The Opal Blade (The Ashen Touch Trilogy Book 1)

by Kristy Nicolle

  Finally, I reach the spiral staircase which ascends to my suite and alchemy chambers again, but before I climb the final step of the crystalline ascent, I’m shielding my eyes. He appears in front of my door in a plume of blue flames, still doing up the buckle on his slacks and buttoning his shirt. He’s not even wearing any shoes.

  He stares at me, deadpan.

  “Well, how nice of you to finish on my behalf.” I raise one eyebrow and narrow my eyes, tossing my blonde hair over one shoulder.

  “Finish? After that intrusion? Don’t be ridiculous! You’re enough to make any man go limp,” he barks, clearly angry. I don’t flinch at the insult; instead I smile.

  “Well, at least I’ve had my curiosity satiated. I always did wonder if the carpet matches the drapes… if you know what I mean.” I point to his hair, which is cobalt blue even still, showing a lack of anger, which most likely means an influx of fear.

  “Well, thanks to you, that’s now not the only thing down there that’s blue,” he barks, and I chuckle.

  “Oh boohoo. I’m sure you’ll make up for it another night. After all, you’re never short of lust filled sinners to screw. Which is controversial to say the least… but still… that’s not why you’re here. Is it?” I push past him, taking a key from my cleavage and opening the door. I step across the threshold before standing aside and raising an arm to indicate he should enter.

  “No. I’m not here for a lecture from you.”

  “I don’t care. You’re getting one. Sit.” Beelz stirs, rising like a silent shadow, and watches Haedes with burning lemon irises, her tail swishing from left to right.

  She doesn’t like him, not that I blame her. If I was a cat, no matter what size, spontaneous flames from nowhere would freak me out too.

  “You’re not my mother, for God’s sake,” Haedes cusses, sitting down on the couch. I fold my arms across my chest after slamming the door shut behind me.

  “Yes. Exactly. This is for your sake, and hers. Stop being such an asshole,” I condemn him and he sputters, almost laughing before his eyes widen.

  “Look, I don’t want to be anyone’s father,” he expresses and I roll my eyes.

  “From the way Sephy speaks, I don’t think she wants you to be either. But she’s in danger. We can’t let her die. You owe her your protection, at the very least. Besides, maybe if you didn’t sleep around so much, this wouldn’t be an issue.” I judge him, burning into him with the scrutiny of my pale blue stare as he exhales.

  “Sleeping around with mortals you mean? I only ever did that once! And how was I supposed to know she could get pregnant down here? Time is supposed to have no effect on the human body, remember?” he shrugs, like a school boy trying to foist responsibility onto someone else for his missing homework.

  “Yes. But… maybe this isn’t such a bad thing Haedes… I mean. You’re pretty miserable. Maybe having some fresh blood around here could do you some good,” I suggest and he laughs.

  “Trust me, nothing that reminds me of Demi Sinclair is going to do me any good. Make me want to drink myself into a coma… perhaps. But good? Definitely not.”

  I look at him, older than the hills and stubborn as a mule. He doesn’t realise how isolated he’s become. How he’s addicted to nothingness. The nothingness of alcohol, the emptiness of a song when you have nobody to hear it, the absence of any feeling as he rams himself into yet another lust sinner, too afraid to feel, to make any real connection.

  Yet, he cannot work out why he’s so miserable. So alone. Why he clings to me so much for company at our weekly dinners.

  He is flailing.

  “Well, regardless of how you feel, she’s coming here. She needs our protection, and I won’t let her die,” I state, firm in my conviction as I continue to stare down at him. Beelz sits herself at my heels, staring at him too with her dark orange eyes.

  “You always were one for charity cases.” He says it to hurt me I think, but instead, I feel the truth of his words. It’s no lie; I don’t want to see people suffer in the way I have suffered, or die at the hands of those created by entities like my father. I don’t want to see pain or torment. There’s enough of that already in the world corrupting innocent souls. I don’t need to be the cause of more.

  “I suppose you’d know that first hand,” I retort, and he looks to me with a surprised glance as he leans back, resting his hand loosely atop his crotch.

