by Martha Carr
“Then we stop him.”
“If we can, son. And it better be before the humans find out. That should not be their introduction to magic.”
Chapter Sixteen
Leira took in the smell of lilacs as she hugged Mara and felt herself relax even further.
“I tell you what, Leira, if I ever get to a place where it’s giving me the willies at night, I’ll speak up. But, till then, no one else needs to bear those memories too.”
“I don’t know. There’s been more than a few people who keep telling me this is the point of being here. Working together and sharing crap.”
“Spoken like a real Berens woman.”
Leira’s phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket. “Forgot I had this with me. Damn vineyards didn’t get any reception and I’m pretty sure one of the spells the Gardener put on the sanctuary was a ban on all technology. Holy crap, I have nine missed calls from Turner Underwood. Mind if we catch up more later?”
“Go be a super hero.” Mara rubbed Yumfuck’s head as he trilled. “You did good today, my friend. I’m proud of you.”
“I don’t have my car here. Fuck, he’s calling again.”
“One more portal, on me. Go, I need to change and stuff this outfit somewhere before your mother turns up. She’s a pretty good detective too, you know.” Mara formed a ball of light, singing into it and pulling it apart.
“Thanks for showing up, Nana.”
“Always and forever, Leira.”
Chapter Seventeen
Leira stepped onto the thick lawn of Turner’s estate by Lake Anna and looked around for him but no one was outside. I’m here, she texted. “Go play.” She held out her hand for the troll as he hopped off her shoulder into her hand and she put him on the ground. “You more than earned it.” He ran to the wide leaves of the nearby bushes, rolling in the dirt.
The moon shone over the lake as Leira watched a kayaker slowly row, stretching back and forth.
“There you are.” Turner appeared at the side of the house, waving his arm frantically, tapping his cane with his other hand hard against the ground. His mouth was pressed into a thin, agitated line. Leira took one last look at the lake and let out a sigh. “That didn’t last long.” She ran easily to Turner, grateful for the chance to stretch her legs even for the short distance.
“What’s got you all worked up? Too much coffee after five?”
Turner didn’t answer her as he turned his back to her and walked briskly across the patio and into the door.
“No Zen words of wisdom? I could use a few right now. Where are we going in such a hurry? I did not even know you could move this fast.” Leira picked up the pace. “Geez, I don’t think I’ve eaten all day.” She patted her belly, feeling the familiar sting from the scar. “Now, I know I was in it deep. I forgot about food. May have to stop for a pizza. I wonder if Correk’s eaten…” She stopped short at the door to his study, the hunger instantly fading as her mind went momentarily blank and she instinctively pulled in a surge of magic through her feet, her eyes already aglow.
Rhazdon was standing in the study by the window watching the troll play in the moonlight.
“What is that demon bitch from hell doing here? You tried to kill my mother.” Leira formed a fireball and lifted it up to throw, rushing toward Rhazdon, who didn’t resist or put up her hands. “And you almost killed Correk.” The image of Correk lying on the ground flashed through her mind. Turner moved to stand in front of Rhazdon. “Get out of the way.” Leira said the words as evenly as she could.
“No… I didn’t bring you to my house to kill her. I could have taken care of that myself quite neatly and kept it to myself. I teach you, remember? Put that thing away. Do it.” His voice turned icy.
Leira looked at what remained of Rhazdon. She was an old woman, hunched over, the skin grey and sagging on her face. The tentacles were writhing on her head even though they were pulled back into a loose ponytail.
Leira closed her hand around the fireball, not taking her eyes off Rhazdon. “You caused so much pain for so many people. Killed friends of mine. You deserve to die.”
“I would not argue that point,” said Rhazdon. “Lucky for you, I don’t have a lot of time left either way. The spell to keep me youthful doesn’t work like it used to and I’m rapidly catching up to my real age, which means soon I will be dust.”
“Not soon enough.”
Turner tapped his cane angrily against the floor. “Not in my house! I’ve trained you better than this. You have to mix the heart with your head or you will never get close to your real potential.” His voice grew louder. “We are entering into tricky times and can’t afford to be foolish. You will listen, Leira Berens.”
“You trust her? After everything she’s done…” Leira shook her head angrily. “No… not this time.”
“I trust what she has to say, nothing more and you need to hear it.”
Rhazdon sat down on the small couch. “My information is easily checked. I came to tell you how to defeat the shifters.”
“You…made…that…beast.” Leira struggled to get out the words, choking them out.
“I did all of that, it’s true. I cursed him to hell and didn’t think of Lucius again.” Rhazdon looked up at Leira, resigned. “I wanted to be someone, someone unique.” She sat up a little taller, staring into the distance. “After all, I was an Atlantean.” A deep sigh escaped her as she shook her head, the tentacles shifting. “I let it all go too far.” She looked up at Leira. “Dark magic poisons everything it touches eventually. I thought because I could still manipulate it, I was the exception, but my arrogance grew into cruelty and was the consequence of my hubris. I was a fool.”
