The Magic she had been sending at Amanda faded and dropped, seconds before Amanda’s Aegis would have failed. Amanda dropped to her knees and did her best not to collapse entirely as she looked up to see the familiar silhouette of Yasmin stood on the ridge of the huge rock and working a hideously powerful Magical effect that already had Echo on her knees in the dirt and sand as she tried to defend herself.
For a moment, Amanda sat there in stunned silence, watching as a Nomad fought on the same side of the Arcadians, and not only that but had saved the lives of them too.
She didn’t know how she felt about that and knew that news of this if it got out, could easily be twisted into something less favourable to her and her friends.
She’d wanted to do this herself, to fight and defeat the forces of Mr Black with just her friends and allies, and not need saving by someone more powerful. Not that she wasn’t grateful, after all, she would have lost her life otherwise, but she didn’t like that she needed rescuing.
That said, she had saved the lives of others, including Liz several times now, and Liz had never complained.
She looked over at Liz, who sat in the sand now like Amanda, as Gentle Water and Maria finished off the Magi in short order.
She loved her apprentice and felt so proud of everything she had achieved.
Looking back at Echo, Amanda used some of her Magic to heal herself, to give herself energy, while at the same time she strengthened her shields and pulled in more Essentia for attack.
She stood up, grunting with the effort as her Magic flushed her system of the pain and exhaustion, and walked towards Echo. With a large and powerful working of Magic, Amanda blew Echo’s Aegis away. At the same moment, as Yasmin stopped her Magical effect, Amanda threw Echo the ten meters into the rock wall, close to the door that Mr Black stood inside of. The throw knocked her out cold, so Amanda took the opportunity to reach into her mind and make sure she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
Behind her, her friends were making short work of the remaining forces of Mr Black, so Amanda turned to face the man himself. He stood within the strange metallic doorway that had been recessed into the rock looking scared and unsure what was about to happen. Amanda walked towards him as he pulled out a Scroll from his pocket and did his best to quickly unravel it. He started to look over the contents of the scroll, searching for something, but she could see that in his panic he struggled to keep his calm and find what he wanted. Amanda reached him, plucked the scroll from his hands and punched the man in his face. Not too hard, just enough to knock him on his ass and make him think twice about what he was up too.
‘Sit down,’ she said as she hit him.
Amanda stood just inside the doorway now and could make out the large metal-walled room within, with its clockwork insides visible through gaps and holes in the metal.
‘Wow, now that’s an awful pretty room you have here,’ she said, marvelling at the space, unsure what it was. She could feel some intense Magic in here, and with a closer look realised that it was some kind of Temporal Magic that emanated from the room. She frowned and looked down at Mr Black, and then at the Warheads that were arrayed about the room. What was this thing, and what on earth had Mr Black been up to? She remembered that Yasmin had said he wanted to try and destroy the Archons, but how did this strange device fit into it.
She knew what she thought it might be, but she couldn’t quite believe it, and everytime the words Time Machine passed through her head, she couldn’t help but feel disbelief.
A woman suddenly popped up from behind one of the Huge Warheads, pointing a gun at Amanda and immediately opened fire. The bullets bounced off her newly refreshed Aegis, clattering to the metal floor of the device until she’d emptied her clip. She’d had her eyes closed for much of her clumsy attack Amanda noticed but opened them now.
Amanda raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Have you quite finished?’ she said.
The woman raised her arms in defeat and dropped the gun. ‘Uh, yes. Sorry,’ she said.
Amanda shook her head.
Standing on the beach, Amanda looked over the various figures sat or laid out before her. Most of the Initiated troops were alive and awake now, nursing injuries or tied and bound, but otherwise they were fine. The Magi and Scions who remained after the fight were all either unconscious or dead, they could not be allowed to wake up lest they cause further issues. Maria stood near them and kept them from waking up.
Amanda had already healed herself, her cuts had disappeared and she felt refreshed and calm once more, although her blood stained top and jeans spoke volumes about the fight she had just been in.
