by Sam Cheever
“Shit!”
She nodded, “Yes, demons and gargoyles brought it in unknowingly, in his service.”
“What is this thing exactly?”
She sighed. “It is the core of what magic used to be. It has been horribly twisted. All that is good about magic was wrung from it millennia ago. It is food for the dark mind and poison for all that is good and non-magical.”
I frowned, “So that’s what’s getting the humans all worked up? This...layer...of twisted magic?”
The prophet nodded. “Humans have co-existed with magic as long as its elements, both good and bad, remained at an acceptable level. But this veil of twisted magic grows stronger every day and their tender psyches can’t deal with the levels that are coming.”
“How can we stop it?”
“Prophecy has many forks in this area, with many variables. Many battles will be fought over this. But one thing is clear and constant. The Old Serpent set this plague upon the world of man, he will bring it forth, killing all that is non-magical and good. But he cannot do it alone.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Just tell me whose ass I need to kick.”
Her thin, pink lips bent into a sad smile. “It is not that simple, of course.”
“Of course,” I groused.
The prophet suddenly stiffened and her head dropped back, her eyes closing. Her arms resumed their position across her knees and her palms slid skyward. Her body pulsed under a fine and constant tremor.
Her lips started to move and prophecy emerged.
“The layer cannot fully fall until the circle of twelve is set. One conduit for each month of the human year. These twelve will bear the Serpent’s mark and lend their unique power to the Serpent’s dark plan.
“The Serpent will call his conduits one by one and court them. Some will come easily, willingly, others will try to withstand his will. Whether these will succeed will mean all.
“Once the Serpent has his conduits set, he will bid them join their power. Each will provide a piece of what is needed to draw the veil into its fullest form. Together, these conduits will pull the layer over the Earth, closing out the light of humanity for all time.
“In the void left behind by eradication of the light, darkness will thrive. Those who have forged the mantle of leadership in dark power will lead this new world. They will be nearly omnipotent in their power. Nothing will stop them.”
The words died away and she shuddered. Lowering her head, she focused those scary eyes on me again. “That is the fork that poisons all.”
I felt my stomach drop. “So what you’re telling me is...”
“I speak of the end of the human race and complete rule by the Royal Devil Court. And prophecy tells me that you might be the only one who can stop it.”
“Well fork me,” I murmured.
~SC~
I didn’t talk about what I’d learned when Flick came to get me. I wasn’t ready to discuss my part in it yet. I had a feeling the task before me was the one that would finally be beyond my abilities to accomplish. All my years of preparation and training could not possibly be enough to allow me to fight the Serpent and his diabolical plans and come out ahead. I was just one young halfling. I didn’t even really know how to use my magic properly.
Prophecy sucked.
I checked in at the house when I reached the Phelps fortress but my father hadn’t returned. There was a note from Darma for him on the kitchen table, telling him she’d returned home. I climbed into the booger and set the directional panel for home. On the way I checked in with Emo.
“Hey, boss.” His gorgeous face looked tired but he had good color.
“Hey yourself. How’re you feeling?”
He tried a smile that didn’t quite make it all the way to his eyes. “I’m great. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow.”
I frowned. “Are you sure? You need to get your strength back.”
“I need to get out of this damn bed. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not gonna let you vanquish a demon the first day,” I warned him.
He fake scowled. “Hell. I was really looking forward to that.”
I laughed. “See you tomorrow.”
“Night, boss.”
~SC~
The booger slid out of the sky and hovered over my street, staying just above building level. It was relatively quiet. Most of the activity had left the street. A few small fires still burned here and there and debris from the riot crunched under the feet and blew against members of the NMPD, who’d been called out to collect bodies and get the injured to unplanned care.
A sinking feeling blossomed in my gut as I realized it was only going to get much worse if the twisted veil of magic encompassed the Earth. The human race would quickly find itself in a race between succumbing to its own madness and being consumed by the unchecked evil that would have taken over their world. I couldn’t help wondering where that would leave halflings and other purveyors of light magic. We would be alone in a dark world, knowing that we could only survive as long as we were willing to fight for every breath. Our future was only slightly less bleak than the one the human race faced. It was a scenario that couldn’t happen. I had to stop it.
Somehow.
I punched in the code to open the hoverpark gate and swung around to enter. As the gate slid slowly open my televisual blinked and Darma’s face wavered there. I pounded the instrument panel with my fist and her image sharpened slightly.
My heart stopped in my chest. Her pale face and white-blonde hair were covered in blood.
“Holy shit! Darma. Where are you?”
She didn’t speak. Her lips were moving but nothing was coming out. At first I thought the sound was broken in the booger but then I heard her whimper.
“Darma, tell me where you are.”
“Home.”
“I’ll be there in two minutes.” I was punching Darma’s home location into the booger’s directional panel before her image faded from the screen. I programmed it for minimum time and the booger choked, sputtered and shot straight up into the air, then swung upside down and took off. I rolled it upright and programmed the vehicle for maximum speed.
