Rise of the Alphas

by Alexis Davie

  He went through his usual ritual of packing to shift, though this time he also had the book. It was lighter than it looked and seemed to fit strangely well into his little sack of a bag. But then, Brin had said it could cooperate or otherwise. And it wanted, clearly, to get back to its witch. To its family.

  It was dark enough that half of the city’s lights were off, and it looked almost peaceful. The night was still, and the moon remained bright. Garrick’s dragon was under his control now, on a day when it had been allowed out so many times. Besides, when something was important enough, Garrick the man and Garrick the dragon found it easier to work together, anyway. And both of them were enjoying swooping south, over the silver eel of the river and onwards, west a little, until they were over the affluent, heavily immortal suburb in which Brinley’s father apparently lived.

  His garden, when they found it, was huge and manicured. Garrick wondered how long a gardener spent on the topiary every month to keep it like this. Even a witch or warlock would have to spend time. Nature magic wasn’t easy, not by any means, it was not a thing that wanted to be tamed. But at least there was plenty of space to land, silent and unseen, the moonlight that would have picked him out so easily on an urban street now helping him to blend into the greys and greens of the lawn and its sections of various plant life.

  He came down smooth and soft. He shifted quickly, easily, with necessity but not panic, and checked in the bag for the book when he got his clothes out. It was warmer than before. Positively glowing, he thought, with how close they must be to Brin.

  Honestly, Garrick felt as though he might be glowing a little, too. He pulled on his trousers and t-shirt and did up his boots, his breathing heavy but measured, his muscles warm and a little sore from the flight. More like he was aware of them. That was all.

  It was on his walk to the house, during which he kept to the shadows at the edges of the lawn, that Garrick noticed the view he had into an office. It was all brown leather and red drapery. It looked like the office of a very old-school, human politician, Garrick thought. The huge window was a strange choice in an old pile like this. Then there was a breeze, and a pile of papers flew off the table and onto the floor. Something—a paper weight, maybe?—rolled out of what he had thought was a window.

  Garrick laughed. He tried to keep it quiet. That had to have been Brin. And now, it was his way in.

  There were trees just outside the office… if the office could be thought of as ‘inside’ at this point. Garrick had no problem climbing up one and taking a step over, grabbing the corner of a remaining wall to pull himself in. He was long-limbed and slim, after all.

  The office smelled as musty as the decor suggested it would. Garrick didn’t stick around to investigate the place, though, making instead for the gothic-arched wooden door at the other end of the room. When he tried the brass handle, it didn’t budge.

  No matter. His shift had been recent enough, he should able to…

  The doorknob melted in Garrick’s hand. He smiled. Sure, he’d done that many times, but it still amused him. Maybe he was a stupid little boy at heart.

  He slipped into the corridor, avoiding the pool of quickly hardening metal on the floor, and looked right and left. The decor was Victorian, like the office, but a little less masculine. On the wall were portraits—every one of them had a bit of Brin in them. Was the house her mother’s, as well as the book?

  Speaking of, he again put his hand into his bag to check on the book’s safety. Of course, it was there. He tried to listen, but even with his intensified hearing, he couldn’t quite…

  And then there were male voices coming down the corridor, not far away. Heading towards him. And he recognized all three of them from the cafe that morning.

  20

  Brinley

  The basement was cold and damp, even in the summer. It was also silver-lined and part of the old network of vaults in which, traditionally, immortal prisoners were kept. Only a few of the vaults were in use now; those closest to the council meeting rooms and the attendant auditorium and below-ground courthouse.

  Silver dulled the powers of all immortals. In here, Brinley was basically fit only to perform at a children’s birthday party. Still, it had taken all four men to get her out the office and down here. And when Xander had commented that she was feisty, he’d suddenly got a bloody nose. And he’d screamed. Maybe her spell had broken it. She could only hope…

  To pass the time, Brin was playing chess against herself. The basement was where they kept a lot of their old crap, including boardgames. Brinley was learning that neither Brinley one nor Brinley two were very good at chess. This wasn’t a surprise, she hadn’t played since she was a kid, but there had been so many revelations and new skills revealed in the last few days she’d half thought that ‘amazing at chess’ might just happen, too.

  She was, she thought, in checkmate, but she might just be stupid. To be fair, this also meant she had won! Brin threw up her hands and let out a soft whoop. Victory! Then she slumped against the wall. How long had she been in here? Long enough for two probably very truncated games of chess. So… not very long.

  The wall behind her was not only damp. It was also slimy. Some kind of sludge-moss hybrid was growing down here. It smelled odd. Brin sighed. They had opened the trapdoor, and her father had ushered her down the ladder. Xander, she was almost sure, had tried to give her a shove, the older men putting themselves in the way on him. She had looked up and seen a glint of something in his piggy little eyes.

  She hated to depend on a man for anything, least of all protection, but she could not help herself imagining Garrick getting his hands on Xander and squeezing his fat neck until he…

  Obviously, Garrick, as leader of the council of immortals, would not murder anyone. But still, she liked to imagine.

