Better off Dead Book Three Read online

  All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Better off Dead

  Book Three

  Copyright © 2020 Odette C Bell

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art stock photos licensed from Depositphotos.

  www.odettecbell.com

  Better off Dead

  Book Three

  There are only so many times you can die before it gets to you.

  And it’s sure getting to Eve. Now she knows what Hilliker wants her for, she’ll have to fight tooth and nail to escape him. But as his powers increase, there’ll be nowhere to hide. Even Sonos’s arms can’t offer her protection anymore.

  Eve’s destiny will catch up to her. And it’ll wrap its hands around her throat and squeeze.

  ...

  Tune in for the thrilling third book in the fast-paced urban fantasy, Better off Dead. It is sure to please fans of Odette C. Bell’s Prince of Roses.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 1

  It took no time at all for resurrection light to spill around me. It rushed in, encircling my entire body like a halo. It would have lifted me up off my feet had Hilliker not already done so.

  As life filled my body once more, I saw his expression. Light traveled down from my form, into his hand, across his arm, and up into his face. It seeped down into the hollows that were now his eyes. I saw a few flickers dancing in the middle of where his pupils had once been, but they were quickly extinguished.

  The priests behind him had gotten down on their knees. They started to pray, their deep, shaking chants filling the vault room.

  “Again,” Hilliker snapped. And he snapped my neck in the process. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to fight him.

  As my life disappeared, the resurrection curse swept in to give me life once more.

  As the light filled me, he stole it.

  There was not a damn thing I could do. I couldn’t move. His grip on me was complete. And every time he killed me, his control only increased.

  My mind... started to go elsewhere. It fell from around me, fracturing like glass. I thought I could hear far off laughing – maybe children, maybe something else. It filled my mind even as, with another snap, I lost myself only to have my personality recreated once more.

  The room became a blur. The chanting of the priests strung together until it was one monotonous hum. The only thing I felt and the only thing that mattered was Hilliker’s grip and the gaze in his eyes. How a man could have a gaze when he didn’t have eyes anymore, I didn’t know, but the stare he shot me seemed to be possessed of the greatest intelligence in the world.

  Even as he continuously killed me, I was aware of something growing through the room. At first it slipped in with the chanting priests, carried along by their voices as they echoed against the four walls. But then it came from the floor – from invisible cracks in the concrete. It seeped in from the ceiling. It was carried on the breeze. But more than anything, it bled out of Hilliker’s eye hollows.

  ... It was the Banished, wasn’t it?

  I hadn’t forgotten what Hilliker had said before he’d snapped my neck the first time in here. I was in lockstep with the Banished. We were like two hands reaching to each other across the void.

  As the presence of that creature continued to grow in the room, I felt immeasurably weaker. It was as if I’d completely forgotten that I was a magical practitioner. Hell, the entirety of my light slipped away. Every act of resistance and strength became irrelevant. For they had been nothing more than a prelude to this horror.

  I thought there would be nothing that would stop Hilliker’s gorging. But a few minutes later, after he’d killed me for about the twentieth time, I heard hurried footfall. It paused at the door – then someone thrust in. They had a muttered conversation with one of the priests who was clearly angry at the fact they had been interrupted.

  I could tell Hilliker tried to ignore it until he couldn’t. “What is it?” he snarled with the kind of voice that was designed to snap people’s necks.

  “My liege,” I could only just discern the hurried tone, “they are shutting down the tunnel system.”

  “That is of no concern to us,” Hilliker snapped.

  “They are turning pocket space in on itself. We will not be able to get out,” the guy cut in before Hilliker could snap again.

  I opened my eyes in time to see Hilliker’s expression freeze.

  Though my mind wasn’t quite functioning and it took a few seconds, all too soon I appreciated what that priest was trying to point out. If you shut down a pocket space while someone was in it, they could be trapped there forevermore.

  This wasn’t like the vault room I’d managed to break through by finding a microcrack. This was like finding a spider and entombing it in a ball of plastic wrap. If you kept going, making the plastic as thick as you could, there would be no chance in hell that spider would ever be able to escape, no matter how much it gnawed and fought.

  The problem with the German Vault Tunnels was that they were massive. That meant there was a lot of damn pocket space to deal with. If they shut it all down and rolled it up, it would be impossible for Hilliker to escape. Even if he did, it would take all of his power and then some.

  His hollows opened wide and his mouth pulled hard in a sneer. “Stop them,” he snapped.

  “We cannot. It is happening from outside the tunnel system—”

  “Then go out there and stop them,” he cried, his voice becoming so loud, it was like he was trying to slap reality itself.

  Whoever this priest was, he certainly didn’t back down, even in the face of his boss’s volcanic anger. “We do not know where the control room is.”

  Hilliker screamed. It sounded as if he channeled the pent-up rage of every single human who’d ever lived. It was so damn loud, it actually shattered the floor all around him as if he’d struck it with a cannonball. Several of the priests behind him had to jump up and duck out of the way of the destruction.

