Return of the Starchild (The Divine Inheritance Series Book 1)

by Catriona Murphy

  The torches had faded and as the figure drew closer to the arch, they weakened still.

  The light given off by them reflected the black liquid that writhed and boiled inside the creature, as if the body itself was nothing more than a glass cavity encasing whirling black smoke.

  It took Flaren another agonizing few seconds to recognise it. His jaw dropped in astonishment at what he was seeing before him that should not be. There had been rumours, a supposed glimpse here or there. But now what stood before him was the impossible manifested into a terrible reality.

  If his majesty or the cabinet even had a hunch that one of these creatures was prowling around the kingdom, they would send out every soldier.

  A new wave of horror hit him as he realised it was trying to cross the gate! If it crossed into another world, there was no telling what it might do there. Whatever the ghastly thing’s business, it would bring no joy elsewhere.

  Flaren knew he couldn’t let the creature cross, he could picture general Sires’ face and what he would do to him if he would be a coward now and run for the hills.

  He found his feet again and expression determined, he looked back up the hill. The consequences of a Xinger crossing were unthinkable. It could not happen, it must not happen. He let a roar escape his mouth and ran towards the creature with the sword held high over his

  head.

  The creature turned, tilting it’s alienoid head in his general direction. The creature flicked its slender, black hand and a tentacle spearheaded through the air.

  Flaren didn’t stand a chance.

  The oily, black tentacle impaled his chest.

  Flaren found it hard to breathe as he frowned down at his perforated chest. He collapsed to his knees with the breath knocked out of him, and he fell forward onto the ground.

  The creature turned casually back to the arch. It raised its long, ebony right hand over the surface of the granite stones. The runes stirred to life and began to radiate different colours.

  The picture of the peaceful universe in the arch froze like a painting. Then it began to swirl an array of colours mixed into one, as if someone had poured paints into a toilet and flushed. The twirling quickened and went faster and faster, spinning hysterically before it came to an abrupt stop.

  Before the creature, stood a strange city of tall buildings, moving vehicles with no need of animal power on well paved roads. People were walking around, some were talking on strange handheld devices.

  The creature, seeming satisfied, cast back at the massacre it left behind, then crossed.

  Iliana lay on her bed. Not in her bed, on it. Her parents were fighting when she came in from school so she went straight to her room, feigning dinner.

  A couple of hours later and they were still at it. With little sleep seeming likely, she gave in to simply lying on her bed.

  She sighed and sat up, cried out and fell back down again.

  Bruises decorated her body like bad tattoos from the fight with the bull girl.

  Iliana stared at her ceiling, and was forced to listen to the rant cracking up next door.

  ‘…what do you mean you haven’t been drinking?!!!What the hell do you call this? A

  bottle of Coke?!!’

  ‘Oh, and like you’re sso perfect!’ There was a loud belch. ‘How much money ‘ave you

  Sspent your ‘happy pills’?’

  ‘The only reason I’m taking them in the first place is because of youuuuuuu!’

  Slam!

  Iliana jumped. She rose from her bed, and poked her head out the door to find her father standing in front of the bathroom door. He was panting and staring angrily at it.

  Iliana caught the whiff of rum. Her father turned his head to look at her, his bleary

  eyes unfocused.

  ‘What the hhell dso you wan’?’ He slurred, but Iliana grasped the venom behind them. She looked him up and down in disgust, stepped back and slammed the door.

  Even just the sight of her father like that cut her. An entire evening or day could be ruined by a look like that. She locked the door (something she was thankful of being able to do), and threw herself onto her bed and started crying.

  She heard the familiar sound of him brushing against the wall for support as he walked. Fear was what she heard in the slow scraping against the plaster. No matter how good she was at martial arts, the anxiety was just as strong as the first day she had joined the class.

  Feeling useless, she pressed her face into her pillow and sobbed. Her eyes stung and her face was sticky.

  Not for the first time did she think of all her other friends, from her club and school, and how lovely their families had been. It filled her with a shame that should never have been hers to bear. Zelda was the only person she could ever talk to, ever trusted enough to let in.

  Sniffling, she glanced down at her silver bracelet. It had been hers since she could remember.

  A simple trinket that bridged her to her missing life that never was. It felt at times like something had ended prematurely there without her permission. She fancied that it twinkled at her in encouragement from beneath the rim of her sleeve. A single ring was latched into one of the links, hanging from that ring was a four-pointed star filled with liquid quicksilver. As countless times before, she wondered at its origins as well as her own. And it was moments like these that made her wish she had never been adopted.

  Her curtains were open and she could see the night sky. The moon pooled in on

  Iliana’s bed and floor and shone on her tear stained face. The stars twinkled at her and she found herself staring at them, entranced.

  They were so far away from human problems, suspended in blissful freedom. She always loved the night sky; there was something magical and wondrous about it that infused her with inspiration.

  Iliana closed her eyes and felt fresh tears trickling down her hot face.

  A middle-aged woman with light brown hair sat on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees, her face hidden. Her back was to a wall which cupped around her like a cubicle, as if she were encased and bound within it. She was dressed in a ragged potato sack dress that was ripped at the bottom and she was bare at the feet. Her head was bowed and she sobbed hard.