  “I seem to recall it was I who saved you when you first fell,” he reminds me of that day. The day I had woken in a pile of smouldering ash; naked, disowned and alone.

  “That might be true, but I’ve been saving you ever since. I’m even saving you right now,” I reply, balling my fists at my sides.

  “Oh, are you now? And how is that, exactly?” He gets to his feet now, snide.

  “I’m giving you someone to love, something to live for. Even if you don’t want to. You will. When you see her. I know you will,” I whisper as he closes the distance between us.

  “Your youth is showing, my dear. Now go back to playing with your ragdoll.” He gestures toward the bedroom where I know Thane is still strewn naked among sheets, sleeping.

  I scowl, but before I have a chance to retort, he’s disappeared once more in a blaze of electric blue flames.

  I exhale heavily as the smoke dissipates.

  He needs saving more than I thought.

  SEPHY

  The sound of the seventies continues to surround me and Jules as the night wears on.

  “So, did my father… did he really capture a merman?” I ask, finding the walls of denial I’ve kept erected to try and protect myself crumbling at the edges. They’re clearly not going to work any longer, not when I’ve got demons chasing me that have access to everything inside my head.

  “Yes. He really did. Well, Haedes did the capturing part. I was a part of what transpired, I’m sad to say.” Jules has a glass of cocoa too and has also brought tollhouse cookies to aid my emotional state. He’s sat on the floor, looking up at me with his shotgun resting still against his hip. Every time a roll of thunder sounds or a floor board creaks with the wind, we startle slightly, both on edge and too wired to sleep.

  “Sad?” I ask him, and he nods.

  “What we did. It was… unsavoury. I have carried that guilt for many years. It wasn’t worth it… finding the science behind how to turn their tears into diamonds.” He takes a sip of cocoa, and we both sit bolt upright as the door behind us moves from its ajar position, creaking loudly into the silence.

  Jules grabs his gun, leaping to his feet, but quickly lowers it again as he realises that a worried looking Cerb is the cause.

  “Awww, I think you scared him. Come here boy.” I pat the place next to me on the couch, and Cerb launches himself across the record library floor in only a few pads of his oversized paws. He is so large that I have to move over, the blanket still wrapped around me, before he places his large head in my lap, looking up to me with an anxious stare and one ear cocked. I place a mindful hand on the back of his neck and begin to stroke that place he loves whilst he warms my feet with his body.

  “Did you torture him?” I ask Jules, my face serious as I turn my gaze away from the Leonberger in my lap.

  “Yes,” is his only reply. I nod, not sure what to make of that.

  “I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to all this. I mean… he was my dad. I loved him. Is that wrong?” I feel vulnerable in asking this, but I guess Jules is the best person to answer me.

  “There is nothing wrong with loving your father. He wasn’t all bad. He may have been infected by avarice more than anyone I’ve ever known, but his intentions started out good. I believe he made his first barter with Haedes in order to be able to provide the kind of life he knew he needed to win your mother. He was homeless for a long time,” he enlightens me, and I raise my eyebrows. My father was homeless? Was that why he was always so wary of them? Was it because he had known that desperation on a personal level?

  Jules
watches my face and continues, leaning forward as he sits down once more. “We must remember that it is perhaps not the individual person who attracts a sin but the situation in which they find themselves. People will do a lot when they’re desperate. And once he had you… well, he became terrified of losing it all. Terrified of you growing up how he had.” He pauses watching my reaction.

  “But… he bet my mother…” I say, wondering how this had made her feel. How lost had Adam Sinclair must have become in order to sacrifice the thing he loved most? Then again, perhaps she hadn’t been that thing. Perhaps money itself had filled that void instead.

  “He became obsessed with increasing the fortune, with keeping everything secure for the future. He believed it was worth sacrificing everything, even his afterlife. He may not be a good man in the opinion of some. But he’s done nothing wrong by you. Nothing at all. He sacrificed a lot to provide, even though I think he knew you weren’t his child.”

  “You think he knew?” I ask Jules, and he nods.

