Black Dawn Page 23

  Naga – The Cunning, the Snake, the Hidden Death. She spawned a Bloodline of Etherial creatures, similar to Ghosts.

  Oni – The Demon, the Fallen Angel. He spawned a bloodline of Demonic Creatures.

  Samael – The Reaper, Charon, the Angel of Death. He spawned a bloodline of Zombies, Liches and other undead creatures.

  - An Overview of the Archons, by Louisa Hunt.

  Dark Information

  The Jade Palace, New York.

  Dec 4th

  Amanda sat at the table inside the currently quiet bar area of the Jade Palace in the early morning, sharing the table with her Mentor, Gentle Water. She held her hot chocolate in both hands, enjoying the warmth of the liquid inside the mug as it permeated her fingers, warming them. The steam from the chocolaty beverage wafted up to her nose, filling her senses with the lovely sweet smell of Cocoa, which made her mouth water in anticipation of the drink.

  She sat cross-legged, sideways to the table and slightly slouched into the chair wearing her usual designer ripped bootcut, low-rise, fitted jeans and white vest top under her denim jacket, her long bright red hair pulled away from her face, cascading over her shoulders and down her back. Across from her, Gentle Water sat facing the table, his back straight, a cup of green tea on the table before him.

  ‘I still do not know what Mr Black wants with the Orb and the Lazarus Scroll,’ Gentle Water said. ‘The whole situation is very concerning. Has Shaun found anything yet?’

  ‘No, he’s scouring the Dark Web for any info he can find, but this man seems to be a ghost, there’s no record of him anywhere, it’s as if he has never existed. Did you or Royston discover anything through your contacts?’

  ‘I am afraid not. Everyone we have asked knows nothing. It is just as you say, he is a ghost. And he also say, he your father.’

  ‘I know,’ Amanda said, feeling that weight of wanting to know who he is on her mind once more. ‘It’s… incredibly frustrating. I mean, who is he, why did he abandon me and what is he trying to do now? Have I got a Nomad sympathiser as a father? I just want to know what the hell is going on.’

  ‘I am sorry you feel this way,’ Gentle Water said.

  ‘No bother, there’s nothing you can do, not really.’

  ‘I wish I could help you further on this.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do really. Only this Mr Black can answer my questions. But… as you want to help, I do have something I wanted to ask you about,’ she said, turning to the table to face her mentor.

  ‘Of course Amanda, anything,’ Gentle Water said, looking hopeful.

  ‘At the Ball, I spoke with Trevelyan, he told me about the Prophecy of Helene, and how he thinks it’s about me,’ she said. She watched her mentor for his reaction, noticing his silent “Aah” head movement and slight deflation from the hope that had filled his face a moment before.

  ‘Did he?’ he said.

  ‘He did. He said not to tell anyone but you.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Did you know about this Prophecy? Did you know about people believing it spoke about me?’ she asked, her voice cracking a touch as she felt her emotions rising.

  ‘Okay, the Prophecy of Helene is quite well known within the Magi community, as are a number of other such prophecies and passages from Magi history. They are difficult to decipher and often lead to many interpretations. A few do think it refers to you. Others do not.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me about this?’

  ‘I debate it many times, but I think that other things more important to you and your growth as Magi. How people interpret old Prophecy did not seem important. When we left Ireland and you grew in power and ability, you did not need me as much, and my need to teach you everything passed away.’

  She could see his point of view. Teaching her something that might give her some worries about what others might think of her would not be a productive way to teach a young Magi. After all, it’s just how a few people interpret a pretty vague passage from two thousand years ago. Its relevance was somewhat limited. ‘And what do you think,’ she asked.

  ‘I am not scholar, and Prophecy not my area of expertise. I know of Prophecy. Does it speak of you? It may, it may not. I not know. My focus, always you, Amanda, not what others think of you and not ancient Scrolls. I just want to teach you, help you. That is my goal.’

