by Candy Crum
“And you,” Khia said, staring down at Khanae with a smile that she would never forget. “For your crimes against this throne, my throne, you have been found guilty of treason.”
There was a pause as the crowd quieted. She could feel the fear and apprehension of what was about to happen. Everyone seemed to know that whatever happened next would set the tone for Khia’s rule.
They had no idea how right they were.
More than that, she had no idea just how much her next words would plague her future.
“Medjay! I sentence this prisoner to death. Make sure not even Anubis can recognize her.”
Chapter One
Demons had existed almost since the beginning of time, but they weren’t anything like people thought they were. Humans associated Demons with one thing: Hell. They believed they were harbingers of doom sent by Lucifer to do his bidding.
That wasn’t true at all. Like all other species, there were good and bad. What humans called a demigod was actually a Demon. Just as all other supernatural life, they were born in Egypt—what those in the Shadow Realm came to call the Cradle. The gods of old had been careless in getting too close to humans early on, and their coupling created a new race.
Demons came in varied and unique forms. There were god-like beings in human-only form with added physical strength or power, while others could shapeshift. Lastly, there were Succubi and Incubi—better known as sex demons. These creatures would go on to mate with others, and the population grew—though not monumentally so.
There were far fewer Demons in the world than Vampires, although Immortals were the least plentiful. Succubi and Incubi were the only Demons who were forced to procreate with humans, and only part of the time did the child turn out to have power. Most of the offspring were perfectly human with no abilities or knowledge of what they were.
Demons alone, however, didn’t make up the Shadow Realm. Before Immortals, Vampires, and Werewolves entered the world, Demons were simply a part of life. They existed among mortals, and most of the time were left unseen and unnoticed. Only those who fed on chaos were discovered, but it never forced the others into hiding.
Once the Immortals, Vampires, and Werewolves arrived, humans became fearful, and that fear made them violent. While Demons were far stronger, humans lived in large tribes that severely outnumbered any other supernatural creature. The Cradle quickly earned the name Shadow Realm from the humans who knew too much.
Soon, the supernatural world adopted the term. Demons knew they could no longer be a part of the waking world, and the others knew it from the start—not that it stopped Khia and the other Immortals from raining terror down on Egypt.
But eventually, even their time came. When humanity’s numbers grew out of control, their violence grew along with it. They had become smart and learned creative ways to kill those living within the shadows. The Immortals were stripped of their throne by the Vampire queen and her incredible army, and all traces of their involvement were compelled away.
Humans quickly forgot about the existence of Shadow Realm creatures as all evidence was destroyed. There were a few who overcame the compulsion and remembered what had happened, but those people were believed to be insane.
Even though humans no longer remembered, their instincts stayed. This caused many problems for witches later on, and many innocent people died in their pursuit to find anything different than them.
Kailah had received one hell of a history lesson, and it wasn’t even the tip of what she would need to learn. She stared at Khanae, who wore a soft smile. The Vampire’s eyes were surprisingly kind, and she reached out a gentle hand to touch Kailah’s.
“I know this is a lot, but you’ll get it,” Khanae said.
“Oh, it’s more than a lot. But you’re right. I feel like I’m going through nursing school all over again. Only, this time, I have to learn how to kill instead of save lives.”
Khanae smiled again. “It seems that way, I’m sure. You have a pure heart, and you planned to spend your life medicating the sick and healing the injured. But try to see it from another perspective. Your powers will allow you to heal injuries. We honestly don’t have a clue what the extent to your spiritual powers are. You might even be able to heal diseases.
“The world is a dark place, and there are many dark creatures living in it who would do harm to others. They would kill them or hurt them in numerous other ways just to get what they want. You can stop that. If Khia has what she wants, she will enslave humanity. It sounds terrible as it is, but I’ve seen it. I can’t allow that to happen again.”
Kailah stood staring into the green eyes of the woman just a few feet away. To look at her, one would assume she was small and weak. She was no more than five feet tall. Her body was well proportioned and strong. Though she was over three thousand years old, she was stylish with her clothing choices—even more so than Kailah sometimes. She looked like a typical twenty-year-old woman, like a stunning college student.
But Kailah knew she was one of the three most powerful women in the world.
With a sigh, Kailah smiled and nodded. “I know. And I promise I’ll do my best to keep that from becoming a reality. I just don’t understand. If you and Khia were so close, what the hell happened to turn her?”
Khanae shrugged. “Deep down, from the bottom of my heart, I believe it was the spirit. She is cold, dark, and evil. She is not the little girl I witnessed come into the world. I remember falling in love with her the moment I saw her fuzzy black hair. She was so intensely perfect. Nothing in the world could compare to the love I had for her in that moment. But there is far more to the story that you haven’t even begun to understand.”
“I want to. I want to know everything.”
Khanae pointed toward the wall that was nothing more than a built-in bookshelf in the family room. “That first shelf there.”
Kailah turned and took a closer look. As she walked closer, she realized the entire first section was nothing but leather-bound books. Each one looked identical to the next except for the numbers on the side.
