The Reds forgot Alucard in an instant, speaking in unison with varying forms of how much they loved Tory, despite her new ability to force them to obey her parental… guidance, which elicited a smattering of chuckles from the table. The three hugged each other, sobbing and smiling. Mallory watched with a faint grin, but to me it looked haunted.
Raego piped up, snapping my attention away from my bodyguard. “Nate gave me a nation to rule.” He said with a nod of respect my way. “Even if one of his friends has managed to swipe up two of my subjects,” he growled playfully at Tory.
She simply shrugged, returning a grin.
Mallory lifted his glass, thick Scottish accent marking his words as he spoke. “To Macallan. Only reason I stick around this dusty ol’ pile of a mansion is because of Master Temple’s stash,” he smirked.
I leaned forward. “The stash you have refused to show me, even though it supposedly belongs to me.”
Mallory feigned confusion. “I’m sure I’ve told ye where it is, Laddie.”
“Yes, several times. But miraculously, whenever I go to check it out in person, the stash has coincidentally been relocated. No doubt to a safer location.”
Mallory shrugged, leaning back with a look of dramatic surprise.
Midas cleared his throat. “To good returns on investments.” He winked at me. Achilles chuckled, nodding in agreement.
“For steady work, and for giving his trust to an ex-assassin.” Tomas, the British dragon hunter smiled, face serious. He obviously no longer hunted dragons, unless Raego hired him.
Now, he mostly did odd jobs for us. In fact, I had used him recently to ferret out some information a little out of my jurisdiction. But that was kind of hush-hush. And Othello and I still needed to speak with him about his recent travels to Germany.
“For Family,” Gunnar grumbled, discreetly touching the tattoo on his wrist, the tattoo that let he and his fiancée control their werewolf form. “And for introducing me to Ashley, and handing me a pack of loyal wolves on a… silver platter.” He chuckled.
Ashley smiled at him, clutching his beefy arm in her dainty hand. “Yes, for Family. And for giving me this handicapped stray puppy to take care of.”
Alucard burst out laughing, and Gunnar grumbled warningly at her, his lone eye doing a miraculous job at scowling. He had lost an eye battling Wilhelm Grimm. The Grimm was the reason Ashley was now a werewolf. He had suckered Gunnar’s pack into turning her. Which had taken him some time for him to forgive. Ashley kissed him on the beard, grinning at him until his glare melted away.
Everyone turned to me, and I idly swirled the glass of scotch, thinking.
I took a breath, forcing a smile on my face as I banished the first thought that came to mind. “For joining my family, and standing beside me when I lost everything. For protecting each other, and for helping me fill Chateau Falco with laughter, joy, and tears after my parents were killed.”
I didn’t mention Indie. Or Ichabod.
And everyone seemed to silently note it. I lifted my glass, trying to hide the sudden influx of power coursing through my veins, threatening to shatter the glass in my fist. This happened whenever a strong emotion struck me. A Dark Presence rumbled close to the surface of my resolve, eager to destroy something, and the masterfully-worked silver eagle-headed cane holstered to my belt throbbed warmly. Right now, it was just the head of the cane, but if I lost control, or consciously thought about it too intently, the handle would become a full-fledged, cane sword. Magic can be kind of neat like that. I mastered myself, forcing the Dark Presence back deep down into the cane, and let out a soft breath. The warmth at my hip gradually subsided, no one the wiser. Everyone drank.
I opened my mouth to tell everyone to load up their plates, but I was interrupted.
The doorbell rang.
A frown split Dean’s face as he pulled out his phone to check the video camera at the front door. His frown deepened further before he shot me a look. I nodded and he left. But everyone had instinctively reached for their weapon of choice.
I waved off their concern. “Don’t worry. We’re fine. Now, let us eat.” After a few seconds, everyone tucked in, serving themselves since Dean had stepped away. I sipped my drink, ignoring the food.
Apparently, I was doing a bit more than sipping, because Mallory refilled my glass a moment later, eyes concerned. I nodded in appreciation as I leaned back in my chair, waving off his concern with a subtle look. Death was watching me thoughtfully, but everyone else was enjoying themselves as they murmured approval of the food.