Darma owned one half of a townhouse building in downtown Angel City. It was a building that had existed since before the great wars and had been meticulously restored to keep it clean and modern. The building, like its neighbors on both sides and down the street, was built of warm, brown stone and decorated with antique paint and wrought iron trimmings.
Darma even had a small yard, with trees and flowers.
I left the booger hovering above the street and ran up the short sidewalk to her front door. The door was open and as I moved closer I could see that it was covered with claw marks and hung off the frame by a single piece of metal.
Blood coated both walls of the hallway as I entered the dimly lighted home. The smell of violent death permeated the space.
Darma was sobbing somewhere inside the house. Following the sound I found her, curled in a fetal position in a back corner of the living room. The room was coated in gore.
I crouched next to her and touched her shoulder.
She jumped, whimpering, and flung a power arrow at me before she realized who I was. Fortunately my reflexes were being fueled by an excess of adrenaline and I managed to dodge the energy.
She started screaming when she saw it was me and I couldn’t get her to stop. I did the only thing I could think of. I wrapped myself around her and held on tight, willing her to calm down. She fought me for a few minutes and then finally subsided.
The screaming turned to frantic sobs. She clutched me with all her strength and tried to burrow into me. I murmured nonsense to her but I wasn’t sure she heard.
After what felt like a really long time the crying started to slow until finally she just shivered against me, hiccupping.
As she relaxed I took inventory of her injuries. She held one arm tightly across her stomach and I could see there was a lot of blood there. One of he
r legs was obviously broken, the skin shredded over her calf. And her head had been bleeding copiously.
I gently probed with my power to assess the extent of the damage and she jerked upright, trying to pull away. “No, it’s okay, Darma. I’m just seeing how badly you’re hurt. Don’t fight me. It’s okay. I promise.”
She swung at my head with her one good arm and I easily caught her wrist. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and badly weakened from blood loss. She wasn’t going to be rational until she was taken care of.
I did the only thing I could think of to do. Pulling my cross out from under my sweater, I placed it against my heart. I thought my father’s name and he appeared almost immediately.
His gentle, pale face quickly took in the horror of that room and my sister’s condition.
“She won’t let me help her,” I told him.
He nodded, reaching down to take my sister’s battered body from me. When Darma saw him she burst into tears again. He hushed her and covered her bloody face with kisses. “Shhh. It’s okay my beautiful girl. I’ll take care of it.”
Before he could blink away with her I grabbed his arm. “I’m coming.”
He nodded and we were immediately locked in time and space.
We landed in Darma’s old room in my father’s house. The room was already filled with celestial attendants.
My father placed Darma in her bed and laid his hands on her shoulders. She started to struggle when he probed her with his power and a young angel beside my father placed her hand across Darma’s eyes. Darma dropped into sleep immediately, her body finally relaxing.
The young angel pulled Darma’s arm away from her torn stomach and I gasped. Something had ripped a huge hole in her stomach. My father focused on the life-threatening wound first and I moved around to grab my sister’s hand while he fought for her life.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I watched my father fight. When he slumped in weariness another angel pulled him aside and took his place.
Two hours later they finally proclaimed her out of danger and I took what felt like the first full breath I’d taken for hours. I helped the angels wash her up and get her into a clean nightgown and then left her in their capable hands to go in search of my father.
He sat on the divan in front of a roaring fire in the living area. His head was in his hands. When he looked up, he looked indescribably weary.
I sat down next to him and laid my head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head but said nothing.
We sat in silence for several moments, too wrapped up in our emotions to speak. Finally I stood. “I don’t know about you but I could use some coffee.”
“Very hot, very black.”
“You got it.”
We moved into the kitchen and I programmed two mugs of coffee into the drink valet. I handed him his and we sat down at the long, wooden table.
“Did she tell you what happened?”
I shook my head and waited. I knew he would have pulled the memories from her mind when he was healing her.
He sighed. “She surprised a demon in her home. She tried not to use her power and he nearly killed her.” His voice cracked under the emotion of almost losing one of his girls.
I leaned into him, offering silent comfort.
He dragged a hand over his cheeks and wiped it on his robes. “Fortunately she vanquished him before he finished her off.” He turned to me with a smile. “She blew him into pieces.”
I grinned. “That’s our girl.”
He nodded, laughing through tears. “Yeah. She has more of her mother in her than she knows.”
I frowned into my coffee. Darma would so not like to hear that. “I saw a prophet tonight.”
He nodded. “I know.” He turned to me. “What did she tell you?”
I hesitated. He looked so tired and emotionally drained. I really didn’t want to dump what I knew on him right at that moment. But he was looking at me and I knew he expected me to tell him.
“The magic veil is growing. It’s going to be invoked fully if the Serpent can call all of his conduits together.”
My father simply nodded. “Then it’s true.”
I frowned. “You already knew?”
