by Jamie Magee
Dust’s interruption of the dark energy fit the modern world they were in, but not the era they came from. Demons, real demons, were so evil that the thought of them alone would chill the bravest of souls to the bone. It is the kind of evil that only the sickest of fucks toyed with. Scorpio had his rounds with them thanks to Zale in the past.
What Dust fought was more than likely wraiths. Energy so diminished and scattered that it was basically the nut house of the dead. They hunted any source of power to snatch a high. They never knew what to do with it once they found it and usually swarmed taunting the living and finding immortality in haunted tales whispered on elder’s lips.
“Was he ready to go or did you force him?”
This was half the reason Scorpio was so pissed at Toril for not telling him who was in their Throng. The block she put in place wasted so much time that could have been used to build solid alliances. And where alliances could not be built, like with someone like Dagen, a coy plan could have been constructed. Now they had no time, no plan. All Scorpio could do was hope that he had truly taught his son well.
“I caught him moments after he woke,” the disdain in his tone pointed out the obvious to Scorpio.
“I didn’t keep this from you. I didn’t know he was connected to my Throng until we fought.”
Dust slowly judged his father. The pure empath in his blood made it easy for Dust to size people up with a glance. It was his private game to study the wretchedness others put on themselves with their emotions. It was different with Scorpio; Dust could barely sense him, and only after intense focus. Scorpio said it was the same with his parents, and the divide was meant to strengthen the child. “You do not need to feel my misgivings, you will find enough in the world,” Scorpio had said. “To teach you I must be a mystery you can not understand simply.”
His excuse made some sense. Okay, maybe it made a lot of sense to the eager young student Dust once was. These days he hated it. Dust was never sure where Scorpio stood with Talon or Reveca. Watching Scorpio play his role had always pushed Dust to wonder if he knew him at all, to wonder if his father was only playing a part.
“And how is dear Mother?” It was easy to have an uncaring tone. Until he laid eyes on her, Dust’s mother was nothing more than a haunt he saw in his father’s eyes day in and out.
“Weak,” Scorpio bit out.
Dust felt his spike of morbid emotions clear as day. All at once he felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “But you’re here?”
Scorpio made his way to where Dust was and slid down the wall next him. He took a smoke from Dust’s vest pocket and lit it, then stared into nothing as the first hit filled his lungs. “Not that kind of weak. She’s hiding it from me.”
“How can either of you hide anything from each other?”
Good question.
“I can’t explain to you how powerful she is...right now even after this deal with Ambrosia, she’s in a bit of a haze. There is very little conviction in her tone. What she says are old lines from...from before.”
Dust had to work through the ache before he spoke. “How you gonna fix it?”
“Reveca is the only way.”
“I can’t figure out if the universe is working against you or for you. The lock up of Shade and Thrash didn’t make much sense at first. It did once I started to dig, the gossip around the Boneyard filled in the rest.”
Scorpio arched a brow. “The Time Traveler and the Seventh Son...”
Dust grunted. “How did Akan know that before us? It wasn’t until they were taken that the talk around the others helped me figure it out.”
“If he has been tight with Zale then he’s known his fair share of Voyagers. It doesn’t matter what he knows or what he doesn’t, what matters his how we respond to it.”
“And how am I fairing with my response.”
“Tell me why you made the choice you did.”
Dust focused on his smoke for a long moment. “There is depth between Dagen and King, enough to break Dagen from the only chick he ever loved...I didn’t know which way he’d go with Reveca’s execution. What I did know was I would have a helluva lot better chance of figuring it out if I managed to get him face to face with her.”
“How did you know where she was?”
“I heard Jamison saying something about them being off the game board or some shit. Then I saw Talon’s battle, how the haunt Zosime vanished. As far as I have ever been taught, there are only a few places that could shroud someone so deeply. The Fold was too compromised and obvious since Finley and Little Dove came out.”
“Good reasoning,” Scorpio complimented. “He doesn’t seem to be any calmer.”
