Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3 (23 page)

“Jamie, there have been some strange goings on, and I fear the exiled ones are gathering forces. Somehow, they now know where you are and that you are the true key to their return. I am afraid VanDarious is the leader and will use this as a means to return to the Otherworld and destroy you and your father both in the process.”

“VanDarious,” she let the name roll slowly off her tongue. “Now, that is a name I’ve not heard in years.”

She shivered at hearing the name of her worst critic and sworn enemy while still living under the protection of her father and his supporters. Centuries ago, he was banished from the Fae Lands by her father and exiled to what is now modern day Iraq.

“So you are saying the murders are the work of the rogue Sidhe?” It made sense to her now.

“Yes, more specifically it is the work of VanDarious and his followers. These poor women were needless sacrifices to the goddess. There was no need to kill any of them other than to satisfy his lust for blood. I must be frank for there is no time for anything else. You are in true and grave danger, Jamie. Somehow, he has figured out yours is the blood needed to anoint the passageway to cross back over. Swallow your pride, child, and call your sheriff. He can protect you. He is the shield you need.”

Her interest peaked at her mother’s comment, but she let it drop for more pressing issues. “No, Mamma. I won’t bring Josh into this fight. Anyone close to me will also be fair game, and he has a child I must consider first and foremost.”

“Jamie, now is not the time to be unselfish. The child will be fine. Those underage are forbidden fruit, and even one as nefarious as VanDarious would not dare to violate the code and risk the wizards' intervention.”

“Maybe, but I won’t chance it,” she countered.

“Furthermore, there are those who may not love you or your father, but would never risk a war between the species, not with the Maji siding with the humans. The Sidhe Fae are not a stupid people, Jamie, and would never condone VanDarious harming a child, human or otherwise.”

With the ancient race of shape shifters, known as the Maji, now accepted as a legitimate race by the World Counsel, it definitely gave humans an edge. They definitely had dominion of the Upper World and the added benefit of strong magic by association with the Maji.

That is not comforting, she thought, no matter what her mother thought. Whether a man or magical being, it doesn’t matter which, if given enough motivation and if desperate enough both will risk much. This was a basic law of the universe. It did not matter what planet you came from. The push for survival was strong in most sentient beings. The Fae were absolutely no exception. She hoped her mother was correct and the Fae, as a whole, would move carefully.

She was thinking VanDarious might not harm Jesse physically, therefore, not technically violating the treaty, but he would use her very effectively as bait. “You know, Mamma, how twisted the Sidhe can be using the very words of the document and treaty against us.”

She could not risk it, not with Jesse. She had already been taken hostage once in her young life.

Besides, if the Fae are determined, then she was not safe anywhere or with anyone.

“There is no one who can protect me, Mother.”

“That is untrue.”

Her mother sounded so certain. Jamie had no such illusions, and she was scared for the first time since leaving the world of the Fae. On this side of the portal the treaty would not mean much for the simple reason there was not anyone who remembered its existence, no one standing ready to enforce it. Time and distance had seen to that aspect.

Regardless of what her mother thought, she knew the Wizards' Warriors, defenders of the treaty, had virtually been annihilated over three thousand years ago when they were caught in the tidal wave of the eruption of Thera. Their numbers were crushed, decimated, and the survivors scattered to the winds without the Wizards' Council of Nine to give them direction. Fractured and disorganized, the Brotherhood eventually fell completely apart.

The three wizards of Altantis' fierce warriors and the protectors were not the reason she lived in relative safety. She had managed a life of relative security simply because she had flown low and under the radar, living in small towns and villages, going quietly about her business. She was on her own with this one.

Desperate enough, the treaty would not matter anyway if the group banded together in a show of solidarity to gain their passage back home. Once her blood was spilled on the gateway, there was no blocking the passageway into and out of the Underworld. The Sidhe Fae would be free again to come and go as they pleased, and having no one to defend the treaty, there was nothing to stop them.

