by D. N. Leo
“Thank you. I haven’t been taken care of by a man in a very long time. I appreciate your noble gesture. In return, I will tell you this. The creature you are after is Shanathos. He used to be a minor god in the House of Gods. He left thousands of years ago and has converted himself into a creature of the multiverse.”
“So he’s a cross-world creature.”
“Yes, with cross-world powers. He wants to build his own kingdom. A land built from bones and ashes. That’s why he’s been burning creatures and individuals. He taps into your emotional weaknesses. He burns those who are weak into bones and ashes to make his land. He keeps the strong souls to work for him.”
“How do you know all this?”
Lythe looked at Michael’s soft green eyes. There was something in him that made her trust him. “I was his lover when he was in the House of Gods. I haven’t seen him for thousands of years. I’m a magical creature. I can’t cross into his world. I can’t approach the cross-world zone.”
Michael nodded. “I guess having the Son of Fire is a way for you to see him again?”
Lythe smiled and nodded. “He’s invincible to all forces, except the Son of Fire’s power. He’ll destroy any trace of that power because it’s the only thing that can kill him. I understand you’re not whole. You can’t kill him, but if I claim you’re the Son of Fire, he’ll come for you. He won’t know you have only half of your strength.”
“You want to use me as an offer to summon him?”
Lythe nodded. “It’s the only way. But you have to trust me. This is not a deal. It’s just that both you and I want to meet with him.”
“All right, I’ll do it. I assume when you use me as an offer, I’ll be out. When he appears, can I trust you to wake me?”
“I don’t have to. He will wake you to test your power before he kills you.”
“Can I call for help?”
“Shanathos is invincible. You will only get your allies killed.”
“You’re prepared for him to kill you?”
Lythe smiled. “He won’t kill me. All I will do is give him a fake offer so I can see him again. I’m just a naughty lover. But he will kill you, regardless of whether you’re the Son of Fire or not.”
“All right, let’s do it then.”
Brave man, Lythe thought. Is this what love does to people? She wondered if he loved Lyla. Humans and citizens of the multiverse were way too complicated for her to understand.
Michael stood in front of her and closed his eyes. She raised her hands, which hovered just in front of his forehead. Then she cast her magic, and he collapsed to the ground.
Chapter 29
Lyla crept along the hillside, keeping as low as she could and as far as she could from the site where Lythe had performed her ritual to summon her lover. After all, it was all speculation based on Cole’s information.
Because the technology and database that she and Gale access to couldn’t help them, they had based this attack on the intelligence and strategies of the god of the witches. What had the multiverse come to?
The distance was too far for her to gauge any movement from Michael. It felt as if she were about to burst into flames. Gale and Jaxper were behind her. They still hadn’t talked to each other. She thought that was for the best.
As soon as they saw sparks from the sky, indicating Lythe’s lover had responded to her summoning, they approached. As they closed the distance from below, from the deep woods, she could see Michael lying on a stone bench. Lythe, in physical form now, talked to a creature in a half-god, half human form.
He was more than ten feet tall and had long flowing white hair. A set of magnificent wings sprouted from his shoulders, and his feet didn’t touch the ground as he walked. He carried no weapon, but Lyla was sure his bare hands could create fire and conjure any kind of magical power he needed. His chest plate was metal, and it appeared to have a compartment, a sure sign of robotic parts inside.
If Cole’s theory was right, this creature had no weakness. But all creatures had weaknesses. Even Eudaizian silver blood commanders had fatal points. Lyla didn’t believe this cross-world creature was invincible. Having a plan in mind, she turned and whispered to Jaxper. Jaxper nodded.
“What’s that?” Gale asked.
“Plan B.” Then she stood and ran toward the site.
Lyla watched as the creature raised his hands. Michael sprung to his feet and jumped off the bench. The man creature stepped from side to side, playing with Michael as a predator might play with its prey before killing it. He lifted his wings, and a force of energy came from them at Michael. He sent a blast of heat energy back.
Both Michael and the man staggered backward. Lythe jumped aside.
Lyla, Jaxper, and Gale continued running toward the site.
The creature roared. “You’re not the Son of Fire.”
“He is. He’s just not whole,” said Lythe. “But I thought he was still dangerous enough, so I brought him to you.”
“You tricked me. Do you know how foolish that is?”
Lythe laughed. “But I missed you, Shanathos. This is the only way I could think of to see you.”
Shanathos copped a beam in the eye from Michael’s gun. Then Michael sent another blast and burned the creature’s left wing. He roared, and when he swung his arms up, Michael fell backward and skidded to a stop several feet away. Shanathos followed him to unleash more fatal blows.
Mai and Cole darted out from the woods behind Lythe. They threw a thin sparkling rope around Lythe’s neck and pulled her back. It wasn’t an ordinary rope, and Lythe was instantly paralyzed.
“We’re taking her back to the House of Gods. She’ll be prosecuted for the sin she’s committed against all creatures,” Cole said to Shanathos.