  21

  Garrick

  Ridiculously, hiding behind a drape had worked. Garrick, the ruler of all immortals for a thousand miles in every direction, had hidden behind a curtain. Thank goodness for the awful taste that had led to this decoration.

  Now he was stood close to the door. He was tense, ready to move quickly if he saw anyone but listening hard to the conversation in the office.

  “It’ll be at the shifter’s house. They’ve been seen together.” This was a voice Garrick didn’t know. It had been silent on the walk to the office, and he hadn’t been able to see them from behind the curtain when they had gone in. He wondered if they had fixed the wall. The voice was reedy, rasping. Not a pleasant voice.

  “Could you give us a little more information, for goodness’ sake, Maurice! You already failed once—”

  “They’ve been seen together, your daughter and the washed-up dragon… Garrick. He’s on the council. But he’s a drunk, it’ll be no problem for—”

  “I’ll send someone,” came Xander’s voice. “I don’t think we can trust Martin’s… Mr Montegue’s little helpers anymore, can we, Dad?”

  An uncomfortable throat clear from Mr Chaffinch. These men were disgusting, Garrick thought, playing politics even as they bartered for a woman. He was almost on Xander’s side. At least the porcine little arse was honest. He honestly wanted to possess Brinley and control the human race, so that was no good. But the other two wanted those things to happen, just with bows on. Put a bow on something awful, and it was insult to injury.

  “Well, Xander, perhaps we could have our teams work together…”

  Teams—washed up warlocks in a boarding house, and what, a bunch of angry posh kids with chips on their shoulders and enough inherited privilege they thought they should rule the world?

  “Can your fellows… Can your men guarantee us the book?” There must have been a silent answer to this, a nodded head. “Fine,” came the voice of Brinley’s father, and then sharper, “Remember, you cannot use the thing without my daughter, and I have her. So don’t get any ideas.” His tone sent chills down Garrick’s spine. And then he was furious. Her father was supposed to love her, protec
t her, and here he was, selling her to the highest bidder. The dragon in him flexed, rolled, bristled.

  When were these idiots going to let slip where Brinley was?

  “I will be down there myself when you return,” her father continued, his tone measured and threatening. “I don’t expect it will take long to send your… people?”

  Xander’s sigh was audible through the door. “No, Mr Montegue. And how about we bring this whole arrangement forward even further? Just… get it done?”

  “Fine.” Her father’s reply had been all but instant.

  “But I don’t even know if I want her,” Xander complained, and his father shushed him as if he were a child.

  “You are fully aware it is not about—”

  “Well, I have to give her children, don’t I? She seems to have some attitude issues, if you ask me. Aren’t there other books?”

  “Not,” said Xander’s father, sounding as though he was literally gritting his teeth, “like this one. We made this deal for a reason, son, and we will keep this deal. Do you understand?”

  There was a grunt. Garrick had gone off Xander again. Rollercoaster, this. Wait, he’d said ‘down’? Her father had said ‘down there’…

  Garrick scanned that mental map he had of London. They couldn’t have left her anywhere she could do damage. She could be in silver restraints, maybe, or, yes, the vaults extended over here. Plenty had been in areas that were historically inhabited by immortals. If this was, indeed, a Valentine property, of course they would have their own.

  He had to stop himself from running down the corridor. This house would creak, he should take it slow. As he laid one foot carefully in front of the other, he could hear the blood pumping through him, feel his own pulse in his fingers. And in his bag, the book seemed to be humming. It felt like sunlight on his side.

  He took what must be a servants’ staircase, slim and winding and getting cooler the further he reached into the below-ground section of the house. He would have to go right to the bottom. The vaults had existed long before any property, and some were as deep as the silver mines that had allowed their existence.

  When he was finally spat out, he was in a low-ceilinged room. There were cave-esque openings to the left and right. He tried calling Brinley’s name but did so softly. She probably wouldn’t hear him, and her father would be headed down here soon.

  It smelled musty, damp. Garrick coughed. Mr Montegue had not been taking care of his property. What a waste.

  Garrick looked left, then right. He was sure the book’s hum had upped its volume, quickened in pace, with right. He started through the door. Why were they always built so low? He had been born around the time these passages had been built. Someone should have noticed how tall immortals were sometimes. Lazy, really, making the tunnels this small.

  This tunnel wound around and almost in on itself. It was dark, with sconces in the wall for candles or torches. He supposed at some point the servants had carried them down here, set everything up. But today, he had to rely on his animal vision until he was too twisted up under the house even for that, and then he had to feel along the wall.

  Eventually, he saw light. It looked far away, but perhaps it was simply an even smaller opening. No one of 5’11” or more should get through it, surely. Garrick popped out into the light. It was a storage room. There were boxes, children’s things, old shoes. It looked almost homely. And there was a big set of stairs, a decent door above them…

  He glanced at the floor below his feet. A trapdoor.

  22

  Brinley

  Brinley was on her fourth game of chess when she heard the footsteps. Weirdly, they didn’t seem to be coming from the direction of the door, the stairs, but maybe she was disorientated. She tried to put her feelers out, get a sense of who it was up there and how angry they had arrived, but she couldn’t. The silver. She thought she felt a thrum of some kind, like a hot day. Like a happy insect. It could just be her own blood or her own heart.

