*****
Lord Darken listened to the fading sound of the hounds in the distance. They were moving away now; their dirty work done in the heart of these dark woods. He watched the last of the Hunter’s blue-white light as it was swallowed up by the trees, and then he looked down.
The Bounty Hunter’s handsome face was filled with a peace it didn’t show when he was conscious. Here, now, the infamous Drake of Tanith appeared as if he were sleeping.
Darken lowered himself to one knee and gently brushed the thick black hair from Drake’s forehead. Powerful Abaddonian blood smudged his temple and painted his right ear. Darken could smell it. He could smell anything. Even the woman Drake had previously been holding so closely.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” he whispered. And then he stood again and glanced up into the night sky at the spot where the portal had disappeared moments before.
The night spoke to him; crickets that chimed quietly and wind that gently rustled the leaves on the trees. With a final glance at the tall, dark man at his feet, the king of the seventh plane of Hell turned on his heel and left the forest clearing.
*****
Raven kept her eyes closed. The air around her felt strange; the sound was hollow, as if buffeted by cotton. Her fingers curled into a cold ground, devoid of dirt or vegetation. It felt almost like marble. Her breathing was ragged, and she could hear it shake as she tried to get her body back under control.
The madness was slipping now. It had come on her fast and hard, a cruel, sharp yearning to rip something apart with her teeth and claws. She’d wanted to feed. It wasn’t eating, not drinking – she’d wanted to sink her fangs into an innocent victim and drain him dry… just to do it. She’d wanted it so badly.
The sound of her each uneasy breath filled the strange silence around Raven. She straightened, coming to her knees, and opened her eyes. White mist coiled and churned around her, making no noise and offering no glimpse of what lay beyond them. There was no sound other than what she made herself.
Very slowly, Raven got to her feet and turned in a careful circle. She’d reverted to her human form somewhere in the portal. For the briefest of moments, she considered changing again just for the added strength it gave her.
But the mists moved slowly and calmly and though Raven expected monsters to part their white fingers and step into view, nothing appeared in the grayness. Nothing moved nor made a sound.
“I’m curious as to what it is you would consider a monster, Raven,” came a soft voice from behind her.
Raven spun. At once, her magic rushed to her fingertips and her eyes cast a supernatural light. She was somewhat drained, but what power remained after calling up a portal now hummed at her nerve endings, ready to be released.
A man stood before her, young and blonde. His hair was cut short, he was clean shaven, and his clothes were unremarkable. But there was something odd about his brown eyes. Raven couldn’t quite place it. They seemed intelligent beyond their years, and his stance was one of such utter ease and confidence, it temporarily threw Raven.
“Who are you?” she asked. As she did, she prepared to strike. After all she’d been through of late, she was beginning to believe it was better to use magic first and ask questions later.
The man smiled a friendly, genuinely amused smile. “The god of magic attacked with magic – I think this could be fun,” he said. His eyes shifted suddenly, going from brown to blue and back again.
Raven blinked. Before she knew what she was doing, she said, “You’re Magus.”
“You got it in one,” he said, his smile beaming.
Raven felt dizzy just then. Her head swam with question after question. Magus took a deep breath, clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace around the white-gray misty nothingness. His suede boots made no sound on the marble-like ground. “Let me help,” he said. “You’re in the Witherlands. You haven’t been attacked by anything wicked from your subconscious yet because of the miraculous little circlet the elven princess bequeathed you.” He looked up and nodded briefly at Raven’s head.
She reached up to touch the intricate band Zeta had given her, and the blonde man who was actually the most magically powerful god in the realms went on. “I’m here because Tanith was right. I owe him a boon.” He stopped here and turned toward Raven to cross his arms over his chest. “Quite a large one actually,” he said. “And the moment he spoke my name, I began watching the two of you.”
