by Platt, Sean
Jacob flinched, bracing for punishment before his mind reminded his body that he no longer had to fear Father’s wrath.
“You don’t know me!” he yelled at the wizard.
“Why are you upset? I’m complimenting you for your mercy. A mercy your father never had. You got what you want. Your father is dead. The Kingdom is yours. You have the people’s respect. You have the entire kingdom and all that your position affords. This is what you dreamed of as a child, is it not? Taking over the throne?”
“I’m no longer that child, and the throne is not enough. I’m tired of being subjected to other people’s rules. You can’t do this. You can’t go here. You must stay on this tiny shithole of an island. You must sit and watch your brothers and sisters die out as a species. Must, must, must, must! Fuck your musts! I refuse to obey anyone ever again. They will all bow to me, bow and serve … or die.”
“This isn’t you, Jacob. This is your grief. This is your pain talking. But you are better than this.”
“Fuck you,” Jacob said, “you don’t know me. But you will soon enough. And you’re going to help me realize my plans.”
Jacob walked to the mirror, caught his reflection in the fractured glass. His eyes were wild, full of fire, and a confidence he’d not felt in years.
He smiled at his reflection, bent to retrieve the amulet, slipped it around his neck, then tucked it under his shirt.
“It’s time you see just how little you know the real me.”
Jacob spit on the mirror, then turned on his heel and headed downstairs. Time to visit his little brother.
Fifty-Three
Abigail
Abigail woke in an unfamiliar bed to the muffled sounds of people talking.
A lantern’s dim light revealed a small bedroom, a woman’s judging from the decorations on the dresser and hangings on the wall.
Her memory was foggy as she tried to figure out where she was, and how she got there. She sat up, slowly, so as not to make a sound and alert whoever might be nearby.
Abigail noticed that she wasn’t wearing the same clothes. She was in a white cotton dress, probably some kind of sleepwear, with no socks or underwear.
She stepped onto the cold stone floor, and focused on the voices outside her door, trying to recognize them.
Men and women talking, cordially. A good sign.
She cupped her hand against the door, listening more intently. There were at least seven or eight voices. She could sense even more people behind the doorway.
Then she heard a laugh she’d never forget.
She opened the door and ran out, yelling, “Larry!”
She ignored everyone else in the large room — there were plenty — and ran right toward Larry, stopping short before hugging him, since her arms and legs were fully exposed.
She couldn’t hug him, but bounced like a giddy little girl.
“Abigail!” he shouted, smiling. “Oh my God, I thought we’d never see you again.”
We’d?
Abigail felt him before she saw him.
Her angel.
John.
He was standing next to a woman with long dark auburn hair, and a large older man who reminded her of a bear.
She ran to John.
He opened his arms, picked her up, and pulled her into a big, deep hug.
“John,” she cried into his shoulder, “I’m so sorry I left.”
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing his hand along her back. “Everything is okay.”
She kept crying into his shoulder, the weight of the past two weeks unspooling in his embrace. From accidentally killing that family and burning their house down to Katya’s unintended murder to nearly dying on this world, it all washed away in a torrent of tears now that John was with her again.
“It’s okay. I’m here now, Abigail. We’re all here, and everything will be fine. But first, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
He set her down, then put a gloved hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Abigail, this is Hope.”
Abigail’s only recollection of Hope was in her first vision when she and John first met and were hiding in that motel, back when he still had amnesia. But Abigail hadn’t forgotten what she looked like, and she was even more beautiful in person.
“Hi,” Abigail said, awkwardly waving, knowing she couldn’t hug the woman without turning her to ash.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Hope said, smiling, tears in her eyes. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
“Me too. I mean glad to meet you, not for you to meet me. Um, you know what I mean,” Abigail said, laughing.
She wasn’t sure what to say next. Did Hope know that John was a vampire? That Abigail was a vampire? She probably knew everything, considering she followed John to this other world.
Abigail looked up at John. “Did you come here to find me?”
“That, and something else.”
“What?”
John explained how Jacob had crystals that held a powerful wizard’s soul. With them he could do pretty much whatever he wanted. John had come to Otherworld with a group of people to stop Jacob, but most had been killed along the way. He also told her that his good brother, Caleb, was here and had been working with The Hand of the Seven Gods, but he’d been taken by Jacob, and now they were going to go rescue him.
Then, Abigail remembered.
“Jacob! He … he had me again!”
Talani had been with her. Abigail looked around the room, but didn’t see her. “Where’s my friend? The girl I was with when Jacob came after me?”
“Talani?” John said, “She’s in one of the bedrooms, resting.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, she had a long day, and lost someone.”
“Who?”
“Judith.”
“Judith died?” Abigail felt a tightness in her chest. As much as she’d wanted to kill Judith not too long ago, that changed the moment she learned what the woman had done for Talani. Now Abigail only felt loss, and pain for Talani.
“How did she die?”
“Talani’s sister killed her.”
