Laz, or Steven Lazarus as he was known in polite society, was the most powerful Akyri alive. As their king, he was also capable of taking whatever magic he wanted or needed from warlocks. After all, it wouldn’t do for the Akyri King to be beholden to anyone.
He even had to be careful not to take the magic when he didn’t mean to. He could just imagine accidentally sucking some down from one of the warlocks sitting at the Table of the Thirteen. That wouldn’t go over well, seeing as how one of the warlocks was the king of warlocks, and the other two were queens. All three would kick his ass or die trying. He made sure never to go to a meeting hungry.
But right now? He frankly didn’t care how much magic he inhaled or how quickly he scarfed it down. He was out of patience. There was someone on the ground near death. He could sense the life creeping away from the young warlock’s victim with each passing second.
The energy he absorbed infiltrated his bloodstream, carried through his heart, and poured out into the recesses of his body. When he was done feeding, he opened his eyes, the red light faded, and the warlock who’d fed him dropped to the ground beside the unconscious man who was already there.
Laz strode to the victim in the suit and bent to take his pulse. He was alive, but barely. Blood covered his clothing, drenching the white shirt beneath his suit coat the worst. A chest wound was the very minimum of what he’d sustained; he’d been shot. But his head was bleeding too, and heads tended to violently hemorrhage. His blood soaked the ground beneath him. He would bleed to death shortly if Laz didn’t get him some help.
One really convenient thing about warlocks was that they possessed the ability to bring the dead back to life. There were contingencies: the warlock had to be more powerful than the person they were resurrecting, there had to be a fire, some sort of crystal, and so on. But despite this obnoxiously enormous gift, the strange thing was they couldn’t heal. They couldn’t take away a person’s wounds while that person still breathed. They could only bring them back once they’d crossed over. It was odd to Laz.
Especially since he did have the ability to heal.
It wasn’t something he’d chosen to advertise, not to the Thirteen Kings, much less to Roman D’Angelo. He wasn’t sure why he kept this newfound ability to himself. There was just something about the skill that didn’t sit right with him, not the least of which was the its uniqueness among his kind. Warlocks didn’t have it either, so it wasn’t something he absorbed while feeding. It was his and his alone.
Regardless of where it came from or what it meant, in his line of work, it was an ability Laz was grateful to have, and one he used now. He placed his hands to the victim’s bloody chest and concentrated. In the sidelines of his vision, he noticed the young stupid warlock beginning to stir. Without glancing away from the man he was healing, Laz sent a sharp spike of power at the warlock. It hit the young man like a rock to the forehead, and he was once more unconscious.
A white light grew beneath Laz’s pressed palms. He imagined that light filling the bullet hole in the victim’s chest and infiltrating the man’s bloodstream. Then he imagined it was sewing the gash in his skull, infiltrating the skin around it like a glowing needle and thread.
When he opened his eyes again a few seconds later, he found the man’s wounds sealed, though they were still covered in drying blood, and he was still unconscious. When a person was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, it was because they’d received a concussion. People were so accustomed to watching television shows or movies in which characters were “knocked out” only to wake up with no ill effect, they had utterly no idea how completely wrong the medical aspect of the event really was. In truth, the character would require immediate medical attention and on-going supervision, or risk permanent brain damage or death.
But that was Hollywood for you. It would never be a friend to reality.
Laz could have tried to get into the complicated workings of the man’s brain to deal with the concussion, but he wasn’t a neuroscientist, nor was he a natural born healer like Dannai Caige, so he didn’t want to chance it. Instead, he pulled a cell from his jacket pocket and dialed a number, making an “anonymous” call to the nearest police department. Then he hung up, cast his usual “erasing” spell on the phone so the call could not be traced in any capacity, and stood.
He looked over at the warlock. “Now to deal with you and your friends.”
