When Destiny Calls

by Eric Asher

  So tonight I am wearing a zesty yellow bodycon dress. It has mesh around my waist and up at the neckline. It just shows off my little duckling at the back and the swan at the top. I am wearing them with pride. I have beautiful sandals with it and I can’t wait to show Janie. When I come downstairs Toby stands there staring at me. “I can’t believe that I am going out with this beautiful woman, everyone is going to be staring at you tonight Faith, but I am so lucky that I will be taking you home.” He smiles and takes my hand to help me down the last step.

  “Thank you, you don’t look half as bad either” I say and he winks at me. He is wearing a pair of grey trousers and a beautiful crisp white shirt which shows off his tan. We were in Crete for the weekend two weeks ago and we both topped up on our tans. It really compliments my yellow dress.

  We leave the apartment and walk over to the Morgan Hotel for cocktails and to meet Janie and Seamus. When they walk in Janie rushes over to me “wow Faith you look stunning. I am so jealous of your tan, it looks great with your haircut. Turn around let me look at you.”

  I smile at her and turn very slowly so that she can look at my dress and of course I’m excited to see her reaction to the tattoos. “Stop! Stand Still!” she commands and I start to snigger. She steps closer to see if she can see what it is.

  “There’s another one in the small of my back.” I can feel her glare moving down my body.

  “Oh my f’ing god Faith. They are amazing, so appropriate for you too. I love them. You sly dog.”

  Toby and Seamus have walked off to get the drinks. “How are things going with Toby? It must be hard to work with him and to live with him.”

  “Not at all Janie it is the most natural thing I have done in the world. I love him with all of my being. I am grateful for having him in my life.”

  She hugs me and the boys arrive with the drinks. We sit there for an hour or so and then we decide to go to Club Nassau for some eighties music. When we get there we see the old work crowd. I’m sure Janie knew they were going to be there because it was her idea to come here. I look at her but she is avoiding my gaze.

  I look around and see Ben, who comes over to say hi. “Wow Faith look at you. It was the best thing you ever did leaving us, although we miss you lots. Hi Toby.” He says looking past me and at Toby.

  Toby says “hi Ben hope you are well.”

  We get a drink and go and stand by the bar ready to jump on the dance floor at the first opportunity when I see Sasha and Jake walking to the dance floor. They don’t look well suited at all. She isn’t his usual type, but they have been together for so long that I think he actually does care about her. While he is dancing he looks up and sees me, I smile at him. I have no hard feelings, because if it weren’t for him I would never have met Toby.

  He comes over pulling Sasha behind him. “Hi Faith. You’re looking well. Sasha can you go and get my drink please?” he says turning her around to walk away.

  He gives me a hug and says in my ear “if you ever tire of pretty boy then you know where I am. I should never have let you get away.”

  I push him off me and say “You never had me in the first place to let me get away Jake.”

  “But you always wanted me, I knew that but I was playing with you. Is that what you are doing now? Playing with me.”

  “No Jake, I finally woke up and found out who I truly am. I want to be with Toby.”

  I indicate for Toby to come over and he does. He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me in tight. “What’s going on Faith? Everything alright.”

  “Yeah I was just explaining to Jake that I’ve woken up to reality and realised what I wanted and it wasn’t him.” He kisses me there in front of Jake. I think he it staking his claim, it works.

  Jake storms off. “Don’t bother coming back looking for your job Faith” he says as he walks away.

  I stamp my foot. “Sorry didn’t you hear? I don’t need to work I inherited a lot of money, but I do work. For Toby. And I love every minute of it.”

  He walks off and hopefully that is the last we ever see of him.

  Toby kisses me. “God you make me so horny when you get territorial over me. I love it.”

  We laugh and go back to Janie and Seamus who saw everything. We have a really good night after that and then we all go back to our apartment. It seems strange to call it ours but I couldn’t live anywhere that Toby doesn’t.

