“Meanwhile, these people are out there, stealing energy from supernaturals and turning it into a drug.”
“Then figure out what you can from here.” Leo started coughing, and a cold wash ran through me, reminding me that he was still very much injured. It was time to back down and let him rest. There was nothing we’d be able to do tonight anyway.
A knock at the door startled us both. “That’s probably Dante and the Keeper,” I said.
“I don’t want to talk to anyone else right now,” Leo said.
I nodded. “Get some rest, then.”
“You too. It’s been a long night for all of us.”
I turned around and headed for the door, opening it just far enough for me to slide through the gap, and then shutting it behind me making it clear Leo didn’t want visitors. I was right, Dante and the Keeper were there, and may have been standing outside the door for at least a couple of minutes.
“How is he?” Dante asked.
“Stable, but he’ll need a lot of time to recover,” I said, “Vikram’s magic wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the deepest of Leo’s wounds.”
Dante shook his head. “I need to talk to him. He can’t keep shutting us out like this and treating us like his support staff.”
“The last thing he needs right now is another lecture. Probably best if no one else goes in to talk to him tonight, let him sleep off the worst of it.”
“Did he say anything about what had happened to him?” the Keeper asked.
“Only that he thinks there could still be something valuable at that warehouse, something the people on the other side of this conflict want to keep protected, or hidden, or both.”
“And he doesn’t know what that thing is?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He didn’t get close enough to anything before he was attacked.”
“The sand snake waits to strike until you’ve gotten too close,” Dante said, “That tells me Leo may have almost found whatever these people were hiding.”
“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about it right now. Leo needs rest, we need to regroup and figure out what we can from here.”
“Doing nothing doesn’t sit right with me.”
“It won’t sit right with the other guys, either, but it’s what Leo thinks is best, and for once I agree with him.”
“Why?”
“Because he was pushed to within an inch of his life, and he’s… scared.”
“You know that?”
“I only saw it for an instant, his emotional state. I almost didn’t register it at first, but talking about it now… I think I saw his fear, and if he’s afraid, then we should all be too, afraid enough to stay away from that warehouse for now, at least.”
“What if the other group figures out how to move whatever it is they can’t move?”
“Then they do, and we’ll just have to figure it out later. Does this mean we’ll be extending our stay here in London?”
“I think so, assuming Madeline is okay with that.”
“She is,” the Keeper said, “In fact, Madeline and I were speaking tonight and… we’re going to be relocating to the Alexandria.”
“We are?” Dante asked, “What about the mansion?”
The Keeper nodded. “Nikolai is making preparations to move all of our belongings here. Once he’s done, he’ll be relocating too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It all boils down to strength in numbers. The Alexandria has numbers, we don’t. Madeline has already agreed to allow us to stay here and integrate ourselves.”
“So, this means we’re moving here… permanently?” I asked.
“That’s right,” the Keeper said, “We aren’t going back to Germany.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Sleep was a check I couldn’t cash that night, but thinking of Leo almost dying like that wasn’t the only thing keeping me up. The thought of not going back to the mansion in Germany wasn’t one I expected to be faced with, but here I was. The Keeper had decided to abandon the mansion and make us all permanent residents of the Alexandria. On the one hand, that looked like the sensible thing to do; we were isolated and alone out there, with no hope of help arriving when we needed it.
On the other hand, I had one thing there which I knew I wouldn’t have in London, and that was privacy.
I was a woman with a harem, each of which were as crazy about me as I was about them. In Germany, it would have been just us. There would have been no one to see, no one to judge. In London, however, I had already come across one person who probably thought we were all liar at best, or thought I was a crazy at worst.
There was also my cat to consider. I didn’t know Nikolai, and he was in charge of making sure all of our belongings reached us in the Alexandria. That meant he would be bringing Morticia over, or at least arranging for her transportation. She was my cat, and I hated not being able to bring her over myself.
When morning light came, I decided to get up and out of bed, get showered, changed, and go for a walk around the Alexandria, which wasn’t nearly as large a structure as the mansion in Germany, but seemed to have way more rooms and corridors packed into it. It was like magic. Just when I thought I had reached the end of one hall, it branched into another, equally long hall with just as many rooms and doors along it as the one I had just been down, leaving me wondering if these corridors were real, or if I was stuck in some kind of infinite loop.
Eventually I arrived in the familiar foyer, seeing no one around, but faintly detecting the salty scent of freshly cooked bacon in the air.
“Hello, Lilith,” Madeline’s voice startled me, causing my hackles to rise.
I turned to look at her, smiled. “Hello, Madeline,” I said.
“Taking a self-guided tour?”
“Yeah, figured I’d get to know the place since we’re going to be staying a while. Only this thing is like Winchester Mystery house, I can never figure out—”
“Where one corridor ends and another begins? It isn’t magic, just clever architecture… and a maybe a little magic.” She tapped her nose and smirked.
