Dark Legacies (Book Four in the Brenna Strachan Series) Read online

  Only one being was near me. Gabriel stood over me, staring down. His wings, hair and skin were singed.

  “If you had just given us a minute,” Gabriel said.

  “I didn’t feel I had a minute and I had no magic inside that thing. I think there is something wrong with this brain. My other one was weird, but at least it worked more often than not.” I realized I was still holding the creature’s larynx and unflexed my hand. It smelled of cooked meat. To my horror, my stomach growled loudly. “See, there is something wrong with this body.”

  “It smells like bar-be-cue,” Gabriel said. “You haven’t eaten in a while. It makes sense.”

  “We have a world to save,” I reminded him. He nodded and held his hand out to me. With his help, I stood. Levi came over to me. “Not a word about my appearance or my inability to wait for rescue.” I held my hand up to stop him from talking.

  “I was going to say we need to get you healed, there are nine more of these things,” Levi answered.

  “Oh, well, in that case, why bother to heal me now? There’s a better than average chance that I’ll be eaten again. And my magic isn’t working,” as if to illustrate this, my magic suddenly began to gather around me. For a few seconds, it danced and swirled on the White House lawn, and then it made an audible popping sound and zoomed towards my brother. He instantly healed. My leg gave out under me. It felt like I’d been harpooned.

  “Bren?” Levi was standing over me. It took me a second to remember why I was on the ground again.

  “Okay, heal me,” I sighed.

  Chapter Nine

  The immediate threat to the White House was contained. The Secret Service had stopped shooting at us and they were embroiled in a heated debate with my father. The other brothers had attended to me and were relaxing as the wounded feelings passed. Most demons do not take on the physical wounds of those they healed, but there were phantom aches and pains that accompanied the process. My uncles were currently complaining that their legs and skin hurt. I felt fine.

  However, the rest of the city was in mass chaos. That was why there was an argument involving Lucifer. We were under the impression we should be out there, knocking down these newest beasties. The Secret Service was worried they would come back.

  Columns of black smoke stretched into the sky. They created dark clouds, stealing the sunlight from the city. The clouds hung low, making the air oppressive. A loud crash somewhere distant rumbled through the ground beneath our feet and was followed by the creation of another smoke column.

  My uncles and some men in uniform were pouring large cans of liquid onto the creature. One of the creature’s arms gave a weak twitch, but experience told me if it was moving at all, it probably wasn’t dead. After all, dragons were immortal creatures.

  Beezel struck a match and tossed it onto the creature. Flames shot into the air. More thick, black smoke billowed from the flames and the air began to smell of burning flesh quickly.

  “Anyway to get the temp up on that fire?” Sonnellion asked Beezel.

  “We used jet fuel,” Beezel answered.

  “Yes, but we need a good 10,000 degrees Celsius,” Sonnellion replied.

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Never send a demon to do a witch’s job. My feet moved forward as my eyes closed. The flesh on my face began to warm and my feet stopped moving. It felt like my cheeks were sunburnt. I took a moment to assess where I was standing in relation to the flames, decided that it was too close, and took a couple of steps back. My siblings began to join me.

  We encircled the fire and the burning creature. It was moving again. I was now sure that it wasn’t death throes, but life returning to it.

  A circle suddenly sprang up around us. We could see it, shimmering behind each other. Rachel began to speak some spell and magic began to flow. The chanting became louder. More magic moved between my siblings. I began pushing it towards them, filling the air around us with my own reserves.

  As they chanted, the flames climbed higher and the heat became more intense. The magic kept us from being burned as the heat warmed our skin. The flesh of the creature began to glow.

  Cremation of any sort is unpleasant. That is why it is done in large ovens without windows. Cremating a genetically engineered beastie on the White House lawn drew a crowd. The gawkers stared at it as it flopped and floundered, trying to get away from the heat, away from the pain.

