Time was of the essence, even in this timeless reality.
Acting out of instinct and internal power now, Thane held out his right hand palm-up. In the center of his palm materialized a small crystal, the kind the warlocks often once used to house spirits during a resurrection spell. They were called phylacteries, and they could hold a spirit, no matter how many pieces it was in, for some length of time.
Lalura Chantelle had since made the crystals obsolete once a spirit had been resurrected, but right now, in this particular situation, the crystal was perfect and necessary.
Thane could already feel the soul before him destabilizing. It was not only torn physically, but in essence; the man Lucas Caige had been rippled erratically between this world and the one he’d been so horribly ejected from. In short, he had too many reasons to live. Spirits didn’t tend to do well when that was the case.
Thane lifted the phylactery, spoke a powerful command word, and the wavering, dissected image coalesced into a beam of light that shot into the crystal. The crystal pulsed with new, potent life, and Thane closed his fingers protectively over it.
*****
The sands shifted slowly and smoothly, as they always did, irrelevant of what transpired to those who traversed them. They were a consuming constant, a rolling, shifting wake that ate what sank beneath its surface, and smoothed out the horizon of the world to make it new again.
The sun beat down upon these sands as it always had, huge and relentless. A heat-bleached world stretched as far as the eye could see, monochromatic, deadly… peaceful.
Kamon did not shield his eyes from the merciless rays of the star above. They had never burned him; his brother’s power could not reach him. He was immune, as he had always been to his brother. To his power, to his charms, to his words.
Even when they professed love. Perhaps especially then.
Amon had proven his true nature long ago.
From beyond the realm in which he now stood gazing out over the past and future, came the puny sound of a mortal attempting to summon him. Kamon sighed. He would have to deal with it eventually. But first, he turned to the goddess who stood beside him.
She was ever silent and majestic in her repose – chin up, shoulders back, skin bronzed beneath the sun’s warm touch. As he moved to stand behind her, a full head taller than her, she refused to look at him. It was what she always did. She was stubborn. It was one of the things he secretly admired about her, but which also made him want… things.
He refrained, if barely so. Not only because he knew it would bring him no further to his ultimate goal, but because none of this was her fault. Not really. It was his brother who had stolen her from him.
“Do you never tire of this view, Amunet?” he asked as he placed his hands on her upper arms and gently squeezed, drawing her back against his chest. She was stiff and unyielding. What he would give to change that.
In a voice of calm that tore at his insides, she replied “My prison is vast, Kamon. And I am eternal. What kind of god would I be if I grew easily bored?”
It was an underhanded response, hinting at his impatience and selfishness. But he wasn’t going to engage her in petty battles. He had other things in mind for the woman he had desired for all time. Much different things.
“I will allow you to have patience for us both,” he said calmly, bending to inhale the scent of her clean hair – jasmine – before he released her and turned away. “You’ve little choice anyway.”
With that, he mentally pulled his prisoner back from the infinite realm… and into her sarcophagus. The tomb was cold around him, despite its glittering of gemstones and gold, left through the ages by the goddess’s devout and believing. These faceted mementos turned the tomb into a fantasy of color and reflected light. But there was no direct sun here. He’d made certain of that. His brother would not reach his beloved in this prison.
Kamon stepped back in the tomb, and his amber eyes began to glow as he looked down upon the stone coffin that stretched before him. She had but to accept him, and she would be able to once more rise. She had but to give in.
Stubborn.
He left the tomb, re-sealed it behind him, and finally stood alone and still in the crackling shadows cast by the torches that decorated the walls of his underground chamber.
A moment passed. A heartbeat of time.
Then he vanished.
The woods around him were tall and well shaded. The ground, with its reddish brown soil and green ferns, smelled damp. The air was cool. It was nothing like the landscape he had only moments ago stood upon and grown to love over the course of centuries. Millennia, even. Yet, it was beautiful in its own way, all the same.
Not far from where he stood, the Vampire King’s brother awaited his master.
“Rafael D’Angelo,” said Kamon softly. He took a deep breath and let it out in another sigh, feeling restless but weary. “You have managed to start a war.”
D’Angelo was not the stronger sibling. However, he contained enough honorable blood not to deny it. “It would seem so, my lord.”
“What do you intend to do about it?”
“If a war is what they want, a war is what they will get. But it will be short lived when they learn they’re no match for us. I have already sent my men out to put a swift end to this problem, and I’ve punished the one who caused it.”
“Punishments come too late and solve nothing, vampire. But…. I suppose such things are more than I should anticipate a mortal to understand.”
Kamon had expected the vampire to object then: Surely as a vampire, he was not mortal? However, he must have realized that compared to a god like Kamon, even a vampire was short lived, for he remained quiet.
“Who was responsible?” This, Kamon asked as an afterthought, if gods could have such things. He wanted to know exactly what had transpired. But for some reason, he also wanted to know why.
Suddenly, the vampire master who had become Kamon’s servant looked uneasy. Kamon considered ransacking his brain for the information he desired. But only for a moment. The vampire would speak.
