by James Somers
Brody appeared in the prison cell block located in the west wing of the royal palace. Fortunately, only the cells themselves were spelled to prevent escapes. He had experienced no difficulty coming into the ward itself.
He had not come in a flaming fire, or by any gaudy manifestation that would announce his presence. Rather, he had appeared as quietly as a ghost. The guards had not reacted, even though Brody was standing in the main hall a mere fifty feet from them.
All four Leprechauns guarding the prison ward were seated in a small kitchen area eating together and talking, paying no attention to the prisoners. Why should it matter? The cells were said to be impregnable. These few prisoners weren’t going anywhere.
Brody heard someone sobbing quietly in the nearest cell to him. Most of the ten foot by ten foot rooms were empty. However, this one was occupied by a young woman.
She noticed him, starting at seeing someone outside her barred door. She started to cry out to him, but Brody placed his index finger to his lips, signaling her to remain quiet. The woman complied, but took on a more hopeful expression now, rising to stand before the door.
Brody motioned for her to wait while he looked into the other cells. She nodded, approaching the bars to peer down the hall where the guards were laughing together over their lunch. Her eyes remained fixed on Brody, not wanting to lose sight of the person who might have come to free her.
The two adjoining cells, for there were none on the opposite wall, were also occupied today. Redclaw sat upon the single size bed, buckling the frame with his hulking form. He appeared to be sulking at the moment. However, a predatory smile flashed when he saw Brody peering at him through the bars.
Brody motioned again for quiet, looking into the cell beyond Redclaw’s. Laish was already standing at the bars, looking quite perturbed. Brody tried to hush him before he spoke, but Laish ignored the gesture.
“It took you long enough,” Laish bellowed impatiently. “Get us out of this confounded prison, immediately!”
Brody cringed. He had hoped to sneak in and sneak out without having to fight the guards. Now there would be little choice.
He looked back to the kitchenette. The guards were already rising to see where the sudden outburst had come from. When they saw Brody standing in the hall before the cells, they cried out for him to stop and surrender.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Brody unleashed Malak-esh again. He forced the mercurial Angel Fire through the prison bars, shattering the strong magical wards. So far, he had not seen anything that Malak-esh could not penetrate.
The guards coming down the hall did not have any weapons. That meant they were spell casters—not uncommon to have in such a place guarding potentially powerful prisoners. One of them hurled lightning down the hall at him.
Brody held up the sword between him and his attacker. The blade absorbed the energy easily. Then he brought the weapon down again upon Redclaw’s door, striking through its wards and the metal bars.
As Brody sidestepped out of the way, Laish caused what was left of his cell door to disintegrate. One moment it was turning bright orange, like iron in a forge, the next it had scattered across the floor as ash. He walked through into the hall as Redclaw also emerged, pushing his way through the cut bars.
“Release the girl also,” Laish commanded. “She’s coming with us.”
The elf wizard shielded them against more lightning hurled down the hallway at them. The spell casters had only come so far. Now they were hold up behind their own wards, attempting to launch attacks from a safe distance.
“Is that the best you can do?” Laish shouted. He sent a ripple through the floor that tossed the Leprechaun guards off balance, tumbling onto their backsides. They scurried about, trying to hide or reestablish their shields as more attacks came from Laish.
He sent a terrible wind down the hall, a hurricane force blast that further sent the guards reeling. Still, one of them managed to sound an alarm. “Oh, great,” Laish said. “They’ll all be coming now.”
“Let them come,” Redclaw said furiously. “Payback time.”
“Not now,” Brody said. He had cut through Anna’s prison bars and was presently extracting her. “We’ve got more urgent matters to attend to.”
A scatter of lightning cascaded along the floor and walls, keeping the guards busy defending themselves. Laish only meant to bother them so that they could do nothing more. None of them wanted to hurt the king’s guards over a misunderstanding—except, perhaps, for Redclaw who might have desired to hurt them just a little.
“What other matters?” Redclaw asked.
“Cole and Sadie and Adolf have been taken prisoner,” Brody replied.
“You know that too?” Redclaw asked. “We only just found out from the girl.”
Brody interjected. “I’ll explain in a moment when we are away.”
Brody energized the sword with his power, using it as a focal point. Swinging the blade, he created a portal in the hallway. “Let’s go,” he called to Laish, who was still doing battle with the guards, holding them back.
The girl went through first then Redclaw. Laish gave up his defense and went through. Brody deflected several blasts of energy, absorbed a few others with Malak-esh, and then went through the portal.
It closed behind him, but not before he changed the construct so that any guards attempting to follow would be diverted to another location. A little trick he had picked up from Laish. The elf wizard had been known to divert unsuspecting visitors, dropping them into the North Atlantic when they attempted to teleport unannounced to his former cottage in the Briar Wood.
Antagonist
Black stood upon the dome of the temple dedicated to the worship of his cherubim masters. A single spire drove high into the air next to him. However, he did not regard it. His attention was focused upon the coliseum not far away and the games currently in progress.
