The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get

by Amber Lynn

I ended up in the vehicle with Nate, Rick, Mak, Kyle, Liam, Vinnie, and Charlie. By that time, I knew most of the guys well enough that we didn’t usually have a lot to talk about other than current events. Mak was new to the group and I knew absolutely nothing about him, or his species.

  “So, Mak, how old are you?” I asked.

  Humans tended to think that question was rude, but in the unique world it always helped to know what eras the other person was knowledgeable of. It also said a lot about pecking order within species, the older you were, the better.

  “How old are you? Do you guys measure the real years or just the modern years?” he replied.

  I didn’t know exactly what he meant. I had my memories of my life with Nate, but I didn’t really have a sense of time. I vaguely remembered being around without any other beings, so I supposed that would’ve had to have been a long time ago.

  I got the sense, though, during that time I wasn’t in a form most people would recognize. I couldn’t remember being humanoid then. I turned to Nate to see how he was going to answer. He gave me a smile, probably because he was picking up my mild confusion.

  “The human scientists say the earth is over four billion years old, I think they’d freak out to know we’ve been around the majority of those years, wouldn’t you?” Nate responded. “We evolved into various forms until the modern humans came about, and then we adapted to blend in with them. That’s generally where we start counting years.”

  “Holy moly,” I said, trying to get my brain to process that many years.

  I hadn’t taken the time to dive into what all of the things Nate had reminded me concerning phoenixes meant. Since I’d given birth to Mirari as a human, I knew we’d waited a long time to start our family. I dug around in my memory and remembered us wanting to wait to see where life ended up. At the time it probably wasn’t a big deal, but I was surprised we’d waited that many years.

  “Another issue we had was you couldn’t sit still long enough to hatch an egg,” Nate told me telepathically. “I was just thankful your mother didn’t feel the same way. A lot of phoenixes waited like us. Our children are still thousands of years old, which would be considered ancient to most.

  “Even though you remember us being together, the last few millennia are probably what you will remember the best. Before that, we just had bird brains if you recall. We didn’t even get our extra abilities until we started changing into humans. The human brain is superior to a bird’s, even magical birds like us.”

  I knew our story went that the original phoenix came from the earth forming; I just never thought how long ago that was. I guessed when everything was originally explained to me, I focused on the part about us coming back humanoid each resurrection, so I thought we had just been around as long as they had.

  Charlie’s books seemed to start at the point of us being humans too. If we didn’t have a sophisticated way of communication before that, it would’ve been hard to record any kind of history. I was glad no one had figured out that little tidbit of information in the human world. That would’ve been a little awkward to describe.

  “Well, technically speaking I’m probably half of your age, but I too number in the billion,” Mak answered the original question.

  “Does anyone have some kind of timeline I can look at that will show me when all our different species came into existence?” I asked. I didn’t understand how anyone could be that old. “I’m going to want to figure this all out, so my brain doesn’t explode. I didn’t get the feeling the other uniques were that old.”

  “Most are from the modern era, so they aren’t that old. We’ll come up with something for you to study when we get back, Mom,” Charlie said.

  “Can you tell me more about jinn?” I asked Mak.

  “Our history would be similar to yours, but instead of being born of fire, we’re born from the air. To be exact, it was super-heated air, so we can take the heat, so to speak,” he said with a smile. “At first we were a free race, like you, and just lived as particles in the air because we didn’t have a reason to take a particular form. Eventually as the demons, as you call them, arrived on the scene in the modern era, we were forced into slavery when we started taking human forms. We’re very few in numbers; I believe there may be thirty or forty of us in the whole world. I know it’s asking a lot, but after you’ve saved your own kind, I would ask if you could help save mine.”

  “I don’t think you understand exactly what we’re doing. I believe you probably stayed up long enough to get the general idea, but we’re not trying to save my kind. We’re trying to save everyone. If the demons are who caused your slavery to begin with, do you think me killing the lead one would release you all?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I’d just told him he’d won the lottery. I was happy to see him lose his cool just a little bit, since there’d been times I thought Vinnie showed more emotion.

  “I bet you’re right. Without Malphas the bonds should break.”

  “So, can you explain a little more about your powers to me? Besides doing whatever a ‘master’ tells you, what else can you do?” I asked.

  “Hopefully now that I’m free, my magically abilities will be similar to yours. I don’t believe I’ll have to say spells, like I’ve heard you do. I just think what I want to happen and it does. Aside from that, I don’t have a cool visible other form like a phoenix, but I can change myself into smoke and move around like it does. I think that ability would be useful in a fight, even though I’ve never tried it out,” he said.

  “That sounds cool. We could give you a weapon and you could just tear into an opponent without them knowing what hit them,” Rick said from the driver’s seat, joining the conversation.

  “You mentioned Malphas, you were with Alex for at least a little while, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, it was a number of years, some of my worst,” he replied.