If VanDarious started a war with the humans, the whole of the Fae would band together until the fight was finished. It would not matter who started it or why, and the magic they would and could use would make up for their smaller numbers.

However, she knew once finished, the result would be civil war inside the ranks of the Sidhe, which was nothing new. Some would side with the king and others with VanDarious.

History showed, before her father arrived to bring relative stability to the Fae people, civil war was commonplace. VanDarious and his gang had been exiled a very long time, and given the slightest chance that they could assimilate back into the Fae, it might for them be worth the possibility of death. She had seen it before while growing up in the Underworld.

Loyalties change as do with any monarchy over time. The fact her father had been king for over twenty millennia did not ensure his continued popularity or the perpetuation of his dominance. The memory of the Fae is long, to say the least, but even the Fae can begin to forget the good deeds done by their king which was how their prosperity was achieved.

Her father was a cunning individual seeing the benefits to striking the deals he made. Before her father signed the agreements, all except a select few, were powerless, possessing small petty magic if any magic at all. They were a small people, shy and unassuming, blending into the landscape. However, they were not an ignorant people, but brilliant, and cunning, surviving centuries on gut and guile.

Then her father came alone, rising to power quickly in spite of the fact he was not Fae, but Titan. He understood these deals bartered with the Minoans and the wizards would benefit the race in the long run. Many neither shared her father's vision nor supported the treaty that relinquished dominance to the Upper World.

Her father had seen the coming population explosion of the modern day human species. History proved him to be right. He believed that since the humans were a relatively young and immature race, they would fear the Fae if their presence was blatant. That was probably still partly true, and fear was a dynamic energy. He understood the fear would drive the humans to hunt them down and drive them into extinction just as they had almost done to the Maji, Goblin, Werefolk, and Nosferatu or Vampire as they are more commonly called. All were races teetering on the brink of extinction.

He felt giving up the Upper World was a small price to pay, giving them an advantage in the long run. The payoff for that concession was first and foremost possession of magic would not be a human gift. However, that was just child’s play. They had grasped the true golden ring in the bargain -- near immortality.

He wanted his people to have a good life free of fear of destruction and persecution. Her father felt that by living a long time, their numbers would eventually give them a power base to renegotiate and regain a footing on Earth. Eventually this would pull them onto a level playing field, buying them equality through sheer numbers alone.

However, in his defense, none of them could have foreseen that compensating for their long life evolution reduced the birth rates. The Fae, like the Maji, had seen their numbers decrease due to dwindling births, especially female births. Mankind had seen no such depletion of the genetic materials.

This depletion had forced her father, as king, to seek a mate and produce an heir outside the realm of the Fae. What none in his kingdom had bargained for was the search would not only produce an heir, but a love match for their king. He had never looked for another mate after marrying her mother.

For some this human-Titan match was not as desirable as a Titan-Sidhe union would have been, but her father was a good and decent king regardless of the fact he was not Sidhe. He had taken them into his heart and soul, vowing to protect them to his death, just as the wizards had taken the humans under their protection.

Her father was also a smart individual, and he bargained with the wizards for an express purpose -- to eventually regain dominance of the Earth. She had not seen her father in centuries, and for all she knew he, too, was tired of waiting and could see this as a catalyst for action. She felt sure VanDarious would try his best to blame the humans for her death to justify the war. Perhaps her father would look at it as justified to avenge her death.

“There is one who can protect you, Daughter. Let me call him. And like it or not, Josh is already involved more deeply than you can possibly know. His love for you has sealed his destiny.”

Jamie conceded, understanding the cozy little life she had set up for herself was now forfeited.

The fire crackled on the open, desolate stretch of beach as VanDarious laid out his plan. Jamie’s hasty move to Florida had helped rather than hurt him, boosting his confidence. It was just too bad she had put up such a fuss at the airport. They were so close to getting her.

