Blood and Treasure: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Half-Demon Warlock Book 3)

by J. A. Cipriano

  “When she came, it sounded an alarm,” Scott said, his mouth twisted downward as if he was reliving the experience.

  “I remember,” I said, thinking back to the piercing sound which nearly took me to my knees in the restaurant bathroom.

  “There’s protocol,” Scott went on. “You wouldn’t remember. Once the coven found out about Renee, everything changed. They twisted every action to focus on keeping her safe, on helping her-”

  “Reach her full potential. I know,” I interrupted, tired of the sentiment and a little angry that-in my absence- my girlfriend had been treated like a high school science experiment. “Sounds like a pretty big change.”

  “It was,” Scott admitted, a hint of hurt settling between his eyebrows. “It was jarring, especially for those of us who had grown up inside of it. Watching the coven we’d grown up in make a complete about face wasn’t something I ever thought I’d see. Though, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t completely unnecessary.”

  “You mean you’re finally ready to admit how awful those people are?” I asked, arching a brow at my brother.

  “I was ready for that the day they sent you away, baby brother,” he answered, his voice flitting between levity and solemnness. “I might not have been able to do anything about it, but I knew we’d lost our way after we banished one of our own—one who hadn’t done anything wrong other than have the audacity to be born. Luckily, the change helped with that too.”

  I started walking again, and Scott followed me. “You’re talking about Luc?’ I asked.

  “When Renee became the focal point of the coven, she had the power to make some policy changes, shall we say. She learned about Luc and made damn well sure what happened to you would never happen to him. She made him her favorite, showed him a lot of attention and made it clear to anyone who might think of looking at him differently just how pissed she’d be about it.”

  “That’s my girl,” I muttered, though something pulled at me and made me wonder whether she’d still want me now that I came with a readymade family.

  “That’s also your boy, and he’s waiting for you,” Scott said, motioning toward the door at the far end of the room. “If you think you’re up to seeing him, I mean.”

  When I’d come to, Scott made it clear that I shouldn’t see Luc until after I got myself together. He had just watched his home of seven years get ripped down to splinters. The last thing he needed was to see how out of it his dad was on top of it. I was better now though, and I wanted to make sure he was too.

  “Anyway,” Scott continued. “When the Tantibus got here, she started ripping through people. The entire coven was lined up to protect Renee, even the kids. And that monster wasn’t slowing down. It looked like a million different things all at once. It froze people and ripped them in half. We didn’t stand a chance. So I did the only thing I could.” He nodded firmly. “I cast a compass curse.”

  “What?” I said, my body tensing. “A compass curse? You scattered them across the world?”

  “No,” Scott said. “There were too many of them. I couldn’t focus it like that. I did scatter them, Roy, but it wasn’t confined to this plane of existence.”

  The horror of that settled over me quickly, causing my blood to run cold. “Jesus, Scott,” I muttered. “Do you have any idea how many different planes of existence there? They could only survive on maybe one out of ten in the first place.”

  “I know that, Roy!” he shouted. “What was I supposed to do? You might hate them, and you might have every right to. But they’re still people and they deserve better than to be slaughtered like cattle by some nightmare creature. Better one out of ten survive, than they all die here.”

  “How could you even do it by yourself?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the fact that every person I’d known in this coven was gone, perhaps forever. “The sheer energy it would take to perform a compass curse this size should have been enough to kill you.”

  “Because I didn’t do it on my own,” he admitted. “I tapped into all of the energy the Astra coven had to offer. I took it all into myself.”

  My eyes widened. “Scott,” I gasped. “You trapped them without their powers?”

  “I did what I had to,” he answered. “I’m not going to apologize. At least for that.”

  The way the sentence ended pricked at my mind and troubled me. “What does that mean, Scott? What else happened?”

  He blinked hard at me. “It still wasn’t enough power, Roy,” he answered. “I needed more. I needed to tie it into something, into someone.”

  “Scott, what did you do?” I asked.

  “I didn’t mean to, Roy. The last thing I wanted in the world was to put any more weight on that kid’s shoulders. I know he’s going through a lot, and I know he’s having trouble with controlling things, but Renee wasn’t there. She was fighting that thing off, and the only person who was strong enough to hold half the power was-”

  “Don’t say it,” I said, my jaw clenching.

  “I just wanted to save them. I just wanted to make sure something of the coven survives, but he has it now. He has half the power of the entire coven running through his veins.”

  “That’s three hundred witches, Scott,” I said, my high hitting the highest, most angry octave I could reasonably manage. “That’s enough power to split a mountain in two, and you gave it to a twelve-year-old boy who can’t keep his demon side at bay.” I swallowed hard. “He’s emotional, he’s got a chip on his shoulder, and there’s a monster inside of him that’s constantly begging him to set the world on fire. Now you’ve given him a match. I don’t think my father is our biggest problem anymore.”

  26

  I knocked lightly on the door, though I didn’t wait for a response before entering. The room was small and more than a little reminiscent of the standard barracks I grew up in with the Astra coven. Their methods may have progressed in the time I had been away, but their living conditions certainly hadn’t.

