Dark Legacies (Book Four in the Brenna Strachan Series)

by Hadena James

  My eyes scanned the room, looking for my Uncle Beezel. There were only three Demon Lieutenants, myself, Beezel, and John the Demon, who happened to be mated to one of Beezel’s daughters and hated his life as a result. He was always angry. Beezel was always close to neutral, not really feeling much except a slight happiness. John had spent time in the aether and he was just as happy as I was to be back. At least, at first, but now the anger rolled off him in crashing waves, meaning life had returned to normal.

  Lieutenants came in groups of seven. Some breeds had all seven, but some, like us, didn’t. Lieutenants were born with the ability to call. My sister Amanda would be a lieutenant. I felt it when she was born. We would have four once she reached fourteen.

  The ten Overlords, plus my sister, Rachel, the Witch Premier and our Human liaison, who appeared to be new, entered the chamber. I finally spotted Beezel and sat down. The others found their seats and the chamber became very quiet as the twelve council members sat down.

  “My daughter, Jasmine, has been genetically engineering creatures. Two of them attacked us here. They were created using Cerebus’ DNA. Luckily, Cerebus came to our rescue. Their bodies were removed to the island. My other daughter and Demon Lieutenant, Brenna, believes that Jasmine’s goal is to kill the Strachan family and then as many Elders as possible. We are standing on a precipice and the way is divided. If we stay here, among the humans, we might be risking more destruction like the one we saw in Berlin. If we retreat to the island, we have easy access to anywhere in the world and the protection of the magic on the island, but leave the humans completely exposed,” Lucifer said.

  My father’s voice reverberated in the chamber. We could feel it rumbling in our bodies, forcing the air from our lungs. Once he finished, I took a gulp of air. Air isn’t really a requirement for Elders, but it was a habit and like any habit, it was hard to break. Our new human liaison seemed taken aback by this long speech from my father and I wondered if he was struggling to breathe.

  “You want us to go back into hiding?” Someone behind me asked. I turned to look at the speaker and found my friend, Marcus. He was Ba’al’s son.

  “It isn’t hiding,” Ba’al answered, “it’s more like retreating, which is a tactical move that forced Jasmine to rethink her plans. We are more protected on the island and the humans may also be safer, because we can use portals to reach them faster. Portals are not something we can easily do in this realm.”

  “And Jasmine says she brought Pendragon and Brenna forth to bear witness,” Sonnellion suddenly spoke. “If that’s true, then the Horsemen are no longer trapped inside the infants she kidnapped. I do not know how their time in the aether has changed them, but they are the souls of those she claims, and if so, then Elders and Humans alike are in grave danger.”

  “I vote we retreat,” Marcus sat down.

  There was a chorus of agreements from the room.

  “For those that have never lived on the island, I will be expanding the city and putting up new apartment blocks. This should take no more than a day or two. You can transfer your money to the bank there and get geld in return. Remember, the island works on geld and barter,” Pendragon said.

  “We will be moving this house and the council chamber to the island as well. It will sit outside the north gate of the city,” Lucifer said.

  Chapter Four

  The process of moving our house and council chamber turned out to be a huge problem. The ground and the house kept going back together, slapping together like magnets. The trees kept trying to beat us silly and we had to maneuver around them very carefully.

  The chamber wasn’t any easier. The same problems existed, but there was another hiccup. We had installed a secret trapdoor in the floor that had once contained Pandora’s Box. However, the box had been destroyed and a small cubbyhole that it had been secreted away in was trying to detach itself from the rest of the chamber.

  Since it was currently empty, it seemed like a moot point. Let it detach itself. However, everyone else thought it might be handy to have at a later date. Considering the cubbyhole was only about two-feet wide, by two-feet long by six-feet deep, this seemed rather pointless. We could hide very few things in the hole. I had suggested my sister, but that had been scoffed at because she wouldn’t fit. So I was back to thinking it was pointless to keep it.

