Forged in Blood and Lightning: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Descendants of Thor Trilogy: Book One)

by S. A. Ashdown

  It didn’t mean they’d tell the whole truth either.

  ‘I was given a name. My name is Raphael.’

  ‘So you’re a man?’ So light a tone it was hard to be sure.

  ‘Some call me a boy. I am neither.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come and see for yourself.’

  Climbing would make me vulnerable, but hardened by recent events, I was sure I’d survive any attack from this soft-spoken creature. I hoisted my bulk over the lower branches and dug my shoes into cracks in the bark, buoying my weight with a magical cushion, climbing until I clocked him sitting cross-legged on a thick branch, which partly overhung the meadow.

  ‘Puer Aeternus,’ I whispered, Eternal Boy. The mythological version of Peter Pan, only slightly older. He was exquisite, unearthly in the moonlight: snowy skin offset gold-flecked, amethyst eyes sitting in a pearlescent lake, crowned by feathered lashes. Those lashes, those serene arched brows smudged beneath raven loops cascading over his high forehead, like the masterstroke of a great artist. Slight and pretty, he examined me, his blood-red lips pinched into a bow. When at last he smiled, all baby-white teeth, adorable dimples appeared in his cheeks, rich as Devonshire cream — a half-naked nymphet lived in our redwood.

  ‘And you, are you Thor?’ He blurted a giggle that fell, an awkward thing, onto the branch between us. Was he embarrassed?

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said, smiling to break the ice. A little sparrow hopped out of his lap. It looked at me and hopped back in again. I blinked hard. Did a bird just…?

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Funny,’ I said, ‘I was about to ask you the same thing.’

  ‘This is home.’

  ‘No, it’s mine. Last time I checked this estate belonged to the Clemensens, and I’m one of them.’

  Raphael tilted his head away from me and blushed, a stroke of rouge brightening his cheeks. I spotted his childlike hand resting on the tree, covered in a mini colony of ants. ‘I told you that I am home wherever I am.’ I watched the ants march up his arm and into his hair. That silenced me. Every creature I’d seen treated Raphael like a convenient mobile nest. I didn’t bother asking him if he’d let the horses out; I’d already glanced down to find them craning their necks into the tree. Fact One: Animals like this kid.

  ‘Right… But this is my home too. Not just this tree,’ I said, gesturing to the view of the house, ‘but the whole estate.’

  ‘It is not your home.’ So began the lecture. ‘You are at home when you are here but it’s not yours alone. The earth belongs to everyone and everything equally. Territory is illusion.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

  He shook his head like a breeze shakes a leaf.

  ‘Yet you ask me why I’m here. Gotta question that, if this isn’t your territory either.’

  ‘I have never met a warlock who feels compelled to climb redwoods in the middle of the night.’

  Despite the absurdity of the situation, I snorted a laugh. My amusement turned to concern. ‘What do you know about us?’ I wanted to ask, what do you know about me, but that would draw too much attention to my specific identity, something I’d wised up to since my brush with Lorenzo and Malachi.

  Raphael shrugged and as he did so, a large moth fluttered from his ear and landed on his shoulder. He scratched his earlobe as if he were relieving an itch. ‘Enough,’ he said, ‘for now.’

  ‘Funny, I’m clueless about you.’

  ‘I am nobody.’

  For such an angelic looking kid he sure was a little devil. ‘Stop beating about the bush – or tree – you have a name. That makes you someone. Friend or foe?’

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘So you’re Belgium?’

  He pouted. ‘Yes, I suppose I am neutral territory.’

  ‘I thought you said territory is an illusion?’

  His pout turned into a frown as he crossed his arms. ‘It’s an expression. I am not used to conversing very much. Go to your bed, Clemensen.’

  I pulled myself up to his level. ‘Now you’re sending me to my room? What the fuck?’

  Raphael jerked as if I’d pointed a gun at his head. ‘Please refrain from violent language. It distresses me.’

  A real grimace contorted his elfin features. ‘Sorry.’ I had an idea. ‘Are you a Sarrow?’

  ‘I am not of your uncle’s race.’

  ‘Nor mine?’

