by Oxford, Rain
“I’ll be fine when I get to Mordon. Until then, we’ll deal with the witch hunter.”
“In your vision, a demon saved a baby, and the witch hunter helped, right?” Abby asked. “Are you sure this is the same man?”
“Demons can change their appearance, but it would explain his rising from the grave. I am starting to wonder if he is some psycho vigilante instead of a religious nut. I don’t think demons have a problem with witches. Being a demon also explains why his name is hidden. Maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Edward asked when I forgot what I was saying.
“I don’t know. I’m too tired.”
“What if someone got his name?” Abby asked.
Yeah, that was my thought. I normally loved to solve puzzles, but my patience dried up after two days of missed sleep. I actually felt worse after my nap. And of course, to top it off, Sydney sat across from me at the table. I was still hallucinating.
“Abigail is a witch, right? Why hasn’t she come up with a single good idea since we met her?” Sydney asked. “What is her purpose here?”
I don’t know. Abby’s phone chirped and I pulled it out of my pocket.
I had something of yours and returned it. Now it is your turn. Return what is mine or the witches die.
“Edward, do you know if someone took something from him? You can’t return a name.” I handed him the phone and he read the text.
“If something was taken from him, it was before Ronez and I were on his trail.”
“But he isn’t a fool. If we didn’t have it, he wouldn’t be wasting my time on it, he would be trying to find it himself.”
“So you want to use it to make him back off.”
“It’s that or kill him. He should be punished, but death is never the answer, especially if he is a demon, which he appears to be. Let’s find out what was taken from him and we’ll go from there.”
“Can you induce another vision to see what was taken?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if I touched the object, I would know. Otherwise, I don’t really have anything to go on.”
“Maybe I can give you something stronger to sleep. Or we can get ahold Divina and she can make something,” Edward suggested. “You spent a week away from Mordon on your honeymoon.”
“And I felt sick the last two days of it. Besides, that was ten years ago. Oh, crap, I need to think of something for our second honeymoon.”
We spent the next three hours searching the house for anything that might have been recovered from a witch. It was insanely difficult because Ronez had numerous magical items in the place. Abby spent an hour scrutinizing a tiny metal figure in the study, then decided it was a paperweight only to discover it was a key to a secret compartment that I found behind the skull painting in the living room.
I found a huge mirror that was covered up in the basement. Although I felt no energy from it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something much more than a ridiculously big hunk of glass. Edward found me staring at it.
“Abigail is upstairs trying to discover the secrets of a locked jewelry box.”
“I’m glad we brought her along; she’s a huge help.”
“She is dependable and powerful. Her mother is a nightmare, though. This used to hang in the living room. Your father kept a curtain draped over it.”
“Mirrors are doorways,” Sydney said. I was tired, but not an idiot. If my hallucination said it, that meant I knew it and my subconscious was trying to tell me something. “He must have had a reason to keep it covered.”
“Maybe he didn’t want something getting out.” I pulled the curtain back over it. “A mystery for another day.”
Despite all of the weird things that happened around me growing up, I was absolutely convinced there was no such thing as ghosts… until I spent a few nights in Ronez’s creepy old house. It wasn’t the strange sounds, occasional breeze, or even the bloody handprint all over one of the bathroom windows that swayed me.
I pulled a book out of a chest in my father’s study, set it aside, and then reach into the chest again. When I pulled out a second book and went to put it next to the other, the first book was outside my reach.
Other things would move, lights would turn on and off, doors would open or shut and lock, and something bit me when I reached behind the fridge. Of course, we couldn’t find anything living, not even a mouse. Hell, the place didn’t even have spiders.
Sydney disappeared for a while, only to reappear whenever I sat still. We all convened in the living room, where Edward and Abby sat on the chairs and I stretched out on the couch. “We’re missing something,” I said.
“Yeah; the witch hunter’s thing. We don’t even know what it is,” Abby whined.
“She doesn’t get it. Abigail is just a spoiled little witch,” Sydney said, appearing next to me on the couch.
“Lay off her,” I said, closing my eyes and groaning from the pain in my head.
“Huh?” Abby asked.
“Why are you defending her?”
I ignored my hallucination. “I mean that I saw something. I saw something and I’m too damn tired to…”
“Dylan?”
“What?”
“Are you falling asleep?”
“No.” But I couldn’t open my eyes, either.
“Why are you defending her?” Sydney asked. I never knew Mordon’s girlfriend was so annoying. “I’m not annoying you. You are annoying you. I’m just the last ditch effort of your subconscious to reason with you because Mordon isn’t here to help. What did you see?”
“Why can’t I sleep?”
“You need to focus.”
I sat up with difficulty. “Screw this game.” I focused my mind as best as I could on the witch hunter based off of the picture on Abby’s phone. Bright light filled the room slowly and it took a lot more time than usual to feel Earth fall away. The sensation didn’t last long; within minutes, gravity returned and the light faded. I was in a small hotel room with Abby, Edward, and the witch hunter. “How did you follow me?”
“You are unfocused, kid,” Edward said.
