by N. P. Martin
“Not yet, no.” Frank takes a drink from his glass. “What would a feather like that be worth to you, Lucas?”
More than you know, Frank, Lucas thinks. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You’re aware of the power in a single feather, right? I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how useful an item like that could be to a demon such as yourself. I mean, in the right hands, the possibilities could be endless, right? But only in the right hands. You’d have to know how to harness that power, wouldn’t you?”
Lucas listens patiently, then says, “How would you know about the feather?”
“I did my research, or rather a friend of mine did some research. It’s what we do. Anyway, she found out that in order to pull off this ritual to steal souls, you needed an archangel feather, but you already knew that, didn’t you, Lucas?”
Lucas can’t help smiling slightly. “I may have known about the feather, yes, but my first priority is getting this gang stopped.”
“I’d like to believe you, but I don’t.”
“Believe what you want. I want this gang stopped before they cause too much disruption. The feather would just be a nice bonus.” Lucas could care less about the gang and this Krakus demon. All he cares about is getting his hands on that precious feather. After that, he could deal with any miscreants himself without fear of exposure finally.
Frank gets up, refills his glass then sits back down on the couch. He had sex recently. Lucas can smell it on him, which intrigues Lucas that Frank managed to find time in between being beaten up by demons and finding out about the feather. For a Nephilim, Frank is growing on Lucas. Despite the Watcher’s bullish nature, there is a competency about him that Lucas respects. “What’s your interest in the feather? What do you need it for? You seem to be getting along just fine without it.”
“I want the feather for personal reasons,” Lucas says. “Not for any nefarious scheme that you might be thinking of.”
A snort leaves Frank. “What am I supposed to think? You’re a demon.”
“We don’t all want world domination, Frank. Some of us are happy living in peace.” I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, he thinks, and a flash of memory from his time in ancient Egypt flashes across his mind, jarring him for a second, though he doesn’t let it show on his face.
“Whatever the reason, I’m not your fetcher. If I find the feather, it’s going to the Council.”
It was Lucas’ turn to snort. “The Watcher High Council?”
“Well, not the damn city council. Of course the Watcher Council. We have to hand in all artifacts.”
Lucas shakes his head. Hell will freeze over before he lets the feather end up back at the Watcher Facility to be locked in a vault somewhere. “You ever wonder why the Council demands that you hand everything like that in?”
“They lock the shit up,” Frank says. “So demons like you don’t get their hands on it.”
“And what right do they have to do that?”
“Hey, it’s the Council. I don’t make the rules. It’s how it’s always been.”
Lucas leans forward in his seat. “Then ask yourself this, Frank. Where did the feather come from in the first place? Who would most likely be in possession of such a rare item?”
It is pretty obvious to Lucas what is going on. Someone at the Watcher Facility is playing games. The Facility is the reason Lucas came to Mercy City in the first place, because he heard the head of the Watcher High Council had come into possession of an archangel feather. How, Lucas had no idea, because Lucas has spent the last two centuries searching for an archangel feather and has never found one. It was never confirmed to Lucas if the feather actually was locked up in the Facility vaults, at least not until he heard about the gang led by Krakus. And now Frank is confirming it again.
Going by the look on Frank’s face, it has suddenly dawned on him where the feather might have come from. From his own organization. “Shit,” he says.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After his visit from Isis, things changed drastically for Lucas. Where once he was content to rule from the shadows, he was now filled with a massive ambition to step out into the light and rule the entire lands of ancient Egypt. And he didn’t just want to stop there. Like Alexander the Great before him, Lucas desired to conquer everywhere. He wanted to go down in the history texts as the greatest of all rulers, the mightiest of all leaders.
If he was honest with himself, his new desire to be known as a conqueror and leader didn’t just materialize from nothing. Ever since he was a kid, he dreamed one day of sitting on the throne his father occupied, but knew he never would, as he had nine older brothers who would get the throne before him, and that’s even if they managed to outlive his father, who always seemed in abundant good health, even for his advanced age.
At a certain point though, Lucas buried whatever notion he had of one day claiming the throne, admitting to himself that it would never happen. So he turned his attention to other ways to gain power and influence, namely the dark arts he ended up mastering like few ever had.
But when Isis showed up and told him it was possible he could take the throne from his father and rule over the lands, the long buried ambition took the bait and rose up in him once more. According to Isis, if Lucas just handed over his soul to her, his ascension to power would be a foregone conclusion. In return for his soul, Lucas would have the backing of the gods themselves, even more so than his father, the Pharaoh. “You cannot lose, Lucas Rameses,” Isis whispered in his ear after they had finished their lovemaking, and what sweet lovemaking it was. Lucas had never experienced such bliss in his entire life, not with a mortal woman anyway. Afterwards, as he lay on the bed in complete serenity, he felt like a changed man. He felt self-actualized at last, having now become the kind of man that he never even knew he yearned to become until he became it. The kind of man who would rise up and take as much power as he wanted, and oh, there was so much power out there to take.
