Dark Legacies (Book Four in the Brenna Strachan Series) Page 3

  Eli and Lucifer were doing something to its other leg. Gabriel had hold of its ear and he was trying to rip it off. Ba’al had sunk long, dagger-like claws into one of its eyes. Fenrir and Anubis were tearing at the beast’s throat with their sharp canine teeth. I was the least of its worries, or so it thought. I scrambled across the body that measured about seventy feet and onto one of its arms. My claws left small marks as I moved. My mother still looked pissed. I moved closer to her, grabbed hold of the deformed paw that resembled a hand, and began shredding it with my claws. The blood that flowed was black and thick. It was also cold. I wondered just what the hell my sister had been doing the last six months.

  The beast gave a strangled howl. The second one stopped fighting the tree, Sonnellion and my younger brothers, and started our way.

  “Work faster, Bren,” my mother said, her voice a few octaves higher than normal.

  “Well, if you had claws, it would be faster,” I told her.

  “Don’t get snippy,” she scolded. I hung my head and sank my now longer horns into its hand. It let out another sound. The hand unclenched and my mother was falling. With her out of the way, I jerked, snapping the horn off and bathing the beast in fire. The blood flowed faster, and Eli was glowing on the ground. It took a second for me to make the decision. I jumped off the monster, landing on the ground with enough force to take my breath away. For a moment, I just lay there, and then I began to call the magic. The second monster began to howl. Someone touched me and the sky above me went black.

  The ground shook harder, cracks began to appear in the dirt, and bits of grass fell into the cracks. I only knew one thing that could do that. We all began to back pedal away from the two monsters. Something worse was coming.

  Cerebus, Uther Pendragon and his children, the Incubi and Succubi rounded the corner. I had seen the hellhound on several more occasions than I wanted. However, I had never seen him pissed. His eyes glowed crimson and smoke wafted from his nostrils. The three heads, normally not focused on the same thing, were now solely focused on the two hybrid monsters in front of us. He threw back all three heads and howled.

  The howl raised goose bumps on my arms and made the skin on my neck prickle. It made my ears hurt and my lungs emptied of air. My knees gave out on me and I fell to the ground, head lowered, unable to look upon the hellhound. Cerebus had always been terrifying. There were no words to describe how he made me feel now. Terrified didn’t even come close. I would have stared down the Four Horsemen before gazing upon the hellhound.

  A loud, maniacal giggle brought my attention away from the ground. My eyes skirted Cerebus of their own accord, as if they would turn to stone if I looked upon him, and found Spring-Heeled Jack. For a madman, Jack was in fine spirits. He stood beside the large three-headed hound, giggled, and danced a jig. His eyes locked onto me and he gave me a creepy finger wave before springing upon one of the monsters.

  He jumped like no other being on the planet. He landed squarely on the head of the second, unnamed beast. His claws worked faster than my eyes could keep up with them. He tore at the monster, digging in further with each second.

  Cerebus ran at Tiber. His girth made the ground move, crack, and moan as he did it. He slammed into Tiber, knocking him to the ground. One of the heads grabbed hold of Tiber’s throat, while another clamped onto his muzzle. Tiber tried to growl, but Cerebus locked his jaws tighter, turning it into a whimper. The third head of Cerebus growled in return.

  “Do we help?” Sonnellion asked.

  “Um, I don’t have a clue,” I answered. We were all pressed against the wall of the council chamber, on our knees. Only Uther and his children stood, watching the battle. Pendragon gave a nod to my father, who responded by standing up. He held out a hand to me.

  “We don’t, you do,” Lucifer said to me.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Help Jack,” Lucifer answered. “He is drawn to you, but not because you are a woman. He could use some help.”

  It didn’t appear that Jack needed help. He was doing a fine job of tearing open the skull of the second beast. He was taking delight in cracking the pieces out and tossing them on the ground. I took a few steps forward. Jack noticed and stopped. He cocked his head to one side. I called magic and pushed it into the monster. Wounds began opening around Jack. Jack giggled harder and went back to tearing apart the head.

