Forsaken (The Netherworlde Series) Read online

  FORSAKEN

  Book One in The Netherworlde Series

  by Sara Reinke

  Edited by Jennifer Barker

  Published by Bloodhorse Press, LLC at Smashwords

  www.bloodhorsepress.com

  Copyright 2011 Sara Reinke

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  DEDICATION

  To Reading Ecstasy (my precious Squishee) and Karla Dee, my awesome beta readers, and

  to Jen B., my amazing editor. Also, for my friends in Louisville Romance Writers, who won’t let me lose faith in myself, no matter how hard I try. Last but not least, to my readers, without whom I would just be a weird old lady henpecking on my computer compulsively.

  GLOSSARY

  Archangel – the highest tier of the Elohim, the most powerful; their leaders

  Celestials – supernatural beings charged with the shepherding of human souls in the afterlife. Divided into Elohim, Nephilim, and Ophanim

  Edge, the – the outermost boundary of the Netherworlde, it is literally a physical precipice beyond which no celestials but Ophanim may venture or exist.

  Eidolon – amorphous creatures indigenous to the Netherworlde sought by the Nephilim. When bound to a human spirit, they can be controlled by a Wyrm. The resulting symbiote is called a Wraith.

  Elohim – Celestials responsible for the acquisition and delivery of just souls to the Netherworlde for final judgment

  Gader’el – the highest tier of the Nephilim, the most powerful; their leaders

  gatekeeper – a rank among the Elohim; charged with the collection of righteous human souls at death

  Goblins – giant predatory arthropods indigenous to the Netherworlde

  Hounds – foot soldiers and servants for the Nephilim

  Nephilim – Celestials responsible for the acquisition and delivery of unjust souls to the Netherworlde for final judgment

  Netherworlde – a neutral spiritual plane in the afterlife to which just and unjust human souls are delivered to await final judgment. Divided into two halves, one occupied by the Elohim, the other by the Nephilim. When not on the mortal plane, it is in the Netherworlde that these Celestial sects reside.

  Ophanim – Celestials responsible for the delivery of both just and unjust human souls beyond the Edge of the Netherworlde to face final judgment

  Powers, the – the nine strongest members of the Nephilim Gader'el

  Shedim – a disembodied creature indigenous to the Netherworlde capable of manifesting in any physical form it chooses, based on resources available in its environment

  sigil – a special symbol used to summon different Celestials

  talisman – any weapon that bears an inscribed triquetra. These are the only types of weapons capable of injuring or destroying a Celestial

  triquetra – a three-cornered, interwoven shape depicted in the rune alphabets of old Celtic and Nordic tribes and commonly associated with both pagan and Christian religions

  Wraith – see Eidolon

  Wyrm – a parasite indigenous to the Netherworlde that resides in its host form’s brain and controls conscious awareness and physical movements

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Did you just say you were going to add shit to my menu?”

  Jason Sullivan couldn’t resist, even though the smart-ass comment earned him a kick in the shin, one he rightly deserved. Samantha had been chattering, happy and excited as she unzipped a leather portfolio, pulling out three-by-five recipe cards and rattling off the names and contents of each to him. She was in culinary school and he’d agreed to let her cut her teeth on the menu at Sully’s, his pub.

  He sat across from Sam in one of the bar’s back corner booths after hours while around them, waitresses wiped down tables, stacked chairs and collected ashtrays. As he spoke, her mouth spread in a broad and beautiful grin as she punted him playfully beneath the table. “Pupus,” she said. “It’s Hawaiian. I said maybe we could add some tropical flare with some Kamaboko dip or another pupus recipe.”

  Sam looked toward the bar, where a solitary customer remained, perched comfortably on one of the bar stools, nursing the last of a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. “What do you think, Bear?” she asked. “Polenta bites with marinated mushrooms, steamed clams with chorizo or the Kamaboko dip?”

  Theodore “Bear” Phelps, her uncle, was a narcotics detective on the police force, a big, burly man with an appropriate nickname. He pivoted enough in his seat to glance between Jason and his niece and drop a wink. “I’m not going to eat shit either, Sammi.”

  Jason laughed and now Sam booted him hard beneath the table, pretending to scowl. “Oh, hilarious,” she muttered, shaking her head, stuffing her recipes back into her portfolio. “You two should give up your day jobs, try some stand-up comedy.”

  “Which reminds me…” With a laugh, Bear slid from the stool. “Some of us actually have to work for a living come tomorrow morning.” He hooked his jacket off the back of the stool, shrugging it across his broad shoulders as he approached the table. “Thanks for the beer, kid.”

  As Jason accepted Bear’s handshake, he could see the curious and pointed look in the older man’s eyes: So, are you going to do it tonight or what?

  Sam’s parents had died in a horrible car accident. She’d only been a little girl, just seven years old. Though she’d been in the car, seriously injured when the ambulance had sped through a cross-street red light and slammed into the side of her father’s station wagon, she’d told him she’d never been able to remember much about it. “And what I do…” she’d always said with a shaky, sorrowful laugh. “Well, it isn’t pretty.”