  The flames continued to rise. I closed my eyes, deciding that I didn’t want to watch it burn to death, regardless of how terrible and unnatural the thing was. My siblings had their eyes closed as well. I could feel their discomfort with the situation, feel their terror and horror as the thing burned and a tear slid down my cheek as my lids closed.

  My nose stung from the smoke and acrid smells of burning flesh. My stomach growled and my brain reminded it that we weren’t barbecuing lunch by forcing my eyes open. A river of fire was spreading around the creature. I didn’t stop my siblings from their spell. There was no need. Some dragons breathed fire by using a special chemical they stored up in their throats. I was guessing that was the cause of the river.

  Thankfully, the creature hadn’t been able to regrow its vocal cords. No sounds escaped its mouth as parts of it began to crumble into piles of ash. Now, my eyes refused to close. The creature glowed with a hellish light created by the fire. The scales that covered most of it were blackening and curling up, like dry leaves next to a campfire. They fell to the ground in small clumps, ashes being thrown into the air from the impact.

  The fire continued for a long time. The creature flopped and flailed, trying to escape, but it was trapped in the circle of magic and flame. I no longer noticed the heat that warmed my skin. I only felt pain, radiating off everyone within the circle. The emotional pain was raw and somehow worse than physical pain.

  After several more minutes, all that was left was ash. We all sighed in relief. One down, an unknown amount to go. I could feel that we were all hoping it wasn’t very many.

  The wall of magic dropped, removing the protection barrier. The air around us was suddenly much warmer. The ashes were still releasing massive amounts of heat.

  Knowing that I could still have compassion for something that had eaten me, did not make me feel any better. If I could feel compassion after being eaten, I should feel compassion for my sister. Compassion could easily lead to mercy and I was pretty sure, facing her would be a kill or be killed standoff.

  I shut off my brain, forcing it to deal with the situation at hand. The smell of smoke, the screams of people in the distance, the sight of those looming black storm clouds that were really the decimation of Washington, D.C. Those were the things that needed to be handled immediately. There were probably more of those creatures that would require cremation. Or there could be things worse than those, wreaking havoc all over the city.

  A vehicle pulled up next to me. It looked like a tank had bred with a transport. There were thick treads that tore through the concrete and grass. Armor plating was on the sides and top of the vehicle. Triple machine guns that fired high caliber bullets at the touch of a button were mounted on either side. There was another on the roof, although it appeared to fire less rapidly and something larger than bullets. The barrel was nearly four inches around. The windshield had extra thick Plexiglas in the frame with a steel visor that ran above them and stuck out about six inches.

  It appeared that there was only one door on the vehicle and it was in the back. The door stood open and my siblings beckoned me to join them in their armored monstrosity. Looking at it made me rethink the capabilities of the US Armed Forces. This had been hiding away somewhere while we had been fighting the creature. I wondered if they had thought to use it.

  A man in fatigues with stars on his shoulder handed me a Kevlar vest. I raised an eyebrow at it and handed it back to him. Better for the mortals to have their armor plating, I had just been eaten by a dragon-hybrid and lived to tell the tale. I’d survive whatever they threw at me, unless it was a
n extremely hot fire like the one we had just created for the creature. However, some part of me was sure I would survive even that.

  The inside of the transport felt like a sardine can and we were the sardines. There were eight of us half-breeds, and two humans. It was crowded. Eli and I were literally fighting for elbowroom on the bench style seat made of metal with hard plastic covering it. The man, who I guessed was a general by the stars, handed me a semi-automatic weapon. The barrel was long, the trigger was easy to squeeze, and the entire thing weighed a couple of pounds. After a few moments, I handed it back. I could deal with handguns, but anything bigger was just a gun to me. Giving me an assault rifle was about as useful as telling me to create arrows from mid-air. My siblings might be able to do it, but I sure couldn’t.

