Legacy First Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 of the Legacy Series

by Ryan Attard

  I felt violated as I watched Crowley’s ugly face grin like the bastard he was.

  If Tenzin felt the same, he didn’t show it. The man had the same serene composure he’d always assumed in tense situations.

  Crowley extracted a large bullet casing from his trouser pocket and threw it casually over his shoulder. “Just in case y’all were wondering,” he said smugly, “it was the little weasel that opened up your hidey hole.”

  “You used the energy you stole from me to open the portal,” Tenzin said calmly.

  “And Bingo was his name-o,” Crowley replied. “Only question now is, what do I do.”

  “Erik.” Tenzin had his hand on my shoulder. “Please step back. This is my fight.”

  “But I-”

  “No arguments, please. I have the advantage here,” he insisted. Tenzin had that twinkle in his eyes that reassured me that he was confident.

  And this was one man who was rarely wrong.

  I backed away, far enough to see everything and not be caught in any explosions—and still close enough to strike. Djinn’s energy spells provided good long-distance support if needed, and if Tenzin was in danger I’d step in no matter what he said.

  When Crowley saw me retreat, he grasped the situation.

  “Wait, wait, so lemme get this straight,” he sneered at Tenzin who stood rooted in front of him. “I got no more weapons up my sleeve. Hell, I ain’t even got a sleeve no more.” He tore off the remnants of his silk shirt. “Just plain old me left. But you ain’t got much either. Your powers don’t work on me, old man, and all the kung-fu fightin’ in the world ain’t gonna be enough to bring me down. So, what the hell kinda advantage you think you got? Face it, buddy, we’re at what they call an impasse.”

  It was Tenzin’s turn to chuckle. He removed his jacket, letting it curl around his backside. Half of it was torn anyway. I heard the popping of bones as he flexed his muscles. Veins throbbed around his thin arms. His aged body rippled as it revealed the remnant of a once-ripped physique. But despite his age and apparent frailty, Tenzin went from old man to grandpa-on-steroids. At first, I thought it was the bull deva at work again, but I didn’t sense any energy from Tenzin.

  This was no magic—this was just pure physical badassery. Scar tissue gleamed under the sun as its rays reflected from his back, shoulders and chest.

  I felt foolish for thinking that Tenzin needed my help. I even felt foolish when I thought he was too weak to chase after Crowley. Even the villain took a step back, with his mouth slightly agape.

  “Did you really believe that you could just walk in the Ryugyu’s most sacred place and pillage it to your evil heart’s content?” Tenzin’s voice had an aura of power and dominion to it.

  Crowley’s mouth moved, but Tenzin’s voice boomed again, drowning any sound the Abjurer might have made.

  “I will show you my true calling, Alastair Crowley. I will show you the true power of an exorcist.”

  Light exploded from Tenzin like a flare going off. He stretched his arms apart, palms facing outwards. Light became an infernal blaze. Fire erupted from him, covering the exorcist and the surrounding vegetation, and seemed to reach the clouds above. And yet, there was no scorching and no burning.

  That is, until Tenzin brought his hands together and pushed outwards, towards a stunned Crowley. Flames twisted into the shape of a tiger as the deva rocketed toward the villain. The area was soon a sea of flames. Grass, trees, soil—all became ash. Even the sky darkened as clouds formed overhead. I heard Tenzin’s cry and the tiger deva’s roar as one sound. Fire raged, emitting its own scream. Red flames became yellow, and then white—burning with the intensity of a thousand suns—until I couldn’t see anything.

  The flames receded and I could feel again.

  The landscape was scorched, but my senses picked up a blanket of energy coming from the very core of this pocket universe. The soil repaired itself, and tiny green seedlings sprouted from the ground. The trees were regaining their brown color again as their stumps grew into tall trunks. The plane was slowly, but surely, regrowing into its previous splendor.

  Tenzin was in the middle of a large patch of ash, still jet-black from his previous spell. The snake deva was wrapped around him, steam hissing out as red patches of skin reverted back to their tanned state. The tail of the snake deva shot out, reaching towards me. It wrapped around me and I understood. The tiger deva’s flames attacked the body and soul. Only a deva can fully heal a deva’s power, and my healing abilities would only heal my body, not my soul.

