Hidden Worlds

by Kristie Cook

  It was intact and lacked blisters. Completely unharmed.

  “What was that?”

  “You’re the first male child born to my line in over three hundred years, Benton. It calls to your magic. You’re meant to wield it.” Mom picked it off the floor and held it out to me again. “It does no such thing for me when I hold it. Nor would it for Anna or even Shade. It was made only for you or James, a male of our family bloodline.”

  I took the blade once more and let the sensation creep up my arms toward my center again. It felt good, and after a few minutes, it felt as though it had always been a part of me.

  “Wow, that’s awesome!” I grinned and took the sheath from Mom. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a plain dark wood. It covered the brilliance of the fire sword as I slid the sword into it, snuffing out the flames.

  “Yes, they are impressive. I’ve only seen three other Empyrean blades, and that was when I was younger than you are now.” Mom turned to my sister, still smiling. “By the way, there is only one staff of Aednat, made by our family centuries ago.”

  “Is it mine? Can I use it?” Anna reached up to touch the smooth sea glass.

  “Yes. It was supposed to be Evie’s, but her faerie blood would not allow her to use it. So it goes to the youngest daughter of the family.”

  Anna smiled lovingly at the staff and rubbed her fingers together from the buzz coming off the wood, wrinkling her nose up like it tickled. “Thank you. What does it do?”

  “It amplifies your powers. It will boost any spell you cast. It also offers you the use of fire under water. Because of the jewel of Aednat, the sea glass gem on there, no water can extinguish your fire.”

  “Cool!”

  “And this blade? Is it more than just a weapon?” I asked, holding it up and pulling the sword out a little again to inspect the blade, finding small swirls and writing etched onto the metal. “What’s the writing mean? It’s like the writing in the scrolls, but I can’t read it.”

  “It’s an ancient language called Dtaia. Its origins are unknown, and it’s older than Sanskrit. It’s said that the original elemental people of the earth spoke and wrote it, but now it’s a dead language.” Mom peered down at the writing before looking over at the scrolls. “The sword is part of you now. It will heed your call, no matter how far away you are from it.”

  “Wow, that’s wicked!” I put the sword away once more as a huge smile lit up my face. “So, how do you read these scrolls? They can’t be as old as the earth.” I lowered my eyes to the table of scrolls.

  “No, there are a few who can read it. My mother taught me and Evie some before she died, but her knowledge was limited, too. No one in our family has read these scrolls in over five hundred years.”

  “How did they not disintegrate? They’re so old.” Anna’s curiosity brought her sniffing around the ancient parchment, but she didn’t dare touch them, afraid of their delicate nature.

  “They are enchanted and protected.”

  “And the books? What are they for?” I stared at the piles of tomes, wondering why we would keep personal diaries of witches and warlocks centuries old.

  “That’s the other reason I brought you here. It’s time to catch up on homework.”

  “What?” Anna and I chimed together, a look of surprised disgust crossing our faces.

  “Like … study these things?” I said.

  Mom smiled, and a wicked spark flashed in her eyes. “Yep, exactly. They tell us everything about our kind and more. Every spell spoken by our family is written in these books.”

  “What about Shade? And James? Don’t they have to slave away reading this stuff, too?” Anna wrinkled her nose as she reached over and flipped open the front cover of the grimoire nearest her.

  “Shade is more faery than elemental, and busy with things in Faerie. I’m personally training James right now. I trust when you’ve learned everything here, you will share it with her and James.” Mom motioned for me to drop my weapon and join Anna on the books. “Come on. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s not like the world is over tomorrow.”

  “You don’t know that. Time must never be wasted.” The pain in Mom’s eyes as she spoke made me worry for a moment before I flipped open one of the grimoires to study the hash marks of writing within. A glance at Anna told me she hadn’t seen the foreboding concern in our mother’s momentary lapse, which was probably a good thing. Since Shade was the oldest and busy in the land of Faerie, taking care of problems only Faery royals had, I knew it was up to me to protect my younger siblings. The thought left me feeling cold and lonely.