  Jason had asked Bear, who’d practically raised her, for permission to propose to Sam weeks earlier. But ever since gaining this blessing, Jason had fumbled, floundered, foiled or otherwise fucked up any and every opportunity he might have had to actually pop the question.

  The previous weekend would have been perfect. Jason had taken Sam to Holiday Island, a crappy little fleabag amusement park out on the wharf, and at the end of the day, they’d ridden the Waterfront Eye, a towering Ferris wheel that offered a nearly unobstructed panoramic view of the city and seascape below. They’d stopped at the very top to load some of the cars below, and Samantha had leaned out, giddy as a child, her mouth spread in a delighted grin.

  “Look,” she had exclaimed, pointing out toward where the horizon and ocean came together in a barely discernablediscernible seam. Here, they could see beyond the expansive mouth of the bay, out into the Pacific Ocean, where major international shipping lanes converged. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  He should have asked her then. The moment had been perfect. He’d had the ring with him, a simple gold band offset with a small square-cut diamond that he’d scrimped and saved for months to buy, in case just such an opportunity had presented itself. He should have asked, but in the end, he’d chickened out. The Eye had started turning again, delivering them to the ground once more, and the moment had been irrevocably lost.

  But not this time, he told himself, and as he met Bear’s expectant gaze, he nodded once, making the older man smile.

  “We’ll walk you out,” Sam said to her uncle, sliding toward the edge of the booth bench, reaching for her coat.

  “No, y
ou stay here. It’s pouring outside. And you know what they say.” Bear leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. “Sugar melts in the rain.”

  She smiled, dutifully charmed, then began in protest, “But you don’t have an umbrella.”

  Bear laughed. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, turning and walking away with a wave. “You know what else they say. Shit floats.”

  Jason followed Bear to the front door, fishing his keys from the pockets of his jeans to lock up behind him. “Good luck, kid,” Bear told him, clapping his hand against Jason’s shoulder before ducking his head and hurrying out into the night-draped downpour.

  Jason laughed, watching Bear dissolve into silhouette and shadows between spheres of street-lamp light. “Thanks, Bear,” he called.

  Hopefully I’m not going to need it, he thought as he closed the door again, locking the dead bolt in place. The ring was in his pocket, the same place it had been when they’d visited Holiday Island, the same place it had been at any given moment on any given day since then.

  This time I’m going to do it, he thought, and as he walked back toward the corner booth, Sam looked up at him and smiled, cementing his resolve. He shoved his hand into his pocket, feeling the ring with his fingertips, while Sam glanced back down at her portfolio, rifling through the contents again, looking for something.

  Will you marry me?

  The words should have come so easily, yet they wouldn’t. They felt stuck in his throat like a sharpened sliver of bone, choking him. He drew the ring against his palm and curled his hand loosely around it, still cradling it in his pocket, feeling his throat and tongue grow suddenly, anxiously dry and tacky. His heart had already quickened. He could feel it pounding nervously, sending a surge of adrenaline through him.

  Nothing fancy. No down-on-bended-knee bullshit or anything like that. I’m just going to give her the ring and I’m going to say it. “Will you marry me, Sam?”

  I’m going to do it.

  “Oh, damn,” Sam said with a frown. Shoving the portfolio aside, she slapped her hand against the tabletop.

  He stood there, hand in his pocket, ring in his hand. “What?”

  She looked up. “I had my friend Melinda—the one who owns her own graphic design business? Anyway, I asked her if she’d come up with some menu ideas for us and she had some terrific ones, some layouts she’d printed out I really think you’ll like. Don’t worry. She’s doing it for free. I know you hate it when you think I’m sneaking behind your back, buying you things.”

  “No, I don’t.” It just made him feel impotent, that was all, the fact that she had more money in her bank account than he would likely ever earn in his entire lifetime. Or ten lifetimes, for that matter.

  When her parents had died, she’d been left a trust account worth in excess of thirteen and a half million dollars. Sam had never flaunted her money or lorded it over him. She was likely the least pretentious person he’d ever met, but it was no great secret that many of Sam’s friends disapproved of her relationship with him, felt he wasn’t good enough for her. And they’re right, he thought. I’m not.

  “I must have left them in the car,” Sam was saying. Reaching for her coat, she began to scoot toward the end of the bench again. “Hang on a second. I’ll run out and get them.”

  “No, wait.” He drew his hand from his pocket, leaving the ring tucked and hidden inside. “Give me your keys. Bear was right, it’s pouring. I’ll go get them.”

  “You’ll get all wet,” she started to protest.

  “Don’t worry,” he replied. “Like Bear said, shit…I mean, pupus…floats.”

  She pretended to frown but couldn’t hold it for more than a half second. Bursting into laughter, she slapped him. “You’re such an ass!”

  He held his jacket up over his head as he took the side fire-exit door out into the adjacent alley, where Sam had parked her Jeep. Even with this rudimentary shield, though, he was soaked by the torrential downpour in less than a second. His feet slapped heavily through deep puddles as he darted across the alley. The security light was out overhead and the only illumination came from the same distant street lamps that had swallowed Bear whole in their dim glow less than ten minutes earlier.

