Dark Legacies (Book Four in the Brenna Strachan Series)

by Hadena James

  “How is that possible?” I asked the madman. He didn’t answer. I hadn’t expected him to. I did expect some answers out of the Elders though when I got back to them. I gathered all the books and loose papers from the tomb. Jack put the headstone back in place.

  I wasn’t ready to leave yet. My light bounced on some of the other names in the place. It landed on Sonnellion. Since my uncle was up and walking the earth, my curiosity overcame me. Walking over to it, I shoved the stuff into my bag to the protestations of Ezra, and freed my hands to open the tomb. Again, the stone moved smoothly, sliding as if on rollers. Another skeleton greeted me. This one had massive horns, thick bones and a skull that seemed to grin at me. My morbid curiosity fulfilled to the point of sickness, I moved away. Jack closed the tomb back for me again.

  Jack led me deeper into the catacombs, away from Cerebus. The air became fresher despite the walls of tombs. I saw names here and there that I recognized from different things. My feet stopped again as the light found another name. Chiron.

  I had no desire to open this crypt. A cold chill went down my spine and I turned my flashlight away from it. The light landed on the floor and I concentrated only on following the light and Spring-Heeled Jack.

  By the time we reached the exit, my personality was having a major crisis. My ancestry included vampires, angels, demons, and witches. It was a lot to take in. I didn’t have any vampire or angel powers. Somewhere along the family tree, someone should have noticed the not entirely human ancestry, and why did my relatives age and die, all the other half-breeds were immortal.

  The night was dark, even for night. We were still close to the lair of Cerebus, who brought darkness with him. Here, few things dared to venture. Cerebus had a voracious appetite for anything that moved.

  I found myself moving closer to the madman. He seemed the lesser of evils that stalked the dark of the island. The wendigo had given me nightmares and I couldn’t imagine things worse than it.

  Jack stopped, so I stopped. Ezra gave a shrill cry from the bag on my shoulder. I put my arm over it, shushing him. Something was moving in the dark, something not afraid to be this close to Cerebus’ lair. Jack took a step back and put an arm out shielding me. He giggled uncontrollably.

  The thing in the dark sprung forward. It had one large, blue eye the size of a dinner plate. The other eye was green and smaller, about the size of a saucer. It wasn’t recognizable as anything specific. It had too many arms, too many legs and two mouths that gaped open, revealing that it had no teeth.

  I yanked out my spell book and showed it to the creature. Ezra gave another shrill shout and began babbling. I turned it in my hands, glaring at the strange face that appeared on the cover.

  “What is that?” I yelled as the thing began to make noises that sounded like baby babble.

  “I don’t know, but it looks hungry,” Ezra shouted back.

  Jack giggled. The thing reached for us.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I ran and Jack ran with me, never outpacing me, never falling behind. The difference was that I couldn’t giggle as I ran and he could. When we reached the opening for Cerebus’ cave, I dove inside, hoping the thing wouldn’t follow.

  It did. It wriggled its body into the hole. From deep within the cave, Cerebus gave a low, mournful howl. We were trapped between the hellhound and whatever the creature tearing its way towards us was. Jack pinned himself to the wall. Tucking my bag behind me, I mimicked him.

  The thing working its way into the cave was hideous. There was no other way to describe it. It didn’t appear to be human, witch or Elder, but it didn’t appear not to be either. I desperately wanted someone with me to tell me what it was.

  On the other hand, I had a tenuous grasp on what Cerebus was and he was lumbering towards us from the other direction. Between the two, I wasn’t sure which was worse. With Jack at my side, I was hoping it was the thing coming into the lair.

  Cerebus’ hackles raised. One of the heads snapped at the air while another let out a low growl that rumbled the cave and shook some dust from the ceiling. The thing at the doorway stopped. Its mind seemed to be debating if it could take on the hellhound.

  Decision made, it charged forward. The massive Cerebus caught an arm in one mouth and worried it like a chew toy. Another head chomped down on a leg and began to tug. The final head grabbed at the face of the thing from the doorway. Jack ran for the exit. I ran with him.

