Doc's pecan trees blocked my view of the sky. "Doan know." A light began to glow over the water.
"You think it's a fifolet?" A swamp light.
"Peut-etre." Maybe. "If it is . . ." I trailed off when a doe bounded down the street right past Doc. He didn't react, just kept staring up.
Then came more animals, a parade of them fleeing from the east. Dogs, coyotes, rats, nutria.
I swallowed. One of Evie's sketches had been of fleeing animals.
In a hushed tone, Clotile said, "Something bad's coming."
That rumbling sound we'd been hearing got louder and louder until it was more like a roar. "A twister maybe? Christ, I left Maman passed out!"
"If a tornado's cropping up here, it probably woan reach your place."
For true. Still . . . "I gotta get to her. Give me your keys."
"Jamais." Never. "We need to stay down in the basement." Clotile backed toward it, yanking on my good arm.
That mysterious light grew even more intense, like the bayou was trying to catch fire. And that roar . . .
I said, "Ain't a tornado, no." That roar could wake the dead. Seemed like it was ringing in the end of days.
The apocalypse.
I burned to get to Maman, but I got the sense I wouldn't make it to the truck.
"We got to hunker down, Jack!"
"Not without Doc." I pulled free of Clotile, then hurried toward the front door. "Get your ass inside, Doc!" From here I could see the sky. My God. Past him was the rising sun, like a ball of fire.
From the basement doorway, Clotile screamed, "Come back here! Please!"
I yelled, "Allons-y, Doc! Now--" A flash of light exploded like a bomb. Fingers of fire stretched over the bayou, about to reach us. "DOC!" I'd never get to him in time.
He finally shook himself and turned to me. Meeting my eyes, he mouthed: Run, boy.
For once, I did. I lunged for the basement door, yanking it closed behind me.
Clotile cried, "Down here!"
When the knob seared my hand, I leapt down the stairs. The building groaned, dust raining over us in the pitch dark.
Clotile blindly reached for me. "I-I'm scared."
So the hell was I. "We're goan to be okay." I took her hand.
"What happened to Doc?"
"I think . . ." How to explain what I'd just seen? "There was all this fire, and he told me to run. I doan see how he could've . . . lived through that."
"You think we got bombed? Or maybe it's the Rapture?"
"I doan know, me." All I knew was Maman was in her bed, defenseless as a baby.
_______________
"I'm done waiting," I told Clotile after pacing that dark basement for hours. Nothing else I could've done. We'd tried to call 911--and anyone else we knew--but couldn't get a connection.
I was gut-sick with worrying. And I hated myself 'cause I was also worrying about someone who should've meant nothing to me.
I'd thought of Evie more than I'd thought of my podnas Lionel, Gaston, and Tee-Bo. Once this was over and I'd gotten Maman safe somewhere, I'd ride to Haven.
"Just a little while longer." Clotile had insisted on bandaging up my arm, but I'd assured her that would be the least of our worries. "Please. It can't be safe out there."
We'd heard what sounded like an inferno outside, the entire Basin gone up in flames. There'd been more crashes and glass shattering. Doc's entire building had quaked.
And always, always there was the smell of smoke.
But the sounds were fading.
Clotile asked, "What if there's . . . radiation or something?"
"Ain't like I was goan to live a long life anyhow. You stay here. I'll go pick up Maman, check on some podnas, then I'll come back for you."
"You ain't leaving without me."
"Fine. Come on, you." By the light of that phone, we climbed the stairs again. I brushed the doorknob. Cool to the touch.
I opened up cautiously, easing the door back, and scented the air. To hell with it. I stepped out, glass cracking beneath my boots.
Every window had been shattered, the frames still smoking. We crept toward the front door.
Doc's pecan trees were charred stumps. His mulberry bushes had disappeared. Black streaks slashed over the bricks of his house. Other houses in the neighborhood were burning.
Next door, all that remained of a larger wooden home were cinders and a scorched Virgin Mary statuette; I crossed myself.
"Where are all the trees?" Clotile asked, sounding stunned as she surveyed the destruction.
I didn't see a single one. I swallowed. "Gone."
"You think there'd be some people around."
"Most everybody was outside when the fire hit." We reached the sidewalk, found a gray pile of ash. "Doc was standing right here." I toed the small mound, and my heart started to thunder.
Clotile wheezed in a breath. "A-are those what I think they are?"