He smiled again, and his brown eyes now flashed to green, glittered in some unseen light source, and then reverted to their soul-deep brown. He turned away from her to glance at the gray swirling fog. “You really must learn to control your magic,” he chided softly. “You show great potential – it isn’t everyone who can call up a portal to transport through the realms – but your indecisiveness and your desire to go ‘anywhere, nowhere’ landed you here.” He gestured to the world around them. Then he shook his head reprimandingly even while his eyes continued to tease her, and his expression was friendly. Raven found herself fascinated by him. He had a charisma that was as elusive as the mists around them, but as strong as a god’s.
“My brother,” she said, suddenly thinking of Haledon – which made her think of Loki. She’d left him behind… and there had been that horrid sound before she’d escaped through the portal.
“He’s safe,” Magus assured her. “I wagered that protecting you but allowing the one person you loved most in the world to die would probably be pointless.” He stepped toward her. “If it weren’t for the fact that I’d been watching, he would be dead and you would be trapped here right now.” He looked around. “In the Witherlands.” Then he paused, and thoughtfully added, “At least until Darken found you. Which wouldn’t take very long.”
“Darken?” Raven asked. She was trying to keep up, and he was moving very quickly. But surprisingly, she was finding that making heads or tails of things wasn’t as difficult as it should have been. Loki was alive, she was separated from Drake, and she was trapped here in the Witherlands with the god that Drake evoked and who owed Drake a favor. Simple enough. Just difficult to accept.
Magus watched her for a moment as if reading her mind. And perhaps he was – he was a god, after all. He smiled, all but confirming her suspicions. “Lord Darken is the king of the seventh circle of Hell.”
Raven watched as Magus came closer – and closer still.
“Look inside yourself, into the soul that your Abaddonian father touched and gave to you. You’ll know of whom I speak.”
He didn’t have to tell her to do so. She didn’t have to look anywhere. The moment Magus told her Darken was the king of the seventh circle, Raven remembered. She’d spent a little time in Caina with her father over a month ago while the Death Mage had run rampant across the Terran Realm. While there, Raven had learned as much as possible about Abaddon and its inhabitants.
Lord Darken was the king of assassins, thieves and bounty hunters. That he would find Raven in the Witherlands went without question. Darken could find anyone. His reputation was not unlike Drake of Tanith’s.
“But why?” she wanted to know. Why would Darken be searching for her in the first place? As far as she knew, he’d never left his realm. Not that she knew much about him – or that anyone did, for that matter.
“And that is the question of the century, isn’t it?” Magus asked.
Raven’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
Magus laughed, the sound literally like magic given a voice. “You’re quick. You’ll learn to control your magic soon enough, I wager. In the meantime, I’ll be happy to repay my debt to Tanith.”
“How?” she asked next. She probably wasn’t treating a god of his stature with the respect he deserved, but she had to admit that she was befuddled. He’d thrown her off her game.
“Tanith wants me to protect you. So I will. For the moment, your location will be hidden from those who seek you.”
“I have to stay
here?” she asked, glancing nervously at the waiting mists.
“Yes,” he replied easily. “It’s the safest place for you. However, heed my warning, Raven. I can only hide you for so long. Darken is the son of Asmodeus, and that kind of power even I have trouble matching for any given length of time. To say nothing of Asmodeus himself.”
Raven felt the world suck away from her. It almost sounded like a vacuum – the pull of oxygen and life that took the wind from her lungs. “What…” Her voice came out too soft, so she tried again. “What did you say? About Darken?” she asked. The sound was hollow in her ears. But Magus heard her.
“He is the son of Asmodeus,” Magus repeated, his brown eyes watching her with the knowledge that she was coming into a certain understanding – and that he enjoyed observing the process.
… The king of assassins, thieves and bounty hunters… Raven’s mind echoed…. At least until Darken found you, which wouldn’t take very long… Lord Darken could find anyone… just like Drake.
“Drake’s brother?” her tiny voice asked. But she already knew what the answer would be.
