by Ana Calin
“Then what are we doing here?” One of his minions asks as they reach the library doors. All of the other boys stop behind Zillard, staring at him with questions in their eyes.
He may not be the biggest of his group, but he is the most imposing. Those stony black eyes that no one can read drives fear into people, and that keeps even the older Academy bullies meek. Not to mention that he’s the son of Hades. Both his looks and his heritage make people wary of him at a glance, but to me he’s just a worm. As a Grim Reaper I could strike him dead right here, right now, from the shadow of the night. But I’d still need a damned good reason for killing him, so it’s good that I didn’t act on impulse a moment ago.
The doors to the library open, revealing a darkness deeper than the night. But fireless torches light up with every step Zillard and his minions take, revealing shelves so high one can’t see the top of them. It’s a palace of books, a place that could fascinate any bookworm.
Zillard’s boys may not understand his plans, waiting for him to explain, but it’s actually not rocket science. One of the world’s greatest secrets and greatest truths is that time and space are so closely linked they can serve as portals for each other. People feel the need to return to places of their past because they feel the place could transport them back into time, which modern psychologists frown upon as self-delusion, but they’re wildly wrong. Even the human body can be used as a portal through time, and it can regain its former youth, if one knows how to do it.
“If I were Satan,” Zillard explains to his followers as they walk deeper into the library, the fireless torches lighting up in their path, “I wouldn’t hide the information on my Red Queen anywhere in the magical world. But I would have to keep it somewhere. The word, Logos, is the most important thing in magic. If he hadn’t written down the words about the Red Queen, she wouldn’t have come into existence. But the words about her should be so tightly guarded that no magical creature could ever get to them, ever understand them.”
They reach a nook in the sidewall, a book open on an intricately carved silver rack. It’s one of the Heathen Gospels, found at the bottom of the ocean hundreds of years ago. The writing is so bleary the Gospel is impossible to read, but its magic is nevertheless so strong everybody feels it. The boys shudder as its magic reaches their skin. I’m in shadow form, but even I can still feel my outer layer prickle.
Zillard places himself in front of the book, raising his hands over its pages, and closing his eyes. He murmurs spells, emanating dark magic. His friends cringe, because his magic comes from Tartarus. It’s dark and crushing, and under it the pages turn to mirror glass. The mirror becomes liquid, starts to swirl, and it morphs into a portal—a portal between realms, hidden in the Academy library.
Zillard opens his eyes and touches the tips of his fingers to the liquid mirror. They sink into it, and then the swirling portal swallows him inch for inch. His friends stare, some of them step back, but none of them dares make a sound.
“Wait for me here.”
But none of them dares follow except me. I use my magic to put them to sleep. Viggo Dark, Zillard’s brother, is the last one to fall to the floor in deep slumber before I plunge into the portal after Zillard.
The Lord Protector
I RETURN TO LUCIA’S room, infiltrating through the walls. The window is closed, but in the form of shadow I don’t need doors. I keep telling myself I didn’t come here because I couldn’t resist my need to be close to her, but because Zillard found what he was looking for in the library of the University of Silverdale, in the mortal world—indeed, where no magical creature would think to look for it.
It was brilliant of him, I have to give him that. But I couldn’t let him have the information, so I slipped the Sumerian Book of Prophecies from his hands while he transported himself through the portal back to the Flipside library. His cry of frustration reverberated through the entire Academy when he emerged on this side with empty hands. It woke even that bastard Samuel Black, the Headmaster, who raced down the hallways with his vampire cape billowing behind him, others professors joining him as he sped down to the library and barged in to find a raging Zillard Dark punching shelves and splintering reading tables with his fists. His friends had retreated to safety behind the professors and students pouring in, while my shadow slinked along the walls and crawled out of there.
I should have gone through the portal back to my mansion and started poring over the Book of Prophecies right away, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave. Feeling her presence within the Academy walls, hear her breathing, being so aware of her, I couldn’t resist coming back to see her.
