Until My Dying Day Read online

  Until My Dying Day

  S.C. Stokes

  Contents

  An Introduction from the Author

  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

  A Note From S.C. Stokes

  A Coronation of Kings

  An Exclusive Preview of A Coronation Of Kings

  An Introduction from the Author

  Welcome to Until My Dying Day, the sixth and final title in my Urban Fantasy series, Conjuring a Coroner. This final installment is an action-packed rollercoaster that will have you on the edge of your chair. The world is set to burn, will Kasey be able to stop it or will she be forced to watch her nightmarish vision bear out, one last time.

  Urban Fantasy has always held a special place in my heart. I hope you are enjoying this series as much as I’m enjoying writing it.

  So get ready to get lost in the world of magic with Kasey Chase; she’ll suck you into a realm of magic, murder and mayhem that you won’t want to leave.

  Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild ride!

  Sincerely,

  S.C. Stokes

  Chapter One

  Kasey ran down the street, the chaos of New York City under siege drowning out each lengthy stride.

  The mayor had issued the evacuation order, but it was already too late.

  Emptying the bustling metropolis in a matter of hours was proving an impossible task. City traffic had come to a complete halt as the bottlenecked bridges cut Manhattan off from the mainland.

  Drivers abandoned their cars and fled on foot. Tempers flared as an impatient mob began to form. Trapped in the city, fights began to break out, while others smashed windows in an attempt to vent their anger.

  Pedestrians screamed as they sought safety amid the devastated city, but there was none to be found. The entire city shook beneath her feet as the buildings looming above her teetered and swayed. The movement was unsettlingly in the extreme.

  Beneath her feet, the ground shook as great chasms yawned open along the street. Burst pipes leaked into the street as the seismic activity grew in intensity.

  Nearby, a manhole cover exploded upward like a cork finally freed from its champagne bottle. The heavy iron cover flipped through the air until it smashed into the hood of a parked taxi. From the broken cityscape, plumes of oily emerald smoke began to rise.

  It's happening. I am too late.

  Despite the freezing December air, beads of sweat ran down Kasey's brow. She had to keep running. So many lives depended on it. With his place on the Arcane Council taken from him and his identity unmasked, Akihiro had brought his plot to its devastating conclusion. Now, New York would pay the ultimate price.

  The screech of tearing steel resounded from nearby. She slowed her pace and scanned her gaze in the direction of the noise.

  The facade of the building beside her split open from the seismic upheaval. Windows shattered, raining glass down from above. Kasey shielded her face, but a large shard sliced into her left arm, drawing blood. She winced but there was little to be done now. As the building’s structural integrity deteriorated, she picked up her pace. It would only be moments before the entire tower came crashing down.

  Kasey tore her eyes from the building and focused on the street ahead.

  A piercing wail split the evening air. It was far too shrill for an adult. When it came again, the scream cut straight to Kasey’s heart.

  She stopped, panting, and searched for source of the screams.

  It has to be a child.

  The scream carried above the din of the city. It was close.

  Kasey leapt off the fractured sidewalk and into the street. The scream grew louder. Weaving through the traffic, Kasey spotted a sedan with its rear door open. A woman was leaning into the open door, and she seemed to be struggling with something in the back seat.

  Kasey ran over to the sedan to find a young mother wrestling with her daughter's car seat. Tears ran down the mother's face as her shaking hands failed to shift the jammed buckle. As the daughter wailed, her mother only grew more frantic. Kasey pulled the mother aside and reached into the car. Grabbing the lock, she fought the mechanism. It wouldn't budge.

  Out of time, Kasey whispered, “Agored!” The mechanism popped free and Kasey lifted the distraught toddler from the car. Handing the child to her mother, she shouted, “Run! Get away from here now. The city is not safe. Head inland as quickly as you can.”

  The woman nodded, swiping tears from the child’s cheeks.

  “Thank you,” she stammered.

  She turned and bolted down the street, her child clasped against her chest.

  Kasey watched her for a moment but tore her eyes away. There was nothing more she could do for her now.

  Turning, Kasey ran in the opposite direction. The city was tearing itself apart, but a greater threat still approached. Determined to meet it head on, Kasey made for the bay.

  At the traffic light, she turned right. Overhead, the sky was darkening, but it wasn’t the setting sun. Boiling black clouds filled the air as they blended with the dense green smoke rising from the city. As they mixed, the clouds took on an emerald hue. Lightning played through the sky as thunder peeled overhead.

  The storm was preparing to break, and it was unlike anything Kasey had ever seen. With her heart pounding in her ears at each loping stride, she ran for all she was worth. Her feet pounded against the sidewalk.

  The earth shook again. Kasey staggered sideways, almost colliding with a trashcan. Wrapping herself around it, she steadied herself and waited for the tremors to subside.