  The process took half a second, but for that short time I felt a part of Tenzin’s spiritual connection to God.

  I can’t describe it. How do you describe something that you cannot even begin to understand? But I can say this: whatever Tenzin was connected to was so far from human reach that it is enough to make you cry with its sheer beauty, and wish you were dead in utter desperation at never achieving that perfection.

  Then again, I suppose that’s why they call him—it—God.

  Tenzin cut off the connection, making the snake deva disappear. I grabbed Djinn’s blade and sliced my own palm against its sharp edge. The pain was real, human. The experience with the divine would probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but I could ask Tenzin about it later. Right now, I needed to be here in this reality, where imperfect and damaged beings run the show.

  In front of Tenzin was a large, black husk that was making the slightest of movements. Tenzin, still retaining his calm but domineering composure, simply observed as Crowley rose up like a zombie. His skin was charred and parts of his hair had been burnt off, leaving him with bald spots, but otherwise, he appeared as solid as ever.

  “That,” he rasped, “was somethin’ else.” He laughed maniacally. “Can we do it again, please?”

  “You are damaged, Mr. Crowley,” Tenzin said. “Perhaps your specialization did not account for magic that damages your soul as well as your body.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Crowley shot back. “I ain’t got no soul. That’s just a fairy tale. All I know is I ain’t hurt, much. So, is that the best you could do, Mr. Exorcist?”

  “Not quite.”

  Tenzin placed his hands together in prayer and energy flowed from his body. Static crackled around him, producing thin bolts of electricity.

  “I will show you the most powerful of devas in its unrestrained form,” he said as he made a circular motion with his arms.

  I remembered that pose from one of our training sessions. Tenzin had explained the concept of opposites and how one can generate energy from the harmony between the two.

  My senses saw the mass of power around Tenzin break in two, each vibrating separately, before coalescing back together into a separate form of energy. I knew that pattern. My mind brought up the memory of my sister explaining the concept of electricity for a physics class. Something about electricity being the product of positive and negative charges rubbing against each other. At the time, I had made a stupid joke using the word “rubbing” in a less than appropriate manner.

  But as I saw Tenzin’s process, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity. Both memories were about the same concept: opposites.

  Positive and negative—might as well just call them Yin and Yang.

  Electricity crackled around Tenzin. A lightning bolt descended upon him, filling the air with the smell of ozone and a sharp crack. Blue-white lightning bolts arced from Tenzin over the dark clouds that had assembled. The entire sky was dark, with one continuous bolt racing through it.

  Behind Tenzin, lightning bent and twisted, transforming into a titanic, horrific Chinese dragon with its head reared up, complete with a pair of long incisors, whiskers that trailed sparks into the clouds, and horns that branched into a million lightning bolts and disappeared through the clouds. Its long body snaked behind Tenzin. It was as wide as the entire field, and planted a pair of claws around Tenzin, each of its three talons as large as a tree trunk.

  Everywhere it touched,
it scorched. Grass and bark sizzled in a shower of blue-white sparks. The dragon dwarfed everything by comparison. I couldn’t see the rest of its body, which had disappeared beyond my vision. The full length of its long serpentine body reached beyond the sky and disappeared into the clouds. It seemed that the lightning dragon was too large to stretch comfortably in this pocket universe.

  The entire beast was formed from white-blue lightning, like the personification of the most horrendous storm that ever existed.

  “The embodiment of harmony between Yin and Yang.” Tenzin’s voice boomed over the loud crackle of lightning. “The dragon deva!”

  The lighting dragon roared.

  Crowley cowered in front of it, physically trembling. “What are you?” he screamed.

  “I am the messenger of Kami-sama. And by his power, you shall be defeated,” Tenzin roared. It didn’t sound like him anymore. He was completely taken over by the deva, or perhaps, by God itself.

  Crowley stood defiantly despite his trembling. “Every fiber of my being is telling me to run away, that I can’t beat you,” he said. A psychotic smile stretched across his lips. “But I wanna know.” His hands squeezed into claws as he looked at his tense fingers. “I wanna know what happens after I decay a god.”