  There was an odd whimpering noise, but I couldn’t stop. I had to focus on the beast in front of me and trust that Cerebus wasn’t going to turn around and chomp down on me for breakfast when he finished with Tiber. The blood flowed faster, thicker, from the second monster. The grass sizzled and died as it fell to the ground. The land rejected it, refused to let it soak in, and rivers of the black gunk began to flow through the yard.

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the large heads of Cerebus was staring at me. I wondered if he had a memory. On more than one occasion, I had to go up against the hellhound and used whatever means necessary not to be eaten.

  To say Cerebus was large was like saying a blue whale was large. Cerebus was at least ninety-feet tall and at least that long. A single head was the size of a Suburban. His canine teeth were nearly four-feet long and sharp in the way that only teeth and horns can be.

  I stopped what I was doing and stared at Cerebus. The other heads were not looking at me. One stared at Spring-Heeled Jack as the other watched the second monster.

  Pendragon grabbed my arm, pulling me away from both creatures. Spring-Heeled Jack leapt from the head of the second beast and onto Cerebus. He sat calmly on top of the hellhound’s head and watched. Using one head, Cerebus clamped onto the second monster with his massive jaws and shook him. This one didn’t groan, it just collapsed, going limp in Cerebus’ mouth. Cerebus spit it out onto the ground. He and Spring-Heeled Jack began walking away from us.

  “Uh, okay,” I looked at Pendragon.

  “Cerebus is a singular creature. We’ve never tried to create others, but a few times, rogues have. He has done this to all of them. He likes being the only one,” Pendragon said.

  “And Jack?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, my children informed me that Jack had been found in Cerebus’s cave the last couple of times he escaped, so we thought we’d bring him along. The two seem to have an affinity for each other,” Pendragon looked at me finally. “Jasmine came well prepared.”

  “She says she brought me back to bear witness,” I answered.

  “To?”

  “The apocalypse, I think,” I shrugged. “Only I can’t figure out why now. Her infants aren’t any older than Amanda is, so why is she bringing me forth to bear witness now? Why not wait until the Horsemen have grown?”

  “Maybe they have,” Sonnellion said. “Maybe she called forth the spirits into infants because it was easy, but now that they are here, they’ve been transferred into something or someone else.”

  “I suppose, I can’t get lucky enough for these things to have contained two of them,” I grumbled.

  “Probably not,” Pendragon said as he walked away.

  Chapter Three

  The men in my family and life were outside discussing what to do with the bodies of the massive monsters. The women were inside discussing me. I was sitting on the couch thinking about the apocalypse.

  If Sonnellion was right, the Horsemen could be roaming the world, creating chaos at this very moment. I knew my sister was, because chaos was the only thing she was good at. I kept checking my phone for news reports about monsters and magic.

  There weren’t any, which worried me even more than if there had been. I didn’t have a clue as to what Jasmine was doing. I did know she had genetically engineered monsters using DNA from Cerebus. There was no telling what else she had been up to during my six months in the aether. In addition, if she could come up with the beasts in just six months, what else could she come up with?

  “Brenna!” My mother said my name with vehemence, getting my attention.

&
nbsp; “What?” I asked.

  “Have you been listening at all?”

  “No, I’ve been wondering what else my sister created during my hiatus,” I told my mother.

  “We have been discussing how much more protection we can put on this compound,” my mother informed me.

  “Not enough,” I answered. “I don’t think adding more magic will help. What is the end game? Does she want to destroy humanity or Elders? That makes a huge difference.”

  “She isn’t a big fan of people,” Rachel said.

  “I know, but that...” I shrugged. It just didn’t feel right. Exterminating humanity just didn’t seem to be the answer to Jasmine’s problem. Jasmine wanted to be adored. The thought exploded in my head like a bomb. “What if she wants to be god-like?”

  “Huh?” My mother frowned at me.

