Dark Legacies (Book Four in the Brenna Strachan Series) Page 10

  The sword did the work for me. It sliced off the head of the evil horse with eyes that looked like coal, and spit that was tinted red. It cut through the horseman at the waist. I pushed it off the unnatural beast, grabbed hold of a leg and dragged the bottom half of the horseman back to the protective circle. The entire incident took less than two minutes.

  Time resumed. The fire arrow hit a chimera. It bellowed in pain, the fire consuming its fur. Another rushed in and pulled the arrow out and burning itself in the process.

  “What the fuck?” Anubis looked around, his eyes wide.

  “I did what needed to be done,” I answered. The horseman’s leg was still in my hand. It kicked while the rest of the body, up to the waist, flopped and twisted on the ground. It wasn’t dead. The Strachan Sword with all its magic and power had failed to kill it. We did have an advantage now though.

  I wasn’t sure what to do next. I had cast a forbidden spell with only minimal results. I was likely to burn for it. My only hope was that the Witches’ Council and the Divine would forgive.

  The horse slowly sank to the ground as blood puddled around it. It was dead and its rider was pulling itself towards us with his hands. He’d lost the crossbow, but he could still have magic.

  As he neared the circle, Gregorian stepped forward and swallowed him whole. Gregorian eating him was probably the better idea, I realized. However, it was too late. I dropped the leg. It continued to move, trying to crawl away from us. Ba’al set upon it, tearing it to pieces with his sharp talons. However, the pieces continued to move.

  I was out of magic, the horseman didn’t seem to be dying and Gregorian had eaten half of him. This was not going our way. I tried to pull magic from the others but there was something blocking it. The decimated horseman’s pieces were pulling themselves back together as fast as Ba’al could tear them apart.

  “We need a dragon or rather, several dragons!” I shouted.

  Gregorian screamed. It was high pitched and it pierced my ears. Warm sticky blood began to flow from them. It cooled as it reached my neck. The scream was something I had never heard before and then it was silent. Gregorian still seemed to be screaming, but I couldn’t hear him. Anubis was talking, but I couldn’t hear him either. Blood flowed from the ears of all the Elders. We were all going deaf.

  I didn’t think, I ran to Gregorian. I had done this to Cerebus and dragons before, but never a chimera. My sword split him open. The upper torso of the horseman spilled out onto the ground and continued its determined crawl towards its body.

  Hathor joined me and we began trying to heal Gregorian. As his soul slipped away from his body, I heard his voice in my head.

  “I will return, Demon,” then he was gone.

  His mate nudged the lifeless body as a large tear fell from her eye. After a second, she turned on the horseman. Her body language changed. It didn’t take a witch to know that she was pissed.

  She charged forward, hitting the horseman with her large paw. His upper torso was lifted off the ground and flung through the air. It slammed into my house. A brilliant purple light flashed around the horseman and the house. The walls began to move, the soil began to seethe.

  The horseman was stuck to my house with some sort of magical force. A gaping hole appeared in the dirt. The house let go, the earth swallowed the torso, and then the ground begin to fill back in, burying him alive.

  “Why do you want dragons?” Anubis asked.

  “To eat the horseman’s remains,” I told them.

  “Carnivorous soil won’t work?” Anubis probed, his eyebrow was raised and his eyes never left the ground.

  The magically charged ground consuming the horseman was not expected. The fact that the house had helped, defied every ounce of logic the universe held. However, if the ground could hold the horseman was another story. I would never get to sleep wondering if he would crawl from his grave in search of his missing legs.

  I giggled. I couldn’t help it. A line from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow flitted through my memory. In that one, the horseman didn’t have a head, but was determined to find it or get a replacement. It might have been nervousness that made me giggle, because it wasn’t as funny when I thought about it a second time.

  “Do you believe the horseman can be entombed for eternity by the ground under our house?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” Anubis answered.

  “And you’re fine sleeping in said house knowing that the horseman is under it?” I continued.

  Anubis seemed to consider this for a moment. He looked towards Ba’al. Ba’al frowned.

