Page 3 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

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MAVEN

After nearly fifteen minutes of stumbling in the same direction as the telephone lines with cold sinking deeper into my bones, I spot a house on the lightly forested horizon. As I approach, I note that the lights inside aren’t on. Maybe it’s abandoned.

But then I see the car parked haphazardly in the front yard. Very little snow has accumulated on the top of it, so it must have been driven recently. On top of that, the house’s front door has been left open.

A couple of ravens flutter to a tree nearby, croaking ominously at me as if to say this isn’t safe.

They’re right. When I silently move closer, I sense it: fresh death sitting heavily in the air. Just before I reach the front door, chills run over my skin. My nerves tighten as each sense goes on high alert.

Somewhere in this house, danger of the Nether variety lies in wait.

How…convenient.

I did want to find something else to kill, after all. I just hope it’s something alive that will fuel my magic, instead of Undead or banshee or some shit. Lowering into a ready stance despite the screaming soreness lingering in my limbs, I slip soundlessly through the front door.

Bloodstains saturate the white entry carpet, with more red smeared along the wall and up the stair railings. The corpse of an older man lies crumpled at the foot of the stairs. My attention zeroes in on the puncture marks on his broken neck half a second before I register the slight squeak of a wooden door to my right.

I leap aside immediately, narrowly dodging a Nether vampire. Its fangs snap in the place my neck just was before it whirls on me again, black eyes gleaming with inhumane, predatorial thirst. My etherium knife is in my hand immediately as I dodge another attack.

It’s almost as fast as I am, which makes this an appealing combat opportunity until another vampire appears at the top of the stairs. The second one blurs down to join the fight at the exact second I plunge my knife into the first vampire’s neck.

The first vampire screeches as its throat gurgles, overflowing with blood as it collapses—and simultaneously, I shout in pain when the second vampire’s teeth sink deeply into my right shoulder. I throw my elbow back hard to knock the monster away, but Vampire Number One is still not completely dead, and I hiss again as it bites down hard into my right ankle.

The pain that explodes there is far worse than the bite wound on my shoulder.

Fucking vampires.

Still, with the pain comes adrenaline pumping through me, filling me with the usual dark thrill of a fight.

I dodge another attempt by the second vampire before plunging my hand into its chest and ripping out its heart. It drops dead. The first vampire is now twitching on the ground, blood pooling around its head. Typically, I would end a monster quickly just for the fun of it, but that ankle bite will be annoying to deal with, so I let it suffer.

Tossing the heart aside, I check my bitten shoulder and try rolling my ankle.

Gods, that hurts.

The first vampire finally goes still. I pick up my knife, ready to kill whatever else may be in this house, but then I halt.

Both vampires are now dead. Their deaths are on my hands.

So…where’s the buzz?

Once again, I test my magic, trying to heal my shoulder. Once again, nothing happens.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I grit, glowering at the sky I can’t even see.

Galene was right. I’m not a revenant anymore, which means I’m a demigoddess with no idea how to use holy magic.

Years of torturous training to learn how to use death-fueled magic, wasted.

“You’re all sadists,” I mutter at the gods.

Ironically, that makes me being related to them make some sense.

Bending, I yank my knife from the dead vampire’s neck. Embarrassingly, it takes a couple of tries to get it out—gods, I’m way too fucking weak for comfort right now.

I finally turn into another hallway. A dead woman lies face down here, deep wounds marring her back and legs, with an axe embedded in her spine.

Why would a vampire use an axe on a human? Unless…

Unless another human was influenced to use it against her.

Which means?—

“The daughter of Amadeus yet lives ?” a raw, wind-like voice hisses.

My body’s response is visceral. Blood rushing through my veins, hair on end, fear replacing the adrenaline in my system.

It’s not Gideon. It’s some other wraith. Still, the instant I see movement in the shadows from the corner of my eye, my knife shifts into a scythe and is swinging before I can pause to consider that it isn't made of blessed bone.

A sharp, haunting whistle fills the air before the etherium blade rips through the center of the shadowy wraith’s chest. A sound like shrieking storm winds fills the room, deafening until the intangible creature dissolves into dark liquid that sinks into the carpet alongside the blood.

Again, no buzz from a kill floods my veins, but the clear etherium of my scythe lights up softly for just a moment. The burning in my chest eases ever so slightly.

Etherium in the hands of a demigoddess bitch must be pretty effective. Good to know.

I freeze, noticing a woman watching me from the kitchen’s threshold. She’s dressed in winter clothes that are stained red, but the blood splatter pattern on her face tells me that it’s not hers. At least, not all of it is. But then, it’s well within a wraith’s ability to drive someone insane enough to kill their loved ones. That skulking wraith must have caused the bloodshed that drew the vampires here.

The woman is speechless as she mouths, Maven Oakley?

Right. I was all over the news before my soul took an unmemorable detour to Paradise. She clearly recognizes me.

