* * * * *
Stopper halted as the door to Damien’s chambers clicked shut. He walked over to his desk, checked to make certain that Damien’s office door was still closed, and sat down. With perfect calm and deliberate action, he reached for a wrapped box on his desk that had just been delivered via space post.
Opening it, he smiled at the one lifelike wax doll sitting in the preservation field inside. The miniature force field acted as a stasis chamber, ensuring that the hexed person inside wouldn’t suffocate or be bumped up too much. Human hexed cargo was always preserved this way.
“Hello again, Oliver. I do hope you had a bumpy trip.” Oliver White was the last unfortunate soul that Damien had sent after her. The witch hunter had been strong, but not strong enough for her.
Picking up an antique solid-silver compact, he opened it and looked in the mirror. The mirror saw past the enchantment.
Her true visage was revealed. Anya smiled as she saw her reflection staring back at her.
As Damien came striding out of the office at a determined clip, she quickly shut the compact and placed it back inside Stopper’s drawer. She couldn’t wait to ditch the pretense completely. Terry Stopper was vainer then some women.
“Goodbye, Mr. Stopper, I’ll see you in about a fortnight,” Damien muttered as he walked out of the Forsythe offices. It wouldn’t take him long to vacate Griffin Tower, which was also owned by the Forsythe family.
“Oh, I should think we’ll see each other again well before that, darling husband,” Anya whispered, as Damien stepped out of earshot. Stopper’s semi-masculine voice faded away to be replaced by her own sweetly feminine voice.
She reached into another drawer below the one that held her compact and stared at the twelve-inch doll-sized form of the real Mr. Stopper. She had to transform him into his current state in order to take up his post as Damien’s personal assistant.
She could barely hear his frustrated screams. Reaching for him, she cradled him in her hands and smiled.
“Just relax, Mr. Stopper. Soon you will be back to your old self and your days as a living doll will just be a memory. I’m sorry you had to fall victim to my magic but I had to find a way to hear for myself what Damien had planned for me. On the upside, I’ll put you and Mr. White together so you can keep each other company, I’m sure that will please you greatly.” She smiled when Stopper started to scream another stream of ear-burning obscenities at her.
If Damien planned to ensnare her in a bewitching trap of his own making she’d just have to beat him at his own game and enslave him to her before he could work the same diabolical magical curse on her.
She would not bow to him—she could never bow to any man, least of all a man whose great-grandfather had burned her grandmother at the stake during the Bloodbayne Terror. She would see Damien’s passions ignite. The torch he held for her would blaze for her, and only her.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Stopper, everything will go back to the way it was, and I will release you from your current unfortunate form. I just need to work a few things out with Damien, but I will not have you interfering with any of it. Do you understand?”
She waited until he gave her a meek and mild “yes” and then she tossed him into the same drawer that she’d placed White in, leaving it open a smidgeon so they would not suffocate. She could have put them both in Damien’s curio cabinet but that would be far too good for White and she couldn’t take the chance that Damien would recognize Stopper in his doll form.
She stood up. Stretching, she yawned as the Westminster chime of the grandfather clock marked the top of the hour. The soothing chime settled her strained nerves.
It would be so good to finally purge her blood of the rage that boiled through it. She despised Damien and yet she could not stop loving him. It frustrated her to no end and she would never forgive her heart for betraying her in such a foul way.
She’d grown stronger in the months they’d been apart. She’d held her breath the first time he’d seen her earlier that morning. He’d eyed her quizzically and to her profound relief, he’d opened his mouth to arrogantly snap out orders to her.
In a way, she had to feel sorry for poor Mr. Stopper. He was used and abused by Damien in a most foul way. Damien treated him as if he had a bias toward those not imbued with magic.
She knew the only reason Stopper put up with his shit was because Damien paid very well despite his sometimes asinine behavior. And she also suspected that Stopper had fallen in love with Damien in the years that he’d worked for him.
Back before their nuptials, Anya had been introduced to Stopper and he’d given her the distinct impression that he felt something other than just blind loyalty toward Damien—and it made her suspect that Stopper loved Damien though it was an unrequited love as Damien only had eyes for the female sex. Nonetheless, Stopper remained with Damien through thick and thin, she only wished that he would one day break himself free of Damien and one day find the love he deserved.
As her life had unraveled at the seams back on Vanguard IV, she’d clung to her love for Damien. As if it would somehow keep her breathing and keep her going despite the fact that she just wanted to disappear and remain alone.
She should have returned to Earth, to be with what family she had left there, but she couldn’t bear to face them. How would they react when they learned what she’d done?
In her heart of hearts she knew that her cousin Dallas would never judge. They were like sisters, and Dallas had never judged another soul, she was as sweet as they came. Dallas’ father and Dallas’ brother, on the other hand, might.
She was so ashamed. She never should have fallen prey to Damien’s charm. She should have suspected he wasn’t telling her everything about his family history, and now she had to pay the price for not probing further.