  “I think he did, or at least suspected. I mean, if you look at the dates from when Demi was with Haedes and when you were born, it’s pretty obvious. Besides, your red hair…” He looks at me with a slight frown and I nod. “If you want some comfort Sephy, I’ll tell you that he loved you as though you were his own. He wanted the best life for you,” he adds, and I smile at this, looking down into the dregs of cocoa left in the bottom of my mug.

  “Thanks. For all this. I guess, I never wanted to ask Peter. I think he hates me,” I admit, and Jules frowns.

  “Peter hated your father. He thought he was no good for your mother. But don’t tell him I told you that.” He looks guilty now and I nod, not able to come up with a reply right away.

  “I kind of figured. Didn’t hate having this giant mansion to hang around in for the last eighteen years while he shipped me off to boarding school though, did he?” I say after a few minutes, and Jules looks awkward.

  “No. He didn’t.”

  Silence falls between us as I think on Peter, on his connection to me and whether I care if it is truly severed. On the one hand, he’s my mother’s brother, my last blood family…

  No. He’s not. A tiny voice whispers in the back of my head, but I ignore it, sure that the cocoa is causing me to become infected with all kind of dangerous emotions.

  The sound of an approaching yeti startles us, but soon I relax as I remember that there’s only one demon I know who is so lacking in stealth.

  “Xion?” I call out, just as he rounds the corner and enters the room.

  “Hey, you were quick,” I comment, looking up to the clock, also made of a large vinyl record, on the opposing wall.

  “Was I? It’s hard to tell,” he’s breathless, and his voice sounds strained.

  “Yes, only four or so hours,” I inform him, and Jules looks between us both.

  “I better get to sleep. After all, I have the giant task of locking this place up tomorrow. Xion, you’ll sit with Sephy until she goes to sleep?” he requests, and Xion nods, a slight smile tickling the edges of his thick lips where soft flesh meets stubble.

  “You’ll come back to tend to Nightshade, right?” I ask him, and he nods.

  “Yes, though you should know she’s also not from around here originally.” He smirks, and I smile.

  “Immortal pony. Cool” I express, feeling relief flooding my gut. I’ve lost enough things I love for a lifetime.

  “Did you finish your drink already? I have something from Luce. I’m not sure what it’ll taste like though… things from her cauldron tend to be a little… eh…” Xion pulls a face as he passes me a glass vial. Within the tiny bottle is a swirling silver fluid. It looks metallic, almost like liquid mercury, except there are tiny red particles floating at the bottom.

  “Eh, it can’t be any worse than Jules’ hangover cure, cough syrup cocktail.” I un-stopper the vial and hold it up to the light.

  “Bottoms up… wait, what’s it for?” I ask, stopping the draft merely inches from my lips.

  “It’s to calm your nerves,” Xion explains, and I narrow my eyes.

  “And I won’t grow horns?” I interrogate him, suspicious. His mouth quirks at the side.

  “No. You won’t. I promise.” He reaches inside his jacket pocket, pulling out a thick black book. As he does so, I tip the contents of the vial back and let it trickle in a thick lump to the back of my throat. I cough, then swallow as fast as I can, trying to avoid the taste.

  It’s a concoction of what tastes like dead flies, which I’ve experienced before while running cross-country through the British countryside, and some kind of rotting tangerine.

  “I owe Jules’ hangover cure an apology. Ew,” I sputter, eyes watering.

  “Sorry. Alchemy isn’t the most… appetising of dark arts.” Xion gives me a sympathetic stare, and I start to wonder why he cares so much about me. I’ve given him nothing but grief since we first met, and yet he hasn’t disappeared or walked away like I anticipated. He’s still here.

  As I’m staring up at him, pondering this, he hands me the book in his hand. I take it into my own, looking down at the cover which is detailed with a seven-pointed star embossed in gold.

  “What’s this?” I enquire, curious.

  “A history book, a real one. It’ll answer some of your questions,” he answers, and my eyes widen.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  I let the book fall open to the first page. Here, a family tree looking diagram in sprawling hand written calligraphy stares up at me.

  “Delyria, Moloch, Arachne, Leviathan, Nocturna, Sanguina and… Ra?” I speak the words like they’re magic, like the pages of the book might burst into flames at merely the sound of my voice.

