Passion of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 5) by Bella Klaus (read novels website txt) 📕

filled my nostrils, hot and dry and stifling. I turned to find a slash forming behind us, spewing yellow and black hellfire.

My mouth dried. It was too late. The trapped souls of the preternaturals had burrowed a tunnel into Hell.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Every drop of blood in my veins turned to sludge, and I shuffled away from the fiery rip in the fabric of our realm. My hand fumbled in my pocket, groping for the knife.

A rapid heartbeat drummed against my ribcage, and shallow breaths rasped in and out of my lungs. Why had these people spent hours waiting for me when they could have reaped the souls before they caused irreversible damage? It seemed stupid for them to hold everything up because Hades wanted me to be there.

If a portal to the Fifth Faction of Hell had opened, I might not have minded so much. Hades had his faults, but he seemed serious about protecting Logris from threats. I had no idea who ruled the Sixth Faction of Hell and how much control its king or queen exercised over its demons and those who escaped its barriers.

The reapers rushed ahead of us, each of them expanding miniature scythes into full-sized weapons. Captain Zella grabbed my shoulder and placed herself in front of me, extracting an automatic weapon that looked like a gun designed to take down dragons.

“Who goes there?” snapped the little reaper I’d been speaking to earlier.

“Zosimus Alchemista,” said a trembling voice. “My Lord said it was time to deliver the elixirs.”

I peeked through a gap from between the reapers to find the old alchemist stepping out of the portal, holding a box that looked like it had been fashioned out of bones. Tall flames seeped out from behind him, spreading across the entire ceiling.

The fire illuminated our vast surroundings. We were in a space the size of a parking lot with white markings on the ground. All the vehicles had been removed and metal plates covered the doors.

“Stand down,” said the head reaper with an exasperated sigh.

I placed a hand on my chest, my breaths finally slowing. Even though he’d clearly been sent by Hades and this was no accidental rift, my mouth still dried. Did that fiery pit represent Hell? It seemed a torturous uninhabitable wasteland.

As Zosimus stepped out into the parking lot, the opening into Hell closed, sucking in all the flames, until only the barest wisps of smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

“Ladies and gentlemen, enforcers and reapers!” The old alchemist swept out an arm, his body glowing with an unearthly light. “I bring you the anti-preter elixir, designed to neutralize preternatural power and render the magicless dead into unmoving corpses.”

“How do we know it will work?” asked the short reaper.

Someone shifted, blocking my view of Zosimus. I bit down on my lip and stood on my tiptoes. That was actually a great question.

“Do you dare question the wisdom of the father of alchemical sciences?” he said, sounding snippy for a tortured soul who had been granted a day trip from eternal torment.

“Answer the question,” Captain Zella snarled.

“My apprentice and I tested it on one of these creatures that we brought to the other side.” He sniffed. “I can assure you that it works perfectly.”

Something from below groaned. It was the kind of noise haunted houses made at night in the movies. My heart somersaulted to the back of my throat, and I turned around to find myself less than a foot away from the hole in the ground that led to the zombie army.

My flesh crawled and tiny claws of terror skittered up my back. It had been bad enough seeing the dead bodies when they were fresh but I didn’t need to expose myself to their decomposed forms. I walked around the edge of the crowd of reapers to get a better look at what was happening with the alchemist.

Zozimus shuffled forward and flipped the lid of his box, revealing round balls containing a fluorescent pink liquid. “Pierce these gelatinous ampoules with the tips of your scythes, and each time you reap one of those souls, you will dislodge them from the putrid hearts and undo all the damage they created to the barrier between realms.”

My shoulders relaxed. If this worked, then Kresnik would suffer a huge setback, and Valentine might get a chance to destroy him before he hatched another scheme to regain his power.

While the reapers took the pink balls and applied them to their weapons, I pulled out the flick knife I’d been carrying around since Valentine placed this cloak on my shoulders. With Zozimus’s glowing light illuminating the space, I examined the tiny markings on its bone handle. They had to be some kind of enchantment, presumably to direct the souls to Heaven or Hell.

Captain Zella appeared at my side, making me wonder if someone from the Supernatural Council had told her to watch out for me.

“How do these things work?” I asked.

A reaper about my age walked up to us, her blue eyes bright through her hood. She stood as tall as Captain Zella and was about the same height as her scythe. “Push your magic into it and flick the knife open. It probably won’t work unless you have celestial blood.”

I glanced down at the blade, which also seemed engraved with something I couldn’t see. “Let’s give it a try.”

I was a half-blood witch, and something else. The first time I had met Father Jude, I’d felt both angel and demon magic. Now that I knew he had been moving his consciousness through the realms and allowing his body to be possessed by Kresnik while he’d been imprisoned in Hell, it was no wonder the man always carried the scent of brimstone.

Inhaling a deep breath, I kept the air in my lungs before releasing their contents in an outward breath. Magic surged down my arm and into my hands and fingers, and I flicked the knife.

Nothing happened apart from it opening into a mini scythe.

“Bad luck,” the