Hopeless Magic
By Rachel Higginson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Rachel Higginson
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To my children who inspire me daily,
you are the reason I write, the reason I publish.
To Zach, the inspiration for every Great Love
I will ever write. Thank you for believing in me.
To my mother, my biggest fan and loving mentor,
thank you for the babysitting, the advice and the support.
Prologue
The light of the camp fire burned low, the embers glowing in the utter darkness only found in the secret places far from civilization. The woman let her endless black hair fall over her shoulders and cover her bare arms. She leaned in closer to her husband, braving the cold mountain air, not daring to use magic.
This was the last night they would stay here, and they had made this fire to say goodbye. The conversation had dwindled with the fire. The tone had turned serious and there were important questions that had been put off until now. Questions that needed answering.
"And where will you go next?" the black man asked in his thick Caribbean accent from across the fire. He was an old friend, but even old friends could not be trusted these days.
"We don't know," she answered honestly. She hadn't known the answer to that question in a long time, too long to remember.
"Will you go to them?" the black man pressed, reaching for a long, worn walking stick that he used to stir the small flames of the leftover fire.
"No, not yet," her husband answered. "It's not time for that yet."
"There is word that maybe an alliance will be made, between your people and theirs," the black man asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He had a name, but it was rarely used, only by those that had known him since the beginning and even they used the title in whispered tones.
"They are not our people," the woman whispered fiercely. "Do not make the mistake of linking us with them, for their sakes."
"Yes, yes, I suppose," he replied quickly, moving the black, ashy logs around, staring at the cinders.
"And what will you do?" the husband asked, leaning forward conspiratorially. He was used to secrecy, used to whispering plans and artfully cryptic messages.
"I will do what I always do. Survive." the black man's grey eyes clouded with memories of different times and the woman had thought they lost him to the painful past.
"Will you help them, should they ask?" the other man pressed.
"No," the black man said simply. "I have been drawn in before and my people are the ones who suffer. The old man has done his best, but he is not enough. The magic is too binding, there is no hope. We must do what we can with our freedom here and if they come, rebuild somewhere else. But no, I will not help them. Not again."
"Yes," the woman whispered sympathetically, "Your people have suffered too much. Of course it is better to stay out of it."
The black man grunted an amused, short laugh. He had not expected empathy, but the woman hardly ever did anything people expected. "But you will help this time?" he asked, although it was barely a question. He was accusing them.
"This time is different," the man looked down at his wife and tensed with the foreboding wisdom that a war was imminent. And that this time they would not be capable of escaping the call to fight.
"Yes, yes. I suppose it is," the black man had settled back down into the pensive ancient he was. "I should like to meet them, these children that call you out of anonymity."
"You will not find them hiding here, behind your mountains and isolation," the man put his arm, protectively around his wife; it was dangerous to provoke this man who carried the weight of a hunted people on his shoulders.
"We shall see," he smiled into the face of the fire.
"What do you know?" the woman asked in a panicked voice. "What have you seen?"
"Ah, and now I know the reason for your visit."
"That is not true," she retracted, defensively. "Only you reference the future, and I cannot help but.... You must understand...." she trailed off, hardly able to explain her deep hunger to know how this would end.
"It is dangerous to know the future, is it not? Too many variables, too many moving pieces to know anything for sure," the black man chided.
"If they come, will you welcome them?" the woman changed the subject, her carnal need to protect overwhelming her.
"I will not know until they come," the black man replied cryptically.
"She saved one of your kind," the husband spoke up again.
"Yes, those are the whispers that blow into this camp," the black man looked up from the fire into the eyes of the woman. Her onyx eyes were darker than his and they had a profoundness about them that unsettled the average eye; the eye that didn't understand the depth of her suffering or the completeness of her love.
"Will you help them?" she asked again, in a low voice that was not to be ignored.
"The question is not if I will help them, but if you will," the black man countered, standing up from the fire.
"Thank you for your hospitality," her husband recognized the end of the conversation and stood also, extending his hand across the extinguishing flames. "We will meet again."
"Yes we will," the black man whispered, walking backwards into the trees that surrounded their meeting place.
His skin blended with the midnight sky and he was gone, the loud roar of a jungle cat the only sound echoing in the darkness.
The man looked down at his wife, reaching out to her and pulling her to him. "It is time to end this," he whispered into her ear, through her thick, black hair.