  Hilliker whirled. He still had me in-hand, though he was no longer paying attention to me. His control magic started to slip, too. He was too distracted by what was being said.

  ... My mind hardly functioned anymore. You wouldn’t think I would have the wherewithal to plan, but I knew this was my last chance.

  I’d dropped the box after the first time he’d snapped my neck. But it was close. It had become closer when he’d cracked the ground. It had fallen next to me. My foot brushed up against it.

  I shouldn’t have any magic left. Every time he resurrected me, he stole something from me. I was noticeably weaker than I had ever been before.

  But I didn’t need a great deal of magic to activate the box.

  “Send half of our priests out of the tunnels. Create a protection barrier around them.” Hilliker went to turn back to me to finish the buffet.

  That brave priest took a solid step forward. “That will not work, my liege.”

  Hilliker looked dark – literally as more black lines marched across his face like acid actively eating his flesh. “You dare—”

  “They have their own practitioners. The concierges have left. They have also called the magic police. We do not have the energy to fight them. We must retreat.”

  Hilliker laughed. “Not when we’re so close. I only need to kill her five more times—”

  “Even if you do, you will not be able to access her power if w
e are blocked off in pocket space, and nor will you be able to call on the Banished,” the priest said simply.

  I could see realization dawning on Hilliker. Presumably, on some level, he already knew this. You didn’t get to be a practitioner of his level without understanding how the magical world worked. But his greed would be messing with his head. The imminent promise of the Banished would be stopping him from seeing what was happening.

  Hilliker roared.

  He turned from me, though he kept me in his grip. He opened a hand and pulsed it wide to the side. He connected to the walls of the vault room. Based on the charge of unreality magic that blasted across his hands, he was about to rip through the vault as easily as a dog through a chicken bone.

  It was the only opportunity I would ever have. I knew my plan was stupid – and I knew it had approximately no chance whatsoever of working. But if... if the vault box by my foot was a version of pocket space, then theoretically I could trap Hilliker inside, regardless of the fact he was ostensibly too small to fit within. Pocket spaces expanded depending on what you put inside them.

  I doubted I’d be able to keep him in there. But I would slow him down. And if they closed off the tunnels – it would be like keeping Hilliker inside two prisons at once.

  I thought of nothing but concentrating on my magic. As I’d already said, it was barely there. It was so small and fragile, it felt as if it’d turned into a baby bird. I kept trying to gather it in my mind, but it kept scattering. I would not give up.

  Hilliker twisted his fingers in, and another charge of unreality magic sank into the walls. They started to crack. The priests joined in, helping him as they rushed over to the walls, flattened their hands on them, and began to chant.

  This was it. No one was paying attention to me.

  I thrust my mind into the box by my feet. I tried to let my concentration travel down my body, exit down through my foot, shift through my boot and into the box. Had I been at my normal strength, I would’ve been able to do it easily. I didn’t know how weak I’d become, but it felt as if I had one percent of the power I’d had this morning. But I had 150 percent of the determination.

  The walls around me started to crack. They bulged and then contracted in. The metal that constituted them spun around then broke free from the walls. It began to turn and twist around Hilliker’s form as if he was the eye of a storm.

  I saw void space all around me. Trapped within it were objects – some valuable, some exceptionally so. Hilliker wasn’t just attacking this vault room. He was attacking all the vaults. The precious contents within were now freefalling through void space.

  Fortunately, the floor was still standing. That meant the box was right there. But when the concrete inevitably cracked up, the box would disappear from my grip forever.

  I had a single damn chance.

  If I could have, I would’ve clutched my cross. Instead, I let my mind shift into it. I wasn’t remotely connecting to it with my magic – I simply didn’t have the energy. What I did was let the symbol fill me up. I let my mind trace around every whirl and kink in the filigree. And I also let myself believe one thing. When Hilliker had stuttered his surprise at the fact it had remained on me in Purgatory, he’d said it was too late for hope. What if this cross, on some level, gave me hope?

  Ostensibly, as far as magical charms went, hope was relatively useless. You couldn’t use it to feed yourself, nor could you use it to win a war. All it was was a capacity to continue, regardless of what circumstances you found yourself in.

  While it wasn’t a gun and it wasn’t some bomb that would take out your enemies in a single blast, it was exactly what I needed now. For if I just kept pushing, I would eventually grab hold of what I needed. If I didn’t believe that, then there was no point in fighting. What I should do was succumb to the Banished’s growing intelligence filling the room and the promise that had always flickered in Hilliker’s eyes.

  The floor started to crack up. I wouldn’t let desperation own me, even though it tried to blast through my chest and shake through my heart. I squeezed my eyes closed, and with one final push, I shoved my mind down and into the box. It opened. It’d closed when I’d dropped it. I heard the creak of the lid, even over the sound of the priests chanting.

  Hilliker was far too involved in destroying the vault system to notice.