Chapter Eight
Everyone is ignorant of something. What that something is just depends on who you are and where you’re from. The man who called himself Steven Lazarus was ignorant of something pretty big. Bael had been assigned to rectify that, among other things. He’d been wondering about the best way to approach the subject. Ultimately, he’d reasoned that watching the man for a while – figuring out his nuances, idiosyncrasies and such – before approaching him would be best. Then it would also be smart to limit the information he gave to Lazarus. A little at a time. That was what he was going to do.
And he’d been right. Detective Lazarus was one hell of an interesting individual. It was more than a little surprising to Bael that the man hadn’t yet figured the truth out for himself; he was a detective, after all. But people tended to see, hear and know what they wanted to see, hear and know, and ignorance more often than not fed itself.
The detective made a call on his phone, cast some sort of basic and crude spell that wiped out the technology capable of tracking the call, then took off at a run down the alley. Bael waited. When he sensed the detective’s next stationary position, he stepped back into the shadows and disappeared.
His kind didn’t transport the way other magic users did. It seemed the entire world of supernatural beings used portals to send themselves from one location to another. Whereas Bael and others like him, by comparison, would simply vanish from one location and reappear in another.
He wondered if Lazarus had relegated himself to using rudimentary portals. Probably. Once you’d figured out one way of doing something, why try to improve upon it? People were also lazy. Even men with remarkable bloodlines. Perhaps especially men with remarkable bloodlines.
When Bael snapped back into existence at the second location, he kept himself cloaked in invisibility and watched through the murky veil of vision it afforded. The detective had caught up with one of the escaped gunmen and he had the man pressed up against the wall. He was grilling him for information. When the captive wasn’t forthcoming, the detective let loose with another string of power and extracted the information from the forefront of the man’s thoughts.
He then let the criminal drop to the ground. Apparently, having thoughts ripped from your brain was rather painful. What the detective probably wasn’t aware of was that it wasn’t a warlock spell or warlock magic that did it. It was something much more… special.
Bael sighed a rather weary sigh when the detective turned, peered down the dark alley, and took off at another run, no doubt to catch up with the third and final perpetrator. But Bael had really had enough of this all-too-human game of crime fighting. It was time to tend to real business.
He followed Lazarus to the end of the alley, then got close enough to be heard before he cleared his throat.
The detective skidded to an impressive halt and spun, pulling his firearm and flooding his hands with readied offensive magic at the same time. Bael dropped the invisibility around him, which also cleared up his own vision. He stepped out of the shadows, and Lazarus gazed at him down the barrel of his gun.
“Good evening, Detective Lazarus,” said Bael. “I wonder if I might have a word with you.”
The detective eyed him with careful scrutiny, and Bael could sense himself being sized up from head to toe.
“Akyri?” Lazarus asked plainly, but he didn’t lower his gun, and that magic of his was still throbbing at the ready.
Bael chuckled low and glanced at the ground as he smiled a smile of secrets. “No, I’m afraid you’re a touch off there, detective. But you knew that already. If
I were an Akyri, you wouldn’t have to ask. You are, after all, their king.”
The detective grew dangerously silent. Bael felt the stillness about him, so quiet, so razor-sharp, it was beyond obvious to him that the man was masses more than he appeared to be.
“Fair enough. But you’re definitely not human,” Laz said. His blue eyes flashed with knowledge.
Bael smiled, revealing beautiful white teeth much like the detective’s; his incisors were slightly elongated, and decidedly sharp. “No,” he said. He moved from his position to approach his subject, but at a few feet from Lazarus, the air grew troubled and wrong. It was a palpable warning not to come any closer. Bael drew to a stop, swallowing past a dryness that had suddenly formed in his inhuman throat. He decided to talk fast. “I’ve come to deliver a message, Detective. It’s about your father.”
Those ocean blue eyes narrowed on him, pinning him to the spot he’d stopped in. Immense power indeed, Bael thought uncomfortably. As his king’s Messenger, he was supposed to possess special immunities to this kind of thing. They should have given him at least a fighting chance against the detective’s inherent magic. Yet Bael felt very literally glued in place and sluggish in general. He even felt afraid. Maybe he’d lost his messenger immunities. Or maybe Steven Lazarus was a force to be reckoned with.
