The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Ascension (12 page)

That thought in mind, Devdan rolled over onto his stomach and let out a groan. How in the hell had he let Bastet talk him into this. He wasn’t a diplomat and he certainly didn’t have it in him to be a ruler. He should have talked the woman into uniting the African families against the Magic Council herself. But what did she see in him? What had she seen all those years ago in slave boy that was too headstrong for his own good in a time where his only purpose was to be submissive and obedient to his master?

The door to his room suddenly opened causing Devdan to roll over and sit up. Standing in the doorway was a young woman appearing to been in her late teens or early twenties with dark skin like Mekonnen’s, sparkling black eyes, long coarse black hair, and gold clamp bracelets adorning her arms all the up to the straps of her long orange dress with decorative sequins around the collar. She was gorgeous.

She muttered something in her native Ethiopian language, starting to back out the room. Devdan assumed it was an apology, but couldn’t be sure since Ethiopian wasn’t one of the languages he was fluent in.

“Wait?” Devdan called before she could leave the room.

The girl stopped and slightly raised her eyes to look at him, not directly in the eye though. The lack of eye contact didn’t trigger any signs of mistrust in Devdan though. In her culture, direct eye contact between the two sexes was only for if they were in some way familiar to each other.

“Do you speak English?” he asked.

“Yes,” the girl replied and then added, “I’m sorry. I knocked and when you did not answer I thought you might be asleep. I didn’t mean to disturb your thoughts.”

“That’s fine,” Devdan said to the girl. “Did you need something?”

“My father asked me to check on our female guest and see if she needed anything. He must have mixed up the rooms.”

“Well since you’re here, I guess wouldn’t hurt for me to ask you if you all are serving us dinner or if should go fend for myself,” Devdan asked.

The girl’s dark skin glowed with a blush and Devdan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. So she was one of those shy blushy types who would burst into tears if he breathed wrong, let alone made a blunt comment.

“We’d never invite guests into our home without feeding them,” she said. “Ezra will retrieve you when it’s ready.”

As she turned to leave the room, Devdan got the feeling that he should get her name. If she was Mekonnen’s daughter, no doubt she had influence over his decisions and if she at least thought one of the representatives the Magic Council had sent was genuine, certainly Mekonnen would give Devdan a chance.

“Adina Mekonnen,” she said, proving Devdan’s hunch that she was a daughter of the house right.

“Devdan,” he replied though he was sure she already knew who he was. If their home was anything like the slave plantation was, where no one could keep their mouth shut about anything, then certainly the news of his and Anya’s arrival had been going around since they found out.

“Nice meeting you,” she said with a respectful bow of her head before leaving the room.

“You too,” Devdan said.

After she left, Devdan was acutely aware that the odd draw he felt to the girl when she left the room was suddenly gone and if it wasn’t for the fact that the feeling reminded him of the draw he had around MaLeila, he would have been alarmed by it. Only reminded him though. Something about it was different and whatever it was made Devdan to know that there was certainly more to Adina than the shy, blushing persona she had showed him would lead him to believe.

12

He was normally a night owl, but Devdan was so exhausted from all the social interactions he had been forced into that he went to bed a little before midnight only to be awakened at dawn by the sound of the adhan from the many nearby mosques surrounding the mansion. He tried to fall back asleep but to no avail, so he dragged himself out of bed. He freshened up slightly in the bathroom and then threw on a sweat suit and tennis shoes. He wasn’t sure how particularly wise it was for him to go for a run in a strange city, but he figured it couldn’t be an more threatening than walking at night in the worst hoods of Atlanta.

As he was going out the door though, he passed a room downstairs with no furniture or decorations in it save for the large window at the east of the room. Adina was there, doing what he recognized as the Muslim prayer. He raised an eyebrow, making a note to ask Bastet about it later. He didn’t have to though. After he got back from his run and showered, he ran into Adina in the hallway.

“I noticed you leave this morning. Did you enjoy your run?” she asked.

He didn’t know her and didn’t owe her an answer considering his business was with her father. Not to mention it usually irritated him when people randomly stopped him for senseless talk, but he felt compelled to answer. Rather than resist the compulsion, he decided to answer.

“And here I thought I was being discreet. Did I disturb you?” he asked.

“No. I simply sensed you watching,” she said.

Devdan figured since she’d brought up this morning, it was as good as any time to ask about it rather than waiting for the right time to call Bastet to ask her or resign himself to mentioning it to Anya.

“I’ve never heard of sorcerers practicing religion. The Magic Council hides at the Vatican under the cover of religion, but they certainly don’t practice Catholicism,” Devdan added dryly. He didn’t add the reason for his own aversion to religion; that it had been used over the years to commit the worst crimes in human history, the one that stood out to him because he lived through it being Christianity which had been used to justify the slave institution.

