Merciless
MERCILESS
Books by Robin Parrish
Dominion Trilogy
Relentless
Fearless
Merciless
Offworld
MERCILESS
THE DOMINION TRILOGY: BOOK 3
ROBIN PARRISH
Merciless
Copyright © 2008
Robin Parrish
Cover design by Brand Navigation
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-0-7642-0645-0 (Trade Paper)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Parrish, Robin.
Merciless / Robin Parrish.
p. cm. — (The dominion trilogy ; 3)
ISBN 978-0-7642-0179-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Heroes—Fiction.
2. Armageddon—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. I. Title.
PS616.A7684M47 2008
813'.6—dc22
2008014234
For Karen
I loved you before I knew you.
And I love you more every day.
Contents
1: Beneath the Taurus Mountains, Turkey
More Page-Turning Action from Robin Parrish
G
RANT
B
ORROWS
and his friends have superpowers. Each of them is the recipient of one of the mysterious Rings of Dominion, mystical relics of a time before time. Their benefactors? A secret society known as the Secretum of Six, an organization with nefarious goals, shrouded in shadow.
Grant moves things with his mind. His unrequited love, Alex, manipulates emotions. Deadly swordsman Payton moves at inhuman speeds. Along with a dozen or so other superpowered Ringwearers, they choose to live lives in service to mankind, helping the helpless and trying to make the world a better place.
But the Secretum has plans of its own, plans that reach back to a prophecy made seven thousand years ago and are now on the brink of fulfillment. Using technology and resources the rest of the world hasn’t yet developed, they’ve unleashed a brutal series of disasters and plagues upon mankind, destabilizing the global economy and reducing the populace to lives of fear.
It’s the penultimate act in a series of manipulations and machinations casting Grant Borrows as the central figure in a grand plot that has brought him to the vast underground city the Secretum calls home. There, deep beneath the earth, a man named Devlin has given Grant the answers he’s sought for so long: Every event in Grant’s life was manipulated and preordained, luring him here to the deepest part of the Secre-tum, to a sacred chamber called the Hollow.
There, poised on the rim of a pit, Devlin murders Grant’s sister and shoves Grant into a gaping hole in the Hollow. As Grant’s friends fall into various forms of mortal peril, Grant falls into forever . . .
And every clock on earth stops.
Beneath the Taurus Mountains, Turkey
Hand over hand, Oblivion climbed.
The total absence of light surrounding him did nothing to slow his progress, his fingernails digging like talons into the black rock below the Hollow, ensuring a steady hold.
This was a mechanical process for him, nothing more than a necessary step of his birth. He did not tire, he did not feel fatigue or shortness of breath. There was moisture of some kind upon his face, but it was not sweat. He did not sweat. A drop reached his tongue and tasted of iron and salt.
Blood. It was the blood of the sacrifice. Of course.
Hand over hand, he climbed. Ever upward.
Oblivion knew everything that had brought him to this moment. He knew who he was and how he had come into being. He knew his purpose, knew the steadiness of his actions with detached confidence. He knew who awaited him above and what
their
purpose was. He knew a great deal more than he suspected they knew about what he had been brought forth to do. He knew what had happened to the world with his passage into mortal existence, and what was happening even now, to every surface he touched.
He knew the name of this container he existed within. Knew what this Grant Borrows had done since becoming the Bringer . . . and now Oblivion. His great destiny, fulfilled at last.
Hand over hand.
The rock grew thicker now, but still Oblivion’s fingers dug deep. The blood of the sacrifice flowed down from the rim of the Hollow, which he was drawing nearer to. It was the very blood that had allowed this process to commence. He felt no remorse for the loss of Grant’s sister; he never felt remorse. He was not capable of such things.
It was all part of the process after all. Everything, from the notorious day this mortal container named Grant Borrows had first realized he was no longer the man he had once been—it was all part of the process. Every step he had taken, every path he had walked, every choice he had made. It was preordained—all of it—from a time before time began. It was the ultimate fail-safe, the final insurance. And now, after millennia of planning and preparation, it was happening.
A few initial semblances of light streamed flickering down, touching his gray skin for the first time, and he looked up to meet it with blazing red eyes. He noted the red mark on the back of his left hand, a fresh scar from Grant’s encounter with a severed hand only days ago.
A chorus of voices reached his ears over the shaking of the earth. They were singing—no, chanting—in unison.