  She wanted to shout, especially when she heard knees to the floor, hands on the wood. But it wouldn’t help anything.

  “Brin,” she heard, “are you there?”

  “Garrick?” Her heart was in her mouth. She screwed her eyes shut and opened them again. “Garrick, is that you?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I wasn’t leaving you!”

  She wanted to scream, to be in his arms. She took a deep breath. “It’s a vault, there’s—”

  “I know, silver. I thought I could handle it, but being near it is making me feel sick… weak… Has your father had this reinforced?”

  Brin shrugged, then realized she was doing so only to herself. She laughed and realized that was also weird. “I don’t know; wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “I have the book,” Garrick said into the floor, to her.

  Brin thought for a moment. It wouldn’t open for him, but maybe if they were close enough to her? He had to be away from the silver, but not too far…

  “Damn, Garrick, thank you,” she said, “thank you for bringing it to me.”

  She could hear him smiling when he said, “Of course, Brin.”

  “Okay, so it’ll be hard for you to open it. Can you find anything of mine up there in the junk? A girl’s shoe or something?” She heard him scrabbling around, heard his noise of positivity when he found something that looked like it had belonged to a young, pink-wearing version of her. Her father had insisted on femininity, for some reason, once her carefree mother was gone.

  “Got it!” he cried. “It’s a welly-boot.”

  Brin laughed to herself again. “Okay, concentrate, get the book. Do you have it out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re going to have to go far enough away to get some strength back, because this won’t be easy, but not so far that I’m not—”

  “The book’s open, what am I looking for?” Garrick didn’t know enough to sound surprised. “I guess it knows you’re there,” he said.

  “What?” It shouldn’t have opened for him. Not that easily. Not even nearly.

  “What do I look for, Brin?” She fumbled in her own brain, trying to regain control of the situation.

  “Uh… silver, something about… doors and silver, or gloves and silver. I know there’s a protection spell…” She heard pages flutter. Garrick made a surprised noise, and then another, and then…

  “Brinley, this book likes me,” Garrick said. “And, uh, I think I need to show you something.”

  At that moment, the door above Garrick creaked. He put down an arm, and as she reached the top of the ladder, he dragged her out. They both tried to hide the book with their bodies, but it was too late.

  Martin had taken in the scene. He dropped the door, turned a key in its lock, and retreated.

  “He’s gone to tell Xander and his father,” Garrick said. “They’re… well, they went to get the idiot warlocks that are trying to—”

  Brin couldn’t help herself. She had her hands on Garrick’s shoulders and pulled him down towards her as he spoke, kissing him full on the lips. He didn’t resist. In fact, he relaxed into it, his arms around her, lifting her so he could stand, until her legs were around his hips.

  “Brin,” he said, pulling away for a moment, “you need to see something…” But she kissed him again, the sweet worry on his face making it impossible not to.

  “I think,” she said between kisses, “no, no, Garrick, shut up…” And she kissed him again. “Look, I know this sounds stupid, but I think I might love you? Is that possible?”

  Garrick smiled. He put her down, pushed her chin up, and kissed her one more time, lightly.

  “Yes,” he whispered into her mouth, his breath sweet despite their long days. “I love you, too… I was waiting for you to realize. Just, look at this, will you?”

  “Wait, how did you open… Did you use the book? It let you use it, as well as open it?” Garrick shrugged.

  “It felt like something working through me?” It was bot
h a statement and a question.

  Brin nodded enthusiastically. “That’s just it. That’s it! But, why? Because you’re a dragon king? I don’t…”

  Garrick had grabbed the book. He held it carefully, as if it were an animal. “Look! Just look, will you?”

  He opened the jacket of the book; opened it easily. And out here, despite the silver still making her head swim, Brinley could feel the book’s happy thrum.

  The family tree—the new branch was clearer now. Strong and healthy, and sitting beside hers, and the smudge, that smudge next to it, had become a name:

  Garrick Andorson.

  She looked at the book and then at Garrick.

  “Oh…” she said. “Oh…”

  “Yeah.” Garrick nodded. “I know.”

  “So we’re—”

  “I mean, I thought so,” Garrick said, “but I figured you had to work it out. Didn’t you feel it?”

  The love was like a down comforter over her, over them together. Brin wanted to cry, but she wasn’t going to, obviously. They were mates. It was an ancient tradition, from a time of much smaller populations, finding the one soul you were to be bound to, but it still sometimes happened. It had happened.

  “Crap!” she said, just letting it slip out.

  “I mean, we’re a formidable couple,” Garrick said. “Brinley, I think you are… you are just incredible.” He was leaning over her, and she stretched up to kiss him again, was about to actually start crying, when the door above them opened so harshly it sounded like it had been kicked.

  “NO, NO, NO, NO!” It was Xander’s voice, and it sounded as though he had lost all veneer of maturity. “Get off them, they’re MINE!”

  Garrick looked up. He shrugged and stared at Brin.

  “I’m no one’s,” she said, looking from her father to the almost purple face of Xander beside him. “Dad, I thought you’d know I’m not that easily filed away. I’m ashamed of you.”