Qinglong noticed my attention, grunting thoughtfully before turning back to face me—his eyes latching onto the Seal of Solomon on my finger. “Dealing with devils is dangerous…”
I nodded knowingly. Being of the Solomon bloodline, dealing with devils was kind of our shtick. I knew I had a few devils in my life—Cain, Dorian, Roland, just to name a few. Not even considering the literal devils I had killed or held bound inside my Seal. Or Samael pursuing me. I shuddered, dismissing the thought.
Qinglong’s head absently shifted slightly from side to side, just like a cobra, but I could tell it wasn’t any kind of warning gesture. “Your mother spelled the Seal of Solomon so that it would take you here the first time you tried to visit the Temple with it. We are in her laboratory—and living quarters—within Solomon’s Temple. It is now all yours, of course.” He spread his hands about the room, indicating the books, artifacts, and varied collections with a sweep of his claws. “This represents the summation of her life’s work, locked safely inside Solomon’s Temple like a vault within a vault.”
I took in the red-flecked marble pillars and floors—very different from the white surfaces I had seen in the rest of the place. No wonder I hadn’t immediately recognized it.
My eyes drifted to the journal, and my breath caught. The journal I’d been reading…it had been my mother’s work. I’d been reading her notes and equations on the omegabet…
I leaned back in the couch, shaking my head slowly, trying to take it all in. “Why did she see fit to keep you here for so long? Surely she could have just left me a key and a note.”
He shook his head adamantly. “I am its protector. Relying on a ward for more than twenty years is asking for trouble.” I nodded, knowing he was right. “She warded this laboratory to maintain her privacy—a place where she could complete her work without fear. You see, she discovered that she was being watched—her very thoughts read by others. She needed a way to pass on her research to you without handing it over to her enemies as well…so she hired me to keep them out. To bar them from spying on her work.” He glanced at me, gauging my reaction. “You will need that protection now, Callie. This is her legacy to her daughter.”
I nodded, thinking back on the journal and the bizarre notes. “Solomon had intended to take me here, I think.”
Qinglong’s lips thinned, and he spoke almost defensively. “I was under very strict obligations—no one is permitted to enter before Callie,” he said. “No one. Solomon shouldn’t have tried entering. Not that he remembers anymore,” he muttered.
My stomach fluttered nervously. “What happened, Qinglong?”
“Solomon tried entering your mother’s laboratory before you. I defended the door. It’s why your mother bonded me in the first place. I am a Door God. I guard the entrances to sacred places and Temples. Letting in positive energy and barring negative energy.”
My mouth suddenly felt dry. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but I was pretty sure my mother wouldn’t have wanted Solomon injured. Then again…if this room was in Solomon’s Temple, the only people that could have tried entering—other than me—was Richard and Solomon. So maybe she had meant to keep them out.
“You’re a…bouncer?” I asked, hoping I could ease the tension, because he was obviously frustrated, and I didn’t particularly like the idea of a frustrated dragon this close to me.
He turned to me, narrowing his eyes. “A bouncer god,” he said, enunciating the last word.
I smiled. “I don’t want to come off as disrespectful, but I have a question.” He nodded. I licked my lips. “Did my mother distrust Solomon or Richard?”
He furrowed his brow—or the equivalent of such a gesture on a dragon—and shook his head resolutely. “She trusted them absolutely. Everyone in the Temple is blood bound—a family. But she said that no one could enter without your express permission—and only after you and I met. I did as obligated,” he repeated.
“What…did you do to Solomon?” I asked carefully, already having a pretty good idea.
“I put a growth in him. It will kill him, eventually.”
My eyes widened at his matter-of-factness. Was he talking about the black veins? “Um. What kind of timeline are we talking? And can you…ungrow it?”
He didn’t immediately answer, and the silence stretched between us until I began to fidget. “He has three or four days. I can…ungrow it,” he said, smirking at the phrase. “Or at least shed some light on how you can heal him yourself. But not yet.” He took a breath, settling lower on his haunches. “It is time for you to learn some things, and you will not relish the experience. For that, I am truly sorry. I only do as obligated.”
And that last sentence sounded like a felling axe chopping down an ancient tree.
Thanks, mom.
I studied Qinglong sidelong, trying to find similarities to him and his brother, Xuanwu. I wondered if he was also a ninja or something different. He had talked about wizards with familiarity and had mentioned guarding doors. Maybe that put him in a different field than his brother.
“I’m not going to pause for questions,” he said sternly. “I am going to share what your mother and father needed you to know. Although you likely have many questions, many of those will have to wait until a later time. Understood?”
I nodded, idly glancing at the black and white marbles atop the pedestals. At the note.
Qinglong snorted. “And you say you are nothing special,” he muttered.
I turned to him, frowning. “Pardon?” I asked, confused.
He pointed at the marbles. “Those are memories your parents preserved for you to view—at a later time,” he said, emphatically. “Exactly what I was just referring to, the questions that would have to wait.”
I shook my head wonderingly. “Memories?” I asked softly, re-reading the note in my mind. Mem. Or. E’s. Of course.