  For a vehicle with treads, the transport moved at a good pace. We tore up the roadways at a brisk twenty miles per hour. The transport ran over small cars that had been abandoned on the roadways as if they were made of plastic, but they required us to slow to a mere five miles an hour. It also cornered like Godzilla, meaning any turn that had less than fifty feet of maneuvering room, resulted in damaged buildings, not that this would be noticed. We passed a food vending truck that had been stepped on. Part of it had smashed through the concrete, the rest of it was a smoldering hulk of unrecognizable materials; except a sign, proclaiming Gyros were only $7.00 and a bottle of water was $4.00.

  I had been to D.C. a few times in the past, but never for vacation or sightseeing trips. I had been to the J. Edgar Hoover building and the White House, but that was it. Both of them were shambles of their former selves. As we passed the Hoover building, I had to look twice at the spot.

  The building had collapsed, water ran into the streets, and fire ate at anything flammable. The smoke poured from the structure, creating one of the columns I had noticed earlier.

  If there was anything living, it refused to move. I saw not a being one on the streets, or within the windows of buildings. History taught us that Washington D.C. was a haven of hidden catacombs, forgotten tunnels, and secret bunkers. I hoped that’s where the workers had fled.

  As if the Fates had smiled down on the city, there were no residences in this area. They were too close to the White House to allow for that. Instead, it was office buildings as far as the eye could see.

  The transport lurched to a halt, ending my elbow-wrestling match with Eli, because he was pitched forward. He busted his face on Nick’s knee, who happened to be sitting across from him. I tried very hard not smile.

  The trying stopped when the general opened the door to release us. What we could see out of the windshield was nothing compared to what we could see out the door. Buildings weren’t just damaged, they were flattened. Charred piles of rubble made out of concrete, metal and glass greeted us. Some of the fires were burning so hot that the glass and metals were melting into red streams that slowly slithered along the path of least resistance.

  Two of the genetically engineered creatures were fighting over a car. Screams came from inside the vehicle. My father, uncles, and Overlords were nowhere to be seen. I hoped they were dealing with a larger problem.

  “This is insane,” Olivia said as she stepped up beside me.

  “Yes, it is. I recommend using those guns as efficiently as possible,” I told the general who was standing with us. “We’ll climb up and see if we can rescue the beings in the car.”

  “Climb up?” The general raised an eyebrow at me.

  “It’s the best I got,” I shrugged. Eli and Samuel took the lead, rushing at the creature. “Sisters, let’s provide some protection.”

  My sisters gathered around me. Together they built a protection bubble and sent it towards the car. As it slammed into place, the creature holding the car lost part of a hand. The car plummeted to earth in slow motion. The general swore. My sisters doubled their efforts. As the car neared the pavement, it slowed even more, landing with a soft thud that busted all the tires. The occupants were still trapped, unable to exit the vehicle for the protection spell, but this seemed like a bonus, so I said nothing. The creature that had lost its hand, stepped on the protection bubble. Its foot didn’t reach the car, stopping at the edge of the bubble. It stared at its foot as if it was confused.

  “Daniel, Nick,” I said as I took off running. Rachel and Olivia could handle the spells. I was more of the hands on type. Besides, I could feed them power while digging my hands in.

  Chapter Ten

  Exhausted didn’t even come close to how I felt when we returned home fourteen hours later. There had been seven of the dragon hybrids that had to be cremated. My soul felt heavy. The hybrids had caused so much destruction and then we had created even more. The city was being declared a disaster area.

  I felt even worse about killing the hybrids than I had about Chiron. The hybrids had just been doing what instincts told them. My sister was the one who had let them loose on an innocent population consisting mostly of humans.

  If I had any emotion left in me, I would have turned on the shower and cried. However, my soul and body were both too tired. Instead, I walked through my house like a zombie. Once in my room, I fell onto my bed and closed my eyes.

  I didn’t sleep. My brain wouldn’t shut off long enough for that. I kept picturing the next big, bad monster that would come huffing and puffing. The end game still wasn’t clear to me. What was Jasmine hoping to accomplish with this? Was she trying to turn the humans on Elders? If so, this didn’t seem to be the right direction. Elders were saving humans from the abominations.

