He was committed, it was only a matter of time before the angel came to this camp, and saw the memories of the vampire and shifter in the minds of his other slaves, memories he’d planted himself, that would lead her straight to him.
All part of the plan, it wouldn’t be long now, and he could finally learn what made an angel tick.
He even had a foolproof method of capture, but it would only work if he could take her unawares. Soul swords had been banned as well, ever since one of the other clan leaders had been betrayed and beaten by one. Soul swords would suck the soul and essence out of the stabbed target, and bind their soul to the sword with magic. The magic bindings were set up, so that the person bound would power the bindings with their own magic against their will, and power the offensive and defensive abilities of the sword, all while being subservient to the sword’s master. Basically, the soul bound became a never-ending source of power for the sword’s spells and abilities.
When the sword killed another, and took their soul, the two souls would vie for dominance, and one would be destroyed and have their power absorbed by the other, making the sword more powerful each time it took a life. Usually, the initial spirit won these contests, since the soul of the newly stabbed, would be highly disoriented. After the first few kills, it was virtually guaranteed the original host wouldn’t lose, since their soul would be much more powerful at that point. They were very powerful weapons.
He couldn’t do that of course, it was banned, and he didn’t want to do that anyway. He wanted a whole angel to play with, not just the soul. But, he’d come up with an idea based on the soul binding weapons that should work perfectly, he’d only finished its creation a month ago, then he meticulously planned the endgame, and it was just a matter of time now.
He smiled, and daydreamed about all the knowledge that would soon be his…
Carla crossed her arms and tapped a foot. She was a patient woman for most things, and had helped Portia keep an eye on the rogues the angel had taken in for the last hundred and thirty-eight years. She could still remember the day the angel had gotten her out of a very bad situation, and had taken her home to two rambunctious werewolf pre-teens.
John of course, had been one of them, and she loved him to death. It stopped mattering to her years ago that she was an earth mage, or that John’s mate was a fire mage. She wished Tammy would take up with someone, she worried about her sometimes, but the female werewolf never had found the one meant for her, not yet. There were plenty of others that way in the town. Sure, mostly mages found another mage, and the shifters found a shifter mate, but there were a handful of other odd couples in this place, including her and her mate.
Heck, she was an old earth mage, almost two hundred years old now, and even she’d found happiness with a bear shifter. The love of her life, Jacob, ran the wild animal rescue across the street. One thing she knew, this town was very unique in this world, and it was all thanks to Portia. The angel hated any attention or accolades, but the whole town would die for that woman without a second thought.
Point was, she didn’t mind John coming over from his gas station and grabbing some food, it was a regular occurrence, and she usually greeted him with a warm smile. Hell, she’d been feeding him every day at lunch for over a hundred years, though his pretty little fire mage wife usually made him dinner.
She was always pleased to see him, except of course, the times he waltzed in with oil and grease covered shoes, and left marks on her floor. He was over a hundred and forty, it shouldn’t be that hard to remember to wear plastic feet, or take his shoes off. That’s one thing she could never tolerate, a dirty kitchen. Sure, a simple spell would take care of it, but the kitchen was an open window setup, and there were humans out there from the interstate. She couldn’t risk any of them seeing her magic.
“Katherine, come back here and get your man out of my kitchen!”
John shrugged apologetically, as he looked back as his foot prints.
“Oops? Sorry Carla, did you have to call my wife?”
Fire mages could be… fiery, they all had powerfully passionate personalities as a rule. Magical affinities informed the personalities of the mages. Earth mages were as a rule calm people, except Carla did have a few pet peeves that would set her off. Their affinities may have informed their personalities, but it didn’t rule them.
Carla snapped back, “Maybe next time you’ll remember!”
Katherine came back and then turned her head to look out front, “There’s another one. This one is asking questions. He’s talking to Lavender.”
Carla frowned as she looked out into the diner, two mages not from their town in three days? Usually they only had one a decade. It also wasn’t a good thing that he was talking with Lavender. Fae couldn’t exactly be called good people, but Lavender was kind of dotty, and she didn’t have magic. Carla wasn’t sure why that was, she’d never heard of a magicless Fae before. Between her lack of magic, and not having a violent bone in her body, it made her harmless, but she was also their town crazy, who knows what the Fae beauty was telling that mage.
It could be anything from spilling all their secrets, to Lavender asking the mage if he’d please be her sex toy and clean her home for a week or two. Seriously, the Fae was a little crazy, or so it seemed to her anyway.
Katherine looked down at the floor and sighed, “John, get out of here with your lunch, I’ll clean this up and we will have a talk later.”
John bit his tongue, like men everywhere that loved their wife, even if she drove him crazy at times.
“Of course, my love.”
Katherine gasped when he pulled her into a forceful but warm kiss, and he just laughed when she hit him in the chest.
She snickered, even if she was mad at John, she couldn’t help it, the pair of them always touched her heart.
The strange mage marched into the kitchen, and she narrowed her eyes dangerously.