  ‘No, please go away now.’ Polite but dismissive – an enigma wrapped in a mystery buried in a chest. I hadn’t the energy to decipher Raphael; I was exhausted and craving oblivion.

  ‘Okay, I’ll go but only because I’m tired.’ I started the descent but stopped. ‘Do you need food? Aren’t you cold?’ I considered the options. ‘I guess if you’re desperate you can use the old cottage. But don’t touch anything.’ I had a stream of questions to ask him but I wasn’t stupid enough to ask Father if Raphael could play sleepover, even if it meant him taking refuge in my mother’s old art studio.

  ‘I require no sustenance.’ He treated me to a small smile. ‘Or shelter.’ We stared at each other like that until he added, ‘Thank you – goodnight.’ He twisted his narrow hips away from me and pretended I had left. I grumbled and climbed down, careful to avoid treading on Hrim’s tail as I stepped onto the grass.

  ‘Come on guys,’ I said, leading them back to their stable. ‘I’ll bring you apples in the morning.’ Even if Raphael left in the interim, I was sure I could locate him again as long as I was Anchored. How far could he go in one night?

  10

  The Guardian

  The Noble Praefecti originates from a land scorched by the sun. Of course, it wasn’t a formal organisation as it is today. Akhenaten the First realised the gods were angry with their children, and tried to release Egypt from the grip of pestilence. But he died before he completed his great work. Some factions resisted, but after almost 2,000 years of struggle, Rome fell, and the persecutions began. A selfless group of praetors and praefects struck away from the crumbling empire, determined to bring order to the Pneuma, and protect them from those that meant them harm. This, Guardian, is your sacred duty.

  —From the Guardian Handbook

  Some kids don’t know how to relax. Menelaus Knight observed the clutch of students packed in around the octagonal table, poring over open textbooks, the pages heavily highlighted to the point of redundancy. No matter how many times he explained revision techniques to his students, they defied him by trying to cram in everything at the last minute.

  He crossed the spherical library to the crescent-shaped platform, bundled with recently marked essays. The table was tucked within an upturned U of book rows – dubbed ‘metaphysics square’ – a notorious hangout for philosophy post-grads who loved to argue in the Socratic fashion.

  All his students, especially the girls, stopped talking and stared up at him in a mixture of awe and dread. The truth was, he thought, as he took the only vacant seat, he didn’t have the time or patience to bury his comments in spoonfuls of sugar. Being a philosophy professor was only his day job, something to keep up appearances, something every Guardian was required to do. Their work at the Praetoriani wasn’t exactly ‘official’.

  He had to admit that his career at Hellingstead University was pretty much the only thing that made him inconspicuous. Other than that, he lived alone, had no family, except Julian, who had adopted him after he’d been abandoned at St. Michael’s Church twenty-seven years ago, when his powers of invisibility manifested. Not to mention how he dwarfed everyone sitting at the table with him.

  He handed over an essay to the blonde girl sitting to his right, her gloss-stained lips puckering in a grimace as she mistook Menelaus’ shudder for an indictment of her academic abilities. Actually, he was brooding about the second most horrific day of his life again, when his gift was stripped from him, a punishment ordered by the magistrates. Don’t think about the pain. The memory made him feel small and worthless. Isobel sealed her own fate.<
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  At least being a professor let him escape that world and earn a different kind of respect. He shuffled through the essays, glad they didn’t have Pneuma/Varmint Justice Division or PVJD stamped over all them like his stationery back at headquarters. No one here knew about that unfortunate incident when he was sixteen, and they didn’t hang the incident over him like the Sword of Damocles. Still, a part of him itched to go for a run and hit the gym to prepare for his next challenging varmint.

  ‘All in all, good work. A few of you have managed to commit the same error, however.’ He proceeded to engage his enraptured students with a mini-lecture on the sins of mixing up empiricism with epistemology and their reliance on waffling. He gave three essay overviews before stopping short, staring at the automatic doors in the far wall. A boy, appearing a little shy of seventeen, walked in. Menelaus’ eyes fixed onto the unforgettable face. It ached to look at that kind of beauty.

