by Hadena James
“That’s two Lycan powers and one Vampiric power. Samuel’s is a Demon thing, close to Levi as is Brenna’s. Rachel? Jasmine? The Unborn?” Fenrir said.
“Jasmine can invade dreams; maybe it isn’t a Witch thing.” Eli suggested.
“Djinn thing then?” I almost smiled as I said the tongue twister.
“Rachel?” My mother looked at her.
“Oh, mine is about as gruesome as Brenna’s and Eli’s. I’d rather not.”
“What is it, Rach?” Samuel asked quietly.
“I can make it dark and when I do, it sucks all the hope out of the room. I can’t imagine what it would do if I was outside.”
“Angel magic,” Gabriel smiled. “Evolution at its best.”
“Ok, so can we use this without actually causing massive chaos and mayhem?” I asked.
“Probably not, we never could.” Mammon answered. “But it is nice to know.”
“Okie dokie. Let’s go find our Coven and Magnus.” I looked around. No one moved.
“Or not.” I frowned.
“He has Pandora’s Box. There is no telling what will come out of it.” Mammon answered.
“Yes, well, we have to do something,” I said.
“Agreed, but this is not a situation I’d like to run into blind,” Berith answered.
“Okie dokie, back to my house for strategizing and food.” I led the way out of the Council Chamber.
As we left, Daniel gave a small demonstration. The sky darkened with thick clouds. They opened up and fire rained down on the Chamber. The stone got hot enough to melt. The river of molten stone scorched everything in its path.
Chapter Forty-Five
We all sat quietly in the living room. Each of us lost in our own thoughts. In theory, I was strategizing. In reality, I was pissed because I was still missing a lot of skin and had caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I understood the gasping now.
A medium sized army had assembled. Demons, Gargoyles, Vampires, Lycans, Fey, and Djinn were spread out on the grounds. All the Overlords were in the living room, clogging it up with their magic and deep thinking. Occasionally, one would sneak a glance at me. I was willing to bet I looked as angry as I felt, since they never held it more than a second.
It was one thing to feel powerless. Quite another to be powerless. And at the moment, I was more or less powerless. It made me angry. I’m sure the missing skin made it look gruesome. I kept scowling, I couldn’t help it.
“Where would they go?” Morgana asked. “They’ve already destroyed the Brothers’ houses. The Council Chamber is gone. They can’t get in here. What’s left?”
“The entire world,” Anubis looked at her. “Wherever he opens that box and whatever he calls from it is going to create panic and havoc and destruction. So, it doesn’t matter where he opens it, we’ll end up there.”
“That’s the real crux of the problem. We can’t plan where to attack if we don’t know where to attack.” Ba’al took a deep breath.
“Where do crazy Witches go?” Vishnu asked my mother.
“The asylum. The Island. Wherever we can put them. If we can’t contain them, we put them to death. It might as well still be the dark ages when it comes to witchcraft gone bad.” She shrugged at him.
“Ok, he can’t go to the Island. It’s the one place Pandora’s box won’t work.” Anubis closed his eyes and turned his head skyward.
“It should never have been created.” Kagutsuchi said softly.
“It was agreed upon at the time that it was safer.” Lucifer reminded him.
“Obviously, we were wrong. If Pendragon could still do all that stuff, we wouldn’t have the Magnus problem.” Kagutsuchi said.
“We also wouldn’t have the Island or the Prison on the Island or Pendragon, it would have driven him mad,” my mother countered.
“Wait, wait, wait, I’m lost.” I spoke up for the first time since leaving the Chamber. “What exactly is the box?”
“Pendragon’s magic. All but the small amount he kept.” Leviathan turned to me. “Pendragon was not born just as a negative. He didn’t just negate powers; he could use them to create anything he wanted. Much like you and your Witch leeching. But he was being driven mad by it. So, we worked with the Great Houses and created a box. Pendragon was able to put part of his magic in there. When he did, his mind became easier, calmer. But it created a box that could bring forth nightmares. Over the years, it has grown stronger because we have all been adding magic to it. After the Elder War, it became exceptionally powerful because the Overlords had had to kill so many that they were literally being driven mad by the power. So, we did the spell again and drained away all that extra magic and put it in the box.”
“How’d it come to be known as Pandora’s Box?”
“Shortly after the power draining by the Overlords, a Human got hold of the box and opened it. You wouldn’t believe the things she brought forth. Her name was Pandora. It just stuck.” Mammon told me.
“This box then, it is actually an accumulative cauldron of magic from all the Elder Breeds plus unheard of magic from Pendragon?”
“Yes,” several Elders answered.
“And we stuck it in a throne instead of burying it on the Island under a dragon’s nest why, exactly?”
“Because we thought it safer with Lucifer’s behind stuck on it than a dragon’s.” Morgana gave a small smile.
“Okie dokie, just checking,” I went back to being silent. We weren’t just going up against a coven of twisted Witches; we were going up against magic like the world had never seen. Facing Cerebus seemed like an easier task, by far.
“Holy… wow…” Eli suddenly exclaimed after several minutes of quiet.