“I can’t gauge him anymore,” Dust admitted. “I sent a few things in a care package. Counting on history to help them make their minds up.”
When Scorpio didn’t say anything, Dust shifted his eyes to the side. “Taking bets.”
“What good will that do? They’ll either be loyal to one female or to the existence of all.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Can’t say. Talon and the others road out to try and control the rising dead. Saige swears Akan has a book of illusions and it’s possible none of it is real.”
“If Akan is striking now it means he’s confident,” Dust said.
“He’s not confident, he’s terrified. He felt us take on Ambrosia. We didn’t even break a sweat. One of us was nearly drained by her already, another was a haunt. Toril was hardly awake and will still demolished Ambrosia. Perhaps we should go after him fi-,” Scorpio hesitated as his mind rushed to catch up with the emotions he felt surge through him.
Power was stirring, but it was doing so in such a quiet way that if he weren’t zoned in on Toril, he would’ve missed it completely.
“What is it?”
“Your mother,” Scorpio chided as he vanished from Dust’s sight.
Dust wanted to follow him, more than likely should have, but he wasn’t ready to dive in the middle of where his parents stood with each other. He was angry at them. His mother had far more to go on than any other couple out there along with the other half of their soul. Still, she let fear state her actions and build a wall between her and her own.
Dust had watched his father carefully think a hundred steps ahead time and time again. He’d heard that it was a trait Scorpio had always had. His father made a deal with the devil to save Toril. One death for one life. No matter how hard Dust tried to understand, he could never wrap his head around why Scorpio made the only foolish choice of his life at the most critical moment in his life.
When he asked Scorpio about it, when the pair of them actually fought about it, Scorpio raged.
“Instinct!” Dust followed with. “You’re instinct dicked you over! And you stand there telling me to trust the end. Trust the reasons you can’t even fucking explain!”
The lost look in his father’s eyes never sat well with Dust, it only built his silent rage.
No, he would not meet his mother until his mother was living once more. A day his father had given the chance to never exist with his foolish dark spell.
As much as he hated to admit it, Dust knew it would take both heaven and hell’s blessing to slay Reveca Beauregard. Imagining either of them agreeing to do so was more than a far-fetched gamble.
It was impossible.
Chapter Four
The blink of an eye it took Scorpio to get back to Toril was too fucking long as far as he was concerned. Long enough for his rage to kick up yet another notch. Send him away, why? So she could concoct another one of her twisted plans that left him looking like a bitch who’s prom date ditched her?
Fuck. That.
What he found back at the cavern poured a nice ice-cold bucket of water over his fevering rage. She was lying on the floor convulsing as sweat poured from her flesh. In a beat, he had his vim locked around her, cradling her as he rocked her back and forth. All his power, everything he was flooded into the female he woul
d surrender all for. Someone was hexing her, he could feel the pull.
Protective and pissed as ever Scorpio followed the dark magic sure he was going to land right next to Reveca Beauregard. And when he got there fuck if he would need any kind of Throng to take her down. This shit was old, too fucking old!
When Scorpio’s soul lurched forward, he landed in the dead of a swamp. He’d know that smell anywhere! At best, he was ten clicks from his own place. Nothing good lurked where he was. It was kill or be killed. So fucking be it!
Scorpio pushed his way through the brush around him toward the fire he could see in the opening, it was a burning pentagram, turned to the side. One tiny turn of one fucking star changed the flow of magic. Dark to light. Of course, most fucks just went with the dark when they saw this shit period. That’s what ignorance gets you.
He could see a figure on her knees waving back and forth as they fisted the moist ground and chanted deep and low. In one flash, Scorpio was there pulling the female up by her hair when he turned her he fully expected to see Reveca. Which is exactly why he vaulted back when he saw his sweet Toril smiling cunningly back at him.
On instinct, his vim reached out and just as quickly it was blocked the same way it had been in the past when she decided he was too cursed to know what she knew, to feel what she felt. “What the fuck, Toril?” he raged as he pushed harder.
