Perpetual Prey Read online

  “There are a lot of images of you.” Al’s voice was a growl.

  She laughed. “He was obsessed. He idealized me as the vision of immortality that he was after. I think he had one portrait done for each of his raids.”

  Jeri looked at her. “I am ill. You have been killed hundreds of times if this is accurate.”

  “Oh, it is accurate. I remember each of these eras. Fashions have certainly come all the way around.”

  Jeri asked, “You wear black all the time?”

  El looked at some of the portraits. “Yes. I am a widow who lost her children. I have always worn that on my skin. The colour of ash and embers. Those were always my colours.”

  El had her book with her, and she stroked the carved wood of the cover.

  She turned and walked out onto the wide deck that looked over the beautiful lake, and she sat down, her black trousers and boots blended together with the corset that was reloaded and back in action as a weapons’ cache. Her greatest taboo had been direct killing, but now that it was broken, she was prepared for anything at any time.

  She drummed her fingers on the book and checked messages on her phone. Matthias and Zemiel had both been in touch with her. Her two oldest friends had been surprised by the contact, but Zemiel was now a father, and Matthias had chosen a companion, so they were overjoyed to hear from her again.

  The warning she had given them was for what she was about to do.

  Jericho came up to her and flopped in the chair across from her. “So, you are the one who does it.”

  There was no question about it. They had come down to the southern tip of South America for this moment, and it was time to bring a little more magic into the world.

  “I am the one who does it. I am the one who has always done it. I don’t always need to use the book, but this time, I want to propel the magic a little further.”

  Jeri sighed. “I had no idea. You just don’t seem the type, though you do get more serious as you age.”

  El wrinkled her nose. “Funny.”

  “So, not that I am not enjoying the vacation, but when do we get to see the mysterious archive?”

  “Soon. Very soon. First, I have to rip open the fabric of the world, and then, we can go and read all about how I met you.”

  Jeri’s complexion darkened. “You know that it is my target?”

  “I do. I confess I can’t remember much more than sitting up and staggering into a cave where someone was screaming. First, it was your mom, and then, it was you.” Her mental image was of her waking in the rain, her eyes barely able to focus.

  When Al joined them on the deck, she pulled the book to her and opened it.

  He jolted upright. “Now?”

  “It is time. Relax.” She winked and looked into her book. The words she read were in a language so old that no one could even pronounce it anymore. It went beyond the Language of Birds, it was the language of the Earth itself.

  Her words were simple. Open and release your wonders, let your children thrive and grow. Be welcome and let them become strong so that you can enjoy them for generations.

  She repeated it over and over again and power built up. When she finished the twentieth repetition, she whispered, Give them hope.

  The wave of magic burst from the ground and coursed out and upward. Al and Jeri watched as the power streaked skyward before reaching its target altitude and spreading outward with a tremendous crash of sound.

  Al and Jeri jolted in their seats. Elsinor smiled, stroked her book tenderly, and closed it. “There we are.”

  Her companions were still watching the fountain of magic that was coursing upward. This wave would run for another five minutes before it shut off. It was going to be the largest wave in the last thousand years. The world needed an influx of magic, and this was the way to do it.

  El sipped at her lemonade and waited for her request to run its course. Neither of them had been with her during her requesting a wave before. She was going to let them enjoy the moment.

  Her companions looked at her with dazed expressions.

  Al blinked slowly. “That was...”

  “Amazing. It was amazing.” Jericho looked shocked. Her hands were glowing slightly.

  Al had a gleam about him as well, but nothing that a newly born god shouldn’t have.

  Elsinor chuckled. “You two have absorbed a bit more magic than most, but what you do with it is your choice. You can use it to live forever, you can do good works, or you can gain worshippers and use the power of their adoration for your own strength. It is up to you.”

  Al blinked. “You made us gods.”

  “No. That is a choice you have to make. I merely opened the wave, and there was room in both of you for more magic. It found a home.”

  Jeri blinked. “What can I do with it?”

  “What do you want to do? The magic is raw and unshaped. You can make it into anything you want, but once it settles, you will be stuck with it.”

  Jeri looked to Al and was moving carefully to stand at the edge of the deck. He opened his wings wide and faced the sun. As he stood, the glow that was under his skin began to pulse and move. The glyphs shifted shape, and as Elsinor read his skin, he transformed into a user of solar and lunar power.

  She looked down, and her own skin had a slight glow. “What the hell?”

  Jeri blinked. “What is it?”

  “There was room inside me. Magic has taken hold.” She chuckled weakly.

  Al turned slowly, and she smiled, knowing what she wished for her future. For over five hundred years, he had sought her out after every murder. When she was raising Jeri, he waited until she would not see him as a threat before he approached. He had cared for her in every way she would let him, every single time. She could not imagine her future without him.

  Jeri looked at her and smiled. “Children.”

  El blinked. “What?”

  “I want to bring children into the world the same way you helped my mother bring me into it.”

  El snorted. “I hope not. That was a bit of an event.”