  “You know, like the old days, the days when Elders were worshipped as gods. If that’s what she wants, bringing about the apocalypse is a good way to get it. It screams, ‘look at me, I can create and destroy.’ If she unleashed hell on earth, people would worship and they might worship her,” I said.

  “That’s madness,” Rachel said.

  “And Jasmine would fit in that category. The best form of revenge against humans would be to make it so they had to elevate you to a status above them. If she can manage that,” I shrugged again.

  “It would be very bad,” Olivia said quietly.

  “But how would she do that?” Rachel asked.

  “By killing us, as many Elders as possible would have to go to make room for her. Including the Overlords, our family, and everyone opposed to her,” I said.

  “Oh,” Elise made a face, “that would work. The first step would be to slaughter the Great Houses. Witches have powers against Elders and usually side with Elders and humanity over crazy beings bent on genocide.”

  “If Sonnellion is right, then we have a huge problem, and with Jasmine being as insane as Spring-Heeled Jack, I’d say the problem grows by the minute,” I looked at them.

  “No, I’d say she’s crazier than Spring-Heeled Jack,” Rachel looked thoughtful. “I can’t believe she let herself get caught just so we could get the power boost needed to bring back Brenna and Pendragon. She must really hate you.”

  “Yeah, I’ve gotten that impression in the past. I’m not entirely sure what put the bee in her bonnet, but I guess you can’t be liked by everyone,” I answered.

  “How very Zen of you,” Anubis came into the living room. “We can’t bury the things in the yard, since the ground won’t accept them. We’re going to have to send them to the island or something.”

  That brought another thought into my head. I stared at the group, chewing my bottom lip. I wasn’t sure whether it was a brilliant idea or a terrible one. I also didn’t know how they would react.

  “About the island,” I started, lip still clamped between my teeth.

  “What?” Anubis asked.

  “There’s one city right?” I pressed.

  “Yes,” my mother jumped into the conversation.

  “And it is inhabited mostly by Elders and witches, yes?” I continued.

  “Yes,” my mother frowned again.

  “And the rest of the island is just sort of land, right?”

  “Oh, just get on with it,” my mother finally huffed.

  “Well, my sister wants us dead, all of us. Then she’ll go to work on the other Overlords, Elders, Witches, and finally, humans. However, we are an obstacle that she has trouble defeating without massive monster help. I know this sounds crazy, but what if we relocated everything we have here to the island? House, chamber, everything? The ground there already has more magic than ours here. The chimeras would be around to help. And we might get lucky and Jasmine will be eaten by Cerebus next time she pays a visit.” I suggested.

  “Move back to the island? What about everything here in the rest of the world?” Lucifer’s voice came from the doorway.

  “I don’t think she can make a move on it, not yet anyway. She’s tried, but we keep stopping her. She almost has to eliminate us before she can really wreak havoc, and on the island, we are still capable of passing between this world and the island at a moment’s notice. Travel from there would actually be faster because it is easier to open portals.”

  “Just us or all Elders?” Sonnellion asked.

  “That’s the part I’m not entirely sure about,” I frowned. The chink in the armor had been found quickly. “If we all depart, take the fight there, we’d stand a better chance. However, we also leave the humans completely exposed to her heinous ways.”

  “If it is just us, no problem, but if we want to leave human society entirely, we’ll need a council vote,” Fenrir answered.

  “My house is still too small,” I whispered. Nick, who was sitting closest to me, gave a quiet giggle.

  “I hate to say it, but Bren might be right, Luc. We stand a better chance if she has to come to the island to get us,” my mother said.

  “And if she starts attacking human cities again?” Lucifer asked.

  “We’ll go in and kick ass, like we did in...” I stopped. “Los Angeles.” Berlin had been nearly destroyed by my sister’s clan of crazies, but we had stopped massive destruction from happening in most of the other major cities she had attacked.

  “We could move the Great Houses onto the island temporarily,” Rachel said. “They won’t like it a whole lot, but it beats the hell out of the alternative.”

  “I’ll go call a council meeting,” Lucifer left the room.