Doc's dentures. "Ouais." I surveyed the street. More of those piles dotted the blistered pavement.
She whispered, "Those . . . were people."
When I gazed out over the waterfront, my mind nearly turned over. "No water. It's all dried up." Only cracked mud remained. Blackened metal barges listed in the muck. The skeletons of shrimp boats still burned. "I can't be seeing right. Tell me . . . tell me I'm on a bad bender, me. And I ain't seeing this."
Clotile shook her head, her face pale. "It's gotta be a nightmare."
"Need to get to Maman." We headed to the truck. The exterior was charred, but looked okay otherwise. Clotile tossed me the keys, and we climbed in the cab.
When the engine wouldn't turn over, I beat the steering wheel with frustration.
She put her hand on my shoulder. "Hey, we'll find us another one."
I eased off. I needed to keep my calm and focus. I nodded, and we got out to look. A lot of cars had been wrecked. Some were stalled out, right in the street. We tried a few of them, but none of them would crank.
I grated, "We're walking it." Wouldn't be the first time.
Along the road, we didn't meet another soul, but we passed more piles of ash.
Clotile stumbled. "Jack, we gone to hell?"
I helped her along. "Just . . . just keep walking, you." Could Maman have survived? The structures that had once had the most tree cover fared best; thick cypress boughs had stretched out over my shack. And it'd been soaked from the earlier downpour.
Maybe she'd lived.
My traitorous thoughts turned to Evie. Big oaks had surrounded Haven. Could she have made it from my place to hers before that flash of light? Before the fire? Had I gotten her killed . . . ? Keep it together, Jack.
For the last mile to my home, Clotile and I ran. I careened into my yard ahead of her, slowing in shock.
The cypress trees were stumps. The shack had collapsed, was just a mound of smoldering wood, covered with sheets of scorched tin. "Ah, God, Maman!" I sprinted to the pile, then yanked at the metal.
"Helene!" Clotile called, hurrying over to help.
"Answer us, Maman!"
"Jack?" came a muffled reply from somewhere under the heap.
My eyes shot wide. "I'm here!" I tore at the boards like a madman, pitching them to the side. "Goan to get you free. Are you hurt? Anything broken?"
"Non." Her hand waved between boards.
I hauled debris away, enough to ease her out from under a heavy rafter, freeing her.
She threw her arms around me. "Jack! I knew you'd come for me."
"Thank God you're all right!" I drew back to brush mud off her face, frowning at the roughness of her cheek. Her skin felt leathery. And her cracked lips bled. "What's happened to you, Maman?" Her eyes were filmy, her gray pupils lighter, almost like chalk.
I fought a dawning recognition. She reminded me of . . . the creatures Evie had sketched.
I shared a glance with Clotile, who shook her head in confusion.
"I doan know." Maman's rosary was stark against her weathered neck. "I
feel so strange, me." She tried to lick her battered lips.
"We're goan to get you to a doctor in the next parish over." The next state over, if we had to. Somebody would be able to help her.
She clutched my shoulders, her nails digging in. Her eyes seemed to be lightening even more, her skin getting worse by the second. "Oh, Jack, I never been so thirsty in all my days."
So why was her gaze locked . . . on my throat?
_______________
Find out what happens to Jack and many of these characters in the next pulse-pounding installment of the Arcana Chronicles: Arcana Rising, coming August 15, 2016.
Turn the page for a sneak peek!
Losses mount and deadly new threats converge in the next action-packed tale of the Arcana Chronicles by #1 New York Times best-selling author Kresley Cole.
When the battle is done . . .
The Emperor unleashes hell and annihilates an army, jeopardizing the future of mankind--but Circe strikes back. The epic clash between them devastates the Arcana world and nearly kills Evie, separating her from her allies.
And all hope is lost . . .
With Aric missing and no sign that Jack and Selena escaped Richter's reach, Evie turns more and more to the darkness lurking inside her. Two Arcana emerge as game changers: one who could be her salvation, the other her worst nightmare.
Vengeance becomes everything.
To take on Richter, Evie must reunite with Death and mend their broken bond. But as she learns more about her role in the future--and her chilling past--will she become a monster like the Emperor? Or can Evie and her allies rise up from Richter's ashes, stronger than ever before?
_______________
1
Day 382 A.F.