He said, “What the hell is this place? Did I just see you kiss… a dog?”
Katherine turned red in the face, and not from embarrassment.
She knew how much the couple loved each other, their fifty-second mating anniversary was next month, and as far as she knew they still went at it all the time like newlyweds. She decided to get involved, before Katherine forgot herself and the wards, and blasted the interloper.
He looked to be about fifty, which meant he was a lot older, close to her own age of two hundred. He had salt and pepper hair, brown eyes, and an average build. He also looked outraged, which meant he was probably prejudiced against shifters. She also thought it likely he was a fire mage by his aura.
She frowned, “Who are you?”
He straightened his back and said, “Thomas. Now what the hell kind of place is this? That crazy Fae out there said you were all her sex slaves and wanted me to feed her grapes and massage her feet.”
She started to laugh, good old Lavender. Of course, that made his face redden with offense.
Katherine said, “Lavender is harmless. And what is going on here is none of your business. We aren’t in your city, and you sure as hell aren’t a mage councilor or investigator, so get moving.”
She winced a bit, Katherine was right of course. He had a decent amount of power, but not enough to make it to the upper crust of mage society and government in the cities. Then again neither was she powerful enough. Really, of all the mages here, only Katherine was that strong, which is why no cities would take her. Katherine had left her old city for personal reasons, but all the ones she’d tried to join had turned her down even with a reference, simply because they feared she’d challenge them and take their position if she was part of the community, it would have been Katherine’s right.
Mages like all the supernatural, ruled by power, and mages rose in rank by challenging those above them in a duel when they felt ready for it. It wasn’t to the death or anything, but the point stood that those councils hardly wanted to introduce even more competition for the coveted council position
s in the city.
Katherine always said she was grateful for that, and couldn’t imagine a life anywhere else, or with anyone else but her John, but Carla knew it hurt the mage. Katherine was not fond of mages from cities.
The problem was though, she’d angered him with her laugh, and Katherine had just given him the final punch to his ego, which set him off.
He sneered, “I suppose it isn’t my business that you like to lie with dogs.”
John grabbed his wife’s arm, and pulled her behind him and took an intimidating step forward.
She knew he just wanted to scare the man and get him to back off. She also knew John knew that his wife was far more dangerous than he could ever be, but he was still a shifter protecting his mate. She knew John wasn’t going to hit him, but Thomas didn’t know any of that.
He raised his hand, and formed fire in his palm, and then all hell broke loose.
She felt the powerful angelic wards loaded with magical power reach out, snuff his magic like a candle in a hurricane, and then the wards knocked his ass out with a sleep spell so powerful his protection ward against magic didn’t have a prayer to stop it. The wards were designed to stop all violence, which was another reason she knew John had been only bluffing with his stance.
Fortunately, Portia was smart, and knew this was a diner, there were also a ton of concealment wards at work, not one human would have seen a thing, even if they’d been watching.
John looked down in surprise, and said, “Huh.”
She laughed, “I’ll huh you child, get out of here, and take this idiot with you, lock him up in holding. Portia can… deal with him when she gets back.”
They had a cell that suppressed magic in the basement of Portia’s house, for just this kind of thing.
Katherine said darkly, “I can handle it.”
She pondered that for a moment. Human minds were a lot easier to purge of recent memory, and be sent on their way without a clue. Mages of course, would feel the residual magic in their bodies, and know something had happened and been done to them. So, it was a delicate thing, Angels, and possibly a Fae with magic, were the only ones that could pull it off well enough to not get caught. She imagined some of the more powerful and subtle mages could as well. She loved Katherine, but knew the younger fire mage was anything but subtle.
She asked in an innocent tone, “How?”
Katherine bit her lip, “We could modify his memory, and then hit him with a healing spell to confuse the other traces? Then we can tell him we saved him from…” she trailed off as her idea went off the rails.
John laughed in amusement, that boy just kept digging himself deeper today.
Katherine glared at her husband, “Haven’t you left yet?”
John sighed, picked up Thomas, grabbed his meal with the other hand, and headed out the back door.
Katherine said, “I’ll move his car.”
She shook her head, Portia would fix it, she could use her angel mental powers to get his memories, instead of using elemental magic that would leave a trace. He’d be confused, but in his car, closer to his destination, and not even remember stopping here. It wasn’t perfect, but it shouldn’t make him suspicious enough to investigate.
Lavender poked her head in the kitchen door and smiled a bit dreamily, “Hi Carla, where’s the new mage, he was going to feed me grapes and massage my feet. Think I should let him service me too? He was cute.”
She laughed, the strikingly beautiful and willowy Fae didn’t really fit in at all with their community, which perversely made her fit in perfectly in this crazy place.
Then she sighed in annoyance when she saw the footprints again, Katherine must’ve forgotten she offered to clean it up before she volunteered to get the car, so Carla went to get a mop…
Chapter Thirteen – Portia
The warm afternoon sun felt good on my back as I winged my way east at about four hundred miles an hour. A simple elemental spell of air kept the wind from impacting my body, and it felt amazing to soar through the air so quickly. It never got old.
