Birthright - Book 2 of the Legacy Series (An Urban Fantasy Novel) (22 page)

“Oh, isn't that nice.” His voice was broken and raspy. “Brother and sister united against their big, bad daddy.”

He inhaled deeply. “You can't hurt me!” he yelled maniacally. “I am better than you, you insolent children. That is my power, and you don't deserve it. It’s mine!”

A lance of power shot at Gil. She remained immobile, a lopsided smile on her face.

My sword intercepted the shot. I poured enough power inside the blade to counter the energy of the lance, dissipating it.

“Who do you think you're dealing with, Father?” Gil's voice sounded deeper than usual. It sent shivers down my spine, and I sensed the power from just those few words. It was the same power generals conveyed when hyping up their soldiers, the power to terrify their enemies and make their allies feel invincible.

“Individually, we are just warlocks,” she continued, “and powerful ones at that. But together, we are a legacy. The future of our bloodline. I
will not
let you destroy our family. Not while I am alive.”

She looked at me with a fierce expression that was both frightening and impressive.

“Erik. Magnet, now.”

I nodded and stepped in front of her.

Magnet – the most powerful collaboration spell we knew. It needed time, precision, power and impeccable teamwork.

Gil needed time to gather her energy and channel some of the most advanced magic in existence. As usual, it was my job to keep the nasty busy until the time was right.

“I don't know what you two are planning, but time for games is over,” said Dad. A lance of intense, red fire leapt toward Gil.

It's one of the basics when fighting magic users. Target the Wizard standing still and gathering magic. They're sitting ducks, and can't blast you later on. Dad had been actively fighting back in the day, and we couldn’t underestimate him.

But he made the gravest of mistakes. You never, ever, underestimate your opponent, no matter how small they are.

Djinn's blade intercepted the fire, and I pushed against it, parting the flame. I pushed even harder, until I felt myself running forwards. Straight toward my father.

“I'm your opponent,” I said as I came upon him. The tactic took him by surprise and he barely dodged my swing. The short sword's blade was coated in flame — azure fire that emanated power and intent.

He grabbed two pieces of metal, remnants of what was once a shelf holding lab tools. Instantly, he transmuted them and swung two scimitars at me. Gil was right. He had power and precision. It would have taken me half an hour to transmute scrap metal into a pair of swords. But I had my body on my side and my training. Swords, spears, magic – none of it mattered. I was trained against that sort of thing.

No matter how many times he tried to take my head off, I parried and blocked, countering each strike with a slash. His body healed the wounds with a violent hiss — no doubt a handy side effect of the drugs he had pumped into his body. But his healing couldn't compare to mine. I had the real power, and it showed.

He slammed both pommels of his sword together and channeled his magic once more. The metal twisted and fused on a molecular level. A spear formed and he resumed his earlier tactic of keeping me at bay with its length.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a spot on the ground begin to warp, then spin like a little typhoon. Slowly, it grew and expanded to the size of a football. I gave Gil a quick glance. She nodded. The spell was ready.

I ducked beneath Dad’s swipe, and with my deft footwork managed to make him turn his back to the warped space. Energy beams shot out of Djinn, driving him further backwards. He pushed forwards in a natural reaction. When a person is pushed, they tend to push back. He must have thought I was trying to get behind him and strike more vulnerable areas. He wasn’t completely off. He took a step backwards as I viciously counterattacked and drove the tip forwards. I raised my weapon as if to block and then let it fall, exposing myself. The tip of the spear penetrated my stomach and tore its way through.

It wouldn’t have worked for anyone but me. The normal instinct in any fight is to avoid harm, even the smallest of injuries. But my experiences with pain had rendered me immune to most natural reactions. I was not afraid of pain anymore. I didn’t have a reason to be. I could heal from almost anything. I once read somewhere that ninety percent of pain is the anticipation of it – it’s all in our heads. It’s the fear of pain that makes you either freeze up or react faster than before. But I had completely accepted pain and the fear of it. I would heal instantly, so who cared how bad the damage was?