“Kiro!” the hunter exclaimed with excitement. “It has been so long.” His face was just as scruffy as it had been in his picture. He wore a black t-shirt and blue jeans with heavy brown work boots and a long, black leather trench coat. I thought his outfit was missing a tattered, beaten, dusty hat.
“Not long enough. I see you are hunting witches again.”
“It is what I do. But… this isn’t Ronez.”
“Ronez is busy.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
“Ronez was my father,” I corrected the man.
“Wait, what?!” Abby shrieked.
“Well, that is a relief! If I can’t kill Ronez, killing his son would be even more fun. And I see you have brought me what I asked for.” He grasped Abby’s arm and pulled her against him before anyone could act. Just as quickly, he retrieved a knife from some hidden place and pressed it to her throat.
“Let her go,” Edward growled. I had only seen the man’s true anger a few times in my life, and it was something no one ever forgot. The fury in his dark brown eyes was not like the fire in my temperamental brother, but more like lava. There was no mercy in the man at the moment. If that wasn’t enough to reduce the witch hunter to quivers, my uncle pulled his gun from the holster in his jacket. He had it whenever we went on any serious missions, but I never saw him use it.
“Get the hell off me, you piece of shit! Where is my sister?!”
“The same place you’re going, witch.” Keeping his knife against her throat, he reached into her shirt with his other hand and snapped off her necklace.
“I am so tired of demons,” I said.
“Give that back! That’s mine!”
“It was stolen from me by witches hundreds of years ago.”
“It’s very pretty,” I said. “My son would appreciate your taste.”
He snarled. “It was my mother’s.”
“Because it isn’t jewelry,” I said, gently touching the spot where my own pentagram usually was. Even if it didn’t look like mine, it could have been a focal tool of power. Mine could actually retain energy and even constructed spells, so I would assume his could as well.
“Of course it isn’t jewelry,” the witch hunter sneered. He held it up and a dark aura emanated from it. Edward shot the witch hunter’s shoulder, making the demon drop his amulet. Infuriated, the hunter shoved Abigail at me and lunged at Edward, slashing his knife threateningly.
“Xul, now!”
The Ancient appeared right between the witch hunter and Edward and the witch hunter didn’t have time to stop before he plowed right into Xul. They both went down, but their exact moves were cloaked by a burst of black smoke. I had enough time to worry for my demon’s life before the witch hunter stood.
There was no mark that I could see or blood gushing from a wound on the Ancient’s body, but he wasn’t breathing. The witch hunter had picked up the amulet during his struggle.
“Hello, master.” Even though the words were said with the witch hunter’s voice, it was the familiar tone I was hoping to hear.
“It worked then?” I asked.
“Barely,” he said, his voice strained. “Even a minor demon is difficult to restrain and this demon is barely below me in power.”
“He is a demon for sure then?”
“Yes. He is the son of two Ancients, in fact. The amulet…” he clinched his teeth as if in pain. Clearly, it was difficult for him to dig into the witch hunter’s mind. With a grunt, he flung the amulet across the room.
“What’s going on?” Edward asked.
“Zeb is possessing the witch hunter. Where is Maria?”
He closed his eyes and winced. “Don’t recognize the name.”
“She’s a witch. She’s thirty-five, ginger, has a tramp stamp of a humming bird,” Abigail described.
“She’s in the basement. The basement has been made up like a dungeon. He tortured her, but she is still alive.”
“Thank God,” she said.
The hotel has a basement? “What is the amulet?” I asked.
“It’s a… basically what the books are. With that amulet, all the demons… who fight against you in the war… would have the power of Ancients.”
“So we just dealt a major blow to the demons?”
“Trap. They have a… trap… the chest… I see an accomplice… His name… Argo---” He was cut off and instant before he dropped to his knees. Xul sat up then in his own body.
I created a shield around the witch hunter, but it crumbled on its own because I was too tired to focus my energy anymore. “Did you get his name?”
Xul shook his head. “I got as much as you did. Demon names are long for a reason. I couldn’t get anything else on the trap other than that he has one. There was an accomplice, but I didn’t find a name.”
“Did you see him clearly?”
“Yes. Give me the power to flash and I will find him.”
“No,” I said. The demon looked devastated. I knelt clumsily next to him, panting harder than he was. “I can’t keep giving you more power whenever it suits me. I will still require that you protect my family, and you will still be given as much of my power as you need to save them, but I’m giving you your power back. Full time.”
I put my palm on his forehead, closed my eyes, and focused on the power inside him. I could feel the safety lock I put on his magic in order to control him. When I first made the deal with him, I had been worried that he would betray me. It was difficult to unlock it, either because it had been so long or because I was so exhausted, but it finally gave.
The Ancient vanished before I could remove my hand. I wondered if I would ever see him again, but he had earned his freedom many times over.
The witch hunter dived for the amulet, but Abby beat him to it and all he got for his efforts was a kick in the face. Not missing a step, the demon snatched up his knife, turned, and sprang at Edward.