  My mother snapped her fingers at me, and I turned and raised an eyebrow. I knew what she wanted, which was more magic. However, the land was saturated with it, the house was saturated with it, and the chamber was saturated with it. I was positive that more magic wasn’t the answer.

  “Instead of more, perhaps we should be stripping them of magic,” I suggested.

  “We can’t,” my mother gave me a look. “Did you listen to anything we said earlier?”

  I thought about how it would be best to answer that. No, would probably get me lectured, while a yes would probably get me interrogated. I hadn’t been listening, I’d been thinking about the monsters that my sister had sent to kill us all. So, either was a dicey answer. I finally just shrugged. My mother frowned and Eli started coughing. I was sure this was to cover his giggling. I shot him a look that did nothing but make him cough harder.

  “Okay,” I said, giving in. The magic building began. Magic is essentially just energy. I have a lot of it and I can borrow it from others. My uncle Sonnellion came up next to me. He and I had the unique ability to combine the magic of Elders and witches and make it all work together. We also had the ability to shove said magic into whomever we wanted to make more powerful. I was constantly siphoning off little bits of magic from those around me.

  This extra magic began to swirl in front of me. I can usually see it. However, on rare occasions, I could make others see it as well and this was one of those occasions. As the clouds of color swirled and danced, Rachel let out a small sound of wonder. Magic had color signatures and everyone’s was different. The magic in front of me had colors that I couldn’t even remember who it belonged to, someone I had talked to for a couple of minutes before the trip to the aether.

  There was a strange color in there as well. One that I hadn’t known existed within me. It was a violent plum purple, and as it moved, I watched the signature of Spring-Heeled Jack mingle with the other. Even more surprising, a couple of seconds later, magic that was too dark to be called black joined the mix. Somehow, I had been harboring the magic of Cerebus.

  For the most part, my siblings have the ability to pick and choose the magic that they use.. My younger brothers, Daniel and Nick, instantly began pulling in the darker black magic. They both had an affinity for the hellhound because of his not quite dead or alive status. Eli grabbed the purple that belonged to Spring-Heeled Jack. The others began to pick out colors and pull them into themselves.

  Sonnellion had a little more trouble. My siblings could see his magic, but he would have to force it into them. Since that was dangerous, he began passing it off to me. Thousands of colors now billowed and swayed in front of me. The colors never mixed, but they twisted and knotted together, only to untwist and unknot and move to another color. As Sonnellion fed me more magic, the colors became the only thing I could see.

  There was still some room for more. I was a vessel with unknown depths. I couldn’t hardly cast a spell myself and have it work correctly, but I could hold more magic than any other being. It was my talent as a witch.

  The ground cracked and huge craters formed when my house finally wrenched itself free of the ground. For a few minutes, it floated about ten-feet above the earth, before the house groaned, creaked, and croaked in a deafening symphony. With a final window-shattering roar and a loud pop, it was gone.

  “I hope that it landed where I intended,” Pendragon looked a little sheepishly at my mother.

  “I’m sure we’ll find it, if it didn’t,” she reassured him.

  “One down, one to go,” I said, forcing myself to sound cheery.

  My mother, siblings, and Pendragon, went to work on the co
uncil chamber. Everyone else stood around, waiting for me to start draining him or her of magic. However, between my reserves and Sonnellion’s reserves, we weren’t yet ready for theirs.

  The chamber lifted off the ground. The cubbyhole tore itself free of the foundation and floated higher than the chamber. Then the cubbyhole did something unexpected. It rammed itself into the chamber and stuck into the wall. Everyone stopped for a moment.

  “Okay,” Levi gave me a look. He was convinced that things never went according to plan when I was around. The older I got, the harder it was to argue with him on it. Weird shit did happen when I was around and it was getting weirder all the time, like the cubbyhole relocating itself.

  The chamber shuddered and made a shrieking noise before disappearing. My trees suddenly uprooted themselves and disappeared into the portal that Pendragon had opened. My stable followed it. From inside the stable, I could hear my unicorn having hysterics.

