Light's Keeper Book Four

By Odette C. Bell

No matter how hard she fights, Jane will lose something. For you cannot reach the end without sacrifices.
As she’s thrust closer to Julian, she must reconcile with her past. To do that, she must remember it, but Julian is determined not to let her go there. He hasn’t tried so hard and surrendered so much to let her fall now.
But that makes one assumption. That Jane isn’t strong enough to rise anyway. She’s right, and he’s wrong. She isn’t someone who needs protection. From the very beginning, she’s been here to protect the Ley Lines, to ensure magic never falls to the wrong hands.
She will finally prove that by Julian’s side. And the future – their eternal future – will never be the same again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215806685

Book preview

Chapter 1

Julian

I could barely move, could barely think, could only act. But how can you move without thinking or acting? You rely on instincts. They now wrapped my arms harder around Jane, holding her in place before she could waste any more of her lifespan. She had no idea what she was doing. Because she didn’t understand magic.

I did.

A part of my mind also understood the odds. Unless we fought, we’d die anyway. Or I would. The monsters would come for me first.

Julian, she said. She turned right around in my arms, and now she stared at my face.

It was impossible to track her expression. I could’ve done it – once upon a time, back when I’d had energy, back when I’d had faith.

Maybe you didn’t understand the last bit. Maybe you hadn’t read my story.

There was no way I could be anything other than Jane’s guard.

I froze just as she lifted a hand, just as she went to trail it across my cheek. Froze then pulled back from her. For two reasons.

There was a cry behind me. Something jerked in through the window.

I couldn’t see. My eyesight was so bleary, the world was represented by massive blocks.

It was like someone had taken all of the detail and divided it by 200 until there were just massive chunks moving around. But one thing had details, perfect details. Jane’s face. Her expression crumpled with fear.

But not for long. The monster didn’t get me. My eyesight might not work. My sense of smell did. It was more diffuse than it usually was. Why? Because I’d almost died? No, because I’d shared it with her.

Like I said, I could see her face in perfect detail, and I watched as her nostrils flared. Watched as she went to shoot past me. I didn’t let her. I grabbed her by the hand and twisted with her. At the same time, I grabbed her sword. It sang in my grip, and why wouldn’t it? It was an interdimensional blade. Do not ask me how she’d got it. The last time I’d checked on this blade, it’d belonged to the Council.

But clearly I hadn’t kept an eye on them or Jane. The former was problematic. The latter was a travesty.

A mistake I would make up for with my life.

I dealt with one monster, cutting it right through. It was hard. The monster was strong.

Which was worrying. Deeply, deeply concerning.

I dispatched monsters daily. I could tell you confidently that the monsters that I’d dispatched this morning had been half the power of these ones. Something was feeding them. That was the only explanation. And there was only one person who could be doing it.

Though on the face of it, François was a megalomaniac, he would never disrupt the peace of Nice. Do that, destroy the fine balance, and the monsters would come for him eventually. He wasn’t that much of a greedy idiot. Greedy, yes, just not an idiot.

So who was a greedy idiot? What fool would disrupt the peace all for their own power? Did I really need to answer? Andre.

I wondered if I could smell him. It was only far off, right at the edges of my senses. If I’d possessed my full sense of smell, I think I would have caught his scent easily. As it was, it was almost like he was behind some kind of barrier.

Jane screamed.

And fair enough. Something fell through the ceiling right above her. She kicked back. She was strong, fast, too. But for her to be that strong and that fast meant she’d known about magic for some time now.

Even though this was a fraught battle and I was constantly on the edge of blacking out, I let my gaze slide down her and tried to predict how it had begun. It was back then, right? That day when I’d found her in front of Andre’s car. She’d been practicing magic, or at least she’d received visions. I should’ve done something, should’ve jumped in to stop her. Instead I’d just stood there, like I always did. Stood there and waited.

I was a guard. I was there to stop her from using magic. But every time our lives cycled, the same thing happened. At the wrong moment, I took a step back, and she always took a step forward.