  By all that is holy, he hasn’t aged a day in ten years. Despite adhering to the tenets of science rather than religion, Menelaus had never been able to shake off his early days in the Old Vicarage, even though his original foster parents no longer lived there. At some point, St. Michael’s had fallen back into De Laurentis hands.

  Their recent occupation of his once childhood home, however brief, grated on him, even though the PVJD records had proven the vampire family were the rightful owners. For years, the place had sat empty, but Julian had informed him that at least one De Laurentis was reported to be in town.

  The boy halted at the steps, his sparkly, amethyst-gold eyes lowered to the floor. He didn’t say a word, just waited expectantly, his hands clasped in a prayerful plea at his chest. The request was clear.

  Menelaus clocked the clothing, the same old attire: fifties schoolboy shorts, a navy polo shirt, and a sweater tied around his hips. ‘Excuse me,’ Menelaus said, ‘I’ve forgotten a previous engagement. Simon and John, come to my office tomorrow at lunchtime. There are comments in the margins for you to be getting on with.’ Without waiting for a reply, Menelaus left to join the boy, who followed him into the library’s triangular reception area, aka ‘the Hub’.

  It was relatively safe to talk, the hubbub of caffeine-pepped students hammering on keyboards and printers regurgitating inky paper easily camouflaging any conversation. Menelaus opened his mouth then promptly shut it again as computer monitors began to flicker and flash. The photocopier beside them shot out blank pages, buzzing like a demented bee.

  Menelaus stilled as the boy huddled behind him, using him as a bodyguard. The kid had a peculiar effect on technology, so alien to the boy who lived in trees and often slept in ditches.

  ‘What are you doing here, Raphael?’

  ‘Can we go somewhere else?’ Raphael’s eyes darted around the room.

  ‘Sure. Let’s go to my office, it’s across the piazza.’

  The triangular Hub was rounded on each point by three-tiered spherical libraries, which appeared on the outside to be turrets in a castle of glass. Menelaus caught their reflections in its shiny surface, startled by the contrast between him and his companion. A knight escorting a page, wading through a shifting tide of students lazing on the piazza’s steps or visiting the tearooms and shops, making a break for the good weather and absorbing the heat whilst they had the chance. Menelaus glanced up to the brooding clouds on the horizon. Rain wasn’t far away.

  Circling the steps, they entered the courtyard of the U-shaped Humanities building, ducking in the automatic doors on the left, and heading for the top floor. The lift’s harsh lighting and mechanical churning heightened the awkwardness between them. ‘This way,’ said Menelaus. His office was on the dogleg of the U, the windows overlooking the piazza.

  Raphael stood in the corner by the pot plant, ignoring the spare seat at the desk.

  ‘If you won’t sit, neither will I.’ Menelaus folded his arms and perched next to an ordered stack of marking.

  ‘Am I being rude?’ Raphael reached out to caress the long canes of the bamboo, the plant a nod to Julian, who was half-Chinese.

  Menelaus shook his head, his long hair brushing his shoulders. ‘I know how you feel about nature.’

  ‘Do you?’ Raphael’s eyes were large as ten-pence pieces. ‘We haven’t spoken since you were a boy. Now you’re all grown up.’

  Menelaus pinned Raphael with his infamous stare. ‘And you’re exactly the same. Why did you come back? It’s been so long.’

  ‘I have business to attend to.’ Menelaus struggled not to scoff. What kind of business could concern this boy? Raphael stopped brushing the slender bamboo leaves and held his gaze. ‘Vampires haven’t been in Hellingstead since the mid-eighties.’

  ‘But they are now. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He wasn’t surprised. St. Michael’s belonged to the De Laurentis vampires. This news only confirmed Julian’s report. ‘Numbers?’

  ‘Two that I saw.’

  ‘De Laurentis?’

  ‘One I think – Malachi, blood-child of Michele. The other was new. He called him Lorenzo.’

  All the muscles seized in Menelaus’ neck. ‘Lorenzo… Lorenzo Angelucci?’