  Everywhere was dark and grey, like colour and life itself has been bleached from this place to leave only a dreary comic strip of pure black and white.

  The lane was empty save for the weeping woman, but Iliana could hear distant moans and cries elsewhere, haunting and hypnotic groans that sounded almost zombielike.

  Their wailing was so despairing and mournful that it made Iliana shudder and send chills across her heart. There was only one word to describe this place: misery.

  As the vibrancy of life and love itself left this place long ago, leaving only exhaustion, dullness and death.

  Behind the wall in the distance, Iliana could see individual streams of smoke, their wispy talons reaching into a bleak, desecrated sky. Perched on top of the back wall was a raven. It fixed its beady eyes expectantly on Iliana, as if waiting for her to do something.

  Overhead the sky was a dreadful dark shade of grey, as if it had also been cheated of colour. Fork lightning flashed in an overhanging cloud nearby. But instead of being its natural yellow colour, it was black. Black lightning.

  Then a monstrous thunder boomed so loud, it makes the ground tremble beneath her, and rain drops start to fall.

  The woman threw her head back and screamed.

  Iliana woke up in a sweat and cast about her bedroom in fright, breathless as usual

  from the place that haunted her unconscious mind. The dreams were back again.

  By the time Terrence arrived at Sleepers Hill, the place was already swarming with frenzied faeries. They rushed around like garden gnomes at a cock fight.

  Their standard way of being, he thought dully.

  They were baffled by Flarens penetrated corpse lying in front of the arch, and the
massacre that had occurred in the lookout hut.

  Accompanying him was his most trusted associate, Claris, who rode closely behind him.

  He lashed the reins on his black stallion and sent it into a gallop.

  Thrusting towards the hill, he muttered angrily, ‘Bloody faeries better not have damaged any clues.’

  He often wondered at the reasoning behind the Early Agreement treaty, which consigned faeries to guard and traffic the nine arches, the only gateways left in the Otherworld.

  Terrence slowed his horse down to a trot as he neared the hut, trying to get a good look at what was before him. His keen eyes roved over the faeries. They immediately stopped their standard twittering when he drew near, his riding shadow crossed over their dumbfounded expressions like an eclipse. It was usually never seen, but strong wards were erected around all the gates to keep out unauthorised trespassers. Terrence sensed them like layered webs ebbing out from the gate.

  He sighed as he saw General Sires approach, followed by two faerie guards that matched his stride obediently.

  He was a fat, round man today with a plump face that was always frowning. As most faeries do have the power to shapeshift, it seemed that general Sires took the form of a human today, probably to appear more intimidating. Terrence had the Clear Sight however, and could pierce the glamour to see that he was three and a half feet tall, his skin tinted grass green and his hair and beard white. Light purple eyes were fixed on him. He wore a white flannel shirt with heavy armour plates on top, the breast plate bore the symbol of twin crescent moons flanked by dragonfly wings.

  On his left sleeve, he wore a pin of the Golden Leaf showing his barrack as general.

  Terrence nodded to him as he got off his horse, already sensing the conflict like gathering black clouds. He bloody hated politics.

  ‘General Sires, nice to see you’re handling this most drastic situation, er well,’ he commented, as he cast about.

  Terrence counted twenty faerie soldiers teeming around Sleepers Hill, some were standing over Flaren’s body, bent over to probably illustrate an investigative pose as opposed to conducting any genuine detective work. Others were walking in and out of the hut like they were in a market place and not damaging precious evidence on the ground.

  ‘Master Terrence, nice of you to drop by, by what do I owe the pleasure?’ asked General Sires in a courteous tone.

  Terrence frowned down at all three and a half feet of him, indicating that he could see through his illusion. ‘I got a tip off by one of my counterparts that a Xinger had passed through this very gate last night, and by the looks of it,’ casting another look around, ‘left a mess behind.’

  ‘A Xinger? Hahaha! Terrence, c’mon now, a Xinger has not been seen in all of the Otherworld in hundreds of years!’ Sires exclaimed.

  ‘Don’t play games with me general. This is an emergency situation for the temple to deal with, and is quite serious. I need to investigate.’ Terrence pushed past the general impatiently, not waiting for his too predictable defiant answer.

  Once he reached the hut, he turned to his two companions. ‘Spread out and see if you can find anything the Xinger left behind, maybe start with Flaren’s body, see if you can find any entrails that might suggest a Xinger had actually passed through. This may be a false alarm, but the wards were broken into. I’m going to look at the arch to see if I can trace the last path that was used.’ He paused, his face contemplative and grim. He turned to walk towards the arch, when a squeaky voice protested from behind.

  ‘Excuse me, but this investigation is not open to seers.’

  Terrence sighed and turned around to face General Sires. ‘It’s nice to see that you’ve decided to drop your pointless disguise,’ he droned. General Sires was now presenting himself au natural, without the glamour.

  Despite only arriving at the murder scene, Terrence was quite frankly getting sick of looking at the general’s rotund face. ‘General, do not waste my time by forcing me halfway across the Otherworld to get a warrant from his majesty. I already have it.’

