Dark Illumination

by Hadena James

  “Bren, that isn’t constructive at the moment.” Anubis spoke softly.

  “I know and that just pisses me off more. I need to be able to see. Because if I can’t see, I can’t hack little bits of this asshole off. But all I can see is magic at the moment. And I’m not entirely sure how accurate that is. But once I’m healed, I’m going to have to sit in this damn room and wait to recover. And if I’m in here, twiddling my thumbs, I’m not out there, stopping trolls or dragons or psycho Witches. And where the fuck are they taking our pregnant women?” I shouted the last.

  I could feel the emotion building magic. I tried to shut it down, but I was too far gone. I hadn’t been kidding about moving from irate to rage in a few seconds.

  “Our house,” Fenrir told me. His voice sounded far away.

  “I recommend leaving,” I announced.

  “Uh no,” Eli’s voice came to me. “We’re in this together now.”

  “Go Eli, take the others and go.”

  “No,” he told me. I felt my anger melt away a little bit.

  “Once you have had your outburst, we will still need to heal you,” Livi told me. “Hard to do that outside the room.”

  “Just think Bren, we get through the next twelve hours and you can catch your Witch.” Levi said.

  “Uh, no…” Anubis started to scold Levi, but the mention of Witch brought all the rage rushing back at me.

  “Son of a bitch.” I reached out and flung something off the nightstand, my guess was the digital clock, since I couldn’t see it.

  Not being able to see what I had just thrown or where it had landed was the last straw. There would be no stopping it now. I filled with magic.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cerise magic exploded, filling the air. Everything it touched, it impacted. I felt it slam into my siblings first; they seemed to be the closest. I felt the last of the cursed wounds break and heal in Eli. I felt Livi, Samuel, and Nick react to the magic by trying to take some of it into themselves. It hit Daniel.

  Daniel’s own magic lashed out at mine. It was a vivid green, like absinthe. It crashed against my own, made mine stronger. It forced its way into him. Found the divide in his brain and tried to tear it down.

  It found Leviathan and broke his cursed wounds. Healed him up. It found Fenrir and I felt him go to all fours, his skin change to fur. It slammed into Anubis, found his curse and tried to break it. Anubis resisted. The first real resistance.

  It found Lucifer and his magic mingled with mine. I realized my rage had frightened him. Not that he was frightened of me, he was frightened for me. His fear fed his magic. It mixed with my own, made it stronger.

  The magic continued on, through the walls, out into the streets, filling the other rooms. It found the motel owners and healed them of their age. There was still more. It was still pouring out of me. Only Anubis stood, unaffected by it.

  There was a strange noise in the parking lot. The wrenching of metal. I found a troll there. I found enough of myself left to force all my magic into it.

  There was another strange noise, half scream, half bellow. I felt the magic associated with the troll and poured more into it. The magic snapped. The troll gave another screaming bellow. My magic traced the receding power to its source and found a ball of cerulean magic.

  It had to be the Witch. It was too much, too concentrated not to be. I shoved magic his way, finally getting control of myself. Then he was gone.

  The rage was as well. The magic was depleting. I had no more to use, no more to send out. I was exhausted. I slumped back onto the bed and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. There was a small pink cloud above me.

  The pink cloud of magic wasn’t doing anything. Just like everyone else in the room. They didn’t talk. They didn’t move. They were barely breathing. My rage was over. That was good.

  “There’s a dead troll in the parking lot.” Daniel finally said. He sounded like himself, not the prophet. But Daniel didn’t speak like that.

  “Daniel?” My father said his name quietly.

  “There is a dead troll in the parking lot. I think it might have exploded.” Daniel repeated.

  “Danny?” Eli’s voice this time. “Danny, are you alright?”

  “Yes and no,” Daniel answered.

  “Are you the Prophet?” Levi asked.

  “No, just Daniel.” Daniel said. “I have been trying to tell Brenna for years that she could heal me, but I didn’t know how.”

