Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  “Still… Now that he has the sword, do you trust him not to turn?”

  Mary looked to her familiar. “Tenebris, be a dear and keep an eye on them, hmm?”

  The raven bowed his majestic head and expanded his wings in compliance. Mary hobbled over to him and waved her hand over his feathers. Bright white translucent smoke hovered between Mary’s hand and her familiar. Tenebris’ form started to disappear in the magic’s wake. Before the raven became completely invisible, he gave out a loud caw and took off, straight up into the air, tracking the motorcycle.

  Mary rapped her knuckles on the rail for luck and turned to Hilgrid. “We shall see.”

  9

  Accidental Revelation

  Bram raced down the street, dodging abandoned cars and debris as Chloe gave directions from the back of the bike. He told her to get them close to Hadley’s cottage, but not too close. They’d hide the bike and finish the trip on foot as to avoid drawing attention to their true destination.

  Bremerton seemed to be void of the devastating swarms of scabs that had blanketed Seattle. Still, there were a few of the vile creatures. Chloe watched as they slithered into the darkest shadows and crevices as she and Bram sped by. What was more disturbing were the human faces watching through barricaded windows as they rode along. The despair on their faces made Chloe feel like she’d been shot with a barbed arrow deep into her chest; its jagged edges snagging her still-beating heart and ripping it out.

  Chloe tapped Bram on the shoulder and pointed to a mausoleum in the cemetery they were coming upon. Tombs lined both sides of the marble building, and a covered walkway stood between them. The cemetery was close to Hadley’s, and the mausoleum was the perfect place to stow the motorcycle in case they needed it later. Bram nodded and gunned the bike into the cemetery.

  As soon as they reached the mausoleum, Bram killed the engine. Chloe got off the back, and they pushed the motorcycle into its hiding place.

  “I take it that’s Hadley’s?” he asked, nodding at a light-blue two-story cottage visible through the mausoleum breezeway.

  Chloe squinted her eyes. “Is it warded? I can’t tell anymore.” Since Bram had taken away her glamour, she hadn’t been able to see any runes or secret doorways anymore.

  “Yeah, but I’m still going to fortify them.” Bram looked out the other end of the mausoleum, making sure there were no lurking scabs before they headed to the professor’s hideaway.

  “It’s clear,” he said, waving her forward.

  Chloe thought it was creepy Hadley had lived so close to a cemetery. Now that it was nighttime, and she knew monsters existed, the thought was even creepier. In the darkness, Chloe could see just how massive the fire that had engulfed the naval base was. “Is that why there aren’t as many scabs here as there are in Seattle? They’re all concentrated at the base?” she asked.

  “Mhmm. Most of them.” Bram scanned the darkness and gleaned something that disturbed him. “But unless we want a repeat of Seattle, we need to get inside, now!”

  Good God what I wouldn’t give for a translation app! Chloe scratched her head, as if she could will the knowledge to come back to her. This Latin is killing me.

  As soon as she and Bram broke into Hadley’s, they had raced upstairs to where Chloe knew the journal would be. It was there, still in its hiding place, almost as if it had been waiting for them. Chloe had reached blindly into the chimney flue and yanked the journal free. As soon as Bram saw the dozens of scrap pieces of paper hand written in Hadley’s illegible shorthand fall out, he had decided to ward the perimeter of the house instead of scouring through the maddening notes. Chloe didn’t mind, though. She always did her best research and thinking alone, with only a room full of dusty books to keep her company. She had pretty much shooed him out the door and started organizing the bulk of the notes in her own kind of controlled chaos, stopping only to sleep when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. That had been three days ago. Bram had stayed out of her way, only popping in to make her eat and reassure himself that she was still okay.

  Chloe rearranged a couple of Hadley’s barely-legible notes for the hundredth time. His lackadaisical use of the words cor, corda, and cordibus, interchanging them from note to note, was driving her crazy. All his scraps of paper and open books she’d been researching were strewn all over the floor, the room illuminated by candles she had scattered around Hadley’s office. She had stripped down to her trench coat, wearing it like a comfortable bath robe, and dove into the madness spread out before her. She’d have to sleep again soon, though. Her brain was getting fuzzy. But she pushed on for the moment, knowing it was also when she had her best moments of clarity, when everything else faded away.