  Al walked toward her, and she could swear that he had grown at least six inches. He blocked out the sun.

  “Elsinor, would you come with me on a flight?” He held out his hand.

  She slid her palm against his and got to her feet. “Of course. Jeri, we will be back shortly.”

  Jeri grinned. “Take your time. I will be looking up online midwifery manuals and committing them to memory, trying to make the magic match.”

  El turned as she walked to the edge of the deck. “Don’t forget self-defense spells for you and the mother. It is a vulnerable time and defense is important. It was with you.”

  Jeri blinked. “You never told me that.”

  “By the time I remembered, I had forgotten.” She stepped into Al’s embrace, and he lifted her against him, flying upward with none of the usual jolts. He hovered upward until he was far enough above the ground that his wings could get to work.

  His wings beat heavily, and he took them upward until she could see the wave of magic that was spreading outward from her southern home.

  “You knew that the magic might rest in us.” There was no doubt in his voice.

  “I knew. I didn’t expect it to find space in me.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “What should I do with it?”

  “Do what you always do. Help those who need it. Stop those who abuse power and love me.” She blinked and smiled up at him. “That last is a request, not an order.”

  His kiss took her breath away, and he flew out over the ocean as they came to their agreement. When he lifted his head, she smiled. “Will you still want me if I can remember everything?”

  “I will get used to it. You seem to be a woman with many secrets, and I look forward to discovering them.”

  She chuckled and leaned her head against his chest. “I think Jeri will enjoy meeting the archivist. I should do that next.”
>
  “So, you change the world and then go back to normal events?”

  “Pretty much. I have had so many extraordinary events in my time that it is easier to just go on to the new future before the past pulls me back. That was Midas’s problem. I don’t mind learning from my past, but I will not wallow in it.”

  “Excellent. I have a lot of plans for your future.”

  She grinned and enjoyed the flight until he took them back to the house where Jeri was studying, and her furrowed brow indicated that she was slightly appalled by what she was reading.

  “Would you like to see the archive? There is information in there on delivering a number of extranatural species.”

  Jeri blinked and sat up. “Yes. Where do we go?”

  El grinned and walked into the house and knocked on the floor. A wide trap door appeared, and she hauled it open. “The archive is always beneath my home. I just have to remember that it is there.”

  She glanced back at an astonished Jeri and a stunned Al. “Come on. My entire past is down here, and Lithiasi has catalogued them all.”

  Jeri followed her down the steps. “Who is Lithiasi?”

  “The dragon goddess of reading and writing. We struck this deal so that she could read all the archives whenever she wanted to. She travels in the earth with the entire archive, and when I need to look at something, she is here.”

  El walked downward until stone steps took over from the wooden ones, and when the stone curved downward, she saw the magical lights that illuminated the space, and she called out. “Lithi! Are you around?”

  A woman with rich purple hair and dark wings walked out from behind one of the hundreds of stacks of shelves. “Elsinor! Welcome. Huh, you have brought guests.”

  El grinned. “This is my adopted daughter, and this is my mate.”

  The woman smiled, showing sharp teeth. “Of course. Jericho Matthias Mathers and Algethan, the gargoyle born.”

  They continued to descend until the enormous book-lined cavern surrounded them.

  Jeri looked around. “Is this all you?”

  Lithi walked toward them. “This is the archive of Pandora. What would you like to see?”

  Al murmured, “Where did it begin?”

  The archivist extended her hand, and a scroll appeared in her palm. “This was written via magic, thousands of years after the events, but there is a reasoning to it.”

  Elsinor went to the small fire pit and hanging pot, fixing herself some tea. “They can access anything they like, Lithi. Help them with it.”

  Lithi smiled. “Excellent. Well, come this way. I have rigged up a viewing display for some of these ancient languages. They do defy translation, but the mirror is fairly accurate.”

  Elsinor sat and sipped at her tea, watching from a distance. This was the most painful part of her life, and she didn’t really need to be up close and living it over again.

  Chapter Twelve

  The scroll was opened and set under the mirror. Elsinor could see it from across the room.

  “Pandora was designed by the gods to be a good helper to the new breed of man. She had many children, and her life was happy. Her daughters had children, and while Pandora remained immortal, her children lived and died while she watched.” Lithi murmured the description as they watched the imagery on the screen of the woman living her life and watching her family expand.

  “Humanity began to chafe at the rule of the gods, and they decided to strike via the matriarch that they had put in place. They gave Pandora a box and urged her to open it. She fought the urge, but they planted the curiosity in her as surely as they had planted the mothering instinct.”

  Elsinor closed her eyes.

  “Eventually, she opened the box, and all of the diseases, ills, and deviance of humanity spilled out and took root in the new humans. Pandora’s children were killed by violence and sickness. Many of her children survived, by they rejected her and blamed her for their new hardship.”

  She looked at the image of the box as she slammed it shut.

  “Pandora closed the box and ran with it, seeking a way to undo what she had done. She ran for years until she found a tree and the tree spoke to her.”

