A Dangerous Legacy Pt. 17

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madam_noe
madam_noe
1,845 Followers

God, I still felt sometimes like I was in that dream where I showed up naked to chemistry class, thinking it was my first day, but the final was just about to end. I followed the three men into Shin-Zan's bedroom and we brought our familiars in tow. I couldn't say why I thought to bring mine, but it had been knowledge in my very bones, unrealized until needed.

They were so different. Valerius was four inches over my own height, wore his curling black hair shaggy, looked to the world like a spoiled twenty-five year old playboy who liked to surf. Marcus was closer to my height, stockier, his own black hair barely long enough to be queued back. He was deeply tanned, but the effect managed to be more Marlboro Man than George Hamilton. If I saw him on the street I would have pegged him at thirty-eight, a good choice. Men at that age seemed to have fully and comfortably settled into their manhood.

Valerius and I looked the same age, Marcus could have been an older brother, but Shin-Zan appeared ancient but vital. The long silver beard and longer whitened hair suited him, and he appeared to be a Chinese version of a wizard. If he was an actor I was positive Quentin Tarantino would have cast him in some oldfather role.

Shin-Zan's bed was only sat double and he had a couch and two chairs in the room as well, no vanity such as I had. The men let me choose my seat and took the chair by the window, opening the curtain so Diego could look outside if he chose. He settled to sit by my side and Valerius took the other chair, Remus attempting to draw Diego into a wrestling match but we soothed them.

The other men took the couch and Marcus's ferret eyed the bird, likely familiar, and settled into his master's lap. Shin-Zan took something from his breast pocket and fed his familiar, cooing to the bird in a way that reminded me of the old men who fed pigeons on benches down by Lake Michigan.

When he finished he looked up at me. "Valerius has told us that the first queen summoned you. You spoke to her."

"More listened. She was cryptic as hell."

"What did she tell you?"

"She told me to ask you about Chengzhou."

"Anything else?" Marcus asked.

"That was the gist of it."

They shared concerned glances and I reached down to ruffle my dog's fur, happy for the spark of magical energy that flowed between us. He licked my fingers and then settled to lay down, Remus copying him with a slight growl.

Shin-Zan stroked his beard slowly as he thought, glancing at Valerius. "It is my belief that you did travel back to Chengzhou because that act, in some way, granted you the child you saw in the near future."

"I seriously doubt that. Guys, if I have a child at all it will be with someone here, and now, and through in vitro fertilization. I have no intention of, pardon my French, fucking anybody but my three wolves."

"Five," Marcus said coolly. "You have five now."

Ah, yes. So many lies made keeping track of them all difficult. "Five, indeed. I have only had Jerry and Liv for such a short time, our feelings are not quite what my original pack and I have...yet."

"It makes sense," Val said with an equally chill tone and a silent reprimand in his eyes for Marcus. "Magic is weakening. Perhaps if your child is sired by a witch of the past, her magic will be strong, strong enough to replenish ours."

"I highly doubt that," I said slowly with caution. I really didn't want to tell my three ancient advisors, the congress to my presidential role, that I was pretty sure somehow my kid had DNA from our historical enemy.

"It makes sense," Shin-Zan said softly. "This could be all about restoring our magic."

"How!?" That couldn't be it, the puzzle couldn't be that simple. "Look, someone has killed a lot of witch queens and a lot of high-ranking sorcerers. That has been weakening magic!" The thought occurred to me the instant it left my lips, another puzzle piece beginning to form. I sat forward, excitement filling me. "You said it yourselves, a child sired by a witch of old would be more powerful, ergo the witches and sorcerers of old were more powerful. As such, that is why the killer or killers are doing this! He, she, it, they, whoever, they're weakening magic!"

Val's eyes widened for a split second. "Well, at least that means you're not the killer. As queen your second greatest responsibility is to keep our magic strong."

"Lord, I hope you're right. I have no intention of becoming a serial killer. So who benefits with weakened magic?"

That brought silence upon the room, broken only after a long moment when Shin-Zan's bird began to curse colorfully in Spanish.