“Memoirs of an Egyptian Goddess,” Kailah said out loud.
“The boys named the series.”
Kailah looked back over her shoulder with a confused expression. “The boys? As in Aeric and Brett?”
Khanae nodded. “Those were once my journals. I wrote everything down. I never wanted to forget a single thing. Once they decided to come into this world, I made them read everything I’d ever written. I wanted them to know the whole truth before they turned. They loved them so much they encouraged me to rewrite them in book form.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Kailah said, brushing her fingers along the spine of the first one in the series.
“That’s because those are the only copies. I wrote them and published only a single copy. It was more for them than for me. But if you’d like, you’re more than welcome to them. They are all told from my point of view of course, but I was able to gain some insight into Khia with Sayen’s help. With her ability to see into the past. She looked while I read her mind. Sayen was able to offer even more help during the years after she was born and before she left Egypt with me.”
Kailah smiled as she turned and looked back to the books. “These are your history?”
“Every last bit of it. Though, I suspect there will be a few more books to add to the shelves once this is all said and done. You’re free to ask me and anyone else anything you like. But if you want to spend your days training and your evenings reading, that would probably save you some time.”
Kailah nodded and pulled the first book free. She opened it, allowing the pages to brush past her fingers as they flipped past.
“Who is Aneksi?” Kailah asked.
Khanae smiled. “She is very human in those pages, but to Anubis, she was more. She eventually came to be the Wolf queen.”
Kailah’s eyes widened again as she smiled and looked back to the books. “Honestly, I think turning the journals was the best
decision you could have made.”
“Why is that?”
“Because if someone came across them, they don’t read like a diary. They look like ordinary books. This is insane. I have always loved superhero movies, a little bit of sci-fi, fantasy, and the supernatural. I never thought I’d be a part of it, though. The fantasy and supernatural bit—though I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to be part of X-Men. I certainly never thought it was real. Well, minus the spirits part. I’ve seen those all my life, so I knew that wasn’t a joke.”
“You sound almost excited to be a part of this now,” Khanae said.
Kailah laughed. “Not quite. But I love history, and I love to read. This will be the best of both. It’s guaranteed not to be a boring read, that’s for sure.”
It was Khanae’s turn to laugh then. “You have no idea. You’ll find the answers to most of your questions in those pages. But for now, we should get started on everything. You’ve been here for twenty-four hours, and we need to start training you.”
Kailah turned, her expression revealing a bit of guilt. After the fight with Khia, she and the others fled to Louisville where they knew the Immortal queen wouldn’t follow. Once they’d arrived at La Casa Dei Vampiri, she wanted to start training right away.
While the binding spell had been burned away in Kailah’s awakening, the effects still remained. She had never purposely touched her magic, which had made it nearly impossible to do in her first training session.
She was able to create only the weakest of shields—one even Aeric was able to touch without more than feeling a bit of painless heat—but she was weakened almost to the point of passing out.
It seemed her powers were still only useful while scared, so it would take many short training sessions, multiple times a day to get her to a starting position. In other words, she had to train to train.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Kailah said. “I still feel bad. I can’t believe I was so weak.”
“I think you might be judging yourself a bit harshly. You have to remember that you took her on twice yesterday. The first time, you had Taima’s help. The second time was more active. Not to mention the shield Aeric helped you create to protect all of you.”
Kailah rolled her eyes. “I still can’t believe he did that. Granted, I didn’t understand why he grabbed me by the throat, and it scared the hell out of me, but it worked. I know he did it exactly for the reaction it created. Had he not done that, we would have been sitting ducks. But I still could have killed him. He was burned so badly.”
Khanae smiled. “I know you’re still adjusting to all of us—the Vampires, I mean. But you’ll come to see just how gentle and kind the twins are. And that’s not a proud mother who argues her children are perfect when she doesn’t realize they have secrets. That’s coming from a woman who has spent three thousand years learning to read people, but most importantly, we’re linked. I turned them, so I have a close connection to them. I have also been in their heads thousands of times. The compassion they feel for others and the hatred they feel when humans are in pain never cease to warm my heart. They will grow on you. You’ll see.”
After closing the book and putting it back on the shelf, Kailah turned to face Khanae. “I don’t doubt it. All of you seem very kind. In my heart, I can feel it. It’s my messed-up brain that doesn’t want to believe it.”
“That will pass, too. I know, I know. We keep saying that, but it’s true. So why don’t we get started? The sooner you’re in control, the sooner you’ll relax around all of us. Start asking questions. Anything history related you’ll find in the books and can learn by reading. Try to stick to how things work and what you need to know to grow.”
“Do your hearts actually beat? Are you alive or dead? Are zombies a thing?”
Khanae laughed. “Well, I suppose that’s as good a start as any. Yes, they beat, but slowly. We are alive. Rogues are alive, too, though barely. They are in a perpetual state of organ failure. And yes, zombies are a thing.”
Kailah’s eyes widened. “Okay, gonna need you to elaborate on the zombies. The differences between daywalkers and Rogues, too, but definitely the zombies.”
