Twisted Soul (Cursed Legacies #3)

26. Maven

26

MAVEN

I step out of the cuchillería, scanning the streets as I discreetly slip the small knives I just bought into concealed locations on my person. One in my boot opposite Pierce, two up my sleeves, one at the waist of my pants.

It's taken two hours to prepare, and now the sun is low on the horizon in this part of the globe. As much as I would love to draw this out and enjoy the kill, I need to wrap it up quickly and return to my quintet.

Gods, I can't stop thinking about them. I know they’re not awake yet, or I would have heard them in my head by now.

Humans are out and about, enjoying the sunset as they stroll the walkways or buy steaming food from street vendors. They mind their own business as I walk toward the coast, where the street I’m looking for will run parallel to the ocean.

Iker Del Mar is here in northern Spain, in this little town.

I’m going to kill him, even though I am fucking exhausted.

After transporting to Madrid and then here, I'm running tragically low on fuel for my magic. The fight in Alaska, the run-in with Gideon, and being unable to picture anything except my matches bleeding out in the snowy wilderness have left my eyelids and bones feeling heavy.

At least I now have everything necessary to take down the immortal hydra shifter efficiently.

I magically mixed the tiniest amount of my nightshade root powder with a tranquilizer I stole from the American embassy security room in Madrid. I had to knock out lots of humans, magic wards, and a few security cameras to get to it, but I managed.

It's a standard but powerful emergency tranquilizer that authorities are mandated to keep on hand in the event of a feral shifter. It prevents a target from shifting, regardless of size, and will force a shift back to human form.

Laced with nightshade root powder, it should weaken Del Mar so much that killing him off will be a breeze.

Ignoring the exhaustion weighing on me, I slip onto the street described in Engela's letter, adjusting my sunglasses. I'm also wearing a big black sun hat in the interest of disguise since humans have heard my description on the news.

Beautiful pastel houses rise up the side of the mountain to my right, vibrant in the golden sunset. The street ends abruptly to my left with a road and a small fence before dropping off into the dark blue ocean.

I've never seen the ocean before. It's immense—a beautifully brutal, undefeatable facet of nature.

If we make it through all this, I'd like to visit a private beach somewhere with my quintet, like Kenzie once talked about doing. I can easily see Everett lathering himself and me up in sunscreen while Baelfire cracks jokes about nude beaches. Silas would probably read aloud to me under an umbrella to stay out of the sun. Crypt would go swimming with me and steal my bikini top.

Damn it. I need to get back to them.

I want every possible fucking second I can have with my quintet because I know there's a limit to what we can experience together before I fade to nothing.

If I could just find a way to exist after seeing my mission through…

I stop a few houses down from a mansion where two men chat outside the front door. They have their parts down perfectly, dressed like human tourists, but I note how they scan the area.

They're security. Most likely strong legacies.

It’s good that this coastal street is empty except for the three of us.

One of them notices me lingering. As soon as his eyes narrow suspiciously, I rush toward them, waving and shouting because one of the best ways to throw an opponent off is by being as loud and conspicuous as possible.

“Hello! I'm so sorry, but do either of you guys speak English?”

The legacies are still blinking in surprise by the time I arrive at the little gate in front of Del Mar's hideout. I get near enough that I could slip through the front bars if they were wider apart.

“What the hell are you—” one of them begins, reaching for me.

The moment his hand is on me, I break his wrist and twist his arm, turning so he's in front of me when the other legacy reacts by firing off a shredding hex. It kills the one I'm holding as a shield immediately. I drop him, dodge an attempted blow, and drive Pierce into the other guard’s chest.

He collapses, clawing at his bulging, blackening torso. He tries to scream, but I can’t have attention drawn from the house, so I smother his mouth and nose as I search his pockets for a security amulet. I find it just as he stops twitching, the buzz of a fresh kill sweeping through me.

I check to see if I've raised any alarm. A couple is just walking around the corner, but one stops to take a picture of one of the charming houses, and the other checks something on their phone. While they’re distracted, I quickly haul both legacies to the edge of the street and toss them over the fence into the ocean.

The human couple walks past several moments later, completely oblivious. Once I'm alone again, I use the lifted security amulet to slip through Del Mar's front gate as silently as possible.

Most of these houses run together with little to no space between them, but Del Mar’s monstrosity of a safehouse is surrounded by gardens. When I notice a curtain move in one of the windows, I slip behind a large stone fountain.

I can sense the magical hum of powerful wards nearby. The amulet will get me through those. Thank fuck, because even though I have fresh life forces dancing in my veins, I want to conserve my strength for the heart of the fight.