  Essie met my eyes the instant I walked through the door. Her face was a blank slate of tight muscles and little expression. I didn’t need to read her face to know what she was thinking though. This was her son too, and unlike me, she had actually raised him. If she was feeling even half the fear and hurt coursing through my body right now, it was a wonder she wasn’t vibrating through the far wall.

  She blinked wordlessly at me as my eyes moved down to Luc. He was sitting on the bed, hunched over with his back facing me. His face was in his hands, an act which did two things to me at the same time. I had been in this exact situation, sitting on a bed much like this one, with my hands cradling my head like that. It made me hurt for myself, but more than that, it made me hurt for my son and for all the years I’d lost with him.

  “Can I come in?” I asked, though in truth I was already walking toward the pair.

  Luc didn’t turn to me, but Essie said “Fine,” very plainly as she sat on a chair across from our son.

  As I rounded the bed, I looked at my son. He looked so much like I had back then, so lost, so hurt and distraught. I ached at the sight of him. I wanted to circumvent what he was about to go through, what I had gone through. But there were other issues on the table, and they needed my focus right now.

  No! I shook my head. This was that damned Tantibus bitch and her meddling. She was making me feel so raw, like all of this was happening to me. I couldn’t be a child now. I needed to help my child.

  “Luc, look at me, son,” I said, keeping my voice as low and even as I could.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said into his palms, struggling through tears. “I don’t know you.”

  My heart broke right then in a different way than I had ever experienced before. I had fought through horrors the likes of which I couldn’t even call to mind without shivering, and I had lost nearly everything and every person in my life. Nothing hurt me like this though, like hearing my son saying I was a stranger to him and knowing it was true.

  My first instinct
was to snap back, to tell him it wasn’t my fault, that I was doing the best I could. Fighting it back, I nodded.

  “I know, so- Luc. I know that, and you’re right. I’d like to change that though. I’d like to get to know you if that’s okay.” I smiled at him even though he wasn’t looking at me.

  “Why?” he asked, anger tempering his sobs and redirecting his purpose. He looked up at me, his jaw clenched together and his eyes glowing red with demon power. “Because you feel bad for bolting? Because you think we need you? We don’t! My mom and I have got along just fine without you, and we don’t need you now!” I shuddered. He was probably right. What good had I done either of them since coming back? Would they even be in this predicament if not for my presence?

  “Lucas!” Essie shouted, leaning forward in her seat. “That’s no way to talk to your father!”

  “He’s not my father!” Luc shouted, looking from his mother to me and back again.

  “He certainly is, Lucas! I was there,” Essie said. She reached out and took his hand, but Luc pulled away. Essie’s eyes darted up to me, and she shook her head. “This isn’t his fault, son. Do you hear me? You’re not some little boy who can’t handle the truth. You’re almost thirteen years old. You’ll be going through your trials soon.”

  “What?” he looked up, his glowing eyes pulsating in a way very familiar to me. “Are you crazy, Mom? There aren’t going to be any trials! There’s not going to be anything! They’re all gone! All my friends, all my family! Everyone is gone, and I sent them away!”

  The anguish in his face moved my hand. I couldn’t help it. My palm settled on his shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me!” he shirked away.

  “I certainly will,” I said, kneeling down and grabbing both his shoulders hard. Turning him toward me, I looked at those red eyes, eyes which looked so much like mine I might as well have been glaring into a mirror. “I will because you’re wrong, son. Not about me not being there. I wasn’t and, no matter who’s to blame for it, the truth won’t change. You’re wrong about being alone and about this being your fault. Your family isn’t gone. We’re right here. Your mother, me, your uncle. We’re all right here for you, and I promise I’m not going to let this take you down.”

  He turned away from me, twisting his neck so far that I was afraid his head was going to pop right off. I didn’t stop though. I needed him to hear this, whether he believed it or not.

  “You’re scared. I get that. You’ve got something inside of you that’s hard to deal with. I’m not going to lie to you, Luc. It’s always going to be something you’ll have to live with. You’re never going to be free.”

  He whimpered, and I tightened my grip on his shoulders. “But you’re not alone, and you can learn to live with this.”

  He whipped his head back toward me so fast that it took me aback a little.

  “And what if I can’t? I’m not you! I can’t do the stuff you can do. I couldn’t before, and now I’ve got all this power running through me.” He started breathing heavy, sniffling and looking up at the ceiling. “It wants to eat. It wants me to go out there and feed it, and the power is just making it worse. It’s just making it harder for me resist.”

  I looked at my son, at the real and familiar fear which tinted his eyes, eyes that looked so much like his mother’s. It sickened me, made me want to fight it. But how do you fight fear, especially when that fear is grounded in reality?

  “Then we’ll fix it,” Essie said from over my shoulder. “We’ll find a spell or build a talisman.”

  “No!” I chided her, not bothering to look back. “There’s no spell. There’s no talisman. There’s no nothing, and lying to the boy won’t help anything. I know that hunger son. I live with it every day. I’ll help you if you let me. I promise you. Just let me.”