I also needed it, I’d been to seven of the twenty-three Fae clan holdings, and had seen things that twisted my stomach. That said a lot, I was a billion years old, and had seen plenty of death and horror in my time. Of course, that didn’t mean I was inured to it, I still had my compassion.
Sometimes I hated free will, but I was here on this plane to support one law, not the laws of man or morality. A lot of that came down to burying my head in the sand at times, see no evil, hear no evil. Knowing about it, and seeing what some of the fae actually did to the other races, were two entirely different things.
I was approaching the Fae clan that lived on the western border of West Virginia, deep in the wilderness where humans never tread. The camp was concealed from humanity and technology, even satellites from space couldn’t see the fae communities if they didn’t wish it. The Fae worked off of a dictatorship type government, but with multiple levels. The clan leader was on top, and expected instant obedience from anyone below their status, then the second-tier powers could do the same to everyone below them, except if their orders conflicted with one above.
In a lot of ways, it was the same way a vampire coven was run, but there weren’t nearly as many rules the Fae had to live by, they didn’t have many rules at all, the Fae had whims. Sometimes I questioned my decision to take in Lavender, but she was harmless enough. She’d run afoul of her own ambitions, had challenged the clan leader for her position, had challenged her own mother.
Unlike mages, challenges for power under the fae usually led to death, or slavery.
But Lavender’s mother had done much worse, she’d taken her daughter’s power, and banished her from the clan. When I’d found her, she was almost dead, and powerless. It was that same compassion that made me feel furiously ill right now, that had prompted me to take the Fae woman in. Without her magic, Lavender’s mind had broken. Still, I knew if she got her power back, she would be a serious danger, but that wouldn’t happen.
I also thought about the Nephilim, on purpose. I’d been trying to get him off my mind for a few days now, but thoughts of him were a welcome distraction from what some of the Fae were doing to other races. Sculpting their bodies, programming their minds and personalities, turning them into mindless slaves. It was… disturbing.
I landed a little too hard, causing an explosion of dirt and loam, and stalked into the elven clan. The elves were all in their tents, but it was hardly rough camping, they were extremely luxurious tents, and they used both magic and slaves liberally to make their lives easier.
Most of the Fae wouldn’t look me in the eye, and retreated or moved out of my way as I walked through the camp in a simple search grid as my mind sought out the slaves, and sampled their thoughts, memories, and the magical bindings of nature magic in their minds.
I also shoved the thoughts of the Nephilim down far, I couldn’t afford to be distracted or vulnerable in this place, and I knew I was far too angry and heart sick right now on top of that. This was only my eighth stop too, which meant fifteen more clans to go, I’d done a little more than a third of them and I was already past done with it. I was searching the clans nearest Piedmont first though, the bear shifter couldn’t have gotten that far, since I estimated he’d only left the Fae a day or so before he’d killed.
So hopefully searching them all wasn’t necessary. I was a little worried the Fae could be a loner, and not in a clan camp at all, but I thought that highly unlikely. The Fae were too interdependent for that, even more so than shifter packs, or vampire covens. Not out of fondness, the Fae were so close to each other, because they believed in the phrase keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. For all the games they played with the other races, they were actually worse with their own people.
I froze for a split-second, and changed my direction when I picked up memories of the bear shifter and rogue vampire rapist. My hands clenched, and I pulled my sword from its sheath. I wasn’t worrie
d about the other Fae in the camp, they wouldn’t lift a finger to help my target. The magical Fae aura I felt in the tent with the two shifters, mage, and three vampire slaves, was quite old and strong.
Not stronger than mine.
I stepped into the tent almost shaking with rage, and my heart was pounding even as my sword glowed brighter. Even though I was stronger, I knew that the Fae were tricky, and all my senses were on high alert. All the slaves were on their knees on the side of the tent, and wore chain collars on their necks which were chained down to spikes in the ground.
“You are the one behind the rogues who risked revealing us to humanity, for that you will die.”
I should have just killed him, but I was so angry I had to say something. Then he drew a sword that glowed blue, and rushed me instead. I laughed angrily, parried his sword effortlessly, and heard four ribs crack as I kicked him in the chest. I smirked as he went flying into a thick tent pole.
His body glowed green and healed in a split second, and then he raced at me again. I’d have to take his head to finish this. But this time I also felt one of the vampires behind me lunge, he was supposed to have been chained down. I couldn’t take my eyes off the threat of the male Fae, and his glowing blue sword, so I darted to the side easily avoiding the vampire’s attack with another glowing blue sword.
With a thought a banishment spell launched from my left hand, and the vampire went down with a loud pained scream, as I once again parried the Fae’s sword, this time with my full strength. The sword flew from his hand, and I twisted my wrist and impaled the Fae in the chest, right through the heart.
He gurgled blood, reached up and grabbed the sword with his right hand, and then he smiled.
Nephilim's Journey Page 7