After some discussion, they had chosen to leave the crew on the sub, but send them to sleep for the moment until Amanda and her friends had finished dealing with the situation.
Yasmin and Angel seemed to have disappeared, and no one had seen them since the fight had finished. Amanda felt very grateful towards Yasmin, she had saved her life, again. This behaviour did not fit with the legends of her and seemed to be somewhat out of character. She had no idea why Yasmin did this and wondered if she would ever know.
Dawn had broken about twenty minutes ago, and the heat from the sun already started to beat down on them. Amanda wanted to just lay on the beach and work on her tan, but she had too much to deal with.
Her friends were all healed and in relatively high spirits. Liz had broken her arm during the fight, but it had been fixed very quickly, otherwise there had only been some cuts and bruises, which were easily dealt with.
‘So what are we gonna do with them then?’ Liz asked.
‘I’m still thinking about that,’ Amanda said. ‘I need to have a chat with Mr Black first, though, we have some things to discuss,’ she said.
Liz nodded as Amanda turned and wandered over to Mr Black. He sat on a rock on a cushion made from a few coats and other items of clothing. His personal aid, Roxanne sat next to him and whispered to him as she approached.
‘The red heads coming over again. Looks like she wants to talk to you,’ she said.
Amanda wasn’t meant to hear that, but with her enhanced hearing, she could clearly make it out. She walked up to the old man and sat on a rock opposite looking at him. He looked up at her, a look of defeat and sadness in his eyes, there seemed to be a small hint of tears in there too.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Well, that’s a start I suppose. You have a lot to be sorry for you know,’ Amanda answered.
‘I’m quite aware of that,’ he said, hanging his dead for a moment. ‘I sense you have questions for me.’
‘Indeed I do.’
‘Ask them, I will answer them honestly.’
‘You planned to somehow destroy the Archons? Is that right?’
‘I did. They are a menace and they need to be stopped. I will apologise for a lot of things, but not for wanting to save humanity from the whims of these creatures. My methods might have been…’
‘Fecked up?’ Amanda offered.
‘Questionable,’ he finished. ‘But I still believe that these Archons are dangerous and need to be stopped.’
‘On that point, I agree with you, but sending a bunch of Nukes into the vastness of the Abyss would not do that unless you could somehow place them right where you need them.’
‘Maybe. I still believe I had a chance, though,’ he said.
‘I think we will have to agree to disagree on that point. I’m sure there are other, better ways to achieve your goal. I want it too, the Archons and their Nomads are a scourge on this Earth, the sooner they’re ended, the better. I’d like to work with you on this, but you would need to change your ways,’ Amanda said.
‘We’ll see,’ he answered.
Amanda sighed. ‘Has anybody ever told you that you’re a difficult man?’
‘You wouldn’t be the first,’ he said.
‘I bet,’ she said. ‘Look, ever since meeting you in that Power Plant where you said you were my father…’
‘I am your father.’
‘How can you say that? How can you be sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ he said.
‘Would you care to elaborate?’ she said, feeling a little exasperated by this verbal sparring.
‘Maybe.’
‘Listen gobshite, you’re going to tell me what the bleedin’ hell happened, how you got to be this way, what the hell that metal room is, how you think you’re my father and what you want out of our relationship without me having to chase the answers out of you right now, because believe me you don’t want me to rummage about in that there head of yours at your age,’ she said.
Mr Black didn’t flinch, he just waited for Amanda to finish. She just stared at him then and watched as he lowered his eyes and seemed to think for a moment.
‘It all started twenty years ago. I’m actually only forty years old, despite what this body looks like. Twenty years ago I was a fairly normal young man, part of a wealthy family who were very well connected and I had a great future ahead of me I suppose. But the family had been in service to an ancient and powerful Scion for over a thousand years. We knew nothing else other than to do his bidding, to run his enterprises and to suffer his wrath. Serving Horlack was all we knew.’
