The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (71 page)

“I am so sorry, child. I did what I could, but almost no one listens to an old female who tries to set the goat free, and at nearly one thousand years old, I had become all but invisible.”

“I don’t blame you,
Bel’louma.
”

“Blame nobody, dear
K’lanseun
. The universe is made up of courses of action we have no say in, but we have a say in who we are, and in those choices we make
inside
, even if outside, those choices seem impossible. Even among death, life finds a way.”

They stopped at the rise of a dune, and Pueblo was so focused on her words, he hadn’t even realised they were climbing higher. On the other side of this dune, he knew the desert laid flat, the sand and dust coloured more red, the ground arid to the touch. “This is the entrance to the Wastelands. It’s a death trap. What are we doing here?”

The Wastelands had been encased in the Dessec dimension. He’d sneaked away to visit this area twice as a child, knowing full well that if he ventured further out he’d be subjected to a basin of heat like no other. Being able to shift into the element of fire, he was more impervious than most to the perils of the Wastelands, but not completely immune. It caught you unawares, and the sand here hid creatures so poisonous, even immortals would suffer death-like states.

His grandmother ignored his question and proceeded to climb the dune as if one thousand years hadn’t taken its toll. “Just a few more steps to the top.”

He followed her up, an unusually quiet Teigas right behind him. Fairies didn’t do well in the heat, but Teigas had proved tougher than most, although Pueblo was reluctant to take him trekking across the Wastelands – even teleporting across it seemed suicidal. “Nothing flourishes here.”

“Wrong,
K’lanseun
.”

They reached the top and she gestured out across the plain, the view quite remarkable, and his eyes landed on the miracle he hadn’t known was there. It took his breath away.

A single Acacia tree stood tall in the middle of the Wastelands, its leaves a darker green than was usual.

Surrounding the tree was a simply constructed wooden shelter, designed, so it seemed, to be ritualistic, rather than practical, although maybe it did protect the tree from the harsh sun just a little.

How on earth this tree had grown – was still alive – with no signs of water under the ground, or anywhere near by, was beyond him.

“It feeds on the purity of will, and the strength of the spirit,” said his
Bel’louma
, answering his unspoken question. And then she knocked him for six. “This is where your mother was buried.”

Astounded, he shook his head. “No.
Ma’maen
was cremated. I heard about how her body was purified by the fire.”

“What you heard about was your uncle’s deceit. He was supposed to offer her to the cleansing fire as is done with all members of our royalty. But he was weak and caught in a web of self-made disgust over her choice to birth you. She didn’t deserve a royal funeral, he said. He was adamant that she must take the consequences of her actions to the grave with her so she may learn from them in the next life.

“I argued against him, and at that time, I still had most of the tribe on my side. His advisers encouraged him to cremate her as he should.” Her tone grew dark. “The night before the funeral, he – my own son – abducted me in my sleep and brought me out here, his intention to leave me to rot. By my side lay your mother, my only daughter. He killed a mountain lion, covered it in the death shroud meant for your
Ma’maen
, and placed it atop the pyre. Come the next day, no one was any the wiser and the pyre was lit.”

Her eyes flashed with steel, and he realised they were the same eyes as his mother’s – the same eyes he’d spent countless of hours staring at on canvas, wishing he’d known her. “I dragged your mother’s body out there,” she pointed at the tree, “where no tree stood – where nothing stood – and with what I had left in me, I dug my way through the caked sand and dirt. I dug until my fingers bled and the skin on my hands grew raw. I dug until my muscles cramped with the need for salt and water. I dug until I had a grave worthy of a queen.”

She placed a leathered hand on his arm as she stared with a fierce pride at the tree. “I buried her,
K’lanseun.
I buried her, and when I was done, I lay next to her grave and waited to die. And then, a miracle happened.”

