Page 49 of Total Lunar Eclipse
Fuck. Me.
Mary is Lina.
That deceitful hoar.
CHAPTER 23
URANUS
I call Neptune to me immediately; human consequences be damned. Right now, we have a fucking fiasco on our hands. By the time Saturn, Mars, Pluto, and I made it to the conference room to get the Minors, a massacre had happened. Everyone, save Chiron, had been slaughtered. I say ‘save Chiron’ because the man is nowhere.
I’m unsure if this is because he wasn’t here to begin with or because he escaped.
I might even suspect him of foul play, if Vesta, Pallas, Ceres, and Juno didn’t havemoonstonessticking out of their chests. Beside them, the four Elements lay, their throats simply slit. This is clearly Lina’s handwork. Mars and Saturn look beside themselves, and Pluto is doing his best to trace their deaths.
Unfortunately, security came into the room and found us with the bodies and immediately called the police. Neptune needs to get his ass in here to do damage control. He’s the only with the power to influence the subconscious mind. Like a fucking superhero, he pops in and gets to work, swaying the security officers’ minds and then getting on their phone, and swaying the cops’ minds, too.
He barely finishes doing this when something tugs inside my chest. I know he feels it, because whatever I feel, so does my twin. But looking around the room, I realizeallof my brothers feel something off. It takes me a second to place it and I realize it’s Mercury’s energy.
“Tchyo za ga`lima!” Neptune howls and vanishes again.
He had mentioned before that Merc was up to something, but the Minor’s deaths overshadowed any real concern. I turn back to Mars, Saturn, and Pluto. I know Neptune will call me if there’s trouble. I need to help my other brothers with the clean-up. I can tell from Pluto’s face he can’t track their soul essence.
The moonstone did something to their deaths.
Suddenly, Mars and Pluto slam to their knees, roaring in pain.
Saturn and I reach out mentally and see that their soul bond with Zahra has been broken.
My heart slams in my chest.
“Neptune!”I shout.
But I get no response.
I feel through our connection, searching for him. He’s still there, but it’s as if our bond has been frozen. I leave Saturn to deal with Mars and Pluto and manifest myself back into the office. I find Lina, dressed in Mary’s clothes, leaning over Zahra, draining her of her power. Across the room, Neptune is in his god form and truly is frozen.
With a roar, I rush the bitch, but she darts away. I look to Zahra, and notice she’s barely breathing, but she still has a faint glow. Sunny’s and Jupiter’s powers are still sustaining her. Lina didn’t take it all. I turn back to the crazy bitch who’s made our life hell and stumble to my knees.
She’s standing next to Neptune, with a moonstone sledgehammer in one hand, and the other is stroking his cheek possessively.
“Do you know how to get around the illusion?” she asks me.
I’m too furious and scared to answer her stupid riddle.
She laughs, knowing my thoughts via our bond.
“You have to shatter it,” she supplies with a shrug.
Then she lifts the moonstone hammer and swings it into Neptune’s frozen stomach. His body breaks into a thousand tiny shards of ice and falls to the ground, while Lina tips her head back and laughs maniacally.
“Guess you should have chosen me, but we’ll get there,” is all she says, before sucking up my twin’s essence.
In truth, I’m frozen, too, and can’t seem to move to do a damn thing. I feel my body vanishing and realize that my brother’s death sealed my own. Being soul-tethered has made us one, not just two halves of a whole, but inseparable. I make one feeble attempt to call Saturn and the others to us.
They must protect our Venus.
The Universe save us, Lina is about to become even stronger, having consumed my brother’s and my powers.