Plus, I’m too fucking tired to do more than necessary right now.

Darling?

Crypt’s raspy, weary voice trickles to me through the bond, taking me by surprise. It’s very faint—I assume because of our physical distance.

I’m safe, I promise, cleaning Pierce on my sleeve out of habit as I wait to ensure I won’t be spotted.

Why can’t I trace your aura?

Probably because I transported. Have you healed?

I wait several moments for his reply, but there is none. That worries me slightly, but this is the wrong time to get distracted by telepathy, so I push down my worries and peek around the fountain to plan the best route into the house. Before I can move, the front door opens. I hide again as voices pass by on the way toward the gate.

“They were just out here. What, did they go to take a piss together or something?”

“Who fucking knows. Garrett just said to look for them out there because Del Mar will start killing people again if he gets his moody hydra ass out of that fucking indoor pool and realizes they've gone to buy more conchitas .”

So, Del Mar is currently in hydra form inside.

Good to know.

Once their backs are to me, I round the fountain and slip through the front door, the security amulet granting me access through the suffocatingly heavy wards. I pause, scanning the entry hallway. It must lead back to the indoor pool since I can hear the soft sloshing of water up ahead. I step in that direction, but someone darts down the steep staircase to my left and tackles me with a snarl.

The vampire sinks her teeth into my throat, but before she can tear into me, I rip her heart out. She slumps to the tiled ground, her head smacking audibly.

More security members shout upstairs. The water sloshing gets louder, and a deep rumbling sound precedes several reptilian hisses from up ahead.

All right, fuck sneaking. Let's do this.

I bolt down the hall, analyzing my surroundings as I skid into the massive, vaulted indoor pool room that takes up this entire level of the house. Two large legacy security guards in gas masks are posted here and shout when they see me.

But my priority is Iker fucking Del Mar.

Amadeus briefed me on the Immortal Quintet’s weaknesses many times. He taught me about the hydra.

Its many heads spew forth poisonous fumes and grow back twice over when cut off. Its great teeth and claws maim, yet forget not the water-abiding beast’s true deadliness: noxious blood. The scent of it alone is lethal to the living.

As much as I enjoy bloodshed, I don't want to waste more time away from my quintet suffering an agonizing death because I caught a whiff of Del Mar's hydras’ blood. His blood in human form won’t pose any risk, hence why the tranquilizer in my pocket is really fucking necessary.

The hydra’s nine heads screech in harmony. The sound is hideous, just like the rest of him. He’s not nearly as large as Baelfire’s dragon, though he is big, scaly, and serpentine.

Just as those nine heads open their mouths and begin to spew a greenish gas into the air, I launch myself into the incredibly large indoor pool where Del Mar’s beast is half submerged.

The water turns tumultuous as the hydra whirls, trying to crush me with its draconic legs. Its serpentine tail whips through the pool in search of me, but I latch onto it. Struggling to keep my grip on the scaly appendage underwater, I uncap the tranquilizer from my pocket and drive the long needle deeply between the scales of the beast.

Del Mar shrieks and finally shakes me off, sending me spinning underwater. My forehead smacks against the pool’s edge, and then dagger-like claws slice across my back. Searing pain explodes through my spine, and water floods my mouth when my body’s reflex is to scream.

Pivoting underwater, I kick up to finally break the surface, coughing up water and gasping for air. By now, the hydra’s fumes have dissipated enough, but Del Mar’s nine heads are still screaming, hissing, and gnashing their teeth. He staggers, less focused on me and more focused on what I just did to him.

One of the legacy guards standing just outside the pool aims at me with a spell. Ignoring the burning pain in my back, I grip the edge of the pool to launch out of the water and roll away from the attack. Whipping wet hair out of my face, I withdraw Pierce again and drive it through the sorcerer's neck.

A pulse of elemental air slams into me, sending me smashing into one of the house's walls. I hear the distinctive crack of my ribs breaking, but I can't waste time processing more pain. Instead, I launch several dark magic attacks in quick succession.

One hits the air elemental. He screams and falls into the pool, drowning while the hydra continues to thrash and screech, fighting the effects of a forced shift.

My vision blurs from pain and exhaustion, but another buzz fills me.

Two of the security members from upstairs race into the room. I hear the now-familiar sound of a gun cocking and dive aside just as the woman opens fire. Using my unnatural revenant speed, I dash around the pool to get to her, but not before one of the bullets lodges in my thigh.

Ouch .

I snap her neck. She drops like a ragdoll.