Adina paused, opening her mouth and then closing it before saying, “It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t understand the concept already.”

“Humor me,” Devdan said.

“Could we not do it in the hallway?” Adina joked

Devdan nodded and followed the girl downstairs to a room that looked to be mainly used to entertain guests.

“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.

“No,” Devdan said. “I don’t usually eat breakfast.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

Devdan again felt compelled to answer her. “Food wasn’t particularly abundant when I was a child. Breakfast was almost never a thing. It’s a habit I’ve never been able to break.”

While waking up in the 21
st
century hadn’t been as much of a cultural shock as most people thought it would have been for someone sealed away for over a century, the idea of such an overabundance of food was still something he hadn’t quite gotten used to, nor was he used to the eating habits of people in the modern world.

Adina nodded, no doubt rumors of him and his past were as widespread in the magical world since it was connected to Claude and nowadays MaLeila, even in a magical community as withdrawn as the African one.

Finally she said, “Here, we make no distinction between the three major philosophies.”

“What are the three major philosophies?” Devdan asked.

“Magic, science, and religion,” Adina explained. “The magical word birthed the latter two.”

Devdan frowned and said, “You’re right. It’s not making sense to me.”

Adina paused, trying to think of a way to explain it. Finally she said, “Science to magic would be akin to you manually doing math rather than putting in a calculator, if that makes sense?”

“So magic users are the calculators who can do math in an instant if you know the formula and non-magic users are the ones who have to break down the formula step by step and do it the long way?” Devdan asked. He could understand that. There was nothing a sorcerer could do that broke the laws and rules of the physical realm. It seemed that way to non-magic users, but only because they were limited by what they had already been able to accomplish with science.

“And religion?” Devdan asked.

Adina paused. “That one is harder to explain, but it’s only the companion to science, a way of getting connected with the world that transcends the material one so that it will work for a non-magic user without them being able to control it. It certainly takes a lot longer than it takes us, but those who attain a high level of spirituality in religion are able to limitedly manipulate the forces around them.”

“Doesn’t explain why you were praying this morning before dawn,” Devdan pointed out.

Adina smiled. “Yes it does. The magical world gave those without magic religion, so suffice to say that the rituals they practice were rituals that put us more in tune with our magic and made us that much more powerful. Why do you think people pray when they really want to accomplish something or need the strength to bear a burden?”

It also explained why a powerful magic family was so comfortable in a largely Muslim and Christian city. And it was a way in which Devdan had never looked at magic before, not that he had been looking for it. He didn’t much care for the theory of magic as much as actually doing it through feeling and intuition.

“I do one of the prayers in the morning, for strength to bear the burdens of the day and the one at night so that even in unconsciousness I’ll have the strength to protect myself if there were to be any danger in the night,” Adina added. “You should join me sometimes.”

“Only you?” Devdan asked.

Adina flushed and said, “I’m the only one in the house that participates in the prayers, even though neither my father nor my brother make distinctions between magic and religion either.”

Devdan smirked, not because he was particularly amused by what Adina said, but because he was mildly entertained by how flustered she was by him. He didn’t know what it was about the bad boy persona that made girls blush and wet their panties, especially when it wasn’t something he did on purpose.

It usually annoyed the hell out of him, that he could just glance at a girl, be a right asshole and still they’d be ready to drop their panties for him if he asked, and it did little more than make him less attracted to them. It was one of the reasons he had been so conflicted about MaLeila. She had been all fire, willing to call him out for being an ass, had the guts to fight back against him without magic, and could stare down the barrel of his gun without flinching. Probably because she knew how to grab it from his hand if she needed to.

Still, he found it strangely endearing with Adina and again he was acutely aware of the compulsion to talk to her even when he didn’t particularly want to share something with her and the attraction he felt when he was near her.

“Thanks for the offer, but I probably won’t,” Devdan replied bluntly. “You can show me some of this culture your father wants me to get acquainted with though.”

“We could see the hyenas,” Adina suggested immediately.

“Hyenas,” Devdan repeated. He’d heard that the wild cats roamed the city of Harar, particularly at night, as commonly as dogs, cats, and raccoons roamed cities in Georgia. And even though he’d faced worse things than hyenas over the years, he wasn’t particularly eager about being on the receiving end of one of their bites if they ran into one. Still despite his apprehensions, he found himself saying, “Sure.”

Adina proceeded to tell him that the hyenas didn’t come out until the evening and that they would meet later that night. When she left, Devdan went to his room and created a vacuum in the atmosphere that made the room soundproof before calling Bastet. She picked up on the second ring.