  We go up the winding stairs to the roof garden and we all sit down. There is a bucket of ice with champagne and glasses. “Ooh who’s pushing the boat out tonight?” I say laughing.

  Everything goes quiet and then Toby stands up and clinks his glass. “I want to make a speech if that’s ok.”

  We all nod and then I say “what about? Come on hurry up we want the champagne.”

  He smiles at me and then winks. “When I moved back to Ireland it wasn’t going to be forever, I thought my heart belonged in the States. The first time I met you, Faith, you took a small piece of my heart with you when you walked out that door. When I bumped into you at the nightclub I was so happy, I thought I was going to be able to convince you to change your mind. Eventually you did what was right for yourself and no one else. I love you for that.

  It’s not enough though.” My heart stops beating for a short time. Is he leaving me? Is he going back to the States? Does he not know that I would go with him?

  “Why?” is all I can say.

  He looks me in the eye and kneels down so he is eye level with me. “Faith will you marry me? I never want to have to think of you as not being part of my life. We have that love that is found only very rarely in life and I don’t want to let that go.”

  He stops talking, everyone is looking at me. Did he just ask me to marry him? Is he for real?

  “Well, don’t leave me hanging here we all need some champagne.”

  I start crying. “Yes Toby of course I will. You saved me when I needed saving the most. You made me believe in myself once more. You gave me the hope I needed to find my true self and I want to be with you for the rest of my existence.”

  He jumps up and hugs me, Janie starts to cry and clap her hands very excitedly. Seamus stands up and hugs Toby. “So happy for you mate” he says to him.

  We all stand up and Toby pours each of us a glass of champagne, we all clink them together in the air.

  Toby says “To my beautiful little swan.”

  They repeat it and I just stand there, I can’t believe how my life turned out so unbelievably beautiful.

  WHEN DESTINY CALLS

  BY ERIC ASHER

  If it were a ringing phone, I might have answered it. Instead, I watched the dim golden glow swell and recede around my wood beaded bracelet in the shadows of the old house. I wasn't sure how long it had been since Koda had given it to me, but what had once seemed an honor felt more like a leash as time passed.

  The glow faded as quickly as it had started. When it began anew, I couldn't ignore it. The ancient wood felt cool when I picked it up and slid it over my wrist, wincing as it caught and pulled at the fresh bandages on my arm.

  You are wounded, Elizabeth Faith Wayne. Cornelius is a great mentor, but the art of the blood mages is taking its toll.

  “I'm fine,” I said aloud once I reached the hallway, knowing he'd already heard my thoughts before I'd so much as uttered a word. “And don't call me that. My name is Beth. Where should we meet?”

  We need not meet if you do not wish it.

  “It's four in the morning, Koda. If you didn't want to meet, you wouldn't be calling me at four in the morning.”

  Silence followed my steps through the shadowed house, though some part of me knew he wore a smug smile.

  “Meet me in the woods behind Ashley's house,” I said.

  After a brief hesitation, the voice that was everywhere and nowhere said, I thought Cornelius advised against that.

  I wasn't sure if the old ghost was trying to annoy me, or only expressing a genuine curiosity. Either way, I wasn't indul
ging him. Not tonight.

  “The woods, Koda. Down by the river.”

  He said no more. Occasionally the old ghost revealed how perceptive he could be, even if he hadn’t been in my head.

  I stole Ashley’s bunny slippers and stopped by the bathroom to check my bandages. The bandage caught on a scab as I unwrapped it. I winced at the sudden, sharp burn. Pain is a fact of life as a blood mage’s apprentice. A thin trail of blood seeped from the edge of my wound. I twisted my arm, checking the lines and patterns of the cut.

  The older cuts were only pale scars now, and some had vanished entirely. Cornelius told me a spell well-executed will heal the deepest cut. I thought he’d meant magic could heal the channels carved into my flesh. I should have realized it was just some philosophical rambling. It’s an odd thing, looking at your own lacerated flesh with a sense of satisfaction. The pattern of the spell healing in my arm had set a powerful protection around Ashley's home that Cornelius himself would be proud of.