Djinn embedded itself on the ground, and I wrapped my hands around the spear. Pain ripped through me, but I chose to ignore it. I had complete control over my mind, and now was not the time to send those signals. I gave my body one instruction – shut up and push. My father was too stunned by my actions to resist. His foot stepped on the warped area and his body began twisting.

The nature of the spell was to feed on the victim’s magic and expand itself, locking the target into that particular space. It was some heavy-duty spatial magic, the kind that usually went terribly wrong.

Black-hole-in-the-middle-of-the-room wrong.

It takes decades for most wizards to even attempt the simplest spatial magic, without fainting after the first two seconds. Gil had managed to combine spatial magic with Abjuration – if that isn’t the mark of a genius, I don’t know what is.

The spell engulfed me, too, holding me in place, which was just fine by me. I could still move my arms. The spell sucked off magic at a steady rate, and while it drained my father, I had a lot more juice in reserve. I wrenched the pike out of my stomach and dropped it away.

Time for phase two.

We dubbed the spell ‘magnet’ because of its nature. It latched onto victims and leeched off their energy, using that same energy to power itself. But the most important factor was what happened next. Any external spell coming into contact with it was enhanced tenfold due to spatial condensation and the redirection of the victim’s energy. In essence, the spell sucked the victim’s power, used that power to lock them in place and increased the final blow dealt to them. Just like a giant, magical superconductor.

I let out a long yell, pulled back my fist, and drove it into my father’s mangled figure. I channeled power into my fists, each of them juiced up with enough magic to shatter rock. I kept hitting him. A flurry of fists flew between us, and with every strike I heard something break inside him. Pain stabbed along my hands and arms that originated from the same power that healed me. The kind that I couldn’t block out, no matter how much I tried. But I kept punching. I was determined to keep hitting him, with enough power to rip out a Baku’s head, with enough power to kill a phoenix. With enough power to destroy this evil once and for all. Each strike was enhanced ten times, and just one would have been enough to fell a Behemoth. But when it came to the villains who killed my mother, there was no such thing as overkill.

Only vengeance.

I only stopped when my hands fell limp to my side. Dad looked like a scarecrow that had been through a hurricane. Gil was on her knees, and the spatial spell had dissipated. I felt my healing repair the damage to my arms, and as soon as I had motion in my right hand, I pulled back my fist and channeled all the pent up magic I had left. All the anger, hate, betrayal and sadness flowed from the dark corners in my head into that fist.

I punched him, determined to destroy him once and for all. Determined to end this nightmare forever. This would be the last strike, the final blow dealt to our own personal monster. After this, there was just hope of a better life. A life where none of our family members tried to kill us. A life where my sister and I could live in peace, away from nightmares. I punched him, driving into him all those emotions.

The punch threw him across the room. He made a glottal popping sound, the kind that planes do when they break the sound barrier. My entire body shook, and I heard a popping sound come from my shoulder. No matter – I was beyond pain. Pain would heal soon. All that mattered was that it was over.

It was all over.

There was no evil laughter or a declaration of power. All we heard after I had blasted Dad was breathing. A small intake of air and a raspy exhalation, which marked the smallest signs of life.

I grabbed Djinn and made my way toward my father.
Take him down now, before he can recover
, I thought. I heard something clatter on the ground and shatter.

My father slowly, impossibly, stood and crushed an empty vial beneath his boot. Something was seriously wrong with him. His shoulders were dislocated, giving him elongated, droopy arms. He walked with a limp. One of his knees was no longer there. Instead, he simply flicked his leg in front of him and pushed his weight on it until he stepped with the other foot. A large section of his torso was gone, exposing to the air a set of small abdominal muscles that squirted blood every time they contracted. His jaw hung at an angle, and his neck twisted to one side, giving him a serpentine look.

In his hand, the one that was not a mangled raw mess of nerves, he clutched a syringe. This one appeared stouter than the others, and had two vials attached to it. One had the opaque, violet liquid, and the other was filled with a dark, blue liquid, like ink. The syringe had two needles. He stabbed it into his thigh and pushed.

The effect was immediate. He let out a scream, and blood oozed from his body like a burst water balloon. I heard a sound like a million rubber bands being snapped. His wounds began healing.