She fixed her eyes on him. “It rained. Yes, even among death, life finds a way. It rained in the Wastelands, for the first time in over ten thousand years. The ground drank the water so fast, it did not even feel wet at first, and then it rained more, and the rain fell for hours – not minutes as is usual, but
hours
. The skies wept for the wronged queen. It was a moment both black and beautiful. The basin of the Wastelands filled with water, until it became an oasis. I drank of the water, slept to gather my strength, and when I next awoke, the rain had stopped. The sun shone its light on what was left of the life-giving liquid, and on every plant and flower that had bloomed to greet it. I had never seen anything so … majestic.

“I fed on nectar, and on the leaves and roots that I knew were safe, slept again, and by the next morning, the flowers and plants had died once more, the sun too severe to sustain them – all except one.”

Pueblo exhaled the breath he’d been holding all this time. “The tree.”

“Yes. The tree that grew from your mother’s grave the day it rained in the Wastelands.

“When I returned to your uncle, alive and well, he said nothing, and I said nothing. We continued as if nothing had happened, and he was officially the King now, so my say in anything became non-existent. I told only those I trusted with my life about this tree, and now the twenty remaining Dessec, loyal to me and your mother, guard it.

“When I approached the King some weeks ago to warn him about the shaman who promised your baby dead, he would not listen. He was reliving that day your mother birthed you – the day she died – and he was intent on not letting the tainted bloodline continue. That shaman had a look in his eye and lines of a life he had fought for without compromise – it is something I know a little about in these last few hundred years. I warned your uncle that man had his own agenda, and I advised he end all counsel with him.

“Yesterday was when the shaman attacked. I assume he wants your baby for his own purpose and needed to eliminate any threat to that. I was here at the tree with my trusted ones when it happened. On our return, we saw what you saw today.”

Jesus fucking Christ
.

He didn’t know where to start with the information he’d just been given. His race was all but dead, and the shaman who had murdered them was the same one that had come after Amy.

For the first time, given the massacre he’d just witnessed, he wasn’t sure Paul’s shield, or whatever magic that man had, would be enough to protect them.

His grandmother reached for a small pouch attached to the belt around her waist. From it, she pulled out a necklace – no, not
a
necklace;
the
necklace. It was his tribe’s equivalent of a crown, a bone from the spine of every Dessec that had ever ruled, threaded through a leather thong. With his mother and uncle included, that made thirty-two bones to date.

His heart rate accelerated.

“Your uncle had no right to wear this.” She held it out to him.

Before the apocalypse, he would have turned away from it. It was only now, overlooking the Wastelands and on the brink of extinction, that he could see how little he’d known then; how much of his tribe’s fear he had harboured. He may have spent the last five decades with a deep ache in his heart, longing for love to be fulfilled, but they had been five necessary decades for what lay ahead.

He heard Teigas take in a breath – he’d almost forgotten he was there. He looked down at the fairy, who looked back up at him and nodded his head once. “And so the student becomes the master,” he said quietly, respect and pride evident in his steady gaze.

His
Bel’louma
stepped closer, and he bowed his head.

She slipped the necklace over it, and when he rose, she was the one who bowed.

Her eyes were glistening when she straightened. “Finally, it is done. Finally.” All of a sudden, she reached forward, grabbed him with iron fists and hugged him tightly. “My
K’lanseun
, sweet child – the time of the Dessec is over. It is your time now. Go and save your queen, and your son.”

He froze, the only sound, his heart banging in his chest. “My … son?” he asked, his voice, cracking.

She grinned a wide, mostly toothless grin that was warm and bright. “We have a Malattal demon who has befriended us in recent weeks – the Malattal have purposely scattered themselves to spread their prophecies. He has foreseen it. My great grandson grows in your female’s belly – you are having a boy.”

Oh, fuck. A son … I’m having a son!

He nodded, too choked to trust his voice, although he spoke anyway. “
Bel’louma
, thank you. What can I ever do to repay you?”