After a short and painless ritual that involved Lucas signing his name at the bottom of a parchment scroll, his soul belonged to Isis. “It is done,” she said, standing over him as he lay on the floor trying to decide if he felt any different without a soul. So far, he didn’t.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“Now,” Isis said, smiling. “Now you begin to fulfill your destiny, Lucas Rameses.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
It didn’t take long for Lucas to gather up an army big enough to challenge his father, King Rameses II. Even without the backing of the gods, he still would have managed it, given the power and influence he already had at his fingertips.
Then he went to speak to his father.
Lucas hadn’t spoken to his father in over ten years, not since the King banished him from the palace. They met in the King’s private quarters. Two bodyguards stood by the door with swords and long spears. His father sat in a large wooden chair as he drank wine from a gold cup and eyed his son with a modicum of suspicion and barely disguised distaste. The King was too long in the tooth, and too careful, to get misty-eyed over the return of his son. “So what brings you here?” the King asked. “You refused my past invitations. What has changed your mind, my son?”
Lucas stood a few feet from his father, refusing to sit. Despite being nearly sixty years old, Lucas’s father looked good, his dark skin clear and relatively wrinkle free, his musculature still tight under his robes. His dark eyes still held the same look of arrogance that Lucas always remembered, and Lucas promised himself that when he became King, he would not adopt the same arrogant demeanor. “I came to give you a fair warning, father,” Lucas said. He still felt nervous in his fathers presence, despite himself, though he hoped it didn’t show.
“A warning?” The King immediately tensed up as if getting ready admonish Lucas for his arrogance. “What about?”
“I am taking your throne.”
King Rameses II laughed, long and hard. Lucas waited patiently, trying no
t to be rattled by his father’s reaction. When he finally stopped laughing, Lucas’ father shook his head and said, “My son, you have grown more arrogant than I ever thought you would. You used to be the humble one out of all your brothers. What happened to you?”
Lucas gritted his teeth for a moment, then made himself relax. “I don’t expect you to understand. I just expect you to know that your rule is coming to an end, father. I have the backing of the gods themselves. If you surrender now, you will avoid much bloodshed.”
The King’s face darkened. “The gods? What would you know of the gods, you fool? You know nothing!”
“I know more than you think.”
The King stared hard at Lucas for a long time. “No one challenges me in my own palace,” he said. “Not even my son. Guards!”
Within seconds, Lucas was seized upon by the two bodyguards in the room. They took tight grips on both his arms. “You are making a mistake, father.”
The King rose from his chair, drawing himself up to his full height. “You are the one who made a mistake coming here. Your mistake will cost you your life.”
At that moment, Lucas forced his way inside the heads of the two bodyguards through mental will alone, whereupon he turned their brains to mush inside their skulls. Their grip on his arms loosened immediately and the two guards fell dead to the floor. Lucas stood looking at his father, who was appalled but still defiant as he drew his sword and went to attack Lucas. Lucas put out a hand and the King stopped dead in his tracks like he had run into an invisible brick wall.
“What witchery is this?” the King said. “Release me!”
Lucas did not release his father, but instead exerted a slight pressure in the King’s skull, forcing the King to drop his sword and wince with pain. “I could kill you now in an instant,” Lucas said. “But I will not, father. I will allow you to fight me on the battle field so you can die with honor.”
For the first time, Lucas saw fear in his father’s face and he knew then that his father was regretting ever banishing his youngest son from the palace in the first place.
On the eve of the planned battle between him and his father, the King, Lucas was pacing around his sparsely furnished room in the heart of Memphes. In no time at all it seemed, he had managed to organize everything it was going to take to dethrone his father and take over Egypt. On all fronts--militarily, politically, religiously--the walls were closing in on King Rameses II. Tomorrow on the battlefield would be the last turn of the vise that would crush the King for good. It had all been almost too easy to set up, but then Lucas had the backing of higher powers, something he should have been happy about but wasn’t.
A few days after willingly handing over his very soul to Isis, Lucas began to have feelings of doubt and regret over his decision. He felt like he had been played by Isis, for his motivation to become ruler of all was not as strong as it was before. He started to think he had made a mistake, and began to check through his vast store of books to see if there was any way to get his soul back. He spent days searching for a solution to his problem, but it seemed that when you hand over your soul, that was it, there was no getting it back unless the power you gave it to handed it back to you.
Two days before his planned battle with the King, Lucas summoned Isis and told her he no longer wanted to go through with the plan. Isis merely smiled and rubbed herself all over him, instantly melting away any doubt he might have had regarding his destiny as he she put it.
Now the doubt had crept back again, and this time he had no wish to summon Isis for comfort and validation. That wasn’t what he needed. What he needed was his soul back.
But it soon became clear to Lucas that it was far too late to change things, especially when he got a visit from a demon that had the black head of a dog and the body of a human. When Lucas saw the demon, he felt a surge of fear. It wasn’t his first time seeing a demon. In his pursuit of mastery of the dark arts, he had summoned many, even a few high level ones, but always under controlled conditions were they couldn’t hurt him. He had learned his lesson after the incident in his father’s palace long ago.