The fact that Damien sent witch hunters after her hadn’t come as a surprise. He no doubt viewed her as his property now that she was his bride. To be fair most men would be offended by having their bride pull a runner at their wedding reception. The only problem—Damien was not any man. He was a witch hunter himself and a very talented warlock.
She’d never known how suffocating love could be until the day she’d attempted to save her fate by clinging desperately to the love she and Damien shared.
Perhaps they could rebuild their relationship. It had been love at first sight for her, and as Damien claimed it had been love at first sight for him as well.
The question was, how could she overcome her feelings of betrayal? Had he been upfront about his family history she might have gotten past it—as it stood now she had to live with the consequences of her actions and attempt to figure out a way of breaking things off with Damien once and for all.
The push and the pull between love and hate constantly blurred and her emotions were always so frayed she never knew how she felt about him anymore…maybe his touch would solve all of her questions…maybe his love could bring her back from the brink. The fact that she was able to disguise herself so efficiently around him told her what she’d already feared, that their love wasn’t enough to weather the storms that lay ahead—maybe they didn’t share a soul-shattering connection like she’d originally believed. If he really loved her, he should be able to see past the sort of enchantment she cast that made her look like Mr. Stopper.
The romantics throughout the ages always claimed that love was strong enough to survive any strain but what if it wasn’t? What if it couldn’t see them through the biggest hurdle their relationship had ever faced?
Sighing heavily, she stood up and magically transformed the gray suit, white shirt and pink tie she wore while posing as Stopper into a black skirt and rose-colored short-sleeved blouse that would keep her cool during the humid weather of the city this time of year. Relieved to be back in an outfit that made her feel at ease without having that stiff, scratchy collar around her neck, she walked through the lobby of the office building past the security guard who would see the image she wanted him to
see, which was still, of course, Mr. Stopper.
“Good night, Mr. Stopper, see you tomorrow,” Alvin Sweet said as she walked past his desk toward the doors. Where would she go now that she had to step up her game? Should she follow her husband on his wild goose chase around the solar system or should she just wait for him here on Vanguard Prime until he came home completely depressed and defeated?
She pushed open the heavy doors leading out of Griffin Tower and stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight.
Vanguard Prime’s climate was comparable to the North American climate on Earth. The province of New Mercia boasted plantation homes much like the sprawling mansions found in North America’s Deep South. Slave witch labor had built the majestic homes found in New Mercia and in many of the other provinces, and her poor mother’s family had been amongst those slaves. The planet had flourished with so much slave labor, and many families had prospered financially because of it.
She thought about the slaves’ grim fates toiling away in the sun using their bare hands to do work their magic could have done for them. Those peace-loving witches and warlocks like her mother who had been enslaved and stripped of their powers were mercilessly abused by their slavers.
If they had not had their powers repressed by the power-binding collars around their necks, those who oversaw them never would have been able to wield such control over them.
Unfortunately, many of those who were enslaved didn’t know how to fight, and so their magic had been taken quite easily from them. They had been at a disadvantage, never having used their magic in such a combative way.
The slave collars men like Gregory Asher had used kept their victims totally helpless. Those vile slave collars had been invented centuries ago by witch hunters to completely inhibit the witch’s or warlock’s magical abilities, while using the collar as a conduit to give them the enslaved warlock’s or witch’s gifts.
Essentially, those in covens like the Bloodbayne Coven stole the witch’s or warlock’s magic and their magic was only restored when the collars were removed or disabled. This hunger for power was the driving force behind enslaving so many of the colonists.
That damn Oliver White would have tried using one of those collars on her, had she not been frightened awake by a night terror. Somehow, he’d broken past her protective charms and made his way into her bedroom.
Luckily for her, he’d been so distracted by her screaming fit, as she’d been roused by a night terror, that she’d been able to gain the upper hand against him magically, and in a flash she’d created another living wax doll to add to Damien’s already impressive collection.
Anya had been tempted to throw many of the witch hunters who’d come for her into the fire after they’d battled it out and she’d emerged victorious.
They always expected a sweet little witch. And were unprepared when it came to fighting her. They believed her to be a passive, nature-loving witch who wasn’t schooled on how to defend herself with magic and therefore their moment of surprised confusion gave her the upper hand. That coupled with the fact that she wasn’t afraid to fight as dirty as they fought to keep her freedom. Her mother had always told her to do whatever she had to do to stay free.
That was the fatal mistake her ancestors made—they had been far too kind, trusting and truly gentle individuals who only wanted to live freely and practice their craft on the new colony planet of Vanguard Prime.
They had been promised the freedom to do so by Damien’s great-grandfather, Gregory Asher, who had been the first settler to put his feet on Vanguard Prime.
Unfortunately, Gregory had lusted for absolute power on Vanguard, having been sent there from Earth to lead the colonization. The powers that be back on Earth never wanted him to be the devil in human guise that he’d been.
Those who placed him in his seat of power couldn’t have predicted what he would do once they were so far from Earth.
Space travel had come a long way since then. Back during her grandmother’s time it had taken twice as long to travel from Earth to Vanguard Prime and the communication channels weren’t nearly as advanced as they were now.