I kept a smile on my face, determined to focus on the now.
Not Ichabod and Indie, who were nowhere to be found.
The cane handle at my hip murmured whispers of dark entreaty for my ears alone, attempting to fan the flames of my rage. But I was used to it. If I touched it, the sword was liable to flare into existence from the ornate handle, and the dark voice would grow more persistent. I kept myself under control, casually smiling and responding to any questions shot my way. Dean silently reentered the room, face tight as he shot me an imploring look.
I stood, and everyone in the room froze, noticing Dean’s return.
“Easy, everyone. Enjoy the meal. I’ll be right back. The Guardians are back online. We’re safe.”
They didn’t look satisfied, but complied as I left the room. I was kind of thankful for the distraction, but who the hell would just show up at my house in the middle of the day like this?
Chapter 5
Dean was patiently waiting for me in the hallway, hands tucked behind his back.
“What is it?” I asked in a low voice, but loud enough to be heard over the laughter and chatter in the dining room.
“Someone is here to see you.”
My heart fell into my stomach, suddenly reconsidering Dean’s trepidation. I opened my mouth to speak, but Dean forestalled me.
“It is not Miss Rippley,” he said softly, clearly reading the terrified look on my face.
“Oh.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair, heart now beating wildly at the brief thought that Indie had stopped by. “Well, who is it then? How did they get through the gates?”
Dean watched me. “Those answers will be clear in a moment,” he replied slowly. Then he turned on a heel, leading me towards the sitting room where he usually left guests upon entrance to the ancient mansion known as Chateau Falco. The home had been in my family for centuries. I wasn’t concerned that this mysterious stranger was already inside my home. Dean was an experienced Butler. He had the means to judge friend from foe, threat from not a threat.
But we also had redundancies. For starters, anyone wishing me harm wouldn’t have used the front door. They would have simply tried to blow up the place.
And anyone wishing me harm wouldn’t have been able to even walk through the front door, after the recent upgrades I had put into place. I had done the same thing to my bookstore, and that had already come in handy when a Russian witch had decided to pay a visit. I had been left alone after Indie decided to go train with Ichabod, and that spare time had left me a lot of time to tinker with my new powers.
To study and practice from the book Ichabod had left me. The educational text from his own childhood on how to use the Maker power.
Which, thanks to my parents’ foresight, I had been unknowingly given access to.
Until now, Makers had been extinct, hunted and slaughtered by pretty much any and every supernatural tag-team imaginable.
For we were rumored to be a wee-bit dangerous.
Wizards could use magic. Shape elements. Wield the fabric of life that existed all around them.
But Makers… well, we had Made wizards. Allegedly.
I wasn’t entirely up to speed on the potential of my new powers, but thanks to the Grimm War, I had inadvertently freed my ancestor from a centuries-long prison sentence. Hundreds of years ago, my ancestor, Ichabod Temple, had banished the Grimms to a Dark Realm. But he got sucked away with them, and had been thei
r prisoner ever since. Which had been about 426 years that he was forced to work for them. Until I had unknowingly released a handful of them from their prison. During the fight, my girlfriend – now fiancée – had been turned into a Grimm. And after barely defeating the bastards, I had come to realize that Ichabod wasn’t a Grimm, but was actually a Maker, like me. And he was my ancestor.
But we hadn’t spent much time around each other.
And he had stolen my fiancée. To train her in the use of her new powers before they turned her into a raving psychopath, hell-bent on murdering any Freak within a dozen feet of her. Because, well, that’s what Grimms did. And thanks to me, she was the last Grimm.
At least in this world. The others were still locked away in their Dark Realm, thankfully.
Anyway, before Ichabod had taken her away, I had shown him the book I had received from Rumpelstiltskin – a book teaching the ABC’s of being a Maker. And what did I find inside? Ichabod Temple, written in childlike handwriting. His childhood schoolbook on being a Maker, if you will. It wasn’t an all-inclusive text, but it set up the groundwork for me, and I had always been a good student, able to extrapolate to areas of my choosing after a rudimentary understanding of the principles. And one of the first things I had wanted to learn was how to better defend my home. Now that I knew the ancient mansion held vast secrets of her own – more than I had originally even known – I had wanted to make sure she was impregnable.