When he did, her image faded. At first, it didn’t shock him, she was in two places at once channeling dark energy, her image should waver. But then...then he thought he saw something he shouldn’t so he struck again. This time it wasn’t a gentle nudge he’d give a woman who was pushing every wrong button. He swung like he was striking a man that needed more than a just warning.
He saw it again. So, he struck again, this time harder, then the next even harder. When Toril’s voice wailed begging, mercy part of him pulled back and questioned what the fuck he was doing. The bigger part of him swung harder, and when he pulled back, he sucked all the vim he could from her as he did.
It felt like hours, at best it was seconds. When the female fell to the floor ragged and bloody, her true form was visible. Akan. The shock was underlined by his dark laughter that was gurgling on the blood in his mouth. His image flashed back to Toril’s and her voice he said. “Ah, lover, after all the good times we had this is how you treat me? I rather miss the times you begged for a quick tubing.” She swayed her head. “Trust me I wanted a taste, nevertheless giving you one, just a tiny one, would’ve been enough to end our party. You would’ve known.”
Scorpio’s power lifted her and squeezed until the image of Akan emerged again. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”
Akan, even in pain, was as sly and slippery as any snake out there. “I told ol’ Sis and Ma for that matter, it was dangerous to march around saying how powerful they were. They didn’t listen.”
“What?”
Akan’s cold menace darkened the corners of his lips as he grinned. “It wasn’t hard to understand the power. Someone tells you that you’re the last. They tell you the souls connected with you will make the gods tremble. Why so many? Why not take it all?”
“That is Zale speaking.”
“Oh, Zale thought he was in charge, sure enough. He also thought I was one of Reveca’s throw aways. Just like you thought I was your love.”
“I don’t believe a fucking word you’re saying.”
“It’s not my mission in life to make you believe or not. My mission is to take my sister’s Throng and I will. To do so, I had to find them first.”
Scorpio’s mind rushed through the past trying to discern what was real and what was not. His sister? No fucking way.
“Did you ever wonder why Toril was so thirsty to find your Throng? It was my mother’s bidding. She told Toril the only way to stop me was by becoming a Throng larger than four. You see, that was how large mine was. Inadequate, according to my mother once her seers told her my baby sis would have far more. Change comes with the number five. Real magic starts to happen when you reach eight. As a girl, Toril had felt as many, even more.
“Of course I had to stop her from finding any of them. It’s fucked how it all works, though. It didn’t matter that I slayed anyone or what barter I ensured was made with Dark Gods, I never got their power. Therefore, my sister’s mission became my own.” Akan clucked his tongue. “You were a surprise, an alpha primordial from an original bloodline. Downright saintly you were. It was near impossible to put the block between the pair of you. Serious dark magic. Nasty wraiths— sick fucks, really.”
Scorpio’s rage kept tightening, stealing Akan’s breath but the fuck was still able to speak, so backing off was the last thing Scorpio planned to do.
“It was slow rolling after that point. I couldn’t tell who was who unless I let Toril out of the prison I had her in and watched who her vim was drawn to. What happened the first time I did? She fucking cursed a witch from Zale’s coven. That made shit difficult.”
“What did you do to her!”
“Relax, lover,” he said in Toril’s voice. “We had long intense conversations. Toril saw things my way. She understood what was to come.” He laughed. “Do you know what her only request was?” Scorpio shook his head in response and disbelief. “Not a quick fuck with you, no she begged to kill the witch. I’m sure it was a mind fuck, but all that I had done to her all the hatred she should have for her captors fell on one stupid witch.” He grunted under the power that was squeezing him. “I guess I was the fucking fool for trying to arrange it all. Toril promised both her life and yours to me once the task was done.”
Akan licked his lips. “Easy enough, eh? Here’s the clincher. The only way to snag Reveca was to arrange a meet and greet with her coven. When she showed, Zale and I were going to handle business.” Akan rolled his eyes back and struggled to breathe, forcing Scorpio to give him some air. “Zale was late. Saige was early. Guess what happened when Saige and Toril came face to face?”