“We need her help. Remember these words, Leira. Nature does not know right or wrong, only consequence. You want to judge her for what she’s done and there are scores who would agree with you. Very few who would see any other path. But if we lose the coming battles because of your need to exact some price, can you live with those consequences? I cannot. Let go of the need to change the past. Even my magic can’t accomplish that trick. Let the magic show you how to let go.”
Leira looked at Turner, confused as he urged her to unclench her fists. He put his hand firmly on her shoulder, squeezing hard. “Revenge in the end will cost all of us more than we can afford to pay. I need you to find the better part of yourself and let it lead.”
We aren’t in the justice business. That’s somebody else’s job. We put the pieces together and bring em in. Another Hagan rule. It would have to do. Leira closed her eyes so she couldn’t see Rhazdon. Let it start there. I’ll have to grow into this one.
“It’s like a light switch. You either choose to move on or you don’t.” Turner’s voice floated into her mind overlaying the stream of magic floating through her.
“Have you told her about Tess?” Rhazdon’s voice jarred her back into a different reality.
“Not now…”
Leira’s eyes popped open. “What about Tess?” The anger returned wrapping itself around the energy stream. “Do you mean the seer who’s so famous on Oriceran? Did they find a lost prophecy?” Leira made herself look at Rhazdon. Can’t learn anything if I don’t look at the suspect. Rhazdon quickly looked down at the twisted knuckles of her aging hands in her lap. Leira’s forehead wrinkled as she looked at Turner Underwood. “Ever hear the old saying that an omission is as good as a lie?”
Turner rubbed his weary face with his hands and heaved out a sigh, leaning on his cane. “I have handled this badly. Another sign my days as the Fixer are numbered.” He looked Leira straight in the eye, holding her gaze. “Alright, no excuses, no back story other than your word that what I’m about to tell you goes no further. Your word, first. This is too important.”
“I tell Correk or no deal and I find out what’s going on, on my own. You can count on it.”
“Agreed. Tess the seer is still alive and living in a kemana city under Paris.”
Leira looked c
onfused. “She’s human, that’s not possible.”
“She has the human spark like you do,” said Rhazdon. “The DNA mixes with other DNA and comes out in unpredictable ways like seeing the future, living longer or unheard of magical abilities.”
“No, you don’t talk. Not to me, not yet… or ever. No…” Leira shook her head. “You kept so much from me and you’re my mentor, Turner.”
“I have been keeping Tess’ secret for hundreds of years. Every Fixer makes that promise. Before you ask, no Correk doesn’t know yet. He will not have the pleasure of a smooth transition like I did. Magic is slowly returning to Earth and this time technology is in the way and nothing is routine or predictable.”
“The shifters… that’s your doing. You started this particular string of hell.”
Turner sat down heavily in a chair. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. Rhazdon is not the creator of dark magic, only a grand master at using it. Things happen in layers over time. Shifters were first brought into being so long ago no one can remember how it started. They hide among us on both worlds already and have for years. Many manage to get up, go to work, have families and fit in right under our noses.”
“That’s not what I saw at the vineyard. They looked crazed.”
“That part is my doing.” Rhazdon lifted her chin defiantly.
It reminded Leira of the battle on Lavender Rock. The losses… Larry… Grandmother Willen… There were so many reasons not to trust this woman. A shifter in her own right who took on many forms.
“I combined two very powerful spells to create shifters who found it difficult to think for themselves.” Rhazdon gave an anxious smile. “It seems to have fallen into the wrong hands in my absence.”
“You cursed a Light Elf from the royal court and then topped that off by shoving him into the world in between. You set in motion a plot that killed the Prince.”
“Yes…” Rhazdon bit her lip, choosing her words carefully. “The curse as you call it. It’s why he’s out of control. Lucius always did have a strong mind but he’s fighting the spell and all those years in the void has turned him into something unexpected that draws in the essence of dark magic like metal to a magnet. They seek each other out and it only makes him stronger and yet, adds to his confusion and his rage.”
“I imagine he has a few things to say to you, in particular.”
“I imagine I’m the only thing he really wants in any reality you can conjure so that he can finally absorb me into his revenge.”
Leira finally took her first full assessment of Rhazdon, forcing herself to push whatever anger she was holding out of the way. “You’re hoping he catches you. He’s your ticket out of this world.”
“No… not yet. I have to reverse some of what I’ve done, if I can.” Rhazdon hung her head. “I was wrong to come after you. Let me do some good in the world before I go. Heed my warnings. The darkness that fills his body seeks out energy and since I no longer have much, it wants you. Learn my knowledge while there’s still time. Help the world accept the gates opening.”
Two familiar strands of magic came up through the Earth and entwined themselves around Leira, vibrating as they climbed. Leira smelled lilac in the air and felt the gentle nature of her mother, and the fortitude of her grandmother wrapping around her shoulders. They had felt her pain and come to join her, to remind her of what matters in the end. Leira felt the anger loosen just enough. “You get one chance with me. One narrow chance and only because so much hangs in the balance.”
“Then we had better get started. Removing the darkness from the shifters will not be easy.”
“I take it changing them back to average Joe’s is off the table.”
