by Cate Farren
THE SCALE EMPIRE
THE PORTAL WITCH BOOK 1
Cate Farren
The Scale Empire © copyright 2017 Cate Farren
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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THE SCALE EMPIRE
Hunting a demon across dimensions isn’t as easy as it sounds…
Queen Victoria has cursed Kezia to hunt down the demon that murdered her son.
130 years later the hunt is still on, but Kezia is growing weary. When a chance comes along to find the demon and kill him she jumps at the chance.
But what will she find on a parallel world ruled over by dragon shifters? Will it be love or vengeance or both?
Chapter 1
Queen Victoria looked me up and down and said, "What kind of spells can you do?"
I took a deep breath and thought back to the spell book I'd memorised just the night before. What could I do that would impress the queen of the British Empire? I'd already saved her life, but she obviously wanted further proof of my abilities.
I smiled, thinking of the perfect spell. I would show her what I was capable of. I'd escaped slave traders and assassins and treacherous waters. I could certainly make a queen sit up and take notice.
***
This particular queen was another story. She was still Queen Victoria, still regal and commanding, the inventor of the resting bitch face, but she wasn’t human, not any more. She was a vampire.
An extremely powerful vampire.
She bared my throat, rolling her fingers across my tender skin. I still couldn’t move as her Mesmer locked me in place. I don’t know why she didn’t just kill me. She had me. Maybe she just liked playing with her victims. The older vampires, the ones with political power and influence, could pretty much get away with anything, including killing as many humans as they wanted.
“Your blood is different,” she stated, sniffing me. Her face was smothered with plastic surgery in an attempt to disguise the vast age she’d been made a vampire. It made her look like a frozen plastic doll. I wondered how her vampire healing power stopped the plastic from being expelled from her flesh. Was there some sort of advanced enchantment? “I felt you across hundreds of miles and I just had to find you. I dropped everything to find you. Why is that?”
“How should I know?” I demanded.
She’d surprised me in the safe house while I slept. I should’ve been vigilant, set up wards, but I hadn’t detected any magic on this world. I hadn’t encountered any supernatural beings whatsoever. It had seemed a normal world, a literal world at peace. All the religions got on. There was a world president who the people actually liked and trusted and who deserved that trust. Crime was low. Poverty and disease was almost non-existent. It was a utopia.
A perfect utopia…
It was perfect until Queen Victoria woke me up while I dreamed about Leopold and threatened to kill me.
She let go, backing away. Her Mesmer kept me still, my body stuck in an awkward position. It wasn’t doing my back any good.
“I can’t kill you,” she whispered. Her lips were plump and fish-like from too many collagen injections. Her mostly plastic skin hardly moved as she spoke. “You’re too interesting. I shall have to take you and have you studied. How exciting!” She sighed. “Nothing much excites me these days. That should make you proud, that you make me happy.”
“There’s no magic on this world,” I said. “How are you a vampire?”
Her eyes coveted my body for a while as she seemed to think over what to say. Even her eyes looked fake, like they were marbles shoved into empty sockets. They didn’t have the normal fire and bloodlust that vampires had.
Victoria smiled proudly. “I had every supernatural being murdered. Well, except for my plastic surgeon. He’s a witch.”
“How could you do such a monstrous thing?” I demanded.
“I couldn’t have them infesting my world after what they did to Leopold.”
His name pierced my heart.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“My precious son died while transitioning from human to vampire,” she explained. The grief poured from her in waves. I understood that grief, of how it challenged you mentally on a daily basis, all too well. “They all had to pay. I made myself one of them. I made my servants one of them – and we hunted down every witch and shifter and vampire we could find. We slaughtered them all.” She laughed with delight, swinging her laced black mourning dress around. “The slaughter was such fun! I bathed in their blood. I revelled in their tortured cries. Murder is my duty.”
The woman was insane. The queen of England was an insane vampire with a plastic face, wearing a decaying black dress, dancing around like she had music in her head. I was fucked.
I heard lots of footsteps. I couldn’t move but I knew I was being surrounded by a squadron of vampires. I was trapped and immobilised and at the mercy of a psychotic vampire. It didn’t bode well for me. What the queen didn’t know was that I was already working on freeing myself.
“You invaded my world,” said the queen. “You infected my world with something vile, something that I thought I’d eradicated. But you will serve a purpose. Your magic will help the British Empire in its war against the Australian separatists. You will…”
I burst into laughter. Her words weren’t scaring me in the slightest. How could I be scared by the pathetic words of a wrinkled old vampire? And as far as I knew there were no Australian separatists. This world was at peace.
She came toward me, grabbing my neck again. “You think this is funny? You won’t be laughing when I’m torturing you.”
Her breath was rank, mildew and blood and fried plastic. It made me want to gag.
