Fury Rising (Fury Unbound Book 1) (19 page)

I slid a pre-paid cash card into a liner that attached to my dagger sheath. I didn’t bother with ID. If the authorities picked me up, they’d read my chips—which would lead to a whole different can of worms. And if anybody in the club tried to ID me, they wouldn’t have any official documents to go on, unless they had managed to get hold of a chip reader. While that was possible, it was also highly illegal for private citizens to own.

I wanted to wear my pendant, but that wouldn’t be a good idea. So instead, I fastened a silver chain around my neck that would keep the bloodsucker types at bay. Vampires were rarely seen in public, but going into the Junk Yard? Anything could happen there.

Finally, I slugged back an herbal mixture that Tam had sent over while I was asleep. It would make it hard for anyone to charm me. Theosians weren’t easily charmed anyway, but this would almost guarantee nobody could slip me a magical drug, or try to mesmerize me. As for regular drugs, some of them would work on me, some not. There wasn’t much I could do except keep my eyes open.

As I stood at the counter, staring at the pale blue bottle the potion had come in, I realized I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t due to fear. It wasn’t due to being afraid someone would recognize me for who I really was. No, the two times I had been in the Junk Yard, I had come out with my emotions charred to a crisp, forever changed.

“Are you sure about this, Fury?” Queet whispered from my side. He knew what I was feeling.

“I have no choice.”

“Then go, and Hecate be at your back. I’ll go as far as I can. Call me if you need me, I’ll be listening. So will Jason and Tam. They’ll be on the outskirts, waiting. All you have to do is call to me and I’ll tell them to come running.”

And with Queet’s promise ringing in my ears, I headed downstairs to make my way to the Junk Yard. The last time I was there, I had rained down hell on earth. But it hadn’t been enough to erase the memories…or the cause of them.

He was in the Junk Yard.
I was standing on the outskirts of the gated enclosure, gearing myself up to enter. I glanced up at the moon, gathering my courage.

The Carver was in there, and he didn’t know that I was still alive, and that I still remembered him. I woke up from a long nap to the certainty that he had returned. That the Carver was sitting in a slummy bar, wondering where to start up again. His face was leathery and scarred, one eye missing thanks to the explosion that I had caused when I gated myself out of his hellhole. The room had erupted in flames, burning him as he tried to get out, and cremating my mother’s body to a charred husk. But it hadn’t been enough, and I had been waiting for this day. I had been waiting for the day I woke up, knowing he was near, knowing that I could finish what I had started the day he murdered my mother.

I thought about calling Jason and asking him to go with me, but I didn’t want to put him in that position. I knew what I was about to do, and I wasn’t going to ask the person who had saved my ass thirteen years before to put himself on the line—either his life, or his ethics. Jason would understand what I was about to do, but this was my fight, my journey. I had a one-way ticket and it wasn’t going to be a joyride.

As I slowly entered the monolithic structure, I crossed the line. There was no going back. Hecate’s power coursed through my body. I had come to destroy—to demolish, obliterate, annihilate. And I knew exactly where I was going.

The image of a small apartment at the top of an abandoned building flickered in my mind. There were a lot of abandoned buildings in the Junk Yard. After all, it had been built to house fifty thousand refugees and now housed who knew how many members of the UnderCult.

The Junk Yard was a labyrinthine maze of apartment buildings, storefronts, nightclubs, and bars. The buildings were concrete, with a lot of broken windows around. Here and there, a stray dog raced by. There were rumors that centuries ago Seattle had an underground component and while some historians claimed the Junk Yard was built over that area, nobody had ever come out publicly saying that it was true. I had my suspicions that the rumors were right, but I wasn’t interested in finding out. I had enough on my hands with the Abominations. The last thing I wanted to do was to deal with the UnderCult.

The streets in the Junk Yard were lit by a series of underground track lights that bordered the sidewalks. The lighting had been installed as a way to appease the Jagulins, who disliked the street lamps and bright lights of the city. But it was still a cage, and the Jagulins wanted no part of it.

I scanned the streets, but I didn’t need to get my bearings. Even though I hadn’t set foot inside the Junk Yard in thirteen years, I knew exactly what apartment to head for. The Carver was staying next door to where he had held my mother and me. Back then, he had been living in a basement. But now, he was in a top apartment.

I hurried through the night, ignoring the passing comments flung my way from the bogeys and shadow men. Lucky for them, they left it at catcalls only, because I didn’t have time to administer an etiquette lesson. Maybe later, I thought. But for now, Xan, prominently sheathed and hanging over my back, kept them at bay.

As I reached the burned-out shell of the building in which my life had permanently and forever been changed, I paused. Walking over to the edge, I stared into the gutted-out basement. The building had burned to cinders, the concrete imploding into dust.

The only memories I had were a blur of flame, my fury rising as his blade carved deep into my mother’s skin. And then—the rolling waves of anger as I reached out to Hecate, drawing her deep into my heart. Then, freeze frame and lurch forward to a roar so loud that it drowned out everything else. And then…I woke up on Jason’s doorstep.

I inhaled a sharp breath, letting it whistle out slowly, before I continued to the building next door. A light shone in the top right-hand window. My destination.