He nodded. “Your mother distilled her most significant memories into those marbles. You will experience events of her life from her point of view—as if you were seeing through her eyes. She wanted to be certain that no matter what happened to her, she would still be able to pass on certain things she thought you needed to know.”
My eyes widened incredulously. I hadn’t known such a thing was possible. Even thinking about how to replicate such a feat made my brain hurt.
“The white marbles include narration—where she went back over her memory to provide footnotes or other information pertinent to the memory she may not have known at the time. The black marbles are without commentary. Raw memory.”
I grunted, shaking my head. “How do they work?”
“Simply place the marble on your tongue and make sure you are seated. Your mind will go into a trance of sorts, like a daydream, and you don’t want to later come out of the memory only to realize your body fell down and got a concussion on the side table. Limit yourself to no more than a few experiences per week. They are…addictive. Many a wizard has grown to depend on them, their bodies wasting away in the process. Dwelling too long on the past can be toxic to your health—even more so when magic enters the equation.”
I nodded slowly, reconsidering how beautiful they were with a slight shiver.
He dusted his claws significantly. “Now, let us talk about Calvin and Makayla Temple, your parents’ best friends…”
Chapter 33
I froze, staring at him blankly. Hold on a second. Best friends?
First Excalibur and now this? Calvin and Makayla Temple. Nate’s parents. The parents who had hidden so much from their son, lied to him, and generally made his life a living hell. And now I learned that they had been sniffing around my family tree, pissing on the trunk.
I knew we leased space to them for the Armory, but best friends? I wondered if Qinglong knew—or cared—that Nate’s parents were dead.
Spoiler alert: they’re deadsies.
“Okay…” I said, hesitantly.
“Your parents fought side by side with the Temples, searching out clues,
weaknesses, and information on an enemy who was not yet known back then. They searched out powerful artifacts and weapons, storing them in the Armory.” I nodded to let him know I was aware of that, at least. “One of those items was Excalibur. They knew it—along with many other items—would be crucial to winning this upcoming war. But despite their best efforts, and many victories, they ultimately came to the conclusion that they were a generation too soon. That the war would start much later, and too late for them to be of proper help—because they had already drawn too much attention to themselves. Their enemies knew them intimately, and it was only a matter of time before the enemy took them out of the equation.”
I nodded woodenly, thinking of all the secrets Nate’s parents had kept from him. How even now, he was learning new facts about this upcoming war his parents had warned him about. Hearing that my parents had been their friends, and that my mother had wanted this laboratory to keep her research safe, made me realize that maybe Nate’s parents hadn’t been able to tell him the truth. They knew they were being watched, so couldn’t openly tell him anything…therefore, they cleverly hid breadcrumbs in his path—like I was beginning to learn my parents had done for me.
And Xuanwu’s cryptic comments suddenly made more sense. He’d been talking about this upcoming war but hadn’t wanted to say it where he could be overheard. Or he hadn’t known if he could trust me yet.
“The families—for you and the Temples are not the only such children involved,” he added with a sideways glance, his look letting me know that those details were none of my business, “decided that rather than giving up, they could help empower the next generation. But in a fit of irony, the only way they could do that—and keep you children safe from the enemy—was to put as much distance between them and their children as possible. And they had to make it like they took all their secrets to the grave. If anyone had suspected they had passed on those secrets, or powers, they had accumulated to their children…none of you would have survived. Unlike some of the others, your parents didn’t have money or allies to keep them safe. And they thought raising you here in Solomon’s Temple would make you separate from the world, unmotivated to help. So…” he trailed off, gesturing with his claw.
“They left me on the steps…to protect me,” I whispered. “Hiding my identity from everyone. And then hid the Seal of Solomon in Kansas City…” I said, momentarily reliving that night I’d visited in the Doors.
He nodded, a proud look on his face. “They spelled the Seal—and your crib—so that you would one day find them, in one way or another. You would have felt drawn to them.”
I shook my head slowly, staring off at nothing.
“It was the only chance they had to guarantee you lived long enough to potentially become a threat—to let you, year by year, gather up the pieces they so carefully hid along your paths. Along the paths they hoped you would take. Maybe a nudge in the right direction every now and then,” he added with a flicker of a smile.
“Live to fight another day,” I said softly, shaking my head.
To learn that Nate and I—and other children—had been part of some sinister plot, part of some design…it made me want to chew rocks and spit bullets.
I took slow, measured breaths, trying to study the big picture compared to what was happening in Kansas City right now. Maybe these things were what Xuanwu had been referring to. About children. Babes with blades, he had said.
The Temples had orchestrated this like a murder mystery dinner, setting up numerous gods and legends to cross Nate’s path in St. Louis and now he had a veritable army. And they had helped my parents—
I slowly turned to Qinglong. “It was their idea to hide Excalibur’s name inside me, wasn’t it? Calvin and Makayla.” I wasn’t sure if I was furious or…grateful. I just felt cold.
Qinglong nodded mercilessly. “Excalibur granted you an added measure of protection, concealing your true aura. Your bloodline. And it was undetectable,” he added with a gentle smile. “The Temples also suggested putting you in the care of Abundant Angel Catholic Church. They had heard good things of the pastor there, that he was a good man.”