Lythe held the rope in her hands and looked at Shanathos with teary eyes. “Help me, Shanathos. We were once lovers. What happened? What does your new land give you other than bones and ashes?”
Shanathos cast a dismissive look at Cole, Mai, and Lythe, and then turned to continue his attack on Michael.
Lyla threw two fire balls at Shanathos’s back. He stopped and turned.
“Now I have your attention. You failed to attack me, Shanathos,” she said.
He squinted at Lyla. “I recognize you… I know you…”
Gale shot beams from his eyes, pushing Shanathos backward.
“What a bunch of aggressive creatures you all are! Don’t worry, I’ll take turns to kill you all!”
Michael sent a blast that burned off Shanathos’s right wing, but the wing grew back almost instantly. Then he sent a return blow at Michael that threw him backward and sent him rolling away like a rag doll.
Mai and Cole dragged Lythe farther away with the rope. “I’ll kill your lover right now,” said Cole. “Let these people go, Shanathos,”
That didn’t stop Shanathos for even one second.
Lythe cried as Mai and Cole dragged her away. A halo appeared behind them—the gateway to the magical world and the House of Gods.
Lyla darted over to help Michael up, and they ran into a nearby cave. The entrance was small, so Shanathos, with his enormous shoulders and spread wings, couldn’t get in.
“Lythe said the power of the Son of Fire could kill Shanathos. My mother told me that by combining our power, we become the One with the power of the Son of Fire. Together, we can kill it. But time is too short to do that,” Michael said.
Shanathos blew a gust of wind into the cave, pushing Michael and Lyla against the cave wall.
“What do you mean by that? How do we combine forces, Michael?”
“She said we’re soul mates. Like lovers. We can combine the sources because she decided it would be that way.”
“And you’re just telling me that now?”
“We didn’t have much time earlier, and I didn’t think it was right to tell you then.”
“All right, let’s combine our forces then.”
“Lyla, we can’t have sex now just for the hec
k of it!”
“Well, would a kiss work?”
“Soul mates are made through love, Lyla. It’s not just about a kiss or having sex…”
Shanathos blew a heat wave into the cave. Michael dove toward Lyla, pushing her to the ground and covering her with his body. His left shoulder was on fire. Lyla rolled over, pulled off her coat, and used it to smother the flames.
“Can’t you just love me for the sake of killing this creature?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Lyla.”
Before another heat wave could blast them, Lyla ran toward the entrance of the cave and shouted, “Plan B, Jaxper! Plan B!”
The heat stopped. Shanathos’s shadow left the entrance of the cave. Lyla and Michael ran outside just in time to see Shanathos jump into the light with Lythe. Shanathos, Lythe and the light vanished.
“They will be dealt with in the House of Gods. They’ll never return,” Cole said and turned to leave with Mai.
“Where are you going?” Michael asked.
“We’ll set the witches free. It’s our mission now. We’ll look out for you. You are always loved and blessed, son,” Mai said.
Both Cole and Mai walked into another light gate they had just opened.
“What did you do?” Michael asked Jaxper.
She grinned. “Well, Lyla’s plan B was for me to cast a love spell on Shanathos. If there was any magical part of him left, he would react to it, and if it was strong enough, it would control his feelings for Lythe. He was distracted when he attacked you guys using his power as a multiverse creature, so it was easy to cast a love spell on the magical part of him.”
“So he jumped after Lythe, and both of them went back to the House of Gods,” Lyla said.
“Another love spell,” Michael muttered as he walked away.
A while later, Lyla found Michael sitting on a large stone at the edge of the woods. His shoulder had healed. She sat down next to him and said nothing.
He held her hands. “My mother—”
“Yes, you told me, she cast a love spell on me. That makes you unsure whether my feelings for you are true.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not sure if you’ll accept, knowing your answer might be under the influence of a spell.”
“Answer to what?”
He put the chain with the stone charm his mother gave him in her palm. “Will you be my soul mate?”
She felt a tear roll down her face, but she didn’t see that as a sign of weakness, so she let it be. She nodded. “Yes, Michael.”
She took the chain and clasped it around her neck. He cupped her face in his hands, looked into her eyes, and then kissed her.
Had Lyla known this was what it meant to truly kiss, she wouldn’t have asked that they do it when they were in the cave. Or maybe it was just Michael who could kiss like this. Every cell in her body vibrated with happiness. She was drowning in his passion.
After lying together on the stone for a while, she felt Gale prodding her and Michael with his foot. “Get up, you two. Time to get back to the Daimon Gate.”
She sat up with Michael.
“I’ll sort out the exile later, Lyla. Let’s go,” Michael said.
“What exile?” Gale asked, a wicked grin on his face.
“What do you mean, Gale?” she asked.
“Well, the majority of your data is handled by my station in the Daimon Gate. But my station was blown up, remember? And this trip and whatever we did in connection with Shanathos, who is now in the magical world where we have neither access nor jurisdiction, is now all bygones.” Gale winked at her.
