Blood Sacrifice (The Blood Sisters Book 3) (3 page)

Heartbroken
and exhausted, Amanda entered the hotel room she shared with Jessica. Her
sister was sitting up in the bed with her phone in her hand. “Everything all
right?” Her sister’s voice was guarded.

Amanda
slipped into bed beside her, but could barely bring herself to look at her.
Jessica, her dear sister. Her champion. A fighter and now, what, they were on
opposite sides of a war? “Just tired. Can we leave first thing? After we drop
Joseph off at the shelter? Eat breakfast on the way?”

The
further he was from her, the better. Everyone would be better to stay away from
her tainted clutches, but at least Jessica could handle herself. At least there
was that.

“Sure.”
Jessica eyed her suspiciously. “I thought you’d fight me more on it.”

“You
were right.” Amanda laid her head on Jessica’s pillow and they cuddled close to
one another.

“Aren’t
I always?” Jessica asked with a sleepy laugh.

“Always,”
Amanda whispered and stroked her sister’s hair and tried to commit every little
bit of her to memory. The way her freckles bridged her nose and the way that
broken nose was once perfect. Now a bump replaced perfection but it was cute.
Even the scar, deep as a cavern running down one cheek, well it all spoke of
love to Amanda.

All
of that Jessica got from protecting Amanda and now she needed to walk away from
her? Amanda’s chest
welled
tight with
pain and she snuggled her face in the flowing curls of Jessica’s hair, just as
when she was little.

“Everything
okay?” Jessica’s voice was rift with sleep, dancing between the clouds, aching
at Amanda’s heart.

Wrapping
an arm around Jessica’s waist, Amanda pulled herself in tight. “Just missed
you.” Her voice was a whisper because anything above that threatened to betray
her.

“Me
too.” Jessica gripped her sister’s hand as she drifted to sleep.

But
Amanda thought she might never sleep again. There was so much to see, so much
to watch before her thirty-six hours would be up. The love of a sister, a
fresh, doughy sweet doughnut.

A
perfect sunset. What if her eyes never took in the beauty and splendor of the
world again? Amanda bit her lip and fought back tears and the darkness swirling
on her open palm.

How
long could she fight it?

“Gwen!”

She
scampered out of the row boat as the river crested and reached for Mike’s
extended hand. Don’t look back. Never look back. It was her golden rule, but
with the sound of the husks deep breathing and snapping jaws, it was near
impossible. Gwen wanted to look back, but when she felt their bony fingers
grasp her limbs, she shrugged them off.

“Mike!”
Her voice was rushed, breathless, as they ran up the hill. She needed a few
seconds, a little time, to generate a wind storm and drive them all back. Tired
and fatigued, any storm she generated would be hard to control. Difficult to
maintain and might cause more harm than good.

But
Gwen was willing to try.

Her
body shivered and her boots sunk into mud as they breached the hill. From up
there, Gwen peered down and was able to see the mud people mingling with the
dried out husks down below. All of them staggering toward them. The circle was
going to close. If they ran back down, Lourdes’s demons would seize them. Even
if they didn’t, the river blocked them from any real escape.

Mike
held his AK-47 defensively and fired into the crowd, driving back the legion of
evil swarming toward their location. “If you’re going to do something, now
would be the time, sweetheart.”

She
really wished he wouldn’t call her that.

They
had been running all night it felt and now the moon glowed brightly. Clouds
drifted over its face, driving out the light, but leaving behind a red shimmer.
Something that wasn’t natural. Evil was here and
it's
plan…. consume them all.

Gwen
lifted her hands overhead. The power grew in her gut and built into a swirling
vortex of pain. It generated like a wind storm and pushed out with force, as it
exploded through her fingertips and moved like a funnel cloud through the sky.
It came down, and angled hard on the demon beasts in front of them.

It
drove the monsters back. Those made of mud and maggots splattered into a giant
heap. It squirted out black like a fountain and Gwen called the swirling
windstorm back and angled it behind where they stood.

But
she strained, her abs contracted as she tried to control the storm, but it
grew. It swirled so fast, Gwen’s short hair blew around. Mike squinted his eyes
as he trained his gun behind him. “Gwen…” He warned.

“I’m
trying! I’m trying.” She gritted her teeth and pushed the windstorm out as far
as she could. Like a Frisbee of death, it diced the mud demons in half before
ricocheting back toward them.

Gwen
gasped, and grabbing Mike’s arm, dove to her knees to avoid being driven back
by her own vortex. She had lost complete control of it.
Lightning
lit the sky, appearing as if it shot down from the moon
and the red shimmer spread from the clouds and it filled in the full moon as if
colored in pencil.

“Well,
that’s not good,” Mike said.

