by Hadena James
Dark Resurrections
Hadena James
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.
Copyright © Hadena James 2013
Cover Photo © Zacarias da Mata
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 10: 1484138481
ISBN 13: 978-1484138489
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my family for their continued support: Mollie, Jim, Michael, Andrew.
And my extended family: Jason, Kris, Missy.
I’d need to thank Beth & Jim Black for all their hard work as my editors.
A huge thanks to Paul at Seal Technologies for being my techie when my laptop died the day before the edits for this book arrived!
And Brenna needs to thank everyone who bakes cake donuts for a living.
Other Books by Hadena James
The Brenna Strachan Series
Dark Cotillion (Book One)
Dark Illumination (Book Two)
Dark Resurrections (Book Three)
Dark Legacies (Book Four)
The Dreams & Reality Series
Tortured Dreams (Book One)
Elysium Dreams (Book Two)
Mercurial Dreams (Book Three)
Explosive Dreams (Book Four)
Cannibal Dreams (Book Five)
Butchered Dreams (Book Six)
Summoned Dreams (Book Seven)
Battered Dreams (Book Eight)
The Dysfunctional Chronicles
The Life & Dysfunction of Nadine Daniels’
The Dysfunctional Valentine
The Dysfunctional Honeymoon
The Dysfunctional Proposal
The Dysfunctional Holiday
Short Stories
Tales to Read Before the End of the World: An Exploration of the Absurd through Short Stories
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Epilogue
Dark Legacies Preview
Character Guide
About the Author
Prologue
“Don’t you dare give birth in my car!” I yelled at my sister, Rachel, as she bore down with another contraction.
“Drive faster!” She yelled back.
The contractions had started less than thirty minutes ago. I was under the impression that giving birth took hours. It didn’t seem like we had hours. It seemed like we had just minutes and they were fleeing like rats on a sinking ship. Rachel had gone from “oh, they’re ten minutes apart” to “oh shit, they are 45 seconds apart” in less than five minutes. There had been a mad dash made for the doors. Her mate was left behind in the chaos and was now following us at breakneck speeds. This was their first.
“Just breathe,” our mother coached in the back seat.
“You breathe,” Rachel snapped at her.
“You’re doing fine. We’ll be there in just a minute, Rach,” my mother’s voice was soothing. My sister let out a wordless cry at this suggestion. I understood that the child had a fifty-fifty chance of having horns. Her mate, Thomas, was not Demon, he was a Djinn. Hence the chance that it might not. If it did, she had my sympathy; I still wasn’t sure how our mother had managed.
“Breathe Rach, deep and slow,” our father told her. My car was sitting pretty low on its springs. We had Lucifer, Rachel, Daniel, Nick, Elise and me in the car. My mother was the only one who weighed less than 200 pounds.
“Brenna, faster!” Nick yelled.
I careened around a corner, nearly flipping the SUV. I felt the tires lift from the ground. Nick tossed himself to the other side of the car, while swearing softly. The tires found traction again.
“Don’t kill us in the process!” Daniel scolded.
“Hey, I rarely get to drive!” I defended myself.
“That is no reason to kill us all,” Lucifer chided me. I would have turned to glare at him, but I could see the hospital. I put my foot down harder on the gas pedal.
We hit the curb with a noise that I was pretty sure meant I had just busted a tire and probably ruined a rim. But that could wait. Right now, I had bigger problems.
My father rushed into action, wrenching the door open and springing the hinges. I wasn’t sure if insurance covered things like “harried grandfathers”, I would have to ask. My mother was still giving advice as she slithered out of the back. Nick and Daniel were trying to help our sister out.
Several orderlies and a nurse arrived on the scene. They plopped my sister into a wheelchair. One nurse stayed behind, loitering and giving odd looks to my mother.
“No, she’s not ready yet, she just looks like it,” I finally told the nurse.
My mother, also nine months pregnant, had the grace to glare at me. After a good thirty second glare, she waddled into the hospital. I stood outside for a moment, relishing the quiet.
The silence was disrupted by the screeching of car tires. The hospital was turning into an Elder convention. My brother Eli and his also pregnant mate, Hannah, got out of the front seat of his car. From the back flew Thomas, Anubis and Gabriel. Another car was right behind them. Ba’al was driving with Fenrir in the passenger’s seat. From the backdoors poured the rest of my siblings; Olivia, still unmated, and Samuel with his mate, Samantha. They looked at me.
“They took her in,” I shrugged unsure what other information they wanted.
“Where?” Samantha asked.