“Her sister? Talani’s sister is alive?” She spun around the room, heart racing, excited, wanting to meet her. Wanting to see the two of them finally reunited.
“Yes, she’s in one of the bedrooms resting with her.”
Abigail looked around the room they were in — large with no windows, and several doors presumably each leading to bedrooms like the one where she’d woken. A bulk of the main room had tables, chairs, and a small kitchen area, though it had no refrigerator or other appliances. There was probably no such thing as electricity, though the world did have proper toilets and running water, of sorts.
At the far end of the room was a large double door made of metal.
“Where are we?” she asked. It didn’t feel like Under Harbor.
“We’re in Golden Cove, in one of the barracks of The Covenant of the Hand of the Seven Gods.”
“Why are we here?”
“Because it’s safer, and they’re going to help us kill Jacob, then get Caleb back.”
Fifty-Four
Talani
Talani had wanted to sleep alone, needing time to digest everything that had happened. But when she admitted to her fatigue, Raina had insisted on resting in the same room, reluctant to leave her side.
They’d barely spoken since Raina showed up and killed Judith, with Raina telling her to wait until they were alone. She wasn’t sure if her sister distrusted John and his group, or her own Prophet and the others in Golden Cove.
At any rate, Talani’s stomach was in full churn as they were led to a room in The Citadel’s underground barracks.
The moment the door closed, she let loose.
“How could you do that?”
“What?” Raina asked, as if she didn’t know.
“You killed Judith without hesitation, without questioning, without any —”
“She deserved it.”
“Looks the same to me! Hell, she hasn’t aged a day. Nor have you. Well, too much. So I’m guessing she turned you?”
“She saved me. From a horrible situation.”
“Yeah, well, that must’ve been nice.”
Raina turned away, maybe to hide her tears.
Talani could only imagine the hell her sister had been through, how long she’d been a slave serving the sick desires of terrible monsters. Talani knew she should show sympathy, but something inside her refused to offer the thing her sister might need most.
Instead, Talani said, “It’s not my fault she didn’t save you. She tried, but we couldn’t find you. And too many people were coming after us. So we went to Earth, where we’ve been ever since. She risked everything to save me.”
Raina didn’t say anything. Didn’t look at her. Perhaps she was thinking about it, maybe even feeling regret.
Finally, Raina looked up at her. Eyes wet but not crying. “So, what? You want me to apologize for killing her? I can’t. Nor can I forgive her for what she did to us. To you.”
“I’m fine! She didn’t do anything to me. She was like a mother. She —”
Raina slapped Talani across the face, eyes glaring at her.
“She is not our mother!”
Talani rubbed her hand where Raina had hit her. It stung, even more because her sister had done it.
Now it was Talani trying not to cry.
“I didn’t say she was. But I don’t even remember our mother! I was too young when she died, and it’s been forever. Judith was the closest thing I had to family for a long time.”
“I am your family, not her.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
Before she could continue, Raina said, “I’m tired.”
She lay on the bed’s right side, fully dressed, not even covering herself with the sheets.
Talani was left standing there, wanting to finish the argument, but unable.
She seethed, and was tempted to push back, force her sister to finish the conversation, but then, staring at the back of her sister’s head, Talani thought back to the night Judith had come with Hugo. The night Hugo killed their father. And the look in Raina’s eyes when Judith dragged Talani out from under the bed. The pain in her voice as she begged for her sister’s life, offered her own in place of it.
Yes, she killed Judith, but hate didn’t drive her so much as love.
And while it hurt, Talani could understand.
Talani lay down on the bed to Raina’s left, also leaving her clothes on, cold and covering herself with a sheet, her mind swirling around the pain of Judith’s passing.
She was finally reunited with her sister — something she’d only imagined in her wildest dreams — and yet Talani had never felt more alone.
She still had Abigail, assuming she’d be okay, and it seemed like she would be. But Talani was still surprised by the emptiness she felt in the aftermath of Judith’s death.
She wondered if this was a normal reaction of loss, or if it was because her Master’s connection was severed. The parasite in her no longer had a bond — maybe she was feeling its loneliness.
She’d never thought of the disgusting creature inside her as having feelings or emotions. It had always seemed to push her primal thoughts — to feed, to fear, to fight — never something so complex as loss.
As Talani’s eyes grew heavy, she wondered if Raina was asleep.
She imagined her sister saying, “I’m sorry” just as she was about to drift off.
But the apology never came.
After a while she heard Raina get up. She thought to follow her out to the main room, maybe make amends.
But sleep’s hold was too strong.
Fifty-Five
John
Sitting at a table, watching Abigail and Talani smiling and joking while Larry and Hope were doing the same with Abalena, John wished like hell they weren’t on the brink of war.
But that’s exactly what he was planning while sitting at a round table with Prophet Malachi, Raina, Gerald, and Jonah.
Malachi had a map of The Southern Realm spread atop the table, with red Xs on the land just west of The Forgotten Kingdom’s island. “These are the tunnels they’ve been using to smuggle stuff in and out of the city. They’ll be guarded, but I doubt they’ll be ready for The Covenant’s full force.”