“You’re speaking of Marius,” Lazarus plied slowly. Marius was the late Akyri King. Lazarus had killed him and taken his place at the Table of the Thirteen.
“No,” Bael shook his head. “Not quite. Think bigger. Think badder.”
The detective raised his chin, just slightly. He said nothing, which urged Bael to continue. So he went on, still frozen to the spot. “Feel free to stop me at any time, but I’m guessing that you’re finding your position as the new Akyri King more and more difficult to justify of late.”
There was a long pause before Lazarus spoke very slowly and carefully. “What makes you say that?” What Lazarus wasn’t questioning was how Bael knew he was the Akyri King. He didn’t question how Bael knew of Marius, the former king. In fact, he seemed to accept everything that was happening as if it were simply another facet to his life. As one of the Thirteen, it was possible this was just another facet to his life, and maybe he was just very good at making adjustments.
“The Akyri have certain powers. As their king, you will of course have developed these powers in full by this point. But I’m guessing you’ve developed a good deal more.”
Now Detective Steven Lazarus seemed to grow larger, his presence more ominous. His look turned cold as ice. “Who are you?” he asked darkly.
Bael answered quickly. “My name is Bael. I’m a messenger in your father’s court.” In truth, he had been a messenger in the Demon King’s court, but he was no longer. He’d been assigned a task most messengers could only dream of. He was here as the detective’s personal servant now. Bael of the Blood Moon Valley was officially right-hand to the prince.
Not that the Detective had any idea, and it would be a while before Bael would tell him as much because it would be a while before Steven Lazarus would accept it. So, what was the point? And the job was becoming dangerous enough as it was. Bael was beginning to worry. He could feel the detective’s power swelling, building up. It was so much more than warlock magic. It was pure and base and primordial, and though Lazarus didn’t know it, it was capable of the kinds of things warlocks could only dream. Well focused and developed, it could level a city.
“Oh?” the detective asked with a raised brow. His tone felt like razors along Bael’s skin, shaving dangerously close. “And if not Marius, who pray tell would that be?”
“My lord Astaroth,” said Bael without ceremony. “The Demon King.”
Chapter Nine
Dahlia transported out of the cave with Evie at her side, then said her goodbyes and headed to her neck of the Unseelie Realm via another transport. By the time she’d altogether left the impossible magic that was Evie’s cavern, the Tuath-fae-vampire was stuffed on everything from cupcakes to creampuffs to about a gallon of tea and milk. It was a feeling she’d never imagined she would be fortunate enough to feel again.
There was a bounce to her inhuman step as she made her way down the path that led to her new home. The path wound through one of the darker forests in the Unseelie Realm. Around another few bends, she would come upon a copse of trees to her right that seemed impassable.
She would push past those trees using magic that made them part, and a new path would appear. That path would be lined with some of her favorite blooms, such as the poppies from the mortal world, and vellum from the fae realms. She would then take that second path until she was in the Karethlare Swamps, where her small, private cottage awaited her on a tiny island shrouded by fog and mists and a thick canopy of overhanging vines and tree branches that completely blocked out the sun.
A fenced back yard contained a tiny cobbled stone path that wound through hundreds of blooms of different sizes, shapes and colors. It was a paradise, if a tiny one. This island cabin was a magical place just like Evie’s hideaway. However it was much smaller, much cozier, and absolutely no one but Dahlia knew it existed.
Dahlia’s step slowed. All at once, she wondered whether she should reciprocate and tell Evie about her cottage. As a show of thanks and of faith. It wouldn’t hurt her friendship, that’s for sure. And these days… friendship was something Dahlia wouldn’t turn away.
The cottage was protected by layer upon layer of magic that shielded it from the sun and scrying spells. Of course, there was the overhang as well, which looked to be made of plants, but was actually stronger than thick metal. It was the perfect little escape for a vampire. Should Evie ever find herself in need of a quick place to hide, this would do the trick. And Dahlia wanted to repay the Vampire Queen for her kindness.