“Beats me, wherever they rush pregnant women,” I told her.
Anubis gave a quick bark of laughter. He shook his head and wrapped an arm around me. As a group, we entered the hospital.
If Hannah hadn’t been waddling like my mother, we might have caught up with them. We saw them enter an elevator.
“I’m sorry, can you tell me where you took Ms. Rachel Strachan?” Fenrir asked at the desk.
The woman typed it into her computer and frowned, “I don’t have a Ra
chel Strachan.”
“She’s the whale we just brought in to give birth,” I told the woman.
“Oh, then she will be on the third floor. Just follow the signs.”
“If Elise hears you call pregnant women whales, she’ll kill you,” Hannah snickered at me.
“You waddle like a penguin. I thought whale was nice compared to what I could have said,” I smiled back at her.
As a large and unwieldy group, we walked to the elevators. The doors opened and we all squeezed in. I felt claws dig into my leg. Ba’al had his hand outstretched as much as possible. The weight limit on the elevator said “15,000 Pounds”. I took stock of the beings.
“We are way over the weight limit for this thing,” I said.
“It’s only three fl...” Hannah was interrupted by the grinding of the gears.
“Damn, we are going to get stuck or plummet back to the ground,” I sighed.
The gears grinded away; getting louder. The doors opened. As the last of us exited the elevator, there was a loud pop and it plummeted back down. This was followed by a crash, the doors closing and an automated voice telling us to “have a nice day.”
“That could have been bad,” I said to the doors.
“Nah, I can fly,” Gabriel replied. He’d been the last one out.
“I don’t see anything marked ‘Pregnant Women This Way’,” I told them.
“It’s call obstetrics,” Hannah sighed at me.
“I haven’t given birth, how would I know?” I shrugged back.
“Your mother has,” she told me.
“I wasn’t allowed at Nick or Daniel’s birth,” I reminded her.
“Oh, well, it’s this way,” she pointed at a sign with an arrow.
We followed it down a long corridor. Finally, my father came into view. He was pacing around the room. He was also slightly glowing. To my surprise, my mother was also in the waiting room.
“Bren, you’re going to have to go in,” Lucifer told me the second he saw me. “They won’t let your mother because she is also due any day. Rachel won’t let any men in. That leaves you.”
“Oh no, we can send in Olivia,” I reminded him of my other sister.
“Been there, done that, not happening,” Olivia told me. “Your turn.”
“Well hell,” I stomped towards the door my father was pointing at.
Carefully, I opened it and peeked inside. My sister was in what appeared to be a torture device. Her legs firmly closed at the knees. She was glowing and spewing obscenities at the doctor that was trying to pry her legs apart.
“Rachel?” I asked quietly.
“Oh thank god! Get over here and tell this idiot that this is not going to be like a normal birth.”
“I’m sure it’s going to be just like a normal birth,” I lied to her.
“The sonograms and ultrasounds showed horns,” she gave me a look that meant nothing to me.
“Ok, well, we’ll just have to work around that snafu. Look, mom did it several times and we all have horns and she’s human,” I walked over and gave Rachel my hand.
“You’re right. I can do this. I just need to relax. At this moment, I would give anything to be able to take an epidural.”
As a rule, we metabolize painkillers too fast for them to be any good to us.
“I have Chimera spit,” I told her.
“Really?” She perked up.
“Really and I’ll share.”
I dug out the little vial and put a drop of it on her hand. Her body instantly began to relax. The pain subsiding as the magic whatever in Chimera saliva went to work on her pain receptors.
During the last six months, Gregorian had been to see me several times. Each time he brought me different presents. One had been a large container of Chimera slobber. It worked well as a pain reliever for Elders. I had carefully bottled it into small vials that were mobile.
“Oh so much better,” Rachel unlocked her knees.
“Good, but it is only going to last about thirty minutes. So if you want to give birth as painlessly as possible, I say we get to it.”
“Ok, breathing,” Rachel took a deep breath.
“I didn’t go to any of the classes with you, remember? You’re just going to have to hold my hand and swear at me while you try to remember what to do.”
“Figures,” she grunted. I watched her body tense; her stomach muscles became more defined.
“I see a head,” the doctor informed us.
“Well, if you saw anything other than that, I’d be concerned,” I frowned at him to point out he wasn’t being helpful.
“Another couple of big pushes and we’ll have it.”
“Shut up,” Rachel snapped at him.