  My yard looked like a war zone. The obsidian pathways were gone, the trees were gone, all the buildings were gone, except my shed, and it was jumping up and down.

  “Do we need the shed?” Someone asked.

  “I don’t know, but I think it wants to go,” Lucifer answered.

  Not missing a beat, my siblings turned their attention to the shed. It gave a high-pitched squeal as it disappeared. Now, my yard looked even worse, if that was possible.

  “Our turn,” Pendragon said to me. I looked at the magic left in the air. Sonnellion nodded and we began pulling it back into ourselves. Within moments, the colors were gone and I could see everything again. It was worse with the magic rainbow to look through. All the grass had died, the flowers had shriveled up and turned black, the earth looked like it had been hit by meteors, set on fire, and then filled in with sand.

  Pendragon and my mother opened a portal. As a giant group, we stepped through. Travelling through portals reminds me of being on a roller coaster that has bred with a slingshot. There’s a jerk in your gut, you feel like you’re free falling, before being zinged upwards with enough force to make your eyes water and your stomach heave, then you suddenly stop, as if you’ve crashed into a wall. Usually, I ended up on my knees after travelling through a portal. This time, I ended up sprawled across the ground and feeling like the tunnel had heaved me out at the last second.

  The ground, onto which I had been thrown, was not happy. The grass poked me with agitation, and a stray blade managed to find my ear and poke me in it. Levi held out his hand to me, and together, we heaved my new body off the irritated ground.

  We stood a few hundred yards from the city. If it had a name, I didn’t know it. It was the only one on the island and most of the buildings were made of stones of semi-precious and precious minerals. From where we stood, the tallest building appeared to be made out of quartz. I didn’t remember it from my one and only visit, but I had been in the middle of culture shock.

  My house hovered above the green grass about a foot. When it got closer, the grass moved in waves and appeared to be swatting at the foundation. The Council Chamber was beating itself against the wall of the city. The Djinn guard standing on top of the wall was hurling fireballs at it. My stable, with unicorn still in it, was trying to plant itself near a tree. The tree was fighting back and the terrified unicorn was whinnying with such vehemence that I was sure it would break its vocal cords. My shed had landed squarely on the top of the wall. The wall didn’t seem to mind and some type of ivy had already started growing up it, ensuring the two would be a pain to detach. A crowd of onlookers had poured out the doors of the city and they were staring at the spectacle.

  “Suggestions?” I asked after watching a tree thrash at the stable for a few moments.

  “Um,” Pendragon frowned and started gathering his magic.

  “Need help?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Pendragon began to pull magic from the ground. Almost all of it was his signature color. Pendragon didn’t just run the island, he had practically created it. I was under the impression that it was the source of the Atlantis myths. The fact that it was not underwater, but well hidden in plain sight, but somehow invisible to the naked eye, bolstered the theory. At least, it did in my mind.

  As Pendragon drained his magic from the ground, it became more accepting of the foreign buildings. The grass stopped slashing at the house and it plopped down. The front door hung ajar and several windows shattered, but overall, it was a success. The tree stopped trying to beat the stable into small pieces of wood, and the unicorn, now safely on the ground, broke through the stall gate and ran away.

  I couldn’t blame him. If I had been in the stable, I would have been freaking out too. Pendragon looked at me and I shrugged in return.

  “We’re going to have to meld some magic to make it work,” Pendragon told me, going very slowly over each word.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, figuring out the look.

  I stood where I was and let my magic build. Pendragon did the same. When he nodded, we both began to push the magic. His entered my house and mine entered the ground.

  The house began to heal itself. The grass under it died and the earth enveloped the foundation, cradling it.

  “That was freaking cool,” Nick said after the buildings had been implanted into the ground.

  That pretty much summed up my feelings on it as well, so I said nothing.

  Chapter Five

  The inside of my house was quiet. Stillness pervaded every nook and cranny and I was alone for the first time in ages. I hadn’t been alone even in the aether.