One voice rose above the others as Oblivion neared the top of the rim. One voice roaring with terrible conviction . . .
Hand over hand, Oblivion climbed, until he was born into a brave new world.
“WE HAVE FOLLOWED THE ANCIENT COMMANDS!!” Devlin bellowed, standing five feet from the rim of the Hollow. His heart hammered as he thought he saw a trace of movement in the darkness at his feet.
“Pario Atrum Universitas! . . .”
the Secretum continued to chant behind him.
Devlin glanced down momentarily at the pallid, lifeless body of Julie Saunders, the Bringer’s sibling, lying on the ground at the mouth of the Hollow.
Had it worked? Did her blood activate it, as intended?
Of course it had. This was the appointed day, the appointed hour, the appointed place. There was no question. Everything was unfolding precisely as the Secretum had known it would, for thousands of years.
“WE HAVE DRAINED THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT!” he thundered in ritualistic tones, a renewed conviction thundering through his voice so completely that his hand quaked. “SO THAT A WAY MIGHT BE MADE!!”
“Pario Atrum Universitas! . . . Pario Atrum
Universitas! . . .”
“THE BRINGER HAS PASSED THROUGH THE VEIL! THE PROPHECIES ARE FULFILLED! LET OBLIVION COME FORTH!!”
“Pario Atrum Universitas! . . .”
the Secretum chanted.
“PARIO ATRUM UNIVERSITAS:
BRING FORTH THE
DARKWORLD!!
” roared Devlin.
With the suddenness of a candle being snuffed, the great Hollow instantly plunged into foreboding silence as the chanting and Devlin’s shouting stopped. At the same moment, the monumental shaking of the ground beneath and above them came to an abrupt halt. His skin tingled with anticipation at the eerie stillness as he watched and waited.
And right on cue, the slate-colored hand of Oblivion appeared, climbing up from the gaping pit, followed by his body, and soon he was standing before them all. Calmly, with an indifferent, almost alien-like quality, he examined them without curiosity as he stood in their presence.
“The prophecy,” Devlin declared in a reverent whisper, “is made flesh. Thousands of years we have waited and prepared for the fulfillment of this promise. Countless generations of our people have made endless sacrifices, but it was not in vain. Oh no, our faith has borne fruit—”
He broke off the speech he’d prepared years ago as Oblivion turned without warning and moved slowly toward the vast room’s exit.
Momentarily thrown, Devlin stood frozen in place. Whatever he had been expecting of Oblivion’s grand entrance, this wasn’t quite it.
Another senior member of the Secretum of Six—a woman named Angela, who had been standing very near to Devlin, and whom Devlin had never particularly cared for—rushed forward, confusion tormenting her features. “Great one! Oblivion! Are you not here to begin your great work?” She reached out and touched the brown leather jacket he wore, pressed it until she felt the hard flesh beneath the folds of fabric . . .
She collapsed. Devlin and a few of the others rushed forward, bending over her. She’d gone cold instantly. Her eyes were rolled up, her jaw slackened.
She was dead. Oblivion’s touch killed her.
If Oblivion noticed her, he made no consideration of it. He turned mechanically to face Devlin. His eyes blazed, and his gaze was wilting. “The DarkWorld is begun,” he spoke for the first time, and Devlin fought the urge to place his hands over his ears at the sound. “It was set in motion the moment I entered this flesh. This place, this Hollow, is an unworthy relic of a different age.”
Devlin’s mind raced.
Unworthy?
What did that mean?
Unworthy of what?
There was something odd about Oblivion’s physiology when he spoke, and it took Devlin ample consideration to put his finger on it: Oblivion’s chest was not rising or falling. Where a normal person’s chest rises before they are about to speak, to take in breath, Oblivion merely opened his mouth and the sound issued forth.
“The DarkWorld cannot be appreciated from below,” Oblivion explained with unnerving calm.
Once again, he began to walk, and Devlin and the others followed close.
The earth shook from its foundations, and many were those who feared it might shake itself apart.
Then, as suddenly as it’d started, the shaking stopped.
Alex struggled to get her bearings, looking around through the bright haze in her eyes. Ethan’s bulky silhouette still stood before her, and a dozen or so inhabitants of this underground city were also within her field of vision. All of them, everyone— including herself—still cowered, disoriented and frightened. They’d expected the cavern to come crumbling down. She was surprised it was still in one piece.