  She looked down the street. A yawning cleft had opened in the face of a towering residential building behind her. Although once a tower full of luxury apartments worth millions, none of that mattered now. The gaping wound in the building's face expanded in a rippling spiderweb of shattered steel and glass. The building swayed as it tore itself apart.

  Kasey knew what came next. With the earth shaking underfoot, she darted through the crowd swarming away from its shuddering shadow. Terrified screams followed her up the street.

  “The building, it's collapsing,” a voice shouted over the chaos.

  They should run.

  Kasey pushed herself onward. A thunderous crack split the air as the broken building imploded on itself. Risking a glance over her shoulder, Kasey witnessed the dust cloud billowing out from its base.

  She had to place more distance between herself and the building. The dust cloud would suffocate her in seconds. She continued to run.

  The cloud billowed outward, racing down the street in every direction from the collapsing building. Kasey was already blocks away, but still it surged up the street behind her.

  She ran until her side ached. With a deep breath, she looked over her shoulder. The dust’s advance was slowing.

  That was close. Too close for comfort.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't the first building to come down and it wouldn't be the last. For all the destruction that had been visited upon the city, Kasey knew the worst was still to come.

  She couldn't believe it had come to this. She'd fought so hard. With every fiber of her being she'd resisted them, but all about her the city told a different story. She had failed.

  With more than a decade's warning in her visions, she'd still been powerless to stop the city she called home from being lai
d low and turned into a wasteland.

  The storm broke overhead, and rain bore down on the city in heavy sheets. In moments, she was saturated. Her clothes clung to her as she ran onward.

  She wept openly. The heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

  She had given it everything she knew how, and yet it had all come to nothing.

  Worse than nothing.

  She'd paid a terrible price for that failure. Her heart broke as she thought of John, bleeding out on the floor of the Underpass, her magic powerless to save him, as Akihiro loomed over him. The agony tore into her soul.

  Now millions of others would know pain, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. In the distance, a deafening rumble signaled the collapse of another New York City superstructure.

  Others would soon follow. They would be either laid low by the tremendous upheaval beneath them, or their collapse from the structural damage caused by the fall of the surrounding buildings. The city was interconnected, and each successive collapse would further weaken the city's urban superstructure.

  The earth shook again. This time the seismic tremors were growing closer together. The Shinigami plot was drawing to a close. There was no hope of halting the devastation.

  Kasey simply hoped she could do something to save some lives. Something had to be done to mitigate the disaster that was about to occur. The cost of each human death was twofold. Every life was precious, and every death strengthened their foe.

  She had no doubt that Akihiro’s lingering presence in the city was merely to steal the life force of its inhabitants as they expired. As the carnage unfolded around her, Kasey remembered her earlier visions. In them, the Shinigami’s bastion, 432 Park Avenue had stood unmoved and undamaged. Strengthened by whatever preparations Akihiro had laid, it had seemed immune from the seismic activity. As lives by the thousands had been lost, their lifeforce had run up the skyscraper, the building itself taking on a sickly tinge of green.

  She'd seen the same transference of energy when John had died at the Shinigami's hand. The thought made her dry heave. The enormity of the Akihiro's callousness still overwhelmed her.

  Raising her gaze, she saw her destination come into view. She was at the southernmost point of Manhattan. She ran to the city's edge and grasped the steel rail as she looked out over the bay.

  The dark waters had a green tinge to them. Whether it was her imagination or an actual result of the subterranean chaos, she didn't know.

  A deafening explosion rang out behind her as the earth reeled beneath her feet. Stumbling, Kasey fell to the ground. Pain shot up her arms as the abrasive surface of the sidewalk skinned both her palms. Kasey was thrown onto her back as the earth shook once more.

  This is it. The Shinigami device had been detonated.

  If Vida's prediction was accurate, it was already too late. The monolithic detonation far beneath Manhattan would have vaporized the Serpentinite deposits. The vast chasms created would undermine the city and reduce it to ruin.

  The earth shook for what felt like an eternity. From flat on her back, Kasey couldn't tell how many buildings had been laid low. Fortunately, those nearest to her managed to stay upright, at least for the time being—likely a result of their distance from Park Avenue. Kasey had run as far as her legs could take her and had reached the southern point of the island in the nick of time.

  It wasn’t a bid to escape her fate. She intended to stand against what would come next.

  As the tremors ceased, she struggled to her feet. Her body roared its pained protest at the abuse it had suffered over the recent weeks.

  Not much longer now. It will all be over soon.

  As she teetered on her feet, she grabbed the steel rail for support. She looked over the rail into the murky depths of the bay. The water was already receding. The inky black waters rolled away from Manhattan like it was low tide. The water couldn't escape the city quick enough and as Kasey watched it recede, she knew Vida was right.

  Damn him. He's always right.

  The seconds ticked inexorably by, each one coming and going as the city burned to ashes behind her. She couldn't worry about that now. The worst still lay ahead.

