Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood)

by Megan Joel Peterson

  Mass murderers didn’t react like that. Not when offered absolute victory for the cost of only one victim more. Mass murderers wouldn’t have even batted an eye.

  He knew. He’d seen the alternative.

  And he should have known.

  Cole swallowed. “He can’t do the spell. Not without you. He researched it with my mom, back before the war, and learned that what Merlin did… it’s something only your family can control. That’s why they needed you. Or Lily. They were going to force you to do it, once they found my grandparents and got their information too.”

  Ashe stared at him. “You… you knew that?” she whispered. “And you never said–”

  “Why do you think I was trying to make sure his people didn’t get Lily that day?”

  Disbelief flashed over her face and then she paused, her brow furrowing as she processed what he’d said.

  He cursed internally, realizing it too.

  “You son of a bitch,” Spider growled.

  “What was that day, Cole?” Ashe asked, her quiet voice unsteady. “In Banston, when the others died?” She hesitated. “Was I supposed to be dead too by the time you got there?”

  He looked away.

  “Was that your plan?”

  A heartbeat passed.

  “It was,” she said, her voice gaining strength. “Wasn’t it?” She gave a choked gasp. “What else did you tell him while you were there? Did you tell him where the Merlin were hiding? What our defenses were? Where to find those kids who died in Austin, or those families who burned alive in Omaha? Huh? What’d you say?”

  Trembling, she stared at him, her face a picture of old horrors and hurt gone on too long.

  He shook his head, not taking his eyes from her. “No.”

  She waited.

  “I told him…” He swallowed again. “I just told him about those three wizards and Katherine. And you.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought…” He drew a breath. “I thought you’d killed all those cripples. That they’d made you – taught you – to do it. I thought…”

  Cole looked away, his skin crawling at the pain-filled incredulity in her normally so expressionless eyes. “I heard what everyone said you’d done. The stories Harris and my dad told, and I thought you were a monster. A–” He glanced to Spider and then regretted it. The girl looked like she was trying to decide which of his limbs to shoot off first. “A feral.”

  “But–”

  “You torched people in front of me, Ashe.”

  “I was trying to protect my sister!”

  “I-I know. I get that. I just…” He grimaced. “When I heard the stories they told–”

  “You thought you’d just have them kill me?”

  “I was trying to protect people too!” he countered desperately, fighting to keep his voice low. “The other cripples and Lily–”

  “You thought I’d hurt Lily?”

  “No! I thought you’d–” He grimaced again. “I thought you’d make her like you.”

  A gasp escaped her. Rising, she walked away from the bed.

  “They made it sound convincing, alright? And how was I supposed to know they were lying when even your own people claimed it’d all been okayed by you!”

  She spun toward him and then paused. Her brow drew down ever-so-slightly as her gaze slipped from him to the floor.

  “You really wanted to trust him,” she said quietly. “Didn’t you?”

  “He’s my father.”

  Ashe’s gaze climbed, meeting his own. “He killed my family.”

  Cole looked away.

  “Why’d you go back there?” she asked.

  “I told you.”

  “You–”

  “I didn’t know. About you or the others. And he…” Cole’s mouth tightened. “I just wanted his side.”

  “But you didn’t try to take Lily.”

  The words were as much statement as question, and at them, he glanced up again.

  “He killed your family. I wasn’t going to risk her. Not till I knew what was going on.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “Elias said that, you know,” she told him, her voice tight. “That maybe you were trying to protect her. That we shouldn’t assume the worst of you.”

  He turned away, the words hurting like she’d probably intended them to.

  “They were good people, Cole.”

  His jaw clenched. “Just stay away from him, alright? Take Lily and run to the other side of the world if you have to. Just don’t let my dad get his hands on you.”

  He looked back when the girl didn’t answer.

  She was watching Lily.

  “Ashe. Please.”

  A moment slid by.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  Pulling her gaze from Lily, Ashe blinked as though trying to refocus her thoughts. Wizard expressionlessness gradually reasserted itself over her face as she searched the room, only to falter as her gaze caught on Spider.

  For a heartbeat, neither girl spoke.

  “The ferals will still be out there,” Spider said, a note of apology in her voice.

  Ashe looked away and after a moment, Spider did the same.

  “I’ll think about it,” she added quietly.

  Ashe hesitated and then nodded. “We, uh…” Her brow furrowed as she regarded the floor. “We should probably head back to Banston then. Just in case Bus…”

  He could read on her face what Spider thought the answer would be, but the girl nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

  Silence filled the room.

  “I can take watch tonight,” Spider offered.

  Ashe didn’t look up as she shook her head. “You need sleep too.”

  “Wake you in a few hours then?”

  “Sure.”

  Ashe walked to the bed, pausing before she lay down at Lily’s side. By the window, Spider returned to watching the street.

  Cole closed his eyes with relief before looking back outside. It wasn’t much, getting Ashe to agree to leave the war like this. It didn’t mean everything was fixed or that his dad’s plans would suddenly disappear. But it would keep Lily safe, and Ashe, and protect his father too.

  And that counted for something.