  “We should find some dragons,” Anubis finally said. “Do dragons digest horsemen?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” I answered.

  The gate of the city opened. Pendragon, his tall gaunt frame backlit from the gas lamps of the town, walked out. The gate closed again.

  “I have a question,” I pointed towards Pendragon. “If we really defeated the horseman, why is it still dark?”

  “Horseman?” Pendragon asked, stopping where he stood just a few feet from the gate.

  “Yes,” Anubis called to him. “The ground seems to have temporarily eaten his upper half, but his lower half is still trying to reassemble itself and we don’t know for sure that the ground will hold him.”

  “It is magical,” Pendragon resumed his walk. “Like one of the legendary horsemen?”

  “White horse, crossbow,” I shrugged. I was Catholic by birth, so I was well versed in Revelation.

  “There were no trumpets,” Pendragon answered.

  “We had bellowing chimeras,” I countered. “And the trumpets are another seal. The white horseman is the first of the seven seals that foretell the apocalypse.”

  “You realize that Revelation was not part of the Bible originally,” Pendragon said.

  “Yes, it was added later,” I answered. “What does that have to do with the price of coffee in Guatemala?”

  “Revelation was written by a madman,” Anubis answered. “Or he seemed to be a madman at the time. In hindsight, maybe he wasn’t.”

  “Who wrote it exactly?” I asked, feeling it might be important.

  “His name was Porlaine and he was so convinced that his visions were prophetic that he attempted to make them come true. Eventually, it became so bad that he was killing people to save them from the apocalypse that was coming,” Pendragon answered.

  “Elder?” I asked.

  “No, witch,” Pendragon sighed.

  “Great,” I said. My magic was still drained and I couldn’t replenish it. I stormed into the house and grabbed Ezra, my spell book. We both headed outside.

  “Think Ezra can help?” Pendragon’s voice was full of skepticism.

  “Why not?” I countered. “Ezra, how do I get rid of the four horsemen of the apocalypse?”

  “You don’t,” Ezra answered. “The Horsemen aren’t human or witches, they are Elders. Always have been, always will be.”

  “Did you know the prophet, Porlaine?” I prodded.

  “We all know the prophet Porlaine,” Ezra answered.

  “Why are you being cryptic all of a sudden?”

  My spell book sighed. It was long and mournful. Coming from any other book, this would be weird. My spell book contained the soul of a long undead ancestor in it. He was occasionally moody.

  “Do you think I’m the only soul trapped on the mortal plane?” Ezra’s answer was curt.

  “Porlaine is on earth? His soul?” I frowned harder.

  “Porlaine,” Ezra closed his eyes, “Porlaine is...”

  “Porlaine is what?” I asked.

  “Porlaine is in the prison,” Pendragon finally answered.

  “Can we talk to him?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t expect much, he talks in riddles and prophesy,” Ezra answered.

  “He’s a centaur,” I answered.

  “And a witch,” Ezra added. “He’s the first half-breed. He’s not a true prophet, but he isn’t wrong like most cen
taurs and he isn’t going to talk to you or me or anyone else for that matter.”

  “Why?” I prodded.

  “Because Porlaine will only talk to a horseman,” Pendragon answered. “The last thing he said before he decided to become mute was, ‘I’ll talk only when the horsemen ride the earth.’”

  “That doesn’t mean he’ll only talk to a horseman, it just means he won’t talk until one comes,” I replied. “He might be very chatty now that they walk the earth.”

  “Porlaine is different,” Ezra answered. “He cast a few too many spells in his lifetime and prophesy seems to have been a side-effect.”

  “What spell causes prophecy?” I asked.

  “Stopping time,” Ezra answered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The door read “Porlaine the Centaur.” I know because I read it six times, as I stared in through the window. Porlaine did not look like a centaur, a witch, or a male being of any species. Also, he was blue.

  As we entered the room, Porlaine turned blood-red eyes on me. Not the irises, but the part that was supposed to be white was filled with blood. It made my eyes hurt to look at them.