"Not yet," she said firmly, calling on those ancient skills that had been passed down to her through the blood of her father.
1.
“Eden, pay attention,” Avalon pulled my attention out of a daydream and grudgingly brought me back to the Romania debriefing. Thirty pairs of eyes turned to stare in my direction, after my twin brother embarrassingly called my name.
I turned my head sharp
ly in his direction and glared. I felt bad enough the debriefing centered mostly on me, there was no need to bring more negative attention my way. It was not like I wasn’t paying attention at all; I mean, the whole weird twin channel that connected my mind with Avalon’s, was keeping me caught up. I just wasn’t giving the meeting my entire interest.
“So, despite some major setbacks,” Avalon continued his debriefing with another aggravated glance my way, “we were able to extract the team safely. Please join me in welcoming Jett, Ebanks, Oscar and Ronan.”
The entire room turned to smile and clap for the young team that was held captive for almost two months. The men, all in their beginning twenties, smiled and acknowledged their fellow Immortals, but didn’t return the same congeniality. They looked exhausted, their eyes were sunken in and their heads hung as if they were too heavy to hold.
Although they could not have been more culturally diverse, they shared the same Immortal magic that ran through the rest of our veins. Only theirs had been drained. By me.
I sat in the center of a room full of Immortals that referred to themselves as the Resistance. In the middle of Nebraska cornfields, on a classic Midwestern farm, and on a cliché hay bale located in the back of a tractor barn perpendicular to a field of horses; I watched my fellow Immortals, magic coursing through our blood in unison, and felt completely out of place.
I had kept my distance thus far from the rescued team, afraid to even look them in the eye. Since not one of them had even attempted to glance in my direction either, it was pretty safe to say they were not exactly ready to make amends. I had nothing against them personally, but the fact that I was the reason they were locked up in a Romanian prison over the last few months and tortured unscrupulously hadn’t exactly broken the ice between us.
Had I known who they actually were last September, I might not have opened my field of magic so drastically on them, but I couldn’t actually say that for sure. They did after all make an attempt on Kiran’s life.
I would never have been able to sit back and watch another Immortal take the life of the man I loved beyond measure. But as it were, I was still in the dark about the Resistance at that time; I was even clueless that I was fighting against my own twin brother, the only Resistance member able to walk away from that fight.
I stared self consciously in the direction of Ebanks Camara. He sat tall, above the rest of his team, his midnight skin, once smooth and perfect now etched with scar tissue tracing jagged lines across his body. His eyes never left the barn floor, his expression remained stoic. My heart stung with the pain of guilt and I blamed myself for his obvious lethargy.
I could still feel the current of electricity run through the rescued team’s blood, but it was slow and faint, as if struggling to survive. Once, Amory told me I drained them of their magic; I realized now that I didn’t know exactly what that meant or if they would ever be restored. A sinking feeling formed in my stomach and I suddenly wanted to help them, I wanted to repair the damage I alone was responsible for.
Amory’s strong hand on my shoulder brought me out of my regret and I looked up at him with pain in my eyes. He patted his hand reassuringly on my shoulder, as if he could feel my hurt and the simple gesture accomplished his intention. I felt hope, knowing that Amory was on my side.
Amory, my grandfather…. It sounded weird to say "grandfather." I had only known the truth for a couple of weeks and I found it hard to believe that the last few months had not only revealed my true identity and nature, but brought me both a brother and a grandfather.
For sixteen years I had assumed my only living relative was my Aunt Syl. Little did I know she was not even blood related. Not only was she not really my aunt, but we were not even the same species. She was, of course human like most others on the planet. I was however something more, something my people called "Immortal." Although as it turned out that didn’t actually mean we would live forever. Instead "Immortal" referred more to a longevity of life and supernatural abilities.
Immortal wasn’t always a watered down word to my people. I had been told that once we did seem as though we would live forever; but when the Immortals elected a king everything changed. Of course, that happened way before I came along, like thousands of years before I came along.
After the first king, Derrick, was crowned, he banned intermarriage between the four species of Immortals and initiated the first deaths by killing Immortals in their sleep through a method called Dream Walking. Since then, only one lineage has ruled, and I have been told they only continue to worsen our existence.
I had yet to determine my stance on that whole issue since I happened to be madly in love with the next king in line for the throne. His father might be a bad guy, but I held hope that Kiran Kendrick would change things for the better.