I also had a literal army of guards hidden in plain sight.
Dean paused outside the door, turning to address me. He straightened my dinner jacket, plucked an extra Nerf bullet from my coat pocket that I had stored away in case I ran out of ammo, and then tugged my sleeves. I rolled my eyes, and his face portrayed a brief smile before he entered the room, holding the door for me, face now solemn.
“Master Temple, at your request,” he announced.
I entered the room to find a wizened old man seated on the couch to my right, a glass of chilled scotch in his shaking palms. The reason for his fear was the man seated directly across from him in the other couch, idly polishing a crackling spear of electrical power like a live bolt of lightning.
Mallory.
The room was dim, the majority of the curtains drawn, and the Tiffany lamps did little to pierce the gloom. Dean’s face was a carefully-controlled mask, but I knew he had obviously prearranged this scenario. He and Mallory must have had a failsafe agreement in place. They hadn’t thought to share it with me. This momentarily infuriated me, but I released the grip on my sword cane, and the darker emotions evaporated. Not my fury, the cane’s fury.
The Dark Presence inside of me.
Composing myself, I considered the situation more rationally. It actually wasn’t a bad plan. They were looking out for me. Even though the other redundancies made this a waste of their time. Still, it was nice to see that they cared so much for my safety. And their actions were not the true cause of the loose grip I had on my temper. That was the Dark Presence inside of me. A seed of knowledge, or the soul of a demon, that was buried deep inside the Maker’s ability that had been forced onto me by my parents. Their parting gift to me before they had been murdered.
They had the best of intentions…
Highway to Hell… by ACDC rang in my ears at the thought.
And they hadn’t asked me, or even told me about it beforehand.
Mallory was grinning as he casually continued to polish the deadly weapon on his lap. “Master Temple,” he grinned politely. “I didna want yer guest to feel lonely. Hope ye don’t mind…” I kept my face neutral, even as a new thought briefly struck me. He had beaten me here, even though he had been sitting at the table when I left the dining room. I kept the shock from my face, and spotted movement near the fireplace.
A stone griffin the size of a Great Dane casually snapped a spare log from the fireplace into two pieces between his razor-sharp beak. He flicked out his wings with a sharp crack, dove onto a piece of wood, and then flung it into the fireplace. Like a cat playing with a toy mouse. With a thought, I cast a whisper of power at the fireplace and the log instantly flared to life as if it had been burning for hours. The guest flinched at the sudden fire.
Mallory yawned, then took a sip of his own drink. The griffin tore into the other piece of wood, lying down to worry it like a dog with a bone. Another motion revealed three other griffin Guardians prowling the room, staying out of the way, but their stone eyes watched the guest with loosely restrained threat.
“Thank you, Mallory. I trust that our guest has received all courtesies in my absence?”
Another one of the defenses of Chateau Falco was that none entered without accepting Guestright from Dean on my behalf. This prevented them from directly harming me through trickery. It wasn’t an exact magic, but worked pretty darned well when it came to most supernatural factions. Neither could harm the other without probable cause, lest the offender lose a considerable chunk of their powers, whatever flavor they may be.
Mallory chuckled. “Aye. I was just entertaining him. I was telling him about the lesson ye always rattle on about. How ye can achieve anything in this world with just two things.” He ticked off a finger for each as he continued, “Leverage and lubrication.” He winked at the guest. “Isn’t that right, Sir…” he leaned forward. “How rude o’ me! I never asked yer name!” His eyes glittered intensely.
I watched the guest, his eyes dancing with barely concealed alarm at the overwhelming display of power before him. Dean silently walked the perimeter of the room, idly patting one of the Guardians on the neck as he passed. He finally halted directly behind the guest, out of sight, a psychological ploy.
Jesus.
Bad cop and silent, creepy cop.