Lyla knew he had manipulated and directed all the data to Shanathos’s path. She wasn't surprised about his ability to do so. But she was surprised about his ability to change and be flexible. He had shifted his identity and his beliefs.
“Have you talked to Jaxper yet?” she asked.
“About what?” He grinned.
“Gale!” Jaxper called out.
The smile vanished from Gale’s face. “Yes…”
“You spelled my name wrong on this Daimon Gate pass.”
“No, that’s how we write ‘x’ in the Daimon Gate,” Gale said as he walked with her toward the cave. “Holy cow, how many shoes does a woman need?”
“Never enough, Gale…”
Lyla turned around, pushing Michael back down on the rock again. She traced her finger along his strong jawline and looked into his beautiful soft green eyes. Then she kissed him. She only hoped she could return what he had given her. Judging by the sounds he made, she thought she did so successfully.
She lay nuzzled into his neck. “Michael?”
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Yes…”
“Your mother told me she had taken her magical influence off me the moment we met. I didn’t know what that meant. But now I know.”
He hopped up. “And you didn’t think about telling me until now.”
“Well, now the time is right.”
“So you love me for real?”
Before she could answer, he kissed her again.
And he loved her, again.
She smiled and breathed in the smell of grass and wildflowers. Wherever they went in the multiverse, she knew she would miss this place.
This is the end of Soul of Ashes but not the end of the Multiverse Collection.
Lyla and her twin brother, Caedmon, are special to the multiverse. Read about Caedmon in
Mage of Bloodstone.
TURN TO THE NEXT PAGE FOR SAMPLE CHAPTERS
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MAGE OF BLOODSTONE
Chapter 1
Winter 2065 in Greenland was as cold and miserable as the last twenty-nine winters she had experienced. But this one was special. This winter, Sedna wouldn’t be just a mage. If things went as planned, she would become the leader of her tribe. She didn’t know how big of an if it was. But she would just have to deal with it as it came to her.
She squinted, looking more carefully at the golden sculpture of a scorpion. She had thought it would be much bigger than this, but it was just slightly larger than her palm. The eyes of the scorpion flashed like fire. She shook her head and blinked. When she looked again, the eyes were back to normal. She sighed. She had averaged three hours of sleep a day in the last two weeks. It obviously had consequences.
Afton had been training her for over a year now to ready her for the leadership. Her combat skills and her ability to control her energy as a mage had improved a lot. He said she was now ready to take what was rightfully hers.
This scorpion sculpture was the first step toward the power.
The shiny golden sculpture of a scorpion with a ring of diamonds wrapped around its neck stared back at her. She was a professional picker, and she’d been making a good living from it. She had a knack for valuable artifacts—she knew their worth, their authenticity, and most importantly, their potential profits.
Something was wrong with this sculpture. If it was a fake, it was a damn good one. But Afton wouldn’t use unreliable sources of information.
She turned around to look at the well-dressed man waiting patiently next to her. “This looks interesting, Mr. Quinn. I need to make a phone call.”
Mr. Quinn nodded and exited the room.
Sedna pulled out her phone. “I’m unsure about this one. But it looks authentic.”
“Looking authentic isn’t enough, Sedna. I need you to know with certainty. We can’t afford to make a mistake.”
“Afton, if you make me choose, I’d say it’s real. I’m a damn good picker, and I’ve been doing this for years. The only reason I’m not sure about this one is that my gut is telling me there’s something wrong.”
“So apart from your gut feelings, your professional judgment about the item is that it’s authentic?�
�
Sedna sighed. “Yes, I would say so.”
“Well, that’s good enough for me.”
“You shouldn’t trust me so much,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She hung up the phone. Mr. Quinn entered the room and approached Sedna, waiting for an answer. She looked at him and said, “All right, I like what I see. I’ll go talk to my boss, and we’ll arrange a place for the exchange.”
She returned for a last look at the sculpture. She supposed her gut feelings didn’t qualify as suspicion. They needed this merchandise. She snorted softly at the way Afton called it merchandise.
Why should he disguise the fact that they were going for the leadership of the tribe? As far as she was concerned, her mage tribe was fair and righteous. She would be the rightful leader if she lived up to it. And Afton supported her. That was all that counted.
But before she could say anything further to Mr. Quinn, she heard the muffled sound of a gunshot, and a bullet pierced through the glass window, so hard and fast that it punctured the glass without breaking the entire window.
Blood and brains splattered both her and the sculpture of the scorpion. Someone had shot the old man. The bullet had pierced his skull from the left temple to the right.
She ducked to the floor just before a bullet hit the cabinet behind where her head had been. She reached up and grabbed the sculpture then scrambled on all fours across the floor. More bullets whizzed through the room, hitting the furniture.
She pushed the side door open and raced across the slippery, snowy backyard.
Damnit! She had parked her car in the front. She started to turn around, but bullets sprayed in her direction again. Trying to get to the front was a stupid move. She turned back around and darted through the snow of the dark national park. She dialed Afton, putting her phone on hands-free so she could talk while she ran.
She could hear footsteps behind her.
More bullets.