  “I’ll make dinner, and when I’m done, you can take a break to eat.” Mom turned to leave through the hidden door which led into this chamber from the basement. Watching her leave left a nervous knot the size of a boulder in my stomach. The rustle of paper from my sister reminded me to return to the pages, and I began to read about the history of a fire elemental named Brendan, apparently my great, great, great uncle who’d sailed across the seas to find a new world and discover magic untold.

  Lost to the world, in a place full of new potential and new magic, I followed my uncle’s musings until Mom returned and beckoned us back to the real world of trivial things such as dinner and high school homework.

  Chapter One Tainted Blood

  Tainted Blood

  January 1st, 1702

  The past is a jealous warrior. It pokes and prods for undivided attention when it is the present which needs the most nourishment.

  ~Brendan

  The present …

  I don’t know exactly why it mattered to me so much. I wasn’t done with things in Faerie, but it was also not done with me. Things had turned out so differently for me than for Shade, but I didn’t envy her, not one bit. I loved her to death, of course. She was my sister and always had my back no matter what, and I had hers. It was the fact that we were left orphans because of Faerie that bothered me so much. Mom dying in the battle against the Unseelie in the lands surrounding the Scren had left us hollow and fractured. Shade had tried to keep us safe, even Mom, but fate had a way of taking away everything that we held dear.

  Now, what did that leave us? Shade was preoccupied with the Seelie Scren Palace, and now, the Unseelie Kingdom. I preferred to be left on my own and went along my own way to rally some Seelie warriors to fight the breaches on the boundaries of Faerie. An impossible task, if you asked me, but no one asked, and I just did it. I’d turned myself into an unforgiving killing machine, ready at a moment’s notice to take down any Unseelie who made the unfortunate error of crossing my path. Nothing gave me more pleasure than charring an unauthorized Unseelie creature wreaking havoc in the human world.

  I didn’t know how many were out there or how many still roamed the streets even after I’d worked to hack at their numbers, but there were thousands who’d escaped the boundaries of Faerie. I traveled all across the western borders, down to the south, and was now roaming the east to clear out the Sluagh and Unseelie alike who were plaguing the streets. It was overwhelming, and I was accumulating an unsightly amount of scars to prove my efforts. Some were nothing but superficial scratches. Other injuries were more concerning.

  Still, there was never a greater thrill than battling the Unseelie, whooping their asses, breaking their bodies and leaving them charred and bloody. Recently I’d managed to run right into a trio of Sluagh hanging around in a smoky underground club, closed in the early morning hours but still reeking of sweat, cigarettes and trash.

  I’d gotten a tip I might find such a group of escapee Unseelie filth on the edges of that seedy town. I had a lot of better ideas for spending my day than traversing the desolate streets of Detroit. The amount of abandoned houses, factories and boarded-up buildings was astounding. Still more shocking was the piles of garbage overflowing every gutter.

  This place was forgotten, left to rot by the humans who had once called it home sweet home. And it was a perfect place to hang out
for Unseelie Sluagh creatures.

  I’d discovered the nest of Unseelie, downing their mixed spirits and laughing as they passed the time trying out new card games and staring at the news on the hoisted TV in the corner of the nightclub bar. I knew the moment I stood outside the door that this was the place. My Fire elemental senses flared up in warning and did what they could to make me turn around. But I wasn’t one to let fear bury me. In fact, I thrived on it and made every effort to get into as much trouble as I possibly could.

  Good thing Mom wasn’t around anymore to witness my destructive personal preferences. She’d probably bind me to our house near Portland, leash me to the grounds forever for such behavior.

  Well, she wasn’t around anymore. I was all alone in this desolation.

