ALLIANCE (Descendants Saga)

by James Somers

  Brody was presently here at the house but asleep. He still visited various people around the world, but his health had never recovered to its former state following Adolf’s attack upon him during our time in the city of Trinity. His lion’s head cane had, over the years, become less of a weapon and more of a crutch to lean upon. Compared to his former glory, the man seemed frail.

  Cole had taken it upon himself to see to his safety. There were still those who would seek to do him harm. According to Brody’s intuition, which was rarely wrong, Southresh was still present somewhere in the world. In fact, any time that Brody felt his nearness, he drew up stakes and moved them all away to another location.

  That was how they had come to dwell here at a lakefront property overlooking the Clinch River. It was remote with only a small town nearby. The nearest true city was a little more than one half hour away. In this place they had remained for nearly five years without Brody feeling that the fallen angel had sniffed them out.

  Black had never been seen or heard from again. Quite possibly, Brody’s attack with Malak-esh had done him in. Still, since none of them shared any blood bond with the angel—Black possibly never having had any Descendant children of his own—it remained impossible to tell if he was in the world or not.

  Sadie was not home. Presently, she was traveling abroad. One of her attempts at killing Adolf. Unfortunately, she spent a great deal of time doing this.

  It wasn’t that she neglected her father’s safety. Sadie simply claimed that Adolf was the biggest threat, and therefore the best she could do for any of us was to use Malak-esh to kill him. Then they would all be safe, and she and her father would be at peace for the loss of her mother.

  Honestly, though Cole did love Sadie, he did not believe any of her excuses. Brody had already come to grips with Sophia’s death decades ago. He had no desire to chase about after Adolf or Southresh and had even gone so far as to forbid his daughter to do so.

  But Sadie was consumed with revenge. She wanted Adolf killed and she wanted Southresh banished to Tartarus. Admittedly, both goals were laudable. Adolf had proven himself to be a menace to the world at large, and Southresh was almost certainly involved in the war’s progression, even if only from behind the scenes in service to Lucifer.

  Adolf had gone on to ascend to power after their bout at Trinity. His attempts at gaining prestige through the German military had seemed successful at first. However, the political climate of the day was not ripe for him, and he had been cast into prison, though this was brief.

  When he emerged, malcontent was sweeping Germany. They had suffered in the first world war due to the Treaty of Versailles and were eager for a leader who would restore Germany’s former glory. Adolf had promised to do exactly that.

  With the current war it had seemed very much like the way was open before him. Brody and Cole had combed the scriptures, particularly those regarding the Beast of Revelation, wondering if Adolf might be the fulfillment. Opposition which should have come by common sense alone, failed to materialize again and again. Adolf’s power and fame grew exponentially

  He drew in other nations with him, Italy and Spain, and more lately Japan. On every hand, sovereign nations around him fell to his will, sometimes without even one shot fired. Still, there were those that opposed him. Britain took the lead in the beginning with France joining and ultimately, surprisingly, Russia.

  For a time, the United States had kept out of the matter, leaving it to those across the Atlantic. Neutrality had been the opinion of the day for years. However, a surprise attack by the Japanese, two years prior in December, had ended that position. The United States had immediately entered the war. And, though not apparent at first, Adolf’s power had begun to wane steadily from that time on.

  Cole searched through the windows, looking to find if there was a contingent set around the house. He saw no one prowling the grounds. No liers-in-wait among the shrubbery. No hunched individuals creeping across the manicured lawn.

  Going to the door, Cole peeked outside through a side window. The feet hovering just above the ground was his first clue that these were not simple salesmen—not human callers at all. To have sprites visiting was a strange thing.

  According to Brody, the sprites had taken up in the Amazon Jungle. Their queen, Luxana, had led them to this remote wilderness in order to live out their lives far from society and the world’s growing problems. Certainly, Cole could see their point with the state of the world being as it was.

  To Cole’s knowledge there remained no animosity between Brody and the Queen of the Sprites. Still, it paid to be cautious, even after so long a time. Sprites were dangerous Descendants, capable of turning a person’s mind against them.

  Brody had related to Sadie and Cole the time when he and Oliver James had come upon two sprites within Oliver’s home in Highgate. One of those sprites had been the future queen, Luxana. She had nearly forced Brody to put a bullet into his brain, all the while desiring to do it because he felt it would make her happy. Such is the compulsion sprites can wield against even the strongest minds. Only angels are said to be impervious to their charms.

  It had only been Oliver’s impeccable timing that had saved Brody’s life. After having dispatched the other sprite in the house with a python strangulation, he had arrived to find Brody with the pistol pressed against his temple. He had barely had time to kinetically force Brody’s hand away when the trigger was pulled and the shot fired. A near miss, thankfully.

  Brody’s subsequent mercy toward Luxana had moved her to such a degree that she eventually turned on her master, Grayson Stone. When next she caught Brody in her mental snare, instead of killing himself, she had ordered him to use Malak-esh to end Stone’s life. Truly, mercy and grace had won the day.