Case in point. I overbalanced. I didn’t mean to. My knee was still broken from the injuries I picked up from François. It acted up at the worst moment. It crunched to the side, and pain shot high into my hip. It destabilized me, and I almost went down like a ton of bricks. Right toward the waiting mouth of one of those monsters.

Jane wouldn’t let me. She crunched in close. The next thing I knew, she had the sword. It was still in my hand, but she gripped it with her own fingers, guiding it easily. And more importantly than all of that, giving it power.

I could feel it, perhaps more directly than she could, feel it as it wound around her body, pushed through her veins, rose up from some apparently inexhaustible source, and met the blade’s edge.

It sang as it dispatched the monster. Sang a tune I could never forget.

I reached down, using the last of my strength to close my fingers around her hand. Don’t, I said in my deepest, most rumbling voice.

It had an effect on her, but not the one that I thought it would. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t stop. She just looked at me like she’d finally seen me. Like she’d finally found the gumption to do something she’d wanted to do her entire life. Now, what had I told you about Jane? What had I told you over and over again? She was slow to get started, but when she got started, you’d have to get out of her way. Because nothing on this green Earth could stop her.

Another monster fell through the ceiling. We couldn’t stay here. They weren’t just destabilizing the building, but the spells I used to keep it solid, too.

This building had been pulled partially into and out of the interdimensional realm too many times to count. Though usually that was fine, because usually I was there to keep it solid, as my magic started to wane, the building began to forget itself.

Did you not understand what that meant? Buildings don’t need to remember that they are solid to be solid, do they? The materials simply have to remain solid.

But matter is far more mysterious than ordinary minds can comprehend.

And as the floor beneath me shuddered and the ceiling above cracked, I realized we had seconds. Fortunately, so did Jane. She was the stronger one.

She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the door, but at the last moment, she changed her mind. She pulled me behind the desk instead. Which meant we were further away from the door.

Right now every single second counted.

Unless we took advantage of them, our enemies would take advantage of us.

While they’d start with me, they wouldn’t stop there. When they figured out what Jane was, maybe, maybe they’d save her for Andre. I doubted that. The second they tasted her blood, there’d be a feeding frenzy. And if that sounded horrifying, pause to appreciate one fact. In one of my lifetimes, I’d seen it.

I didn’t have perfect access to my old memories, but certain traumas could rise to the fore easily. They were there to warn me of the things that I could not lose. There was only one thing I truly couldn’t lose anymore.

As Jane lurched backward toward the wall and I realized there was no way out of here, I forced myself forward around her. My shoulders shook. Let them shake until they fell.

Let the rest of me shake and fall with them.

Jane—

I have no intention of giving up yet. Andre has to be stopped before he lets it through.

My consciousness wasn’t smooth. I kept partially blacking in and out. It was like I was swimming through layers of my own head. I just sank only to resurface. But when I didn’t catch what she said, she just repeated it, staring straight into my eyes so I could never miss it.

If Andre isn’t stopped, all of Nice will descend. If that’s the right word. No, it’s gonna be consumed, isn’t it? That’s what the shadow does, right? Is that the name?

She said a lot. A lot for my tired mind to comprehend. The words were irrelevant. The passion behind them – and the way her shoulders shook – were not. Though she could not appreciate this, her shoulders shook with instinct.

One word drilled into my head. Shadow? I spluttered as I tried to bodily block her from one of the monsters. She got there first. Fortunately she stopped partitioning off parts of her life force to fight. Instead, she simply twisted the blade and, with my help, guided it forward. We skewered two monsters in one hit.

Then a larger monster fell down through the ceiling, landed on my desk – only 20 centimeters away – and pulled itself up to its full height. It was huge. It was engorged on forbidden magic. It crackled around its gray skin, casting it in this golden hue. If you thought that made it look pretty or valuable, think again. It looked like death come to life by a lightning strike.

I thought Jane would at least react. She didn’t even scream.

… What exactly had she been through these past several days that the sight of a true engorged monster didn’t even make her flinch?

Rather than turn to fight it, she smartly twisted.

