Never Just One Apocalypse

by Karen L Mead

  “Uh…well, yes, but that was time manipulation. Not Necromancy.”

  “Do you not possess a strong bond with your vampires, because as undead creatures, they are yours to command?”

  “Uh…”

  “Are you not the only true scion of Sammael, known for eons as The Angel of Death?”

  Dammit.

  “Look, all that aside, you’re asking the official Guardian of the Western Court to protect you from…the Western Court. You’re putting me in a bind here.”

  “You will help me,” she said, narrowing her bright eyes.

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I will? Seems like the smartest thing I could do would be to send you on your way, considering what you are. Negotiating with fairies typically doesn’t work out very well for a non-fairy.”

  If she was surprised that he knew what she was, she gave no indication of it.

  “Not all of us rely on trickery; I can give you information. About what your own people are doing behind your back.”

  Sam didn’t respond, surprised. Dorothy continued.

  “I will tell you what they are planning, all of their foul designs. In return, I will stay in your territory, and if demons come for me, you will tell them ‘this creature is under my protection.’ That is what you must say.”

  “I’ll be taking a huge risk, going against my own people.”

  “And if you do not protect me, you take a bigger risk; you let them do as they wish, with all the powers of creation.”

  Wait, what?

  Sam pushed out his chair and stood up. “Alright. I’m probably going to regret this, but I need to know what the Chairman is hiding from me. If you can tell me that, I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.”

  “So you agree to our bargain?” said Dorothy, also standing up.

  There it is. There’s the trap.

  “I’d prefer not to put it in those terms. Let’s keep things casual.”

  She smiled thinly. “Do you really believe all the stories you’ve heard about the fae?”

  “Can you blame me for being cautious?”

  “No,” she admitted, then came to stand next to him; he was surprised at her sudden proximity, and stepped back unconsciously.

  “It is not a proper contract, but it is adequate, I suppose. Now, I will do better than tell you of the demons’ plans, I will show you.”

  She grabbed his hand, and the next thing Sam knew, he was somewhere else. When he realized he’d been transported somewhere without permission, his first instinct was to grab the fairy by the throat, but he made the mistake of looking down first and realized where he was.

  He was standing on a tree branch, high up in the forest canopy. Feeling vertigo, he crouched and gripped the massive branch below him with two hands. The wood dug into his skin, giving him splinters, but that was better than falling. Dorothy was standing nonchalantly next to him, high heels digging into conveniently positioned knotholes the wood, as though they weren’t suddenly hundreds of feet in the air.

  I think I’m just going to hold on for dear life here so I don’t fall and kill myself; I don’t have a hand free for strangling purposes.

  “Are you insane? Why would you jump me here without permission?”

  “I thought you wanted to get to the point. This is the only place I can show you what you need to see.”

  Sam tried to calm down. Being suddenly displaced in space would unnerve most people, even demons, but what was especially disturbing to Sam was how different it felt from his own traveling via Realm. When he traveled, there was a kind of fading in between locations, a kind of grace period while one location faded and the other became clear. When Dorothy had transported him, he hadn’t even had time to blink before everything around him had changed. The lack of a transition felt fundamentally wrong, somehow: like the faerie had scraped a fingernail across a chalkboard, only the chalkboard was somewhere near the base of his skull.

  “Where are we?”

  “Not far from your shop.”

  Sam almost looked down again before he stopped himself.

  “That can’t be. There are no trees this tall anywhere near the city.”

  “Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. In any case, we are ready to begin.”

  “We?” Sam said, but the immediately saw what Dorothy meant.

  Across the canopy, the branches were filled with small forest creatures—all manner of birds, foxes, and lizards, in every color imaginable. Whether the animals were truly magical or not, they had at least been touched by magic, because their coloration was like nothing Sam had ever seen. They were also silent; Sam kept expecting to hear a cacophony of tweets and croaks that never came.