  Apocalypsis Equitum. Chloe read the words to herself again, first deciphering them from Hadley’s ill-written shorthand, and then trying to translate them into English. She cursed her brain for forgetting her four years of Latin. Okay, brain, come on. Apocalypse is Latin. I don’t need to translate that, but equitum? That’s, ah, Equitibus? Bus? I don’t think they had public Metro Transit way back when. Equi…equipment? Wait, no. Think of the Olympics. Equestrian. That’s it, rider!

  Chloe froze. She read Hadley’s note with the names of the known royals, Avery, Mortimer, Famke, and Primus. Hadley had written Bram’s name next to the last and circled it with a question mark. Chloe quickly scanned one of the open books, searching for the particular set of ancient descriptions which seemed so familiar to her. Ashen, pale-green in appearance. Mortimer, she deducted. Purest white and the darkest black. Like the down of a bird and a serpent's tongue. Avery and Famke. Her eyes widened as she reluctantly read the last description. Deepest of reds, like the fiery breath of a dragon… Primus, she thought. Bram makes four!

  Chloe couldn’t swallow. Oh god! Her heart started beating so loud and fast; she thought for sure Bram would hear it from downstairs. She wondered how she could have been so blind. All the clues were in front of her, and they were virtually screaming their meaning at her. Avery, Mortimer, Famke, Primus! Equitum translated from Latin meant rider. Yes, she knew that to be true. But it had another meaning, a darker more devastating meaning Chloe couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. Horseman!

  “Primus,” Chloe said in a hushed voice from the foot of the stairs. She tried to catch Bram off guard by speaking his true name to see what his honest reaction would be. He either didn’t hear her or was ignoring her goading. He was fae with ungodly strength. She knew he had heard her, and that only made her angrier.

  “War!” she yelled at the back of Bram’s head.

  Bram tugged the book he was reading closed. He slumped his head, seeming to tense at the impending fight. “Shit.”

  “You’re one of the Four Horsemen of the Fucking Apocalypse?” Chloe clenched the journal in her hand. “You liar!”

  Bram got up and faced her. “You know I can’t lie. I just didn’t...volunteer the extra...information.”

  “Extra information?” She berated. “Being a horseman of the apocalypse is more than just fucking ‘extra information!’ you liar!” She threw the journal at Bram, Primus, War –whatever the hell his name really was. The journal was useless. As far as Chloe could gather, the professor had sent her on a wild goose chase. Their journey together all for nothing.

  Bram caught the journal and placed it on the table. “Would you calm down?!” he yelled back, seeming to be arguing with her as much as he was fighting his inner beast from breaking free.

  “No, I won’t calm down! I can’t trust you!” His betrayal had broken her heart. Preparing to strike again, she picked up the professor’s favorite tale of hobbits and rings from beside his bulky leather reading chair. She was as mad at Professor Hadley as she was with Bram. You died for nothing! There’s nothing we can do! Nothing! Chloe had seen too much in the last few days; too much death, too much brutality…and she couldn’t take any more. Especially something like that. Blurred images of body parts being laid at their feet and corpses floating in
the calm waters of Puget Sound flashed in her mind. “Those scabs weren’t paying tribute to Famke because of this.” She grabbed the pendant, wanting to rip it off.

  Bram’s eye grew wide. “Leave that on!”

  “How could I be so stupid? There weren’t scabs hovering around the real Famke waiting to pay her tribute when I saw her at your apartment. It’s because of this!” Chloe tugged at the pendant, but it wouldn’t break. “Fucking magic!” She began pulling it over her head.

  “That pendant is shielding you. You can be as mad at me as you want, but I’m begging you, please, leave it on!”

  Staring at him with venom, she said, “They were dropping those body parts at your feet, not because I looked like Famke, but because they knew you were War! Tell the truth!”

