Plague of Death Read online

  Plague of Death

  Anchoress Series Book Two

  D. L. Armillei

  Copyright © 2019 by D. L. Armillei

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is purely coincidental. All rights. reserved.

  First edition, February 2019

  ISBN 978-0-9986720-4-5 [Mobi]

  For more information regarding permissions or to contact the author write to: Diamond Cove Publishing, LLC, P.O. Box 2292, Palm Harbor, FL 34682-2292

  Plague of Death

  #29 I Ching - The Abysmal

  Remaining emotionally numb in reaction to past events blocks the Creator from resolving present difficulties in your favor. You must accept the situation by flowing with it like water. If you persist in improper behavior, then you will become hopelessly entangled in troubles. Eventually you will fall into an abysmal pit. By following the good you can save yourself and return to the light.

  — The I Ching or Book of Changes

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Dedication

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  To Vanessa Cross’s benefit, her sixteen-year-old heart had hardened over the past year, which made it easy for Van to shoo Wiglaf off of her bed.

  “Beat it,” she said to the fluffy, white bunfy curled into a comfy-looking ball sleeping beside her.

  As Van wriggled upright, the critter raised his head, followed by his long ears.

  “Urrrp. Eeep,” he said in mild protest. He shifted his tiny body, stood on all fours, and blinked his warm-blue, cat-like eyes at Van, still looking sleepy.

  His adorable whiskered face made Van feel a warm swirl in the center of her chest. She tensed and brushed the feeling aside.

  “Move it, pal.” Van stretched her thumb and indicated for him to get off the bed. “Time’s a ticking. Don’t want to waste the day.”

  She reached toward her window and threw aside her orange and gold-laced curtains. The muted brightness of the clear June sky told her it was slightly past dawn. Her eyes moved down the expansive lawn to the edge of the forest surrounding the manor. The brilliant green leaves barely fluttered in the mild breeze.

  “It’s a great morning for surfing,” Van declared as she admired the majestic beauty of the oak, pine, and beech trees that blanketed a good portion of the small, hour-glass shaped island off the coast of Massachusetts, called Providence Island.

  The bunfy stretched his front legs and arched his back in a cute way that raised his butt and cotton ball tail.

  Ah-ha! You are part cat. Van watched as Wiglaf took his sweet time kneading the mattress.

  “This proves you aren’t a hundred percent bunny.” She restrained herself from scooping him up in her arms and giving him a loving hug. It wouldn’t do for a Giorgi warrior, albeit even a junior one, to show affection. Emotions equated to weakness.

  Van patiently watched as he finished his morning stretch.

  “Definitely the Living World’s version of a rabbit.” She caught herself smiling at the critter. “Or maybe a cat.” The parallel world, separated from Van’s Earth World by an invisible membrane-like veil, contained a variety of unusual animals. Van, unfortunately, discovered that last year after the rulers of Providence Island sent her on a mission to retrieve a magical relic called the Coin of Creation. Some of the creatures she’d encountered on that journey were harmless like Wiglaf. Others were terrifying like…

  Van’s smile turned into a scowl. Her skin prickled as she unwittingly clenched her fists.

  “Hey!” Paley threw open the door and strutted into Van’s third-floor bedroom. “Get up.”

  Van leaped out of bed, poised and ready for battle.

  Wiglaf disappeared in a snap, back to his magical realm.

  “Paley!” Van calmed after recognizing the intruder as her best friend since kindergarten.

  “Whoa. Take it easy, warrior queen.” Paley held up her palms, expressing wide-eyed faux fear. “It’s time for our morning surf. Get moving.”

  Van leaned in and squinted at Paley’s eyes. “Are those lightning bolts?”

  “So?” Paley flipped her wavy, dyed-blond hair over her shoulder, a nervous gesture she had picked up since suffering a trauma during their journey to the Living World last summer. “They look amazing, right?”

  Paley’s habit of wearing crazy colored contact lenses never grew old. Today her iris’s were deep green with streaks of yellow lightning bolts shooting from the pupils.

  “Yeah. Great,” Van said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She thought they made Paley look like a crazy person, but didn’t want to diminish her friend’s fragile self-confidence.

  Excited by the prospect of catching the ever elusive perfect wave, the girls hurried down the stairs and out of Mt. Hope manor before Van’s stepmother, Genie, woke and started interrogating them with annoying questions like, “What’re you girls up to today?” or “How’s your summer training going?”