He shrugged. “We’ve seen it before.”
I always forgot that he was hundreds of years old. I braced myself to tell him the worst part of it. But the air changed and suddenly Myra was standing there.
I stood up to get her coffee.
She reached for my father and wrapped him in a hug. “Is she all right?”
He nodded. “It was very close. She tried not to use her powers and it nearly killed her.”
Myra took the mug from me and gave me a slight smile. She cast her blue eyes over me. “You’re a mess.”
I looked down. I was covered in Darma’s blood and my clothes were tattered and wrinkled from swimming with the demon. All visible skin was scratched and bruised and my hair was one big tangle at the back of my neck. I still smelled like a sewer from my swim. “It’s been a rough day.”
“I guess.” She gave me a genuine smile tinged with regret. Maybe she missed the excitement of hanging around me and my life. I doubted it.
I leaned down and kissed my father’s cheek. “If you’re sure she’s okay I’ll go home and get cleaned up.”
He nodded, looking up at me. “Get some rest. You look exhausted.”
I pecked Myra on the cheek and she grabbed my hand, looking into my eyes with a sternness that I knew masked her fear. “Take care, child.”
I nodded. “Come by sometime and see me. Flick doesn’t yell or abuse me. I kind of miss that.”
She gave me a look I remembered all too well and I chuckled, glancing at my father. “Do you think you could give me a lift? I’m too tired to try spaceshifting tonight.
He smiled. “Of course.” Then he touched my shoulder and we were off.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Visit to an Old Friend
A friend who lets himself be drawn, into the darkest place,
Might sometimes rue his efforts there and try to save his face.
Emo and I were sitting in my office going over current cases and divvying up the workload. It was taking a while because we were fighting over every case—I refused to let him do anything too strenuous. My televisual bleeped and a face swam online that I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
“Hello Astra.”
“Holy shit!”
Raoul smiled. “Do I look that bad?”
Well yes...he did but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I shook my head. “I’m just surprised to see you. I haven’t spoken to you for a while.”
He nodded, “I’ve been trying to regain my equilibrium...so to speak. It’s been...difficult.”
The last time I’d seen Raoul he’d looked like he was near death. He’d flirted with black magic at least one time too many—never mind that he’d done it to help me—and, as a white witch, it had nearly killed him. “I was worried about you but my father told me to let you be.” I grinned. “He said you’d come back when you could. That you couldn’t live without me.”
Raoul laughed. “I’m sure that’s it. There’s been this giant hole in my life...” He let his voice trail off with a chuckle. “But seriously, Astra...”
I made a face.
“I need to meet with you. We need to talk.”
I glanced at Emo. “Where? When?”
“How about now, at the preserve.”
I blinked. The old preserve was on the edge of the Angel City limits. It consisted of one hundred acres of untouched forest and meadow land where the Angel City coven had somehow wrangled a building and some land and had kept their headquarters for decades. All that ended a couple of months earlier, when they’d joined forces with the dark side in a power grab that had created a mini great war in the preserve. My father and I, along with a cast of friends, acquaintances and the celestial army, had faced down my mother and an angel named Enoch. We’d also fought the co
ven and a bevy of dark celebrants. It had been an ugly battle that had taken its toll on the coven and the preserve and I hadn’t been back there since. I had heard, however, that the coven had disbanded what was left of its membership shortly after the battle.
“The preserve?”
He nodded. “I’ll be in the headquarters building. The door will be open.”
He faded away and I glanced at Emo. He arched an elegant black eyebrow and stood. “Let’s go.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that he had to stay at the office but then I remembered he had the hot, fast air vehicle and I had the slow, ugly air booger. I bent my lips into a devious smile instead. “I’ll let you come if I can fly.”
His golden toned face paled to a weak yellow. Shaking his head, he lifted his hands as if to deflect an attack. “No way, boss.”
I continued smiling.
He scowled. “I mean it, Astra, I’m holding my ground on this one. Nobody drives the Knight but me.”
~SC~
“I really like the way it handles,” I said to Emo, who was glowering at me from the passenger seat, “but the leather’s a little stiff.”
His glare deepened. “I didn’t order the buttery leather option. That costs extra.”
I glanced at him, not sure if he was giving me a hard time or telling the truth. “I like the color.”
He sat up straighter. “You are not getting the same color, Astra.”
I shrugged. “I’ll probably stick with blood red. It suits me better.”
He snorted in agreement.
The Knight’s auto directional system pinged and a sexy female voice told me that we were about to arrive at our destination. I slid a look at Emo and he shrugged, grinning. “You can program a male voice if you want.”
The Knight dropped into a long, approach lane, with overarching trees on both sides. The lane had been cut right through the dense forestry that encompassed about ninety percent of the preserve and it felt like a tunnel through the trees.
The light level dropped from mist-induced murky to near dark. The Knight’s system immediately took note of the change and beams of light emerged from its glossy undercarriage to scour the ground below and the air space around us.