“You don’t know how to deal with me,” I told her mockingly. “I’m something you’ve never seen before.”
The Mesmer faded. I grinned and punched Queen Victoria in the face. I felt her nose break, and she screamed as her blood sprayed all over my head. The vampire guards cocked their guns and fired just as I erected a magical shield around myself.
The queen stared up at me as hails of bullets shattered against my shield. She seemed to be in awe.
“Powerful girl,” she whispered, head nodding. “Powerful girl.”
She leaped toward me, fanging out. I created my signature move – a fireball in the form of an eagle. I sent it flying toward her at an incredible speed. She flipped out of the way, displaying an agility not seen in someone her age, and came at me again. I backhanded her across the face so hard the plastic embedded in her flesh shifted.
She put her hand to her disfigured face. Her cheek looked like it was melting.
“My beautiful face,” she whined.
“Since when?” I quipped.
I turned to find the vampire soldiers heading toward me. They were all attired in black, guns erect, teeth elongated and ready for blood. I was trapped.
Hah!
I grinned and ran, sliding across the floor, firing minor versions of my eagle fireb
all at them. One by one the vampires erupted into flames, their manic shrieks deafening to my ears. One of them made a grab for me and threw me into the air. I crashed through the ceiling.
That hurt.
I caught a brief glimpse of the moonlit sky before I plummeted back down to earth again. The vampire kicked me in the head, knocking me to the ground. He grinned and fired his rifle at me. A bullet struck my shoulder, but I used a spell on it, forcing it back through my skin and propelling it to its point of origin. The vampire’s gun exploded in his hands, shredding his fingers to pieces.
That had to hurt.
The remaining un-burning vampires dropped their guns and came at me en masse. Queen Victoria watched from the sidelines as I fought each one in turn[NJA1]. I hoped she was enjoying the show. When I was finished with her minions I was going to literally rip her head off.
I fought, combining my own raw fighting style with magic. The vampires didn’t stand a chance.
One of them had their eyeballs turn to acid. I stabbed him through the chest.
Dust.
I used a gravity spell on another. He flipped into the air, not knowing which way was up. I decapitated him.
Dust.
Another tried to bite me, but I sent a fireball into his mouth instead. I felt the tips of my fingers burn as he exploded.
Dust.
They weren’t used to going up against someone who had magic full. I killed every one of them in the space of five minutes.[NJA2]
I took a deep breath as the last of the vampires exploded into ash. Queen Victoria was still watching, still observing my every move. She was trying to probe a weakness.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
“I’m looking for Dorian,” I told her. “My Dorian.”
“If he was ever here I don’t know,” the queen admitted. “Just please leave my world.”
I walked up to her. I found it strange she didn’t try her Mesmer on me again, but maybe she’d given up. Maybe she wanted me to kill her.
“Did he kill your Leopold too?” Victoria asked.
I nodded. “There was nothing I could do.”
“He was possessed by a demon.”
It felt good to talk to someone who’d actually been there, albeit a version of what happened anyway.
“He slaughtered my love in front of me,” I said, Leopold’s final moments of anguish imprinted in my brain forever. “Dorian just laughed and tried to kill me.”
“On my world you killed Dorian straight away.” Victoria smirked. “And then I killed you.”
Things had turned out a lot differently for me. I wasn’t going to tell her this. She’d suffered enough, though that didn’t excuse her for causing a supernatural genocide.
I owed it to this world to depose this dictator.
“You won’t hurt anyone else,” I whispered, watching as her eyes widened in fear. “Not ever again.”
***
Circe smiled. The fire crackled, sending up sheets of white smoke into the frosty air. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, held in place with dried grass. She enjoyed stories of my past, my history. I wasn’t sure I liked recalling them, but I suppose they were a part of me, just as much as my internal organs were a part of me. Unlike my internal organs they didn’t cause me pain.
“And what did you do?” Lizbeth asked.
I said, “I cursed her.”
“What kind of curse was it?” Lana asked, excited, hugging her striped woollen blanket for warmth.
“Queen Victoria was known for being dour and unimpressed, especially after the death of her husband,” I said, “so I cursed her to feel remorse for every witch and shifter and vampire that she’d ever killed. It was a fitting punishment, and far better than a quick death.”
I created my fire eagle in the palm of my hand and sent it soaring into the night sky. Everyone was entranced, including Circe.
The children on the right side of the fire started talking among themselves. Mimicry of my fire eagle was something members of our witch clan tried at an early age, though they were all encouraged to try using a different totem. It felt good to know I’d started a tradition.
Circe caught my eye and said, “You can stop now if you like. I know you don’t like to talk about your adventures when you bump into versions of Victoria and Leopold.”
Circe knew me better than I knew myself. She was our leader and an ancient witch of incredible power. She was tough but had a warm heart. She’d always looked out for me. I’m not sure where I’d be if it wasn’t for her.
