Dark Cotillion (First in the Brenna Strachan Series)

by Hadena James

  I looked and Chiron was still moving. His skin was charred black, he had no hair and a missing eye, but the flames had cauterized the wounds on his face and he had stopped bleeding from them. He brought one of his back hooves down on my leg. I felt the bone snap. I felt the skin tear. Felt the warm blood flow into the earth. He raised up, brought it down again. The bone shattered. I could feel it turn to dust inside the skin.

  I threw up. Tears in my eyes, I caught a glimpse of the sword. I reached for it. Chiron stomped on my femur, shattering it. I screamed in pain.

  “Brenna, hurry,” Mammon’s voice came to me, “The Overlords, oh, God.”

  The Overlords. My mind instantly cleared. If I died, they died. I took a breath and when Chiron brought his hoof down a fourth time, this time on my kneecap, I was ready. I caught it in one of my hands and I twisted it with all my might and felt it snap. I wasn’t as strong as my father was, but I wasn’t a weakling, and while I might only be half-Demon, I was still stronger than your average Human. I grabbed the sword and plunged it into the leg I had just broken. Chiron went down for the first time. His legs collapsed, his body hit the ground with a thud. I raised the sword again and hesitated.

  I had never actually killed anything, let alone a being. I didn’t know how I felt about it. Sort of sick, my stomach churned at the thought of killing Chiron. Inside, I knew that the only way to end it was to kill him, but could I do it? Chiron answered the question for me. He sank his teeth into my shoulder. Reaching up, I let the sword plunge into the back of his neck. It slipped through his spine, his throat and into my body.

  It slid between my ribs and punctured my lung. I felt it collapse, felt Chiron collapse, and I went with him. The sword in his back, handle in the ground, the tip sticking out behind me. I hadn’t just killed him; I had managed to kill all of us. The last thing I felt was the magic of the circle break.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The couch was the same as it always had been. The wall was missing all of its windows again. The front door was gone. The roof was a skeletal frame. The marble tiles on the floor were mostly cracked and disintegrating.

  It was raining, but not inside the house. A feat considering the roof was gone. I had the suspicion that the lack of rain had something to do with Daniel. He was sitting on the couch next to me. His leg propped up on the table just like mine. He was doing a puzzle in a book. He hadn’t spoken to me for the three days I’d been awake, but that was okay, he had been my shadow the entire time.

  My father was talking very heatedly with a bunch of people. I recognized one as the Mayor of KC and one as the Governor of Missouri. They were both very anxious, but then, I suppose that was normally the case when the President of the United States was on his way.

  I had died, again. I was done with it. It wasn’t a pleasant experience to say the least. Luckily, Lucifer and my uncles were all strong enough healing Demons to save me. They had saved the Overlords as well. We all sat in states of disarray around my parents living room, recovering.

  I was black, blue, and purple all over. More purple than normal. I didn’t know how the battle had gone. I hadn’t been around for it. It hadn’t gone real great or the President wouldn’t have been on his way. I had slept for 22 hours after killing Chiron. When I woke up, Cerebus had still been outside. My mother and Levi had kept me in the room for another three hours while the Elders convinced it to return to the island. There were masses of dead things outside, most of them mortal creatures. A few though were immortals, some of them beings. So much for immortality.

  Chiron really was dead. A new Centaur had come into power and with him, a new order. The Djinn were working with any of the Elders that had been captured in the battle. They were making a list of conspirators. So far, the list included eight names that weren’t already in custody.

  Someone handed me a soda and I took it and drank. It tasted like liquid gold. I love caffeine and sugar. A donut also seemed magically to appear.

  While my soul was back in my body, my leg was still busted up. They had been able to heal the blood loss, the collapsed lung, the damaged spine, and keep my soul from fleeing, but they had not been able to heal the bone in my leg. Magic can be an odd thing. My mother and Magnus had magicked up a cast that encased it from thigh to toe.