“And for the chocolate,” she added out loud. She stopped in her path and closed her eyes, imagining the table in front of her topped with mountains of pastries. She smiled. Then she opened her eyes to find a white stag standing majestic and shimmering less than ten feet away on the path in front of her.
“Oh, what the-” Dahlia cried, her eyes wide, her heart thumping.
The forest was quiet. The stag turned its head just a little, as if amused by her reaction.
It was a stunning creature; there was no animal like this in the mortal realm. Its coat was so white, it imparted a soft glow and was surrounded by an aura. It was tall, proud, and majestic, with horns that spiraled three feet above its head and were covered with gemstones of rainbow hues from the blue of sapphires to the yellow of canary diamonds. They shimmered like prisms where rays of moonlight struck them.
The animal appeared to have been sliced from the moon and deposited in the earthly realms like a fallen star. The eyes gazing at her so steadily were reflective, mimicking the snow of a mid-winter blizzard, even now in June. Flecks of light in the irises literally moved, swirling and swaying like the multitudinous flakes in a December storm. It was a wondrous creature in every respect.
And Dahlia was not amused.
She knew all too well what this animal was – and what it represented. The fact that two of the three warlocks who made up her triad coven had become queens was not lost on Dahlia. She was the only one left, and she wasn’t stupid. She felt the wolf sniffing at the door and knew the first shoe had dropped long ago.
The Tuath Stag was a solitary creature well beyond rare. There was only one in all the realms. It was said to show itself to those who were meant for great things. It was a guide, a symbol, and an omen.
That was the grade school version of the Story of the Tuath Stag.
Dahlia, who had studied the creature with earnest since she was a child, knew a little more. Legend told that the blood of the Tuath Stag ran through the veins of the most powerful, most influential fae. However, what she knew that few others did was that the Stag’s heart was wild and unruly. It did appear, seemingly at random, before a fae of importance – but only to a fae who
had tasted power’s darker, more potent side... and who wanted more.
The Tuath Stag had appeared to Selene Trystaine just before the Wisher had taken her place at the Seelie King’s side. Dahlia knew why. She knew why the Stag had appeared before Selene and not her sister, Minerva, even though the two had become the twin queens of the Seelie and Unseelie Realms.
Selene had been filled with anger and a desperate need for justice, and this need had sent her on a rampage of vigilantism through the mortal realm. Yet she was unsatisfied. Because, as so many often did after such sprees, she realized that the general evil of the world was greater than it appeared to be, and that revenge did not make it go away. It couldn’t.
In this painful moment where great power met the chaos of empathetic emptiness, the Stag had looked into her eyes, and their hearts had beat as one.
Dahlia gazed at the Tuath Stag in all of its breathtaking beauty, and her blood heated. She had wanted to see one since she’d been a little girl. So many, many years ago. Centuries to go ungratified, her needs and wishes left wilting like unpicked flowers. So many centuries that she’d stopped counting them.
And here it was. Now. When she couldn’t stand the sight of it because she knew what it meant and she was done with fate fucking her over.
“No way,” she hissed. Her words came out like a threat, like a promise, and like an epitaph to sanity. “No!” she yelled, balling her hands into fists at her sides. There was no way in the nine hells this was going to happen – not to her.
But the Stag seemed unfazed by her reprisal.
“I make my own choices, do you hear me?” she said, taking a step toward the beast. She expected it to bolt, to get scared and run off. She hoped it would, in fact. She wanted her words to rest over it like a shroud and teach it a lesson. She was so fed up with fate telling women what to do, deciding their existences for them, and shoving them into roles that were pre-chosen! From arranged marriages to societal roles to glass ceilings – to this. It wasn’t for her! She’d had enough of being picked on! “Get out of here! Go find someone else to play house in your little games! I will not be owned!” she yelled, placing the most emphasis on her final sentence.