“You couldn’t have called me as soon as you got there?”
the woman asked.

Devdan shrugged, even though Bastet couldn’t see it and said, “I’m calling now.”

“So how’s it going?”

“Like you predicted. Mekonnen doesn’t trust us but he’s giving us the benefit of the doubt and letting us stay, if only so he can watch me and figure out what my intentions are,” Devdan said. “Strange thing is that I haven’t seen him at all today. If I didn’t know any better in fact, I’d say the man was avoiding me for some reason. The only one in the family who seems to even care I’m here is Adina.”

“Adina…?”

“Mekonnen’s daughter.”

“And?”

Devdan shrugged. “She’s okay. There’s… something about her though.”

Bastet groaned.
“Do not jeopardize what you went to accomplish because you’ve got a crush on a girl and can’t control your dick.”

“Give me a little credit Bastet. I’m not stupid. I have a measure of self-control.”

“A measure,”
Bastet growled.

“I never fucked MaLeila,” Devdan said pointedly.

“That’s because you two had more psychological issues keeping you apart,”
Bastet muttered.

“And I still could have fucked her. I thought about it actually. It might have quelled her fire some.”

“It would have quelled both your fires if you ask me. And that’s assuming she would have let you fuck her,”
Bastet added.

Devdan immediately deadpanned, “Let’s be honest. As much as she fought me, had I led her on before she got with Marcel, she would have fallen in bed with me with no complaints. We may not have been clear on some things, but that was one thing that was apparent.”

Bastet didn’t reply immediately. After a few beats she finally said,
“That’s true. And the only reason I know that’s true is because MaLeila admitted that to me before. Otherwise, I’d be lecturing you right now for how sexist and egotistically male that comment was. Amazing, by the way, how you can talk about her so easily after you’ve broken up.”

“We were never together.”

“You two might not have kissed and fucked around all the time, but contrary to both of you insisting otherwise, you were together,”
Bastet said dryly.
“Regardless, don’t fuck this up because you fucked Adina. In the western families, there may be the understanding that affairs happen and they’re no big deal. But in the African families, they’re not as open to the idea of casual sex. So I’d stay as far away from Adina as possible if I were you.”

“Can’t. We’re going to see the hyenas tonight.”

Bastet groaned and if it were possible, Devdan was sure she’d reach through the phone and try to choke him.

“You’ve barely known the girl what? Half a day and you already have a date with her? What’s gotten into you Devdan?”

Devdan was trying to figure that out himself. He honestly felt like he was the hero in some B-rated chick flick that was inexplicably drawn romantically to the heroine for no other reason besides the fact that she was “different” from other girls. That in itself had been a warning to him, but he was too curious to find out what was going on to distance himself from it.

“I’m not going to fuck up anything.”

“Or anyone.”

Devdan rolled his eyes. “I’ve got this Bastet. If you were so concerned, you should have come yourself.”

Devdan hung up the phone at that, not giving Bastet a chance to answer. There was little to do in the house to kill time before dinner, so Devdan left again to explore the city and see the landmarks he had paid little attention to on his run that morning. Even though he declined joining Adina in her prayers, Devdan did visit one of the mosques that he’d heard the adhan from earlier that morning, arriving just in time to watch people arrive to pray in the late afternoon and then leave to go about their business. Halfway through watching, Devdan focused his vision until he was half seeing the people in the material world but seeing the rest of the world as it looked in the hidden ethereal plane. It was when he watched the people pray with this vision that he saw what Adina meant. Magical energy, what religious people would call spiritual energy, concentrated around those who prayed. The ones who prayed most often, like those that Devdan had seen when he walked into the mosques and still hadn’t left long after those who came after them were gone, being more concentrated than those who prayed less. It was like a temporary magical aura, one that at best lasted a few minutes after the prayer and whose residue only lingered afterward. If this was what it looked like on people without magic, then Devdan wondered what it looked like when a sorceress like Adina participated.

He pulled himself out the double vision and made his way back to Mekonnen’s mansion. By the time he arrived, dinner was ready and Devdan caught his first glimpse of Anya since they were shown their rooms the previous day. Ezra was also there, but unlike yesterday, Mekonnen was noticeably absent and Devdan asked about the man, Ezra only replied that he had business to take care of elsewhere. Anya didn’t seem interested in talking to him except in passing and to be polite, something Devdan had never known the haughty woman to be. Surprisingly, it was Ezra who spoke to him the most and in their discussion, Devdan found out the other man wasn’t a servant, but Mekonnen’s son and Adina’s brother.  Ezra didn’t talk about himself long though and after giving Devdan the basics, asked Devdan what his hobbies were.