And here she is in her bed, red locks spread over her pillow. She seems a Sleeping Beauty with her almost translucent white skin, her innocent freckles and that sexy little mole above her pouty upper lip. The need to bend down and kiss her runs through me, but no. That would mean taking human shape, touch my lips to hers, and that would put her in danger.
I wish I could blame this all on Silas and have a word with him, but I know better than anyone resisting her was beyond him. He can’t refuse her calling, he’s compelled to come to her. It’s me that deserves to be punished for what I’m doing now. I’m here because I can’t resist my own lust—the dirty lust for a nineteen-year-old girl.
Giselle Midwinter snores lightly in her bed, face to the wall, her grey-silver hair glowing in the moonlight. I slowly take human shape from the shadow, keeping my senses sharp to pick up any changes in the fae’s breathing, so I can disappear before she wakes up.
I bend down to Lucia, looking closely at her pretty face. Her lips are slightly parted and her forehead relaxed in her sleep—she’s exhausted, and stress has already left a few lines on her young face. Her appearance has changed, she’s gained the glow of a supernatural since I unblocked her magical powers, but these past few days still took a toll. First the pressure of the test, then the dungeon, from where she was only released an hour before her first class at the Academy. Her first class during which someone already tried to kill her.
No, I can’t keep away from her anymore, it would mean leaving her unprotected. The Headmaster is basically hunting her down using his many minions, and Giselle Midwinter isn’t enough to protect her. Maverick would step in for her, but that would draw the Headmaster and even the Board’s wrath to him.
I am the only one powerful enough to step in for her, even if there would be consequences for me as well. Before I know it, I press my lips on hers.
This is unheard of, outrageous—a Grim Reaper losing hold of himself in such away, kissing a nineteen-year-old girl. I force myself to pull away, but she moans in my mouth, her lips plump and hot as if she has a fever. But I know it’s just the way her body responds to me. I can feel her hands gently sinking into my mane at the back of my neck, knotting in my hair.
By the cursed realms, how I love her touch, feeling desired by her this way.
I tempt her lips tenderly with my tongue, and she opens her mouth, allowing me to deepen the kiss. Damn it, the chemistry we have is through the roof. Her body calls to me in a way no woman’s ever has. It’s not only irresistible. I feel deep to my core that it would be a sin not to give in to it. I might never experience something like this again, and neither might she.
I slip under the she sheets with her, pressing my naked body to hers as I fully transform from shadow into a man. Only her fluffy pink pajamas stand between us, her scent slithering through my nostrils to my head. I tear myself from her as her eyelids start to flutter, her breathing changing as she wakes up. Yet by the time she opens her eyes all that’s left of me is a breeze that seems to come out of nowhere.
The soft breeze blows through Lucia’s hair as she sits up, but I’ve already flown out of the building in my shadow form. She can’t know that I was there. I float outside her window, watching her touch her lips with her fingers, taking her other hand to her chest. My breath catches. That’s where our skin touched.
By the cursed real
ms, I can’t let this happen. I can’t be falling in lust with the Red Witch. With the Red Queen—because she is Satan’s weapon against the supernaturals, and I know it. But still I infiltrated her inside the Academy, placing her wellbeing above the others’, something a Lord Protector should never do. Maybe Samuel was right all along—deep down, I’m not suitable for the position. But you know what? Neither is he.
Besides, Red Queen or not, Lucia is still an innocent, tortured soul full of love, a soul that I feel so deeply for that I just can’t let her be thrown into the pit. I will continue to protect her, no matter what.
I fly away and take human form back at the Flipside version of my mansion. The Book of Prophecies takes physical form at the same time I do, forming out of the shadows. Gordon is already lurking around the portal when I emerge back into my mansion in the mortal world.
“Have Silas and Maverick come to see me in the morning,” I tell the butler in a powerful voice, making him jump from his hideout. I usually let him think he manages to sneak around, so that he doesn’t develop cleverer strategies, but I’m not in the mood for games today. Protecting Lucia is an urgent matter, and I can use all the help I can get.