Quietly, I entered the building and climbed the stairs, forgoing the elevator. Chances were, it wouldn’t work anyway. As I approached the apartment at the end of the hall I unsheathed my sword. When I was at the door, I stood for a moment, gathering my flame into a single white-hot spark, and then I kicked open the door.

Inside, the Carver was waiting, standing in front of a desk.

“I felt you when you were outside my building, Kaeleen,” he said. “I didn’t realize you survived until now.”

He was still bald, but the skin on his head and his face drooped in folds of scar tissue. One eye was missing, and he wasn’t wearing a patch to cover it. His speech was garbled from the scars on his neck and throat, his tongue swollen and disfigured thanks to my flame so many years ago. The skin of his entire right side was shiny in that way that burn victims have.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I said. “I didn’t know when you would return, but I’ve been waiting for the day when I would wake up and know you were here. You forever changed my world. I’ve come back to repay you in kind.”

And those were my last words to him. I swung the sword, aiming for his heart, aiming to obliterate. For some reason, I hadn’t expected him to fight back. I suppose I had expected him to be waiting for me to end his misery—to end the misery he had inflicted on everyone. In my delusion, I had created him as remorseful and ready to die.

But he wasn’t at that point. Not yet. Instead, the Carver raised his hand and mumbled something under his breath, and a dark form filled the room, shadowy with wings.

I whirled to find myself facing a creature that reminded me of a cross between a giant bat and a praying mantis. As I swung my sword, the creature reached out with feathered, razor-sharp legs and attempted to stab me. I managed to clip one of them with the tip of my blade, but still, it scored my flesh, leaving a long gash on my arm. The feathered tips were actually metal. I wasn’t facing a living
creature
, but some sort of creation—a robot, perhaps.

The Carver laughed. “I take it you didn’t do your research, girl. I’m a magus. I work with automatons.” And he fell back into the shadows, watching as I fought his creation.

The creature was about as tall as I was, so I wasn’t outmatched, but I was having a hard time gaining purchase. Images of the room in which he had imprisoned Marlene and me flashed through my mind. A room filled with mechanisms and gadgets and metalwork that I had forgotten.

Crap.
I had thought he was simply human, I hadn’t realized that he had magic behind him.

I swung my sword again, trying to lop off the head of the monster, but then realized it would keep coming no matter what— it didn’t have a brain. As I darted back out of its reach, I sheathed my blade and instead, reached for the spark of flame in my heart.

As the flame grew, I aimed it at the automaton and let it fly, hitting dead center. An explosion filled the room and smoke billowed through the broken windows. I turned back to the shadows where the Carver was hiding. Dagger out, I raced toward him as he stepped out of the alcove, coughing.

Surprise on his face, he blurted out, “You killed my automaton? How?”

“I may not have realized you were a magus, but
you
didn’t realize I’m a Theosian. How do you think your building imploded the night you killed my mother?”

He led out a startled bark. “I thought it was a gas leak—”

I said nothing, simply thrust my dagger deep into his side as I forced my fury and fire into the blade. A glowing cloud of flame raced through the wound. He shrieked but I drove the blade deeper, driving the fire forward.

“I owe you this.”

The fire melted into his muscle, fusing fibers and charring his blood. And then I could feel Hecate, riding my shoulders.

“Give him Blood Fever,” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I focused on the words and I felt the essence of the disease.

A venom traveling through the blood… A poison that will burn forever until the person dies… Inflammation that will cause constant pain with every heartbeat, every moment blood pumps through their veins.

I withdrew my fire from the blade and instead, channeled the infection into his body. As it kissed his blood and caught hold, settling into him, he shrieked once more before I abruptly backed away.

I turned to Hecate, realizing that we were standing at the Crossroads. She had brought us to the fork in the road.

“I want him dead. I don’t want him to ever make anyone else suffer.”

“He won’t be able to. I promise you, if he even so much as
thinks
of harming anyone—even himself—the Blood Fever will drive him into a pain so deep and gut wrenching that he’ll be a whimpering mass on the floor. And on the days when he manages to divert his thoughts to the desire to cause pain, the Blood Fever will make every motion, every single twitch of a muscle, hurt. He will never rest. He will never again know a moment without pain. And he will live long enough to pray for death.” She smiled at me, and her smile was the smile of cunning vengeance and steel teeth gnashing in the night. Shadow magic at its most painful. “But the choice is yours to make. A quick death, or a long, agonizing life.”

I thought for a moment. My mother hadn’t been given a choice. Her death had been steeped in waves of pain. I gazed upon my dark goddess, matching her cunning smile. “Then I’m done. I’m done for now with him, and with the past.”

Hecate nodded. “You’ve been bound to me since your birth, and were marked with my triple snakes. The first rite of passage. Now, you have avenged your mother and walked through my second gate. Time for a new mark.”

She held out her hand. I took it, and we were suddenly in her office.

“I give you a gift—a weapon that will never leave you. A weapon that will always return to you, and always burn with your fire. A weapon that will represent your nature and passion. And with it, I give you a new name.”

And that night, she tattooed the whip on my leg. Every needle stroke drove into my heart, into my core. But when she was done, I possessed a weapon that would forever be with me. I was marked with my fury, and
Fury
I became.

Chapter 14