Maximum Witch: That Old Black Magic, Book 3 (26 page)

Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and entered the cavernous receiving hall. All evidence of blood and death had been wiped clean. Relieved shivers trembled her limbs. She waited for the memories to crash into her. The terrible images inched close, only to be swept away as she remembered the glorious receptions that’d been held in this room, all the pomp and pageantry a royal event always entailed. She remembered dancing in her parents’ arms, their love and laughter better than any party in existence.

Those were the memories she would cherish. The ones she would hold on to.

She started across the hall, heading for the cathedral where the Altar of Atlantis was kept. Quickening her pace, she streaked through the palace, ignoring the painful cramp in her side. Dashing the final few yards, she leapt across the entry into the cathedral, only to slam to a halt, her legs threatening to buckle.

The trident was lodged in the altar.

“Oh my…
goddess
.” She covered her mouth, the bile building in her throat. She swallowed, struggling to hold it back.

A shadow moved to the left. “As you can see, you’re too late.”

Reva Bellemuir stepped in front of the altar. “Apparently you didn’t get the memo, seeing as how you’re also supposed to be dead.” The duchess’s eyebrows arched in haughty condescension. “Not that it matters. You soon will be. Along with all the rest of the human scourge.”

A fierce bellow escaping her, Willa lunged at the duchess, ramming into her with enough force to knock the siren into the altar. Reva clawed at Willa’s face, adding several more scratches before trying to gouge out her eyes. They kicked and screamed, tearing at each other’s hair. Reva fought like a girl. Willa also fought like a girl…from the Bronx. Positioning her fist for the most effective hit, she punched Reva in the nose again. If it hadn’t been busted before, it was now. Screeching, Reva retaliated by clubbing Willa in the side of her head.

Stars spun in Willa’s vision. She wobbled, trying to focus. Reva’s clawlike fingers wrapped around Willa’s neck, squeezing. A ringing started in Willa’s ears, this time from lack of oxygen to her brain rather than Reva’s hideous caterwauling. She blindly felt around with her hand, looking for something to beat Reva off her.

Willa’s fingers brushed the trident’s tines. It was partially lodged in the special cutouts in the altar’s surface. She worked her way up until she reached the base of the forked section and grabbed hold, desperately tugging to free it. The trident wrenched from the stone with a groan and a torrential geyser of water. The deluge knocked both her and Reva to the ground.

The duchess scrabbled in the oncoming tide, her eyes blazing and her hair and clothes saturated with water. Earth water. Rising to her feet, Reva dove for Willa. “Give that to me!”

She did. Right through the evil duchess’s torso. The woman staggered back, clutching the base of the trident. She opened her mouth, but instead of a scream coming out, a tidal wave of water blasted free. The force of it sucked Willa under and hurtled her along with the current. She whipped into a wall, the breath knocked out of her. Eventually she stopped bobbing, the buoyancy of the Earth’s water changing as its molecular structure readapted to the Atlantean version of air. Moments later she floated back to the floor and spotted the trident laying by the altar.

But no Reva. Who knew where the flood had taken her? Hopefully to hell.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stone floor and she turned. Boone stood in the entrance to the cathedral. His face looked haggard and drawn. “I was too late.”

She rushed toward him, her sodden clothes and shoes squishing. “No. I stopped Reva. Her Armageddon is over. The flood took her.”

Boone’s gaze as it locked on her was filled with a wretched anguish. “And Max.”

His words hammered into her with cruel devastation, and she blinked. “What?”

“I saw the tidal wave take him before the portal closed. Willa, the whole damn thing disappeared right before my eyes. The tidal wave, along with Max.” Boone’s voice caught on a choked intake of breath.

Disappeared
? What did that even mean? That Max was…gone?

No. Surely fate couldn’t be that big a bitch to take another loved one from her. Not Max.

She dropped to her knees. In the end it hadn’t been the ghost of memories that brought her to that defeated pose.

It was the possibility of losing Max.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Willa, you’ve barely eaten anything in days. If you keep going on like this, you’re going to make yourself sick.”