Until I could prove this however, I would sit and be a party to the Resistance. Especially since my best friend, Lilly, was rescued from imprisonment, just for being a Shape-shifter. I couldn’t, in good conscience agree with the current policies of the monarchy.
Although, I believed without a doubt that for now I was on the right side of everything moral; I held doubts if joining the Resistance officially was the right move. Despite pressure from not only Amory, but Avalon and my aunt as well, I still refused to join an organization bent on the destruction of Kiran. So I waited.
“So for right now, we are going to put any assassination attempts on hold,” Avalon’s subject change drew me back into the meeting. I could hear the disappointment in his voice and I found it sadistically comical that he was frustrated he wouldn’t be trying to kill my boyfriend anymore. Only Avalon. “Since the Crowned Prince played such a pivotal role in the release of Lilly Mason, and Eden’s escape, Amory has decided that we should see how things play out.” Again, Avalon said the words with a thick layer of sadness and I shook my head at him angrily. He chose to ignore me.
“That’s right, Avalon. For right now we will simply be monitoring him very closely. If circumstances change, or he becomes a threat to this organization, then we will reevaluate; but for right now it appears as though he is smitten with my granddaughter and she appears to feel the same way,” Amory’s authoritative voice educated the room on what I had hoped to remain a secret from these people. Heat rose to my cheeks instantly when most of the room turned to give me disapproving stares.
“So what is our next move then? The king?” Jericho Bentley asked in a very businesslike tone. I was always surprised at the seeming disregard for human life from members of the resistance. To some extent I realized that their goal in destroying one life was to save the lives of every other Immortal. But the brutality of murder was something I could not take lightly, no matter who the victim was.
“I’ve been thinking this over, and although that is an objective I would truly like to achieve, too many have already been captured. I am not willing to wage war yet. If we make an attempt on Lucan’s life and fail, the consequences would be dire. If we succeed I am unsure how the son will handle our involvement. For right now we will train, and recruit. Of course we will run surveillance both here and in London constantly, but we need to be smart. The Prince is not naive to our existence. If he fears we are a threat to his family then it would be the end of everything we have worked for,” Amory had a melodic tone to his deep voice, the entire room listened unfailingly to him and I had no doubt that they would also follow through with his commands to the smallest detail.
“Will any of us be going to London?” Jericho asked a follow up question. I found myself staring at him, but he never once looked my way. I thought I could consider him a friend, but he hadn’t said one word to me since we returned home from Romania.
His distance had peaked my interest in an irritating way. He stood, leaning against a wall, wearing blue jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt with a baseball cap sitting low on his forehead. His hair had been long in Romania, but sometime after we returned home, he had cut it very short. He was attractive, like every other Imm
ortal, but something about his quiet demeanor was more mysterious and maybe a little dangerous.
Titus, Xander and Xavier will be meeting the Morocco, South Africa and India teams in London to run point there,” Amory answered Jericho. “Other teams will be joining us here as well, the Brazil team, the Swiss team, and most likely the Czech Republic, team if I can convince Ryder he is needed. We are going to up security and surveillance here enormously, while still doing our best to remain discreet.”
“Fantastic,” Jericho mumbled sarcastically. I realized I was not the only one confused by his frustration. He looked up suddenly, apparently not meaning to have said anything out loud. He glanced in my direction, and although his face was marked by embarrassment I noticed a hardness in his expression when our eyes met and I was only more confused.
“Alright, if that is everything, then I suppose we are finished,” Avalon clapped his hands together, before stretching his arms wide. Tonight had been very long, I was not the only one exhausted by the amount of information we covered in the last five hours.
“Wait, I have a something to say,” Lilly, who had been sitting perfectly still beside me for the entire meeting stood up suddenly, speaking confidently. The room of Immortals paused all activity to hear what this shy, timid girl had to say. “I would like to join you. I mean, become one of you.” Lilly continued bravely. My mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Lilly, do you understand what the Resistance asks of you? Do you understand the commitment you are making?” Amory asked Lilly seriously. She nodded animatedly, her vibrant red curls bouncing frantically. “And do you understand the process in which the magic is applied? It is not an easy undertaking.”
“Avalon explained everything to me. I still want to join. I have to. He’s holding my parents. You don’t understand,” Lilly’s words fell out in a rush of nervous excitement and her voice cracked from emotion.
Hopeless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series) Page 1