  Elsinor watched the image and swallowed slowly.

  “Pandora spoke to the tree in return and explained what had happened. She explained about the gods, the diseases, and the hatred of her own people. She wanted to die, but the gods had not built that into her.”

  Lithi cleared her throat. “The tree reached down and fed her its sap. Knowledge of the potential of humanity, the designs and inventions of the future, they all opened in her mind. She asked about what she could do for her people, and the tree took the box from her, turning it into a book, the symbol of all knowledge in a form that wouldn’t be used for eons.”

  She knew what happened next.

  The tree transformed, and it planted a seed inside her. It was a seed of magic that she could spread when it was time. When humanity needed the touch of magic, she would be able to release it.

  She took the book and walked away with it, strapped to her back. No one could see it unless she willed them to.

  Pandora began her endless journey across the world and eventually every society had a mention of the woman who wandered.

  Elsinor exhaled, and the scroll ended. She wanted to hang her head between her knees, but instead, her hand shook as it lifted the teacup to her lips.

  Al walked over to her and took her hand. “That was a rough start.”

  She smiled. “Just wait until the gods catch up with me again. The tales of Prometheus are brutal.”

  Lithi asked, “Would you like to see those? They are a bit gory but really gripping.”

  Al crouched next to her. “Not today, but where does the story of Galatea come in?”

  She winced. “It is related to the end of Prometheus.”

  Lithi nodded. “I have it. Just a moment.”

  Al lifted her and became her resting place, she watched the end of her time shackled to the stone.

  “And so, after centuries of torture, Prometheus shouted out, and the mountain she was shackled to exploded in molten stone and flame.”

  Elsinor blinked as she watched her nude body encased in lava.

  “A few hundred years later, a mason looking for a block of stone, came across her resting place. He worked to free a block from the old lava flow and dragged it back to his workshop. The sculptor began to work on the statue, astonished to find the outline of a woman inside. He followed the lines of the body until he had freed her. He named her Galatea, and when the gods breathed life into her once again, she became his wife.”

  She watched the man catch her in his arms and remembered being with him. He was a little rough, but he was devoted to her. As far as he knew, she had been brought to him by the gods, not coincidence. They had lived together without children, and when he died, she left.

  It was a pattern. She travelled with her book, and when the gods began to fade, she noticed that something was missing. She hated the bastards, but they had brought a touch of the unknown to the world, and that was what she had to bring back.

  Sitting silently on a mountaintop, she opened her book and read the script that the tree of knowledge had given to her. When she released hope, the first wave of magic spun through the world creating magical races and extranaturals. It was the first time, but it would set a pattern of observation and execution that she followed for generations.

  Lithi stopped the file. “That is a long one. I will stop it here.”

  Jeri asked softly, “Where does Midas come into it?”

  Lithi closed her eyes, and her lids fluttered. “He begins in Atlantis. He was born to a dying mother, along with his twin sister. I can get the file.”

  Elsinor nodded. “That is fine.”

  Lithi grabbed the already viewed scrolls and went to tuck them away. When she returned, she brought the first book that she had carried.
>
  “This is amazing. I had no idea that Atlantis was real until I saw this set of archives.” Lithi’s wings flapped slightly.

  Lithi spoke for the book. “Atlanta had chosen the smartest and the most dedicated to knowledge, and she had brought them to an island, helping them to develop far beyond contemporary structures. Arts, sciences, and medicine thrived in Atlantis for hundreds of years, until a set of twins were born to a mother who died shortly after. The girl was Minyas, and the boy was Midas. They were devoted to Atlanta, their carer.”

  The images of her walking with the two children was enough to make her smile sadly.

  “Midas became obsessed with his custodian, and he attacked her brutally, leaving her for dead. When she woke, she left Atlantis and left her people behind. Midas twisted the purpose of the city, and it self-destructed within a generation. His sister disappeared.”

  A tear ran down Elsinor’s face. Minyas had been given a heart of gold to replace her own damaged organ, and no one had ever embodied the term more than she had. She was beautiful, kind, and generous to all. For her brother to have torn that heart out was an act that had cracked El’s soul. She was going to grieve Minyas for several decades.

  “Midas appeared in myth and legend, but his death was never recorded. Now, we know why.”

  Lithi blinked, and she smiled. “I rarely get visitors. Would you like to see anything else?”

  Jeri nodded. “Yes, please. Anything about birthing babies, please.”

  Lithi’s eyes lit with challenge. “Excellent. I will start you with your own birth, and we will go from there.”

  Al hugged Elsinor, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. “You have done well to continue on with only being trapped in lava once.”

  “Twice. There was an incident on a Polynesian island. I broke out of that one. The Galatea incident, I was dealing with a lot of grief.”

  He chuckled. “Are you interested in seeing your past?”

  “Not particularly. Lithi? I am going to head upstairs. Please, show Jericho whatever she likes.”

  “Yes, Elsinor. It is good to see you with your memories intact once again.”