He knew she would be difficult, but he had underestimated her ability to fight back. The McKinnon man had taught her well. However, he at least knew where she was going and in whose company she would be. It was child’s play to get her.

Most all his allies were already here. The small army he was raising was not enough to do any real damage, not just yet, but more were arriving every day. The message had gone out that it was time to make a stand, and although not overwhelmingly so, he was pleased with the response. They were currently five hundred strong.

For many the long exile had long ago crushed their hopes. Going home to the land of the Fae was no longer a dream or even a desirable option to some, who had assimilated into the Upper World and made adjustments to survive. However, there were those, such as himself, who were weary of the life this existence offered. It was a purgatory between Heaven and Hell.

A harsh sentence imposed over one million years ago by the ruling of the Prime Elders of Glantuss banished a group of Fae to this earth. The original sin of the fathers would be burdened upon all Sidhe through one thousand and one generations. However, no one could leave until all the descendants of those one thousand and one generations were dead.

They were never going back to their home planet of Glantuss Prime, given the fact King Kronos shrewdly bargained for near immortality. This VanDarious had reconciled and was not really heartbroken over it.

How could he be?

He had never stepped foot on the home planet. Most Fae currently living were born here on Earth and had no ties to the home planet. For him Earth was home.

“Cunning bastard!” VanDarious mumbled under his breath almost impressed with Kronos’s moves.

However, he was not prepared to wait any longer to try and return to the fourth dimension which he did feel was his home. He had never been welcomed here on this side of the doorway. To make it worse, this motley band was not welcome in the Under World either. That, however, was of their own volition and totally beside the point. He wanted both worlds. He was walking proof that they could survive up top. Not only west, but also east of the Meridian, he could use magic and trickery and survive nicely. He resorted to magic routinely without any repercussions.

Who was here to punish him?

He chuckled at his own fortune.

Given so much time had lapsed and the near total decimation of the Wizards' Warriors at Thera, there was no force on this side of the door to stop them. He wanted to claim the throne and free the Sidhe Fae from the bindings of the treaty. He wanted to shatter the rule of a foreign king.

Time and technology were their friends. Iron, which centuries ago further drove them into the ground, was no longer widely used having given way to steel. The discomfort of living above ground had diminished one thousand fold. Once he showed the Fae they could regain dominion over this Earth, he was sure they would abandon the king and grasp the old ways again and join forces with him to overthrow King Kronos. Once the king was dead, then he could rule this world. Magic and power would be the Fae’s to wield, flagrantly and out in the open. They would be great once more, and he would lead the way in exterminating the disease the humans represented.

Yet, he was not fully prepared to provoke the other creatures to gain his ends. He actually needed them. The Goblins, Werefolk, and Nosferatu were already surly enough without any provocation, and he felt sure they would never go out of their way to assist the humans.

Neutrality was usually their modus operandi, flying low under the watchful eyes of man. Opportunistic in nature, they usually waited to see which way the wind blew, that was if they paid any attention at all. So as long as he did not piss them off, his odds would improve.

The Maji were different. Their bonding with the humans developed a higher level of justice and a sense of duty and camaraderie with their newfound friends. The fact he was going to kill the king’s daughter, under normal circumstances, would never provoke a reaction from them. That would be viewed as an internal matter if observed just on the surface. The fact the king’s tainted spawn was half human was what was proving problematic. He needed something to ensure the Maji would stay out of this fight he was about to wage with the ruling king of the Fae and embroil the humans in the process.

It was a fair and logical assumption the Maji might just get into the mix. The idea was not as far-fetched as his associates might wish to think. Joining forces with the humans would undoubtedly come out a sense of obligation for the assistance the Maji received from the humans. Helping to bring them back from the threshold of extinction, in his estimation, would certainly bring a sense of indebtedness. It was just dumb luck the princess was fooling around with a member of the very family responsible for masterminding and executing the plans to bring the Maji back from the brink.