Silas
MAVERICK IS ALREADY in the Lord Protector’s office. Bile rises to my throat when I see him, but it makes sense that the Lord Protector summoned both of us. In the end, we are the three supernaturals who have formed a tacit alliance to look after Lucy, and I should be thankful for that. She is officially my woman, and yet there are three of us watching over her. Only that it’s not entirely unconditional. Maverick has got the hots for her, no matter how hard he tries to hide it even from himself, and the Lord Protector has taken the attitude of a father figure, or so it seems.
“The Sumerian Book of Prophecies,” the Lord Protector begins after Maverick and I have taken our seats. He motions to a thick tome in the middle of his desk. The book is clearly ancient, with a bronze cover and pages made of plants, the way ancient civilizations in the Bronze and even the Stone Age used in order to record their wisdom. Supernaturals have access to a wealth of those, while humans don’t even know that people could write fluently in those days, but what puzzles me now is something else.
“The Book of Prophecies is supposed to be a legend,” I say, reaching over the desk to touch it. I close my eyes for a moment when my fingertips make contact with the bronze cover, feeling the metal through my skin and dating it using my own inner chemistry. “By the cursed realms,” I breathe. “It’s real.”
“It is,” the Lord Protector says.
Maverick just stares at the book without saying anything. He’s not a man to express his emotions, but I’m pretty sure he’s as much in awe as I am.
“And you won’t believe where it was—or who had the brilliant idea to look for it there. It was Zillard Dark, son of Hades.”
“Excuse me?” I glance from him to Maverick, but for the warlock the news seems to make sense.
“He’s bullying Lucia at the Academy,” he explains.
“I’ll have his head,” I growl.
“I don’t think a direct intervention from you would make matters any better.” Maverick keeps his calm, but there’s a tick in his jaw behind the shade of his three-day-beard.
“It would put Dark in his place.”
“Lucia managed to do that herself yesterday, but he won’t stop,” the Lord Protector puts in. “He’ll be watching her like a hawk, waiting for the slightest mistake. I needed to find a way and protect her more efficiently.” He taps the book.
I narrow my focus on the book. “It seems strange that Zillard Dark would know exactly where to look for it. You say it was brilliance, I say someone told him.”
“Believe me, I’d prefer to think the boy isn’t so smart as well,” the Lord Protector says. “It would make him less dangerous, less unpredictable, but I’m afraid it was him.”
“My bet is that Vanessa Morgan dug deep. I’m certain it was her who figured out where the book was,” Maverick says. “Otherwise Dark would have searched for it there long before.”
“Could be, he went straight to the Esoteric section,” the Lord Protector muses.
“What does it say,” Maverick inquires evenly, nodding his bearded chin at the book. “About the Red Queen. Does it talk about her hidden powers, or about her true parents?”
The Lord Protector looks down, the bronze cover reflecting against his bright hazel eyes. Worry nestles in my chest. Why doesn’t he answer?
“Lord Protector?” I nudge.
The Lord Protector stands and moves slowly to the Ambrose cabinet, picking three crystal tumblers. So we’re gonna need supernatural alcohol to discuss this. Great.
“Things are more worrying that I expected,” the Lord Protector explains as he walks back to us with filled tumblers. His scythe glints behind him in the far corner. “And it doesn’t have to do with her hidden powers or her parents. It has to do with us, and what our—” His eyes move between Maverick and me. “With how we feel about her.”
“We?” I react.
“Feelings?” Maverick says.
The Lord Protector paces the room as he continues, tumbler in his hand. “The Prophecy says that the Red Queen will bring three great men to their knees. You see, Silas, apparently she’s not made to be with only one man.”
“Like the whore of Babylon,” Maverick says through his teeth.
“Don’t you fucking talk about her like that,” I snap.