I felt the familiar presence before I saw the surprise on the witch hunter’s face. The demon froze as if he hit a wall, then his eyes slipped closed and he collapsed. Mordon stood behind him with blood dripping from the black azurath blade. Finally, the demon burst into ash.
“I guess my work is done,” Sydney said an instant before she vanished.
I opened my mouth to say something, probably sarcastic, but lethargy overcame me and my eyes closed of their own accord.
Sen
“Maybe I would like you better if I had a daughter.”
“You would prefer it if I were a girl?” I asked, surprised. My mother ranted on my every flaw, genetic or otherwise, but my gender had never been a problem before.
“No. I do not want you to be a girl. I just think if I had another child, a real dragon child, then I could pretend you were adopted.”
“Stop picking on him, Miko,” Mordon growled.
She looked at him and opened her book, not acknowledging his command but following it. It was a mystery to me why Mordon stayed with my mother. Mordon could never love her, but she would cling desperately to him because she knew he was the best she would ever get. My mother was pretty much unlovable. She was a precious gem, created with flawless beauty, but her gift was also her curse, for like a jewel, she was only meant to be admired and envied. Although she was artistically perfect, Kaori-mor Emiko was not meant to be loved or kept forever.
She was still my mother, as much as she often wished she wasn’t. For the most part, she tried not to hold my father against me, but it was in her nature to pick apart all my flaws as if they were personal insults to her.
Mordon left a few minutes later to go to Dylan’s place. We all knew Mordon would be back whenever he felt like it and not a moment sooner, so there was no point in asking when he would return.
“Would having another child make you happy?” I asked. The worst part was that I wanted her to be happy. I could never make her proud of me, and it was only her dragon instincts that prevented her from terminating her pregnancy, but I still wanted her to be happy.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “As long as it is with Mordon.”
I considered for a few minutes, and then sighed. “I need a ruby.”
“You know you are not allowed to have gems.”
“If you get me a ruby, I can make sure you have another child.”
Mordon was a respectable man who would never hurt her unless she attacked Dylan. I still didn’t understand the bond between Mordon and Dylan any more than I did the one between Ron and Hail. Nothing could come between the two pairs, not death, time, or even the love of a woman.
Dylan
“For the hundredth time, he’s perfectly fine. He just needs sleep.” Mordon’s tone was frustrated.
“He’s been sleeping for three days! He’s in a coma!” Abby argued.
Three days and I only had one vision? That’s great. Of course, it was very unusual for me to have a vision in which I was someone else.
“He’s awake now. Dylan, open your eyes.”
I did and found myself in the bed I used at Ronez’s house. “I see you’re getting along with Abigail as well as I did.” Mordon, Abby, and Edward were standing around the bed like it was my funeral. I took particular notice of the fact that Abby and Mordon were merely inches apart.
“Actually, I am getting along just fine with your sister.”
“My what?”
Edward scowled at Mordon for a second and then gave me a fake smile. “Did I forget to mention that Ronez was Abigail’s father?”
“Yes, you did.” Their words and even my own seemed odd. I felt like the world around me was becoming clearer slowly, like I was still trying to wake up. I pushed the covers off and got out of bed. Mordon frowned, obviously wanting to help me but
knowing I didn’t want help. “Are the boys okay?” I asked.
I knew something; I just had to let it come to me. Something had changed while I was asleep.
“They’re together. Xul popped in to say they were at home. We have all of the god weapons to use in the war, as well as a strong alliance of people on every world waiting for the signal. Avoli has also offered his world in order to minimalize casualties.”
“Edward, please take my sister home.”
“I’m not getting sidelined!” she yelled. “If you really are Ronez’s son, then that makes you my little brother.”
“Don’t you have to save Maria?” I asked.
“I already have and took her home to be cared for by my mother. She was tortured and was barely alive.”
I’m getting really tired of demons. Drawing on the nominal energy of the room, I did what was essentially the reverse of reading someone’s mind to push my thoughts into Edward’s head. “Abigail is half human and you said she knew nothing about the gods. You know her better than me, so whether she helps us or goes home is up to you.” Even while I was giving my old mentor the choice, my instincts were screaming at me to leave her here.
“She is a powerful witch, as I said before, but I think it is best that she goes home. Mordon and Abby have been flirting since they met. After the loss of Sydney, I think Mordon would be distracted.” He turned to the woman. “Abby, you need to go home.”
“I can help you,” she said.
“She has the right to be in this,” Mordon said. “If the demons win, many people will die and the survivors will likely be enslaved. She has a right to choose. There are people of every world, including Earth, who are preparing to fight.”
I felt very deeply that her life would end in the battle, which was odd because I always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt. “And you’re okay with her getting herself killed?”
“Arazel died because I wasn’t protecting her. Sydney died trying to protect me. We are going to lose people we care about, and I really wish I could have saved her, but if we go into this expecting to lose, we will.”
“Abby, we are about to go to war with demons,” I explained. “This war will take place on another world, where we will fight side by side with other beings of other worlds. In fact, there are demons on our side. There are also dragons, fae, and shifters in this. Is that something you would like to be a part of?”