Saige had already told Scorpio some of this. Her version wasn’t lining up with this yet.
“Toril attacked and then figured out she was launching herself on Reveca’s twin sister.” Akan laughed darkly. “No one was more fucking surprised than me to see the two of them sync. Boom just like that little sister had her freedom from me. Saige and what she had in her royal blood made up for your absence and then some.” He tilted his head. “Why do you look so lost? Mad she didn’t run to you and tell you that you had been trying to get lucky with her brother for years?”
One squeeze and Scorpio was sure he could leave lasting damage on this fuck. That was the problem. Akan wasn’t fighting back, and not only was he not fighting back, he just dropped his side of the story like a cartoon villain wanting their props. No fuck would go through eras of the shit Akan claimed to just spill it all at once. Akan had to have had an ace somewhere that he was counting on—he had to think this was his last chance to see the rage and shock in Scorpio, to feel it—a spoil he had surely lusted over.
“What the fuck do you want?” Scorpio said shaking him as all his encounters with Toril after he was changed started to flash in his mind. How could he have been so fooled?
Akan laughed like a schoolyard bully who peaked in third grade. “What I’ve always wanted. To be the last, the greatest. For the Gods to bow to my will. Once you’re gone, my wish will be my reality.”
“You’re stealing the kill,” Scorpio said as his mind rushed to think like the cold-blooded asshole Akan was.
“I am. Toril will perish, all of you will be easy enough targets in the days after. Happily ever after for me.”
In the distance, Scorpio heard the thundering roar of bikes. He smelled death...
“Son of a bitch!” Scorpio roared as he broke Akan’s neck, watching him fall like a rag doll was a pleasure he could not take. Scorpio zigzagged across the pentagram breaking the power of the magic in it then vanished back to his son’s side. Scorpio didn’t even bother to explain as he jerked Dust up
and in the next beat, they were at Toril’s side.
Scorpio slapped Dust’s face. “Focus, son. We have to override the dark magic, at best I disrupted it, you have to hold the foothold.”
Toril was still out, but no longer convulsing. Her beauty, how innocent and angelic she looked stole Dust’s breath.
“Dust! Wake up, man, Akan is stealing the kill, we have to go in.”
“You can’t,” Dust argued understanding the ramifications of this. “She’s weak, and you’re alone.”
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. Talon and Saige could say what they wanted, anyone could, but until the call to battle was sounded, all bets were off.
“Now, son,” Scorpio said as he carefully lifted Toril with his vim. In the blink of an eye, Dust had created the correct pentagram, the one that called white magic, protection. Scorpio laid down on it cradling Toril just above him as all his power surrounded her. When he felt her connect with him, he knew he had a prayer this would end in their favor.
***
Zosime never once recalled puking in her mortal life, which wholeheartedly had her convinced that she must be in a special kind of hell. One that fucking gray witch put her in. She squinted her eyes closed and sipped the peppermint tea Gwinn had given her. She didn’t see her Draxous fucking the witch, but in her mind’s eye she could see him smiling at her, comforting her, even protecting her from the fires of hell.
It was worse to see those things. True compassion was the greater sin; it was given from the soul, not the body.
A stir in her gut tore her from her thoughts and brought her to her feet.
“Again?” Gwinn asked sure that her magic should surely be strong enough to stop one stomach bug.
Panic struck Zosime as she paced and tried to conceive what she was seeing and feeling. Weak as hell, she stumbled toward Gwinn’s basket finding nothing she needed in it as she tore it apart. Ignoring Gwinn’s protest Zosime stumbled toward the garden of rocks across the way. Once there, with a rock in hand, she blindly drew what she was seeing in her mind’s eye. The star came easily enough, and so did the wide circle. She didn’t understand any of it, but when she began to copy the runes real fear struck her.