  “Heal what?” Lucifer asked. “We couldn’t heal you.”

  “Heal me,” Daniel said. “I still have the Prophet. It still has one section of my brain cut off, but the Prophet and the Witch don’t mix. It’s like being cursed.”

  “That’s impossible.” Lucifer said.

  “How many True Prophets are born like I was?” He asked. It was a very intelligent question for a boy of sixteen.

  “None were,” Lucifer admitted.

  “None were Witches either. You don’t live with the Prophet in your head. I do. I know what the barrier in my brain was like. It wasn’t something that could be healed with a Demon’s magic, because it wasn’t a physical break. It was a magical one. Demons are great at healing physical wounds, awful at healing magical ones. That’s why Witches are around. You get eaten by a dragon, it leaves some scars that Elders can’t see, but a Witch could and a Witch could heal them. It is what we do.”

  “Daniel, how… why…” Levi stopped.

  “I know, it’s complicated, but then everything magical is. The Prophet didn’t like being trapped in that brain either.”

  “The Prophet is different?”

  “It’s another soul. I feel him in there, he talks to me. He told me Brenna could heal me, if I could just make her understand. But I couldn’t. So I figured if I was around one day when she went into her Demon tantrum, I’d get fixed.”

  “You knew that?” Levi asked.

  “Yes, she is a bit like the rest of you, a lot like dad. She has these serious fits of rage. But you guys can only heal when it happens to you, occasionally throw flames, but that’s about it. She just explodes with raw magic and it has nothing to do but what it can find to do.” Daniel said. His voice was getting much closer.

  “I could have healed you all this time?” I finally joined the conversation.

  “Yes, but you didn’t know. You tried with Demon magic, but that wasn’t what I needed. I kept making it rain odd things, so you’d realize that what I needed was a Witch. But I guess making it rain odd things isn’t nearly as effective as telling you. However, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t have the ability.” Daniel took my hand. “That is why I have followed you around like a shadow for so long.”

  “It isn’t because I’m your favorite?” I leaned forward and felt Daniel put his forehead against mine.

  “I don’t have a favorite sibling.” He answered in barely a whisper. “I love you all, equally. I just couldn’t tell you that. One day, you’ll know and understand. You’ve slowly been working on healing me for months now. That is why I took in Sonnellion and the other Witch’s magic. I knew I could handle them and knew I could tell you. But I needed you to get angry, really angry and finish the job.”

  “I flew into a rage because of you?”

  “No, you did that all on your own. I was just lucky enough to be here this time. But while you were pouring all that magic into the house to protect it, I made sure I was around some. Because some of it always found a way to me. I don’t think you consciously knew that you were also trying to put protection spells on me, but you were and as a result, I was slowly starting to feel better. The Prophet normally occupies the area of the brain reserved for where Witches do their magic. Since I was a Witch, it created a barrier. I could still do Witch magic, but I had limited skills in other places. It was a barrier my own mind put in, so it had to be torn down with magic.”

  “And you knew all this?”

  “I didn’t have the Prophet until I was almost four years old. It is why I devel
oped normally and then just stopped.”

  “Wow, what now?” I asked him.

  “Beats me. I think we should tell mom and do something about dad.”

  “Daniel, how much control do you have at the moment?”

  “Not enough to fix your eyes Brenna. I’m powerful, but it is uncontrolled power. I’m liable to break something.”

  “Ani, are you all right?” I asked Anubis, remembering my magic finding his curse.

  “Yes, Mein Schatz, I am fine.”

  “Papa?” I asked.

  “I just…” his voice broke. Lucifer was crying. That was what it took to break me out of my awe. I started to cry as well.

  I felt arms slide around me. Some were massive, some were small, some almost felt Human, a big family hug was in progress and we were all crying. I could feel and hear the sobs of my siblings. I think only Daniel remained tear-free.

