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

by Ryan Attard

  So my horror wasn't at the fact that a demon was going to torture a human Summoner, and probably even kill him for the fun of it. The way I saw it, the guy had lost any sympathy points the moment the Godzilla-sized arachnid had appeared.

  No, my horror came from the fact that, after standing in it for a few minutes, I remembered this room and what we used it for when Gil and I had been kids.

  "You turned our old nursery into a torture chamber?"

  Gil shrugged. "I had to put it somewhere."

  "Yeah, but our old nursery? Come on."

  "I don't know what to tell you, Erik."

  "You're heartless."

  "Actually, I just had a medical exam last week. My heart is perfectly fine." She leaned into the microphone. "You may proceed."

  Mephisto exposed a wide grin and a blast of air whipped Aziz's head backwards.

  "Where am I?" Aziz looked from side to side in a panic until his eyes finally came to rest on the set of knives Mephisto had laid out. "What do you want with me? I won't tell you anything."

  Mephisto picked up a small thin blade. "Quite bland for a first impression," he said in his ice-cold voice. "You are at the Ashendale mansion, where you will provide information." He calmly inserted the blade into the man's bicep, one agonizing inch at a time. "Now, please, unless asked otherwise, the only sounds I wish to hear coming out of you are screams of excruciation."

  He picked up a second blade. "Now, who are you working for?"

  Aziz yelled something in his native language in defiance.

  Mephisto turned to face the glass. "He just told whoever is behind the glass to go do something quite unsanitary with a pole and their rear end."

  He dropped the knife in the tray and picked up a mallet. Then he proceeded to smash said mallet into Aziz's knee. The Summoner screamed as his leg hung awkwardly.

  "I will not ask again," Mephisto said, as he slapped the man with enough force to snap his head backwards.

  "They will kill me," Aziz moaned.

  "I will kill you," the demon replied. "And I shall do so very slowly." He grabbed the man's wrist and crushed it into pulp.

  "The Society," Aziz screamed.

  Mephisto hit him again and reached backwards for a knife. "What society?" He stuck the thin blade into Aziz's side and trailed it downwards in a surgical cut, most likely intended to only slice nerve clusters and avoid major organs.

  "Black… ring," Aziz rasped.

  As he began talking, I noticed a patch of skin on his right forearm darken. It was a black tattoo in the shape of a ring, so small it was barely noticeable. Like a necrotic infection, the darkness expanded, consuming more and more. Mephisto pulled the knife out and discarded it in the tray, yet Aziz's screams grew even wilder.

  "Kill me," he screamed as he began trashing about. "Please." He was talking to the mirror now, as if to look directly at both Gil and me. "Please, don't let me die like this."

  The blackness had claimed his entire arm and was working its way to his chest. "Please," he begged.

  The longer I stared at the darkness, the more I felt that something bad was about to happen. I didn't know how exactly, but my instincts were telling me that whoever gave the Summoner that black ring tattoo was not thinking happy thoughts. In fact, the malice of such dark magic hit me so hard that I had to suppress the urge to run and hide, as if I was standing in the presence of a bomb about to go off.

  But I fought that urge and did the opposite: I ran into the adjacent room, hoping to catch the dark magic. I didn't do it to protect Aziz. No, I did it for me. I had to keep him alive in order to find out where his buddy had taken the Etherium Key.

  So I burst into that room and yelled for Mephisto to get out. There was a flash of darkness as black fire enveloped Aziz in a fit of supernatural spontaneous human combustion. Aziz screamed from inside the fire, just as I reached out towards the black ring tattoo and clawed at it.

  I had been burnt before, but this was different. It was magical fire, created for the sole purpose of annihilating everything it touched. My hand didn't even burn. It just blackened and withered away.

  But I had done it.

  I had pulled the tattoo out.

  The piece of skin just flopped on the ground and I turned to Aziz. The Summoner had been vaporized along with the black flames, leaving behind a ring-shaped scorch mark.

  Gil burst in. "That had to be the dumbest thing I've seen you do so far."