Mallory and Dean must have practiced this a dozen times judging by their performance. They were treating this like an interrogation. Unless… they knew something about this guest that had them on edge. But then… why would they have let him in?
I cleared my throat, and Mallory turned his piercing glare from the guest to me. He chuckled as he stood to his feet. “Of course, Master Temple. Apologies. I’ll just wait over there with Dean. I need to ask him when he last fed yer pets.” He winked at the guest. “They get mighty hungry.” Then he took his spear and walked out of sight to stand beside Dean. The crackling sound of his spear caused the man to twitch now and then. Especially after a few errant sparks landed on the carpet, smoking like fallen embers. Dean’s face crunched in disapproval at the damage, but he remained silent.
I took Mallory’s old seat and faced my guest.
He was an older man. Not old as in frail, but old like he was in the prime of his life. He looked hard, with two noticeable scars on his face, and his eyes were cold, distant, and… hopeful. For all of that, he still looked dangerous. Maybe Dean and Mallory’s display hadn’t been a bad idea after all.
His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he wore dark working-man jeans, boots, and a thick flannel shirt, sleeves rolled back to reveal meaty forearms that were pebbled with faint scars. Like knife wounds and burn marks. He was tall, too. He took another sip of his drink, and then slowly set it down onto the table, as if trying not to startle me. His shoulders were subconsciously bunched forward at the sensation of Dean and Mallory standing out of sight behind him, and his peripheral gaze subtly tracked the Guardians as they prowled the room.
“Are you finished trying to frighten me?” he asked in a deep, scratchy baritone, as if overcoming a cold. It wasn’t fear. Or, it wasn’t just fear. His voice was raspy, strained with some unspoken emotion.
“Trying…” Mallory chuckled.
I ignored Mallory, and nodded at the man. “Precautions…” The guest nodded back in patient understanding, although obviously not pleased at the situation.
“Understandable.”
But I let my face slowly morph into a darker, more aggressive visage as I dimmed both the fireplace and the few lights, casting the room into an even more intimate, f
oreboding darkness. “I like to cover my bases when it comes to uninvited wizards entering my home,” I warned in a low growl.
Some of the Guardians began to purr, as another let out a light, hungry screech, like a velociraptor from those Jurassic Park movies. The sudden crackling of Mallory’s spear punctuated my next words.
“So why don’t you tell me, oh nameless wizard, why a member of the Academy would dare interrupt my dinner…”
Chapter 6
The man blinked back, eyes hard. “Rufus. The name’s Rufus. And you can cut the theatrics. I already know you’re powerful. It’s why I’m here,” he growled defiantly. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it already. Then at least I’ll know you’re just like the blood-sucking Academy, despite your recent activities implying you’re oh, so different from those cowards.”
He took a long drink of his scotch, slamming it back down as he panted, eyes smoldering with hatred at mention of the Academy, the ruling body of wizards. And no friends of mine.
I watched him. “Blood-sucking. Cowards… Explain.”
“I came here to ask for your help. The Academy wouldn’t use me to wipe their ass if it indirectly resulted in saving my life.”
I burst out laughing, eliciting a small smile from him. “Well, that’s an image. And why would the Academy hold you in such high esteem?”
“They don’t tolerate dissenters. The bastards.” I nodded, motioning for him to continue. “How much do you know about chimeras?” he asked, tone guarded.
Mallory’s spear crackled loudly as if he had ratcheted it up a notch. “Well, feck me sideways!” he blurted.
I glanced at him. “Tone it down back there or join us. Dean, can you get me my drink? And a real drink for Rufus? I’m sure Mallory chose from the bottom shelf when offering a beverage.”
Mallory grumbled a bit, but finally complied, choosing to occupy a chair to my right between the guest and myself. Dean left, but was back moments later with the hallowed Macallan. He poured a fresh glass for Rufus, which Mallory didn’t approve of, judging by the glare he shot at the guest. The man took a cautious sip, but I noticed that he waited until after I had taken a drink first. He was wary. And clever. Even looking out for poison.
Beast Master: A Novel in The Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Series (The Temple Chronicles Book 5) Page 3