  My father pulled back from me last. He ran a massive hand under my eyes to wipe away the last of my tears. He kissed my forehead.

  “Daniel, I think you should call your mother.” He instructed my brother.

  “Okay,” I felt Daniel get off the bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My mother was mostly hysterical sobs over the phone. They were loud enough we could all hear them. Daniel kept talking through her sobs though until he finally got away from her.

  “She wants to come here.” He handed the phone to me.

  “Mom, you can’t come here. I will have Daniel home as soon as possible.” I told my hysterical mother.

  “Oh yes I can, Brenna Nicheven Strachan, you do not have the ability to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

  “You will be safer inside my house. As soon as we sort out the psycho Witch, we will all be home. Daniel and you can have your tearful reunion then.”

  “Just who the hell do you think you’re talking to, young lady?”

  “A pregnant Witch carrying a half-breed child, you’d just put yourself and my new sibling in danger if you came here. You don’t want that. Lucifer doesn’t want that. I don’t want that.”

  “But…” She stopped arguing.

  “I know, it sucks. We’ll all have a family thing when we get home. Love you, mom.”

  “Love you too, Bren.” She hung up the phone.

  “Good lord, don’t ever do that to me again. Next time, someone else talk to her.” I sighed heavily.

  “She’s difficult at the moment.” Lucifer said.

  “She’s always difficult when she’s pregnant. I think she suffers from the normal hormone stuff and magic withdraw.” Pregnant Witches do not cast magic. It can have very bad results.

  “What were we doing?” I asked.

  “We were considering healing you,” Eli reminded me.

  “Then we got distracted by the mark and Daniel and the power rage you went into,” Livi added.

  “We’ve had one miraculous healing, time for another, I suppose,” I sighed.

  “You still don’t sound happy?” Levi interrupted.

  “I am trying not to be angry. Not only did I let this son of a bitch blind me once, but I let him do it twice. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…” I didn’t finish.

  “Stop, Bren, it could have happened to any of us. Let’s get this done and over with and then we’ll find him and turn him into a frog or something.” Eli soothed the anger that was starting to build again.

  “You’re right, I’m sorry.” I sighed heavily. It was becoming a trademark for me.

  “Ready?” Livi asked.

  “Ready as ever,” I steeled myself up for the magic and the pain. This could go wrong, but it was unlikely. Best not to dwell on it though.

  The first tendrils of magic floated into my magical vision again. A plethora of colors leaked from their hosts. My siblings had form, but not a physical one with features; they were just blobs of magic. I concentrated on those blobs.

  The power continued to swell. A sphere began to form. I waited for it to come at me, but it didn’t. It stayed, steady and pulsing slightly. I could see magic from all of them, plus a few splotches of other magic belonging to myself, the Overlords, Sonnellion and the Witch from hell.

  The sphere suddenly crashed into me. I felt magic explode inside my body. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant either. Before I could recover from the first, a second wave crashed into me.

  As with the first time, I felt my eyeballs literally explode in their sockets. Gunk ran down my face. No one moved to remove it.

  Another wave of their magic slammed into me. It took my breath away for a moment. It was working. I could feel my eyes growing back, replacing themselves.

  They hit me with a fourth, then a fifth, then a sixth. I thought I was going to get magic sickness. They stopped. We all waited.

  When they didn’t hit me with a seventh, I opened my eyes. It was much better than the first time. I could see completely. My eyes felt normal.

  “Much better,” Anubis said after a moment.

  “Better than the first time,” I smiled at them. I could see again. Whatever damage might have been done to the others was gone. I had felt their wounds. I had felt them heal.

  Carefully, I rubbed my face. The gunk was tacky to the touch and I was sure I didn’t want to know what it was. Not that I didn’t know, I just didn’t need it confirmed.

  “You look like hell,” Lucifer told me.

  “Thanks, Papa.” I smiled at him. “I feel better.”