"Look, I know none of this makes sense. You three are the wisest among us. I ask now that you think long and hard on what happened to magic when the vampires died. Not what happened to us, but what happened to magic."

I rose over their protestations and stalked out, Diego at my heels. I couldn't escape the niggling feeling that since I was to be the one that helped kill all vampires, I had to be the murderer. The more my wolves and the council tried to reason it away, the more I panicked.

"Pardon me," I said to the assembled wolves and stepped into the bathroom, shutting Diego out.

Seconds later magic had brought me to Malachai.

"Sorry!" I turned around fighting a blush. I had popped into his bedroom without thinking, and he had just emerged from the bathroom, naked save a towel around his hips. Normally I could handle it, he was just beefcake on tops of heaps of it in my life, but I thought of our child, and a little voice whispered in my mind it doesn't have to be in vitro or magic, that could be yours only it couldn't. I was a queen, he a king, and no two sovereigns could own one another in this day and age. And neither side could fully conquer the other.

"You can turn around now, it's safe," he said, a smile in his deep voice.

I turned and he was dressed in another black suit, his grey shirt only making his eyes look more silver. His hair was dry and loose, hanging past his shoulders. Backed up a step, somehow like this he was almost more threatening to my senses. "I am sorry, but I need to speak with you."

"More politics?"

"It's always politics," I said as I realized it. "Due to who and what we are, it will always be political."

"That's tiresome. It would be nice to discuss philosophy with someone who doesn't feel the need to kowtow to my opinion."

"Who exactly were the sorcerers that have been killed in the last twelve centuries?"

"Of those whose murders cannot be solved, whose deaths are warded by some mysterious power, all come from two lines. The two oldest besides mine."

"No kings?"

"I have been king for more centuries than that. No one tried, even when I had a living child. My human descendants have died out, no one would dare try to take my life now."

"Two lines of sorcerers, one line of witches."

"I see you've been speaking to Leeann," Malachai sighed and sat on the bed. "She believes that since, when one considers the timing, that the value, the magic of those two lines was as much as yours has been driving her mad. I have tasked her with calculating if those lines have suffered a greater loss of magic than all of the sorcerers."

I was really starting to like Leeann.

"Malachai, if you know you had to, for the greater good, could you kill a thousand innocent people?"

He motioned to a chair and I sat nervously. "Innocent does not apply to vampires. They were not innocent or guilty, they just simply were. Those who had grown to adulthood, become true blood drinkers, yes, some did not want the humans to know of them, some did not drink of others of magic, but how did we know? How could we guarantee that the good ones, if spared, would go on to make more and ensure they too were good?" He stood and walked over to me, kneeling by my chair.

"Anna, I see no viciousness in you, only duty and passion. You are a good queen, trust that the way you clearly doubt those words proves you are a good queen. A fool would never question themselves."

Oh, he was close. Damn his hide, he wore cologne that had the faint whiff of chocolate, underscoring the tang of his magic. I shrank back into the chair, terribly uncertain, trying desperately to forget the vision of the future. "Y-you don't really know me."

"I know you better than you think." That was his only warning and he descended. His hands stayed on the arm of the chair, mine too, and it was only our lips that touched.

I could have pulled away, I should have pulled away. But Malachai was, for lack of a better term, the prototypical "bad boy" which was to the female what catnip was to cats.

There was skill and mastery there, but a gentle exploration. Sneaky, seductive bastard that he was, he made it clear he was not forcing me, that he was coaxing but I was a willing participant.

I itched. I dug my nails into the fabric of the chair to keep from sliding my fingers through his hair. I forced my body to still to avoid pulling myself into his arms. But oh, was I tempted. My head swam, and I only knew I wanted more.

He broke first, smiling knowingly he remained close for long seconds as if daring me to initiate another. But something in my eyes made him pull back and he stood. I breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't sporting an erection.

"What the hell was that?"

"Satisfying a mutual curiosity. While it is true much of my magic lay in sex and yours in love, we are creatures of both thanks to our beginnings as humans. Still, I sued no magic there. I wanted to see if what of us that is still human had chemistry."