Magus shook his head – just once.
Chapter Sixteen
Malphas gazed steadily down at the still, silent form of his steward. Adonides had served him faithfully and loyally for four thousand years. And now, the body of perhaps the one man Malphas could trust in all of Abaddon’s circles lay before him unmoving – un-breathing.
Malphas was going to find out why.
“I’m finished, my lord,” came a gravelly voice from the other end of the throne room. Malphas raised his gaze. Opposite the throne and sequestered in the shadows of the icy room stood a figure in black robes bent over a scrying pool.
With smooth grace, the king of Caina rose from his throne, descended the steps before it, and approached the altar upon which Adonides lay. He looked down on the handsome features of his servant one last time before skirting the icy altar and approaching his scrying pool and the creature beside it.
The tall, bent creature was a scryer – an Abaddonian devil whose soul purpose seemed to be to look into pools of water and mirrored images and see things that were elsewhere. They had other skills, of course, but those other skills had fallen by the wayside long ago in favor of the one they performed so well and that was in such high demand by the royalty of Hell.
Any magic user could attempt a scry if they possessed the power and the proper tools; a scryer was not necessary. But if one wanted a scry performed right the first time or wanted a particularly difficult scry performed – such as one that delved into the future or the past – the scryer, whose prices were often high, was called upon.
It was something of the nature of the scryer that kept them bundled in thick black robes and concealed their faces from the world. It was said that because scryers so frequently tapped into the essences of other realms and other times, the images of themselves that they revealed the world had become distorted. It was as if they didn’t belong or were out of place and time. They were uncomfortable to gaze upon, and so they kept themselves hidden.
“Show me,” Malphas instructed.
“Yes my lord.” The creature waved a gloved hand over the surface of the water and the water rippled. Within the blue-white depths of its partially frozen liquid, mists began to swirl. Malphas watched as the mists parted and an image began to take shape. “I can hold it only for so long,” said the gravelly voice. “The blood of your steward will show us his final moments, but they will remain for short seconds.”
“Understood,” said Malphas.
The creature beside him, whose features remained stubbornly obscured by the heavy cowl he wore over his bent head, raised his other hand now to reveal a small glass bottle. He uncorked the bottle and held it aloft over the scrying pool. As he carefully tipped it, several drops of deep red blood dripped into the pool. At once, their crimson fingers uncurled throughout the bowl, swirling in unseen eddies.
The image at the bowl’s center solidified and darkened, coming into colorful focus. Adonides’s broken body was being held against the thick trunk of an oak tree, his neck firmly in the grip of a man Malphas had grown all too familiar with of late: Drake of Tanith.
The two exchanged words, but Malphas could neither hear nor understand them. The image flickered, time seemed to lapse or become disjointed, and Malphas’s grip on the icy edges of the scrying pool tightened. The ice cracked.
“Careful, my Lord.”
Malphas ignored the warning words of his servant and continued to watch.
Now Adonides lay on the ground, his eyes and mouth filled with his own blood. Beside his fallen head, a black leather boot moved out of view.
“It’s not possible,” Malphas said aloud. He hadn’t meant to give the sentiment voice, but his thoughts were too strong at the moment. It wasn’t possible that a mere human could have defeated Adonides, much less Adonides and several of Malphas’s personal guard. But Malphas had already been suspicious that Tanith was not mortal; that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that it would have taken a very powerful non-human to do what Tanith had done.
“Your steward had surrendered, my lord.”
“I know,” said Malphas. He knew that Adonides had conceded defeat as he’d been held fast in the bounty hunter’s grip. He knew his steward had given up and given in. Not that Malphas could blame him.
Tanith had killed him anyway.
“I want my daughter found,” Malphas said, his tone as frozen as the ice that made up his realm. Since retrieving Adonides’s body, Malphas had not only tried to locate her himself, he’d employed four different scryers to attempt to find Raven. All had failed.