‘Horlack?’ Amanda asked, surprised.
‘Yes, you know him?’
‘I have had dealings with him. But that’s not important, please, continue.’
Mr Black nodded. ‘For hundreds of years, my family had been searching for a way out, for a way to release ourselves from the bondage of being Horlacks slaves. Our salvation came in the form of a scroll. The Lazarus Scroll to be precise. After months of planning, my family used the scroll to summon a true God and beg for his mercy and his help. This God, who referred to himself as “Weaver”, agreed to help us, asking us to choose one amongst the family to complete the mission and to reconvene on this Tropical Island that my family owned. My family chose me, and I felt elated that I would be the one to free our family from slavery. The night before the trip to the atoll, I celebrated, and paid a visit to a Massage Parlour, where I spent a couple of hours with an angel who called herself Sofia.’
Mr Black looked up and gazed into Amanda’s eyes. ‘She looked just like you. She had the same hair, identical features, I could swear that it was you, but there’s something different that I can’t put my finger on.’
Mr Black looked up to the sky and sighed. ‘That night, it felt like more than just sex, it felt, transcendent, like nothing I have ever felt before. It’s difficult to explain, other than to say nothing could ever feel like that again. Later, on the trip to the atoll on the sea plane, I couldn’t help but think something more than just sex had happened that night. Something wonderful, but, I would not be sure until twenty years later,’ he said, and looked up at Amanda, smiling.
‘Continue,’ she said.
‘The next day, on the Island, in a cave that had been hollowed into this rock,’ he said, gesturing to the door of the strange device, ‘we enacted the ritual once more, summoning the one known as Weaver. He agreed to uphold his end of the deal, and around us, in that cave, the Weaver created the device. You may have already guessed its purpose, most Magi can after walking in there for the first time. It’s a Time Travel device. He told us that the device would send one person, me, back in time to the day before Horlack first met our family, and through the use of a certain passage within the Lazarus Scroll, Horlack would be forced to miss the meeting with my family. The Weaver warned the family elders that there would be consequences, but they chose to go through with it anyway, believing the risk would be worth it.’
Mr Black took a breath, he looked slightly upset, and there were tears in his eyes again. Amanda waited, feeling a little unsure how to take the story, it sounded crazy, even for a Magi. But she had been watching him with her Magical sight, and he’d been speaking the truth, as far as he knew it. With his emotions under control once more, he took another breath before continuing.
‘The device was turned on, and I stepped through the Portal it created, appearing in a forest somewhere, England or Scotland maybe? I could never be sure. Before me, through the trees, I could make out a fight, Horlack and some soldiers in armour were fighting other soldiers and had basically won. They were moving about the clearing and killing any left alive. I took out the Scroll and read the passage I had been directed too. Green mist swirled about Horlack and the men. The Soldiers all seemed to choke to death, while wounds appeared all over Horlack, badly wounding him. My work done, I returned through the Portal and appeared back in that room. But, apart from me and the Weaver, it was empty. I felt suddenly very weak and filled with aches and pains and I could see the backs of my hands looked old and frail. I asked the Weaver for an explanation, but I did not like the answer. He had said there would be consequences, and he had not lied. My family had not met with Horlack that fateful day, but had lived on, and died out during the Black Death. My parents, their parents and so on back through the ages had never existed. My actions, according to the Weaver, had split the timeline, creating a new timeline where my family had died out. The Weaver had also aged me fifty years. At the time, I had raged and shouted, angry at the price we had paid, but the Weaver simply disappeared. That was nearly twenty-two years ago. My family had gone, but it turned out that the Weaver had brought some things over to this timeline, including the Yachts that still sat anchored off of the island. I kept one, sold the rest and started to build my empire. In this time, I had never existed, there was no record of me anywhere, I was a ghost. I used that to my advantage. Nine months later I heard of the disaster at Tarut, the earthquake there and the reports of the red haired angel that had saved the lives on hundreds of people, and I knew it had been Sofia, your mother. More recently I heard a more personal account of a man who had met Sofia earlier that day on Tarut and helped her give birth to a baby girl. I believe that baby was you, Amanda. The timeline fits both with my night with Sofia, and with your birth.’
