by D. Levesque
“You aren’t sure if you are Brandon?” she says with a cheeky grin.
“Well, no, I am Brandon. I was the one who actually asked to have you come here,” I tell her—trying not to let her fluster me. Fuck, what is up with this girl?
“Oh, so he’s the boss, auntie?” she says, looking at my mother with a raised eyebrow.
“Trust me, he is, and if you don’t tone it down he will use the Voice on you,” my mother admonishes her.
“Damn, really? Sorry about that,” she says, turning back to me. “So, what did you need me for? Ophenia wasn’t glad to lose me.”
“So, you’re a maid there?” I ask her curiously.
“Maid?” she sneers. “I run the damn court. If it weren’t for me, they would be lost. Elves have no idea how to take care of their own affairs. I am what you would call their project manager. I run the day to day of the court. And I do a damn good job,” she says, and by the time she is done she is poking me in the chest with one finger.
“Damn, you’re a strong one. I can feel the muscle. Now, what did you need me for? Special project?” she asks me.
“You could say that. I want to see if I can pass you magic,” I tell her. Damn, where is the off switch on this lady? Or even the slow down switch.
But it turns out what I said must have been the slow down switch, since she just stares at me for a good minute before looking at my mother and saying angrily, “Auntie, I love you, but this isn’t fucking funny.”
“Language!” my mother says, “It’s not a joke. Brandon thinks he might have a way to pass on magic to humans,” she finishes softly.
“Auntie, you know that we humans cannot learn magic. It’s been thousands and thousands of years. You have all tried. The only race that can use magic is the Elves. The rest of the races, except for us humans, have magic in them. It’s been proven over and over,” she says bitterly.
“And what if I can pass magic on to you?” I ask her, to get her attention back.
“If you can give me magic, I will marry you right now,” she says with a chuckle. I can tell she’s not being serious because she doesn’t think I can deliver.
“Well, I am not asking for your hand in marriage, as I already have three mates who just so happen to be amazing girls. But I want to try something and see if I can break the barrier that stops humans from being able to use magic.”
“You have three mates?” She looks confused for a second, but then her eyes get large and she turns around quickly. “No!” she says to Sylvana, Johanne and Lina. They all three nod, with big smiles on their faces.
“Well fuck me, I got in too late,” she says with a laugh. “Fine, you give me magic, and I will come work for you,” she says passionately, turning back to me.
“Maria!” Sylvana says in shock.
“It’s all right. I trained Ophenia. She is, in fact, picking it up quickly. And you know she still has hundreds of years left, even though she keeps saying she is dying all the time. Something tells me that you will need my skills as a project manager. But you need to give me something worthy in return,” she says, turning back to me. “So, how does this work?”
“I need to bite you,” I tell her.
Shaking her head, she says, “Not happening. I am not sure if you’re a Vampire or a Werewolf. But I don’t do the bite thing. Just like my brothers.”
“Oh, I am much more than that,” I tell Maria with a chuckle.
“Oh? And what are you?” she says with a quirked eyebrow.
“All three,” I say.
She looks confused and glances around the room for answers, but no one says anything. “What do you mean, all three?”
“I am a progenitor of three races.”
She looks even more bewildered until my mother sighs and says, “Brandon, just tell the girl.”
Laughing, I tell Maria. “I am a Vampire, Werefolk, and Elf, but much more than that, I have bitten all three girls, and now all three can shapeshift, do magic, and are immune to silver.”
She jerks in astonishment, then looks at the girls for confirmation, and they all nod their heads. Lina and Sylvana change into their Werejaguar and Werefox form, and Johanne has cast a floating light over her hand.
“By the fucking Gods themselves!” she yells out in wonder.
“I changed my mind, I want to be bitten!” she says, turning to me quickly.
“Whoa, I am only biting you to give you, or see if I can give you, magic. What they got, I am only giving to my mates, and my mom. So, do you want to see if you can become a mage?”
I see the disappointment on her face, but it’s quickly followed by hope. “Yes! Bite me big boy,” she says with a grin, and she shows me her neck.
“No need for that. Give me your hand,” I say, putting mine out. She looks confused again but does what I say. Taking her hand in mine, I bring it up to my mouth, at the same time making my incisors longer and pushing a Thread of Faith through one of them. Now, let’s see if I can do this without biting a neck. It would suck if I had to bite Trent’s neck to give him the silver immunity.
Once I’m ready, I bite down on her wrist and push the Thread through, and just as before, I can feel Maria’s emotions. Her feelings are more of excitement and hope than anything else. I don’t feel any fear at all from her. Once I realize that it will work this way, I push a small amount of my blood into her through the Thread. As with Lily, there isn’t an orgasm, but she reaches out and grabs my hand with her free one and squeezes it hard. She closes her eyes, and she starts to pant heavily.
I can see that she is going through a transformation; my blood taking over hers. Or more like my blood merging with hers, I would say. Once her panting starts to slow down, I ease my mouth off her wrist and she looks at me in wonder.
“What the fuck was that, Brandon? It felt like I was changing inside. I feel slightly different too,” she says through her panting.
