Firstborn: Necromancer Chronicles (Erotic Fantasy) Book 3

by D. R. Rosier

  When my shift ended I went back to his room before leaving for the day. He seemed surprised to see me again when I knocked on the door and walked in tentatively.

  I smiled, “Hi. I’m sorry to intrude and all, but I’m a little curious. If I’m being to nosy just kick me out.”

  The demoness snorted and I asked, “I didn’t get your name yesterday.”

  She frowned and looked surprised, “I’ll not give you my true name but you may call me Bell.”

  A demon named Bell… huh.

  He still seemed a bit untrusting, but he asked, “What do you want to know?”

  I shrugged and said awkwardly, “I am not sure, you tell me? I guess I’m just curious about you, never met a warlock who’d flinch at sacrificing a human, or one that had a demoness that didn’t look pissed off to be chained down.”

  We talked for about a half an hour. I found out his mother was a witch and had raised him not to take lives. His father was… absent. He’s kind of been wandering the country since his mom died, usually leaves before the local council can chase him out. He also explained why the demoness acted as she did.

  “It’s not that complicated. When a warlock summons a demon he or she can set the rules and compact however he or she wants. Most warlocks simply enslave the demon, where I chose not to. It is more of a partnership. Demons benefit from being on this plane by gaining more power, though I am not exactly sure how that works it is so.

  “Still, despite us both having incentive to work together, it was a nervous thing at first. But… she saved my life when I was in a normal car accident. I was knocked out, and the dash collapsed in and ground up this knee pretty good. So I’d say it was a good decision, if I had enslaved her, she wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help without a direct order. I’d have gone up like a torch when the car did.

  “Anyway, we’ve been pretty close since then; it’s hard to mistrust someone when they save your life.”

  I could see the way the demoness looked at him, it was a lot more than just trust and I wondered if he knew. I bet grandma never looked at grandpa that way…

  I said, “Well, if you trust me… I’d be willing to heal you, let you walk out of here tonight. Of course I couldn’t sign you out officially, you’d have to go under protest and all that.”

  He looked surprised, and a little nervous, “Let me think about it.”

  I added softly, “Also, you might consider making Chicago your home. We have a Nephilim sorceress and a half demon necromancer on the council here. Adding a unique warlock won’t be such a stretch, I’d even be willing to introduce you.”

  I knew he’d been telling the truth, even beyond my normal truth telling abilities which were far more refined and powerful than most. Good warlocks were so rare as to be thought myth, it would be an asset to the community to have him, and of course, he would get a home out of it.

  He frowned and looked a little uncomfortable, “Let me think about it? I need to discuss it with Bell I think, both offers, my surgery is tomorrow afternoon. Will you stop by in the morning?”

  I replied, “Sure, I understand.”

  I knew what it was like to be hunted just for what you were. Speaking of hunted…

  I got the location of the Fae from my ghost. He and one other were in a house a few miles to the west. I found a place to hop into limbo and teleported that way. As I walked toward the house I cast the glyphs to surround myself with my armor, shield, and sword.

  I walked in right through the wall of the house and stepped out of limbo. I moved toward the one that attacked me this morning like a bullet from a gun and swung my sword at his neck. I almost got him, but they were a top race as well and I was hit by a flying sofa and knocked across the room. It didn’t really hurt, but it was disorienting. My shield protected me, but the laws of physics mean I fly across the room when something that heavy slams into me.

  They both hit me with a mental attack after that, but my hardened shields held. I didn’t bother to stand, merely used my magic and desire to move across the room. The world blurred around me while I swung my sword. This time I took his head. The other fae screamed in anger and went for the front door.

  I took a moment and hooked the fae’s soul, us two needed to have a little conversation. I stepped into limbo right before the credenza flew through where I was and stepped right back before I rushed the second fae. He tried to lift me and throw me as he had the furniture, but his magic slid right off my shield much like his mental attack.

  My sword slid between his ribs by at least six inches before the love seat knocked me to the side. The Fae took the opportunity to run out the door. I chased him out but he was gone. I felt his signature and looked up, he was flying. I sighed and let him go, assigning the ghost to follow him, maybe he would lead me to someone else. I walked back into the house and closed the door before someone saw my golden armor and sword. YouTube is evil.

  The fae was old, but I didn’t care about most of his memories or past and just spent a few minutes questioning him before letting his soul move on. Some of the fae believed the humans would kill themselves with the knowledge Vinnie discovered and gave. Some also believed I should be killed before I could somehow find some way to undo the damage, save humanity, and doom the fae instead.

  The problem was, they weren’t completely sure, they were desperate and guessing. It wasn’t hard to believe, after all I had come to the same conclusion about Vinnie they did, though I wasn’t sure either, how could I be? And how could I possibly undo what he did, or make enough of a difference?

  Point being all the fae weren’t after us, only a fraction of them believed it enough to take action. Still, a small fraction of millions is a lot…

  I teleported straight to my bathroom and stripped off my bloody clothes. I’d have to go shopping soon if this turned into a habit like last time. Fights were hell on my wardrobe. I cleaned up and got ready for clubbing tonight. Dancing sounded good, and I’d be able to let off some steam.