Death kept taking me farther from Jack. I stretched my arms out, fingers splayed toward the heat. "He can't be dead." I sobbed. "Can't. NO, NO, NOOOO!"
"You want to follow the mortal? Get your revenge first. The Emperor mocks your pain."
I could hear that fiend in my head--laughing.
The red witch exploded inside me, a force that could never be contained. I shrieked, "You will PAY!"
As the Emperor laughed, Death murmured in my ear, "I have your grandmother, Sieva. That was the gift I spoke of. We'll teach you how to kill the Emperor. You'll avenge Deveaux."
"Don't you understand? Jack's not DEAD!" I screamed that over and over. "He's alive!"
With my mind teetering on the brink, I spied something in the skies above us. I gaped, disbelieving.
Real? Unreal? Just before oblivion took me down, a mountain of water curled over our heads, racing toward that hell of flames.
Circe's towering wave. Taller than a skyscraper.
--Quake before me!--
--Terror from the abyss!--
Richter and Circe's calls boomed in my mind, jolting me back from the blackness.
"Come!" Aric snatched me into his arms and sprinted from the clash. "When they meet, the blast and then the flood . . ."
I stopped fighting him; the need to turn Richter's laughter into screams clawed at me, which meant I had to survive.
Aric gave a sharp whistle, and a horse's nickering answered. Thanatos. With me secure in his arms, Aric leapt into the saddle, and spurred the warhorse into a frenzied gallop.
We all but dove down a slope, then charged up the next.
I gazed over Aric's shoulder as that tidal wave crested above Richter's lake of lava.
Heaving breaths, riding faster than humanly possible, Aric kept Thanatos at a breakneck pace. Up another mountain face. Down its slope--
Circe struck.
A hiss like a giant beast's. A detonation like a nuclear bomb.
The shock wave was so loud my ears bled. As loud as the roar preceding the Flash.
The air grew hotter and hotter. The ground rocked as a blast of scalding steam chased us.
BOOM! The force sheared the top off the mountain just behind us. Boulders crashed all around as we careened into yet another valley. Still we rode.
Aric grated, "Surge comes next."
The ground quaked from the weight of an ocean of water. I could hear the surge shooting toward us. "Aric!"
He got as far as he dared, as high as he could. "Hold on." Clutching me tight, he dropped from Thanatos who kept running.
Behind the cap of another mountain, Aric braced for impact. He wedged his metal gauntlet between boulders, wrapping his other arm around me.
Gaze locked on mine, he yelled, "I'll never let you go!" We each sucked in a breath.
The searing water hit. The explosive impact ripped me from his chest, but he caught my arm, clenching his fingers above my elbow.
Death's grip. The ungodly force of the flood. My watery scream . . .
Aric never did let me go--
My arm . . . gave way.
Separated.
_______________
Arcana Rising releases August 15, 2016.
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About Kresley Cole
Kresley Cole is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Immortals After Dark paranormal series and the young adult Arcana Chronicles. Her books have been translated into many foreign languages, garnered three RITA Awards, and consistently appear on the bestseller lists in the United States and abroad. You can learn more about her and her work at KresleyCole.com and TheArcanaChronicles.com. Sign up for Kresley's email newsletter to receive the latest book release updates, as well as info about contests and giveaways.
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Also by Kresley Cole
The Arcana Chronicles
Poison Princess * Endless Knight * Dead of Winter
Day Zero * Arcana Rising
Valkyrie Press
228 Park Ave S #11599
New York, NY 10003
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2016 by Kresley Cole
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
ISBN 978-0-9972151-3-7
Table of Contents
Dear Readers
Origin of the Arcana
The Flash, by the books
Character Guide
Death (XIII)
The Fool (0)
The Magician (I)
The Priestess (II)
The Emperor (IV)
The Hierophant (V)
The Lovers (VI)
The Centurion (VII)
Strength (VIII)
The Hermit (IX)
Fortune (X)
The Fury (XI)
The Hanged Man (XII)
The Tower (XVI)
Temperance (XIV)
The Devil (XV)
The Star (XVII)
The Moon (XVIII)
The Sun (XIX)
Judgment (XX)
The World (XXI)
The Empress (III)
The Hunter
Sneak Peek of ARCANA RISING
About Kresley Cole
Also by Kresley Cole
Copyright
Kresley Cole, Day Zero
(Series: The Arcana Chronicles # 3.50)
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