  “Bren!” Gabriel shouted through my door. “Come into the living room!”

  I got up, feeling like I was made of lead or something heavier. Unfortunately, my sizzled brain couldn’t think of anything heavier than lead. Sleep seemed like a foreign concept to me. My soul, disincorporated, hadn’t needed sleep, and I’d had my body back for barely a day. Most of that had been spent moving houses to mysterious islands and fighting hybrids hell-bent on destroying the nation’s capital.

  My feet carried me into the living room and deposited me on the couch. My eyes found the TV. The picture was on, but the sound was off. A news bar scrolled headlines across the bottom of the screen. One jumped out at me: Humans Blame Witches for Recent Attacks in Berlin and Washington, D.C. Police begin rounding up all known witches living within the general population in Europe and North America.

  Gabriel turned up the sound on the TV. The announcer was a man. Any other detail was lost behind the words coming from his mouth.

  “...the United Nations has decided to set up a temporary housing community within the confines of a single country to contain the world’s population of witches. Arguments continue about where the refugees should be contained with most countries demanding their complete and immediate removal. Only two countries have tentatively said they would take on the task of housing the witches after the attack on Washington, D.C. today. It is now believed that the rogue coven that attacked Berlin, Germany several months ago are behind this attack and that they are growing in strength and numbers. The Witch Premier, Rachel Strachan, a half-breed demon/witch, has confirmed that it is the work of a rogue coven and that they are investigating the incident. Ms. Strachan was among the Elders that helped eliminate the threat to Washington, but not before the creatures had destroyed over fifty percent of the buildings and damaged another thirty percent. Estimates put the death toll at over 100,000 at this time and the numbers continue to come in.”

  Gabriel turned the volume on the TV back down. I hung my head. It wasn’t elders that were the target, it was witches.

  “Where’s Dad and Rachel?” I asked.

  “Almost everyone of importance is at the UN in New York, fighting the round-up. Lucifer is arguing that they are concentration camps and Rachel is arguing that this is exactly what the coven wants,” Gabriel said.

  “Of course it is,” I shrugged. By herding the witches like cattle into makeshift camps, some of them would turn against the hu
mans. However, that wasn’t the problem that now consumed my mind. If they were all herded together, they would be easier to attack. Elders can fight witches, but witches can fight elders; it was a natural balance of power. Neither was capable of ultimate supremacy while the other existed. Killing off as many witches as possible strengthened Jasmine’s position of supremacy and grew her coven.

  Besides that, Jasmine was like the rest of us half-breeds. She straddled both the elder and witch worlds. She already had a handful of elders on her side and she was fighting for supremacy over the humans. If this worked, she might be able to get others to defect to her cause. Elders that are more powerful might defect, especially in the face of her powers. In theory, my sister had resurrected souls and given them bodies. I hadn’t seen it yet, but I wasn’t ruling it out either.

  I had hoped moving to the island would focus her attention on it but that didn’t seem to be the case. It seemed to have left the world vulnerable.

  “Do we move back?” I asked Gabriel.

  “No, that would just mean that you end up in a concentration camp. Pendragon has said that if the humans decide to exile the witches, the island would be opened for them. Most of the overlords are out championing them to move anyway. If they are here, we can protect them, but we need it to be their choice, not a dictatorial command.”

  “Are any humans on the side of the witches?” I asked.

  “Yes. There is a huge protest going on outside most government headquarters across the world. The king of England has been stuck in Buckingham palace for several hours now, unable to leave because of the mobs outside. The Prime Minister and the President are on our side. Some of the other countries, not so much, our biggest opponent is Italy. Ironically though, the Vatican has spoken out against the plan to round up the witches.”

  “That helps.”

  “Yes, but most religions have agreed it’s a good plan. Only the Catholics seem to be against it. Right now, there are hundreds of witches and elders building to expand the city in record setting time. Pendragon is overseeing the construction. Rachel said we could have as many as a million witches flooding the streets. Since the city doesn’t have a million residents right now, it is a massive undertaking.”