  I was too worried with regenerating my hand to say anything. For the better part of a few minutes, I had to concentrate really hard to make the limb regrow. Did the fire have some property which made the damage permanent? Then, much to my relief, flesh and bone regrew, albeit at a painstakingly slow place.

  Gil picked up a knife from the tray and used it to spear the only remaining part of Aziz from the floor.

  "Have this examined," she ordered Mephisto, handing him the piece of charred skin. "I want to know what magic that was, who made it, and where they live. And I want the information yesterday." As he left, she turned to me. "Congratulations, Erik. We now have a new enemy to add to our list."

  My hand had fully regenerated and I flexed my wrist. "They are our best lead, Gil. We find them, we find the Etherium Key. And with it, we get a fighting chance against the Sins. And who's to say they are not behind this?"

  She pursed her lips. "I've never seen fire like that. And it all started from that tattoo. Fascinating."

  "Whatever floats your boat." I turned to Amaymon. "You ever see anything like that?"

  "Nah, man," he replied. "Ain't no magic I ever saw. Which means it was man-made."

  "So if the Sins are behind this, they must be using a proxy," Gil said. "The thought had crossed my mind. But I had never considered this… this…” She paused for thought. "This Society of the Black Ring."

  Amaymon shook his head. "Needs a better name."

  "Black Ring Society?" I suggested.

  "Better. Got more fizz-pow to it."

  "Whatever the name," my sister continued, "we must find these people, this Black Ring Society, and take back the Key before they collapse two or more realities into each other. Or worse, summon the rest of the Sins into our dimension at once."

  "Any idea how we can find them?" I asked.

  "Leave that task to me," she replied. Her expression twisted into a cold murderous glare, which creeped the living hell out of me. "I'll hunt them down even if I have to raze the entire city. I will call you once I have a location. I trust you still remember your way out," she added before marching away.

  Chapter 5

  The waiting was the worst part. I was a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. Long-term waiting jobs just weren't my style. All I wanted was to be back home in time for dinner and some TV.

  The idea of me hanging around and waiting for my sister to drop the ball wasn't sitting too well with me. I had done enough waiting to last me a lifetime. I needed the action, the rough fighting. Maybe that made me a sadist or damaged in some way, but that was what I got off on. So instead of waiting around for something to happen, I decided to take the proactive stance and go look for trouble myself.

  There was a Wurm infestation somewhere in Trinity forest. Gil's people may have fancier toys and be all high tech and stuff, but I grew up in that forest. I knew the lay of the land as intimately as I knew myself. Heck once, a very long time ago, I had somehow become the land. I hadn't been back there in a few years, but it was just like visiting home again. That memory never fades, no matter the time away.

  I sent Amaymon to fetch Abi from the city. It was a long trip but an earth elemental would have no trouble finding me even if I was in the middle of nowhere. And besides, Wurms weren't that dangerous. All one had to do was stay away from the toothy end. It would be a good chance for the apprentice to get some practice.

  A few hours and five Wurms later, the two of them joined me and we stumbled upon the mother lode: a nest.

  "Box them in," I ordered Amaymon.


  He nodded and left for a better position. The ground rumbled as a fence erupted from the ground and cut off the Wurm territory, leading them to us. Abi and I separated, weapons drawn.

  Letting myself go and surviving only on instinct: I was meant to be doing this. Not abiding by rules and constrictions. Why anyone would choose to restrict themselves within the troves of society was beyond me. Freedom, true freedom, was a rare commodity. Society, civilization, humanity—these are all sugar-coated terms for the mental restrictions that we impose upon ourselves. To be truly free, one has to go back to the baser ideology of survival.

  Wait.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  What was this feeling?

  Looking around me, I caught a glimpse of a mass of solid yet wispy darkness surrounding my body. No, 'surrounding' was the wrong term for it—this stuff emanated from within me, like blood from a wound. The physical manifestation of my curse, a power over the ancient Life magic. A power which I have no idea how to control, one that had first manifested within this very forest, a lifetime ago. A power I needed to even the odds against the Sins, but came at a cost. It slowly warped my mind, making me more feral, more primal. It was a stark reminder as to why I had chosen to keep my distance from this place. Whatever was inside me—I call him Dark Erik—sees this place as some sort of playground.