Felix Yusupov had threatened Cole with the lives of his friends in order to gain his support for this war on the humans concocted by the Breed. The cherubim, fools that they were, had supported the idea and were giving them aid. What none of them seemed to realize was that Cole would never lead such a crusade into the human world.
He was loyal to the Almighty. Like so many before him, Cole would rather give his life forfeit than betray his lord. Not to mention, the very real possibility that others would interfere.
It wasn’t exactly that he hated the idea of going to war in the human world. But something had him concerned, and he hadn’t been able to place his finger upon it yet. A foreboding was rising within him.
“Did your masters let you out to play?” Lucifer said behind him.
“I should have known by the chill creeping up my spine that you were near, Lucifer,” Black replied, turning to face him.
Black’s brother was dressed in a finely made dark suit. He went without accessories—a hat and cane—today. He presented as dashing and young despite his ancient age—beautiful in his tarnished way. He did not reveal his wings at the moment.
“Your protégé appears to be doing well in the games,” Lucifer observed. Despite the distance, they could both see everything in sharp detail.
“I trained him well,” Black said. “Uncommon ability in that one, but he served his purpose in my plans already.”
“Why do you stay here?”
“Are you suggesting that Tartarus is a better alternative?”
“Only that I’m surprised you would play the lackey to the cherubim all this time,” Lucifer said. “It’s beneath even you. I certainly never would have done so.”
“I’m merely waiting for the right opportunity to present itself,” Black said. “All things to those who wait.”
Lucifer chuckled to himself. “Well, you had better hurry. Your time is running out faster than you think.”
Black gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to ask. That’s what his brother wanted. But he had to know what he was talking about. “What do you mean by that? The ch
erubim are in no danger. The vampires prepare to go into the mortal world. With the aid of the cherubim they will be victorious.”
“Oh, I heartily agree with your summation, brother,” Lucifer said. “If allowed to venture into the mortal world with the cherubim’s power, they would conquer all. Which is precisely why they will never be allowed to do so.”
That was it. The foreboding that Black had experienced recently. Their certain victory would never be tolerated. Not by Heaven. “The Almighty will intervene,” he whispered.
“Of course, he will,” Lucifer crowed. “I know for certain that it’s already going to happen, and soon from what I can tell. Did you really suppose the Almighty would allow this temple to stand? For the cherubim to do all that they have done on the spiritual plane?”
“How could you possibly know?” Black asked.
“Do I not still have the ability to come before the throne? You know very well that I do. Even the scriptures proclaim as much.”
“But he would not tell you his plans.”
“I have heard the rumblings from Heaven. I have heard what our kind speak about this place and the coming judgment to fall. It is no secret. Why should it be?”
“Because the cherubim, powerful as they are, could do nothing to stop it,” Black said, finishing the thought.
“Precisely,” Lucifer said. “So, what will you do?”
Black glared at him. “Why would you even tell me such things? What good does it do you?”
Lucifer tapped his chin thoughtfully before replying. “I suppose it is this: telling the cherubim will not stop what is coming. There is no escape. And when this place is destroyed the cherubim and you will be consigned to Tartarus. That thought brings me joy. And, even more, allowing you to dwell upon the inevitable seems, to me, even more fulfilling.”
“Sometimes, I wish I could kill you,” Black said with a wan smile.
“I would say the same, but watching you suffer is so much more satisfying,” Lucifer said.
He vanished then, leaving Black alone atop the dome of the cherubim temple. Black turned back toward the arena where Cole and his friend had just beaten a group of minotaur. The young man with him was as amazing a fighter as Cole, even though he wasn’t a vampire.
Given more time, he would have looked into where he had come from, but there was no time for such things. Judgment was coming from on high and he was going to be caught in the crossfire between the cherubim and heavenly wrath. What could he possibly do?
Black had no thought for the cherubim. Ridding himself of them had actually been foremost in his mind these past nine years. The only problem was that he was bound to them. If they were cast into Tartarus, then he would unwillingly follow.
Lucifer had not mentioned how long they might have. Most likely the angel did not know. Still, how long could it be, if there was such talk among those angels still residing in the heavenly realm? The Almighty’s indignation would not last long before he acted.
Oh, matters of prophecy might be scheduled on a long term basis, but this wasn’t a matter of biblical writings. This would be unknown to humans, an occurrence outside their realm. And it would certainly come prior to this attack that the vampires meant to unleash upon the mortal world.
He had to do something. Something that would save him from his intertwined fate with the cherubim. Something that would allow him to remain free from Tartarus. He would not allow Lucifer to have the last laugh.
Highgate
Brody arrived with the others in Highgate. He stepped through the prominent stone hearth dominating his library there. Despite Gladstone’s earlier efforts to confiscate the homes and property of Descendants in England, Brody had managed to buy back his former estate from the new owners only one year after his departure for Ireland.