Justin’s soft yet stern words managed to drag Willa’s focus from the highlighted charts and maps that pinpointed the areas of the Atlantic and beyond where they’d already searched for Max. The ever-present heaviness in her chest only intensified as she took in the sorrow and sympathy swirling in the duke’s eyes. She’d been subjected to countless similar expressions from the various Atlanteans who’d been involved in the search-and-rescue mission for the past two weeks. She knew what they thought—that Max would never be found. They might not have the guts to say it to her, but she read their doubts loud and clear.

She swallowed past the thick lump in her throat. “I’m not hungry.”

“Starving yourself won’t—” Justin broke off, the strained look on his face more than finishing his sentence.

Bring Max back
. Yeah, she was plenty aware that depriving herself of food wouldn’t magically return Max to her arms, but the emptiness within her wouldn’t go away anytime soon regardless. Blinking back the moisture rapidly accumulating on her eyelashes, she returned her attention to the documents spread out on Justin’s dining-room table. Because of its easy access to Atlantis, the ducal mansion had been converted into a quasi base camp for the search and rescue. There was a constant stream of people that came and went at all hours of the day and night. Each time a team member appeared, the hope would balloon in Willa’s heart, only to wither when there was no news on Max.

They were running out of places to look. The regions they’d covered outweighed the miniscule amount of land and sea that had yet to be canvassed. The royal army and the thousands of volunteers providing endless man hours had done a remarkable job. Although she was grateful for that, she also died a little more inside each time another area was crossed off the list and still there was no sign of Max.

If they didn’t find him soon, she didn’t know what she would do. In the back of her mind, she knew she needed to prepare for the worst—the possibility of Max never coming home to her.

Her stomach cramped, and she pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back the anguished moan that wanted to break free.

A noise sounded behind her, and she turned just as Boone entered the dining room. He looked as tired and emotionally drained as she felt. He stopped next to her, his arm banding around her in a comforting hug as he perused the charts. “I’m leaving in a few minutes to investigate a couple of these tiny islands in the Pacific.” He tapped the section in question on the map. “While I’m gone, I want you to get some sleep. And eat, damn it.”

She really wished everyone would stop trying to force-feed her. “I’m going with you.”

“Willa, you need to rest.”

“No. I need to find Max.” Her voice cracked on his name.

Boone watched her for a long moment before exhaling a heavy breath. “It goes against my better judgment to let you come, but you’ll probably just sneak into the portal after me, won’t you?” He ran a hand through his uncombed hair when she nodded. “Fine. But on one stipulation.” He reached for the plate holding a roast-beef sandwich and waved it beneath her nose. “You’re going to eat at least half of this.”

She wanted to argue, but the glint of determination in Boone’s eyes made it clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Without saying a word, she grabbed the sandwich and choked down the required amount. Thankfully her belly didn’t rebel.

Five minutes later, she joined Boone in the portal. In less time than it’d taken her to dip her toes into the reflecting pool, she and Boone emerged in the warm, crystal-clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. Boone morphed into his seal form, and she held onto his slick mammalian body as he cruised them in the direction of the islands they’d be searching. The group of small, uninhabited atolls ringing the lagoon were little more than oversized sandbars that provided nesting grounds for seabirds and the occasional turtle. Even though Willa knew the odds of locating Max on any of the atolls was slim, her heart still thundered with anticipation as she scrambled toward a scraggly cluster of buffalo grass. Like a madwoman, she hacked through the vegetation with her hands, desperate sobs sawing from her lungs.

It seemed hours passed before she realized that Boone’s arms were surrounding her.

“Willa, stop. He’s not here.”

Tuning Boone out, she continued kicking and swinging her limbs, taking out her anger and frustration on the sand and plant life. Boone hugged her tighter. She struggled against him, trying to break loose. Pain and misery were wounded beasts clawing inside her. They whipped their way upward, tunneling past the constriction in her throat. No longer able to contain it, she screamed, long and loud, her agony pouring free. Eventually the scream faded to racking sobs and she slumped within the circle of Boone’s embrace. His fingers sifting through her hair, he soothed her with tender caresses and soft words. Eventually she quieted, the tears gone but the heaviness in her heart no less staggering.