Now there was a high level demon in the room with him, and he had no means of controlling it. Even the power he had would not be enough against the demon before him. “Why are you here?” Lucas asked the demon.
The demon stood on the edge of the shadows near one wall of the room. It tilted its head slightly as its red eyes gazed upon Lucas. When it spoke, it didn’t do so physically with its large mouth, but psychically, sending its harsh words direct into Lucas’ head. “This is the end of the line for you,” it said. “You are mine now and I am here to collect.”
Confusion added to Lucas’ sense of fear. “What are you talking about?”
The dog-headed demon snarled at Lucas. “Your soul belongs to me now.”
“That’s impossible. I gave my soul to Isis. How…” Lucas trailed off, the gravity of his situation just beginning to sink in, if indeed the demon was telling the truth, which he was sure it was.
“Osirus,” the demon said, letting the name hang inside Lucas’ mind as if it had some heavy significance. Osirus was Isis’ brother, and also her husband. What did he have to do with this?
“I don’t understand.”
The demon barked impatiently. “He did not like the idea of his legacy being overshadowed by yours, Lucas Rameses the Great, as you would no doubt have been known. You also lay with his wife. He was not pleased by that.”
Lucas sat heavily on the edge of the large wooded chair in the center of the room while he struggled to comprehend the sudden drastic shift in his circumstances. How could Isis have let this happen? How could she have let Osirus steal his soul from her? He shook his head. “This cannot be…” he said, although in that moment, he knew it was all true. He also knew this was his punishment for trying to go beyond his station. He had been duped into playing dangerous games with master players, and he had lost. He looked up to see the tall dog-headed demon standing right before him as it looked down at him with burning red eyes.
The demon snarled. “Time to go.”
Lucas wanted to run, to fight, to sit where he was, to do anything that didn’t involve going with the demon in front of him, for he knew with dreadful certainty exactly where the demon was going to take him.
To the Underworld.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shortly after Frank leaves the club, Lucas teleports to Los Angeles to see the Seer. The Seer lives in a three million dollar house in the Hollywood Hills. Lucas hates LA. It reminds him of Hell too much.
“Lucas Rameses.” The Seer, real name Virginia McIntyre, is lying on a sun lounger by the huge pool at the back of her sprawling, whitewashed house. There is hardly a cloud in the blue sky as the sun sits blazing in it, warming the tanned body of the Seer while she lounges relaxing with a cocktail in her hand. “Long time no see. You still on the run, handsome?”
Lucas sits on the edge of the sun lounger next to her, takes in the Seer’s tight, tanned curves, her long black hair spilling down her chest, stopping just short of her ample breasts, which are barely covered by a red bikini top. Virginia McIntyre is in her late forties, but she still looks in her early twenties. One of the benefits of having so much control over her own mind. Slowing the aging process is a handy side benefit of being a Seer, amongst other things. “Virginia,” Lucas smiles. “Looking delectable as always, I see.”
Virginia takes off her thick rimmed sunglasses to reveal her almost pitch black eyes. Lucas can’t help but be transfixed by them, as he always is every time he sees her. “You should know, Lucas.” She gives him a naughty smile and then laughs. “Relax. I don’t expect you to fuck me again.”
“I’m sorry to hear to that.”
“I’ll bet you are.” She rubs the rim of her cocktail glass over her bare chest, a tiny amount of the liquid inside spilling out and running down between her breasts. “Of course, that all depends on what you want. Some things can only be paid for in one way.
”
Virginia McIntyre is a rare kind of human. She is one born with psychic abilities, but also abilities that go above and beyond being able to bend a spoon with her mind or read the occasional thought in some else’s head. Virginia is part of a legacy that stretches back centuries before even Lucas was born. Someone with her gifts only pops up once in a lifetime. No one knows who the next one is going to be until they are born and their abilities manifest in their first year of life. When that happens, the child Seer is taken from its parents. The parents can either shut up and accept a massive payoff, or they can be killed on the spot. Most take the money. Those who take the money and still cause trouble end up killed anyway. Killed by whom is another matter though. The child Seer is taken away by person or persons unknown. No one but the Seer themselves know what happens to them after that. They reappear in their early teens, seemingly in complete control of the huge amount of power they possess. Some refer to the Seers as God’s proxies on Earth. Many of them exhibit God-like abilities. Some can raise the dead. Others can cause natural disasters just by thinking about it. Still others can manifest whatever they want out of thin air. Most of the Seers become quite humble however, almost like whoever brought them up taught them to be that way. Most live like monks in remote places, content to be on their own, living simply. Only the non-humans know of the Seers existence, and the Seers are often consulted on various matters that always remain strictly private. Seers can’t be bought or bribed, but they are sworn to make themselves available to whoever wants to consult with them. It is their earthly duty to serve the non-humans, good or evil, it doesn’t matter. Seers remain neutral in the grand scheme of things. They are sworn to maintain the confidence of those who consult with them. It’s part of the gig. If they renege on that and break that confidence, they quickly disappear, never to be seen again.