  The girls scurried down Sandy Cove Lane in the direction of the crossroads, an intersection of the island’s six main roads.

  Van’s eyes shifted toward Paley. “Blackrock?” Van asked raising a brow.

  “Blackrock? Since when?”

  “Whitecap beach is for wimps.” Van raised her chin and ran her hand over her silky white-blond hair, smoothing it behind her ear.

  “Blackrock is off-off-limits,” Paley said. “Jagged rocks, dangerous surf—”

  “Surfing helps strengthen our core, making us better warriors. We need more of a challenge.”

  “As I said, dangerous, off-limits—I’m in.” Paley’s eyes sparkled.

  Van used to be scared of her own shadow,
unwilling to walk on the wild side. However, once she had recovered the Coin of Creation, a door opened she couldn’t close. Being able to retrieve the Coin proved Van had inherited the magical Anchoress bloodline from her Lodian mother, Aelia. She also inherited a sense of duty from her Balish father, Michael. Once Van absorbed the magnitude of her responsibilities as the Anchoress heir—the designated savior of the worlds—she developed an intense, almost obsessive, desire to protect her people.

  Being the Anchoress also meant Van had the highest concentration of Elemental blood of any person alive. That, along with an innate ability to channel the energy of the moon, allowed her to access powerful warrior magic. So far, she could only obtain this power while in the Living World.

  As long as she remained trapped on Providence Island in the Earth World, she could do nothing but train and wait for the Alignment. Or, Luxta as the ancients called it. The annual thirty-day window when Van could safely travel to the Living World.

  “I need the challenge of Blackrock.” Van had to stay in peak physical condition. Her reflexes and mind alert, ready for any threat.

  She trained every day, usually twice a day. Sometimes formally in her classes, other times she would offer to lead a session outside regular classroom hours. Only her peers whom the Elder’s had placed in special classes called the reservation program were allowed to attend. They, like Van, were the students selected to potentially become Grigori warriors. Mostly, Van desired to train alone.

  “You’re taking this whole thing too far,” Paley said.

  “You’re either a warrior, or you’re not,” Van snapped. “You want to go to the Living World with me or not? Make up your mind. The Alignment is tomorrow.” She stormed ahead onto a path in the woods.

  “We have to talk about this situation between you and Brux,” Paley shouted to Van’s hastily departing form.

  Van rolled her eyes. Of course boy-obsessed Paley would mention Van’s ex-boyfriend. Brux had anguished because of Van. His sister Daisy was lost in the Living World, kidnapped by the Balish Prince Merloc the Merciless, probably being tortured daily, if not already dead.

  After completing their mission last summer, Brux and his father were forced to leave their home in Salus Valde, the Lodian region of the Living World, so that Brux could fulfill his duties as Van’s assigned protector. Until Van came into her full power, the allusive demigods, the Elementals, appointed a specific warrior to look after her.

  Usually, Van would be delighted for the guy she wanted as her boyfriend to be re-assigned to Providence Island. However, the Elementals didn’t allow the Anchoress and her assigned protector to become romantically involved. Their reasoning: the protector cannot protect if he is distracted by love.

  Van’s blood duty required her to follow the ancient traditions, put in place to protect the Anchoress bloodline and, consequently, the Lodian people. Including the requirement that she must marry a pure-blooded Lodian and have a child to pass down the Anchoress bloodline. Brux would’ve been a perfect choice.

  She shook her head. I’m much too young to be thinking about such things.

  Besides, Brux remained angry at Van for making him, and his father, move to the island. The assigned protector stipulations forced Brux to stay there to “protect” Van rather than run off to the Living World to rescue his beloved sister. Professor Lake, Brux’s father, was an adult, making it illegal for him to go outside the boundary of Salus Valde. So neither could search for Daisy, causing frustration in them both.

  “V-Van,” Paley said huffing, out-of-breath from her short jog to catch up with her friend. “You haven’t opened up at all about last summer. You can talk to me.”

  “You and me.” Van kept her attention on the path ahead. “We’re different.”

  “It’s okay to feel sad about losing your dad,” Paley said.

  Van stopped short and glared at Paley.

  “My dad?” Van’s cheeks flared. “How about my mother? How about Jorie, Trey, Elmot?” The latter three had been on Van’s team to retrieve the Coin. Van wanted to include another person who had died because of her, but she couldn’t bring herself to push the name through her pursed lips.