  All silent, and unnervingly still….

  Dorothy spread her hands majestically, like she was about to start conducting an orchestra.

  “What I am about to show you is a memory, or series of memories: some are mine, some are from others. But everything I am about to show you occurred at one point in time.”

  The animals started to move, climbing the nearby trees and hopping from branch to branch. Sam was confused at first, trying to follow individual animals with his eyes, only to gasp when he looked at the big picture and realized what they were doing. They were projecting images, each animal acting like a pixel on a screen, using their varied colors to create a phantasmagoria of tremendous depth and subtlety. For a moment, Sam was so enraptured by the process of the spell that the substance of the memory was lost on him, but when a giant, glittering red creature took to the center of the display, he began paying attention.

  The red creature looked a bit like a pigeon, if pigeons grew to the size of small mountains and glittered in iridescent flames. It took a shuddering breath, flapped its massive wings, and exhaled a jet of fire, incinerating a column of Roman soldiers below. Instantly, the scene changed to a seascape, and a blue giant that reminded Sam of a Leviathan, only so very much bigger, created a massive wave with its tail that destroyed a seaside village. Gargantuan creatures, as gorgeous as they were terrifying, danced across the projection, killing hundreds in their wake as easily as breathing. When a giant spider appeared, smeared with its own webs and other viscous substances Sam dared not identify, and destroyed the tower of a stone castle with one muscular leg, Sam felt something he was unaccustomed to: terror.

  He was afraid for Cassie’s safety as often as not, and the others as well, but that was a different kind of fear, a more reasoned, paternal kind of fear. Sometimes it would manifest as a kind of overpowering mania, but it was a feeling that, for better or for worse, he had become accustomed to. This was different: a primal fear for his own life. He was afraid that he would be overpowered and die in agony, and there would be absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  “Stop it!” he yelled, and the animals ceased their movements immediately. Faster than a blink, they all returned to their normal colors, mostly dun-colored with a flash of red and green here and there.

  They had been normal forest animals all along.

  Sam’s breathing had quickened, his grasp on the tree branch supporting him a white-knuckled death grip.

  “What are those things?”

  “Arcane Phantasms. Phantasms are creatures of pure magic; they have no mass, no weight, no substance, which makes it very difficult to stop them. But as you’ve just seen, they can cause plenty of carnage.”

  Sam managed to find the courage to pull himself to his feet, though the world still seemed to be swaying a little bit.

  How much magic would it take to create something like that? And then if you did, could you even control it?

  “I didn’t think making something like that was even possible.”

  “It hasn’t been, for a long time,” said Dorothy, curling a tendril of her hair around her finger. Most of her hair was black, but the ends of her tresses were honey-colored. The gold streaks in her hair glowed in the afternoon sunlight, filtered through the trees. “For a short time, t
his was how wars were fought. Records of it have largely been destroyed, though the creatures still exist in the world of legend, of course.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “One of your people, a credit to his race, decided to stop the madness. He created a curse to prevent these…creatures from ever coming into existence again, and used a blood pact to seal it. One member of every race—at the time—gave a part of their essence to reinforce the curse: Faerie, Human, Demon, Vampire, and Werewolf. So that the unearthly creatures of ether and light would never be summoned again by power-hungry fools.”

  “Oh, I do not like where this is going at all,” Sam said quietly. Dorothy tossed her hair back and shrugged.

  “So, if you would like to create a Phoenix to incinerate a few million of your enemies, you need a representative of every race to undo the curse. But one race recently went extinct, which is very inconvenient.”

  “The Court doesn’t want a werewolf at all. The werewolf is just a key that opens a very big lock.”

  “Exactly.” Dorothy yawned; it was a strangely musical sound. “Have I earned my keep yet?”