  Tenzin roared and turned his body sideways, his right hand straight and pointing at Crowley, with the other pointing at the opposite direction towards the sky. The dragon deva rose to the clouds and descended upon Crowley with a roar that shook the earth. Crowley let out an ecstatic scream and intercepted the deva with both hands.

  The resulting explosion rivaled that of a nuke.

  I stabbed Djinn into the ground, burying it to the hilt, and braced myself. Debris went flying and the blast slammed against my body, pushing me away. I clung to my handhold and hoped that the entire plane wouldn’t be destroyed.

  There was no crater or overturned earth. Tenzin stood rooted in the same spot, still displaying his calm demeanor. But he wasn’t standing proud. The toll of slinging around heavyweight power like that must have caught up with him. A billow of dust rose where Crowley once stood, and my senses felt nothing.

  No deva, no Crowley.

  The spell must have vaporized him.

  Tenzin looked at me, and I gave him a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture.

  “I want one of those,” I called out with a smile as I pulled out my sword. Tenzin smiled and once again the man I knew had returned.

  Crowley was gone forever, Tenzin was back, and I couldn’t be happier. I felt like we had finally won. It had taken me sixteen years to figure out the evil plot and defeat the bad guys, but it was all over now. I could return home and see Gil again. I could introduce her to Tenzin. Heck, maybe we’d be a happy family like I always wanted.

  Only difference would be that Tenzin wasn’t an evil sociopath.

  He was about to say something when Crowley, his skin burned black and his body covered in blood, burst forwards towards him, driving something small and shiny into the old man’s gut.

  Tenzin could have avoided that with his eyes closed but the strain of magic was too much for him. I understood just how injured he was when Crowley drove his fist into his face. Tenzin hunched over and intercepted a second strike, He twisted, smashing his forehead into Crowley’s nose, breaking it, and kept spinning. Crowley’s arm snapped as he was sent flying into the air.

  “Tenzin,” I screamed. “Use the snake.”

  Tenzin’s aura flared and I expected to see the familiar brilliant white cobra. He extracted a penknife from his gut and blood streamed out, soaking his clothes.

  But the snake deva never showed.

  “I cannot use it,” he said as he fell to his knees. I ran to his side. My mind began to panic, and I searched for something, anything, to help him.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  He looked at me, a twinkle in his eyes. “It is not God’s will,” he said with a tone of simplicity. His aura flared with enough force to throw me backwards. “Erik, please stay away from me.” His voice had an air of finality to it that scared me. “Please stay back and do not interfere, whatever you see.”

  “What?” My voice was high-pitched, and a tear trickled down my cheek. Tenzin smiled, his eyes full of love and benevolence. I found myself scrambling backwards, as if some invisible force was controlling me.

  “Alastair Crowley!” Tenzin’s voice was back to ethereal deity mode.

  Crowley stood, clutching his nose as blood streamed out from between his fingers.

  “You are the vilest of beings. You chase after innocents for nefarious ends, you trample upon the Ryugyu Temple’s most sacred ground, and you wounded a vessel of the great Kami-sama. Your very nature is twisted and malevolent, and I shall bring upon you divine justice.”

  The Buddha of light formed around Tenzin. It appeared more solid than usual, and was composed of a golden aura, corporeal enough to compress the vegetation beneath it. Blood from Tenzin’s wound mixed with the apparition, slowly darkening it. I saw Tenzin clenching his teeth, but the deity’s will was stronger. The Buddha grew darker and darker, until it seemed a solid gold statue encompassed Tenzin. It grew in size, towering over both Tenzin and Crowley. The sheer power of it was enough to dwarf anything I’d met before.

  Forget the devas—this thing was more powerful than all of them put together.

  Tenzin’s voice, a specter of its former self, loomed across the landscape, agitating the very fabric of the universe.

  “Amida Buddha.”

  The phantasm shifted, becoming tall and elongated. Tenzin clasped his hands together in prayer and blood gushed steadily from the wound. Whatever magic he was using wasn’t doing anything to keep him alive.