Then smart ended. She was about to run into the interdimensional realm, wasn’t she? She couldn’t do that. She’d already attracted too much attention. If she headed into the interdimensional realm, the only thing that would happen was that attention would fixate on her more. There were different monsters over in the other realm. Much harder monsters. Monsters that would make the massive creature cracking through my desk look like child’s play.

Before I had to wrap an arm around her and pull her back, she completed a tricky maneuver with the sword. She yanked it from my grip then twisted forward.

… She cut through the wall without cutting through the wall. She cut through the base level of the wall in the interdimensional realm. Then she just lifted her foot and kicked it.

… You could do various things with the interdimensional realm if you knew what you were doing, but Jane shouldn’t know a thing.

What— I began. She reached in, grabbed me by my middle, and pulled me forward. It was just as the monster from behind leapt toward us, its teeth opening wide then wider. It didn’t have jaw joints. It didn’t have the ordinary limitations a human jaw did. Nor did its greed have any limits. I saw the glint in its eyes and knew it wanted to rip us asunder.

It would soon. Even if it had to chase us all the way through the streets. Even if it had to destroy its own kin. And speaking of that, another monster rushed in from the side. But it was right in the first monster’s way. There was nothing the little guy could do.

He was snapped right through.

The large monster simply cast a spell, and it cut him in half. As I watched monster blood splatter out, Jane yanked me into the darkness of the room behind.

It was an office. Bernard’s office to be precise.

I hadn’t seen Bernard for some hours. I hoped wherever he was, he was okay. If there was one person who could read the winds of the Council and adapt, it was Bernard. He’d kept himself safe – and me – for years.

But the Council had never been like this before. The city had never been like this before. Everything was cracking under our feet. Literally. Especially considering Jane took a moment to plunge down to a knee, twist the sword around, and cut right through the carpet. She split the floorboards. They cracked and burnt. Then we fell.

She had good instincts, but she didn’t know what she was dealing with and I did. Maybe she thought her body would be fine if she fell against the floor beneath. It would not be. She’d crack right through her knees.

I grunted, finding more strength from somewhere. I said somewhere. When it came to Jane, I had an almost inexhaustible supply. Because when it came to Jane, I was a different man. A different creature.

I reached under her, maneuvering beneath her so I landed on my feet and she landed in my arms. It only took a snapped second. But it took a lot of my waning energy. I’d already given most of it to her.

Most of it to stop her from dying.

She might look fine, but she’d had a Hell of an insult to her system. She landed in my arms, and before the monster above could join us – and the rest of the floor too – I glanced at her neck. I could see the marks from where Andre had bitten her. And make no mistake, it was Andre’s doing. The indents were deep. Blood crusted around the injury sites. Just staring at them made me want to stop, find Andre, and end this.

I couldn’t. I didn’t have the power. And I couldn’t let her go. Never, ever again.

My arms tightened around her middle. She twisted.

She turned to stare at me.

I could see the moment that she understood what I was thinking. See it, because she shook her head. We’re in this together now. In this for Nice. If the thing inside Andre keeps rising, we’re all screwed anyway.

Something caught up to me. It should’ve caught up to me sooner, but now it was like a left hook coming in so fast, it cracked my jaw and neck. Thing rising in Andre? He’s a—

He’s either becoming or has just become a Hell-Hexed vampire, she spoke right over the top of me. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the… energy. The stuff you warned me of in my dream.

My expression crumpled. I also darted to the side. Because the fiend was back. And somehow, the fiend was bigger. It slammed down into the floor, crumpling it.

I didn’t know whose office we were in. Usually I had a perfect mental blueprint of my building, but right now my mind was discombobulated and my senses were stuck on the one woman they could never fall from. Jane—

I kind of… assumed we shared that dream. We must have. You warned me about the shadow rising. You warned me I couldn’t let it rise inside me. I don’t know what that means—

Time slowed down. It might’ve felt like we hadn’t even had a second to spare previously, but now I grabbed her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. A thousand monsters could’ve disturbed me from behind. I would’ve thrown them all away.

I grabbed her closer.

I needed to