“That… yeah, that would explain it.”
Madeline’s smirk transformed into a smile. “How about we walk and talk? I was meaning to have a chat with you anyway.”
“Sure, there’s time before breakfast, right?”
“Yes, we have time.”
Madeline gestured into the lounge and I followed her through, only we didn’t linger in the lounge; we went through another door which led into yet another corridor, with external windows on one side and doors along the other.
“I want to thank you for your quick reactions last night,” Madeline said, “If you and Aiden hadn’t been as fast as you had been in getting help, we may have lost Leo.”
“You’re both welcome, but as I’ve said to Leo, he needs to stop acting like he’s a lone ranger.”
“Yes, he can be something of a loner, can’t he? That’s just Leo.”
I paused, hackles rising as my supernatural senses began to tickle. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Madeline nodded. “Ask ahead.”
“Do you and Leo have… history?”
She turned her head to look at me as we walked, side by side. “Why do you ask?”
“I like to think I have a knack for this kind of thing.”
“Is that one of your succubus traits?”
“No, that’s a Lilith trait.”
A soft sigh escaped her lips. “We have history,” she said, “But that’s all it is.”
“I was right?”
“You were.”
“I had a feeling that you might, ever since I… well, ever since I saw you both talking the other night.”
“Do you mean my reaction last night didn’t give anything away?”
“Actually, it didn’t. You were perfectly collected when I told you what had happened to Leo. Maybe you were too well kept, but I doubt if anyone else would have
noticed.” I paused again. “Seriously, you and Leo? What’s that even like?”
Madeline laughed lightly as we arrived at another door. “He can be a little abrasive, can’t he?”
“A little?”
“I promise to tell you more sometime, but I’m afraid this will have to be a conversation for another day; I came looking for you this morning for a reason.”
“Why’s that?”
“Would you like to meet some of the other mentors?”
“Oh… yeah, I guess I would. That’s what the Keeper said I was coming here for in the first place.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
“So, do we set a meeting or something?”
Madeline pushed open the door in front of us, revealing a room that appeared to be a library. In it were four men, each standing and turning to look at me. I suddenly felt like a newbie performer on stage for the very first time, butterflies doing backflips in the pit of my stomach. Three of the men were older men, while one was young—probably my age, at a guess—, tall with a slim build, short blond hair, and a lazy smile. Easy on the eyes, too.
“You meant right now,” I said to Madeline.
She nodded. “I hope it’s not too sudden.”
Whether it was or it wasn’t I didn’t think made a difference, so I followed Madeline into the room, analyzing the men as I went before Madeline could introduce them. “Lilith, I’d like for you to meet Doctor Robert Trust, one of our mage tutors.”
The older man extended his hand, and I took it and shook. He must have been in his sixties, and he had a great, white beard, but his eyes were blue, sharp, and filled with incisive wisdom—and magic. “Pleasure to meet you, my dear,” he said, his stiff upper lip showing through, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“This is Harold Tung,” Madeline said, moving to the next mentor, “Our resident demon.” He was stout and broad shouldered, his face was round, his cheeks were red, as if he’d just run a half-mile, and his belly bulged substantially, straining the buttons of the waistcoat he was wearing. His teeth, too, were all too large and strangely white.
“Hello, Lilith,” he said, extending a large hand. I took it, and the strength of his grip surprised me. “Delighted to have you with us. How are you finding the school?”
“Thank you, the school is great,” I said, quickly pulling my hand away from his. I didn’t like the feeling I got from him; his foreign, unrecognizable accent may have had something to do with that.
“This is Elroy Castle,” Madeline continued, “One of the most notable warlocks in all of England.”
Elroy was an older man too, about the Keeper’s age, and like the Keeper he had aged like a fine wine. He had dark hair, greying at the sides. When he smiled, lines of age and experience appeared on his face, somehow making him look even handsomer than he already was. He was also a warlock, and I had no idea what that meant, but I was curious to find out.
“A pleasure,” he said, taking my hand with a smile. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time.”
“Really?” I asked, returning the smile.
“Yes, George has told me a lot about you.”
“Has he, now?”
Madeline interrupted to introduce the fourth man in the room. “Finally, this is Thomas Carpenter—Elroy’s former student, and the Alexandria’s recruiter.”
“Oh,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it, “You’re… Dante’s British equivalent, right?”
“His better looking equivalent,” Tom said, smirking.
A slow smile began to spread across my face. Cocky, I thought as I examined him. He was a little taller than me, thin but probably toned underneath that shirt, messy, blond hair that fell above his blue eyes, and a smile that could disarm a bomb with three seconds left on the timer.
“I’ll tell him you said that,” I said.
“Please do,” Tom said, still smirking.
“Alright, now that the introductions are out of the way,” Madeline said, “I know we’re all very interested in learning more about Lilith, but I don’t want to load her with questions. Is that understood?”