  Then she saw it. At first, against the horizon, it was almost indiscernible among the angry storm clouds that blended seamlessly with the sea beneath. As it rolled toward Kasey, she could see it clearer and clearer with each passing moment. The wall of water was almost a hundred feet high, racing toward the city.

  This was the implacable, crushing conclusion to the Shinigami plot.

  The immense wall of water would be the end of New York City. It would sweep through the structurally weakened cityscape doing incalculable damage. Anyone on the street would be drowned or battered to death by the debris.

  It was even larger than Kasey had imagined. As the wall of water rolled toward her, she realized the impossibility of her task.

  What was one woman against such a wave? It was a tsunami, the likes of which the East Coast had never seen.

  Kasey raised her hands and summoned her magic. Anything she could do to slow the tide would save lives. It wasn't a matter of if the wave would strike the city, but simply how far it would reach. Every block it rolled through, it would claim thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives.

  The sting of her defeat was bitter, but if she could rob Akihiro of even a single life force it was worth it to her.

  She had seen too much suffering and felt too much pain to let another person endure the heartache she had struggled with every day. As the wave closed, Kasey felt a vibration in her pocket. It was her phone.

  Somehow with all the damage the city had suffered, her cellular service was still working. As the wave plunged toward her, Kasey ripped out her phone. The display read Mom.

  Saying goodbye was more than Kasey could bear. She rejected the call. The cell display flashed back to its desktop.

  It read 15th of December 2017 5:35 PM.

  Kasey looked up. As the wave descended, so did a thick gray-green mist. The familiar embrace of her prescience enshrouded her as her vision closed.

  Chapter Two

  Kasey’s eyes snapped open. An intermittent beeping drew her attention to a monitor next to her bed. On the green and black display, a thin line bounced up and down as it traversed the screen.

  She was flat on her back. Much of the room beyond was concealed by a lime curtain drawn around her bed. It took her a moment to separate her current situation from the vision she had just witnessed.

  Sitting up, she rubbed her weary eyes.

  The aging yet sterile decor told her she was in the Administorum in the Arcane Council's headquarters. She had been here before. The last thing she could remember was Akihiro’s flight from the Council Chambers and his escape into downtown Manhattan.

  What had happened?

  More importantly, how long had she been here? Her vision was a clear warning that Akihiro was on the loose and would soon bear out his deadly plot. After everything that had happened, she was locked in a race against time. She was facing a literal deadline. One that New York City would not survive.

  If she couldn't stop him in time, then Akihiro would wipe out the city. New York, along with much of the eastern seaboard of the United States, would never be the same again.

  She knew the council would still be reeling from the revelation that the Chancellor was an imposter. The Ainslies were gone, it was difficult to believe. Arthur Ainslie had been dead for almost a year, but John’s death had come at Akihiro’s hand as the Shinigami fled the Council Chambers. The memory filled her with both anger and pain.

  Kasey forced it from her mind.

  Beside her bed on a rolling trolley sat a breakfast tray displaying an untouched set of bacon and eggs. Normally she would have attacked it hungrily, but she was looking for something else.

  Resting beside the untouched breakfast was her phone. Kasey grabbed it and checked the display. Low battery.

  Of course. Why should I expect anything else?<
br />
  She thumbed past the warning to bring up the main screen.

  Her heart skipped a beat, as her fingers tightened around her phone.

  15th of December 2017 7:10 AM.

  Oh, no.

  Her heart began to race. The attack was today. In less than ten hours, New York City would be no more.

  She had no time to waste.

  Throwing her legs over the edge of the bed, Kasey lowered her feet to the ground. She tore off the heart rate monitor. The machine started to beep loudly as it came off.

  Ignoring the noise, Kasey reached for the curtain. Tugging it back a little, she peered around the edge. She was the only patient in the room. On the chair beside her lay her clothes. They appeared to have been laundered and now sat cleanly pressed and ready to wear.

  She ripped off her hospital robe and pulled on her jeans and T-shirt, followed by her socks and boots. Over the back of the chair hung her black leather jacket. It was battered and scuffed from the chaos in the Council Chambers.

  In one deft motion, Kasey pulled on the jacket, relishing the smooth feel of the jacket against her skin. It was December, and the temperature out would only continue to plummet. Slipping her phone into her pocket, she pushed the curtain back and made for the exit. No sooner had she cleared the hospital room then she came face-to-face with a nurse.

  “Miss Chase, what are you doing up?” The nurse asked, her voice a high-pitched whine. Raising both hands she attempted to shepherd Kasey back the way she had come. “You need bed rest. The Chancellor asked us to let you rest as long as you needed. He was very clear you were not to be disturbed.”

  Kasey scrunched up her face at the mention of the Chancellor. “The Chancellor is dead, my dear. An impostor has been masquerading in Arthur’s place but rest assured, neither the imposter nor Arthur himself would have cared about my well-being.”