  “Those are the seven Gods of Ancient.” Xion takes a seat against the arm of the couch, just in front of where my feet are resting beneath Cerb’s warm stomach.

  “Oh right… they’re not the Demon Lords? I haven’t heard you mention them before…” I express, and he shakes his head.

  “No… they’re the gods who created them. One god or goddess to each Demon Lord. Except Ra. He’s gone thanks to Anubis.” The only sound that I can hear above my own heartbeat is the ticking of the clock on the far wall.

  “There’s so much to learn… this is all so different from what I’ve studied,” I murmur, and he smiles.

  “You’re smart, you’ll get it,” he reminds me, and I smile at the compliment.

  “So, the Gods of Ancient… they’re like… bad?” I ask and he shrugs.

  “I guess it all depends on your point of view. Some of the gods agree with their anti-mortal policies. Some don’t. Cronus and Rhea, your grandparents, didn’t. They kicked them out of the Higher Plains. Uranus created the gods and then Mortaria from his own life force so they had somewhere to go after falling from The Higher Plains so they could reach their full potential.” I nod at this explanation, looking at the next line of names. Some of them I recognise.

  Barbas.

  Lilliana.

  “I recognise these two. So, these are the Demon Lords? Abraxis, Gorgon, Barbas, Lilliana, Katerina and Kraken?” I demand, and he nods.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “So where does Haedes fit into all this?” I ask, almost calling him my father but holding the term back.

  “Haedes, Lucifer, Thanatos, Yama, Muerta, Osiris and Anubis are who you know as the Nexus. They rehabilitate human souls so they can return to the Crucible of Gaia. Before they ruled as a council, Osiris and Anubis were trusted to run things, having been close to Ra before his death at the hands of Cronus. Well… sort of death.” Xion takes a deep breath.

  “So, he’s dead? Or not?” I ask, now curious.

  “Not really…you can’t really kill a god or goddess. Their energy has to be dispersed or trapped somewhere. For example, Gaia created the earth and then the crucible of Gaia. Uranus created Mortaria and then the well of Eternal Torment, so the gods of Ancient could create their Kindred.”
/>
  “So, what about Ra? If he can’t be killed, what happened to him?” I enquire, hungry for information.

  “His soul is floating around in this place called The Nether Realm. Anubis trapped him in human form and then he killed himself. He didn’t want to be in a mortal body. It completely destroyed her.” Xion explains and my eyes widen.

  “Wow. Dramatic.”

  “No kidding. That’s why Ra doesn’t have any Kindred like the other Gods of Ancient.” The explanation suddenly slots into the bigger picture.

  “The Demon Lords…” I finish his sentence, finally catching on. It’s complicated, but there is method here. “So… what happened to the souls before Anubis and Osiris?” I ask him, kind of scared of the answer.

  “They weren’t rehabilitated; the Gods of Ancient just tortured them and kept them in Mortaria. It was their way of trying to get back to The Higher Plains.”

  “How?” I demand the answer in as simple way as I can, needing the information like a Yorkshireman needs beer. Xion inhales.

  “You see, if you have more darkness in the universe than good, it kind of hits this reset button. The walls between all dimensions dissolve and the power is up for grabs for anyone to take. It’s dangerous, especially for mortals.” Xion is watching me closely now, his eyes intense.

  “I see.” I bite my bottom lip, imagining everything turning to chaos, to bloodshed. The thought unsettles me more than I’d like to admit.

  “Too much?” he looks concerned and so I shake my head.

  “Not at all. I’m just tired,” I reply, yawning as I stretch up.

  “Have you packed yet?” His voice is expectant.

  “Not yet. What exactly do you pack for The Underworld? Like am I gonna need my curling irons? Tampons?” I ask, and he coughs.

  “We have electricity if that’s what you mean,” he answers, ignoring my tampon comment.

  “What about shoes? Stilettos or pumps?” I demand, husky in my tone, smirking this time as I flutter my eyelashes. The liquid Luce had sent is working, making me feel more relaxed than I have since before the Banshee attack.