  I was still in his grip, but it wasn’t tight enough to break my neck. I managed to extend my leg down and secure my foot behind the box. Then I kicked it forward. It fell at his feet.

  He jerked his head down to stare at it, a frown marking his face.

  Opening the box was one thing. And it had taken most of my energy. But actually forcing him inside was something else.

  While this box had been coded to me, I was by no means its master. Nor did I understand how it worked.

  I would need to be able to access it with fine precision in order to get it to swallow Hilliker. I didn’t have that – but I did have one damn thing. Hope. Desperation too – loads of it – but the hope was what I held onto.

  I clutched the cross with the equivalent of my mental hands, and I damn well prayed. I opened my eyes and stared at Hilliker as I sent that last prayer into the box.

  “What are you doing?” he hissed as he tightened his fingers around my throat.

  “Finding a way to fight you. No matter what,” I added, managing to speak, even though his grip tightened once more.

  He began to laugh. Just as his shaking guffaw became loud enough to echo through the void, the box reacted. The unimaginable finally occurred. Magic sprang out of it. It looked like a pair of hands made out of pure light. They settled around Hilliker before he could react. Even his priests weren’t aware of it. If the bastard had possessed eyes, right now they would’ve opened to the point of popping. He faced me for one last second – then he was pulled inside the box. It happened instantly and smoothly – this was German magical engineering, after all.

  Hilliker’s spell was by far the most powerful among his priests. As he suddenly disappeared and his magic withdrew, the void started to react.

  “What the hell is happening?” one of the priests cried.

  Massive objects started to swirl around us. They were the items from the vaults of the entire tunnel system. I saw an enormous gold-headed Anubis statue shift past. It tumbled quickly, and it struck that smart priest who’d delivered the news right on the back of his noggin. The poor guy didn’t have a chance. He was sent barreling back into the void – only visible as a distant glimpse of white and purple.

  Several of the other priests jerked around. The floor still remained even though it was beginning to crack at the edges.

  “Where is Hilliker? How is she free?” one asked as he shot toward me.

  Something sailed past my shoulder. I grabbed it. It was a magic-infused bar of gold bullion. I wasted no time in pitching it at the guy. I didn’t use any magic – I didn’t have any spare. I simply used the gold like a bat, and it was mighty effective. It struck the guy right in the center of his head with a satisfying clang. He jolted backward long before he could send magic sizzling over his body to protect himself. He too fell backward into the void, nothing more than a tumbling dot on the horizon line.

  Sorry, I said horizon line, but it wasn’t as if there was much to distinguish time and space in this ever-growing black expanse of floating objects. I saw several vault doors spinning past. As another priest threw himself at me, all I had to do was let him get close enough that I kicked him in the shin. It unbalanced him. A second later, he couldn’t move fast enough as the door spun past him, collected him on the side, and whisked him away. He became like an unfortunate polar bear on an ice float.

  There was only one more priest left. This guy was not stupid. Rather than move, he opened his hands, spread his fingers, and let magic charge around them. He twisted them to the side in a tai chi moved and shoved them out. A charge of power shot forth and smashed into me. Or at least, it smashed into the box I’d pluc
ked up. Though it might’ve been advisable to dump my vault box with Hilliker inside – considering the unsavory contents – my fingers had naturally tightened around it. As that magical charge smashed into it, it initiated the box’s defense system. It, like these vaults, was designed not to be easily penetrated. It withstood the magical charge, then shot one out of its own. The guy was not expecting it. He didn’t even have a chance to scream, let alone jolt back. He was thrown clean off his feet and tumbled backward into unreality.

  I stood there for several seconds, panting, wide-eyed and surprised at what I’d managed to do, but then I quickly reminded myself that this entire tunnel system was about to be closed off.

  “How the hell do I get out of here? How the hell do I get out of here?” I asked uselessly, sweat dribbling down my brow as I tried to figure out an escape route. If I’d had magic, I’d have had a hope. I didn’t. I had a box with a deadly priest inside.

  Objects continued to tumble around me.

  Most were just magical valuables. One was this curious little jade turtle. Before I knew what I was doing, I plucked it out of the air. I held onto it.

  I could sense that the tunnels were shutting down. This violent shuddering was passing through everything – including the air. It was picked up by every tumbling object until it looked as if invisible hands were strangling the world.

  More and more sweat slicked down my brow, but there was nothing it could do. There was no way for me to get out of here.

  Just as tears touched my cheeks and I fell down to my knees on one of the final chunks of the floor, something grabbed my ankle. Horror filled me as it told me it was Hilliker. I turned to kick him off, but it wasn’t. Out of the darkness had climbed the minotaur. He was somehow still alive. I hadn’t managed to catch a glimpse of him after Hilliker’s attack, and I’d thought he’d died. He had a massive gash down his brow, and this strange gelatinous blue and green blood spilled down from it. But he was still very much breathing. He managed to offer me a smile. “Let us leave before they close the doors for good.”