Amanda had heard of the disaster at Tarut, only briefly though, in passing somewhere. She couldn’t remember where now, but she would be sure to look up the stories once she was home. More importantly, she had a name for her mother now. Sofia. Her mother had been called Sofia, and it sounded like she had been a Magus like her. She felt elated and yet had only more questions.
‘So, you don’t know why she gave me up? Why I grew up in an orphanage?’ she asked.
Mr Black shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, no, I have no idea. I’d like to know that myself.’
‘You said you heard of a report by someone who met Sofia recently. Who made that report?’
‘My aids had found it on the Dark Web, made by someone going by the name of “Edge”. I wasn’t able to track him down, and I had more pressing matters anyway,’ he said, indicating the Nukes that now sat on the Beach a short distance away.
Amanda looked over to the Warheads. ‘So you never tried to contact the Weaver again, or go back through the Device and undo what you did?’
‘I vowed to never again use that machine, and kept the key to it hidden,’ he said, holding up a curious silver key on a chain around his neck. ‘As for the Weaver, sure, I tried to summon him again, but it never worked. After I lost the Scroll that became impossible anyway.’
‘You lost it?’ she said, holding her hand out for the key at the same time. Mr Black took the key from around his neck and passed it to Amanda. She looked at it, before placing it in her pocket.
‘The Scroll seems to have a life of its own, appearing where it needs to be all by itself. One day it was in my safe, the next day it had gone, and no one had been in the room, let alone the safe in between. Like I said, life of its own.’
Amanda put her hand to her back pocket, making sure the Scroll had not vanished, it hadn’t, for now at least.
‘So why do you want to destroy the Archons?’ she asked.
‘Like the rest of my family, I hated being under the control of the Scion Horlack. We knew a good a
mount about the Supernatural world already, and after the Time Travel, I started to recruit Magi and Scions to my cause, wanting to save others from the life I had lived. Naturally, I discovered more about the Archons and started to see their influence everywhere. They direct and shape this world of ours even now, corrupting it and those who live in it every day. I will not stand by and let that happen while I have the power to do something.’
‘A noble goal, even if your methods leave something to be desired,’ she said as she stood up. She looked down at Echo, unconscious a few feet away. ‘And her, is she really my sister?’
‘Echo is my adoptive daughter, I discovered her at the age of four, living as a dangerous curiosity in a government care home that basically had locked her away. Already a child prodigy and a Magus, I took her in and raised her as my own.’
‘She’s very powerful.’
‘She’s been everything to me, and I love her dearly, although, I think she’s a little jealous of you.’
‘Understandable to be sure,’ Amanda said.
‘Will I see you again, after today? I’d… I’d like to get to know you a little better. You are my daughter after all.’
Amanda looked down at him and at Echo. She’d heard of dysfunctional families before, but this felt like one step beyond. A time travelling prematurely aged father and a psycho sister didn’t sound like happy fun times to her. But, they were her only link to her past and her mother. She would need time to think, she couldn’t make a choice like that now.
‘I need time,’ she said.
‘Of course you do. I understand. Take as much time as you need. I have a card in my top pocket, take it, call me sometime.’
Amanda reached down and pulled the business card from his jacket pocket. It only had the word Black and a phone number just beneath printed on it. She stuffed it in her back pocket and turned away, leaving Mr Black where he sat. She had a lot to think about.
Angel stood on top of the submarine just behind the Conning Tower and hidden from the beach. She leant up against the tower, playing with a lock of hair that had come loose during the fighting and waited. Angel felt bored, she had been watching events unfold for nearly an hour now and after the excitement of the fight, she wanted to just get on and finish this.
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