I grew lightheaded for a moment, staring at him in open disbelief.
Qinglong nodded. “And in return, they extended the lease for their Armory, hoping that one day their children would meet. And have the tools necessary to succeed where they had failed.”
“And who is this mysterious enemy?”
“The Masters,” he said soberly. “Whatever information your parents discovered about them is in your mother’s journals and memories. But essentially, they are a conglomerate of gods, monsters, and other supernatural beings or entities who intend to establish a new world order—with Regulars and Freaks as their servants. To go back to the old days when they were feared, revered, and worshipped, rather than mocked, parodied, stereotyped, and romanticized as they are in current times. Their stories perverted into Disney movies rather than the grim parables they actually were.”
I shook my head. “They want to come out of the woodwork—reveal themselves to the world,” I breathed. “Putting the monster back in monsters.” It would be chaos—mass attacks, magic used openly, basically flaunting the shit out of the gifts we had that others did not.
“That is likely step two. Right now, they are consolidating their power—getting rid of the competition so they can become the last one standing in their respective fields.”
I stared at him, blinking slowly as I tried to process it all. “You mean making sure there is only one God of Thunder rather than ten across different pantheons, for example. So the last one standing will receive all the worship and fear for themselves…all the power for themselves,” I breathed, horrified. Because many creatures needed worship, stories told about them, sacrifices, prayers—or any other number of ways people showed their affections to gods—in order to remain powerful. But…if they were the last one left, they would receive all that power for themselves.
He nodded slowly. “You begin to comprehend the repercussions.
I stared off at nothing, thinking about it like a string of dominos. Consolidate power then cause chaos and mass panic as they reveal themselves to the world, and then sit back and reap the waves of power resulting from the populaces’ terror or worship. Something like this, if done right, would essentially make them new gods. Because they would have killed all the old gods.
“The old gods are dead, long live the new gods,” Qinglong murmured.
“They’re taking a page out of the old books. Kids rising up to defeat their parents and take the thrones. All the pantheons did it. The Greeks, the Norse…” I waved a hand.
“Precisely. And…your parents did the same with you. Fighting fire with fire.”
I nodded numbly. And my parents thought I was equipped to handle something like this? “It seems like I’ll need to make some new friends,” I said slowly. “A lot of new friends.”
“Just remember that the Masters don’t care for collateral damage. It is all or nothing to them. They want to wipe the slate clean, so do not expect honor or fair fights. They want to burn it all down and rise from the ashes. Which means they’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, surveilling anyone they might want to utilize or take down as a threat. Or any of their associates in hopes of getting information on their targets.”
“That’s why my parents made this laboratory. To stay undetected.”
He nodded. “Even here, think thrice before you mention the Masters to anyone. You never know who might be in their pocket—whether that person even knows it or not. Outside this room, I wouldn’t even think too hard on them, let alone speak of them—and only to those you trust completely. Mere words won’t be enough. You need family. You need blood oaths, and with your blood,” he said, jerking his chin at me, “they’ll have no choice but to be loyal to you. Your blood mix isn’t just powerful enough to create bonds,” he said, leaning forward meaningfully, “it is also strong enough to shatter them.”
And I suddenly remembered breaking unbreakable chains when Johnathan the demon had tied me to a cross. I shook my head in wonder. Holy crap…
“Outside this laboratory,” Qinglong continued, “I recommend acting as if you have no idea there is anything to be concerned about. Because if the Masters even think you’re onto them, you’re already dead.”
I frowned thoughtfully. “I guess that’s why I’ve never heard of them. Like one of those elite secret societies. Global domination won’t work if everyone knows who is pulling the strings.” He smiled at my example. “Is there any obvious way to indicate them? Like a glow or something?”
He shook his head, rolling his eyes.
“Fine. So in a way, this is an arms race. Or a draft pick. For all of us, both Masters and whatever we are,” I said, frowning to myself. I would need to come up with a cool name. “Because if we can’t find the Masters, maybe we can start stealing their prospects, start siphoning off their power in any way we can find. Before they get too powerful to handle.”
He thought about that and finally shrugged. “I have not read your mother’s journals. That seems like one approach—to kick sand in their faces—and it comes with obvious risk, of course.” He gave me a considering look, underlining that risk.
“What exactly are Nate and I supposed to do about them?”
“I cannot speak for Nate Temple, but I’m sure his parents—like yours—found a way to give him what they thought he would need.” I grunted. Not in a way that made Nate happy. “I imagine that the two of you will face many temptations in the years to come, and your parents’ hope was that you would consider each other a moral compass, as it were.”
There was simply too much to worry about, and I felt like I was going to crack. I had been on the edge with just the Kansas City drama, and now all of this? “The Masters…” I said, shaking my head.
“Original pantheons won’t matter for long—they will make alliances, go to war, or make handshake deals to take out their foes. Then, of course, they will turn on one another. It’s a battle royale, a free-for-all. Good men will make deals with devils, anything to survive one more round.”
Feathers and Fire Series Box Set 2 Page 73