He still looked weak and mangled — his face and body spasming with pain. He looked in no shape to fight, and I took the opportunity to strike. But I made the same mistake he did earlier and underestimated him.

His movements were a blur. I took a blow on my head and wrist. Djinn fell from my grasp, and Dad spun low. His leg snapped into my chest, and I went flying, slamming against the opposite wall, a full two meters off the ground.

Not losing his momentum, my father wrenched out two pieces of wood from the remnant of a chair and channeled magic into them, morphing them into short, thick stakes. His hands were blurs as he threw the wooden stakes at me, telekinetically controlling their trajectory. Both impaled my forearms, pinning me to the wall. I stood there, crucified on the wall.

I saw him flick his palm and Djinn, levitated and shot forwards…

Straight into Gil.

“NO!”

My throat hurt, but it didn’t matter.

Gil.

I had let her down. I had let her
die
.

She was dead, just like in my vision.

She was dead, and it was all my fault.

Dad burst into a fit of coughs that morphed into an eerie giggle. I screamed again, but the wooden stakes pinned me helplessly to the wall. I was too tired to channel magic, and my weapon was taken.

“I meant to use the prototype for the Ritual,” said Dad as he pulled the syringe out of his leg. “But given present circumstances, I’d rather take the option at hand.” He crushed the vial and dropped it. “You will both die now, and that is that.”

“I’ll kill you!” I screamed. My feet stomped against the wall, but I wouldn’t budge. “You hear me? I’m gonna kill you, you monster! Aaarrrrhhhh!”

My father simply laughed and tutted, as if he were scolding a kid. I heard Gil moan softly. She coughed and sprayed blood from her mouth. I saw her figure emanate soft, white light and she managed to pull Djinn out of her. The blade clattered once on the ground.

“Quite the warrior, over there,” said Dad casually. He folded his arms and looked at her. “I want to watch whatever she’s going to try. I’m interested in her power, too.”

Sadistic bastard. He was going to watch his own daughter die slowly from blood loss. All for the sake of power, for some stupid ritual.

Gil looked at me and slowly, very slowly, she winked.

I saw her fingers trace a symbol on her forearm with blood, and a gust of wind erupted in the room, obscuring our vision. Mephisto appeared in front of Gil on one knee. His arms were outstretched as the wind picked up and surrounded them like a barrier.

Dad’s eyes widened. “You,” he spat. “How dare you betray me? You are my familiar.”

“No longer,” the demon replied coolly. “You are no longer my master. You are not the man with whom I contracted our agreement. On breech of the contract, I hereby sever the bond between us.”

“You cannot do that.”

“Your power waned and you are no longer the man you were, neither in body nor in spirit. You are a corruption that is spreading to me,” continued Mephisto, as if my father had never spoken. “I am now temporarily bound to a new master.” He picked up Gil and looked at me.

“Disgraceful,” he said and cocked his head.

“Save her!” I yelled at him.

“She does not need saving, you blind child,” he replied. “Stop being such a pushover, Master Erik, and accept your legacy. You are weak. Weren’t you the one who asked for more power?”

That phrase echoed in my head like a gong. I remembered the mangrove roots, encasing me like a cocoon.
More power
, I had pleaded with whatever it was. That was all I wanted. More power to be able to save Gil and avenge Mom. And I had failed in both.

“Take it,” said Mephisto. Our eyes met. “Take the power. Become strong. Break through all the barriers. Embrace your roots.”

“Mephistopheles!” Dad charged toward the demon and clawed at the barrier. It held fast, and the demon remained unfazed.

“What do you know?” screamed my father. “Tell me! What do you know? Answer me, dog. I am your master.”

Mephisto looked at him with a blank expression, and a second later, he vanished together with Gil.

“No!” screamed Dad. He fumed for a minute before turning to me.

“No matter. I will find the dead girl later,” he said with a feral gleam in his eye. “For now, I’ll just have to make-do with you.”

He approached me, but my eyes couldn’t focus. My senses were shutting down, and darkness soon crept over me.