  “Go clean yourself up. We’ll get dinner and go from there.” Anubis told me.

  This was code for “leave the room, the rest of us need to talk”. But my face told me it needed to be washed. My hands were still coated in Eli’s blood. A shower would do me good, regardless of the plotting they got up to while I was in there.

  I left them to it. The water was blisteringly hot. My lilac skin turned deep purple under the heat. I washed my hair, my face and then repeated both. When I still didn’t feel clean, I did it a third time.

  I shut off the water, got dressed and wiped the steam from the mirror. My eyes had dark circles under them. My eyeballs weren’t exactly normal, but they were close. The pupil was still a couple shades too light. A feat since they are already lighter than my irises.

  For several minutes I stared at myself and wondered who it was that was staring back at me. Had I looked this rough during the Maturing? I wasn’t sure; I hadn’t bothered with a mirror.

  It wasn’t a secret that our bad guy Witch had a plan. He had told us as much. What the plan was exactly, now that was a Demon of a different color. It could have been anything. Crazy people do not make sense to non-crazy people.

  Now, he’d brought dragons into the equation. I hadn’t had a ton of experience working with dragons. But I was pretty sure I didn’t need an up close and personal encounter to know that they were bad.

  Or at least, bad news. Dragons sort of just are. The fact that they eat Elders is just a by-product of their evolution. Technically, they didn’t give a hoot whether the person they ate was good or bad. It didn’t exist for them. I’m sure the same held true for trolls.

  I looked at myself again. With my hair wet and plastered to my scalp, you could just get a glimpse of the miniature horns that sat on my head. I touched one and drew blood. They were razor sharp by nature, not by nurturing them. I didn’t have to put them against a grindstone to draw blood. My father actually used a grinding stone to make his smaller.

  My thoughts wandered back to the Witch. My magic had found him while in a power rage. He couldn’t be that far from us. Was he local? I didn’t think so. So, why here?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My room was empty when I entered it from the bathroom. Whatever conference they had been having was now over. I was alone. Funny, I had come out of the bathroom to stop being alone.

  I hadn’t needed to be in the room to know they had been talking about Daniel and me. I had healed him. It was something to talk about.

&nb
sp; I went to the small table and found an unopened box of donuts. There was a little note on it, “eat up, you will need your strength tonight”. It was scribbled in my father’s handwriting.

  This Witch didn’t realize what he had done. It was one thing to piss me off. Pissing off my father and his brothers, well, that was like jumping into a cave of starving dragons covered in blood.

  I ate a donut. Then another. My thoughts whirling around. I needed a few good spells. I needed a few good protection spells. I sighed. My mother was good at protection spells. I was good with raw magic.

  I stood up, a third donut in my hand, refusing to let myself get down by the thought that my mother was the protection spell guru. I was a Witch, damn it, if I needed a protection spell, I could create one. I lugged out my overnight bag which was really a giant suitcase on wheels.

  “Hello,” Ezra said to me.

  “Hey back,” I said to my spell book.

  “Whatcha need?”

  “A few protection spells, without the use of potions to get them started and is there any specific spell to protect my eyes?”

  “Your eyes?”

  “I keep getting blinded.”

  “By a Witch or something else?”

  “A Witch.”

  “That’s dark magic, don’tcha know?”

  “I know. So how do I fend it off?”

  “Hmmm,” Ezra seemed to think for a moment. “There isn’t one for the eyes per say, but there are a couple of good protection spells. Page seventeen has one that would work for a group, I don’t imagine you’re alone and page 574 has one that would help you and you alone. There are others, but a Witch using dark magic, is a force to reckon with.”

  “I know, asshole has blinded me twice. He’s gotten all my siblings involved and now, my father and uncle Levi. I don’t know whether he has a death wish or is just too crazy to realize what he is doing.”

  “Go with the latter,” Ezra grinned at me. My spell book and I had found a sort of peace.