Though with obvious reluctance, Rafael D’Angelo did just that. The handsome man whose twin ruled the nation of Offspring on earth swallowed hard and lifted his chin. “She is no one of consequence. Only my slave.”
Kamon’s brow rose. “A slave has undermined us in such a manner?”
D’Angelo did not seem to know what to say to that.
Kamon felt the sharp edge of irritation. “Let me see if I understand this correctly,” he began, turning away from the vampire to stroll through the clearing toward the nearest, massive tree. He could smell the tree as if it were the embodiment of life, towering and mighty as the gods. He placed his palm gently against the bark and felt the pulse of its powerful heart beneath. “Your men are now under attack by a rather strong faction of beasts I had no quarrel with and which will only decrease our numbers and steer us off track… because of a slave.” He chuckled.
Rafael D’Angelo had the decency to stay silent.
Kamon turned to face the vampire. “That must be one discontented slave. I wonder which of you is truly the servant.”
“As I said, she has been dealt with.”
Kamon’s interest was piqued. “Take me to her. I wish to meet this ironically powerful person of no consequence.”
Chapter Seventeen
He shouldn’t be doing this.
He knew he shouldn’t be doing this with Selene, and yet it was like pulling his own teeth out of his mouth to get himself to care.
His queen was a Wisher. She was depending upon him to ease her into the knowledge of what she was. He was, for all intents and purposes, her guide in this pivotal moment. Whether by design or by luck, he was the one who’d drawn the straw to be with her on this fateful day.
The last thing he should be doing was leading her on a rampage through the mortal world so she could exact a multitude of vengeances on the unsuspecting, the stupid, and the deserving. Whether the
y were deserving or not.
But again, he couldn’t make himself care. Maybe it was Cal’s blood running its merry way through his system – or maybe he was more on Selene’s side than he’d thought. Probably, it was both.
He could feel Selene’s excitement as if it were warming his own blood. It was like a drug. Those ice blue eyes, so filled with wondrous mysteries most of humanity could not even dream, would glitter with gorgeous mal-intent a split-second before she struck like a finely tuned weapon.
Her perfect, pale cheeks would pinken with righteous indignation, and Avery would hold his breath. Each time she bared her straight white teeth and dished out her wishes, she was a goddess to him, a being so much more spectacular, so much more splendid than the world deserved. And he was entranced.
He had but to be near her, his heart hammering, his fever burning, and her vengeance was like a toxin, coursing through his system, feeding him, urging him on – making him urge her on as well.
Avery didn’t know how his brother could do it. How did he face every day with the amount of power he possessed and the dark urges he must feel. How much did he have to fight to maintain control and keep from destroying the things around him? Avery possessed but the tiniest fraction of the Unseelie King’s blood, of his spirit and power. And he could barely contain it. He could barely resist it.
In fact, he was failing big time.
Avery was developing a new respect for his brother. Not that he would admit as much, even under torture. Then again, he had a feeling if he were to give his own blood to Caliban, the Unseelie King would find it as difficult to keep from doing “good” as Avery was finding it to keep from doing bad.
Not that what Avery was doing was exactly bad. It wasn’t like these people didn’t deserve what they were getting. Wasn’t there, just sometimes, a bit of good in revenge? Maybe it was the good that changed it from revenge… into justice.
Avery studied the amazing woman beside him. Everything he’d planned was working. He was pulling her in, seducing her with the knowledge of her own power, bombarding her with her own magic until she was very nearly drunk on it.
And then, when she was, he would move in. She would have to face the truth, and buzzed on her abilities, defenseless in the flood of her own magic, she would be open to him. She would have no choice.
She would accept him as her king.
All he would need is her word. All she would need to do is speak his name in a single promise. And she would be his for all time.
And he would never be alone again.
Almost there….
Avery could no longer be bothered about the fact that this was not the way he would have done things without Caliban’s influence. This was how it was going to be done.
He would thank his brother later.
*****
The last twenty-four hours had been like a dream. How many days had she spent fantasizing about what she would do to fix the world if she were in charge?
Today had seen the fruition of countless fantasies. They were small dreams, some petty, more often than not a touch vindictive. Bitter? Perhaps. But she could not possibly have cared any less.
She hadn’t been able to wipe the grin off her face for the last hour. So far, they had visited the homes of ten people who were watering lawns in the middle of a drought. Those people now had no running water at all whatsoever and would not for the next week – thanks to Selene’s wishes. As far as she was concerned, she was going easy on them. She’d even checked to make sure they were families without children.
And then she’d moved on to her next unwitting victims.
A group of idiots slicing Redwood trees to ribbons in order to get “knots” that could easily be carved into collectibles worth tons of money were suddenly collapsing under the weight of falling branches that took them by surprise, or roots that tripped them up and forced them to land on their own destructive tools. They would go, bleeding and broken, limping back to their pickup trucks and hauling ass back to town in the middle of the night in order to visit the ER. Once there, they would find that someone had anonymously tipped off the forest service, who would be in turn tipping off the doctors to look for certain kinds of injuries.