  “Porlaine, this is Brenna Strachan, she’d like to talk to you,” Pendragon said. The thing in the cell puffed up what I would have considered cheeks. I didn’t know what that meant.

  “The horsemen walk the earth,” I offered. There was a sudden whoosh of air from the creature.

  The unnaturally large mouth without any teeth opened. Its whiskers twitched. The blue color began to drain away.

  “Shouldn’t he be in water or something?” I whispered to Pendragon. Pendragon shrugged.

  “I don’t like water,” the thing that was Porlaine croaked at me.

  “You’re a catfish, all catfish like water,” I argued.

  “No, I’m just stuck in the body of a catfish. I’m really a centaur,” Porlaine answered. “And I still don’t like water.

  “Oh, okay,” I gave up the logical part of my argument. Now that I was thinking about it, maybe it wasn’t logical to begin with. After all, I was arguing with a catfish that had once been a centaur/witch half-breed.

  “So the horsemen walk, I was right.” It flopped around in what I assumed was a dance.

  “Can we do something about the fish thing, it’s creeping me out,” I whispered to Pendragon.

  “Nefera gave him this body and we can’t seem to break whatever holds him in it,” Pendragon answered.

  “It’s not all that bad once you get used to it,” Porlaine interrupted. “Now, you were saying something about the horsemen wandering the earth.”

  “Well, one of them isn’t wandering the earth. He’s trapped in it, under my house, for now. I’m wondering how we destroy them,” I questioned the fish that was Porlaine the centaur/witch half-breed.

  “You can’t. You can only trap them and you can’t trap them together. Each must be housed in their own jar.”

  “Jar? What jar?”

  “The canopic jars from whence they came,” Porlaine flopped around some more.

  “Canopic jars hold organs from mummies,” Anubis countered.

  “Not the original ones. They held the horsemen,” Porlaine’s voice was hard on the ears. I wanted to run, screaming from the room.

  “I’m confused,” I admitted.

  “And rightly so, if the powers that be had let me tell them about it, they wouldn’t be in this mess now. But no, I was labelled a loony and locked away in the body of a fish. I tried to tell them. I saw all of this coming. I even saw you, Brenna Strachan, the great warrior, determined to save the earth from the evil of the horsemen. I tried to warn them about Nefera, but they didn’t want to hear that either.”

  “You knew Nefera would curse Anubis?” I asked.

  “No, I knew she would find the canopic jars and write the location in her spell book and that eventually, Jasmine would find them and use them.”

  “Okay, what else did you know?” I asked.

  “Lots, but now that the horsemen walk the earth; most of it is a moot point. I will give you a warning. You cast the spell to stop time earlier today. Your fate rests on whether you do it again. Your fate is tied to that of the earth. You die, and it dies. Stop casting forbidden magic,” Porlaine flopped over onto his back.

  “How do you talk? Don’t you need water running over your gills for oxygen?” I changed the subject before anyone started asking me questions.

  “Gills, pish posh, I’m a magical fish,” Porlaine flopped again. “I’ve been holding my breath for nearly 15,000 years.”

  “Oh,” I didn’t know what else to say. I agreed with them, he was looney. If I had been in charge back then, I would have had him locked away as well. Probably not in the body of a giant magical catfish, but somewhere.

  “Oh? Just oh? That is all you can say? If our fate rests with you, we are all doomed. As I tried to tell these boneheads ages ago, your sister isn’t really the evil you must face. There is another, someone in charge, someone that has been plotting this for ages, but needed a witch crazy enough and with enough magic to pull it off. Jasmine is the first to be born that way. Although some others were approached over the years, they didn’t realize it. Most have been from your bloodline. Nefera was approached, she tried it and failed.”

  “Do you know everything?” I asked.

  “No, that’s impossible. Many futures exist, but your decisions today affect the outcome of things, hundreds of things in the future. I just know bits and pieces. For example, if you hadn’t healed Daniel, the apocalypse wouldn’t have happened for another thirty years, but you did and that sped everything up.”