  I looked up and met my own gaze in the shadowed mirror. I thought I’d see a change in myself one day, some sign of the darkness that lived inside me, but my hair stayed a light brown and my hazel eyes were unchanged. I rewrapped my left arm, remembering the day I learned what I truly was, able to call power with blood.

  Cornelius taught you well.

  “I thought you were done talking,” I whispered.

  Cornelius had always been a strict teacher. Some seven years now I'd trained with him near Austin, but it was in the last three that things had changed. He’d grown remote, and the more distant he’d become, the more intense our training became. He'd tell me the way things were going with the world as he bandaged me. I hadn't much believed him until I’d walked into a group of water witches unannounced near Walter E Long Lake. It seemed like a chance encounter at the time, but now I’m not so sure.

  I moved to Saint Louis after that for a time, until the war with Ezekiel began. Cornelius sent me back to Austin before the real fighting started. I still hadn't forgiven him for that, not really. What good are powers you never use?

  Something moved down the hallway, toward Ashley’s room. Low to the ground and hissing as it went by. “Shut up, Crumb Catcher,” I hissed back at Ashley’s devil cat.

  I pulled a jacket off the couch. It wasn’t winter yet in Saint Charles, but since I’d moved back from Austin, everything felt like bone-chilling cold. A light, early frost crunched beneath my feet as I made my way out the back door, silently sliding the patio door closed.

  My breath fogged as the cold replaced the warm air in my lungs. It was odd staying with Ashley’s coven. I never thought a group of green witches would welcome a blood mage’s apprentice into their fold. I’d been raised by a green family, but still … a spell cast in blood was darker than anything in the green.

  The woods closed around me, sheltering me from starlight and the unnerving sense of watching eyes. I’d learned to trust my instincts, and the feeling of being watched probably meant some of the River Pack wolves were nearby. They’d kept a close eye on Ashley and the coven since necromancers attacked the priestess in her home.

  Carter, their old Alpha, had died battling the Destroyer, and that child … Koda had told me what’s to become of her. That poor, innocent thing is destined to become the Destroyer, destined to wear the mantle of a demon.

  “She is not so innocent anymore.”

  I narrowed my eyes as my fingernails bit into my palms. He stood before me as any mortal would, though his flesh was golden and somewhat translucent, and his legs seemed more like vapors where they met the ground. The river churned behind him, where a small rapid crashed and bubbled in the quiet night. I couldn’t smell the mildew that time of year, a humid mix of rot and life. I could only smell the cold.

  “She is a child, Koda.”

  “She was a child.” The ghost ran his hand across the oversized prayer beads hanging around his neck. He wore the same hooded cloak I’d always seen him in. “You shared her name once, Elizabeth, and perhaps that is why it affects you so. Her name is Vicky now, and if we do not help Vesik, the mantle of the Destroyer will devour her.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “I have something for you to deliver to Damian Valdis Vesik.”

  “He’s bug nuts, Koda.”

  The old ghost laughed. “I will not offer you an argument there. He slew Azzazoth, faced Prosperine, and stood upon the fields of Gettysburg at the side of Leviticus Aureus. He is nothing if not mad, but he would do anything to protect his friends, and he will lay down his life if it means giving that child so much as a moment’s peace.”

  I didn’t speak—it was not so much that he’d said something dire, as that was rather a usual thing for Koda—I’d never seen the old ghost laugh.

  “Vesik has set a terribly dangerous event into motion with his victory over Ezekiel and the breaking of one of the Seals.”

  “How long until he breaks another Seal?” I asked. “Is he going to invite the dark-touched over for tea?”

  Koda inclined his head a fraction. “There are few who have lived at any point in time with the power to stop what is coming, and even less that would care to.”

  “The dark-touched?” I asked.

  Koda nodded. “The Seal that stands between the prison of the dark-touched and this realm has fallen. Creatures of the Abyss will cross over, and this world will face an enemy unlike any of recent memory.”

