Aftermath: Immortal Brotherhood (Edge Book 9)

by Jamie Magee

  Not count as a seventh, that is. Bastion would always count as a son to Thrash, the first he knew of...

  The seventh bore too much weight. They were hunted by some, feared by most. They were considered an omen, a curse, a blessing all of which would be far easier to handle in the age Bastion was living in now. At least when it came to the mortals, he wouldn’t have much to worry about. The thing was, Bastion would likely never spend much time around the numb-minded souls that roamed the earth now. He’d live among immortals, among souls that knew what he was capable of. Thrash had every reason to fear that Bastion’s run as the seventh son would be far more trying than any before him.

  What would rest on Bastion’s shoulders above all was how special his woman would have to be. If she was wrong and chosen by the heavens, no sons would come. The end of an era would lie in his hands. If she were right, every fucker out there would try to destroy her before a single child was born and then after each.

  Thrash’s mother, Agatha, was a skilled warrior long before she ever met his father, a threat who dared you to cross her. Even with all her strength, there had been too many close calls. Enough for Thrash to wish he never found the pull to the female meant for him.

  Little did he know the universe had a sense of humor, a royal witch that liked to mind fuck him on the regular.

  Dead men do not have sons. Right?

  “Thrash,” Shade said, standing with his body rigid, ready to attack as he fought a small voice inside of him that told him he had nothing to fear. More than anything, Shade saw the young warriors before him as sons, apprentices of some sort. A fucked up thought Shade was ready to get rid of. Any kind of explanation would send him well on his way of doing so.

  Thrash ignored Shade as he stepped forward. One by one the warriors turned from their glare that had rested on Dagen and stared down Thrash. It was hard for Thrash to discern the look in their eyes. Thrash had honor for his father, but he was never fond of the man who only showed to plant a seed then left to fight on. The only reason Thrash gained any attention at all, more than his other brothers, was because he was the seventh.

  Thrash had sworn he would be nothing like that man. As it turned out, he was worse.

  Thrash expected to find rage and blame in each of them as he met their stare. He didn’t even know their names for Creator sake. His soul seized when he saw their admiration, their devotion and unyielding loyalty.

  “They know your story,” Evanthe said with a slight quake in her tone. “They know why you were not here. They have no blame for you.” She slanted her head tenderly. “They’ve watched your battles, lived in awe of you.”

  Above all, Evanthe knew Thrash’s fears, she’d heard them the first night he laid with her. He nearly cried as his hand swayed over her stomach. He didn’t mean to set his seed loose inside of her, when it came time to pull away, a force he could not explain, held him there. The mortal he was never thought for an instant it was because it was a regal witch beneath him, to him it was the curse of his station in life demanding he lead on. He wasn’t ready and told Evanthe he didn’t think he ever would be. I will not curse so many lives...

  Thrash lifted his brow in a weak response to Evanthe’s words. He wasn’t fond of his modern battles. “Are they...,” he swallowed. “Are they alive.” Was he looking at the haunts of what he missed? What level of hell had he traversed this time?

  Agatha huffed. “Stubborn as ever, are you. You’ve been told all but the children will not age here. When they stopped being children, they stopped aging. Alive and then some, thanks to him.” Agatha said with a tick of her head toward Shade.

  Shade grimaced as if her words had sucker-punched him in the gut, they sure as shit felt like they had. What the fuck did he do?

  “The immortality of my coven is theirs,” Evanthe said over Agatha, knowing Thrash had his limits with the woman who bore him, more than likely even less now considering he didn’t believe her to be real, not completely. “There is a veil between you and us,” Evanthe said taking a measured step forward. “It will remain until Akan is destroyed and all the magic he has exploited is contained once more.”

  Still staring at the six before him, doubting his reality, Thrash said, “What the fuck do you have to do with Akan or his magic? Any of you?”

  Akan, Thrash could handle. One way or another that fuck was overdue for an arranged meeting with his maker. All his magic was a different story. It could take eternities to find and destroy the damage a soul that had lived as long as him could’ve created.