  “Solana,” Paley said softly. “You avoided mentioning Solana. Again.”

  Hearing that name felt like a punch in the stomach.

  Van straightened as she continued walking, and said, “Strong warriors have to make sacrifices for the greater good of their people.” With renewed determination, she pressed on through the woods.

  The path ended, dropping Van and Paley onto Whitecap beach. They ignored the ongoing beach volleyball game, or at least Van did.

  “Brux isn’t here, but I see Ken,” Paley whispered. “And Pernilla.”

  Van glanced at the players, then scowled for doing so.

  “I don’t care where my ex-boyfriends are.” She headed straight to her family’s beach hut. “Or who they’re with.” If she couldn’t have Brux, the love of her life, then she didn’t want anyone. Dating and boys. They were both out.

  In the Cross’s beach hut, Van and Paley wriggled into their wetsuits.

  “Ugh.” Lately, Van had trouble fitting into hers.

  “Maybe it shrunk,” Paley offered.

  Van glared at the suggestion.

  “I have an extra one in the bin if you need a size bigger.” Paley zipped her suit.

  “No, it’s just,” Van struggled with all her might to stretch the rubber suit, “I’ve packed on extra muscle from all my training.” Though she had a sinking feeling there might be something to her stepmother’s criticism—Van’s compulsive overeating had caused her to gain weight. She sucked in her stomach and, with some effort, zipped it. “I’m good.”

  Once sealed into their wetsuits, the girls flung beach towels over their shoulders, grabbed their surfboards, and headed away from the beach hut.

  There was no direct route to Blackrock, other than an access road used by island security, so they slipped back into the woods and followed the winding, sandy path to the off-limits beach.

  Blackrock was deserted, as expected. The beach’s sharp rocks and wild currents petrified Van. Over the past year, she had made great strides to confront and overcome her fears. Paley had no fear, though, when it came to showing off for the island boys. Too bad none were around.

  Paley dipped her toe in the water, knowing it would not be a comfortable temperature this early in the summer. “Yikes!” She pulled her foot back. “Need these.” She sat down on the sand and slipped on her surfing boots.

  Van frowned. She chucked her boots onto the sand. “There’s nothing like the feel of the board under bare feet.”

  Van splashed into the water and then stretched out on top of her board.

  Paley scrambled to follow.

  They paddled until reaching a good distance, then stopped and sat upright, straddling their boards. They idly soaked in the early summer sun while waiting to catch a swell back to shore.

  Paley seemed at home bobbing up and down in rhythm with the waves. “Look!” She pointed to the horizon, to what Van considered a tidal wave. “Here comes a good one!”

  Van gathered her nerve. “Let’s go!” She laid on top of her board and paddled like crazy, catching the rise.

  Her body and board rose along with the wave. At the crucial moment, Van placed her hands on the board, elbows up, arched her back, and moved her feet into position. She crouched, arms wide, weight on her back foot, heart pounding. Her leg muscles cried under the familiar strain as she found her balance and stood. I got this!

  She felt the adrenaline high achieved from being in sync with the perfect wave, a humming of everything coming together and working in harmony—her body, the board, the water. Van controlled the wave, it didn’t control her.

  “Woohoo!” She felt on top of the world.

  Overconfident, Van made the mistake of glancing back to see if Paley had also caught the wave.

  The slight movement threw Van off balance. She wobbled. Ever
y muscle in her core tightened as she struggled to regain command of the board.

  Van’s mind whirled in a panic. Her arms flailed. Instead of focusing on controlling her breath and concentrating on getting back her balance, she focused on how dangerous the undercurrents were at Blackrock and the jagged rocks that would rip her apart.

  The dark, depthless water snapped at her like the jaws of a giant monster.

  Van’s feet, legs, and arms wouldn’t cooperate, and she crashed into the deadly sea.

  Chapter 2

  Chilling, wet, blackness engulfed Van.

  The undercurrent shoved her deeper, like a murderous villain. She tried to orient herself by looking for the surface and couldn’t find any light. Her ears rang. Her face, feet, and hands stung from the cold.

  Something bit her fingers.

  Her blood colored the water around the jagged tooth of a sharp rock. Van attempted to protect her head from the rocks with her arms, but the undercurrent had complete control. The violent water twisted Van as if she were nothing more than clothes spinning in a washing machine.