A college gymnasium filled with late teens and twenty-somethings whose only concerns in life were passing the next exam, losing another half a pound, going out on Friday night, and getting laid would now be experiencing the physical effects of aging for the next few days: arthritis, hair loss, menopause, female mustaches. A bit of growing up. Thanks to Selene’s wishes.
She sort of wanted to stick around to see them try to make lay-ups with bad knees. But there was more work to be done. And little by little, Selene felt as if she were spreading empathy, destroying ignorance, and balancing scales that had been scraping the ground and throwing up sparks on one side for far too long.
From building to building, from country to country, and state to state, they transported, issuing her brand of justice along the way. Avery remained a solid presence beside her, his eyes burning green fires, his body rippling and tall, his aura one of overwhelming sexiness, getting under her skin – so deep under her skin….
And she raged on.
Boys with their pants hanging low past their butt cheeks were now freaking out because they’d learned the hard way that they had forgotten, after all, to put on their boxers and as a consequence had been arrested for indecent exposure. Mothers and grandmothers were not overly pleased with them.
Four women and three men were just now realizing that while they were texting as they drove their vehicles, vicious rumors were being spread through the very same social networking channels they so freely abused. He’s been using Rogaine on his chest? She’s been waxing her inner ears? He’s been considering penis enlargement? She’s had vaginal cosmetic surgery? She wants to sleep with her boss’s sister? He wants to sleep with his own sister?
It would have been enough to drive a solid texter-driver right back into the dangerous, oblivious realm of staring at the phone from behind the wheel if it weren’t for the fact that none of their cars worked any longer. The engines remained dead, no sign of life within their vehicles but a single lit-up line of text across the dashboard which read: “Next time, put the phone down and drive.”
Selene set that particular wish to last a month. She hoped it would suffice. But some people never learned.
Cops waiting to make their quota by harassing tax payers who were topping off at six miles per hour above the speed limit because just needed to pick their kids up in time or get to the pharmacy before it closed were suddenly finding that for every ticket they gave out, their pay checks were having equal amounts deducted from them. For “tax” reasons. And those who had been victimized were finding that same amount added to their own paychecks – for the same reasons.
Some would have considered this a bit unfair. After all, cops were just doing what they were told, right? But that was the same excuse everyone who committed injustices used, from soldiers to cops to civilians. It had to stop somewhere. Selene knew better than to ever believe that she didn’t have a choice. Never believe the responsibility isn’t ultimately yours; therein lies the path to evil.
Apathetic or jaded physicians and nurses were at once struck with the pains experienced by their patients and by and large ran for the cabinets where pharmaceutical samples were kept so that they could self-medicate on narcotics to a far higher degree than their judgmental stinginess would have allowed for any of their patients.
There was something niggling at Selene’s brain, though. It was a kind of very, very vague recollection that wishing might entail things beyond the blinders she seemed to have donned. Tiny, miniscule and momentary flashes whizzed by – split-second images of Star Trek holodecks and replicators, of a Mary Poppins-like hopping into the worlds of countless books, of flights of fancy on Pegasi and lightning bolts being called from the sky… of meeting Figment from Disney, of moving beyond the Milky Way, of curing diseases and al
lergies, of talking with the animals, and turning into Superman. Of shape shifting, fountains of youth, emerald cities, and lightsabers. They were there one fraction of an instant, this string of possibilities, and gone with the following hungry thought of who was next up on her “list.”
To say that she felt driven would have been a gross understatement. There was a fire burning in her now.
The morning before, she’d felt dead inside. She’d placed her hand to her stomach and remembered what had once been there – as she always did on that day. She’d remembered the blankets she’d purchased, the socks, the tiny knit caps, the early-year toys. She’d recalled the color scheme she had picked out for the single bedroom in the one-bedroom apartment she had at that time occupied. She would be doing it alone, and she couldn’t have been happier.
She thought of the bassinet her sister had picked out and that they had painted together… and that they’d later burned together, out on the end of a pier on the coast of Northern California.
She remembered. And as usual, she felt more alone, more empty, than most people can imagine.
And then she’d seen Poppy. And things hadn’t hurt quite as much.
And then… well, then her entire world was turned on its ear.
Now her emptiness and her loneliness were being systematically replaced. A heat pulsed through her, a kind of fever. She was a Wish fae. A Wish Faerie. A Wisher. She was not human. Not even close. And she was not alone. She and her sister were the last two left. Most of all – she was not powerless, as she had always believed herself to be. Not by a long-shot.
“I want to do something more,” she said suddenly, after she’d used her wishing power to delete the online profiles and commenting privileges of hundreds of cyber bullies in one foul swoop. She straightened, coming away from the computer she’d been standing beside, which was a computer in a public library in some dinky town in Idaho. They were in Idaho in the first place because she’d brought the slaughter of wolves to a sudden and surprising halt with another one of her wishes.