  We tumbled from the cave, tripping over each other. Sounds of violence and pain issued from the gaping black hole. I lay on the ground and stared at the tops of the trees. My money was on Cerebus to win the battle, but if the thing in the cave had been locked in the prison, it was immortal too.

  Either might exit the lair at any moment. I willed myself to get up. Of course, Jack giggled. One minute, he was on his back on the dirt, the next he was standing. I wasn’t nearly that graceful.

  “Brenna!” Anubis’ voice came through the darkness.

  “Over here! With Spring-Heeled Jack,” I warned him, “He doesn’t mean to hurt me.”

  “Bren, are you okay?” Anubis was suddenly next to me.

  “Uh, I think so. There’s a thing in the ca...” whatever I was going to say was cut off by a sharp yelp from Cerebus followed by a sound that didn’t come from the mouth of the hell hound.

  “What does it look like?” Anubis asked.

  “Big, bloated, blobby with a large blue eye and a tiny green eye and no teeth, but two mouths,” I answered.

  “It’s the titan,” Anubis sighed. “Fuck. Are you okay with Jack?”

  “Yes and we have got to talk,” I remembered the book.

  “I have to deal with the titan,” Anubis told me.

  “That’s fine, I’m going to search for some light to stand in,” I suddenly remembered the wendigo. I didn’t know if Jack was protection against that or not.

  I should have stayed in the woods. In the plains between the city and the prison, a battle was raging. Magic spells flew across the dark, lighting it up, showing beings and creatures of all sorts and shapes. It was pure melee.

  As I stood, I began to syphon magic again. I could feel it filling me. I had missed the feeling. Jack stood next to me. A spell came his way and I hit it with my own raw magic. A tiny gerbil fell to the ground, quite stunned. I shrugged. Gerbils were better than some of the other things I could have conjured.

  With all the magic, the mythics were moving in closer. They were circling the periphery of the battle, avoiding the spells and raw magic that flew through the air. A dragon took a shot of something and groaned. It fell to the ground with enough force to leave an indentation in the dirt. It lay in the impression, motionless.

  I began gathering magic to help my siblings in the battle, when something slammed into Jack and me. We both went sprawling out of the woods and onto the field of battle. The thing behind me looked like a horse, only larger and more deadly. Again, I wished for someone that could talk and give me answers. The horse-like creature reared up and gave a blood-curdling whinny that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  The world slowed down, the spells stopped and everything turned to stare at the thing hovering over us. It charged, catching Jack and me under a single hoof. I felt bones shatter, but if Jack was in pain, you couldn’t tell. His giggling grew higher pitched and more frantic. The horse reacted badly, bolting onto the field, trampling anything that got in its way.

  Behind the horse, Lucifer ran out of the woods, glowing with rage. His eyes were wild, making him look as crazy as Jack. He ran past me without as much as a glance in my direction. Anubis followed. The titan was behind him, bloody, battered and broken, and being carried by the fierce Cerebus.

  Jack sprang to his feet and instantly crumpled back down to the ground. His legs appeared not to be working. I considered my own wounds. Jack would probably be more useful than I would, so I reached over and grabbed his arm. My body ached and contorted with pain as I healed his injuries.

 
As soon as he could, Jack was on his feet and chasing after the chestnut colored horse-creature. It unfurled strange wings that looked broken and then it jumped. However, it then crashed back down to the ground, skidding to rest against the motionless dragon.

  The creature effectively ended the battle. Lots of beings were rushing back towards the prison, while others were running for the city, and a handful rushed after the enormous horse. Pendragon, Vishnu and a handful of my siblings were able to contain the escaped Elders now. They ferried them quickly inside the prison, locking the doors with a deafening thud. The city gates banged open. The beings left, rushed inside the relative safety. The gates shut with even more noise than the prison.

  The brothers, a handful of overlords, Spring-Heeled Jack, and me, were left in the clearing. Cerebus dropped the titan. He and several others circled the fallen horse. The Elders didn’t approach. They stood their ground, facing the mythics.