I thought the top of my head was going to blow off. "Well, let's not do it again. Now tell me about the magic from Chengzhou, what happened when your people and mine came together to harness it."

"Ah, duty first, always duty first. I think that is how you differ from the other queens I have known. They were all delightful creatures in their own right, but I believe relying on the council made them feel the burden of your people was not their own. You don't agree."

The way he said it made it impossible to tell if this was a compliment or insult, so I chose to take it as a compliment. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Please, answer my question."

"We lost much. The witches and sorcerers were spreads thin in those days, my palace and the queen's were as close to a central location as possible. We got there hours later, and we did what we could.

"I am sure you have been taught, but I am not certain, so forgive me if I come off patronizing, but to combine powers between any magic-bearers, you must join hands. Amongst the weakest of us, great spells you and I can do with a single thought take thirteen, sometimes twelve to do. That is why they often live close in such numbers, what humans would call a coven. At the time there were over one thousand of us, and not all came. Still, about three hundred of mine and nearly four hundred of yours came.

"We had to make circles around the village, concentric chains alternating with-sorcerer-witch. The queen and I did what we could to contain the magic while they formed. Our magic then was not compatible, and where our spells touched leaks formed. Day and night cannot exist at once without something else unnatural mediating, like a solar eclipse is the only way true day and night can mingle.

"We pulled in what we could, the circles caught it, fed it to we sovereigns, and she and I put it into our people, held what we could for those missing.

"Because of that light and dark mingled. Because of that you and I can work spells together, any witch and sorcerer may. We are more like twilight when we come together, sunrise and sunset when apart."

The tale he told was incredible, and having seen the village I tried to imagine all the magic bearers there, each attended by a familiar. Animals barking, squawking, braying, screeching, enemies holding hands while some of the greatest magic worked in millennia commenced.

"Thank you, Malachai." I rose finally, my legs no longer shaking. "one last thing, and then I must go back in time to the fifteen minutes ago when I came here. You must speak of this discussion to no one right now, please."

"I swear."

I felt no magic but believed him, and I had no idea why. "Could we have worked together, cornered the vampires, stripped the magic from them and spread it out."

"Anna, vampires, like werewolves and dragons, are magic. That would be like asking of we could strip organic material from humans and have them live. Humans are organic material. For whatever reason it is we needed that magic back, killing them was the only way."

I had no reply, just used magic to go flinging through the time tunnel again and emerged in Shin-Zan's bathroom.

I gripped the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. All thoughts of balancing light and dark versus mingling them fled as I contemplated the desire I felt for Malachai. How could I when I so deeply loved the three men in the next room?

I thought back to my time as a human, to one of the two men I had loved before. John had been like a dream at first. It was hard for anyone to date an epileptic, I knew, but he handled it with grace and humor. He didn't panic at my seizures, calmly laid me out and kept my tongue pressed down, and after he would hold me as the nausea roiled my stomach and the headache ruled me.

I thought he was the one, back then I had thought there was a one, and only one. I was twenty and stupid, just starting college late, coming off my short time at community college while on probation after serving a year in juvenile detention, released when I was eighteen.

I never told any of that to John, I had told him my parents were dead, an aunt had raised me and died when I was eighteen. We dated for almost two years, and when he finished grad school we had talked about marriage. Then the doctor had told me I would never have children. I had been relieved, John, horrified.

Soon after he pulled away, began running errands that took three hours, working random extra overtime. I went to a shrink, the school paid for it, all because like most women I had thought it was my fault. I could still remember her words.

"Be honest with him. You hide so much. Trust him. John can sense you don't trust him. Give him reason to invest in you, share yourself with him."

So I had. I'd cooked a nice meal, lit candles on the table for the first time in my life, and had waiting until ten p.m. for him to come home only to inform me he had eaten. So he drank while I ate, and he seemed nervous, gulping down the first glass, then the second. I ate quickly, and I told him everything.

Everything that had been done to me, everything I had done to survive. The crimes I had committed, the jail time I had served, the lies I lived now to hide it all. I told him exactly why I was glad I couldn't have children.