  I still had two weeks to go before the Maturing ended. However, with the danger over, it wasn’t looking nearly as terrible. Well, except for the fact that my father and mother were insisting I stay at the house. By insisting, I mean holding me hostage.

  Gabriel stood up from his chair. He moved as if he felt his age for the first time and frankly, he was ancient. Even sitting, he seemed slumped, bent, and dreadfully uncomfortable in his own skin. Standing and moving looked like pure torture.

  An Angel appeared at his side to give him a hand. Together, they walked towards the hallway. They all had lieutenants and underlings around to assist them. They all seemed to need it. They looked like they had gone through blenders. Ba’al’s wings were shredded with bits of bone peeking out from the spines. Anubis was nearly furless again, his hands both swollen and unusable. Gabriel looked as if he might have actually aged and his body refused to allow him to stand upright. Fenrir had been stuck in wolf form and the wolf kept licking at different wounds and then glaring at me. I guess I was transferring injuries onto them to keep myself alive during the duel with Chiron, right until I stabbed myself like an idiot. My mother believes the only reason it didn’t kill me, is because I’m a Strachan and the sword doesn’t like taking the blood of its own kind.

  “You were warned,” Levi’s voice entered the room. “We told you weeks in advance that this could happen.”

  One of the men replied, but I decided not to listen. I didn’t care. I was still coming to terms with the fact that I had killed someone. The thought still made my stomach roll.

  “But you survived,” Mammon whispered in my ear.

  “How do you do that?” I asked him.

  “Read your mind?” Mammon smiled. “I can hear your thoughts. They come to me in stereo. I can hear Lucifer’s too, and Levi.”

  “Just us three?”

  “Yep, everyone else comes to me in bits and pieces. It’s my added gift.” He shrugged and touched Daniel’s head, mussing his hair. “Except this guy.”

  “Do all the brothers have an extra gift?” I asked.

  “Or curse, depending on how you feel about it.” Mammon kissed my head. “Glad you lived, kiddo.”

  “So am I,” I told him. “Mammon, what happens now?”

  “Now, you Mature, you convince the Chimeras to go home and you continue with life as you had before. But with a few added complications,” he grinned at Fenrir.

  “That’s it?” I frowned.

  “Did you expect something else?” He asked.

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t know what.” I shook my head.

  “And stop breaking your horns. You know they grow back a little smaller every time you do it, right? At the rate you’re going, you aren’t going to have any horns in a few centuries.”

  “Meh,” I gave him a grin. “How am I supposed to feel about Chiron?”

  “You aren’t, niece. You did what needed to be done, nothing more, and nothing less. He forced you into it and he lost. End of story.”

  “No, we will not!” Lucifer’s voice broke into the conversation. He was shouting.

  “I think I’m needed,” Mammon got up and walked over. His voice was quiet and soothing. Levi gave me a wink over his shoulder and went back to work.

  “Well?” My mother asked as she sat more donuts down on my lap.

  “Well what?”

  “Ready to be all that you can be?” She grinned.

  “I’m not joining the army,” I told her.

  “No, but after the Maturing, you’ll go back to work and be a bit stronger.” She handed me a donut. “Eat, you need your strength.”

  “What are they fighting about?” I asked her, hooking a thumb towards my father.
>
  “Oh, death, devastation, and destruction,” she frowned at them. “Seems the Humans were under the impression that nothing bad would happen to them if we had a problem during the Maturing. About half of the KCs are severely damaged and a couple hundred Humans and Elders died in the chaos when it hit the city, they are demanding compensation and removal of Elders from the cities.”

  “What? Can they really toss us out like that?” I asked.

  “That is why the President is on his way.” She looked at the missing ceiling. “That should be a very interesting conversation.”

  “How long before he arrives? I’m not sure the brothers can keep dad calm much longer.”

  “Any time,” she pointed up. In the distance, a helicopter was coming into view. It seemed like it might land in our yard.

  “Brenna!” My father yelled my name.

  “Yep,” I answered, turning to look at him.

  “Come here,” he told me.