  "Erik," I heard Abi call.

  Of course, she was going to call me out. I had told her about my curse, about the shadows. I had told her exactly why I wasn't willing to use that power. Of course she was worried. Anyone would be if they were trapped alone in the forest between giant man-eating centipedes and a wizard with increasing superpowers but decreasing reason.

  "I know, I know," I said.

  I willed myself to slow down, just as I had trained myself to do. No anger, no fear, no worries of any sort. Just keep calm and cool. Breathe in, and out. Relax. This power fed on my negative emotions, which meant if I dissociated myself from those emotions it would simply go away.

  "No, I meant behind you."

  Its shadow eclipsed me. A giant Wurm, possibly the queen, loomed over me, probably sensing my weakened state. Too late to react now. It had gathered too much momentum, and I knew I was headed for a world of pain. I closed my eyes, an involuntary human response.

  But even from behind my clenched eyelids, the flash of light was painfully bright.

  I opened my eyes tentatively. The light still shone bright, but at least it was a little more bearable now. The Wurms that surrounded us had disappeared. At the heart of the light stood the figure of a young woman.

  Slowly the light shrunk back into the girl, revealing her Latin features. In front of us stood Gracie Valdez, otherwise known as the archangel Jehudiel. His, or her, appearance came as a surprise. If I remember correctly, we hadn't exactly parted on good terms.

  Every Sin has an opposing angel, sort of an anti-Sin, if you will. Jehudiel was Lust's opposite, and he had helped me out in kicking her ass. But angels weren't supposed to interact with humans. They also weren't even supposed to cross over to our plane, but Jehudiel seemed to bend those rules left, right and centre without any consequence. For over a year he had posed as Gracie, pretending to be Abi's roommate and tricking me into saving her when Lilith decided to put her on the menu.

  "Hello Erik," she, or he, said.

  Before I could get the first word out, Abi pointed Sun Wo Kung, now in the shape of a baton, at the angel.

  "Stop using that body," she growled.

  Jehudiel held his hands up. "My apologies. The range of human emotions still eludes me."

  His form shimmered and, for a moment, his true form was revealed: a tall, armor-clad warrior with golden hair cascading well past his backside. His eyes were balls of white fire, and he had pointy ears that made him look a lot like the elves from The Lord of the Rings. His most impressive feature was the pair of wings at his back. They extended well beyond the tallest of trees.

  Suddenly in his place stood a blonde teenage girl with a fringe haircut, piercing blue eyes, and clothes from the front cover of a fashion magazine. In short, one chick that really did not belong in a forest.

  "Is this form more appropriate?"

  "No, but not for the reasons you think," I replied.

  "That just looks weird," Abi added.

  Even Amaymon joined in. "Why is there an angel looking like Hannah Montana?" He grinned at Jehudiel. "If you start twerking, I'm posting that shit on YouTube. We could use the money."

  "Shut up, Amaymon," I retorted. "And you," I told the angel. "Why do you always look like a girl?"

  The angel cocked his—her—head. "I simply picked the most aesthetically pleasing form."

  "I think you might be gay," Amaymon said. "Which is ironic, considering your religion used to kill them for sport."

  Jehudiel glared at him. It was never a good idea to piss off an angel. And I say that from personal experience, since I may have punched Jehudiel in the face once. Hence why our last encounter did not end well.

  "The interpretation of God's Wisdom is the humans' own prerogative," Jehudiel sternly replied. "But let me assure you that such discrimination doesn't exist in Heaven." He turned to look at me. "What matters is love itself and the intention of such energy. Why would we place such emphasis on the form when we ourselves are formless?" He turned again to Amaymon. "Do not pretend to understand our Father based on the preconceived notions of a few beings whose true motives lie in self-validation and material profit."