  A part of me suddenly felt bad about that. Another part chastised me for feeling bad for healing my brother. Finally, a tiny voice spoke up and reminded me that I was talking to a catfish.

  “How do I find the canopic jars?” I asked.

  “Do you have Nefera’s spell book?” He asked.

  “No.” I answered.

  “Then I don’t know. I don’t know where they were or where they are now.” Porlaine seemed to think for a minute. “Do you have your spell book?”

  “Of course,” I answered.

  “With you?”

  “Uh, yes,” I had a twinge of apprehension.

  “May I see it?”

  “I suppose,” I dug the spell book out of a bag that hung from my shoulder. Ezra gasped at the fish. The fish gasped back.

  “Ezra?” Porlaine asked.

  “Porlaine,” Ezra answered.

  “Is there an undead networking site or something?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” Ezra answered.

  “The undead can speak telepathically to one another. It isn’t fun or interesting and the undead have little to talk about.” Porlaine said.

  “Well, okie dokie then.” I was growing more confused by the minute.

  “So, how’s it going?” Ezra asked the giant fish.

  “So so, it isn’t as bad as an inanimate object. I didn’t realize you were a spell book. I was going to tell her to find the section on fighting the horsemen.”

  “That section was missing long before I got put into the book,” Ezra answered.

  “Ouch, your pages were ripped out,” Porlaine made a weird mewing, barking noise.

  “They’ve been ripped out of all spell books,” Ezra answered. “I’ve never seen a copy.”

  “I specifically put them into ten books,” Porlaine made a different, even stranger noise. “I knew that the Elders wouldn’t believe me, but I figured the witches would figure it out, eventually.”

  “You wrote the original ten great house books?” I asked.

  “Of course I did. I knew you’d need them,” Porlaine answered. “I also knew there would be ten great houses. Witches have added on over the years, but I wrote the originals.”

  “Interesting to know,” I said.

  “I told you we all knew him,” Ezra told me.

  “I didn’t...” I stopped. I had argued with a fish ear
lier. I was not going to start arguing with my book. “Okay, so the important bits aren’t in the books. Do you know them?”

  “Not anymore. I wrote them down so I wouldn’t have to remember. Do you know how hard it is to have lots of coherent thoughts inside the brain of a fish?”

  “You said you were magical!” I nearly shouted.

  “I am magical, but I’m also a fish,” Porlaine barked back. For a few seconds, I questioned my sanity. I was back to arguing with a fish. The current situation wasn’t boding well in that department.

  “Okay, what do you remember?” My jaws hurt from clenching my teeth.

  “I remember that the horsemen have to be called forth into the bodies of infants and then the caster has to stop time so that the horsemen can grow, but there’s a special spell for it, otherwise it doesn’t affect them. To rid the world of the horsemen, they have to go back into the canopic jar, which is easy; all you have to do is open them.”

  My brain suddenly went into overload. My memories searched through the building of my house. What was it my mind was trying to grasp? Canopic jars, but not like the ones from Egypt, these had been different. I had asked but no one knew what they were. They were sealed with magic.

  We once had them in our basement. I slapped my forehead. It hurt.

  “What was that?” Ezra asked.

  “Are you in the habit of hitting yourself?” Porlaine croaked.

  “The jars that held the horsemen, did they have strange looking tops?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t remember exactly what was on them.”

  “A crossbow on one, perhaps? Being held by an angel?”

  “That sounds about right,” Porlaine answered.

  “Oh, God,” Anubis hung his head, “we had them in our possession.”

  “They were in our basement,” I sighed.

  “Did you ever figure out how they got that stuff out of your basement?” Pendragon asked.

  “No,” I answered. We really didn’t. Somehow, someone had penetrated the spells that protected the house and emptied all the cursed items from our basement. At the time, we had considered our prime suspects to be Magnus or Kagutsuchi. However, during my time in the ethereal, I had begun to rethink that theory. Neither would have had the ability to wander around my house, freely.