  “Come help me,” I told him. He seemed visibly to calm some. I gave a quick smile to my uncles. My father walked over to me, picked me up, and carried me back to the men.

  “This is my daughter,” Lucifer told them. “She died, three times, during this ordeal. She has always lived here, among the Humans and she will die to protect them. That is why she challenged Chiron. To spare more lives.”

  “Hi,” I gave them a finger wave as men stormed into our house. The helicopter was getting closer. “I think this would be better in the Council room and with me in a chair.”

  “Agreed,” Levi led the way. The other Overlords followed him. My father and I brought up the rear. We were all seated when the President walked into the Council chamber with a battalion of Secret Service, not all of them Human.

  “Lucifer,” he nodded.

  “Mr. President,” my father nodded back.

  “So, gentleman and ladies,” the President took a seat in a gallery chair instead of a chair at the Council table, “what the hell happened?”

  “Mr. President,” the Governor began.

  “Nope, I’ll explain,” I interrupted. “I voted for you by the way.”

  The president smiled at me, “And you are?”

  “Brenna Strachan, sir, Lucifer’s daughter and the cause of this mess. What do you know?”

  “I know that FEMA has declared KC a disaster area,” he told me.

  “Ah, well, I haven’t had a chance to look at the city, but I’m sure it’s pretty bad. Cerebus alone would have been really bad.” I stopped talking for a moment. “I’m sure you are aware of The Maturing and what not?”

  “I am,” he told me.

  “Good,” I sighed and thought. “It happened because of fear. Chiron, the Centaurian Overlord was afraid of me, afraid that I might get incredible power after the Maturing, afraid that I was different and not like the other Elders, and he decided to kill what he feared.”

  “Racism?” The President gave me a look.

  “Breedism actually, and part of some dumb prophecy. Chiron believed I would get incredible power and he was afraid of it. He wasn’t a big fan of anything that wasn’t beneath him. And I’m a member of Demonnation, not the Centaurian Herd. So, he decided that I needed to die. Only, he couldn’t risk doing it himself and exposing his own fear, it would have made him look weak. He sent others to do his bidding. Like when a person trains a pit-bull for dog fights and the pit-bull ends up getting loose and killing a couple of neighborhood children… same concept. He sent dangerous pit-bulls to kill me, but they were out without a leash and killed others along the way.” I let a tear slide down my face. “So, I challenged him to a duel while the rest of the Elders went to war with Chiron’s army, and I…”

  “And you survived,” Mammon interrupted and finished the sentence for me.

  “And is it over?” The President asked me.

  “Yes, sir, it’s over.” I responded letting myself cry a little more.

  “Then I’m satisfied,” he stood up. “The Elders have always been more help than hindrance to the United States and its people. This incident is unfortunate and horrible, but it was not their intention and the person that orchestrated it is no longer a threat to the community. We rebuild, together.”

  “Yes, sir,” the governor did not look happy.

  “And where do we get the money for that?” The Mayor asked.

  “FEMA, donations, the state relief funds, wherever,” the President responded.

  “Give me an estimate on the damage,” Lucifer told him.

  “About a billion dollars, not to mention the loss of life.” The Mayor glared at him.

  “I’ll give you half of it,” Lucifer said.

  “No, the Elders will give half of it,” Morgana interrupted. “It was all of us, our fight. If we had lost, if Chiron had killed Brenna, who knows what would have happened.”

  “I do,” Daniel came into the room. “Chiron would have become drunk with power and started slaughtering Humans and Elders alike. He would have unleashed his army of supernatural creatures onto the planet itself and made himself its sole protector.”

  “I’m sorry, this is my son, Daniel,” Lucifer stood up.

  “The Prophet?” The President asked.

  “Yes,” I held a hand out to Daniel.

  “Then it’s a good thing she didn’t lose,” the President looked at me. “Miss Strachan, you have done us all a great service. I commend you for your actions.”

  “Daniel, how do you know that’s what would happen?” I asked him.