  “My line wrote the words he uses. My twin gave them to him. I have everything to do with Akan. Our sons by blood alone give the words power when they are on the mortal plane. With Akan standing, there is no hope for us to lurk in your world, once he’s gone...perhaps they can all aid in the battle. We will not know until the eclipse of Akan is gone.”

  Thrash would be damned. His sons were not fighting twisted fucks like Akan.

  “Mortal plane, which is not here,” Thrash said easily, only a hint of sarcasm was behind each word.

  “It is as you discovered, Neptune.” She glanced to Shade. “The home of the warrior Voyager who could seal time. A haven.”

  Thrash flicked his stare to Shade to gather his take on this. Shade’s white as a ghost expression wasn’t helping any fucking thing.

  “Where the fuck is Neptune,” Thrash snapped. If she said the stratosphere or some shit he was done, so done.

  “It can move,” Evanthe said in a quiet tone she reserved for him. It lacked an aristocrat vibe; the timid tenor drew out his protective side and urged the brute to take a back seat. “It is the beauty of the magic that created it. It has lingered among several dimensions.” She hitched her breath. “Today it dwells within New Orleans. It lingers where it is needed.”

  Thrash swayed his head. Lingering near New Orleans right now was the furthest thing from safe.

  “We want to come home to you,” Evanthe said.

  Thrash’s gaze was moving over each of the boys before him trying to gauge their strength. He had met few who were as young, strong and clear-eyed as them. He could see the wisdom pouring from their gazes. The kind of wisdom Bastion had on overdrive. He could see skills resting in their lean build, a cool grace that would be lethal with little thought.

  Thrash chucked his chin toward Evanthe. “I’ve felt you.”

  Evanthe nodded slowly not sure which way his emotions were readying to toss him.

  “Have you watched me make a fool of myself, watched me look like a fool before my men. Come up short when they needed me to stand strong.”

  “What the—,” it was Shade who was preparing to cuss him out for saying such bullshit, but Dagen shut him up with one air sucking smack on the chest. As far as the six were concerned, neither Shade nor Dagen had a dog in this race. Their sullen glances that chilled the room said as much.

  “I have never seen a fool in you,” Evanthe said coming ever closer. “I watched you accept a son with grace. I watched you listen to him. I’ve watched you stand strong as the family you have known has begun to fall.”

  “Nothing is fucking falling apart. Just another fight,” Thrash snapped holding his hand out. He didn’t want her any closer. Not only would one sound thought be impossible, but the blade was between the pair of them. A blade that made a former dark angel attack before being forced to give the idea a second thought.

  “You know this is not another fight,” Evanthe said serenely. “It is time for change. It is time for what was meant to be to find its way to the light.”

  There was no way for Trash to slice what was going on back home and be okay with it. Talon was his closest friend. Dagen might’ve said he was right as rain, but Thrash would not believe it until he saw it himself. Talon was never more right than he was just before he went back to Reveca each time. Some power Thrash could never put his finger on always turned his head and sent him marching back, bolder than he was when he left any time before. Thrash was waiting on th
is glory to come again.

  Scorning Reveca for her ways and unnerving choices as of late was all part of the flow Thrash had endured for eras. She’d fucked up too many times for him to find an unforgivable act. Crazy she was, lacking loyalty she wasn’t. Thrash honored loyalty. The other shit with Scorpio; Thrash had lived through it before.

  “Not for the change I see in your eyes, you’re looking more like your twin than ever before.” He sneered. “A wicked illusion...”

  Agatha still lingering in the corner huffed her way through the six, leaned down and scooped up the knife and shoved it toward Evanthe like it was nothing more than another cooking utensil then marched right up to Thrash.

  Shade knew shit had just gotten real when he saw fear, a never before seen aspect, hit Thrash’s stare. Despite Dagen’s silent protest, Shade started to advance.