His price had been exorbitant. The owners could hardly refuse. Besides, Brody had manage to leave enough wards functioning in the home so as to convince the new tenants that the old house was quite haunted. Another bit of cleverness handed down from Laish.
The tenants were ever getting lost on their way to the famous library supposedly contained in the home. Its location had been found on the house plans, but actually coming through the door always delivered them to some different place upon the grounds. They might find themselves coming just as easily into the stables located a hundred yards back, or into a lower bedroom or even a closet on one occasion.
By the time Brody’s offer came through by lawyer, the new couple was quite ready to be gone from the place. They took their money and never looked back. Neither did they bother to have the matter approved by the office of the Prime Minister, just in case he refused to allow the sale.
Still, it had not been a thing that Brody had ever made public. This was Oliver’s former home. He would never allow it and all of its memories and priceless items, in the library alone treasures untold, to be handed over to anyone but his own family. However, Sophia was gone now. And if he didn’t do something quickly, his daughter might follow.
Laish turned on Brody as soon as he came through the hearth. “Where were you?! Do you realize what has happened, what they are accusing you of doing?”
Brody raised his hands, trying to calm Laish’s agitated state. “I have only just learned about Sophia.” Tears welled up in his eyes again. “Please, my friend, be gentle.”
Laish calmed himself. “I’m sorry, boy, really I am. I just feel so helpless with all that’s happened.”
“Believe me when I say that I was not the one to kill either Brian Shade or my beloved,” Brody said. “Whoever has done this will pay dearly.”
“But where were you?” Redclaw asked.
“I went to Gladstone in London, hoping to find out what the Fallen might be about recently. It had been so long since anything was perpetrated on us by them, that I wanted information.”
“Makes sense,” Redclaw replied. “Did he tell you anything?”
“Only enough to convince me that the war is his primary focus right now,” Brody said. “I don’t believe he’s been involved with the Fallen recently.”
“I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” Laish said.
“When I returned to the street outside his offices, I was met by an angel,” Brody said.
“Which one?” Laish asked.
“One of the heavenly variety,” Brody replied. “He escorted me to the spiritual plane where I found that the cherubim have been very busy wiping away the former destruction and remaking it into their own version of Eden.”
“What?” Laish said. “I didn’t know they had that kind of power.”
“Apparently,” he answered. “Moreover, they have erected a city there called Trinity. The cherubim have made a covenant with the vampires that were in Russia, possibly even more than that. There they make sacrifices to the cherubim of humans and Descendants alike. The angel informed me that a judgment is shortly to come upon this place, destroying it utterly.”
“Praise the Lord for it,” Laish said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“I would agree with you,” Brody said. “However, Sadie and Cole and Adolf are being held in this city by the vampires.”
“We knew about the vampires,” Redclaw said. “Anna was sent by Cole to find us.”
“Do we have time to save them?” Laish asked urgently.
“Surely, the angel has shown me these things so that we would know to find them there before the inevitable destruction falls from Heaven. But we cannot delay. I don’t know when it will happen.”
“And we’ll almost certainly have trouble from the cherubim while we are there,” Laish said.
Brody nodded. “We’re just going to have to trust the Lord, my friends.”
Anna spoke up then. “Please, gentlemen, I cannot go back to that awful place. Honestly, I don’t even understand all that is happening. I was taken from my home by the vampires, and now all of this.”
“Of course, Miss—?”
“Parks. Anna Parks
,” she said.
“Brody West, Ms. Parks,” he replied. “And I wouldn’t dream of taking you back to that place. In fact, if you wouldn’t mind, you can stay here in Highgate at my home until we can get your situation taken care of and return you to your family.”
Anna looked around briefly and then said, “Thank you, that’s very kind.”
“I have servants who live here and maintain the place,” Brody said. “We’ll see to your comfort and then be on our way.”
Choice
Liam stood upon the balcony of the king’s chambers, overlooking a massive courtyard on the west side of the palace grounds. A multitude of Descendants including Leprechauns, Lycans, and elves had assembled. Soldiers and civilians alike had turned out to hear the decree from the new Shade King regarding the fugitive, Brody West.
He gritted his teeth. The taste of defeat was fresh like ashes in his mouth. West had come into the palace and then managed to get away. Not only, but he had also set free both Laish and Redclaw from the palace detention center.
If only there was some way to get West’s sword away from him. He might then have some means of defeating the man. In the meantime, his loyal subjects would go to work for their king.
Employing a charm used to amplify one’s voice, Liam began to speak to the assembled crowd. “Citizens of Rockunder and loyal friends of my father,” he said, “as you are all no doubt aware, our king was brutally murdered two days ago. Betrayed by one of his closest friends, the Superomancer, Brody West.”
The crowd jeered at the mention of Brody’s name. Unbelief had turned to bewilderment over the past day, becoming hatred as the story spread throughout the city and beyond. Even citizens of Highmore were present, waiting to hear what they might be able to do to help apprehend the one who had, in their estimation, betrayed them all.