  Amanda felt bad, like she’d questioned his friendship and his intentions, something that she really should never have done with the man who has stood by her side throughout her introduction to the Magi world. ‘I’m sorry G, I didn’t mean to…’

  ‘Forget it. You have nothing to apologise for. Trevelyan’s comments were not good, raised questions in your mind. I sure he meant nothing by it, however,’ he said.

  ‘I know he didn’t,’ she said.

  Suddenly the chair between them, just to Amanda’s right was pulled out from beneath the table, the noise it made as it dragged its feet over the floor catching both of them by surprise. Just next to the chair, looking tall and imposing stood Yasmin, wearing black wet look leggings and an over-bust corset that pulled her waist in an awful lot. Her alabaster face, framed with a mane of raven black hair looked down at Amanda, her expression seemed blank at first, unreadable, although her features had a cruelty to them that would send a charging rhino running for its mother.

  ‘Ooh, I’m sorry, might I have been interrupting something?’ she asked, her blank face suddenly coming to life in mock apology. Yasmin’s accent didn’t seem to come from any once place, rather it seemed to be a mix of European accents and gave her an exotic feel. She spoke clearly and properly though, enunciating her words carefully which could sound somewhat posh and proud.

  ‘It’s no bother, nothing for me to give out to you about,’ Amanda said in a slightly broader Irish accent and using Irish slang as she unconsciously reacted to Yasmin’s prim and proper speech.

  Yasmin smiled, her expression saying “touche” to Amanda as she walked round the chair, her heels clicking before she lowered herself into the chair, crossed her legs and placed her arms on the rests by her side giving her a regal look. ‘Please, don’t stop on my account, I’ll wait,’ she said.

  Amanda adjusted her sitting position and turned more fully to the newcomer, wondering why Yasmin had just turned up and what she might be up to now. The last time she had seen her, she had turned up like this to tell her about Liz’s kidnapping by Lucian’s forces, helping her for some unknown reason.

  Yasmin could possibly be the most powerful Nomad on the planet, the rumours about her were plentiful and were used to scare young Magi into compliance. And yet, she had always been somewhat friendly with Amanda and helped her a couple of times now. The first time had been on the train when she had actually saved her life, stopping Angel from killing her.

  She felt sure that she must be up to something, that she must have her own agenda and that there would be a very clear reason why this, by all accounts, Psychotic Nomad should be helping her. She wondered how much of these rumours about Yasmin were true and how much might be propaganda or the result of things being blown out of proportion.

  The rumours Amanda had heard about herself, about how she had killed Lucian’s entire Coven singlehandedly through to Trevelyan’s personal views of her connection to a Prophecy had already illustrated how things could get blown out of all proportion.

  Yasmin might be a Nomad, but how bad was she really?

  ‘We’d finished our conversation anyway. So, what brings you here?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘Yet again, straight down to business Mandy, we should chat more, I’m sure we would have a lot to speak about,’ Yasmin said.

  ‘Feck off Yasmin,’ she said, raising one eyebrow as she said it.

  Yasmin barely moved or shifted her position, but the brief look of daggers that Yasmin gave her in reaction to Amanda’s comment would have killed most people.

  Amanda looked at Gentle Water and could see the Aegis he
had been slowly powering up as he sat here listening to them talk. She widened her eyes for a moment, knowing she’d strayed over a line for a second.

  ‘I am here on business,’ Yasmin said. ‘Yet again, I have some information for you.’

  ‘Well unless you can tell me where Mr Black is, it can wait,’ Amanda said.

  ‘How fortuitous, I seem to have arrived at just the right moment then.’

  Amanda sat forward, suddenly interested. ‘You know where he is?’

  Yasmin sat back into her chair and ran her hand through her sable locks. ‘Indeed I do, do you want to know what he’s up to?’

  ‘Of course.’ Amanda said.

  ‘Your Mr Black is on an island, an atoll to be precise in the Pacific and he’s acquired an American Nuclear Submarine.’

  ‘What? Feck, are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. He’s planning on using the Nukes in a very poorly conceived plan to try and destroy the Archons. It sounds doomed to failure, so who knows what will happen,’ she said.

  ‘Where is the atoll? Amanda asked.