  So much more than anything else thus far, that definitely counted for something.

  *****

  Sunrise crept over the horizon, brushing the little strip of neighborhood with soft colors and lighting the haze on the fields at the end of the road. In the guest room, shadows clustered behind the thick curtains, and only the thin strip of light slipping past her broke the gloom at all.

  On the bed, Lily rolled over in her sleep and sighed.

  Ashe glanced back. Bundling the blanket tighter beneath her cheek, Lily settled into the covers and didn’t move again.

  For a moment longer, she watched the girl before turning back to the window. It was odd to think that in a few days, they’d be escaping the war together. The whole world felt like an option, barring those places she knew the Blood were hiding and that she wouldn’t have wanted to go to anyway. It was strange. She knew she should be excited. Happy, even.

  Instead, she just felt numb.

  For the past six months, all she’d wanted was for this to end. First with the Merlin, and later when she discovered Lily was alive, her only goal had been to stop the fighting so they could live without constantly worrying about who else might try to kill them each day. She’d thought the spell would do it, and when that wasn’t an option, she’d still been ready to let go of everything to give Lily that chance. No matter what, she’d at least wanted Lily to be able to go somewhere and rebuild a semblance of home.

  But that wasn’t ever going to happen. She’d have a life with her sister now, of course, but it wouldn’t be like before. They’d spend every day looking over their shoulders, never getting close to anyone because, at any moment, Jamison might find out where they were and they�
��d have to cut ties all over again.

  And it would never change.

  Against the window frame, she shifted uncomfortably, her gaze tracking a woman walking a dog through the faint morning light. Whatever happened, she’d handle it, and if this was what it took to keep Lily safe, then it was what she’d do.

  She’d just really wanted to go back to having a home someday.

  A creak sounded behind her and she turned. One hand gripping the doorframe, Gary was watching her, his wife peering warily over his shoulder. Tension lined his face, while Annie fingered their dog’s collar as though wishing she could convince the placid animal to attack.

  Ashe glanced to Spider, but the girl’s eyes were already open as though she’d never been asleep at all.

  “You said tomorrow,” Gary told her.

  Spider’s gaze twitched to the bedside clock. With a contemptuous look to the couple, she pushed back the blanket and rose to her feet.

  “Can you have one of them pull the car closer?” the man persisted with a halting gesture toward Ashe and Cole. “Since they’re less–”

  Spider leveled a flat look at him and he fell silent. With a quick motion to Annie, he retreated to the stairs.

  Shaking her head, Spider exhaled and then caught sight of Ashe watching her.

  “You should’ve seen how they reacted to having two black guys around,” she said, irritation thick in her tone. She snagged her bag from the floor. “Didn’t matter that Carter’d gotten them set up here. They just worried over whether they’d have to explain him and Sam to the neighbors.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Cole muttered as the girl disappeared down the hall toward the bathroom.

  Ashe glanced over as he shoved the blanket aside from the space he’d taken on the hardwood floor. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he drew a breath and then moved to stand, only to pause as he noticed her.

  “We leaving?” he asked, his voice tight.

  “Soon as she gets back.”

  He finished climbing to his feet. Scrubbing a hand over his hair, he crossed to Lily’s side to wake the little girl.

  Ashe turned back to the window. As always, Cole presented his own problems, in so many ways, she was starting to lose count.

  “Time to go?” Lily asked, a weariness in her voice that Ashe could tell had little to do with being woken so early.

  “Yeah,” Cole said.

  “Where?”

  Cole paused. “Back to Banston. We’re going to meet up with Bus.”

  Blankets rustled as Lily clambered hurriedly from the bed.

  Down the hall, the bathroom door opened. Sighing, Ashe checked the street again and then turned to grab her own bag before following Lily and Cole from the room.

  Gary and Annie were waiting at the base of the stairs.

  Wordlessly, Spider stepped around them, ignoring the angry noise Gary made as she did so. Tugging open the front door, the girl glanced down the road, and then walked outside, leaving the others to come after her.

  The door slammed the moment they made it through.

  “Friendly,” Cole commented.

  Lily made a disgusted noise.

  Scanning the street, Ashe didn’t say anything as she followed Spider to the SUV. Pulling open the door, she waited for Lily to climb in while Cole circled to the other side of the vehicle and Spider swung up into the driver’s seat.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose and she glanced to the house. At the front window, the barest edge of the curtain was tweaked back. Suppressing a disgusted sound of her own, she got in after her sister as Spider turned the key in the ignition.

  She could feel the couple’s gazes trailing them as the SUV drove away.

  Chapter Twenty

  As the elevator slowed, Harris sighed.

  He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

  In almost a week of searching Chaunessy, he’d gleaned precious little information on how the Blood ran their empire. Their security was extensive, ranging from magical barriers around any sensitive location to a central monitoring station on the fifteenth floor that scrutinized every other level. The wizards weren’t particularly talkative either, at least to him, and from the few conversations he’d managed to overhear, he’d only gathered a handful of names for Malden to run. He was getting nowhere slow, and after days of putting it off, he’d finally surrendered to the fact he needed to use every resource at his disposal.