  The truth was I had no idea how I was going to help him. I still didn’t have a really great handle on things myself, and now I was going to help a younger boy whose power-up just made him one of the most fearsome creatures on the planet. I would figure it out though. For my son, for his wellbeing, I would make it happen.

  “I can still feel them,” he said, finally looking at me. “All the people Uncle Scott sent away, I can feel them out there. I can hear their voices.”

  “They’ll stop,” I said, blinking back tears and pulling optimism out of my ass. “Just close your eyes really tight and think about something else. Hum a song, call up a nice memory. They’ll stop soon enough.”

  If he could hear the voices of the Astra coven, that meant he was still connected to them. Their pain would be his pain, their loss would be his. On top of everything else, something like that would be unbearable, but he’d have to bear it. He’d have to do what he had to, the same way we all would.

  “And your eyes,” I said, quickly changing the subject. “The same thing goes for them. I used to have the same problem. I’d walk around all day with those glowing eyes.”

  “It’s true,” Essie said from behind me. I could hear the nostalgic smile in her voice. “He used to wear sunglasses inside.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Luc said, sniffling.

  “It’s not one you’ll need,” I answered. “Because I’m here. I’m going to help you, and I’m never going to leave you again. I swear it on my mother’s soul. You didn’t know her. Hell, I didn’t know her, but you should know she’s very important to me, and I wouldn’t say something like that if I didn’t mean it. Do you believe me?” He frowned.

  "I'm sorry to hear of your mother. I understand losing a parent who has been there for you can be a painful experience."

  He shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

  "Ouch," I muttered.

  “But no, I do not believe you. Not really,” he said, shaking his head at me. “I think you’re just lying to try and make me feel better.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “That’s fair. You don’t have to believe me right now. I’ll be right here beside you until you do. First things first though. I want you to take a deep breath. I want you to do the best you can to quiet those voices and tamp down all that extra power as much as you can. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be fun. But it will get easier, and if you let me, I’ll help you keep it all under control.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking the deep breath I’d asked him to before humming a song I’d never heard before. It was soft and delicate, and as soon as he started, Essie joined in. It must have been something she sang to him when he was younger, during the many nights I wasn’t there to see him.

  Anger rushed up inside me, directed at the humming woman at my back. She’d lied to me. She’d hidden the most important thing in my life from me. I should be fuming with anger, but I couldn’t afford it right now. Being mad at Essie would only serve to push Luc away, and if I wanted to help him, I needed to keep him close.

  “Good,” I said as his eyes closed. “When I was young, while I was still learning to control things, I used to think of this really specific memory, and it would always calm me down.” I swallowed hard and called it up again. “There was a lake outside of the old coven house.”

  “I know,” Luc said, nodding his head. “I remember it.”

  “Right.” I smiled. “Well, what you probably didn’t know is that your uncle and I used to sneak out after curfew to go down there. We’d swim until we could see the sun coming up, and then we’d sneak back in before everyone got up. One night though, we weren’t alone. Scott and I were walking toward the lake, and we heard this loud splashing. By the time I got there, the hardheaded girl who was struggling to keep her head above water was practically blue from the cold.”

  “I was not,” Essie said, and again I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “You couldn’t swim?” Luc asked, his eyes still closed.

  “No, she could not,” I answered, smiling myself. “That was the first night I noticed her. I ran into that lake like I was King Arthur or something. I grabbed her up and scooped her out of the water. I even gave her mouth to
mouth.”

  “Which wasn’t necessary, seeing as how I was both conscious and talking,” she added.

  “You can never be too careful.” I grinned. “The point is, I always used that memory because it brought me peace. Even after I left, even after…things ended, I would think of that night, and it would calm the demon inside me. It made me feel better, made me feel like a person, and now it’s even more important to me because I knew what it led to. Your mother was a troublemaker who liked to sneak out and climb into lakes she couldn’t swim out of, and because of that, I have you.”

  Luc smiled. He opened his eyes, and for the first time in I didn’t even know how long, they weren’t red.

  “Stars and mystics,” Essie gasped and rushed passed me, pushing me out of the way as she wrapped Luc in a huge bear hug.

  “What is it?” he asked, still smiling. “Did it work?”

  “It worked,” I said, unable to stop myself from grinning like an idiot. “It really worke-”

  A loud boom sounded from outside the room, and my heart went from overjoyed to completely terrified.

  “What the hell?” I asked, moving toward the door as the realization of what this must be came crashing into the forefront of my mind. “Wait. How long was I asleep?” I spun around, remembering when the Tantibus knocked my ass out. . “What time is it?”

  Essie looked down at her watch. “It’s almost midnight.”

  My face must have grown a ghostly color, because Essie released our son and stood to meet me. “Roy, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”

  “Keep him in this room, Essie,” I said, letting the blue energy of my warlock magic swirl around me. “Whatever you hear, don’t let him out.”

  “Roy,” she said tensely. “What is it?”

  I blinked at her, looking at my son and thinking only of keeping him and the other people I loved safe. “I think we’re out of time.”