  Standing before the double doors of the exterior of the run-down bar, I pulled out my Empyrean blade, willing it to life. Flames ignited along its smooth metallic surface, licking the blade and encasing it in wicked orange-yellow light. The heat of it never bothered me, nor did it even burn. I was impervious to the heat, and the element had been coursing through my veins from the moment I was born. The tangerine glow lit up my face as I grinned wickedly, stretching my neck from side to side before stepping back and kicking the doors off their hinges.

  “Good morning!” I hollered out as I rushed in, finding a stunned bartender who was most definitely Unseelie, but not a warrior of any kind. He stood frozen with a glass in one hand and a filthy towel in the other, wiping water spots away. The moment he willed himself to move again, he dove under the counter to hide as I crashed through the array of tables and shoved at the first seated creature.

  I swiped the legs out from under his chair, and the Draelik went crashing backward. Before he could recover, his friends were already pouncing on me. One was much taller than the other and a bit farther away. I sliced the short one straight through the gut and managed to spin on my feet and whack the tall one on the back before he could reach me.

  He went stumbling forward, crushing a table with the weight of his body. He jumped to his feet in a blur of motion, producing a long staff with a triple pointed jab at the end. I lifted my eyebrows and smirked.

  “Nice toothpick you got there,” I said.

  The guy didn’t appreciate my humor.

  He bolted toward me, and I might’ve dodged him enough to trick him into going the opposite way, except his partner, the one I’d initially swiped the chair out from under, decided to join in at that very moment. I felt a hard jab on my back, launching me forward, nearly missing the three pronged staff, but not quite clearing it enough.

  Dammit!

  The staff sank into my side just as I was able to half turn and slice the offender’s neck wide open. Black, putrid blood poured out of the cut as the Draelik dropped to his knees, grasping the wound before he began to jerk wildly, convulsing and rolling his eyes back into his head before his body sprawled across the gritty bar-room floor.

  I yanked out the staff and thwacked it over its owner’s head, sending him over a chair. This gave me enough time to jump over him to stab him right through the chest.

  He reached up, touching the long, talon-like fingertips of his black hands on the fiery flames of my sword as though he didn’t even notice the fire charring his skin. With a haggard sigh, he breathed out his last and dropped his head back onto the floor with a thud, falling perfectly still.

  I grasped my side, feeling the sear of the deep gouges the Draelik’s weapon had made. I’d been fortunate to avoid being touched by their talons, which were highly poisonous and could assimilate anything they touch. Still, the injury was deep and already gushing blood.

  Another lovely scar to add to my ever-expanding collection. Whoopty freakin’ doo.

  The bartender peered over the top of the bar now that silence had fallen. I waved at him and sat at one of the undisturbed stools in front of him.

  “Got any vodka and a clean towel?”

  He nodded, fear filling him up until I could’ve sworn he had probably wet his pants.

  “Make it snappy.”

  He tossed what I needed and scurried into the backroom like his life depended on it. Watching him go, I shook my head before unscrewing the bottle, dumping it on my wound and hissing out into the empty room.

  “Mother … freakin’ eggs …” I hissed between my teeth and breathed slowly through the amplified pain. “Ahh.” I sighed as it ebbed away into a dull throb. I’d had worse injuries, yes, but damn, this one was downright excruciating.

  I folded the clean towel up and pressed it to the ragged edges of the wound, sucking in another agonizing breath.

  “Crap!” I felt on the verge of blacking out.

  I took out a knife from my pack then proceeded to ease my hoodie off and yank my T-shirt over my head. I cut the shirt into a rough strip then tied it sloppily around my middle, holding the towel into place. Once satisfied with the makeshift bandage, I grabbed the Vodka bottle and downed a few swallows before slamming it back onto the bar.

  The fluid felt good burning down my throat. It was a slow burn, one that distracted me from the horrible mess of pain on my side.

  “Thanks for the drink, dude!” I hollered out. I felt bad not leaving a tip, but I thought leaving the bartender alive was tip enough.