  I asked Bree if she was coming or not, and she was. I was fairly sure she wouldn’t be taking any more days off in the near future. She looked very protective of me with the shit starting up again.

  I had that thought again, but it was crazy. A lot of people would die… just, not all of them, or even most of them. I pushed it down not wanting to think of it. It was too big, I didn’t want the choice of what race died, and I prayed my thoughts about Vinnie were wrong. Not that any of this was Vinnie’s or my fault; the fae had sown the seeds of destruction a long time ago.

  Bree and I headed into the city; it was about quarter of ten when we arrived at the club. It was an opening night and the line was kind of long. From what I could see there were a lot of knockouts in line as well, so no skipping. I sighed and walked toward the end when I heard Callie call my name.

  Callie yelled, “Hope! Bree!”

  I turned and looked; she was at the door waving us to come with a big smile on her face. I heard a few disgruntled comments from the line as we walked over and she took us into the club.

  I asked, “How’d you pull that off?”

  She grinned, “The coven owns it of course. How else could we get all these tasty morsels to show up?”

  I snorted and shook my head, “Aren’t they going to freak out about a necromancer being here?”

  She turned and winked at me, her eyes wide and innocent. What was she planning? We followed her to a VIP area where we sat down on a very comfortable chair in a booth. It felt more like a couch then any kind of normal booth seating. A waitress showed up and we all ordered some drinks.

  So far I hadn’t detected any vampires present except Callie. I was starting to wonder if she was pulling my leg as we received and then started sipping our drinks. We got a second one shortly later and chatted as we drank it. Callie seemed irrepressibly cheerful and I was glad we had come out. Even Bree was relaxing her vigilance over me.

  After our second drink we went out to dance, I was feeling good from the drinks, b
ut still short of a real buzz, I didn’t really like being out of control and kept focused, but I loved to have fun and was having a blast dancing with Bree and Callie.

  I felt a few other vampires come in at that point. They didn’t do anything really, but they sensed me and kept their distance. It wasn’t like I was unknown to the community but I still felt a little awkward about it. After about five songs we went back to the table and Callie ordered another round.

  I narrowed my eyes, “What are you up to?”

  She snickered. “Just making waves, thought it’d be fun. You don’t mind do you? I really want to be friends but I couldn’t resist.”

  I shrugged, “I guess not, but I don’t want to ruin their night either.”

  She replied in humor, “You won’t, it will be the talk of the coven. I might sell t-shirts to the survivors.”

  I decided not to worry about it and just have fun. In that Callie seemed to be a perfect partner in crime. I had one or two more drinks throughout the night and did a lot of dancing. We split around two in the morning and I wound up teleporting home from the store room in the back.

  Bree and I turned on the TV and things seemed to be getting worse, more riots and disturbances around the world. I flipped it off not wanting to watch and checked on my ghost. The other fae hadn’t met any others yet and seemed to be going west into the wilderness.

  I meditated a couple of hours trying to improve my magic, until Bree forcefully got me up and marched me to bed…

  Chapter 3 – Vinnie

  Tuesday Morning…

  The next morning I got ready for work. Alicia still wasn’t home yet but when I talked to her she said it would be this afternoon. She was at my parents’ house and Kim was working with her on some stuff, though I had no idea what. When I picked up my phone I noticed it was on silent, I turned the sound back on and checked for messages. My eyes went wide as I saw my sister was attacked yesterday and the damn fae are back.

  Something else I would have to deal with.

  I was also a little disturbed by the news last night. I had avoided watching it for a while, tired of hearing shit about me. Kristi had filled me in on what was going on and I could hardly believe what I saw when we turned on the news.

  I could see where the fae thought I might be first born, but I didn’t really believe humanity would destroy itself. Still, I was regretting it a little. All advances in humanity have been surrounded by strife, bloodshed, and violent change. Did that make me responsible? I wasn’t sure. In any case it was far too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

  I kissed Kristi thoroughly and spanked her ass before I left for work. She glared at me as I slipped out the door with a wink. I was sure I’d pay for that later. Not for the spank, but for not finishing what I had started.

  I pulled up in front of Toni’s place and she came out to the car. She looked even more exotic today, despite the business attire it was perfectly tailored to her body. When she got in she scowled at me and closed the door.

  I asked tentatively, “What’s wrong?”

  She blushed, “You could have told me who your parents were last night.”

  Oh…

  I replied carefully as I pulled away from the curb, “I was going to tell you today, I didn’t want to embarrass you last night and ruin the fun we were having.”

  She asked in a higher tone of voice, “Oh, so you had fun last night? So did I… at least until my car exploded. Sorry, I should be thanking you for stopping that asshole from killing me, not whining at you.”

  I asked, “Yeah, about that, the asshole that is, is there any chance someone will come looking for him?”

  She shook her head, “I don’t think so. He was kind of a hothead; I doubt anyone will look too hard for him if he just disappears.”