  A chimera came forward and knelt to the ground in front of my father. Something was exchanged between them. My father stopped glowing and stepped backwards. The others followed, with the exception of Spring-Heeled Jack. He had a code of his own and I didn’t think even the chimeras could get through to him.

  With the mythics handling their own, the Elders moved away further, watching with an intensity that I could feel. My neck ached from being at the strange angle needed to watch what was happening, but I couldn’t bear to turn away.

  The vicious hellhound gently pushed at the leg of the horse-like creature. It gave a quiet whinny, causing a feeling of sadness to wash over me. The urge to crawl towards it, to heal it, was so overwhelming that I felt my crushed body moving forward without any interference from my brain.

  It was as if I was possessed. My brain told me to stop but my body crawled onwards. Each movement was agony and after only a few inches, my body burned with the effort.

  Yet, I had to reach it. My body screamed at me that I had to continue forward.

  The chimeras suddenly stood, ears perked up and looked directly at me. The Elders, who were watching, turned as well. My father’s eyes focused on me and he rushed over. He didn’t touch me, but instead, he leaned over me. Hot tears soaked into my shirt, but I still I crawled forward.

  “Brenna?” His voice was unsteady.

  “I must reach it,” I croaked, pulling myself a few more inches forward.

  “Stop, Brenna,” his voice was still unsteady, but held an edge of command to it. I didn’t listen.

  One chimera, a large female that I recognized as Gregorian’s mate, broke from the group. She padded over to me and put her head on the ground. I crawled towards her.

  “Gregorian says you are friend,” she said to me, but I couldn’t answer her. Tears filled my eyes and anguish replaced the pain. Finally, I said, “I help.”

  Her long tongue ran its way up my entire body, giving me instant relief from the pain. I wasn’t healed, but I didn’t hurt. Chimera spit was like the best painkiller on the planet. I moved faster now. Still unable to support my weight on my legs, I crawled with more determination. Someone grabbed my foot but let go almost instantly.

  Cerebus moved to let me into the circle. The horse, for lack of a better term, had blood running from one wing and a leg. Sweat ran off the body and its mane was matted. Foam frothed at its mouth, spilling onto the ground.

  Next to it, I felt incredibly small. I reached forward and grabbed hold of a leg. The body hair was smooth and damp. The pain was blinding and immediate. I screamed until I felt my lungs would burst.

  Then it was gone. All the pain, all the anguish, everything just vanished. I was left with a feeling of calmness. I blinked once, wondering if I had died, then I decided dead people didn’t wonder if they had died, so I wondered if I was passed out and dreaming. A large horse head appeared in my field of vision. The eyes were huge, bigger than that of the titan and deeply dark. It put its massive head against my face and just let it rest there.

  “Brenna?” My father’s voice came to me. Along with it, I heard Jack laugh. Well, I definitely wasn’t dead. I might be dreaming, but it didn’t feel like I was.

  “I’m fine,” I told him.

  “I would feel better if you weren’t touching Pegasus,” Lucifer replied.

  “Pegasus, the flying horse?” I asked.

  “Something like that, and also the eater of souls,” my father answered.

  “Oh,” I touched the spot just above the nose and I didn’t feel like it wanted to eat my soul. I felt like it wanted love and attention. Even deadly creatures wanted love and attention occasionally. Hopefully, it wouldn’t get bored and eat my soul after I finished petting it.

  After a few moments of love and affection, Pegasus pulled away and stood a few feet from me. I stood up and found that my legs held my weight. I had healed him and myself. It was kind of nice.

  “Well, I’ll be buggered,” my Uncle Levi exclaimed. “We have a tamer in our midst.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I told him.

  “It means the ability to touch mythics and calm them down,” Levi looked at Jack. “Stephen is a tamer.”

  “I hate to rain on your parade, but I’ve been eaten before,” I reminded him.

  “I wasn’t talking about you,” Levi gave me a very strange look. I gave him an even stranger one back. If I was supposed to pick up some coded message in his gaze, it was lost on me.