“What?” Anubis looked at him.
“Do you realize what you are saying?”
“Yes.”
“No, really understand. We aren’t just going up against magic here. We are going against raw, untamed magic and it is plentiful.”
“We know,” Levi answered.
“Do you really?” Eli frowned at him, then turned to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Imagine facing a Coven of Strachans,” he answered.
The thought tumbled through my mind for a minute. A coven was technically 12. There could be more or less, depending, but we’d go with 12. Twelve Witches leeching magic from Elders and using it as wild magic. The thought gave me a chill.
“She gets it,” Eli shook his head. “We are going against a Great House, a bunch of Witches that have formed a rogue Coven and a box full of Elder magic that is all wild. That’s a bit like facing down twelve exact copies of Brenna after she’s been sitting in a Council meeting for days.”
Everyone turned and looked at me. I scowled and felt my brow try to wrinkle. My mother’s eyes were wide. So was everyone else’s. Only Eli and Daniel looked at me like I hadn’t just sprouted a second head.
“This is bad,” Lucifer finally said after a few more quiet minutes.
“I think that is an understatement,” Morgana corrected.
“That box is omnipotent,” Eli added.
“But it has to have a master, someone to guide it,” Levi shook his head.
“It does and he seems to have taken offense to you guys,” my mother sighed again.
“What exactly should we prepare for then?” Ba’al asked.
“Hell to break loose,” I finally joined the conversation again. “If it was me and I was angry at the world, my Catholic upbringing would probably play a role in what I created. It would be fire and brimstone all the way.”
“You always were a little twisted,” Levi said.
“You asked and Magnus is both a Witch and a Catholic. Who knows what terrors his mind can and will create.”
“Ok, so we don’t know where or when or how, but we are going to go after this box?” Eli asked.
“That sounds about right,” Anubis answered. “And if we’re really lucky, it won’t be as bad as we think.”
“I’m never lucky. It just isn’t in my blood.” I sighed at them.
Chapter Forty-Six
We didn’t wait much longer. The first call to my house happened while we were still trying to figure out where they were going to strike. They struck in New KC.
The creature was described as being a silhouette. It was large, black and seemed capable of eating Elders. It had scaled a large apartment building, plucking beings from the windows.
There had been a second when I had had a vision from the original King Kong film, where Kong plucks Fay Ray from her apartment and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building. This had gone away just as quickly, when they said it had eaten someone. Police were on the scene, but they could use Hunters for back-up.
As Hunters we went. The rest of our Elder hoard came with us. The army loaded up into cars or took to the skies. Unfortunately, I felt myself swept up and was suddenly in the sky. I hate flying.
We could see it before we got there. It really didn’t have any discernible features. It was just a moving black mass. Glass rained down from the sky as it laboriously climbed the side of a building.
Ba’al set me down, away from the falling glass. He raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. Gabriel shrugged in response.
“What’s the code about?” I asked.
“No code. He looked at me; I don’t have a clue what it is or what to do, so I shrugged.” Gabriel informed me.
“Oh, so we are going to stand here and watch it destroy the building?”
“And hope it doesn’t eat anyone else.” Ba’al responded.
“That doesn’t seem like a very good plan.”
“It isn’t,” Anubis answered. “We are going to have to be proactive, but I am not sure how. I’m open to suggestions.”
“Funny, I was going to ask for suggestions,” I turned, shading my eyes as I stared up at the creature.
“Brenna, I’ll fly you up and drop you on it,” Gabriel grabbed hold of me.
“I don’t think that’s a plan.” I shouted as we rushed higher.
“It’s the best I got at the moment.”
“And if I get thrown off and plummet to the ground?”
“We’ll deal with it.” He shouted back.
This didn’t appease me. If I fell off, it was a long fall towards the ground. I was pretty sure I was going to fall off, if not fall through the creature. He didn’t seem to be exactly corporeal.
Before I could tell Gabriel this, he dropped me. I fell right through the thing. Luckily, Gabriel caught me on the way down.
“That sucked!” I yelled at him.
“And a complete failure,” he yelled back.
“We learned that it isn’t corporeal.”
“Is that helpful?”
“I don’t know. How far away would Magnus need to be to let the thing out of the box?”
“He could be around the corner or on another continent.”
“That was also really unhelpful,” I told him.
We landed on the ground. I looked at Ba’al.
“We saw you go through it,” Ba’al frowned.
“Does that help?”
“Glad that Gabriel caught you. That would have been a really long fall.” Ba’al responded.
“It helps. I don’t think any of your superpowers are going to work. Fire isn’t going to hurt it. It probably doesn’t have a soul, so it won’t…” Anubis got a faraway look on his face.
“What?”
“Where is Rachel?”
“At home,” I reminded him.
“Get her here.” He rushed away from me. I dug out my phone and called Rachel.
“You’re wanted,” I told her instead of hello when she answered the phone.
“Huh?”
“Anubis wants you down here for some reason. I think it has to do with your superpowers.”
“Oh boy, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Hey, just think about all you’re doing for mankind and elderkind and the world in general.”
