All the souls in this place, with the exceptions of the wraiths, were headed in the same direction. There was, after all, only one place to get to through the Nexus, if you were going anywhere at all.

  This thing though, it boldly moved in the opposite direction. It was no wraith. That much, I knew for sure. I had never seen a wraith that could affect me like that and, what was more, this things movements were direct and purposeful.

  Where the wraiths floated around, lost and without direction, this thing was making a beeline backward, as though it was heading to earth, as though it going right back the way I came.

  That was when it hit me. With a sickening thud, I realized what was going on.

  I might not have known what this thing was, but I was reasonably sure I knew what it was doing. It was going back to inhabit me. This horrible creature, the thing that stopped me in my floating tracks, was also the thing that had possessed me. What was worse, it was on its way to do it again.

  A jolt of anger and concern filled me, replacing the fear as much as possible. Now that I had come into contact with this thing, I knew what my friends were so afraid of. If it got back to them, there was no guarantee all of them would survive the experience. In fact, I’d be surprised if any of them did.

  Jerking forward, I forced myself toward the creature. It was still a mystery to me, still a block or sentient tear in reality that my mind couldn’t exactly wrap itself around.

  “Don’t,” I a familiar voice called out to me, echoing through my mind. I couldn’t exactly place where I knew the tone from, only that it tugged at my insides in the way only a loved one could.

  Still, whoever this was, I couldn’t afford to listen to it, not when this thing was so close to taking my body on its second mystical joyride. So I pushed on, trying to bridge the gap between myself and the indistinguishable creature.

  “You’re really going to pretend you didn’t hear me?” the voice asked, obviously pissed off. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s typical really.” A beat of silence, and then, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  As if on cue, the horrible creature spun. All I could see was empty darkness stop and then contort back toward me. After that, a wave of energy, like heat and embodied horror collided with me.

  It sent me flying backward, shaking and convulsing. I wondered how something that had felt so cold before could produce such heat and, more than that, how anything at all could ever make me feel as helpless and powerless as this thing had.

  I lay there, still and floating, eve
ry bit as directionless as the wraiths. Whatever this thing had done to me, it had left me rudderless. I was untethered in this place again.

  I should have known how dangerous that could be.

  “You,” another voice- different from the first- sounded. It was far off at first, and the hiss that came after the word was low, almost like a foreboding song. It quickly grew though. Before long, the hiss was upon me, and sow as its creator.

  I still lay there, unable to move for the horror pounding throughout my spirit, when the wraith settled over me.

  “Has it been so long?” the wraith asked, looking me over. “Or has it been a day? You look the same, but I’m so tired. So very tired. It couldn’t be the same day. It just couldn’t.”

  Dark, elongated hands reached out for me and then drove into my spirit. I felt them enter me like shards of ice, mingling with the horrible terror and creating a dark hopelessness within my soul. For the first time, I began to really believe I was never getting out of here. Forever would be something very different for me from now on.

  “You came for me,” the wraith said. “I knew if I just stayed here, you would come. Now you have.”

  Fingers drove deeper into me, sending sparks of pain ripping through me. I would have screamed, but I couldn’t move enough to make that happen.

  “Now you’re mine again, and we can be together, the way we were supposed to,” the wraith said.

  I looked at it. Usually, spirits keep the form of the body. It’s comfortable for them and easier to process given all the other changes they go through after death. When they become wraiths though, that form is usually twisted into something both ugly and unrecognizable. Though I tried, I just couldn’t place who this soul belonged to. If the wraith was right, if I really was going to be with it forever, then maybe one day I would.

  “Get away from him!” the voice that warned me not to follow the blank darkness returned, closer than ever this time.