Gwen
couldn’t disagree with that. Even if she had wanted to, there wasn’t time. They
had to get out of here before the mud demons put themselves back together. They
charged down the hill and made a break for the open road. It was littered with
squirming maggots and fallen trees, but the road led to Gwen’s Jeep.

Maybe
they could hit the open road and find out where they were going. What they were
going to do. The ground was unstable and Gwen’s footing slipped. Mike was there
to catch her arm and his eyes were kind in the dark.

“Steady,
a broken ankle isn’t going to help anyone.”

She
knew that, of course she did, but Lourdes… she was free and that meant so much
suffering for the world. The kind of suffering none should ever know and for
Gwen it was worse. Not only was Lourdes’s ability to take shape her fault, but
she would lose her nieces in the final battle. It was written in blood.

Their
blood. A family affair to the end.

So
much pain, Gwen didn’t know how to even voice it.

They
walked down the muddy road in lingering silence. Mike’s breath was labored and
his usual square shoulders were hunched. Worn and tired, but he’d never say it.
Gwen felt it too down in her achy bones and her worn soul. How many more
battles of the spirit and heart could she wager? She’d like to think the finish
line was in sight, but another lap was always around the corner.

 He
helped her over a fallen log. Around the corner the hill descended, but access
was blocked by husks and mud demons. Gwen bristled, her arms tensing at her
side, ready to launch another
full-scale
attack.

Mike
grabbed her arm. “They aren’t moving.”

Their
eyes ticked back and forth, but Mike was right. They didn’t charge, they didn’t
even twitch a muscle. Well, bully for them. That meant picking them off would
be easier, but why weren’t they moving? The husks were like robots standing to
attention and awaiting their next order. Gwen’s skin tingled and nerves rushed
up her spine. When the enemy didn’t charge, she was nervous.

“Just
a second, Mike.” Gwen had a sneaking suspicion. A dangerous, dark suspicion.
She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and turned it back on. Almost
immediately it lit up showing she had missed calls from her niece. Mouth full
of bile, Gwen listened to her voice mail. Jessica’s voice was usually gruff and
angry, but now it was filled with something else—fear. Intense, unbridled fear.

Dear
God….

“You’re
killing me, Gwen.” Mike wiped his mouth clean of spit. “What—.”

“I
don’t know yet.” Gwen fumbled with the screen, her hand almost shaking. From
fear or exhaustion, Gwen wasn’t sure, but she counted the rings tick by.
Answer, Jessica, answer.

“Hello?”
Jessica’s tired voice rang out and Gwen’s heart went out to the girl. When was
the last time she’d really gotten any sleep? “It’s about time you got back to
me.”

Well,
wasn’t that always a good sign.

“We
ran into a complication.” Gwen’s eyes swept across the husks and packed mud
demons.

Jessica
laughed unkindly. “I know all about those. Now that we have the small talk out
of the way, Lourdes is dead. Amanda ran her through with a sword.”

“Dead?”
Gwen felt the color drain out of her face and
teetered
on her feet. Mike braced her arm and his eyes asked a million questions.
His soulful, deep, eyes, those were so easy to get lost in, even now.

“As
an evil wrathful doorknob.” Jessica’s voice was mournful.

Gwen
squeezed her eyes closed. If Lourdes was killed by Amanda, if that power and
succession transferred to her…It couldn’t happen. It couldn’t be true, could
it?

“Then
these undead husk creatures pledged their allegiance to Amanda. They called her
the next queen of the underworld, Aunt Gwen.” There were tears in her voice and
Gwen’s heart panged with intense pain.

“I
know,” Gwen took a deep breath. “I know, girl. I wanted to save her from this.
You.” She tried her best, she did, but it didn’t seem to matter. Events kept
unfolding the way they were meant to. You couldn’t fight destiny. No matter
what she tried, what she did, Gwen couldn’t avert the mistake she’d made so
long ago.

“Maybe
I’ll point fingers at you later. Right now, what do we do? Amanda, she’s
struggling. She isn’t say anything, but I know her. She’s…lying.” Jessica’s
voice shook for a brief moment and Gwen understood why. Amanda lying was akin
to the worst possibility Gwen had ever heard. It had always been impossible for
her to do so and if she was doing so now…

Gwen
cleared her throat. “The Ruby Heart. It’s an artifact. A supernatural item. It
can save Amanda. Bind her and release her from this curse, but we’ll need to
find another to take the throne in her place. And fast, Jessica. The longer the
underworld goes without a leader, the worse it’ll be for everyone. For a while,
they’ll fight and murder among themselves, but eventually they’ll come
topside.”

Jessica
sighed. “All right.”