  Raphael frowned. ‘I don’t know that surname. I can only say he was young and handsome, with grey eyes and dark hair. I was there when he was turned.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Menelaus shuddered and slumped into his lap, supporting his head in his hands. ‘No, no, no! I almost failed him for not submitting his dissertation on time! He was meant to meet me a couple of weeks ago but he never showed. Fuck. I should’ve seen it. What kind of Guardian am I?’ Raphael didn’t answer. Matters of self-esteem weren’t his forte. He watched Menelaus as he bolted upright and swatted at the stack of papers by his hip, scattering them over the floor. Raphael flinched and scuttled farther behind the tree.

  ‘He is your student?’

  ‘I’m his fucking personal tutor.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Raphael giggled.

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  He slipped out from behind the bamboo and approached the door. ‘Sorry. People make me anxious. It’s hard for me to talk. I’m sorry, I need to get outside.’

  Menelaus beat him to the door, covering Raphael’s hand over the knob. ‘Wait,’ he said, breathing down the boy’s neck. He smiled when Raphael turned his head away with a blush. He still found close contact difficult after all this time. ‘Can you do me a favour? I need to deal with this and investigate. Lorenzo knows me so I have to be careful. Usually Guardians are assigned anonymously in these cases, but this is my fuck up, so I’m going to make it up to him.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Raphael gazed longingly at his trapped hand, awaiting its release. The office stifled him; he needed sun-infused air and virgin wind. He craved the company of his animals, not Menelaus.

  ‘Watch him. Follow him. Make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. Can you do that?’

  ‘Okay. Can I go now?’

  ‘Sure,’ he smiled, opening the door. ‘Be careful. I don’t want you on my conscience.’

  Menelaus watched him cross the threshold and pause in the hallway. ‘They can’t harm me, Menelaus. No one can.’

  11

  The Praetoriani

  Lorenzo Angelucci, a vampire. ‘Scrap that,’ Menelaus muttered, lowering his voice when a group of lads in the courtyard stopped to watch him pass. ‘He’s a De Laurentis now.’

  He was hardly older than the undergraduates swarming the campus, congregating in hives around crucial buildings, such as the library, and anywhere that dispensed sugar and caffeine, but he didn’t see any young men and women like him. Some were Pneuma, but the majority were ignorant of the secret world beyond their bubble of drinking, partying, and occasionally doing some work.

  Before this wretched storm, Lorenzo had belonged to this class of harmless and innocent mortals, enjoying the freedom of youth before the crushing world of adult responsibility dealt its blow, keeping them in a daze until retirem
ent.

  Menelaus didn’t have the luxury of time. There was no chance for him to mature in the safety of normal friends and normal worries. He had no family to speak of, except Julian, who was an Overseer anyway. No matter how many exams Menelaus had to sit to achieve his chosen cover story of the academic, his priorities would always be skewed towards Praetoriani business.

  At sixteen, he’d possessed power over so many lives, and it was far too young. Julian had been mistaken in his estimation of his prodigy, equating Menelaus’ early physical development with the emotional intelligence required to be a Guardian.

  That day. That meeting with the magistrates. He chewed it over as he slipped into his 4x4 and navigated his way out of the carpark and headed north, revving his engine in frustration as he got stuck behind a chain of university buses shepherding the weary back to their digs.

  It had been the first of two meetings. Julian had stood beside him, his spine erect, short beard neatly combed, proposing himself as guarantor for Menelaus, so that he could skip the usual two years of apprenticeship and be promoted straight to Excubiae. Julian took too much pride in the promotion, seeing Menelaus’ ascension as a reflection on his family’s honour.

  He glanced in his rear-view mirror before speeding up on the main road and taking the hairpin bend back up towards Oakley Park, leaving it behind him as he headed towards the sea, and up the steep, narrow road that led to the headquarters, buried within a fir forest.

  Why had the magistrates agreed? He didn’t have the authority to access the records to discover the reason why Julian’s request had been approved, and it was pointless even if he could. What would it achieve when the whole Isobel affair had ended so disastrously? The second meeting with the magistrates, well, he swatted the memory away like an insect that might land a painful sting. He wanted to scrub away that day the same way he scrubbed the notes from the blackboards in the lecture theatre, turning sense and logic into an evaporation of fine dust, to be quickly forgotten.