“That has been tried and usually steals their humanity as well, leaving them as empty shells. The most I can offer is to at least give them back their freedom to choose.”
Leira shifted in her leather jacket. If Nana and Mom can do this… “Okay… I’m listening.”
Chapter Eighteen
Leira listened to as much of Rhazdon’s stories as she could stand, long into the night. She paced the room, taking breaks to run around the estate, digesting as much as she could, only to come back and listen to more. Rhazdon laid out her entire sordid life, trying to leave out some details but Leira pressed her for every corner.
On one of the runs she circled the estate again and again as Turner stood at the window, watching her under the moonlight. They were getting to Rhazdon’s years as the false prophet and Correk’s name came up. Leira bolted for a run leaving Rhazdon in mid-sentence. She lapped the house several times, finally stopping on the back lawn by the lake, leaping over a cement gnome, sweat dripping off the tip of her nose. I still want revenge. Some taste of it.
She pulled out her phone to call Hagan and hash it out with him. He might be able to see it as a case, despite everything but she saw the time, four a.m.
“Hello…”
“Correk? Did I wake you?” She had wanted to wait to tell him. But she knew there was never going to be an easy time. This would wound him deeply. That Rhazdon held the key to anything and they would have to take her help. That was the thing churning inside of Leira. The bitch still had the power to hurt someone Leira cared about and there was nothing she could do to stop it, except tell the truth.
“No…yeah, kind of. I was waiting up, but I must have dozed off. Where are you? Did something happen?”
She heard the concern in his voice followed by a giant yawn and instantly thought of a joke, something to make him laugh, but she bit her lip, hesitating.
“You still there? Hello?”
He should hear it from me. “I’m here at Turner Underwood’s place. He has Rhazdon. She showed up to help.” Her voice cracked in the middle and she pressed her lips together, determined to let Correk talk it out, but instead there was silence.
For once, she broke one of Hagan’s rules and talked first. “Okay, I guess it’s my turn. You still there?” Fuck, caring about someone… She could feel how fast her heart was beating.
Correk let out the breath he was holding, resting his head in his hand. He sat forward on the couch, trying to figure out what to say.
He thought of his days next to the king. Stick to the mission when you don’t know what else to do. “Has she given us anything useful?”
Leira’s eyes were glistening as she looked up at the stars. “All of it. She’s dying and she says she’s trying to make things right before that happens. Something cliche about the error of her ways.”
“You believe her?”
“Not for a minute. But her intel could help us figure out what the hell is going on and how to get ahead of it before there’s some kind of war. I keep picturing shifters running loose, like a bad remake of Werewolf of London but this version would have the army involved. I saw one tear a powerful Witch’s throat out. She didn’t stand a chance. He was enormous and came walking out of the dark mist. Nana showed up at just the right moment… It was bad.”
Silence fell between them and Leira just let it be for a moment. Frogs sang down by the water. “Nana said he was her tormentor in the world in between. That beast or shifter from hell ran the joint.”
“Lucius… You’re talking about Lucius… He was a friend of my father’s. We never knew what happened to him.” Correk was making himself take deep, slow breaths, even if his fist was clenched at his side.
“You know about that…”
“Turner told me that much.” He looked over at the red velvet chair where Leira always dropped her purse and her blue and orange running shoes, her favorites, one on top of the other by the door. “I can do this. I can do this for the greater good.” He pounded his fist on the couch, willing it to be true. “Get what you can out of her. Do something with it that will help as many as possible.”
Leira blurted out the words. “I’ll walk this with you. We’ll face all of this together. I mean…” Her words tripped over each other. Damn, I didn’t know I had this much awkward in
me. Too late now, might as well keep going. “I know we face things together already, but that’s just because you were assigned to watch over me.” Get to the point. “I’ll look out for you… because I want to.”
“Leira… Leira… my assignment ended a long time ago.” He managed to let out a small laugh. “I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because I woke up from almost dying and all I could think of was coming back here to be by you. You can be a little slow on the uptake. You take a fireball to the head?”
She let out a deep breath, relieved. “More like I was standing in the middle of a shifter stampede and lived to tell about it.” She looked back up at the stars, trying to remember the constellations of Oriceran. “I meant what I said, I’ll walk through this with you. May have to be a slow walk, still not the best at the whole feeling thing but I’ll do it. Correk? I wanted to ask her so many questions, to make Rhazdon suffer. But then, I felt my mother’s energy and Nana’s energy and I was wrapped in it and I couldn’t do it. But what she did to you…”
“She didn’t succeed. I’m still here and in one piece. Get what you can out of her and we’ll compare notes. We should tell the Gardener. Perrom thinks he knows more about shifters than he’s telling us. Come home soon. We’ll make a plan.”
“There may not be a fast solution. According to Rhazdon, you have to get close to a shifter to remove the darkness and there’s that whole fangs and claws thing.”
“We’ll get everyone to meet at the sanctuary and work out a plan that can adapt when necessary…”
“Probably daily… I should get back in there and get a little more before I take off. Yumfuck was with me but he took off. Said something about cleaning up the streets.”