  “After I killed Alex, I received a letter I’m guessing came from Malphas. It was signed ‘master’ and made me believe it was from whoever the leader of the warlocks was. In it, though, it said I killed his son. If Malphas is some master demon and Alex was just a stupid warlock, did he mean that they were really biologically related?”

  Just like time was sort of relative, words in the unique world rarely carried the exact same meaning they did when I was oblivious to the fact that there was a unique world. Eva still tried to claim we were friends, which clearly meant there was a definition out there I wasn’t aware of.

  “No, they aren’t father and son in that sense. Alex was Malphas’ first. He corrupted him many years ago and wears his soul around his neck in a really ugly necklace. I’m guessing since you disposed of Alex properly, the necklace is now empty,” Mak responded.

  “Does that mean the soul went on to a better place like you always hear in the movies?” I asked. I supposed for someone like Alex that wasn’t likely, but I was still curious.

  “I wouldn’t call it that. His soul is now a lost soul stuck in Purgatory. I hear it can get pretty nasty there. Serves the idiot right for getting involved with Malphas all those years ago,” he answered.

  “How many years are we talking? I guess I don’t really know how warlocks are made and how long they live. You would think before I started killing them I would’ve asked these questions,” I said.

  The ride to the hotel was turning out to be useful to me. Since Charlie knew everything about pretty much everything, he took the opportunity to put his teacher’s cap on, rather than letting Mak answer the question.

  “Let’s start with the demons themselves. We ended up calling them that because they act like the human books and movies portray a demon. They’re really beings like Eva, but they’re rotten to the core. They love to trick humans and enjoy stripping away souls from people.

  “They usually prey on the weak or people who have fallen on bad times. They come in and promise you the world at your fingertips. They do a couple magic tricks and tell them they can be just like them,
all they have to do is sign on the dotted line.

  “When the deal is done, they take a part of the human. Similar to us calling them demons, we’ve just grown used to calling the missing part the soul. Some may call it their essence, others their humanity. Whatever you want to call it, left behind is a shell of a person with the ability to cause havoc.

  “Thankfully, it takes them a little while to harness their newfound skill, and they can’t just do whatever they want out of the box. The majority of the time, once the deal is done, the demon who negotiated it leaves and never contacts the warlock again. It sounds like that might be different in Alex’s case, but that’s a rarity.”

  Charlie finished his lesson and I gave him a little applause. It was a lot of information packed tightly into a concise description. I liked it.

  “You know, I think we need to keep you around, just so I don’t feel like such an airhead all the time. I mean, I’ve read the books, but there’s so much still not covered,” I said.

  I could’ve tried to work out a solution for my memory issue, but Nate kept too close of an eye on me to find a way to bring everything back online. There was a part of me that was scared to know everything, and what would happen once I did get everything back.

  “For the foreseeable future, I’ll be taking over your tour while you do some more warlock hunting. After that, we’ll just have to see where I settle down,” he replied.

  I knew Charlie didn’t really settle down. He loved adventure and learning everything he could. I’d cherish the moments I could with him, but eventually he was going to have to go back to living his normal life.

  “Venturing back to how old Alexander was, he had just reached his nine hundredth year. The demons had us jinn to play with for a while, so they didn’t start making warlocks until this last millennia,” Mak informed the group.

  “He didn’t look nine hundred, but he didn’t look as young as us either. Anyone care to explain?” I asked.

  “When the soul is taken, they stop aging,” Nate said.

  I supposed that made sense. Alex must not have been a spring chicken when he met up with his daddy. It made me curious what had been going on in his life to give his soul away. I hadn’t met Malphas, so I supposed there was a chance he was charming enough to sell ice in Hell, but I figured there was something that made Alex an easy target.

  “We’ve talked about jinn in general, but what about you personally, Mak? You’ve been around forever and probably been to every location. Where is your favorite place to visit?” I asked.

  “Anywhere that has a volcano. I love to breakdown into steam and ride through the steam vents,” he replied.

  I smiled at him and things started to get a little hazy in my head. There was a fog trying to push its way in, which spelled trouble. I couldn’t tell for sure where it was coming from, and I didn’t know if anyone else felt the same thing, but I doubted it.

  “How close are we?” I asked, fighting back the darkness that seemed to be pressing on me. I looked out the window and saw we were in a parking lot.

  “We’re here, why?” Rick asked. He’d pulled into a spot and all eyes in the vehicle were trained on me.

  “I’m getting a really bad feeling. I don’t think I’m going to be with you guys very much longer. I don’t mean that literally, but I think a nap is coming on,” I said as the blackness took over.

  In the distance, I could hear Eva for some reason. “Sorry, Avery, they’re blocking my presence, so I can’t help guide you like last time. I’m on my way, though, and will instruct the guys on how to bring you out of it.”

   

   

  CHAPTER 11

  The future influences the present just as much as the past