  Agatha paid no mind to anyone but Thrash as she turned his chin from side to side taking in the little nicks of life that had made their mark before immortality set it. As if he were only a wayward child she dropped his chin then lifted his arm and scraped her nail down the patch of hair and grinned when she felt the raised scar only an inch long under the pit of his arm. “There, now I know you’re not a bloody illusion. Nearly took your arm off at five climbing a tree I’d warned you about, didn’t ya? Had to stitch you myself because you broke the good doctor’s nose. You begged me not to tell your father that a single tear fell. I kept my word.”

  Thrash’s pale color turned green as his mind cartwheeled back into his childhood. The fear he had for his father then was so strong that Thrash felt it as he stood there, a male that had proven his bravery far beyond any male before him.

  “These are your boys. I raised them myself. This is your woman. I kept after her too, held her as she cried over you every time that vile brother of hers caused you to forget all that was built. All of us have waited for this day. You being high and lit with spirits was not in the fantasy. Sober the hell up. Pick up your weapon and start your war of retribution.”

  The tension in the room was so thick the sharpest blade in the universe wouldn’t have a hope of cutting through.

  Thrash pushed away his boyish emotions and donned an expression Agatha recognized, one of a man who had been pushed too far. The way all the males in her life liked to live.

  Thrash put his hands on his mother’s shoulders. He paused for the slightest of seconds feeling how warm and real she was, then briskly plucked her up and set her down at his side as he took a bold step toward Evanthe.

  “How many times, Evanthe? How many fucking times have I asked for your permission to slay Zale? Thousands. You never gave a single nod of approval. Then what do you do? You know he’s up to the same shit he is always fucking with, instead of telling me, or hey, your fucking coven! You wait until the last second and vanish into a book!” He tossed a cursory glance around the room as if to say ‘some fucking novel you got going here.’ “I was left there trying to fight through the shit Blackwater dished up, taking every scrap of info Bastion gave me, and did my damnedest to make sense of it.” He sneered. “When I watched Cashton take Zale down I felt my gut rip in two. How the fuck was I ever going to explain it to you? Then it went away. When it did, I knew nothing was over. There were no winners, only a fucking reset of the board.” He pulled his shoulders back. “You have taken me from you. You have taken my sons from me. What vengeance have you poisoned my family into believing I must take? What am I to do now for you my precious royal?”

  Evanthe’s hands shook as she reached the blade toward him. “Release. Give these souls a way home.”

  Thrash’s angry expression turned to stone. Give what a what? He could handle just about anything but the idea of trapped souls. Which is exactly why knowing Evanthe was trapped anywhere over the last months had all but flipped his crazy switch. Growing up in a family home rich in raw emotions from generations long since passed had given Thrash respect for haunts in general. The kind of respect where he went about his way and the haunts went their way.

  One glance to his mother brought back every fearful night of his childhood that had landed him in her bed when he woke with a troubled spirit hovering over him.

  “Speak clearly woman,” Thrash said reaching to run his hand down his face. Whatever buzz he had was long gone.

  “The souls struck are here,” Evanthe said glancing to the blade, each word dripping in sorrow. “You felt them. You tried to give them peace.”

  Thrash swayed his head in denial. It was a weak protest, one Shade and Dagen saw right through. Thrash could and would face any punishment coming his way for the treason he committed long ago. For stealing this weapon from Reveca, he’d even bare the shame that would come with it. However, admitting to anyone, most importantly himself, that the knife had stirred him on every level until the point he knew either it or him had to go overboard was passed his limits.

  “You know the souls are there,” Evanthe said in a lower tone, recognizing the boy she had fallen for long ago shakily looking back at her from deep inside his eyes.

  What did Thrash know? He knew he was there when Reveca made the blade. He knew a cold sickness came over him as it was crafted then magic was poured into it. She’d said it was so they were all protected from the ‘misgivings’ of magic. Her words were commanding and protective, in some way he was sure Reveca believed every one of them at the time.