“According to the prophecy this is exactly what her maker planned,” the Lord Protector intervenes. “That men would fight and hate each other over her. But no, Maverick, she is not the whore of Babylon. She is supposed to give birth to her.”
Both Maverick and I stop breathing. Though he only seduced her in order to come between us, he can’t hide the truth, not from me. He lusts after the girl, and he’s losing the battle with his own feelings.
“She had a vision once,” the warlock says quietly. “She saw herself in my crystal globe, three symbols she didn’t understand, like hieroglyphs, coming out of her mouth. She described them to me, and I deciphered them later. It was three words in old Sumerian—Magic, War and Death.”
“The three of us,” I breathe, the blood leaving my head. “You, the warlock. Me, ademigod of war. And the Lord Protector, the Grim Reaper.”
No, this can’t be happening. After millennia in which no woman has even tempted me, destiny can’t be so cruel. I can’t have fallen in love with a woman who cannot be only mine. “No, she loves me, only me. Her feelings for me are real, I sense that every time she looks at me.”
“Her feelings are real,” the Lord Protector says with an understanding that only an ancient creature is capable of. “But she has feelings for Maverick, too. And before you throw in my face that I’m responsible for what happened between the two of them, which I accept full responsibility for, it doesn’t change anything about that prophecy. What happened was basically written in the stars.”
“But there’s got to be something we can do about it,” I insist. “About the prophecy. We have to prevent that she gives birth to the whore of Babylon, at all costs.”
“The easiest way would be to leave her prey to Zillard Dark.” Maverick’s eyes meet mine for the first time since I walked in here, and they’re shooting daggers. “We could let her die at the Academy, or tell the Headmaster the truth, and let him throw her into the pit.”
“You know damn well that’s not the kind of stopping I was thinking about. And you’re not really considering it either.”
“The first thing we have to do is not turn against each other, but work together,” the Lord Protector’s voice intervenes like a calming river.
“It would help a great deal if you would tell us what the prophecy says, exactly,” Maverick prompts him.
The Lord Protector takes a deep breath, swirling the tumbler slowly in his hand. It’s not like him to hover, so this has got to be bad. I brace myself for the hit.
“App
arently the only way to prevent the prophecy from coming to life is not allowing her to ever lose her virginity to a single man.”
“What?” Maverick reacts.
“The prophecy starts with a sort of riddle. No single man is to claim her virginity. If he does, the Red Queen will be awoken to her full power, and she’ll enslave him, and all men who follow—and more men are bound to follow, Lucifer would see to that. She would turn all those men into servants of hell.”
It takes heavy moments of silence until it sinks in. I shake my head in an attempt to reboot my brain.
“Are you saying Lucy can never make love to a man?”
“The riddle says she cannot lose her virginity to a single man.”
“But she will be with someone sooner or later. She’s young, she has a whole lifetime ahead of her, and we can’t possibly control everything she does. The only solution would be to keep her imprisoned for the rest of her life, and I’m sure that would be as bad as the pit.” Maverick says.
“There is another way—for us to make sure she never gets deflowered,” the Lord Protector replies. “If she never loses her virginity, she cannot fully become the Red Queen, and fall pregnant with the whore of Babylon.”
That means I can never pour my love inside of my Lucy. The realization is crushing.
“You’re not tied to this relationship, Silas.” The Lord Protector says as if reading my mind. “You can back down from it if you think you can’t cope with her closeness without craving her body.”
“My feelings for Lucia Reid are much deeper than lust. I would make any sacrifice for her.” I reply thickly, glancing over at Maverick. He’s burning with rage, I can see it behind the dark, brooding expression on his face.
“Even if that were true,” the Lord Protector says, “romantic love is tightly entwined with lust. Sooner or later, you will give in to it.”
“I’m ready to live with Lucia in chastity.”
Maverick puffs as if I’m talking nonsense.
“Even so,” the Lord Protector muses. “It would be a life of torment. Not only for you, but also for her, having you so close, and yet never feel you.”