  With a flick of her fingers, a small slip of paper appeared with some coordinates on it. ‘Here. Use this information with care, and be prepared for a fight little one,’ she said.

  Amanda snatched up the paper and looked at the two strings of numbers and letters on the paper.

  She looked up at Yasmin then, a slightly confused frown on her face. ‘Why do you help me? What’s your angle?’

  ‘Me? I’m just a good Samaritan. Good day to you,’ she said as she stood and turned to leave the building.

  ‘Yasmin,’ Amanda called after her, making Yasmin pause and looked back at her. ‘Should I want to… contact you, how should I go about that?’

  Yasmin looked at Amanda, her eyes narrowing as she clearly thought things through. After a moment, Amanda felt Yasmin’s Magic reach out to her and wait just outside her Aegis. Amanda knew this to be the offer of a Mental Link so that Amanda could effectively call Yasmin at any time in the future. Amanda hesitantly accepted the link, reaching out with her own Magic to cement the link between them.

  Amanda watched Yasmin turn and go and couldn’t help but admire her body. She looked great and found she had to tear her eyes away from Yasmin’s shapely behind.

  Nope, she did not want to get involved with a Nomad. That would be a very, very bad idea.

  She looked up at Gentle Water. ‘Do you believe her?’

  ‘She was right last time. I doubt her motives are entirely altruistic, but we need to look into this,’ he said.

  ‘Agreed, lets go.’

  - The American Wilderness

  Horlack roared in frustration and slammed his fists into the cave wall, causing rocks to break and fly about. Turning to the entrance he roared again, the sound echoing throughout the mountainous landscape beyond.

  He got a grip on his emotions and breathed deeply, calming himself down. His imprisonment in Egypt had sent him a little crazy, but seeing Maya in the desert in that strange building had brought those feelings flooding back. He’d remembered how he felt about her. How he wanted her. But not like a conquest, he didn’t want to just take her, have his way with her. This was different, this was something he’d not felt for millennia. He wanted her to want him back, he wanted Maya to love him, to want to be with him.

  But he’d wanted revenge as well, he still wanted revenge, but to take it would alienate him from Maya for good.

  He needed to make a choice.

  Black Dawn

  The Atoll, the Pacific Ocean

  Dec 4th

  After a flash of light and a brief feeling of intense dislocation, Amanda’s first impression was that she’d Ported into an oven. The intense heat hit her hard as her feet sank into the sand of the tropical beach. A quick working of Magic cooled her down a fraction as she looked about her.

  To her left, in the early morning light, as the sun started to peek over the horizon splashing crimson and fire across the heavens, the waters of the atoll’s lagoon lapped gently onto the sand a couple of meters away from her feet. Amanda still wore the same clothes from the coffee shop, although she’d left the Denim jacket behind, correctly guessing she wouldn’t need it. She even briefly considered a quick working of Magic to change her jeans into denim shorts, but dismissed it.

  To her right, Gentle Water and Liz stood closest to her, he wore his shirt and slacks, while Liz wore light coloured leggings, a fitted top and trainers. Liz pulled her hair into a ponytail as she looked ahead, boosting her shields with Essentia. Her apprentices growing confidence making her smile.

  Maria stood next to them wearing loose and light trousers and a floaty top. Just beyond her Orion and Xain wore their usual black Tactical gear, looking the most ready for action out of the lot of them.

  And finally, Maya and Yoh stood furthest away from her, Maya in black jeans and top, Yoh in white shirt and trousers.

  Everyone looked at each other, they all knew the plan. Amanda had returned to the house as quickly as she could, bringing Yoh and Maya with her from the Palace and calling Orion and Xain just before they Ported to Amanda’s Brownstone.

  With everyone there, they quickly discovered that the island, the atoll, didn’t exist on conventional maps you might find online or in print, but a quick scrying of the area confirmed there to be an Atoll at those coordinates, along with a Submarine and activity on the beach.

  Everyone had been briefed on the basics and were under instructions to capture and subdue where ever possible and to secure the Nukes. Amanda had no idea if Mr Black was truly on their side or if he might actually be slightly insane, either way, Nuclear Bombs were not a good thing to have go rogue.