  But neither of these sprites appeared to be the queen. They were dressed in plain looking clothes, the sort worn by folk in this area of the country. Button-up off-white shirts and beige pants with brown leather shoes. They looked about as threatening as a couple of boy scouts.

  Cole reached out his hand and produced, from nothing, a pair of sunglasses possessing mirrored lenses. It had been discovered that charms like those employed by sprites could be warded effectively with lenses that reflected their own beauty back at them. This did not diminish their power, nor did the lenses keep you from seeing them. However, the glasses did tend to block their view of your eyes and work to discomfit them by casting their own reflections back instead.

  Donning the sunglasses, Cole opened the door with a smile. The two diminutive male figures appeared to be standing upon the doorstep. However, his keen vision saw them for what they actually were: sprites hovering nearly three inches off of the ground.

  This was all very weird to be sure. They made their best attempt to seem wholesome and unthreatening. But with sprites, with their unending flat affects, they only managed to come across as creepy.

  When they saw the mirrored lenses of Cole’s sunglasses, he noticed a shudder run over them like cold chills. They glanced at one another, unnerved by his appearance, possibly unsure how to proceed with whatever business had brought them here in the first place.

  Cole decided to save them any trouble attempting to beat around the bush. “Sprites,” he stated right off. “Now, why would you be here in the United States knocking on my door? Surely, you know who I am and probably who else lives here. So, out with it. What do you want?”

  Admittedly, this wasn’t the most polite way to answer the door. Downright rude most would say. But Cole was in no mood. Brody had never recovered his full health, and Sadie was ever frustrating him being gone all of the time in her quest for revenge. If he had a fight ahead of him today, then he wanted to just get on with it.

  “Does Brody West live here?” one of them asked.

  Cole stood there for a moment before coming to the conclusion that it didn’t matter telling them at this point. Obviously, they knew he was here. How else could they have found them in the middle of nowhere?
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  “He does,” Cole replied. However, he remained standing in the doorway, peering at them through his mirrored sunglasses, unwilling to ask them in or move out of the way.

  They glanced at one another again. The other spoke up this time. “It is imperative that we speak with him. Our tribe has been attacked.”

  “In the Amazon?” Cole asked. He was surprised that anyone would bother. There was nothing there to conquer, no land to take. And, if someone had wanted jungle wilderness for some reason, there was plenty to go around. The only other reason that came to mind was revenge, but he couldn’t imagine who.

  The sprites answered his question with a simultaneous nod.

  “Our queen, Luxana, was killed in the attack,” the first said.

  “Do you know who it was? Why they attacked?”

  Again, they nodded in unison. The first said, “It was Adolf Hitler.”

  The return trip to the Amazon Jungle was a much shorter affair than it had been for the sprites coming to find us after the attack on their village. Brody was the last of them to pass out of the portal he had conjured as their means of transport. As the gateway winked out behind them, they found themselves amid tall palms and other trees from which the elves had constructed an entire town high in the jungle canopy.

  A scene of horror opened up before them. Bodies lay bloating in the sun. The humidity hit them, suddenly oppressive, making it difficult to breathe. Even the sprites seemed taken by it.

  “The magical wards have diminished already,” one of them said. “It wasn’t this bad when we left two days ago.”

  Insects, vultures and rats had already descended on the dead. Brody closed his eyes. It was an awful sight. The sprites had been massacred.

  When Brody opened his eyes again, he said, “These wards were conjured by Luxana?”

  “No,” the second sprite answered. “By spell casters, but attached to the life of the queen, I think.”

  He nodded and then pushed outward with his hand and his power. The rats screeched and skittered away. The vultures rose into the air. Even the flies and other insects left the grizzly carnage as though pursued.

  The humidity diminished quickly, and the sun seemed to lessen its intensity upon them. Unfortunately, the terrible odor of death remained. This was grim business indeed. However, they had to know what had happened here and why.

  They spent the next half hour surveying the remains of Luxana’s village. All of the carnage had taken place in this centralized area upon the ground. No fighting really among the trees. This surprised them. The sprites were not bound to the earth and would have taken any fighting up high, or so they had supposed.

  “Here is the body of the assassin,” one of the sprites said. They still hadn’t gotten their names. Brody had not asked, and Cole had simply assumed their must be some reason why they hadn’t given them.

  “That isn’t Adolf,” Cole said when they led them to the body.

  “No,” Brody agreed. “In fact this isn’t even a Descendant. And you say this one man killed all of your dead?”

  They both nodded.

  “How is it that the queen did not ensnare this individual when he came upon your village?” Brody asked.

  “The eyes,” the second sprite said, pointing to the man’s face.

  The assassin was lying on his stomach in the dead leaves of the forest floor. His head was turned slightly to the side, but Cole could make nothing of the eyes. They were only partially open.

  “He was blind,” the first sprite said. “None of our warriors could control his mind.”

  Brody and Cole looked up at the two sprites, unsure whether or not they could believe what they had just said.

  “A blind man did all of this?” Cole asked.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the second sprite said. “Believe me when I say that we were just as skeptical. But it is true.”