  “Because, it was part of the prophecy.” He looked at me. “Now, there is a different part. It has been written with you as the victor.”

  “Luc,” the President turned to my father, “I have a question for you, but feel free to tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to answer.”

  My father laughed, “What, Robert?”

  “Well, it’s a bit delicate,” he blushed.

  “Come on, out with it,” my father was still smiling.

  “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Keep everything together.”

  “It takes effort,” my father winked at me. “Luckily, I have a strong wife, strong children, good friends, good family, and a whole nation of support.”

  “Demon, politician, and family man,” the President smiled.

  “Oh, you forgot Catholic,” I added.

  “Catholic?” The President grinned at me. “I didn’t realize Lucifer was a Catholic.”

  “Had to be, my mother wanted to be married in a church.” I raised both eyebrows.

  “And I thought my job and life was difficult,” the President sat back down in the chair he had vacated. “When is this Maturing party?”

  “End of the Maturing,” I told him. “We had to move it because I started a couple of days early.”

  “I think I sent my RSVP, but I’m not for sure,” he took a deep breath, “normally, my wife takes care of that.”

  “I’m sure if you show up, they will let you in,” I whispered to him.

  “Miss Strachan, it was a pleasure to meet you,” he stood back up. “Luc, you have permission to stay exactly where you are and if the mayor or governor has a problem with it, they can take it up with the Supreme Court.”

  “Thank you, Robert.” My father nodded to him.

  “Ah hell, what can I say,” the President shrugged. “I’m a softy, besides, I kind of like having the Elders around. Makes me feel safe.”

  “Tell that to the hundreds of dead,” the governor sneered.

  “Consider Cerebus and the minions of Chiron’s army to be a force of Nature, Governor Thomas. Besides, we all know what hatred brings. We’ve done this in our own history more than a few times.”

  “That’s diff…”

  “How is what happened in KC any different than what happened during the Civil Rights Movement or what happened in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s? We have always thought Elders were above such pettiness, turns out that most are, some aren’t, just lik
e the rest of us. Refusing to let them stay in your state, makes you no different than Chiron or any other insane person who tries to send people to slaughter, and besides, they are citizens and you can’t throw citizens out.”

  “Of course, sir,” the governor hung his head, indicating he was accepting the fact that he lost.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to, but I’m sure you guys can work out an agreement.” The President left. The Overlords went back to arguing with the officials and my uncles helped me out of the Council chamber and back to the couch.

  Epilogue

  My mother awoke me with a flourish of light and what not. She was beaming from ear to ear. I struggled to wake up and try to figure out why she was so enthusiastic.

  “Rise and shine, sleepy head. You only have an hour before people start showing up. I can’t believe I let you get in the habit of sleeping like this. I only hope it goes away now that you are full immortal again. How’s the leg?”

  “What on earth are you going on about?” I finally asked as she handed me a soda and a box of donuts.

  “Maturing Party in one hour,” she chirped.

  “Oh fuck,” I groaned.

  “Language,” she scolded me.

  “Sorry, Mom. Can’t you guys go to the party and just let me sleep? Demon still in the healing process. This mortal healing sucks.” I had tripped and fallen down some stairs a few days earlier. Fortune smiled on me though, because the next morning, I felt myself healing. Yesterday, I had reached full immortality again. I was a full-grown Demon.

  Turned out all the cool pulling of power and what not I had experienced during the Maturing was still there. It was just plain ol’ Witch Magic and the ability to share it again. As for Demon powers, I had gotten a little more powerful. I could heal without touch and I could take the wounds of one and inflict them on another. Except for the not touching thing, nothing new or exotic. My father and all his brothers could heal without touch and inflicting wounds was a standard Demon trait; it was called transferring. A Demon who was healing another being could take the wounds upon themselves, which was the usual case or they could inflict them onto another being, usually that person had to be a volunteer for it. That wasn’t the case with me. I didn’t need the person taking the wounds to be a volunteer. It still wasn’t new, exotic, special, or great. It was just Demon magic.