  “There has to be a way to stop it. To restore the Seal?”

  “No. We can only fight them.” Koda flexed his fingers and met my eyes. “I cannot fight them, but Vesik can. He is a light in the Abyss, Elizabeth. With the Seal broken, we are to witness the return of the dark-touched, but hope is not lost so easily. Get the book to Vesik. Tell him to unite it with the Black Book. Then he will have the Book that Bleeds, and the rest is out of our hands.”

  “Did you find Camazotz?”

  Koda sighed and glanced at the shadowed canopy of autumn leaves above us. “Yes.”

  I waited, and then waited some more before he finally met my eyes.

  “He considers the truce with Faerie broken after one of his children died in the battle with the basilisk.”

  “Christ …”

  “Hold tight to your hope. He does not consider the breaking of the truce to be an act of war. It is a wise move. I do not believe him powerful enough to defeat Faerie, and in this way he courts favor with Gwynn Ap Nudd.”

  Another madman, I thought to myself.

  “Do not speak those words aloud, Elizabeth. Never speak them aloud.”

  I nodded.

  “Camazotz will join with us eventually, I believe. I am afraid he may allow much bloodshed before revealing his true alliances. He is not known for subtlety when making a point.”

  Koda gestured and an ancient tome appeared in his grasp. Wisps of golden power bent and floated and spiraled away. He held it out to me and I took it. The book felt warm, and the wisps of power dissipated when Koda released his grip on it.

  I turned it over in my hands. Some faded gilt lettering adorned the leather cover. I frowned, unable to place the lettering with anything I’d seen before. They were closer to runes than actual words.

  “They are indeed,” Koda said.

  I glanced up at him. It was so easy to forget how much of my mind he could hear.

  “Get the book to Vesik, Elizabeth. No matter the cost. He may well be the last bastion between this world and darkness. Camazotz could be a great ally, but if I have learned anything in this life, it is the simple fact nothing is guaranteed.”

  I hefted the book and held it out slightly. “Why can't you take it yourself?”

  Koda shook his head. “The Watchers and the Society of Flame know I've been meddling with Damian. They cannot know he has the book.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I have known him since he was a child, Elizabeth. That man has been through more horrors and battles than even the priestess has told you of.
The sacrifices he has made, the damnation he accepted to save his sister, and the fact he is the seventh son of …” Koda trailed off and glanced over his shoulder. “The wolves still guard the woods here.”

  It didn’t seem like a question, but I nodded.

  “That is a good thing. I must take my leave, but we will meet again, Elizabeth.”

  Koda seemed to step backwards and fade at the same time. Then he was gone. I turned to the river and watched the small waves and ripples crash into the gravelly shore.

  At first it seemed a large fish had nearly breached the surface, but the bubble of water continued to rise until it reached past my head. As the water receded, a figure more stunning than any mere mortal stood before me.

  I slid Koda’s bracelet off my wrist and dropped it into my pocket. “It’s good to see you again, Euphemia. Did you hear?”

  The dark-haired woman nodded, her waist-length hair shifting in the moonlight and brushing the surface of the river.

  “Are you going to tell Nixie?”

  “We have chased rumors of that book for many months, Beth.” Her voice was musical, like the timbre of chimes carried on the wind. “I must tell her.”

  “Won’t Damian tell her anyway? Why go around him?”

  “It is not my intention to deceive him. Things are … complicated with our courts. If there is any hope we will prevail against the Queen, we must have the best information at any time. It was hard not to reveal myself to an old friend, but I do not wish for Koda to be put at risk.”

  “Euphemia … be careful.”

  “Always, my friend. I came here to deliver a warning. Be wary of any undines outside of myself or Nixie. The Queen has sent assassins across the sea, and they have struck down a great many allies. Take care of your witch.” Her gaze lingered on my bandages. “Will you still not let me heal your wounds?”

  “No, I used them to cast a protection spell over the coven’s home. I need to let these heal on their own to keep the spell strong.”