  “It’s all true. Everything,” he admitted.

  “You bastard!” Chloe yelled, but she kept the pendant around her neck. She did, however, throw Professor Hadley’s favorite book at him.

  Bram dodged and let the book hit the wall behind him. A torn piece of paper floated down and landed near the book on the floor. Hadley had handwritten three simple words on it with a question mark. Two parts divided?

  “Who I am, or was, doesn’t change anything. I’m still me. And you know I’m not with them!” Bram spit the last word, like it was deadly poison on his tongue. “I don’t want any part of what they’ve done. You know that! I never lied about that.” He raked his hands back and forth over his buzzed haircut in frustration. “What should I have said? Hi, welcome to Professor Hadley’s class. Don’t mind me; I’m just the fae grading your papers. Or better yet: Sorry about the whole scorching the Earth thing, oh, and by the way, my real name’s War. That’s right, one of those four horsemen from your horror stories, your worst nightmares. Yes, I’m that monster… I’m a monster!”

  The silence that hung between them seemed like an eternity.

  “You could have told me,” Chloe finally said in a deflated tone. She thought about throwing something else, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore. His final admission, whether she had coerced it or not, had been full of regret and shame. The guilt he felt was almost tangible, like a winter wind blowing towards her, chilling the air between them. “Don’t lie to me again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Or omit ‘extra information,’ or whatever you’re going to justify calling it in any future circumstance or situation. Just, don’t do that to me again.”

  He smiled briefly at her wording –her trying to trap a fae in a pledge –but he seemed to give it willingly. “I promise.”

  Chloe looked down at the professor’s book lying on the ground and felt guilty for throwing it. She looked at the paper again that had fallen from it, thinking it curious. Professor Hadley had been notorious for folding the book’s pages to mark his place, which had always made Chloe cringe. He’d never used bookmarks. She had a brief moment of hope that it could be of importance to their quest and not just a random notation about his favorite book.

  “What’s the opposite of death?”

  “What?” she asked, caught off guard.

  “Come on; you’re a bright human. This should be easy for you. What’s the opposite of death?” He seemed like a man on a mission, now, like the weight of the lie had been lifted, and he was going to reveal everything as if he had nothing to lose.

  “Life. Why? What does that have anything to do with…”

  “Mortimer is Death, but he is also life.” Bram cut her off. “He chooses death and darkness, blindly following his sister Avery’s schemes, all under the name of the Light.”

  “What?”

  “None of us are just one thing, Chloe, none of us. Light and dark, good and evil, we all have demons and better angels fighting within us, even the fae. A fae’s alignment is a deception, our biggest lie since the very beginning. Antiquated bullshit. It’s just another glamour. For some in the Light, like Avery, it’s a façade to hide behind and do evil. And for some in the Dark, it’s a way to justify their demons.”

  “Like Famke,” Chloe surmised.

  “Like me.” Bram’s response was immediate, almost instinctive.

  His words seemed protective in nature, like an older brother defending his… “Oh god, she’s your…”

  “Sister.” Bram’s voice was a whisper as he said it, as if that would make it disappear on the wind and be forgotten. “I lost her to the others long ago.”

  “She defied them, Bram; I heard her.”

  Bram shook his head. “And yet she stands beside them still, destroying your home, scorching your sky.” He looked at Chloe, catching the question that crossed her face. “What better way for Famine to thrive than to destroy the sun’s light?”

  “Your sister did all of this?” Chloe’s heart sank into her stomach.

  “Not all, but yes, she did this.” Bram nodded only once. “We horsemen have two sides within us, opposite, yet, equal halves, which make us whole. It’s our choice which side we give rise to. What side we fight for and what side we fight against. Famke made her choice.” Bram started walking towards Chloe. “And now I’m making mine.”

  Chloe didn’t know what to say. What could she say? She wasn’t afraid as he came near, either. Even with everything she’d learned, she knew who the real Bram truly was regardless of his name, and deep down, she still trusted him.