I feel a slap on my hand that is still holding her wrist. It’s Sylvana. “We got this. You deal with Trent, and we will now deal with Maria,” she says. Looking over, I see that the other two girls are nodding and looking at Maria.
“All right, sure. Trent, you want to do this? Now that I know I don’t need to worry about biting your neck, but can just bite your wrist?” I say, looking at the big man.
“Oh fuck yes,” he says with a big grin, but then looks at my mother and blushes “Sorry.”
“No worries this time, Trent,” she says with an easy laugh.
Trent walks up to me, and I hear the girls going leaving to head to our cabin. I am sure they are going to be testing her to see if she has magic.
He gives me his hand, and as I did with Maria and Lily, I bite him and push another free Thread into him. The feelings I get from him are not what I expected. I get loyalty, but also some hope and some awe. I push some of my blood into him, and like the rest, he starts to pant. But for some reason, the procedure brings him to his knees. I can see that the transformation is rougher for him, but also quicker. Within seconds it’s done.
“Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, having watched the ladies, I expected something but not that much pain. How the hell did they deal with it?” Trent asks.
“I don’t think they dealt with any pain as they pushed through it. I have a feeling that might be something only the males will go through. Though no way of knowing for sure until I bite another male,” I tell him. “How are you feeling?” I ask him.
“A little light-headed, but overall no different.”
“Then, shall we test it?” I ask him.
“Shit. Yeah, that was the whole point, wasn’t it?” Trent says, exhaling deeply.
“Roger, dagger,” I tell him, and suddenly I have a silver dagger in my hand. Trent cringes in fear, but when nothing happens, his eyes open wide in wonder. He slowly reaches out and touches the blade in my hand with one finger. When he doesn’t get sick or anything, he looks at my mother in astonishment.
“He did it!” he tells her in a
mazement.
“Of course he did,” my mother says proudly. “He’s my son!”
12
“We need to get you to do this to others,” Trent says to me excitedly.
“Do you have any suggestions?” I ask him.
“Our elite tactical teams. All of them,” Trent says enthusiastically.
“Trent, he can’t go around biting over sixty people!” my mother says with a laugh. “How about you pick two teams of six? If that is all right with you, Brandon?” she asks, looking my way with a motherly smile that would make any kid know their parent loves them.
“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “I will go see about getting those twelve. If you will excuse me?” he asks my mother.
“Go, go pick your teams. Make sure they are worthy of it, Trent,” she tells him. “My son will not be going around biting every single Elf, Vampire, or Werefolk. Otherwise, he will never live his life or battle the Void.”
“Mother, I don’t mind,” I tell her. If this will give everyone immunity to silver, I am good with it.
“Brandon, how many of us do you think there are?” she asks, turning to me with an arched eyebrow.
“Hmm, I don’t know? Several thousand?” I tell her, hesitantly.
Once the words are out of my mouth, everyone in the room laughs. Confused, I look around and say, “All right, how many are there of you?”
“Brandon, just Werefolk alone, the numbers on earth are well over two million. As for Elves, there are how many now?” she asks, turning to Sylvana.
“At last count, well over four million, with half a million living here on earth among humans,” she tells her.
“And where I am from, Brandon, we number in the millions. Our planet is larger than earth, and our population is larger as well. Those numbers don’t even include the other magical races. I mean, the Dwarves, when they used to come above ground, had one of the largest armies, even bigger than the Elvish and Werefolk combined,” my mother says.
“Holy fuck! And you have all been hiding from humans? But why, if you are so many?” I exclaim in disbelief.
“Because humans breed quickly and in high numbers. They have always been able to overwhelm us. We Werefolk do not breed often, and as for the Elves, they live so long that they only have one or two children in their lifetime,” my mother explains.
“And the Dwarves?” I ask.
“They are not as long lived as Elves, but they live longer than humans, or that is what I know of them,” Sylvana says.
“So how long will I live?” I ask hesitantly.
Everyone looks shocked at my question and I see them looking at each other in uncertainty. “We aren’t sure,” Sylvana says finally.
“I know,” Roger says in the quiet after Sylvana’s answer.
“Oh?” I say, looking at Roger.
“Well, if, and here I use the important word if, you are a hmm, progenitor, I would say you will live for over hundreds of thousands of years.”
“What!?!” I yell at him in shock, which is echoed by the girls, and even my mother.
“Don’t worry, even if you’re not a progenitor, as an Incubus you will live at least twenty-five thousand years,” Roger says soothingly.
“Roger! That’s not helping! You are saying that I will outlive everyone in this room by a long time!” I shout at him.
“Hey, don’t get mad at me. I wasn’t the one who decided to try to become an Incubus,” he says defensively.
“No, you’re right,” I tell him with a sigh. “I guess that’s something we can worry about later. Since you’re here mom, we might as well tell you about taking out our target. We found out that she had a mentor. Want to guess who it is?”
“Sir William Stewart?” she says.
“You knew?” I tell her. What the fuck, my mother knew?
“I suspected, but your reaction just confirmed it,” she says, nodding. She lets out an enormous sigh. “The issue is he is a big player, and I’m not sure we can get to him.”