“Hi,” I say awkwardly. If she’s scared of me, she’s not showing it. “This might be bad timing, but do you have a map or?—”

She floats towards me, and that’s when I realize this woman is the axe murder victim I saw lying in the hallway.

Evidently, I can see ghosts again.

Just as I noticed when I was a child, new ghosts are ever so slightly transparent and can only speak in unintelligible whispers and soft wails. Otherwise, they look as if they could be alive. Only when spirits are left unreaped for a while do they lose their color and become foggy, humanoid blurs that become difficult to identify.

As she gets closer, I stand my ground. “Look, I’ve been through this before. I can’t help you.”

The woman pauses and points at my scythe like she’s confused. I’m about to explain that the real Reaper will have to collect her soul later, but I stop and examine my new weapon again. Galene said something about inherited abilities.

Maybe…

I swing the scythe toward the dead woman.

A soft whistle fills the house as the etherium blade glows. The ghost evaporates just before a buzz fills me. It’s not at all the same morbidly insatiable sensation I once got from killing—instead, this buzz is gentle. Soft. Almost…peaceful.

Ugh.

Curiously, I hold up a hand and try again to recite a common fire spell, since this house is no less cold than it is outside. When nothing happens, I try again in fae. Again, nothing except a bit of warmth tickling across my palm.

Interesting.

As cautiously as possible, I scout the rest of the house. I find what I assume was the woman’s husband lying dead in the kitchen, covered in axe wounds and vampire bites. His ghost is nearby, staring out a window. He tries to say something when he sees me, but I can’t read his lips through his thick beard.

He hovers closer. I raise my scythe again, but pause.

“I need to borrow your car.”

He gestures at keys left on the kitchen table beside messy stacks of newspapers, extensive notes, and books filled with bookmarks.

“Do you have a map?” I check.

The ghost points at the table again, so I assume one will be buried under that chaos.

“Great. Have a nice afterlife.”

Or wherever I’m sending them to. Who fucking knows?

I swing my scythe again, admiring the sinister tune of my new weapon as another quiet buzz washes over me.

Once I’m sure the house is ghost-free, I get to work raiding it for what I’ll need. Upstairs, I dig around for a first aid kit and some of the women’s clothes that mostly fit me—an oversized light grey sweater, a dark blue coat, pants that are more figure-hugging than I like, a thick scarf, and much better winter boots that are only a bit big for my feet.

Limping back into the kitchen, I tuck the keys in my pocket and rummage through everything on the table, searching for a map. As I’m moving newspapers out of the way, I pause when a headline catches my attention…because it’s about me.

Breaking News: Maven Oakley, Assassin of Immortal Quintet, Dead at Battle of the Nether

Underneath it is a familiar grainy picture of me standing in front of Del Mar’s lightly censored dead body, Pierce at the ready in my hands.

I check the date. It’s from January, but that doesn’t tell me enough. How long have I been gone? Rummaging through the newspapers, I skim date after date in my search until my eyes snag on a homemade calendar on lined notebook paper sitting nearby. Picking it up from the table, I stare at the last exed-out square.

The year is the same, but despite the arctic chill outside, this crumpled, frequently-used piece of paper shows that it’s the beginning of July.

July.

Oh, my fucking gods. Six months?

My throat grows tight with apprehension. Quickly, I flip through several more newspapers, trying to piece together what else I’ve missed.

Millions Evacuate to Strongholds in Mass Panic Amid Severe Cold Front

Maven Oakley: Scourge or Savior? Freed Nether Dwellers Mourn Deceased Enigma

Great White North Bathed in Blue Hellfire

Legacy Council Abandons Ship as Human Cities Overrun by Never-Before-Seen Fiends

Limbo Zones Emerge Internationally: How to Identify and Avoid Them

Fiends Arrive in Europe, Ice Age Begins, and Death Tolls on the Rise

Everett Frost: From Beloved Supermodel to Reformist Warlord

I freeze on the last one, re-reading his name over and over. Before I can get to the actual article, something moves in my peripheral vision.

Gripping my scythe, I whirl to see the two ghosts of the Nether vampires. They drift toward me, faces unfeeling as they seek my help to reach whatever afterlife monsters have.

This ability is already getting annoying.

“Nope. You two assholes can wait for Mommy Dearest,” I mutter, ready to get out of here and track down my quintet.

Grabbing the map marked with a big star showing I’m somewhere in West Virginia, I slip it into my borrowed coat pocket and leave the house. A conspiracy of ravens greets me with throaty croaks as I crunch through more snow, exhaustion weighing heavily on my strangely weak body.

Starting the engine of the car, I try to figure out how to back the damn thing up. After a few futile minutes, I scowl, put the car in drive, and hit the gas despite the pain flaring in my ankle. Crashing through part of a picket fence, I swerve haphazardly onto what I hope is the road.

If I’m in West Virginia, at least now I have an idea of where to go.

I just hope Halfton is still standing.