  Outside my house was another story. Everyone, from my family and Overlords, to the inhabitants of the island, were outside the house. They were currently using magic to erect housing structures that would temporarily satisfy the needs of my family and the families of the Overlords. There was also a wall extension going on. The city wall would encompass my house soon-ish.

  Pendragon was supervising the new construction and my presence was a constant hindrance to the progress. The wall hadn’t wanted to let go of my shed. The ivy that had grown up the wall over many centuries had decided another growth spurt was in order and now blanketed my house as well. Mythical creatures kept wandering up to the beings that were trying to work. The chimeras had decided to stand guard, since a dragon had meandered over and eaten a Djinn.

  However, this made my presence distracting. The chimeras thought the magic boost of my power had poured into the ground and was making the mythics come investigate.

  Of course, Spring-Heeled Jack had shown up and laughed manically for several minutes while we all waited in terror that the hellhound would follow. When Cerebus didn’t show, we did our best to ignore Jack, but he was hard to ignore.

  Now, I was stretched out on the recliner in my living room wondering if the island had cable. I was sure if it did, there would be a cool documentary about animals on at least one station. Unfortunately, my TV didn’t seem to work. I wanted to ask someone about it, but they were all busy and I didn’t want everyone’s attention.

  The nice thing about living in a magical house made of obsidian and silver is that it is essentially soundproof. A few noises trickled through the walls, but only the really loud noises drifted to me. I curled up, intent on taking a nap. My brother, Eli, rushed in and handed me Amanda, my newest sibling.

  Amanda drooled and giggled at me. Eli rushed back out. I sat with the child on my lap and stared at her.

  In theory, I liked children well enough. In reality, I didn’t have a clue what to do with them. She giggled and drooled some more. Features had formed in the six months or so that I had been stuck in the aether. Amanda had gone from an oddly colored lavender blob to a Demonling. My own skin color clashed with hers.

  She hiccupped and magic hung in the air around me. I raised an eyebrow, realized she was the only one that could see it and probably didn’t care, and dropped the eyebrow back down. She hiccupped again and more magic spewed from between her lips.

  I searched my memo
ry bank as to when Daniel was a baby. I knew he had done things similar, but I couldn’t remember what we had done about it. Of course, with Daniel, when he would hiccup magic, strange things happened.

  Immediately after thinking it, I wished I hadn’t. Fish began to rain from the magic cloud that now hung in the living room. The fish were alive, flopping and making strange noises. I held Amanda out from me at arm’s length and walked outside.

  “What?” My mother huffed at me. “You can’t watch a baby?”

  “You are really cranky and it’s raining fish inside the house,” I told her.

  “Why is it raining fish?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

  “She hiccupped magic and I tried to remember what we used to do when Daniel did that, which brought the thought of raining fish, so now, it is raining fish,” I handed her the baby. “I’ll help with the magic out here and you tend to your wee one.”

  “No, you won’t,” Sonnellion said.

  “You’re letting Pendragon,” I pointed out.

  “We have to let Uther, because it’s his magic to begin with,” Sonnellion told me this like I should have thought of it myself. Maybe I should have, but the baby belching magical clouds had temporarily blindsided me.

  “Bren, will you hold her?” My sister-in-law, Hannah, handed me a different baby. My niece, Ginger, drooled on me. At my feet, pranced another little girl, this one about seven years old. Her name was Penny and her skin was definitely copper colored. I wasn’t brave enough to ask Eli and Hannah if they had named her that on purpose. Like Hannah, she was a wingless fairy, but like Eli, she had horns.

  “Hi, Aunt Bren,” Penny grinned at me. She was holding onto my pant leg and doing a strange half-spin using my leg as the pole. When she grinned, she flashed very pointy fangs, something most demons didn’t have.

  “Hi, Penny,” I smiled back at her, revealing my own sharp canines. They seemed to exist in half-breeds, but not pure-bred demons. Like Penny, I was a half-breed. Of course, Penny was an even more convoluted half-breed than I was. Her mother was a wingless fairy. Her father was half-demon and half-witch. When she got older, she would probably have identity issues.