“Well, the girls and I had an idea about that,” I tell her, scratching the back of my neck awkwardly.
“Oh, do tell?” she says.
“Well, what if Sir William Stewart is just an important figurehead, but he’s being used as a decoy,” I tell her.
“What do you mean?” she asks me, confusion now showing on her face.
“What if those who are powerful Voids, or are infected with the Void, are hiding as regular people, but are infecting powerful people like Sir William Stewart to use as decoys so that we would go after them, and leave the regular people alone?”
My mother looks stunned and sits down hard in her chair. She doesn’t say anything, but I can see the gears whirring away. I am about to say something, but she holds up her hand, stopping me. She is so focused that she doesn’t even hear Trent come back in.
He comes and stands next to me and whispers, “What’s happening?”
“My mother is working through a puzzle,” I tell him just as quietly.
My mother was amazing at puzzles. When I was a kid she taught me the love of puzzles and how to work through a problem. Her teachings gave me insight into being a programmer and how to find bugs. What I was seeing here was my mother going full zone, as my dad called it.
“I need to get Trent back here, fast,” my mother says without looking up.
“I am already here, Madam,” he says, causing her to jerk her head up in surprise.
“Good! I need to know about the information we got regarding Sir Stewart. Who did we get it from?”
“Hmm,” he says, pulling out a smartphone and opening his email app. He scrolls through a bunch of messages until he gets to the one he is looking for. “Here it is,” he says finally. “One of my agents said he got a tip from a dry cleaner in Tampa. They know we are Werefolk, and so our people go in there often to get some of their things dry cleaned.”
“How reliable is the person running the shop?” she asks him.
“That, I am not sure. Want me to call Pascal and ask him? He was the one who sent me the information about it,” Trent asks her.
“Yes, if you can,” she says, nodding vigorously.
I see him go into his contacts, and once he has the name Pascal up, he hits the blue call button. As I am standing next to him, I hear the phone ring twice before someone picks up. Trent hits the speakerphone option right away.
“Trent, what do you need, chum? You never call me unless it’s urgent,” a deep male voice says on the other end of the line.
“Pascal, I have, hmm,” he looks at me before continuing, “Lianne here with me, and I got you on speakerphone. I need to ask you something. Are you able to answer freely?”
“Oh. All right. I can play along,” Pascal says. “Yes, I am free to answer questions. There isn’t anyone else with me or near me that I can see or smell.”
Play along? Play along with what? I mean, I already know who my mom is. She told me she was the daughter of a King. Or is there something else she is hiding? I look at her, and she ignores my look while staring at Trent intently. I know she knows that I am looking at her. More mysteries, Mother?
“The information we got about Melissa Newborn and Sir Stewart. You said you got it from the owner of the dry cleaners you all go to. How reliable are they?” Trent asks him intently.
“Well, we have been going there for well over forty years. It’s the son that now owns it. But the father was a solid man. The son, we have only been dealing with for the last three or four years, after the father passed away. Heart attack. Why?” Pascal asks Trent curiously.
“We think the information, it might have been fed to us,” Trent says with a growl.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me? Oh shit, Sorry, madam,” Pascal blurts. Crap, is everyone afraid of my mother?
“No worries, Pascal. But I need you to do something. Could you look into this new owner? I need to know if he has come into any new money, or had any habit changes since his father died, or anything lik
e that.”
“On it, I will get two of my best to start investigating. I should have something within twenty-four hours. Should I pass it to Trent?”
“Please,” my mother tells him.
“Got it. While I have you on the phone, what the hell is going on? There is a rumor going around about being immune to silver?” Pascal says hesitantly. I can hear the hope in his voice.
Sighing, Trent says, “Nothing like that. We are looking at some old stories, is all.”
“Ah. All right. Just remember your brother if some of those stories hold true, all right?” he says mysteriously. Wait, that was Trent’s brother?
“I will,” Trent says, before hanging up the smartphone and placing it back into his pocket.
“Brother?” I ask him.
“Yeah, but I can’t ask that of you. Now, I need to look into some other things, since something tells me we are being jerked around and fighting things that aren’t there. I wondered why we’ve had so many targets in the last year, compared to almost none in the previous decade.”
“Targets?” Lina asks, walking up next to me.
“Yes,” my mother answers instead of Trent. “Our activities have skyrocketed in the last year compared to before. Haven’t you Vampires noticed the same thing?” she asks, irked.
“Now that you mention it,” Lina says, putting a finger on her lips, which are pursed in annoyance. She takes out her own smartphone suddenly and starts typing furiously on it.
“I just sent my dad a quick rundown of what we just talked about here. He said he would look into it, but his response was, and I quote, ‘ah shit’. So he will also be investigating. What do you think it means?” Lina asks my mother.
“As Brandon had already figured out, something tells me we are being made to chase big targets so that we look away from the real targets. Now it’s got me worried about what they are planning. I thought I had them figured out. Get into the seat of Government and take over. But maybe that isn’t their plan,” she says, sounding pissed off now. And if you get my mother pissed, heads will roll.
“Maybe it’s not the Government they are after, but the people?” I say cautiously to the room at large.