My name is Kezia Campbell. I was born in 1850 in a small supernatural town called Chapel Green in Maine. Supernatural towns were havens for vampires, witches, shifters and other supernatural beings. Humans lived among them too, though they were peacefully unaware of their town’s magical residents. They were considered safe.
My father was Robert Campbell, an escaped slave and a powerful witch. He’d been used by his former owner to commit unspeakable things. In the end he’d fallen in love with a passing Romani called Elma and ran away with her to live free in Chapel Green. They were welcomed there, and bore three children.
Then the slave hunters came, hired by my father’s former master. They killed my sister, leaving my parents and my brother and me to flee to England. We considered going to live in one of the many supernatural towns there but decided to live in central London. We could blend in there, become unnoticeable among the masses. It was best.
Maybe not for the best, considering how things turned out.
In 2017 I lived in a remote part of Alaska, far away from the world at large. Circe and her Fire Circle witches were still involved in global supernatural politics, though they never divulged any of their secrets. We had it good now. Nobody bothered us, and we were free to do as we pleased.
At least some of us were. I had an important task that had to be completed.
The children, bored, ran off to practice their own animal totem fireballs. The normal adults wandered off back to their cabins to settle in for the night. The witches that remained, not including myself, watched me with interest, the firelight dancing in their eyes. They called themselves the Fire Circle witches, and their leader, as well as leader of our clan, was Circe.
“Tell us what happened next,” Circe asked politely.
I nodded and said, “I looked around for Dorian for a while longer but got nowhere. He’d already been and gone, leaving little trace of himself. After that, I visited a world that was barren, devoid of life. There was magic in the air, a primeval, simple magic, but that was it.”
“A failure,” said Granny Maya. She was second-in-command to Circe, an ancient Indian woman who’d been invited to join the Fire Circle witches because of her knowledge of immortality spells. “A shame.”
I winced. “It wasn’t a failure as such. The air itself replenished my magical reserves quite quickly.”
“It might be a good place to practice,” Morena said, smiling her toothless smile. She was formerly from a clan in Naples, Italy, a Romani who’d lost count after giving birth twenty-two times. “I shall have to journey there myself.”
An awkward silence ensued. It was common knowledge that Morena couldn’t perform magic any more. After the death of her eldest daughter she’d created a sort of mental block. They’d tried breaking her of it but to no avail. I felt great pity for her. She’d been a formidable witch once upon a time. The fact that she was also losing her mind was quite sad.
“So you’re prepared for your next journey,” said Circe. It wasn’t a question.
I wasn’t so sure. I’d only been back a few hours and had wanted to catch up with clan gossip. My last trip had lasted for three weeks and I was exhausted. Besides, I still hadn’t seen the latest season of Orange is the New Black on Netflix.
“Let her rest,” Granny Maya complained. She batted at an invisible fly. “She’s been doing this for a long time.”
I smiled at Granny, giving her my thanks. Circe sighed and n
odded her head reluctantly.
“Is there anything else you want to tell us?” Circe asked.
I wanted to remind her to get something done about her unibrow but decided to be prudent. The voucher for beauty care she’d gotten her for Mother’s Day probably ended up in the bin.
I shook my head. “No. Not really. It’s just…”
Could I tell them I was tired? Could I tell them I was starting to feel as if my quest seemed infinite? I’d been at this for over one-hundred and thirty years, travelling from world to world. There didn’t seem an end in sight.
“I fear I may never find him,” I admitted. I stared into the flames, seeing my brother’s face looking back at me. “But I fear that I will find him more. I suppose that’s just the nature of my quest and my curse.”
I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me or to pity me. This was my burden. They didn’t have to help me, but they did, and I was thankful for that. It meant I wasn’t perpetually alone.
“You could call it a day,” Granny suggested. “There’s plenty of things you could be doing.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I said. “I have to find him.”
In 1885 the love of my life was murdered by my brother. I vowed to kill him and take my revenge, but I had a baby to take care of. My lost love would understand I had obligations, and would want our daughter to be looked after, and so I settled down, preparing to live my life and raise my little girl, all thoughts of revenge seemingly in the past. The thing standing in the way of that life was my lover’s mother – Queen Victoria. She wasn’t going to let Dorian get away with murdering her son.
Granny Maya looked down at her gnarled hands, seemingly in thought. “I might be able to help.”
“The curse can’t be lifted,” I said. We’d had this conversation so many times it wasn’t even funny. I think it hurt their egos to know this wasn’t a problem they could easily solve if you only had the right spell. “You’ve all tried dozens of times. It’s no use.”
“I’m working on something,” Granny admitted. “I’m not at liberty to say anything more, but I think I can help you soon.”