  The tall statue had no gender. It had the chiseled grace of a female, beautiful and gentle, yet its expression was hard and savage, brimming with masculine rage. It wore a circlet across its forehead like a crown. Its arms, disproportionately long, were spread open, palms facing outwards. A second pair of arms grew, mimicking the same pose as the first pair. A third pair emerged, as did a fourth and fifth. Arms sprouted out in pairs, until I lost count. The statue’s limbs piled on top of each other until they formed a circle of arms around it, like an oversized halo.

  I remembered this one. Tenzin had spoken about it once. He said it was the deity of war, but also of peace and justice—the God of a Thousand Arms.

  “SENJU KANNON!”

  At the declaration of Kannon’s name, Tenzin spread his arms, palms facing outwards, like the Crucifixion. The deity behind him radiated light and power.

  And not just any power or magic. This was eons beyond magic. This was the power to snuff out entire solar systems and reshape galaxies.

  This was the power of a true god.

  Chapter 39

  There was no warning of attack.

  Tenzin shot his hand forwards, and the apparition of Senju Kannon slammed one of its gigantic hands on top of Crowley, swatting him like a fly. The arm disappeared and reappeared in its original position. Crowley swayed drunkenly, but was otherwise unharmed. Tenzin slipped into a stance and executed another move. The phantasm slapped five of its arms down. Tenzin continued his sequence, prompting the statue to rain down a series of punches on Crowley, who was now on his knees.

  Tenzin was relentless in his motions, going from one sequence into another with familiar ease. It took me a couple of move sets to recognize his movements, mostly because a giant god with a thousand arms was slamming down blows on Crowley, but there was something familiar about them. Heck, I’d spent weeks practicing those same move sets. Tenzin was performing the same sequence he had taught me in order to control my power.

  Damn, who knew it was actually a sequence to channel the power of a freaking god? Maybe someday I’d have a totally awesome deity pummeling the bad guys for me.

  As the sequence grew more intense, Kannon’s expression darkened. Its many hands punched and slapped at Crowley, each big enough to flatten an SUV.


  The Abjurer found the courage to dodge the gargantuan limbs and moved closer to Tenzin, thinking that if he got close enough he’d be safe from Kannon.

  But the god karate chopped the ground, halting his movements by forming a fence with its arms around Tenzin. It flicked Crowley into the air and caught him with a different pair of arms. The god squeezed, crushing Crowley. I heard bone snap and Crowley screaming in pain.

  I saw his magic take effect, automatically decaying the opposing magic. Kannon’s hands became less solid until they disappeared completely. Crowley dropped down in a slump and watched helplessly as a giant golden fist shot at him.

  But Crowley’s magic was automatic, that was why his body was the way it was—he was constantly emitting Abjuration magic, affecting the area surrounding him.

  Kannon’s fist made contact and threw him aside, but not before decaying, going from a solid golden mass to a nearly invisible mirage of light. As soon as Crowley was sent flying and his area of effect no longer included the arm, Kannon’s hand was restored to normal.

  Both combatants seemed to have reached their limits. Crowley was a mess: most of his gray-blue skin was charred and burned with black patches oozing blood. His right arm hung uselessly by his side, already swollen in two different places. He could barely stand straight. His ragged breath made me suspect a couple of broken ribs.

  Tenzin looked like he was about to croak any second now. His body had somehow shrunk so that every bone popped from beneath paper-thin skin. Even his tan complexion had lost its exotic appearance. His eyes were hollow, and his hair hung white and lifeless over his shoulders. His stab wound had expanded into a gash. The proud warrior monk had become a puppet for Senju Kannon as it sucked every last drop of vitality from him. I could tell that he wanted to die, that he needed to die.

  But his god wouldn’t allow him to rest in peace until it executed its vengeance upon Crowley.

  I was never one for belief in God. You’d think that having seen magic and all those wonderful and crazy things that I would believe in the big G, but truth be told, my view of the world was through the eyes of a wizard. I saw magic and power, not belief. The idea of a benevolent and omnipotent deity was ludicrous to me, given my psychotic father, my desecrated mother, and a lifestyle that would make any sane person walk off a cliff.