“Come on Rachel. You can do it,” I cheered her. She grabbed my hand even harder. I felt a bone break. I didn’t cry out or jerk away, but I really wanted to. She pushed again. Harder this time.
“We have a baby,” the doctor cheered.
Rachel let go of my hand. I looked at the child in horror and waited. It cried. I still waited.
“What? What’s wrong?” Rachel asked, noticing my face.
“There isn’t a soul,” I answered.
Chapter One
In the waiting room of the birthing area, I sat in a chair. My head down, my cheeks streaked with tears. I should have been able to see the soul of the infant. I had enough vampiric magic stored up for that. Yet, it hadn’t arrived.
Four hours later, Anubis had been forced into the room with the infant. He confirmed that it was soulless. But the soulless didn’t exist unless they were created. There was much yelling and shouting going on. The Overlords were all in attendance now. Each having hysterics for different reasons.
Rachel, upon hearing that her infant didn’t have a soul, had refused it; treated it as though it were something vile and unwholesome. I understood her horror, I had felt it myself.
She had cried and screamed and thrown anything she could get her hands on. I had left when she had stabbed me with her clawed hands. Lucifer and Eli had gone in and restrained her. She was now babbling quietly in her hospital bed.
I wasn’t sure how I felt. Sick was pretty close, but not quite. I was angry, disappointed, horrified, and there was some part of me that told me I was responsible. How much of Anubis’s power was I carrying around with me? Was it enough to devour the soul of an infant? I was pretty sure the answer was no, but pretty sure wasn’t certain.
Fenrir sat down next to me. He put his arm around me, pulling me into him. He whispered in my hair.
“There’s still time. It could take as long as twenty-four hours for the soul to form, it’s happened in the past,” he said gently.
“If it doesn’t form after that?”
“The child will die. You cannot live without a soul,” he stood up and rejoined the discussion. I went back to staring at the floor.
“How many times?” I suddenly asked Fenrir, loud enough to get the attention of the entire room. Their eyes turned to me.
“Enough,” Fenrir answered.
“Enough what?” Lucifer inquired.
“Times when an infant’s soul did not begin to form immediately upon birth,” Fen countered.
“James didn’t,” Morgana suddenly piped up. “Remember? At the time we thought it was because he was a vampire.”
“It happens only with half-breeds,” Kagutsuchi offered.
“That’s true,” Anubis jumped in. Everyone seemed to sigh with relief.
“It is a fatal condition,” Vishnu said sadly.
“Only if it doesn’t start to form within twenty-four hours of being born,” Anubis answered again. “Alex had it too.”
“That’s true, it took about ten hours before Alex’s soul began to form,” Fenrir told us.
“Alex isn’t a half-breed.” Kagutsuchi moaned.
“Actually, he is, just not his parents. It’s in his lineage,” Fenrir answered. “Alex’s mother is a mixed Lycan, but there is also a touch of Gargoyle in
there. They only produced a couple of children and all of them died save one. The Gargoyle eventually committed suicide by feeding himself to a dragon.”
“I remember that,” Leviathan said. “That’s been eons though.”
“Yes and Alex’s birth was only a couple of centuries ago.”
“Ah, yes,” Anubis furrowed his brow as much as possible. “As I remember, all of their children were born soulless, only one ever produced a soul. The son, Xander, only produced one heir, when it lived, he did the same as his father and fed himself to a dragon.”
“So a soulless child is not the end of the world?” Thomas asked.
“Maybe not,” Levi said. I snuck a look at my father, he was looking better.
“We have to wait to be sure,” Anubis cautioned, “and if this one is soulless, that doesn’t mean you and Rachel should give up. It seems half-breeds have harder times developing souls.”
“The Fatal Birth Defect you guys whisper about?” I asked.
“Yes,” Lucifer nodded solemnly.
“How often does it actually happen then? Not just soulless, but never develop?”
“Only about 1% of infants who do not begin to develop their soul immediately upon birth, ever get one,” Anubis sighed.
“Not very comforting,” I took hold of my mother’s hand. Suddenly, I had this overwhelming fear that her and Hannah would be forced to suffer through the same fate as Rachel. Would my unborn sister, already named Amanda Renee, be soulless fifteen minutes after birth?
“Luc,” it was Sonnellion’s voice that attracted all the attention now.
“Yes?” Lucifer asked.
“There is another reason for the infant not to develop a soul.” He hung his head, “resurrection.”
“Resurrection?” I frowned at him.
“Resurrection requires either a weak soul or no soul. An infant without a soul is the perfect vessel for a resurrection,” Sonnellion responded.
