“Calisto?” I asked without looking away. “What did he do?”
“You need to get back in the circle, now,” Calisto said. “He merged with the sword. That’s not Velos any longer. It’s a shell for Retribution.”
“I have to stop him—it,” I said. “If he gets out of the Park—”
“You’re not strong enough to stop that,” Calisto said. “Get back into the circle.”
“Maybe not alone,” I said. “But I’m not letting this thing get away.”
I ran over to Velos-Retribution and buried Perdition in his chest. The green flames that surrounded my body engulfed Velos.
He screamed and clawed at Perdition.
Cade, if you’re really out there, a headshot would be perfect right about now.
Velos got to his feet and grabbed the blade of Perdition, pulling himself forward along its length.
“I told you,” Velos hissed, his face inches away from mine. “I’m taking you to hell with—”
He never finished his sentence as his head exploded in a burst of green energy. Velos slumped forward, sliding off Perdition as the nimbus of black energy coalesced around him, forming Retribution on the ground beside his corpse.
I looked in the distance and saw my gunman.
I bent over and made to pick up Retribution.
“No!” Calisto said, unleashing a blast of white energy at me. “Don’t touch that!”
The blast caught me off-guard and catapulted me away from Velos and the dark blade. I sailed through the air, wondering, Why didn’t she unleash all this energy when I was facing off against Velos?
I turned in time to see the ground rush up and punch me solidly in the face.
Everything after that was darkness.
THIRTY-ONE
I opened my eyes and saw one of Mercy’s blue drinks of death on the side table next to me. Drinking that poison was the last thing I was going to attempt in my lifetime. I looked around and found myself in a state-of-the-art medical room. This was a world away from the stone rooms of the Hunter’s Keep.
“You’re going to have to drink it, Blueberry. Even if it tastes like warmed-over vomit.”
It was Gan.
He was sitting in a chair just out of sight and stepped into my view as I tried to turn toward his voice. He wore a loose-fitting robe and looked a little worn, like he hadn’t slept in days.
“How long have I been out?”
“Not too long,” he answered. “How do you feel?”
“Like someone decided to use my head as a punching bag.”
He pointed to the glass holding the blue concoction of pain.
“That should help.”
“Is that really you?” I asked. “Or am I having a really lucid nightmare?”
“Ouch,” Gan said, stepping close and clasping my hand. “It’s really me, and you still have to drink that thing. Don’t even think of trying to get out of it.”
“What happened? Where am I? This isn’t the Keep.”
“This is a Sisters Med Station,” Gan said, looking around. “The Park is not conducive to your well-being right now, and Anna insisted.”
“She can be pretty convincing.”
“That, and you’re technically still a Sister,” Gan said. “Something she wanted to make sure was clear to all parties involved.”
“Retribution,” I said with a start. “It’s still out there in the Park. If the Unholy get it, we need—”
I made to get out of the hospital bed.
“You need to recover,” Gan said, pushing me back into the bed. “We have the dark blade. Calisto tells me you tried to grab it?”
“I couldn’t leave it out there,” I said. “Not after what it did to Velos. It was too dangerous.”
“Did you stop to consider what it would’ve done to you?”
“To me? What do you mean?”
“This is why the dark blades were removed from action,” Gan said, looking away. “Prolonged use of a dark blade turned the first Hunters to use them. Eventually, they succumbed to the power and were transformed into—”
“Unholy?” I asked. “Is that what happened?”
“No, not entirely,” Gan said, looking at me again. “The Unholy are products of overexposure to the rift energy. The dark blades were catalysts, at first. Some of them, though…”
“Chimera?”
Gan nodded.
“Chimera is a different case,” he said. “He’s a bit more complicated.”
“He has the Nameless,” I said. “Velos told me.”
“I wouldn’t place much trust in the words of that madman.”
“You know it’s true,” I said. “I have to stop him.”
“You can’t. If you try to face him now, he’ll end you.”
“If I don’t, he’ll end everything,” I told him. “He wants to destroy the wards and free the Unholy.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
“What?” I said, confused. “You’re going to do what?”
“Chimera wants a war,” Gan said. “We’re going to give him a war to end all wars.”
“You’re going to free the Unholy? Are you insane?”
“It’s the only way to end this threat once and for all,” Gan said. “We give them what they want—freedom.”
“What about, oh, the rest of humanity?”
“Let us worry about that,” Gan said, patting me on the shoulder. “Drink your medicine and recover.”
“You just told me we’re going to war, and you want me to lay down and recover?”
“I expect you to make a full recovery,” Gan answered with an edge. “If you don’t, Mercy will not discharge you. Even I can’t help you there.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Pretty much everything of relevance,” Gan said with a small smile. “Rest, Blueberry. We’re going to need the Jade Demon.”
He walked out of the room and left me alone with my thoughts.
THE END
Author Notes
Thank you for reading this story and jumping back into the Sepia Blue World.
It’s been four years since the last Sepia Blue book was released (Sepia Blue Nightmare Nov. 2016). I want to express my deepest and most humble thanks to all the Sepia Blue readers who waited patiently for this book to be written. I truly apologize for M&S hijacking my brain in the middle of Sepia’s series and pushing me to write their stories as Sepia waited patiently.
It was quite a process coming back to this story after