There was a bond between he and his daughter, and the fact that he’d not been able to find her through this bond left him feeling out of control. When the scryers had failed as well, Malphas had been forced to reign in his magic for fear of cracking the ice-hewn walls of his palace.
In the end, he’d made the choice to peer into Adonides’s final living moments in the attempt to find answers to his questions.
But the answers eluded him still. Tanith had killed his steward. Did that mean he was also hiding Raven? Whatever manner of creature Drake was, he would have to be a god to do such a thing.
“Might I suggest a different tactic where the princess is concerned, my liege?” asked the scryer.
Malphas turned to look into the shadows of his heavy black cowl. “I’m listening.”
“Fight fire with fire?”
Malphas cocked his head to one side and studied the scryer with glowing tri-colored eyes. Someone was hiding Raven. It might be Tanith. Tanith was a bounty hunter of some infamy, said to be able to find anyone, anywhere. But Abaddon had its own “Drake of Tanith” of sorts.
“You’re suggesting I pay a visit to the seventh circle.”
“No, my liege. You should not leave your realm, not in these times. Send someone in your place.”
Malphas cracked a smile at that. He couldn’t help it. The scryer was right, of course, but it amused Malphas to hear the advice spoken aloud. These were indeed dangerous times. Someone was killing off the Lords of the Nine without rhyme or reason. First the attempt on Lord Glasdon and then Lady Hope. But it hadn’t stopped there. Not twelve hours ago, word had come to Malphas of the failed assassination attempt of Lord Chiron. The rebels of Hell were getting gutsy, and their actions seemed to be pointless, directionless attacks. Chaotic.
There was little a devil disliked more than chaos. Abaddon may be a land of blight and hopelessness, but it was a blighted hopelessness ruled by iron fists and strict wills. Whatever the attacker’s goal was, it eluded Malphas, and he had a feeling it eluded the lords of every circle. It was almost as if the assassination attempts – and successes – were coming for no other reason than to cause this chaos.
But if so, why?
Malphas could not afford to leave his throne at the moment. It went without saying that he would have sent someone in his place; he was
not a devil known for taking unnecessary chances.
No one in Abaddon knew what Lord Darken looked like. At least, if they did, they kept it to themselves. The Lord of Phlegathos did not entertain guests. When someone wanted an audience with the king and was deserving of that audience, Darken would find them. He was the embodiment of the esoteric, the covert, and shrouded. He was living, breathing darkness. His victims never saw him coming. He slipped through the shadows without a single audible sound. Darken was the king of assassins, said to move so fast, the motion appeared to turn back time and his sword to split the air.
But he was also the king of bounty hunters and thieves. All that skulked in the night, all that crept and took and gave nothing in return – Darken ruled over. If anyone could match Tanith’s skills, it would be him.
Malphas considered this a moment. Owing a favor to anyone in Abaddon was foolhardy. Asking a favor was even more so. To do it during a time of such turmoil in the nine circles could be considered a suicidal political move.
Malphas would have to be careful.
He would send someone to Phlegathos. In the meantime, he would also send someone to Castle Eidolon. Oberon and his Hunt had just carved their grisly way through the Terran realm, and Malphas wasn’t quick to forget the part the elven prince had recently played in Raven’s life. No stone left unturned.
He also needed to choose another steward. And finding someone to trust within Abaddon’s circles was not an easy task.
*****
Drake felt the magic shield surrounding him before he’d fully opened his eyes. Magic had a special weight to it, and after centuries of acclimating to its different nuances, he could read the sensation with upmost ease. He didn’t even need to be fully awake, which was good, because whatever had hit him had done so with a vengeance.
He could sense that he’d healed, but it had taken a while. Why he was still alive, he had no idea. Anything powerful and angry enough to deal him such a blow should have taken the time to finish him off, not cover his body in a cloak of magic that hid him from the Hunt and its master.
Drake of Tanith (Chosen Soul) Page 13