She pulled her loose, blue scarf up around her head, the colour of it as deep as that of the desert sky; dismissed his question with a smile, and retreated towards the Wastelands – towards his mother’s tree – where he could now see a small group of Dessec waiting for her. The last survivors.

After a few steps, she paused and turned back. Her eyes blazed with unmatched strength; his mother’s strength; a strength he could feel growing inside him with every passing second. “Look after your queen,
K’lanseun
. And make sure she
never
has to bury her own child.”

Chapter Ten

Darkness crept in early in November, and the apocalypse brought no exceptions.

This wasn’t working.

She’d wanted to cool off her succubus, but all she felt was cold and miserable … and still craving sexual energy like a leech craved blood.

Elena walked along the Thames River, further down from their complex, where Karl had said he had found himself earlier. Maybe she was looking for clues, although she admitted it was a half-hearted attempt that was overshadowed by her growing hunger.

Turn around. Go home.

But Karl wasn’t there, and she felt too anxious knowing he was on his own. She could go to him instead, but that would deny him the space he needed. If she turned up there and he
did
end up trying to hurt her … well, she couldn’t live with knowing she had brought that to his door, when he had asked her to stay away.

She sighed.

When did things get so fucked up?

She’d spent the hour after he’d left flicking through the pages of Gwain’s old book – it was more like a diary. But she’d found nothing directly pointing to Karl’s affliction.

A wolf whistle sounded to her right from across the road.

Oh, great.

She pulled up the hood of her thick coat, so her grey pallor would not be so easily detected.

More wolf whistles, and this time from more than one man.

Seriously? I’m wearing four bloody layers.

And even ten layers wouldn’t hide your ‘lust-waves’,
she reminded herself.

Not wanting to hang around, she teleported a few hundred metres north, and found herself on an empty building site. A huge one. Only A-roads surrounded it – it looked like the developers were looking to build more high-rise luxury apartments.

There was a clamber behind her and she turned to find the four men she thought she’d successfully escaped, reappearing a few feet away.

Well, this is fucking wonderful. Does everyone know how to teleport now?
Maybe they did. She’d certainly been able to do it more easily, without a lot of thought and without draining all her magic, which is what used to happen every time she teleported. It hadn’t been one of her fortes, but now it seemed that even toddlers could do it.

“We just wanna say hi,” said the one at the front.

It wasn’t well lit here and she couldn’t make out their faces properly. The only plus side of that was that they wouldn’t be able to make out hers.

“I really don’t have time to chat,” she replied, wondering if she should teleport home. But they’d clearly tracked the trail of her magic to follow her here and she didn’t want to lead them back home.

“Got a busy schedule, have you?” The four men pulled away from each other and circled her, blocking her in.

“It just got busier,” she muttered. Crap. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. What would be better? Hurtling them across the site, or freezing them in place?

She went for the freezing spell, except before she could get the word out of her mouth, someone else said it first.
“Conjelo.”
 

What the fuck…?
“Jacul—Mmmm!”

A hand clamped down over her mouth, stopping the spell that would throw them off, as four others grabbed her arms, pinning them behind her back. Since the freezing spell had been aimed at her, her feet were uselessly locked in place.

The guy, who seemed to be the leader of these shitheads – who she could now see was a thin, wiry, brown-haired, twenty-something-year-old – laughed in amusement. “Sorry, love. Been able to hear voices since the quakes started. Took me a while to realise it was thoughts I could hear, so I could hear yours loud and clear. Said it first. Didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t quite know what would happen – seems good though,” he grinned.

She couldn’t reply as his hand was still covering her mouth, but that was the least of her worries right now, because her succubus had just woken up fucking delighted at the four meals she was about to have.

In any other circumstance, she would have thrown them off with her mind – she didn’t need words to express her magic – but her starved Shanka demon had snatched the reins the second she’d been caught off-guard and there was no taking them back.

The leader grabbed her hood and yanked it down.

His eyes widened at her features … and then glazed over with lust when they met hers, and she could see the green light that beamed from her irises, reflecting in his.