  “Tell me,” he whispered. He was right in front of her. “What’s the opposite of war?” Bram seemed defeated, as if he’d been fighting an internal battle that had been raging inside of him for a very long time. He was the strongest, most powerful being Chloe had ever met, yet, here he was in front of her, a feeble mortal, and he was the one who was vulnerable, defenseless, and exposed.

  “Harmony, peace…love.”

  At her last response, Bram fell to his knees in front of her as if he were begging her for forgiveness. “How do I explain something I’ve been running from my entire existence?” He clung to Chloe’s calves below her knees. “But you’re right; I should have told you.” He bowed his head. “It’s true. I am War. It’s what I am, but it’s not who I am. I am both of my two halves, Chloe. But I have a choice of which of them I follow. And I choose love.”

  Chloe dropped to her knees, cupped Bram’s cheeks, and made him look at her. His eyes lifted and searched hers. They were strong, sad eyes that had seen more of life than Chloe could ever imagine. Horrors, heroism squashed, and widespread hatred. War was a foe mankind had never conquered, but she didn’t care. Bram said all the horsemen had a choice, and so too did mortal men. War was only a whisper in the ears of men, they were the ones who chose to act. In those same sad eyes burned a love for humanity like Chloe had never seen. A shimmer of hope, possibly the hope that she could see all for which he felt penitent.

  Chloe kissed him then, just a chaste sweep across his skin. His lips were full and soft, but there was an underlying power to them, just like the man himself.

  Bram grabbed her hands, still cupping his face, and reluctantly pulled away to look at her. “Chloe, I’ve done…” He shook his head.

  She cut him off. “Shhh. No more talking.” Chloe didn’t want to think about what was right or wrong anymore, and she didn’t want to know what evil he had done in his long life, not then. At that moment, she just wanted to feel alive, to feel like there was something on the other side of tomorrow, something worth fighting for. “You’re still Bram. You’ll always be Bram to me.” Her hands trailed down to his chest. His breathing deepened, and his double heartbeat quickened under her touch.

  Bram leaned in and kissed her hard, his tongue seeking hers and finding it, curling and darting; he searched, and she answered. The beast within him growled its pleasure as his entire body rumbled. He was all male, animalistic, his sexual desire palpable. She could taste it on her tongue like the sweetest nectar of honeysuckle growing wild and free in the countryside. She couldn’t deny his inner beast was terrifying, and, yet, who he was as a whole was unbelievably magnetic. She was drawn
to him, all of him.

  Chloe’s body ached for more physical contact, and the heat rising between her legs was unbearable. Bram must have sensed her arousal. His response was feral and possessive which only turned Chloe on more. With unbelievable strength, he gathered her into his lap, stood, and maneuvered them to the couch.

  As he sat down he pulled Chloe to him. She straddled his thighs, making his beast moan with pleasure even louder. The ground beneath them seemed to rattle under his power. Bram trailed kisses up her neck and found her mouth while his hands went to her trench coat belt and tugged without opening it. Her body purred in response. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, and his strong hands as they explored her body. But he pulled away then, as if wishing to make sure that was what she wanted, that he was what she wanted.

  Without a second thought, Chloe reached out and started lifting Bram’s shirt over his head. He obliged by raising his hands and throwing his shirt to the ground. Her hands went to his chest, touching his chiseled muscles and caressing his heated skin with her fingertips. As he watched her, his hands moved to her outer thighs and squeezed, seeming to take care and use only a human’s strength. She smiled at his restraint. Being the one in control and setting the pace was like an aphrodisiac to Chloe. She untied her coat, exposing her bare breasts. Chloe couldn’t help herself as she licked her lips, savoring the sweet honeysuckle that lingered in the air.

  Bram watched her mouth and shuddered, grabbing her thighs near her ass and grinding her into him.

  "These. Off," she demanded, tugging the waist of his pants.

  He unzipped them and pulled them down while Chloe straddled him.

  She grabbed him then, and he gasped as she centered herself above him. They both moaned as she slid herself down the length of him.

  Bram's fingers reached between her folds. "Show me," he whispered against her mouth.