I wanted to keep this swift and professional—but between the rush of fresh kills and the pounding of a fight inside my veins, I can’t stop the unhinged grin that spreads across my face when the other security guard turns and tries to flee. Pulling out one of my new knives, I hurl it at his back. It sinks deep where his heart is, and he falls forward, lifeless a moment later.

Another wave of dark, delicious force floods through my system. My vision dips again, but this time, it's because my berserker side wants to break free.

If I weren’t so determined to get back to my quintet as soon as fucking possible, I would let it.

Instead, to stay in control, I recite the list of mantras that Amadeus and the necromancers drilled into me as I approach the pool where the hydra shifter is now shrinking to his human form.

“I feel nothing. I’m on my own. I need no one.” Wiping blood from my neck, I take a deep breath and check my broken ribs, which aren’t as bad as they could be. “I am but a weapon who is one with death. I am nothing but deadly calm.”

Repeating these old mantras staves off the berserker as I crouch beside the pool. Iker Del Mar finally bursts from the surface with a ragged gasp, left naked from the shift.

He lurches forward in the water to bare sharp teeth at me, ready to attack. I beat him to it, sending a silver dagger into his right shoulder. He screams, struggling to tread water through the pain and the effects of the nightshade root powder.

Gripping him by the arm, I yank him onto the pool’s edge. The immortal hisses and tries to bite me, but I have a smaller knife already ready that I slice through his mouth, straight across his cheeks.

He hisses in agony.

“ Telum.” He sprays blood when he speaks, his forked tongue flicking in and out as he grimaces in pain. “This does nothing. You cannot kill?—”

“Oh, right. Your life link. Slipped my mind, but give me a moment.”

I slit his neck. He gurgles and twitches before going still.

The buzz doesn't fill my veins, of course. I need to destroy his etherium anchor first. With a grimace, I pick the bullet out of my leg and do a basic necromantic healing spell on my leg and back, ignoring the throbbing in my head as I go to look for Iker's life link.

It’s a ring. Engela described it in detail, along with all the ways he tends to hide it.

Searching the entire house takes twenty minutes. During that time, five more security team members either return or show up for their shift, only to join the heady buzz coursing through my system—which is convenient since it takes a hell of a lot of destructive magic to break into the enchanted safe Del Mar had hiding under one of the guest beds upstairs.

I grab the little etherium ring, yawning as I drag myself back down the stairs to the pool room littered with corpses. I crouch beside Del Mar and wait.

And wait.

Really, I should just kill the son of a bitch right now. I could destroy the etherium ring before he wakes up and then return to my guys.

But I want a few words with this monster first.

Del Mar's eyes flutter, his gaze whited out for a moment as his neck wound begins to seal itself. Before it heals completely, I stick my gloved index finger through the remaining hole so when he comes to, he chokes and struggles, hissing at the pain.

I wait until his gaze returns to normal, and he glares at me. Once I know he’s paying attention, I poise Pierce above the etherium ring, driving it down hard to shatter the gods-given life link.

The monster screams.

Gods. Such a wonderful sound.

Now that he’s unable to link back to life using the etherium, I smile at the seething immortal.

“Tell me where the psychic bitch is.”

Del Mar's growl rumbles through my finger as he tries to fight, but he's still too weakened from the lingering effects of the nightshade root powder.

“Sent by good old Amadeus, were you?” He spits, choking slightly when I wiggle my finger to see him wince. “I will not tell you where my keeper?—”

“Don't, then,” I shrug nonchalantly. “Engela already told me where she is, anyway.”

He bares sharp teeth. “Engela would not know, that damned traitor. We entrusted her with nothing—she was far too weak and easy to manipulate. Wherever she says Natalya is, it's entirely wrong.”

“So she's not in Baltimore?”

I see the grimace slip through his attempted composure.

I nod. “Thanks for confirming that. Now, I have a question for you because as evil as you are, you're also clever. You know exactly what I am, and you know mine is the last face you'll see in this lifetime. Unless you want me to draw this out, answer me. How can a revenant outlive a failed purpose?”

In other words…how the hell can I stay with them?

He laughs harshly, but it comes out strangled. “You’re pathetic.”

“You know, I’ve always wanted to dissect an eye still attached to a functioning brain,” I say in a chatty tone, withdrawing the silver knife from his shoulder and poising it beside his eye as a warning.

Del Mar hisses. “For a revenant like you to draw out your failed, inferior existence, you would need the direct blessing of Galene, the goddess of life herself. Or perhaps if some other deity took pity on a creature like you?—”

He cuts off abruptly as he inhales, nostrils flaring. Then a hideously wet-sounding laugh rasps up his damaged throat, and his cloudy yellow eyes grow distant.