  No matter how irritating that resource could be.

  The elevator door slid open, rewarding him with the sight of the squat little man sidling along the cafeteria deli counter. His pale hands shooting out from the voluminous layers of his coat, Mud snatched a pair of sandwiches from behind the back of the counter attendant and squirreled them away with lightning speed.

  Drawing a breath, Harris made himself leave the elevator before he could change his mind. “Hey!” he called as he strolled into the cafeteria.

  The man dropped the sandwich and turned to bolt before he realized who had spoken. Recovering quickly, he plastered his dirt-smudged face with a smile. “Hey, buddy!” he cried. Exaggerated bafflement furrowing his brow, he picked up the plastic-wrapped sandwich again and returned it to the tray as though he couldn’t understand how it had fallen. “What brings you down here?”

  Harris shrugged. “Just stretching my legs.”

  Mud looked like he wouldn’t have seen the appeal of such a thing even if he’d been in chains for a year. “Uh-kay,” he allowed, his smile faltering a little.

  Harris leaned over slightly, casting a look to the attendant. “She noticed,” he whispered.

  If he hadn’t been gambling on his own ability to get the arrogant little man to talk, the gamut of expressions would have made him laugh, shooting as they did past alarm, fear, and then stuttering into a sort of ingenious confusion so transparent, it wouldn’t have fooled a child. “Huh?” Mud asked, seeming to notice the woman behind the counter for the first time. “I, uh…”

  He trailed off as the attendant glanced back at her tray of sandwiches and then looked to him, her face darkening.

  “I was going to have a seat, if you’d care to join me?” Harris offered.

  Mud edged toward the door. “I should probably get–”

  Harris made a cautioning noise, his eyes sliding meaningfully toward the attendant.

  The little man made a beeline for a table.

  Theatrics fading, Harris glanced to the woman. “I’ll pay for the sandwiches,” he told her tiredly before following.

  By the time he reached the other side of the cafeteria, Mud had already managed to devour most of what he held in his hands. Plastic wrappings lay in shredded pieces all over the small, round tabletop, interspersed with smatterings of lettuce and tomato.

  Harris repressed another sigh.

  “Thanks for that,” Mud said between bites as Harris sat down. “Regular bunch of Nazis, they are.”

  “Wizards,” he agreed, ignoring the fact the man’s comment didn’t remotely approach logical.

  “No kidding.”

  The conversation fell flat and the sound of Mud eating filled the room.

  “So what gives?” Harris tried. “I thought you were out on patrol?”

  “Got me watching prisoners now.”

  “They agreed to that?”

  He couldn’t keep the surprise from his tone, but it didn’t matter. Mud just smiled, sandwich and all. “Gave ‘em a good tip and got paid,” he replied.

  “Oh yeah?” Harris managed, looking away quickly.

  Mud returned to his sandwich, radiating self-satisfaction.

  Harris waited, but nothing more came. “Too bad,” he commented.

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just can’t imagine guard duty’s very interesting. No news, no information. Just watching folks all day. Leaves you out of the loop entirely.”

  Derision twisted through Mud’s expression. “I hear plenty.”

  “Come on,” Harris chided. “It’s not li
ke wizards talk much. Not to the likes of us, anyway. Besides, I’ve been here just as long as you, and I still haven’t even heard how Jamison manages to pull it all off.”

  “Pull what off?”

  “His money, for starters,” he said as though it was obvious. “How does he keep the lights on around here? Or the jets and cars and hotels damn near everywhere. How’s he pay for all that and still keep every Merlin and Taliesin with a laptop from tracking down where he’s hiding? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, that’s your problem right there, isn’t it?” Mud countered superciliously. “It’s not Jamison who’s doing it.”

  Harris didn’t have to work hard to look skeptical. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s not Jamison,” Mud repeated. “Oh, it’s his money. But Brogan’s the one who set it all up. The mansion in upstate New York, the cars and fake IDs and all the crap here. He even took the company Jamison’s great-granddad founded, broke it up and turned it into a whole bunch of new ones without the Taliesin council being any the wiser. Morons just thought the damn thing went bankrupt after Jamison supposedly died. But the money’s still there, boatloads of it, all funneling back to them a dozen different ways. Brogan’s just got it so covered in paperwork, anybody on the outside doesn’t stand a chance of seeing how it all fits together.”

  Harris paused, filing the information away and then refocusing. He gave an amused scoff. “Yeah, right.”

  The little man’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Seems a bit far-fetched, is all. I mean, ‘boatloads’ of money? Secret companies? Hidden mansions? You have any proof that’s not just something the Blood dreamed up to make Jamison sound more impressive?”

  “Why would they? You said yourself the man has tons of cash. Hell, most of the higher-up wizards do. Being outsiders like them tends to lend toward long-term thinking, so the bastards and their ancestors have been investing and building up money for years. Why should Jamison be any different?”

  Harris chuckled dismissively. “Because having cash and having all of what you’re talking about are two totally different things. If you haven’t heard of any proof, let alone seen any…”