  “Speaking of Stephen, he led me to some books. I think we all need to have a long conversation,” I said.

  “We’ll go to the Council Chamber,” Anubis pointed, “Our house is still is a cube of stone.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Strachan Book of Witch Craft and Sorcery lay on the table in front of my parents and a small gathering of Elders, including the man whose name appeared in the cover: Stephen Nickolai. My siblings were staring at the book, dumbfounded. I understood. If I hadn’t been dealing with crypts and chaos, I would have had time to be dumbfounded too.

  “It isn’t what you think,” Lucifer started. “You aren’t part angel and part vampire. Stephen is not a blood relative of yours.”

  “But the book says he’s the father of Nicheven Strachan,” I pointed out.

  “He wasn’t,” Lucifer emphasized.

  “So, why is he listed as being one of the original Strachan clan breeders,” my brother Eli asked.

  “Because he loved Cailleach,” Anubis said. “And whoever fathered Nicheven was gone before Cailleach even knew she was pregnant. When Stephen and Cailleach met, it was love at first sight, at least on his part. She took a while to warm up to him. For the duration of Cailleach’s life, the two were happy and Stephen wasn’t the way he is now. He was functional. He raised Nicheven like his own. When Cailleach died, he reverted to his present state.”

  “Now, where did you find the books?” My mother asked.

  “Jack here or, hmm, Stephen rather, found them. I think he’s always known where they were. Anyway, when the prison break happened, we spirited off to Cerebus’s cave and found the catacombs, which is weird that I didn’t know they existed, just FYI. He pointed out a tomb of Nefera’s and inside, I found the books and pages,” I told her.

  “They are the original ten spell books,” Elise was gently touching the cover, “and the torn out pages.”

  “I know,” I answered.

  “Aside from the giggling, he seems pretty normal when you’re around,” my Uncle Abaddon said.

  “He doesn’t talk,” I reminded them.

  “He never talked,” Lucifer answered. “Do we have the pages that tell us how to defeat the horsemen?”

  “Not really.” Elise picked one of them up. “The pages talk about the horsemen, but they can’t be defeated, only contained. Each has a special canopic jar that it belongs in. They have to be burned and then put back inside them. The lids are sealed with a special spell. Here’s my problem with it, this all took place long before Jasmine was born. Nicheven was still a child when the book went missing.
So, someone else is the key player and Jasmine is doing their bidding, not the other way around.”

  “The deranged catfish that used to be a centaur said something about that,” I told her. “Someone very old is involved.”

  “These pages also tell how to conjure the horsemen,” my mother said, putting the pages down. “I can’t believe my daughter would stop time. There are grave penalties for that.”

  I looked away from her. Rachel caught my eye. As Witch Premier, she would know that I cast it. Rachel gave me a wink.

  “We all do desperate things from time to time. That it was cast repeatedly is unthinkable,” Rachel corrected.

  “I guess that’s true.” My mom still looked at me, but I kept looking at Rachel. Anubis shifted in his seat.

  “This is a spell punishable by death, I take it,” he asked.

  “Yes,” my mother answered. “Things happen in stopped time. Very bad things. Porlaine began to see the future. Other witches have had different, more disturbing reactions to it. Some have begun to rot, despite being alive, because their bodies continued to age in the stopped time. Some have developed other abilities that they shouldn’t have had, like conjuring nightmare creatures and making them flesh and blood.”

  “Like the titan,” Lucifer added quickly.

  “Wait,” I held up my hand. “A witch can develop the ability to conjure things from their imagination into the real world and have it stay, like a living breathing creature of the natural world?”

  “Yes,” Elise answered.

  “So, the things that we met in our backyard might not be a genetic experiment, but something conjured,” I poked at what I was getting at.

  “It’s possible, if they spent enough time in stopped time, they could alter the very fabric of reality to conjure creatures into the real world,” Elise answered.

  “Not like the pseudo-demonic creature that wreaked KC, but like a real Cerebus?” I prodded.