“It doesn’t sound any better when you say it that way.”
“Ok, then think of it as protecting your unborn and mom’s unborn and Eli’s unborn and…”
“Shut up, I’m on my way,” Rachel hung up on me.
“She coming?” Ba’al asked.
“Yep and she sounds pissed. Someone else is going to deal with her, I don’t do well with the hormonal female-pregnant Demon thing.” I told him. I wandered away.
Not far. I couldn’t do any Witch magic and my Demon magic wasn’t really helpful in this situation. So, moving too far from the group seemed like a bad idea.
I was sure Magnus was around here somewhere. He was watching his handiwork. All crazy people do. I had learned that on my first day as a Hunter.
The windows were reflecting the scene back to me. Not giving away any of their secrets behind their tint. I couldn’t feel any magic. I couldn’t see any magic. I felt blinded by the lack of magic.
Noise from behind me, I watched in the reflective windows. The creature shattered a window and pulled something out. It tossed it down an opening that I could only assume was a mouth.
“Where the hell is Rachel?” I muttered.
“Coming, it was just a dog,” Gabriel said to me.
“Good to know.”
“They’ve cleared all the surrounding buildings.”
“Also good to know.”
“It wasn’t hard after it ate a Fey. Morgana is pissed. She felt them die.”
“So it can kill us.”
“Yes, it just seems to be too stupid to figure out where the people are. It seems enamored on climbing to the highest part of the buildings and breaking glass.”
“Guess it’s a good thing Magnus didn’t think about giving it a brain.” I finally turned back around.
“This Magnus thing is eating at you.”
“Isn’t it you?”
“Not really. We’ve been turned on before though.”
“He was supposed to be a friend, someone we could trust. I hate that he’s behind this.”
“Live a few millennia and nothing beings do really surprises you.”
“I feel like I should be doing something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, killing that thing and returning it to the box.”
“I don’t think you can kill it.”
“No, I don’t think I can either. What’s Anubis got planned with Rachel?”
“I don’t know, I rarely understand the inner workings of Anubis’s mind when he is plotting out battle strategy.”
“I hope I’m half as good as him by the time the War comes.”
“I’m sure you will be better, Brenna. It is destined. How long do you think it will take her?”
“I don’t know, we should have sent someone that could fly.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
“We did,” Ba’al’s voice came to me. He pointed towards the sky. Marcus was carrying my very pregnant sister. She didn’t seem very happy about it. I understood.
They landed with a small thud and Rachel clobbered Marcus. Marcus staggered, shook his head and smiled. Rachel frowned even harder.
“I love a pregnant Elder,” Marcus gave me a look. He was intentionally baiting my pregnant sister.
“Shut up and go flush yourself,” Rachel snapped at him.
“Good, you’re here.” Anubis whisked over to us. “I need you to drain the world of hope or at least several city blocks. I’m sure Magnus is here, but finding him is going to be difficult.”
“And my draining the world of hope helps how?” She narrowed his eyes at him.
“If he is filled with despair, he may give up his location and or the box.” Anubis said this like it should be completely clear.
“If I refuse?” Rachel asked.
“We have to think of something else.” As if to emphasis the urgency, more glass shattered and glittered as it cascaded to the street. Bits of flying glass whizzed through the a
ir as the shards splintered upon impact with the concrete.
“Damn,” Rachel shook her head. I watched as her horns began to glow slightly. She closed her eyes. Dark clouds began to form overhead.
But they didn’t look like storm clouds. They looked like volcanic clouds. They were pitch black in color, allowing no light to penetrate. There were no silver linings on these clouds.
Within a few minutes, people were flipping on flash lights to see. The world around us was growing dangerously dark. The thing on the building was no longer visible.
As the last bit of sunlight faded, I felt myself begin to sink into despair. It wasn’t just hopelessness, it was pure anguish. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. I wanted to scream, but I seemed to have no breath. It seemed that everything good in the universe was gone.
The pinpricks of light from the flashlights didn’t seem to impact the mood. They seemed tiny, muted and far away. Even the light seemed depressed.
I heard sobbing in the darkness. I heard shuffling sounds and low mutterings. I heard crying and choked, stifled moans. Cerebus could bring darkness, but he had nothing on my sister. If I hadn’t been so depressed, I would have been proud of her.
“Do we think Magnus will come running to find out what this is?” I finally whispered to Anubis.
“Wouldn’t you?”
He had a point. If I had been holed up in one of these buildings and had been attacked by this, I’d come running. I’d want to know exactly what was going on.
“How much longer?” Rachel asked. I noticed her horns again. They were a bright spot in the darkness. Their glow more powerful than the flashlights and car headlights. I went to her. I wrapped my arms around her and some of my sadness lifted.
“You don’t feel it?” I asked her.
“Not really,” she put her head on top of mine. “I am sorry, Bren, you shouldn’t have to experience this.”
“I’ve experienced worse.” Every night when I closed my eyes, but I didn’t tell her that.
I clung to Rachel like she was my only tether on life. I felt the baby move inside her, it kicked gently against my arm. Some more happiness returned.