The sun beating on her face felt like a cruel joke in comparison to the dark emptiness in her soul. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”

Boone continued to rock her, wisely not offering any meaningless platitudes that would offer her little comfort. They stood there for a long time, until the sky began to pinken into a sherbet hue. Boone’s hand curled around her limp one. “It’s time to go home.”

Home. One that didn’t include Max.

The barrenness in her soul was endless.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The weeks following Willa’s breakdown on that tiny atoll in the Pacific blended into each other in a miserable tide of barely living. With Max gone, nothing truly mattered to her anymore. Certainly not the Atlanteans’ desire to see her returned to the throne. They’d started their campaign for her reinstatement almost from the first moment she crossed back through the portal into Atlantis. She wanted nothing to do with the title she’d inherited. The Atlanteans would get over their disappointment. Or find another ruler. She didn’t care either way.

Like Max, Reva’s body had never been discovered. Maybe the evil duchess
had
been spirited away to hell. Goddess knows the bitch would be right at home there.

Willa walked down the palace steps, her tread a lonely echo. She glanced over her shoulder, giving the entrance one last look before bidding it goodbye. Maybe not forever, but certainly for a time. There were those who probably thought she was abandoning her heritage. In truth, she was preserving it. Some of the young geniuses at the university thought they might have discovered a compound that could be added to the building materials to better withstand Atlantis’s natural corrosion. But oddly enough, it could only be found on Earth.

Maybe ole Poseidon had known what he was doing, establishing his colony so close to the humans.

In many ways, she couldn’t wait to return to the Earth realm. To her friends. She’d missed Marabella like crazy these past several weeks. Yeah, in a strange way, she’d even missed not having to listen to Domino’s constant demands.

But most of all, she missed Max. Only he wasn’t waiting for her back on Earth. He wasn’t waiting for her at all.

Her chest grew tight and the ache in her heart was unbearable. Would this awfulness ever go away? Would the day come when she’d be able to think about him and not feel like she was slowly dying inside? Sometimes she wondered if having her memory erased wasn’t actually a kindness. To not have to imagine Max’s beloved face and know that she would never see it again.

No, she wouldn’t wish such an existence. Because loving him would always be one of her cherished memories.

Tearing her thoughts away from her agonized musings, she approached the service drive leading to the palace. One of the submersible trolleys that were mostly used for piloting the students back and forth to the university waited at the curb. She hopped inside the transport and rode it to one of the few subdivisions existing on Atlantis. The vehicle braked to a stop. Across the street stood Aurele’s new bungalow. Willa exited the vehicle and hesitated for a moment, watching Aurele tend her little water garden.

Rather than move back into the palace, Aurele had chosen to purchase this bungalow—almost a duplicate to her home back on Earth. Her choice to recreate a different memory, but one not entirely unlike her previous life, wasn’t lost on Willa. She just hoped Aurele had found the peace she so deserved.

Aurele looked up, her instant smile slipping a fraction as her gaze roved over the determined set of Willa’s shoulders. “You’ve decided to go back.”

“Yes, it’s where I can do the most good. For now.”

“Who am I going to get to play Monopoly with me?”

“Chad from the university is a gamer. Plus I think he has a crush on you. He’d probably even let you cheat.”

Aurele set down her pruners, almost crushing the fragile purple luminia flowers bordering her garden. “Oh pooh. I’m too old for a boyfriend. Even if he lets me take Park Place.”

Willa closed the few steps that separated them and hugged Aurele tight. “Memories or no, you’ll always be my aunt. I just wanted you to know that.”

A sniffle broke from Aurele. “I hate goodbyes, so we better make this quick before I start bawling.”

As if it’d somehow overheard Aurele’s admission, another submersible trolley puttered down the block and stopped next to a house farther down the street. A student loaded down with a backpack rushed from the porch.

Aurele pecked Willa on the cheek. “I believe that’s your ride. Better hurry up before it leaves.”

Giving Aurele one last kiss, Willa dashed toward the trolley and made it inside in the nick of time. Choosing a seat toward the front, she slid in next to the window and waved to Aurele as the vehicle pulled away. Several minutes later the trolley coasted to a stop at its final debarking point—the portal to Earth. Willa was the only one who exited.