  “He fought like no human we have ever seen,” added the first sprite.

  “But you mentioned Adolf,” Cole said. “What about him? He did none of this killing himself?”

  “Only the queen,” the first said.

  “The assassin has a bullet wound to his head,” Brody said. “One of you used a gun on him?”

  “Adolf also killed his own assassin, after the queen was dead,” the second clarified.

  “Adolf’s mother was a sprite,” Cole said. “His father was Grayson Stone.”

  “He was the queen’s nephew,” the second said. “His mother Anai was Luxana’s sister. They lived apart from our community when we were still in Galidel.”

  “Why would that be?” Brody asked.

  The sprites looked at one another then back to them.

  “Because of the shame of her son being a half breed,” the first said. “Luxana and her sister did not get along well following his birth and the matter of who the father was.”

  “That could have been enough to spur Adolf to revenge,” Cole said.

  Brody nodded. “But I still wonder about the method. A blind human soldier for his assassin? Seems to me, he would have just done the job himself. After all, he is quite powerful. With Grayson’s abilities, he could have easily done this and more. Why send a human?”

  “To shame them first?” Cole ventured.

  “But why was he blind?” Brody asked. “Surely the man, as a soldier, wasn’t inducted into his army being blind. What good would that be?”

  “Which means he was made blind,” Cole said. “Perhaps to keep the sprites from bewitching his mind?”

  Brody gave him an incredulous look.

  “But how could he have done all of this being blind?” Cole reasoned. “I see your point. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “We’ll take the body with us,” Brody declared suddenly. “I would like Sadie to use her healer’s gifts. Maybe she can shed some light on what was at work in this man’s body before he died.”

  “What about our people?” the first sprite said.

  “Obviously, you and the other survivors should relocate,” Brody said. “I’m not sure about the matter of revenge. It may be that Adolf’s malice toward your people has been sated with Luxana’s death. Honestly, I’m still not certain that retribution is the sole cause for why he did this or the manner in which he accomplished it. Still, for your safety…”

  “Very well,” the second said. “But there are not many of us and our few spell casters were killed in the attack. We would ask your help in establishing new wards to keep prying eyes from a new location.”

  Brody nodded to them. “I can take care of that for you,” he said. “As a favor to your queen, I will make the necessary arrangements for you.” Turning back he said, “Cole, I want you to return this body to the infirmary at home. Spell the body to preserve it. We’ll have to wait for Sadie to return before we can get any answers from it. I will go with these two and make the necessary provisions for them.”

  “Thank you, Lord West,” the sprites said. “We have set up a temporary camp nearly twenty miles from here. It may even be a good enough location to serve as a permanent settlement.”

  Brody nodded back to Cole. He went about spelling the body of the assassin for the journey home. Brody went with the sprites, utilizing another portal that would convey them to the place where the sprites directed. Cole looked around at the dead sprites. In days, the jungle would consume what was left.

  It was a terrible tragedy. However, this strange blind assassin, from the ranks of Adolf’s Nazi army, would be accompanying him back to America. Hopefully, this dead man still had tales to tell.

  Sadie

  She waited until she was positive this would be the place where Hitler’s procession of vehicles stopped. Standing across the street, Sadie watched intently but discreetly as the three Mercedes-Benz 770K staff cars rolled to a stop outside the traditional German restaurant, Im Fuchschen, in Düsseldorf.

  Trucks carrying infantry soldiers parked on both sides of the street. The men exited the trucks first, taking up
positions all the way up and down the road. No one had disembarked from the identical staff cars so far.

  Sadie knew from experience that these cars were made more secure by bulletproof glass and reinforced steel plates. She understood this because she had attempted already to destroy one by gunfire and then her own fiery abilities.

  Hitler had escaped that day. His car had surged away with spidery bullet impacts up and down the glass and a great number of holes punched through the sheet metal. After a barrage of fire balls hastily thrown after it, the Benz had kept going, trailing flame and smoke as the paint peeled away in strips. The men had remained alive inside.

  Finally several of the soldiers stationed outside the vehicles, stepped forward to open the curbside doors of the staff cars. Half a dozen men exited the vehicles, all dressed in similar black military uniforms. The red and black and white insignias, bearing the Fuhrer’s swastika emblazoned their attire.

  They were all escorted to the door of Im Fuchschen and inside by soldiers with MP40 submachine guns. The world had by now turned into a much more dangerous place. Even Descendants, few as they were, couldn’t hope to evade machine gun fire forever in a fight.

  Technologically, the humans had progressed by leaps and bounds in recent years. The course and character of these two world wars had done much for the development of large scale and small arms. Machine guns fired so many bullets that even Lycans and Breed warriors would have been lucky to stay out of harms way.

  Sadie walked through the door of a shop on the opposite side of the street, so that she was out of view. In that fraction of a second when her form seemed to enter the shop and sunlight reflected from the glass of the front door, she vanished. The soldiers on the street, though watching everyone in the near vicinity, were none the wiser.