  The reality was she had created a weapon that could kill Thrash, the brethren he had claimed as his new family. When he brought these concerns to Talon, he simply said, “It can kill her too.” Thrash never questioned Talon’s certainty, maybe he should have. There was something in his dark stare that had reassured Thrash, something Thrash was hoping the coven had told him. Back then Jamison and Saige were never far.

  All was well for a while, the blade was buried, and life went on. Then Talon recovered the fucker. Thrash did fight him on this choice, but came up short when well-laid facts that Reveca had crossed the point of sanity were laid before him.

  The first immortals Talon and the others laid down as they made their way back to Reveca and Zale were not done with the blade, the Rogues were imprisoned with a magic Talon had come across, then passed over to Jamison’s men. Talon wanted the first kill with the blade to be Zale. He never had his chance. Talon and the others had put on a gory show for the crowds, for Reveca who was watching from afar, then Scorpio was brought out, his attack on Zale changed the course of the day, maybe the life of the Sons.

  The damage was done, Reveca was sure the blade she had made long ago was a symbol of how perfect and strong her magic had become. She stole it from Talon and went on a rampage. The bodies Talon and the Sons woke up to, was her way saying she was on their side, saner than ever. To Talon and Thrash, they were an omen, no there was no doubt, the blade could take them all down.

  For days, weeks, seasons on end Reveca never took her hand off the blade. Body by body fell. Some needed to, others needed more grace. It was all wicked, hauntingly so. When they set sail to come to the new world every Zen Thrash had was haunted by the men he had seen slain, Thrash would swear he could smell the blood of all of them, hear their roars, see the mistrust and agony as they died for the second time.

  Talon was haunted too. They never discussed it, but Thrash could see it in his eyes. A wordless glance to where the blade was given to Thrash just before Talon moved Reveca to their chambers, with lust tainted intentions, gave Thrash permission to do what had to be done. The worst of storms came that night, the ship itself was ripped apart. It was the ship that took the blame for the lost blade. Thrash had always believed it was the souls fighting them. Once the blade fell hundreds of feet into the sea the storm halted, the trip was smooth sailing from then on.

  “From the sea to here?” Thrash said pointing out his clarity.

  “The heavens were at war that night. The voyage of the ships had to be sealed in time. The gods knew if they were, the ripple effect would haunt them.” Evanthe glanced to
Shade. “The blade never met the sea. You tossed it to the being you saw in the storm.”

  Thrash swayed his head in denial. Only a fuckin’ fool would give a weapon like that blade to a stranger.

  “He has a way of convincing you he is just,” Evanthe said silently gesturing to Shade.

  “The fuck I do.”

  Evanthe ignored him. “Thrash, the souls are there, and they need to be freed, only you can return this power back to the mortal plane.”

  “The last fucking place this blade needs to be is in the mortal plane!”

  “And they deserve to live in damnation until you see fit to see the obvious? You stopped the bloodshed. You did. But you have to finish the job. Let them go free.”

  Before Thrash could argue much less question what the fuck she meant the entire palace rumbled and growled so furiously that each of them ducked. The screams of Gwinn and Zosime in the distance shrilled through the air. Both Shade and Dagen were gone in a beat. The others followed suit.

  The palace shook harder, growled so deep Shade was expecting demons to jump from the shadows. When he reached the garden, he found Gwinn against the stone wall clinging to Zosime as they both stared in horror.

  The ground of the garden was gone, the only remaining stone was the place Zosime had created her spell, and it was spinning on a glowing light. Once Shade looked passed the ledge he had stopped short once he saw a raging sea. One by one Thrash, Evanthe, the six sons, then Agatha plowed into the room, each of them did as Shade and Dagen had done and pressed themselves against the wall.

  Seeing those six that had grown up here nearly turn white with astonishment was not helping Shade calm the fuck down. The question, if this was normal, was quickly squashed.

  “Where is he!” Thrash yelled into the room.

  Gwinn pointed across the room on the opposite ledge. Bastion was lacking his cocky expression. There was too much awe to allow any other emotion as he stared down at the sea that was spinning and glowing all at once as the world roared.