“I might’ve known. What an elegant reckoning.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I demand.

Del Mar’s sneer is ugly. “This game the gods play, and your orchestrated existence. I’ve had enough of this. End me, telum.”

“I’m not done asking questions.”

“You are, for you shall get nothing more from me . And when your time comes soon enough, Sachar will judge you not by what you are but by what you have become. You shall rot for your crimes in the Beyond?—”

“ My crimes?”

I hook my finger further into the hydra shifter’s neck, twisting until he screams. Then I lean down to meet his pale, inhuman gaze so he misses none of this.

“We’re both monsters, so spare me the holier-than-thou bullshit. I know what your crimes are. Natalya may be the keeper, but you’re the brains. It was your fucking idea to send that troop of humans into the Nether—which means when you die in a few seconds, Sachar will judge you based on every death of those innocents for generations. They say some punishments in the Beyond are brutal—far more brutal than I could do here and now.”

I smile again, slowly, savoring the pain and fear in his eyes.

“Still. A bitch can try. This is for any part you had in my Nightmare Prince’s torment over the years.”

I cut out his forked tongue as he screams.

“And this is for putting a fucking collar on my mate .”

My anger builds as I shove his wriggling tongue down his throat, forcing him to choke on it. He starts to panic, coughing up more blood as he struggles to get air. I glare at him, pulling my finger from his neck as the rest of my long-pent-up vengeful fury roars in my ears.

“And this is for all the suffering, innocent humans in the Nether, you cowardly motherfucking son of a bitch . ”

I add an extra twist as I rip his heart out, just to add to his final agony.

For a moment, vengeance is sweet.

But when an unrivaled buzz of power floods through my system with searing potency, I drop his heart, clutching at my own chest. I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself despite the two powerful immortal life forces barely contained inside me.

Just when I think I've reached my limit, I hear them as if they’re far in the distance.

Maven, Everett calls, panic saturating his telepathic voice.

Silas is close behind him. Where the hell are you? Answer us. Now.

Relief at hearing their voices dulls the blistering power in my veins. I breathe out slowly, getting to my feet.

I'll be back soon, I promise.

But where the fuck did you g–

The front door of Del Mar’s safehouse slams open. I block my quintet out immediately, turning to face the next threat as a handful of bounty hunters rush into the room.

Hellhounds howl and snarl as they leap inside, but to my surprise, their masters order them to heel. When the hunters see the dead member of the Immortal Quintet, they shout and swear in alarm while they aim at me, moving as a well-oiled team to surround me. Their red lasers dance over my skin, centered on my head and chest.

One of the hunters snaps a picture of me on a cell phone. Great. I’m guessing that will be all over the news soon.

Oh, well. At least he captured me in my element, coated in blood with Pierce at the ready.

“Don't move,” a dark-skinned fae woman orders. “Come quietly, and we won’t have to hurt you.”

I yawn again, the exhaustion starting to really set in as I squint at these bounty hunters. Gods help them, they just have no idea how not frightening they are. They could all shoot me at once right now, and I would still revive with plenty of time to slaughter them before they could possibly deliver me to the Legacy Council.

“If you’re going to threaten me with a fight, at least bring someone who knows what he’s doing. Where’s Douglas?”

“Still cleaning up the mess you left in Alaska,” another one of the hunters growls. The fearful disgust on his face makes me think his trigger finger is getting itchy. “He wants you brought in alive for questioning—but if you resist, we get to kill you finally. Except I say we just fucking take you out here and now.”

“Stand down, Radley,” the fae girl snaps.

“Look around! She just fucking assassinated everyone here!” he shouts. “Did you forget your cousin was just murdered in Alaska by this bitch? I don’t care what Douglas says. We don’t need answers—we need the telum dead!”

That makes all of them start shouting. The girl in charge is pissed as she glances over her shoulder at them, snapping that Douglas has a plan and they need to shut up.

Their poor unity is the perfect opening. I send a surge of dark magic through the air, sending them all flying backward with shouts of pain and alarm. Hellhounds bark and whine, caught in the entangled mess of agony that my unique magic causes.

I use the fastest transportation spell I can muster to send me back to an alleyway in Madrid. I stumble, bracing myself against the brick wall beside me as I try to catch my breath.

I can heal more of my injuries before returning to Nebraska. That way, my guys won’t lose their shit when they see me.

And then we’ll have to get the fuck away from any trace of my magic before we’re hunted down again—because killing Del Mar just bought me more time, and I intend to use it.