“Can we get any other cities to join?” Jonah asked Malachi.
“We need to keep this as insulated as possible. We don’t know if they have spies in the other camps or not. We keep it simple. The Covenant and your best men,” Malachi said to Jonah.
Jonah nodded. “I’ve already sent word to Baltazar to assemble some men.”
“Just the wolves, right?” Gerald asked.
“We can trust his Valkoer,” Jonah snapped.
Gerald didn’t press, but John could tell that the matter wasn’t settled, and he’d likely discuss it further with Malachi and Raina out of earshot.
Malachi looked at John. “We will recover your brother. But I need to know something.”
“What’s that?”
“When were you going to tell me about the crystals?”
John looked up at Gerald, who shook his head and said, “I didn’t say anything.”
John looked at a smiling Malachi. “So you do know about the crystals?”
John nodded. “And how do you know of them?”
“I have spies everywhere, John. Not much happens in The Realm without my knowledge. So, when were you planning to tell us that Prince, or I suppose I should say King Jacob, now that he has killed his father, has a powerful weapon that could destroy us all?”
John wasn’t sure what he hated more, Malachi’s smug expression, his stupid white eyebrows, or his arrogance disguised as piety. But he kept his emotions in check, not giving his host, or his army of fanatics, a reason to turn on him and his comrades.
“He won’t get a chance to use it. I’ll see to that.”
Malachi smiled. “You’re a confident man, not unlike your brothers. But what do you have beyond confidence? Surely not a magick crystal?”
“No,” he said, pointing to his head. “I’ve got this.”
Malachi smiled and folded his hands on the table. “So, you’re planning to outsmart him?”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m going in with nothing, that we may as well give up? If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’ve lost — we’ve lost — a lot fighting this man over the years, and I’m not going to lose anymore. He will die, and I’ll see to it.”
John met Malachi’s eyes, refusing to flinch until the other man looked nervously down.
“Okay,” Malachi said, “let’s say you do kill him. What do you plan to do with the crystals?”
John caught a glance from Raina that made him approach this question cautiously, with a lie.
“I’ll destroy them.”
“You can do that?” Malachi said, eyebrows raised.
“Yes.”
“And you’re just going to give up all that power. Some would say the power of a God?”
John had been briefed in whispers by Gerald on their way to Golden Cove that The Hand of the Seven Gods was a lot like The Guardians on Earth, highly opposed to magick and responsible for destroying what they found, often along with the magick users themselves.
John said, “Not the power of a God, the power of a wizard, a man. A man whose power does not belong in this world, or on Earth.”
“On that we do agree,” Malachi said. “Except one small thing: I want the crystals, to make sure that they are properly destroyed.”
I’ll bet you do, nut job.
John had no doubt that Malachi craved the power for himself. No man in charge of an entire religion, or who claimed to speak for The Gods, could be trusted with so much power. In that way he was even more like the Guardians than John initia
lly thought. They too liked to keep a lot of the artifacts that they deemed too “dangerous” for mere mortals.
Hypocrites, all of them.
From what Gerald told him, Malachi had already been a part of The Great Purge, using his Gods’ will to pursue people like John and Gerald. Their truce was only in force because of The North’s power, and the Town of Jonah’s stalwarts. But if that much power shifted to Malachi, everything in The Southern Realm could come tumbling down.
But John couldn’t refuse Malachi. He had to lie through his teeth.
John leaned forward. “You were surprised a moment ago when I said the crystals could be destroyed, so how is that you plan to destroy them?” It wasn’t confrontational so much as an attempt to mine a seemingly honest inquiry about the crystals’ destruction.
“I’ll speak with the Elders, and possibly come to you for assistance, if you would?”
“Yes, I’ll help however I can. The sooner they are destroyed, the sooner our worlds will be safe, and we can go home.”
Malachi nodded, then continued to go over their plan.
As Malachi planned and Gerald and Jonah argued about a few points of contention strategy wise, John met Raina’s eyes. She looked desperate to tell him something, but fuck if he knew when they might get a moment alone.
Then John realized that he had other options.
He reached out to Abigail.
Abigail, don’t say anything out loud. Just tell me telepathically if you can still hear me.
“Hi, John. I can hear you. What’s up?”
I think Raina wants to tell me something, but can’t around Prophet Malachi. I need you to let Talani know, and the next time they’re together, have her find out what it is, okay?
“Ten-four, good buddy,” she said with a giggle.
It felt good to hear the girl’s raspy, happy laugh. For a while he was afraid he might not ever hear it again.
Larry teach you that?
“Yeah. Did I say it right?”
Yeah, you did. Ten-four.
John continued listening as Malachi planned their assault on King Jacob’s castle for the next morning at dawn, but he was mostly listening to figure out his own best time to break free from the group. He wasn’t about to let Malachi’s men get the crystals, or allow anyone else to kill the King.