  The slowly lightening sky threw the early morning light onto the beach, but the light was still feeble and it would be a good half an hour before it would be considered daylight. Ahead of them, further along the beach and well inside the shield that stopped you from Porting too close, Amanda could make out work lights lighting a path from the shoreline to the huge rock in the middle of the island, and figures milling about fairly close to the rock.

  Amanda nodded at her friends. ‘Shall we?’ she said.

  With nods of agreement, the group started to run over the sand, quickly picking up speed and within seconds, sprinting at blinding speed, quicker than any mortal athlete could achieve.

  Amanda watched the figures ahead of her, and before long it became clear they had been spotted as Magical energy started to build and dark silhouettes moved into position, ready to fight.

  Mini explosions suddenly started to flash and light up the troops as they fired their weapons at Amanda and her friends.

  The Essentia rounds skimmed across the sands and started slamming into the Aegises of the group, peppering them with small bursts of light as the Magical energy hit the Magical shields with pops, bangs and the whine of the occasional ricochet.

  The weak Essentia rounds did little to Amanda’s Aegis other than light it up as the bullets tried to find their targets. Amanda just pushed more Essentia into her Aegis to compensate, using one of her Multitasking minds to do the job.

  Amanda took a wider arc in her run, trying to draw some of the gunfire away from Liz who had been quite close by to her and ran through the edge of the water, soaking her trainers and the legs of her jeans.

  Ahead and to her left, the sea erupted in a huge surge of water as a lizard-like head, a good six foot from its nose to the back of the skull, on the end of a serpentine neck rose from the sea and swung round and down towards Amanda, its fang-filled maw held wide and dripping with saliva and salt water.

  ‘What the bleedin’ hell is that?’ she said to herself.

  It moved quickly, but Amanda saw it coming and jumped to the right away from it and the water. Landing in a roll she came to her feet and looked back, ready and just in time as the creatures massive arms heaved it’s body from the sea with surprising speed. The thing came in for a bite once more. Realising she would have to deal with
this thing, she blasted its head sideways with a powerful kinetic attack. It howled, but it only looked angrier.

  Amanda could see the things Aegis, and guessed it would be a Scion of some form. She knew all Scions belonged to a bloodline that stretched back to the Archon that first created them. She didn’t know them all by heart, but she did know about the Vampires and Werewolves from her encounters with those who fought on the side of the Arcadians, such as Maya and Celest.

  This one, this sea serpent was a new one on her, she’d have to look into these a bit more on another day.

  Amanda turned and ran up the beach some more towards her friends who had already started to fight with the other members of Mr Blacks forces. She could see Magic being thrown around and bullets flying everywhere.

  Maya and Yoh seemed to be fighting a couple of Vampire Scions like themselves. Maria had found herself in the middle of a fight with a couple of Magi while Orion and Xain looked to be fighting off a Magus and four Scions. Consisting of a couple of huge furry half-man half wolves, another who seemed to be some kind of Were Tiger, and finally the last one looked to be a freakily huge spider with a woman’s torso extending from where the Spiders head should be, they looked to have their hands full.

  Closer to her, Gentle Water and Liz had taken on a Magus and a curious thing that looked human from the waist up, apart from its head being hairless and without any kind of eyes, ears or nose, instead it just had a large fang filled mouth. It wore a long sleeved red robe with gold runes on it and from beneath the hem of the garment, where it’s legs should be, extended a mass a huge tentacles that whipped about trying to attack Amanda’s two friends.

  Hearing the sea creature roar from behind her, Amanda turned. ‘Come on then slimy, let's be havin’ yeh,’ she said as the hideous mouth once again came in for a bite, Amanda dodged to her right, out of the way as the attack hit nothing but sand.

  ‘Ooh, good try Nessie,’ she said standing right next to the head. Amanda threw a punch at the thing, throwing as much of her weight and Essentia into it as she could muster, causing the head to whip away as the thing roared in pain. Gunfire sounded quite close as Essentia filled bullets started hitting her shield, bouncing off her Aegis but damaging it a little each time.