And, drunk, John had called me a freak, and told me he was in love with someone else, leaving me for her. It was only a week later when he came back for his stuff that he told me he hadn't made up his mind until I had revealed my "damage."

The lies, the betrayal, I had thought it would kill me. It took me years to work out that it was a just another lesson in how not to love, and I had sworn I would never do that to a lover. And I hadn't...until Max.

I could explain why I cheated on him with a thousand excuses, but the truth was I had been weak, tempted, and scared. Seeing the hurt he felt had made me feel like the biggest ass in the universe. Trying to make it up to him had only been worse, for, once more, when the story of my life came out, Max packed his bags and left.

If I made the same mistake again I would hurt three men just as badly. Three men who were my slaves in the eyes of our society's laws, three men who couldn't leave me. But they could hate me. They could be bound to me for eternity and hate me. But they could never hate me more than myself.

I had been a student of history, but the roommate I shared an apartment with, Connor, had been a psych major. He now had a private practice in Minneapolis. He had a girlfriend back home in Podunk, Idaho, or wherever he was from, but he constantly brought girls back to our place.

Each morning he had cowered in the bathroom, leaving it to me to make them coffee to go and giving them the "it's not you, it's him," speech. As soon as I locked the door behind them he would emerge, raise his nose, and tell me "Any good relationship councilor will tell you, confessing to an affair is just to alleviate your own guilt, it's better to not burden your partner with drama. That being said, you won't say anything when Sherri comes up this weekend, right?"

He'd been an asshole, but he paid his rent on time and never quibbled over bills or stole food, nor did he complain when John moved in, and again no complaint when the fights began.

Connor was your typical sociopath, charming and glib, and incapable of giving a shit unless it concerned his own person or ego.

It seemed I had two choices: repeat my past mistake with Max, or become like Connor. And if I became a sociopath, why not just go off and slaughter children?

I thought of the journal I'd read, and the smell of the slaughter. Moral decisions paled into the background as I ran for the toilet as brunch came up.

***

Lunch was tense, to say the least. There was no real conversation except within cliques, and I refused to look at Malachai. Thank the gods, Pierre's cell phone rang as dessert was being served, and when he saw the caller he motioned for me to come with him.

"Horus!" Pierre said enthusiastically as we stepped into the hall. "Thanks. Yes, I am with the new queen. She has some questions for you but maybe it's better if you-"

Suddenly there was a man standing next to us, a witch. With him was a greyhound, as regal as its owner. He looked to be of mixed heritage, some of it African, the other...something exotic. His head was shaved, his large eyes hazel and nearly yellow, and he was the most stunning looking man I had ever seen, and considering the whole of magic, that was saying something.

"Majesty," he said, his eyes judging me as if weighing my soul.

"What does one call a god?" I snapped, refusing to be intimidated.

Pierre belatedly hung up and closed his phone, sliding it back into his black jeans. "Horus, this is Anna, your new queen. She prefers to be addressed by her first name. Anna, this is Horus, your oldest subject."

"Watch it, boy," Horus said with great affection to Pierre.

That won me over and I dropped the attitude. "Please call me Anna. Horus, I have two very important questions for you."

"Ask away. Word has it the French may be sending troops, so fighting has ceased and I am free."

I wondered how he'd be fighting when all he wore were billowing white pants and a vest with hieroglyphs written in black over a stony sand pattern.

"All right, first off, tell me how the magic was contained and distributed after the slaughter at Chengzhou."

He raised one slim, dark eyebrow. "You ask interesting questions. I have heard you are a most unusual queen."

"Go ahead, call me weird, I'm used to it."

He smiled. "You are no more stranger than I." The tale he told was almost exactly what Malachai had said. Magic was lost, but no one really cared as each with and sorcerer became more powerful. He added on that the power was great enough more lines had to form to contain it all and lose no more.

"All righty, now, can you tell me how magic was balanced before and after that incident."

Both eyebrows shot up, and I knew it was only magic that let them do that without his shiny forehead wrinkling. No wonder the ancients had made him king of the first gods. I wanted to ask who had been Isis, who had been Bahstet, but I knew it wasn't appropriate.

madam_noe
madam_noe
1,845 Followers