  ‘That means nothing to me! A lot of my soldiers lost their lives because of whatever passed through here last night, and I’ll be damned if I allow you and your secret service crony colleagues to highjack my investigation. Be gone from this hill, or I shall have my guards see to it!’

  Terrence noticed a colour rising behind his green cheeks. His frustrated shout had stopped the commotion for a moment on Sleepers Hill, and all the faeries turned their attention to them. The general stared hard at Terrence, sweep him off his feet by eyes alone, or something worse.

  Terrence walked over to General Sires and stared down at him; a funny contrast between nearly a six-foot-tall man, and three-and-a-half-foot faerie.

  ‘Now you listen to me General Sires and you listen good because I’m only. Going. To. Say. This. Once. I am the master and Number One of the Temple of Stars, an organisation, though cloak and dagger it can be, which is an important one. This is our crime scene you are standing on because it deals with the temple’s affairs, in this case a Xinger. I should have ordered you off this land when I first arrived, but I didn’t because it was your soldiers that died last night, so have some respect for their deaths and some for me and get out of my way!’ exclaimed Terrence.

  A storm broke out overhead, lightning flashed and lashed across the sky, and a roll of thunder boomed.

  General Sires backed away from Terrence.

  He could see his eyes had changed, they were no longer deep blue but were now so light, that they almost blended with the milky whites of his eyes. Terrence’s eyes stayed that chalky, light blue colour.

  The storm quickly dispersed in a fraction of a second. Terrence closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were back to their natural colour.

  General Sires stared at Terrence in a mixture of awe and fear, he had heard Terrence was a great seer, but conjuring storms was a wizard’s business.

  Terrence looked at the faerie and asked casually, ‘Have we come to an agreement?’

  The general’s bottom lip trembled. ‘Y-yes,’ he stammered.

  ‘Good.’

  Terrence didn’t give him second thought. The faerie became an object to be placed somewhere in the back of his mind.

  He turned to the arch. Every minute, every second that passed was another minute and second Terrence was giving a potential Xinger to go about its dark business. There were background noises as the faerie guards hustled and bustled to leave. He ignored their loud retreat and concentrated on detecting the last portal that was summoned through the gate.

  He could see the idle, lilting universe through the archway, it was silent as usual, but

  Terrence thought he could hear a very low humming noise. He always heard it this close. It required sharp hearing and a sort of quiet where one could only hear themselves breathing. It sounded like the ‘OM’ chant of the temple monks.

  The distant galaxies seemed still, dusted with millions of stars that twinkled at him, as if trying to tempt him to step into their endless abyss. Terrence was used to the alluring nature of the arches though, and ignored it.

  Slowly, he swept his hands over the runes that were inscribed in each stone in the arch. They flared to life and glowed their brightly brilliant colours that always reminded him of a rainbow arc. But one rune in particular was glowing faintly, flickering even, as if it were struggling to turn on.

  He rested his palm on it and concentrated. The silent night universe in front of him

  swirled into motion and the stars spun so fast they almost became one until it froze on a single image; an after shot of the place it had last projected to.

  Before Terrence, was a city of skyscrapers and a tall clock tower with a wide bridge, there were people more congested here than animals in a slaughterhouse.

  ‘London,’ he breathed. The beast had gone through to the capital city of England. The last wisps of optimism dissipated as he recognised t
he location.

  He had been so careful.

  ‘Terrence? What’s wrong?’ asked Claris from behind.

  Terrence turned to her, his face grave. ‘It may already be too late.’

  She looked him up and down, worry creeping into her strong features. ‘What? What’s happened? What did you find out?’

  ‘The Xinger knows of her.’ It was all he needed to say.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. Look Claris, we have to act fast, the Xinger is already nearly a day ahead of us. I’m calling General Sires back, he can take me through the arch to Britain.’

  Claris opened her mouth to protest, but Terrence cut her off.

  ‘No, there’s no time to gather the temple monks and bring them with me and no, you’re not coming. I want people gagged, bound and ready for interrogation when I come back, do you understand?’

  Claris stared at Terrence for another moment, and then slowly nodded.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘I won’t be too long, if I don’t come back within three days,

  I’m dead. And you know what you must do.’ said Terrence.

  ‘Be careful Terrence. We don’t know who to trust these days,’ she replied, and cast a glance at General Sires, who was at the bottom of the mound, grumbling angrily to himself.

  Terrence nodded.

  He looked past her. The faeries were still there, but they stood at the foot of the hill, waiting for Terrence to leave so they could collect their dead.

  ‘Get the general up here for me please, Claris.’ he said.

  She nodded and turned, her green woollen cape swinging behind her.

  A minute later she brought the lumbering general up the hill at his obvious reluctance, when they reached Terrence, he said, ‘General, I trust you remember how to cross the arches from your early days of training. I need you to bring me to Earth immediately.’

  ‘Now? Are you serious?’ he spluttered, completely shocked and angry at Terrence’s total lack of concern for the crowns permission.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. You could call it an ‘emergency secret service business’ if you