“It’s alright,” I said, “I bet you’re all pretty curious to know more about me. I get that. As long as you don’t treat me like a science experiment, we should get along just fine.”
“No one’s going to do that,” Elroy said, “But you’re right, we are all very curious. A succubus? Today? It’s caught us all off guard. We thought your kind to be extinct.”
“Tell you what, I’ll answer a question if you answer a question.”
Elroy looked at his colleagues, who all nodded. “Shoot,” he said.
“So, ever since I awakened, I’ve heard about succubi having gone extinct a century ago, but no one’s told me why, or how, or who the last succubus was.”
“The last serpent,” Robert put in.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s what anyone knew her as. The last serpent, last of her kind.”
“Evidently not the last,” Harold said, his voice thick, and nasal. “We have a serpent standing right in front of us.”
“We do,” Elroy said, “And to answer your question, we’re going to need a cup of tea. The story is long, and unfortunately incomplete.”
“Incomplete?”
“Yes, you see there is no record of the last serpent ever being killed—only that there was one left, and that after she disappeared there were no more.”
“Very sad,” Harold said, “Sad, sad business to watch an entire species die out.”
“Die out?”
“Why, yes, of course… you haven’t read about the curse?”
“Should I have?”
“It isn’t the kind of thing you would have found in a book at your mansion in Germany,” Elroy said, “But we have records of the curse here.”
“What was this curse about?”
“The truth is no one really knows what the curse was or how it was triggered. What is in the records, however, is this; the succubi starved into extinction. One day some succubi woke up and they simply… couldn’t take the sustenance they needed. Soon, none of them could, and then they were gone.”
“But... what about the incubi? There are still incubi around.”
“That’s one of the peculiarities of the curse,” Robert said, “It killed the women, but not the men. Of course, there are far less men in the world now, likely thanks to the curse, but it’s a small victory in the face of what happened.”
“I believe now we get to ask you a question?” Harold said, grinning like a hungry wolf about to chow down on a fallen deer.
“Sure.”
“What can you tell us about your mother?”
“My mother?”
“Yes, yes, your mother. Who was she? What did she do? If she passed you the gene, then she may have been a succubus herself.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Are you sure about that?” Elroy asked.
“I’ve already talked about my mother with Madeline, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a succubus.”
The men exchanged glances, as if privy to some secret I didn’t know about. “I only press the issue because I strongly believe that she was.”
“Well, she wasn’t, and I’m really tired of people asking me about her.”
“Gentlemen,” Madeline said, “I think we should probably have breakfast and continue this conversation at another time. Thomas, would you mind showing Lilith to the eatery?”
“I don’t mind at all,” Thomas said, “I can give you a quick tour of the place too, if you like.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at the mentors who had started quietly mumbling amongst themselves, “I’d like that. It’s what I was doing before Madeline found me anyway.”
Thomas nodded, headed for the door, and opened it. I walked through, throwing one last glance at Madeline over my shoulder as I went, hoping my eyes conveyed the gratitude I felt.
CHAPTER FIVE
&n
bsp; The Alexandria was a much easier place to navigate with a local showing me around. Tom took me to the library, showed me the class rooms where one mentor would tutor many students of the same supernatural lineage, and took me on a tour of the Alexandria’s annex, which was dedicated entirely to science.
One room was an observatory, with high-tech computers purring silently, a glass ceiling, and three massive telescopes poking through it. Another room was warm, and moist, and filled with hydroponics basins in which an abundance of multi-colored flowers and plants bloomed. I stepped inside, fascinated by the almost sound the room gave off, a kind of hum that reminded me of a tropical rainforest, even though I had never been to one before.
“What are all these?” I asked as, aimlessly, I wandered through the greenhouse.
“Experiments,” Tom said, “Some magical, some mundane, all for the betterment of science.”
“What kind of experiments?”
Tom came over to where I stood. In front of me was a small habitat filled with earth. A single purple sprout sat in the center of the basin, flaccid and shy beneath the brilliant light sitting above it. I didn’t know much more about plants than the next guy, but I had never seen a purple sprout before.
“Botany isn’t exactly my thing,” Tom said, “But I know this plant. It doesn’t have a name yet. Robert’s the one growing it. From what I know, he’s trying to make a species of flower which can help reduce a person’s anxiety levels. Instead of taking a pill, a person would just be able to breathe in the flower’s air and feel better.”
My eyes widened. “Wow, that’s cool. I know a ton of people who could do with that; myself included. Does it work?”
“I don’t know. This is the first one of its kind, and it hasn’t bloomed yet.”
“How long before it does?”
“I don’t know; it’s been in that basin for almost two years.”
“Two years? Jesus. I thought I liked sleep.”
Tom laughed. “You didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would be interested in this sort of thing.”
Serpent's Bite: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Last Serpent Book 4) Page 3