“I’m
serious, Jessica. You’ve only seen demons under Lourdes and high-level demons’
control. You haven’t seen the barbaric ones that hide beneath regal robes. The
ones so bad, Lourdes kept them under lock and key. If they get free…”

“So
what do we do? Where is this Ruby Heart?”

“I
don’t know.” Gwen’s words came out twisted and sour. “But we have the map and
we will get our hands on it and head to you. Have you…did you get Duncan?”

“Not
yet.” Jessica’s answer was short and snippy. She didn’t want to discuss it, but
Gwen didn’t have a choice but to bring it up. “Vain took him to Sin Town. We’re
on our way there now.”

Sin
Town? Vegas? That was where Gwen was headed. “Jessica Blood, you listen to me.
You cannot take Amanda there in her current condition. I’m serious about this.”

All
of that negative energy, everything that Vegas was, Amanda couldn’t go in
there. It could end up destroying her.

“I
know you are and I wish there was another way. Amanda thinks she can handle Sin
Town. She wants to go while she still has control over what is happening. Which
is why we have to be there tomorrow. Right now, she’s sleeping. And I need to
join her before I fall down.”

When
a conversation was over with Jessica, it was over. Gwen learned that a long time
ago, but the taste of bitter defeat lingered. “We’ll get the heart and call
you, but if things go bad, if you need to secure Amanda… head back to the
church. Take her, lock her up, and wait for us to get there with the Ruby.”

“It’s
a plan.”

The
line went dead and Gwen ended the call. She turned to Mike whose eyes had
hardened. Somewhere in them, Gwen saw her own feelings reflected back. He’d
heard enough to understand what was going on and Gwen couldn’t bring herself to
fill in the gaps. “We need to get to the Jeep.”

Gwen
pushed passed the husks and they didn’t follow. Perhaps she should’ve destroyed
them, but all she could think about was a sweet little red-headed girl. The one
she met once, who had pigtails and a tiny button nose. By the time Gwen bothered
to go around to visit again, Jacob was dead and his girls, their lives were
rife with suffering.

Mike
followed close behind, but his silence was deafening. It grew like a cavern
between them that he couldn’t even bring himself to
utter
a platitude. He had done that before, hadn’t he? And look how
that had turned out.

It
brought them to this moment. With so much despair, Gwen wasn’t sure she could
stomach another hard fought battle lost. Just thinking of it crippled her. She
stopped and couldn’t bring herself to move even another step forward.

A
few paces in, Mike circled back for her. He placed his hands on his hips. “You
having a tender moment with that pile of mud you’re standing in, Genevieve?”

She
shrugged and hot tears stung her eyes. “I’m not sure I can do this. Fight for
that girl, only to lose her?”

“So
you’ve already decided we’re going to lose?”

“We
always do, don’t we?” Gwen bit her lip and stared off at the twinkling stars
blanketing the area. A normal person would find it beautiful, but she only felt
suffocation.

“Well,
I don’t know. You’re no longer possessed and Jessica is no longer slave to the
underworld. The battles are hard, but so far we’ve kept our heads above water.”

“And
if I don’t have the strength to keep it up? I’m so tired, Mike.” Gwen admitted
and stared at the ground. “When we lost him, our boy, it aged me more than you
know. I don’t think I’ll survive another loss like that.”

Mike
took her hands and he stroked her fingers with tenderness. In that simple
motion, Gwen found real solace. The kind she hadn’t felt in decades. “Then
let’s hurry, Gwen. Let’s find the Ruby and let’s get it to Amanda before the
calling to return to the underworld is too great for her. All right?”

Gwen
nodded and bit her lip. Maybe she didn’t feel that spitfire Blood
determination, but she walked forward a step. For now, she’d take her wins
where she could get them.

“If
you’ll permit me to say so,” A voice rang out from the shadows beyond the cusp
of the trees, “I know where you’ll find the Ruby Heart.”

Her
heart stilled as she lifted her hand in defense. Through the shadows, a short
portly man stepped forward. His
double-breasted
suit was sullied with mud and the monocle he usually wore in his left eye swung
wildly from his neck, but Gwen had never been so happy to see him.

“Archie!”
Gwen ran into his arms with a squeal and a happy heart.

He
chuckled as Mike slapped him on the back. “I’m as happy as you are to see me
alive. I mean, happy I survived. That was quite the siege! From my tower I saw
her walk the Earth.” Archie’s eyes widened. “Lourdes of flesh and bone.”

Mike
gripped his shoulder. “She’s dead now. Been slain by the Blood sisters.”

Archie
nodded with a grim frown. “So I suspected if you need the Ruby Heart. All the
signs of her rise were there. I’ve spent the last few years tracking where it
was and then who took it.”