  Heading out, I walked through the cooling air around me. I didn’t know if it was spring or fall anymore. The seasons were beginning to blur, especially since I was in and out of the Land of Faerie all the time, which seemed to have a different season every single day. I suppose it didn’t really matter.

  Walking didn’t do me any favors. The bandage on my side wasn’t working that well. It had already started seeping through, and this continued activity, let alone just breathing, was excruciating.

  There’d been no other hunters with me on my trip into Detroit. On occasion, we teamed up when a scout found a large faction of Unseelie held up in some pit in the drudgery of the cities. Otherwise, we hunted alone. Sometimes I hunted with Rylan, a changeling Teleen warrior who could glamour himself to look human to hide his fiery blue skin. At the moment, I was alone, hence my dire predicament.

  I stumbled on my feet but caught myself in time before the ground met my face. The pull on my side surely reopened the blasted wound. Had I known I’d be taking on three Draeliks at once, I might’ve thought this through better. All three were disguised as men in long trench coats and dark fedoras to hide their grotesque, pitted skin and the dark, greenish-black tint of their hides. I’d been near this city before, for who knows what reason, maybe a summer camp? Hell, I couldn’t remember, but I wasn’t that familiar with it, and I had made a rookie mistake. I’d been left scathed and critically wounded, alone in a deserted town. I hated this part of the United States; it was so different from the West Coast. It felt less alive and much less crowded. A ghost of what it once was.

  The approaching night didn’t seem any different than the day, which was fortunate, as the blood drenched the top of my jeans and was seeping through my black hoodie as I limped forward. It was unfortunate, too, because I needed a doctor ASAP. The world spun for a moment, making me suck in a breath and close my eyes to steady myself. Damn, those Draeliks had some fierce strength. At least, they weren’t poisonous unless they cut you with their damn talons. Even so, if I didn’t get to a healer soon, it wouldn’t matter either way.

  I huffed out a breath and paused to lean against the stone exterior of a dilapidated building before wincing as I got back to walking. The sweat dripped down my temples, and I could feel my blood draining lower than it ever had before. I reached out with my magical powers to my sisters, hoping Shade’s faery powers would detect me this far away. Maybe even Anna would sense my distress. We were forever connected by blood, which we’d discovered quite by accident. I rarely used this emergency call since I liked the solitary life, but I was desperate.

  “Shade,” I muttered. I found a doorway in a dirt-streaked alley full of garbage. It had two steps leading up to it,
and I slid down onto them, leaning against the cold metallic door as the world began to spin. “Come on, Sis … need some help here ….”

  A flash blinded me, forcing my eyelids shut. No matter how hard I strained to reopen my eyes, they stuck with the weight of a thousand anchors holding them down. As the world sank away, a streak of vivid, red-tinted light flashed on the other side of my eyelids, followed by a shadow.

  “Hold on, Benton. We got you.”

  Chapter Two A New Quest

  A New Quest

  February 28th 1702

  Why do we suffer so? Perhaps it is necessary to strengthen our spirits and reinforce the pillars which keep us upright. Just as we practice our fire magic to become more adept at it, must we practice the wars we wage against all who oppose us.

  ~Brendan

  “Did you let her know what’s going on?”

  “No, not yet. She’s too far away, and my magic isn’t as strong as hers. I’ll have to wait until she reaches out to us again to let her know.”

  Two female voices were whispering their conversation not too far from me. I didn’t know where I was, but figured, hell, I was alive. Couldn’t be that bad, right?

  “He lost so much blood. It took up all my reserves to keep him from dying. You’ll have to finish it up, Sary. If you get ahold of the Scren Palace, let me know. I’ve already sent a messenger. Going to rest.” The woman speaking left the room with a shuffle, and a door echoed as it clicked a short distance away.

  I shifted and fought the continued heaviness fusing my eyelids shut. Only a low moan escaped me.

  “Shh ….” The woman came to my side and gently pushed at my shoulder. She really didn’t have to do that; the pain on my side made my body seize up and stiffen as it shot its prickling spikes up and down my entire being.