That meant that Vanguard had been terribly isolated and Gregory had been free to inflict his reign of terror on the unsuspecting colonists.
He was supposed to be a benevolent leader, instead he’d been the devil in human form. He’d used his sons, the powerful Asher Brothers, as his enforcers and after luring the witch and warlock colonists into a false sense of security, he’d sent his hellish witch hunters out to destroy their peaceful happiness in the dead of night.
Most families were caught unaware. The majority of the witches and warlocks who settled on Vanguard had no clue about magical combat—those who attempted to resist were slaughtered, those that attempted to escape and failed were hanged, burned at the stake or sold into slavery.
Even the famed Ross Amulet had been no match for the combined power of the witch hunters and most of all, the Asher Brothers who united their terribly fierce magic. Together they’d been an unstoppable force of evil.
Her mother had told her grim stories of the Asher Brothers’ horrific deeds during the Bloodbayne Terror, and her tales made Anya imagine them to be devil incarnates.
Ebony Ross had been alone in her valiant stand against them. She had been the only one prepared to fight back. She alone had the training to use her magic to defend those she loved. Ebony had left Earth and traveled to Vanguard with her grandfather and daughter. Her grandfather was too frail to be of any help, what’s more, his power had been half the might of Ebony’s. Anya’s mother had fought alongside Ebony but they’d been unmatched and ultimately faced defeat.
After Ebony’s defeat, the Asher Brothers had taken the Ross Amulet from her and attempted to corrupt its formidable power for their own vile means, not knowing that the amulet’s power could only be harnessed by a true Ross.
Driven by desperation to save her only child, Anya’s mother, Angelica, Ebony sacrificed herself and her mother escaped a death sentence, finding herself orphaned at the tender age of fifteen.
Alas, Ebony’s sacrifice saved her daughter’s life but it had not saved Angelica from a grim fate as a slave. During their last showdown against Gregory’s sons, Ebony told Angelica to run.
She’d done what her mother had told her to do but unfortunately she’d had no way off Vanguard and the Asher Brothers pursued Angelica ruthlessly. Alone and afraid, she had been no match for Dexter Asher and his brother Bradley, and within days Angelica was reunited with her mother in the Salem City Courthouse and Jail, where they both awaited their trials and sentencing.
As the local magistrate, Gregory had presided over their trial. During her trial, Ebony convinced Gregory that her daughter hadn’t inherited her impressive magical gift and he’d believed her.
Instead, they sentenced Ebony and her grandfather to death and sold Angelica to another prominent New Mercian family, where she’d worked as a house slave on one of their many plantations scattered across the vast Province. There Angelica suffered unimaginable abuse.
As a result, Angelica was forced to mature beyond her years and she had carried the heaviness of her family’s tragic fate with her.
The poplar trees that lined the streets of New Salem City’s downtown whispered their haunting song as a gentle wind blew. She knew why she hadn’t yet returned to Earth—the serene beauty of Vanguard had seduced her. Even when she’d been off world she’d felt drawn back to this place.
Sounds of the late-afternoon traffic hummed through the air. The park across the street was bustling with mimes and other street performers attempting to make some coin.
A stand boasting potions for any occasion caught her eye. The little old lady tending it looked like she was nearing one hundred years of age. Her snow-white hair was piled up on top of her head. Her magic swirled around her, creating quite a show, as it either exploded into colorful fireworks or sang a song that enthralled those who passed by.
The woman’s p
ower was probably quite minimal given the fact that she was selling her magical wares. She could probably weave spells that would entrance those around her who weren’t gifted with magic but like so many others on Vanguard Prime she would be worthless in magical combat. The woman was only a magical artist, and Anya loved seeing them but knew their limited talents made them vulnerable to those who would seek to destroy them.
The woman looked up from what she was doing and their eyes connected. She gave Anya a soft smile and then went back to selling her potions and performing her quaint exhibition.
That was what Anya liked about Vanguard—for the most part the horror that had surrounded her mother’s and grandmother’s lives had vanished, and the world was now what it had always been meant to be—a haven for those with magical abilities.
The tranquility of the moment was rudely interrupted by the sound of a violent car crash. The shockingly horrific noise caught her attention and she looked up to see one of the flying cars they used on Vanguard hanging halfway out of the building across the street.
Everything started moving in slow motion.
Anya had to help the passengers in the vehicle before they caught on fire…she moved forward and raised her arm to work magic when she felt something prick the side of her neck. Reaching up to swat the pesky insect away, she was stunned to pull out a tiny Bloodbayne dart. Dreadful recognition swirled through her, and she felt queasy.
How could he stoop so low? Her husband already scraped the bottom of the barrel with his recent affront against her, how desperate could he bloody well get?
“You sodding bastard, Damien,” she muttered, weakness invading her body. From her peripheral vision, she watched as Damien strode closer to her so he could catch her before her body hit the pavement. Damn him, even in his most devious cunning, he still held concern for her well-being.
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