  Chapter 16

  Cassie took in the sight of the new house with disbelief. A large, updated white colonial on a large, park-like lot, it was at least three times the size of her parents’ townhouse. She was expecting something nice, but the sheer size of the property, and the seemingly endless expanse of manicured green grass in all directions, took her by surprise. It was just as well that the yard didn’t have a lot of plants, barring a few azalea bushes out front; the sight of an elegantly manicured garden would have simply been too much.

  I’m seventeen. In a little while, I was supposed to go live in a dorm room the size of a closet, then maybe move into an apartment not much bigger, and that’s if I was lucky. I shouldn’t be living in a place like this.

  For a few moments, Cassie and her mother just stood outside their station wagon, looking up at the house in silence. Eventually, Annette made a satisfied noise.

  “Hmmph. Well, if they’re going to rip my only daughter away and make her live with inhuman monsters, at least it’s not a dump.”

  “Don’t start,” said Cassie, reaching into the car to get a box of stuffed animals. Prioritizing the dolls made her feel even more childish and unworthy of the house, but she wanted to make sure they didn’t get lost in the move. “We’ve been over why this is better for everybody.”

  Annette took off her sunglasses and sighed. “You just told me about all of this last night. Not even twenty-four hours ago. And you’re already leaving. You really expect me to be calm about this?”

  Actually, she’s being calmer than I would have expected…I almost wish she was screaming at me. I’m used to that.

  Cassie struggled to balance the box on her hip. “Well it’s not like I planned to move out this fast. It’s just, now with Teddy around, we needed someplace with privacy and a big yard ASAP. It just kind of happened.”

  “It just happened,” Annette mimicked, putting a hand on the hood of a car. “That’s how you got into this situation in the first place, isn’t it? You weren’t supposed to become a witch, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Cassie began heading toward the front door. Without taking any of the boxes, Annette followed her.

  “Or so your boyfriend says. You don’t have any proof of that, do you?”

  “Huh?” Cassie turned around. “What do you mean?”

  Her mother smirked, but there was little mirth in it. “It was a freak accident, he said. There was no choice but to do the whole magical bibitty-bobbity-boop that bonded you two, he said. How do you know he’s telling the truth?” She crossed her arms defiantly. “For all you know, that lying bastard wanted you from the moment he first laid eyes on you, and everything that happened in the fall was a convenient excuse.”

  Cassie grunted in frustration. “For the last time, it was an accident, okay, Mom? Sam wouldn’t lie about that.”

  “Well, considering you’ve been lying to my face for months now, I guess you are something of an authority on lying, aren’t you now, honey?”

  Cassie opened her mouth to snap back at her mother, then thought better of it and turned back toward the house. There was nothing to be gained by fighting; she really couldn’t begrudge her mother the right to at least mouth off a little. That much, she was entitled to.

  Miri walked past both of them, holding three cardboard boxes above her head like they weighed nothing. “You two want to go into the house, or just hang out on the lawn all day?”

  Annette made an annoyed sound with her tongue. “Don’t you even talk to me, you bony, blood-sucking skank.”

  “Love you too, Mama!” said Miri, throwing open the front doors with one hand.

  “Don’t blame Miri, Mom, she was just following orders,” said Cassie, walking toward the house.

  “‘Just following orders.’ Said by many wonderful people throughout history,” Annette muttered.

  The house came pre-furnished, all shiny leather furniture and creamy white surfaces. There was a huge glass coffee table, which Cassie immediately worried about Teddy plowing into, but most of the living room was empty, showing to good effect the wide expanse of polished hardwood floors. Past the living room Cassie could see into the kitchen, one of those spacious affairs with a marble island in the middle, and a breakfast bar over to the side.

  Oh wow, I have a bar with high stools on the side of the kitchen. It’s like having a private coffee bar inside the house!

  “Attention! Huuuuuuge hot tub in the master bathroom,” Miri called from upstairs.

  Cassie sat down in the middle of the floor in the living room, her box of stuffed animals on her lap. Her mother knelt down next to her, looking worried instead of angry for the first time that day.