“I’ll say this for sure: I’ve been around for a long time, and still, nothing on this earth freaks me out like when Khia manipulates the dead. It happened a long time ago on a plantation here in the state. Slavery was still alive and thriving, but I did my best to free as many as I could. Unfortunately, my focus had to stick to the Shadow Realm.
“But on that plantation, Khia and I battled. She killed everyone she laid eyes on. Plantation owners, employees, slaves, animals. It didn’t matter who they were. She destroyed them. Once they were dead—meaning their spirits were gone from their bodies—they were hers to control. But instead of using those, because they were too new and would fight her, she used others.
“As an Immortal, you can see and control spirits. The dead who are not collected by Reapers walk around alone. They have no one. When an Immortal comes along, they cling to her. They almost worship her. They will do anything and everything that Immortal asks and will even beg to be used just so they can break from the monotony of eternal solitude.”
Kailah’s brows furrowed. “That’s horrible! I don’t know what’s worse… The fact that there really is a purgatory, and it’s that heartbreaking, or the fact that Immortals use their weaknesses as strength.”
Khanae nodded. “It truly is heartbreaking, but it is what it is. Each person who dies has control over a single element. Earth, wind, fire, or water. If they were particularly feisty in life, they will probably be a fire spirit. Those who are neutral and love life and solitude equally would probably be water spirits, and so on. Immortals have no powers on their own other than controlling spirits. Everything they can do is by channeling the power of a spirit through themselves. The more powerful an Immortal is, the more spirits they can control at once.”
“I could feel so much death around Khia when we fought.” Kailah shivered.
“She has hundreds, sometimes even thousands around her at all times. Sayen isn’t far behind her. Spirits remain unseen until the Immortal calls on them or if they have a warning of some kind. They know the Immortal can destroy them, so they stay out of their way.”
“That’s disgusting.” Kailah grimaced. “The more I learn about what I am, the more I hate it. We basically hold spirits hostage and force them to do our bidding or else. So, let me take a shot in the dark and guess that once a person dies and their body is a shell, an Immortal can shove a subservient spirit inside of it.”
Khanae nodded. “Exactly. The body can’t be dead longer than twelve to twenty-four hours. The fresher, the better. But the body still rapidly decays, even with a spirit inside. A host body can’t survive with an invading spirit in it. It takes an incredibly powerful spell to forge a foreign spirit with a body. It’s called anchoring. In battle, anchoring is impossible. Khia wanted an army. She killed them and brought them back to fight for her. That’s all she needed. Her spirits in physical form to do her bidding.”
“Could you imagine the damage an Immortal could do in traditional war?” Kailah asked.
Khanae only smiled.
“Of course, you can,” Kailah responded to her own question. “You’ve probably seen it.”
“Not in human war, but yes. Humans have been recruited into our wars. You’d think they weren’t useful as weak as they are, but you’d be wrong. Humans have a knack for surviving, and in times of war, they fight for what’s most important. As soon as they fall, Khia would raise them again and demolish her enemies with an undead army. The invention of proper explosives put an end to that.”
Kailah grimaced again as she thought of bodies exploding. “Gross. Okay, so I have power over spirits, but nothing else. I can use individual spirits to call on various elemental powers, but I can use their collective energy—spiritual energy—to heal and create shields and barriers. Yes?”
“You’re learning quickly. I didn’t know h
ow much you learned from yesterday would actually stick since you were so exhausted.”
Kailah shrugged. “Years of trying not to fall asleep in nursing school. You’d be surprised at how much information I can retain while only half awake.”
They both laughed.
“Very well then,” Khanae said. “Daywalkers and Rogues. A daywalker is changed by drinking the blood of a daywalker and having theirs drained in return. They only need to be brought to the edge of death. If they die completely, they will not return. The change is long, taking about twenty-four hours, and it’s also very painful, although not so painful the person can’t sleep through it.
“When they transition, they are still very much alive. Their bodies never died, so their hearts continue to beat and organs continue to work. However, they must live like a human or their bodies begin to fail. Blood is digested directly through the walls of our stomachs. So, we don’t use any other part of our system for blood. If we don’t eat, those other organs atrophy and slowly begin to fail because the body doesn’t receive proper nutrition to keep them going.”
Kailah nodded. “In other words, a daywalker isn’t forever a daywalker. If they do nothing but kill or feed off blood, they will eventually turn into a Rogue.”
“Exactly. Turning a Rogue is different than turning a daywalker, too. A Rogue has poisonous venom. Their bite alone is enough to turn a human into a Rogue Vampire. Unfortunately, a Rogue can never be a daywalker. That is their fate for eternity.
“They are still alive, but only barely. Their organs have failed entirely. The kidneys no longer work, so toxins build up in their body and have made their blood not only toxic, but flammable. Their hearts barely beat and there are no nutrients going through the body, so their skin is very pale and thin. Walking out into the sun is deadly. Their skin is so thin it almost acts like a magnifying glass. The heat basically passes straight through and ignites the blood inside. Their teeth are permanently extended, and their bodies are much cooler than ours.”