  He hadn’t even reached the Jeep when he heard the unexpected scuffle behind him, a soft splash, like footsteps on the rain-soaked concrete, and started to look over his shoulder. He saw a hint of movement, a silhouetted figure coming up on him fast. Against the backdrop of pale light coming from a street lamp just beyond the mouth of the alley, he saw the wink of something metallic in the figure’s outstretched hand.

  Is that a gun…?

  Then a sudden blinding flash of light and a deafening roar rocked him simultaneously, and it felt for all the world like he’d been struck headlong by a charging bull on the rampage. Careening in a clumsy pirouette, he stumbled backward, then crashed to the ground, landing on his belly, facedown and stunned.

  The pain was immediate and overwhelming, like the entire left side of his body had been doused with gasoline and then set brutally alight. When he sucked in a hurting breath to cry out, to his frightened surprise, his throat immediately filled with a rush of blood. He choked, feeling it spew from his mouth in a thick, hot splash, gagging at its metallic bitterness against his tongue.

  I’ve been shot, he realized dimly. Jesus Christ, I’ve been shot!

  It felt like an eternity that he lay there, his ears ringing from the thunderous blast, unable to breathe, drowning on his own blood, watching dazedly as it pooled around the front of his face in a dark, glistening pool. He could hear a soggy, gurgling sound—his own frantic attempts to breathe—and the soft scrabble of his fingertips against the wet, cold ground as he tried to move.

  Then he heard something else—footsteps again, closer this time, coming directly toward him.

  No, he thought in stark terror as he felt the hot muzzle of the gun shove against his temple, searing his skin. No, no, oh, God, please, don’t…!

  Another resounding boom, another flash of light.

  Then darkness.

  ****

  “Get up, Wraith.”

  Jason had no idea how long he was out. All he knew was that he gasped in choked surprise as a large, strong hand clamped firmly in his hair, wrenching his head back and forcing his mind from the murky shadows of unconsciousness. As he was dragged to his feet, he struggled to clear his mind, terrified and bewildered.

  What the fuck?

  He yelped as the hand holding him fast shifted its grasp, catching him now beneath his chin.

  “I said get up,” a man’s voice seethed.

  Shoved backward against the nearest wall, Jason hit his head with enough force to dazzle him, leaving him momentarily blinking against bright, dancing pinpoints of light. As the lights faded from view, he saw his assailant—a man standing nearly nose to nose with him as he pinned Jason to the wall in a furious stranglehold. The man’s dark, rain-soaked hair clung to his face. He looked Indian maybe, the dot-not-feather variety, as Bear might have not so tactfully noted, or Middle Eastern, maybe. His brows were furrowed deeply, his large, dark eyes spearing into Jason’s with inexplicably murderous ferocity. His face was battered, his nose crusted with blood, his lip busted, his cheeks scraped and bruised. He looked like he’d been caught in the wrong end of a pub brawl, which might have made sense considering they were outside Sully’s, except there hadn’t been a bar fight that night.

  Jason had a bewildered half second to realize that even though he’d never seen this man before in his life, he knew him somehow, knew his name, something archaic and tongue-twisting…

  Nemamiah

  …and then he realized that the man

  Nemamiah

  had done more than just shove Jason backward into the wall. He’d been holding something in his hand at the time, a sword that he’d simultaneously thrust into Jason’s chest. The point of the blade had caught Jason just below the collarbone at the vertex of his shoulder. When Nemamiah had put h
is full weight against Jason, pinning him, he’d likewise forced the blade deep into Jason’s torso, impaling him.

  But I thought he shot me, Jason thought, blinking at the hilt of the sword, the pommel adorned with an engraved three-pronged Celtic knot design. Though he’d barely had time to catch his breath since his rude awakening, never mind figure out what the hell was going on, he had fleeting recollection of this. He came up behind me in the alley. He shot me. I remember.

  His brows knitted deeply, his teeth gritted in a fierce and fearsome snarl, Nemamiah wrenched the sword from Jason’s chest and released him from his choke hold at the same time. Jason collapsed in a heap to the ground.

  Oh, God, he thought, panicked and terrified. He’s going to kill me. Oh, Christ, and I was going to ask Sam to marry me tonight.

  “Get up,” Nemamiah said again. His hand closed fiercely in Jason’s hair, wrenching a cry from him as he first craned his head violently back, then jerked him in stumbling tow to his feet. “I’m not finished with you yet. Not by a long shot.”

  As he slammed Jason into the wall again, he felt something inside his ear, slender and damp, limp like a dead night crawler, sliding out. In reflexive surprise and revulsion, he tried to shake his head.

  What is that? he thought in confusion and alarm. Nemamiah had shifted his grip, catching him by the throat again, so when Jason tried to cry out in frightened disgust, all that came out was a choked mewl. He caught a glimpse of the thing in the streetlight as it tumbled to the ground beside him, maybe five inches long, its pale gray body no bigger in circumference than his little finger.