  “Are you alright? Do you feel dizzy?”

  Cassie shook her head. “I’m fine, I’m just…a little overwhelmed. I was all ready to start unpacking, but now I feel like I have no idea where to start. This place is just so…yeah.”

  Annette cupped Cassie’s face with her hands and spoke in a whisper.

  “It’s still not too late, you know.”

  “What?”

  Cassie didn’t know what she was more surprised by; what her mother was saying, or how softly she was saying it.

  “You don’t have to be a witch. Just tell that…that man that you don’t want to do this anymore, and he’ll listen to you. He has to.”

  “It’s not that simple, Mom.”

  “Yes it is. You’ve got him wrapped around your little finger.”

  “No I don’t, Mom.”

  “You do. I may not know much, but I know what I know,” Annette said, stroking her daughter’s hair gently. “Unless…this is what you want. You want to leave us all behind.”

  Cassie pulled away and stood up, leaving her mother crouching on the floor. “Like I said, it’s not that simple, okay? I can’t just back out, even if I wanted to.”

  “So you don’t want to back out,” said Annette, still eerily quiet. “This really is what you want.”

  Fortunately, Miri came back downstairs and filled the silence before Cassie had to reply. “We should go check out the backyard. Teddy’s already out there, the zoo people dropped him off like an hour ago.”

  “Teddy is? I hope he doesn’t fall in the pool.”

  Miri blinked at her, confused. “Huh? There is no pool, I already told you. That’s the reason why Eugene wasn’t happy with this house and was still looking.”

  Cassie tugged on her earring, mildly embarrassed. “Oh…okay. I was sure I smelled chlorine for some reason.”

  Why do I keep smelling chlorine?

  Like everything else related to the house, the backyard was huge. Other than a small, pink-tiled patio and an elegant gazebo in the far corner, it was relatively empty, just a rectangular expanse of neatly mowed grass that went on for hundreds of yards, finally terminating a
t the edge of the wooded park that bordered the neighborhood. Teddy was resting happily on a giant pile of reeds, a parting gift from the Sterling Zoo. Cassie walked up to him and rubbed the top of his head, and he made a happy-sounding grunt.

  Annette came up beside Cassie, slowly taking in the sight of the yard. “Your dad wanted you to take the old camping equipment; he’ll drive that over after work. I’m going to go back, box up some of your clothes, and bring them over,” she said. “Unless you don’t want me involved.”

  “No, uh…if you could bring more of my clothes, that would be really helpful. Thanks Mom.”

  “There’s nothing I can say to talk you out of this, right? Because I’ve been wracking my brains, let me tell you.”

  Cassie extended her fingers along Teddy’s wrinkly skin, as though drawing strength from him. Maybe she was. “This is all bigger than me, Mom, so much bigger. And it’s not like I’m never going to see you again; I’m just doing what I can to keep you guys safe, so Hunter doesn’t grow up with demons barging into his house all the time. This is the way it has to be.”

  Annette looked at Cassie for a long while, without saying anything. The silence went on for so long that Cassie almost said something just to dispel the awkwardness, but suddenly Annette spoke.

  “I expect you to call at least twice a week, and to see you in person occasionally. We can be protected by forty vampires if that’s what it takes, but I am going to see my little girl from time to time.”

  “Okay,” Cassie said. She exhaled, relieved.

  Annette smiled a dangerous smile, then pulled in really close. “And if you get pregnant before finishing high school, I will kill that man. I don’t care if he is the most powerful demon on God’s green earth, I will make a deal with the Devil himself if I have to, and pull him apart limb from limb. So just keep that in mind.”

  Cassie’s mother then turned on her heel and walked back into the house, leaving Cassie standing there, open-mouthed. Miri moved over to stand next to her, wide-eyed.

  “You know what? I believe she could do it. I don’t know how, but I bet your mom really could get in touch with the Devil.”