  "So in essence, God is too busy for our shit?" I asked.

  "The majority of it is merely pomp and presumption."

  "That would be a yes, then." I grinned at Amaymon. "I win. You get to clean the basement."

  Amaymon scowled. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. A bet is a bet."

  "What was his suggestion then?" Abi asked.

  "He thought God was elusive because he's really a giant tentacle creature like Lovecraft's monsters."

  "And nothing will convince me that Lovecraft wasn't some sorta rogue angel. The whistle-blower of Heaven," Amaymon insisted.

  "You're an idiot," I said, and turned to the angel before this descended into a literal cat fight. "So, what brings you to our neck of the woods? Hehe, get it?"

  He didn't get it. Angels never got jokes.

  "I have some introductions to make," he replied. "Please follow me."

  Chapter 6

  Jehudiel led us to a hole in the ground. Or at least that was what it felt like.

  The trees were all burnt to cinders, and the remnant husks of Wurms littered the ground as far as the eye could see, charred by black scorch marks. But it wasn't just the dead Wurms. Deer, birds, even squirrels—every sign of life—was burnt beyond recognition. All that was left was an area of ash, dug into the ground. Whoever had burnt this had disintegrated the very ground beneath their feet.

  Standing in the middle of the crater was a man of average height and a muscular build, like an action figure. He wore a black coat, similar to mine but made out of a different fabric than leather. Maybe wool. His hair was short with a fringe that came close to his eyes, like one of those emo hair styles. Beneath his coat was a chainmail shirt, glinting metallic black under the sun. Black-and-grey camouflage-patterned pants and dark combat boots completed the outfit of the most imposing-looking angel I had ever seen. His wings, shimmering egg-shell white, flared wide over his shoulders the minute he spotted us, before disappearing as he stabilized his human form.

  What disturbed me most was his expression. I thought I had seen rage and bitterness before—hell, I had experienced my share of irate anger in the past—but this guy was something else. This went beyond just rage. This was a monstrous, yet controlled, wrath, like a volcano right on the brink of eruption.

  "Raphael," Jehudiel said in a tone I had never heard come out of a woman before. He walked over to the other angel. Despite a height difference of nearly two full feet, the girl managed to stare down the imposing-looking angel.


  Raphael knelt in front of her. "Sir, I have destroyed the aberrations as you ordered."

  Jehudiel shook her hair. "No, Raphael. You have destroyed everything. This is not the way an angel does things. We show restraint and control. We do not destroy. We merely cleanse and purify."

  Raphael rose and scowled. "Yes, sir."

  "Look upon your blade, Raphael." A broadsword appeared in Raphael's hand. The blade matched the color of his wings, that same dirty, speckled white that faintly glowed. Red and black liquids dripped from the sharp edge of the sword.

  "What do you see?" Jehudiel asked.

  "Ichor, sir," Raphael replied. "From the monstrosities the humans brought forth."

  Jehudiel shook his—her—head again. "Yes, there is ichor. But there is also blood. Innocent blood. That would have been acceptable in time of war, but not today, not as one of the chosen Virtues. That is what sets us apart from the rest of our kind. We, above all, must not shed blood."

  Raphael hung his head and the sword evaporated in a burst of light. Jehudiel laid a soft hand on Raphael's callused one.

  "Fear not, my brother," Jehudiel said. "I will show you the way." Jehudiel's wings, larger and more incandescent than Raphael's, appeared and opened up, and we were enveloped in his power.

  Light blinded me and for a moment I felt weightless.

  Then the light was gone, the weightlessness disappeared, and the forest was back to normal. Everything that had been burnt and destroyed was suddenly back to its lush green former self, and the dead animals were resurrected and they scurried away. Everything except for the Wurms, which had disappeared as if they had never been summoned in the first place.

  Jehudiel smiled at us. "Erik Ashendale, may I introduce the youngest amongst the ranks of the seven chosen Virtues. This is Raphael, the Warring Healer and Virtue of Kindness."