  I tasted blood, so I stopped chewing on my lip. I had been to the island only once and it had been eventful. I wasn’t entirely sure we could transport the house and council chamber, but I had a feeling Pendragon would know how. Of course, Pendragon had already told me he didn’t want to see me again for a couple of months and being forced to see me. Being my neighbor might not thrill him.

  My father walked back into the room. His face was pinched and brow furrowed. He seemed irritated.

  “What?” Elise asked.

  “I am having one of those days,” Lucifer told her.

  “One of what days?” Elise asked.

  “We are following the advice of one daughter to run from another. I didn’t expect this when we had our first child. It just puts me in a foul mood,” Lucifer answered.

  I had a great comeback that I did not let slip from between my lips. The last thing we needed was my father glowing or exploding in rage and having his magic get trapped inside the house. That would be hell for all of us.

  “When’s the meeting?” Anubis asked.

  “One hour,” Lucifer answered. “I’m going to go sulk until then.”

  My father was the largest intelligent being on the planet. He suddenly looked small, broken, and fragile. I felt sorry for him. I also hoped I wasn’t wrong and this didn’t end in complete disaster. We had enough of that going on without my adding to it.

  Needless to say, I spent the hour waiting for the council meeting with a sinking feeling in my stomach. The day had started out promising. I’d gotten an amped up body, thanks to my brother, my sister had been in custody, and I had finally given into temptation. All of that seemed like decades ago though.

  As evening descended, I could hear the Elders flocking through my yard. I was terrified to go into the chamber, terrified that everyone would think the worst of my plans. Even I had some reservations about leaving the human population.

  “Come,” my uncle, Leviathan, held out his hand to me, “it is time for us to join them.”

  Uncle Levi was the fourth biggest of the ten brothers. He was a beautiful shade of blue that reminded me of deep pools of water. He was also the second or perhaps the third most powerful of them. With the return of Sonnellion, things were sketchy in the power department still. He wasn’t a lieutenant, but it didn’t matter. He sat in on all council meetings anyway. Something about him just conveyed and commanded respect and even my father often turned to him for advice.
The other Elders ignored his lack of titled status and treated him like my father’s second in command.

  Night had fallen, but my yard was lit up with floodlights. The grass seemed an odd shade of yellowish-green. The black obsidian path seemed darker. The Elders moving towards the chamber were mostly smiling and talking excitedly. A council meeting was more than just a meeting to make a decision; it was a social affair. After the meeting, if the Elders weren’t storming away in a furious rage, they would invade our house and talk until the wee hours of the morning.

  My return, along with Pendragon’s, did not go unnoticed for very long. There were cheers and shouts as we both entered the backyard, Pendragon from some mystic portal, and me from the rear door. The Elders began talking faster, bombarding us with questions. Levi steered them away from me and Sonnellion flanked Pendragon to keep the hordes from mobbing him.

  The council chamber had once looked archaic with weird plastic folding chairs amidst the gas lamps and the large council table that had survived eons. Sadly, it had not survived the fire. A temporary table had replaced it. Actually, three temporary tables replaced the u-shaped council members’ seats. They looked like they had been bought at Sears or some modern home-furnishing center. The plastic folding chairs had also been replaced and names were stenciled on the occupied seats. Bizarre round lights set high on the wall that produced a blindingly white glare had replaced the gas lamps.

  Aside from the stone exterior, I hated the new chamber and everything in it. Including the dreadful couch that was shoved to one side and currently had a reclining centaur on it. I hated the couch before, but I hated it even more now that I realized I didn’t know the centaur. I hadn’t had the best of luck with the Elder breed. Their new Overlord seemed like a nice enough guy, and his wife was a witch, but I still had some doubts.

  The air in the chamber was oppressive. The witch in me made me feel other being’s emotions. They always ran the gamut from being happy, angry, scared, and everything in-between. And someone who always attended had some sort of nervous disorder, strange for an Elder, or perhaps it was our human liaison.