  We chatted for the rest of the car ride. She seemed over my failure to mention who I was, or who my parents were. When we got into the office, Abby was already there and waved us back to the lab. The fabricator had finished sometime last night. The experiment was simple. In theory we would be able to weaken or even cancel gravity inside a field. We set it up, which took a while, and put a book with a plate under it where the field should be.

  We used a long non-conductive plate simply so we wouldn’t need to put our hands in the field. We could have rigged something better up, but I think we were all in a hurry to see it working.

  When we turned it on nothing at all happened. I lifted the plate with the book on it, and lowered the plate. The book stayed on the plate instead of hovering as I’d expected to.

  Abby asked, “What do you think went wrong? I ran the diagnostics when the part came out, everything is in tolerance.”

  I shrugged and felt a little disheartened, “It’s hard to say. We put the cart before the horse I think. We need to build something that will measure the phenomena first.”

  Toni grinned, “I’d have been surprised if we got it on the first try. Nothing to be upset about…”

  We spent the rest of the day coming up with a way to measure what was happening, if anything. I knew Toni was right though, theoretical and applied science is very rarely in agreement. Chances are the device would work just fine in a perfect world, we needed to figure out where the shortfall was and adjust.

  We still weren’t sure what was going on when we left for the day but had hopes for a new diagnostic device we believed would detect the field output for our device. She had me drop her off at a car lot and promised to call if she couldn’t find a car she would like. I was a little frustrated when I got home, although I knew Toni was right, it would take time to get things working.

  When I walked in all I could sense was Kristi. The magical signature and the scent of Alicia were still gone. It had been a few days, what the hell was going on? Something didn’t feel right, I went up to the den and Kristi was on her laptop.

  “Kristi, do you know what the hell is going on with Alicia? Why is she still not home? She’s never been gone longer than a day before.”

  She replied absentmindedly, “Huh? Oh. I’m not sure. I know they got a new pack alpha. She’s been arguing with him about spending most of her time away from the pack.”

  I growled. I needed to know these things…

  I asked, “What? Why didn’t she tell me?”

  Kristi shrugged, “You know how she is. She wanted to handle it herself. I don’t think the new alpha likes that she’s mated with someone who really can’t shift either.”

  Fuck. If I’d known I would have dealt with it last night.

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  Kristi nodded absently, still absorbed in what she was doing and only half listening. She did send me a mind picture though. A moment later Kristi gasped and looked at me, as if finally taking in what she just saw and passed on. I growled and teleported.

  When I appeared in the field I felt sick to my stomach. She was shackled around her neck so she couldn’t shift and chained to a large spike in the ground. There were about twenty wolves in the field and three in human form. Two men and Kim. Kim screamed at them demanding that they release her.

  With a thought my magic reached out and snapped the collar around Alicia’s neck. I scanned her carefully with my magic. She had several broken bones, contusions, and nasty swollen bruises. I healed her as quickly as I could and she woke up.

  She growled when she saw me, as if challenging my right to interfere. So not the time for that shit.

  “Be still!” I commanded loudly.

  She may have wanted to handle it on her own, but I sure as hell had the right to defend my mate. I grabbed her hand and dragged her along toward Kim and the two men. Kim looked terrified, and the two men were glaring at me. Two wolves tried to jump me on the way and found themselves flying through the woods until they met a tree, I wasn’t sure how far they flew but I heard the impact and the bones breaking, I didn’t take my eyes off the two men.

  “Explain this,” I said in a deadly whisper.

  The
man on the left growled, “She disobeyed her alpha, I have the right.”

  “By disobey, you mean wouldn’t allow you to keep her away from her mate, correct? Something an alpha should never order much less let happen to a wolf under his command.”

  He growled, “You’re not pack. You’re not even a wolf; her wolf must be confused or spelled. I refuse to let a member of my pack live off pack land with a freak. This stupid bitch is arguing with me too.”

  He gestured to Kim at the last comment. Then he took a step toward me. I wasn’t sure if he was going to attack me, posture some more, or try and grab Alicia. In any case, I wasn’t about to risk him touching my mate again, enough was enough.

  My next move would shock most humans. But this was a violent world, the alpha had beat and chained my wife and looked to be about to do the same with my step mom. I surrounded my fist with my magic. He didn’t even see the punch coming, I followed through viciously and he lost about half his face in an explosion of blood, bone, and cartilage. His body fell to the ground and shook a bit before it went still.

  All the wolves in the field were frozen. I wondered where the hell Ray and Claudia were. If they were here and allowed this to happen I’d be pissed, so I didn’t look very hard.

  I turned to the other guy, “And who the fuck are you?”

  Kim said softly, “Him and the new… dead alpha were new to the pack. It looks like they had designs to take over since they got here a few weeks ago.”

  I said to him coldly, “I should kill you but you’re not the one that ordered my mate beaten. Leave Chicago now, or die. Choose.”

  He shifted and ran.

  I looked around and no one was moving still, “So what now? I need to have a discussion with my mate.”

  Kim shrugged, “They’ll fight and choose a new alpha. You have the right to claim it, but it would probably be a mistake.”

  I agreed with that, besides not being able to shift I didn’t have time to keep a whole pack of wolves in line.