Birthright - Book 2 of the Legacy Series (An Urban Fantasy Novel) (38 page)

“Ew. Put him in my mouth? Bleh.”

A grin pulled on my lips, and I tried my best to stifle the laugh I knew was about to burst forward. For a succubus, she was really naïve about perverted innuendoes. She saw me and realized her mistake.

“That was wrong, wasn’t it?” she said in a tone of self-defeat. I nodded and kept smiling. She rolled her eyes at me and pulled her hair back. After some twisting, the little length of gold was skewering the knot, holding her hair in place. She looked happy with herself.

She looked well, my apprentice. She had defeated her first major challenge, obtained a weapon which would aid her for the rest of her life, and proved to me that she was no longer just another girl. She had become a wizard, or rather, a witch. Whatever the title, she had grown so much in these last months. I’d never thought I would take on a student. I felt I wasn’t ready, or worthy, to teach anyone anything. That’s why I let Amaymon teach her the majority of what she knew. I still had unfinished business with Tenzin, which I had put off for years. I suppose now, after having made the thing public, I was supposed to feel better. But I didn’t.

I still had one last thing to do.

One last piece of business to resolve everything and move on.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked as I rose from my seat.

“Yeah. Just remembered something I gotta do.”

I looked at each of them in turn. Sun Tzu nodded, understanding my intention. Amaymon dismissed me with his yellow eyes.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” she said.

I held my hand up. “Nah, I gotta do this alone. Personal stuff.”

She gave me a quizzical look, but said nothing. In fact, she raised her eyebrows and backed up.

“Amaymon, you stay here and make sure she gets back okay,” I ordered the familiar.

“Hey, I don’t need a babysitter,” replied Abi sternly.

“It’s not for babysitting. I just need someone to make sure he doesn’t burn the place down while he’s alone,” I explained. She gave me a look.

I really needed to get some better excuses.

“He’s got a story to tell you,” I said. She still said nothing, but her expression softened.

“Yay, I get the girl,” yelped Amaymon. He jumped off the chair, morphed into a cat and leapt onto her.

“Hey, watch it. You’re not as light as you think you are,” she said, trying not to drop the feline dangling from her chest.

Amaymon adjusted himself as she cradled him.

“Never, ever, comment about my weight,” he said.

I smiled at the scene, spun, and left.

The drive home was an empty experience. No radio, no music - just me and an open window. I was so immersed in my thoughts that I barely heard the other cars. You’d think that after three bottles I shouldn’t be driving.

Get off my case.

I’ve walked away from gunshots, stab wounds, impalement, dismemberment, and being thrown off the top of a hospital, of all places. And that was just this year. When you got healing powers like mine, alcohol isn’t really an issue.

Without Amaymon to greet me with a prank or just some good, old-fashioned sarcasm, my office was strangely peaceful. It was no longer the dump I had gotten all those years ago, and Abi went out of her way to pretty it up. But the sound of silence remained unchanged throughout all these years. This place was exactly like me. We had changed, but deep down, there were still some issues yet unresolved.

Time to deal with some skeletons
, I thought.

I walked over to my basement door and descended a narrow set of steps into a small room full of junk. Mostly it was just the cat that came down here and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a stash of
Playboys
hidden behind the beakers and test tubes. I hadn’t used the potion tables down here in years, and mostly kept the stuff out of nostalgia or for Abi’s sake.

At the far end of the basement stood a single aluminum shelf piled with books and other junk. I reached inside a tupperware box full of trinkets and felt around. My fingers clamped around a black-lacquered box and opened it. For the first time in years, I held the good luck charm Tenzin had left me.

I stared at the burned symbol. When it met my magic, the shelf moved to the right, bumping gently against the wall. It exposed a barren section of the wall with a large painted circle and the kanji for ‘gate’ inscribed in the middle. A prayer, written in kanji, surrounded the circle, the characters providing an air of esotericism. I channeled magic from the talisman to the symbol on the wall. I had constructed this mechanism with the talisman acting as a key but I had never tested it before. I just couldn’t face it.

A portal of light appeared inside the circle, and I stepped in.

I went through the portal to a grassy plane. The smell of fresh grass and the gentle wind brought back memories.

The pocket universe was much, much smaller, with only a field and a hill remaining, but it was still a paradise. Over the years the tiny shard that remained of this place, the minute amount of energy Tenzin had left me, grew like a seedling, slowly feeding off of the energy I poured into it. My office was akin to a magic incubator, perfect for something like this.

Something glinted in the sun at the top of the hill, and I made my way up. At the topmost point was a five foot rectangular block of crystal, its sides angled to catch the light - a monument I made in Tenzin’s honor. It was a very tough process to crystallize that much stone, but the end result was perfect.

Transparent, jagged around the edges, and always full of light – just like Tenzin.

I knelt respectfully in front of his monument and muttered the prayer he had taught me.

There was no holding back the tears. I cried over his tombstone until I felt empty inside. All the grief, all the times I had missed him, or wished he were there to guide me. I poured out all my emotions in one fell swoop. I needed him against the Sins. I needed him because he was a decent guy, and the world needed more of his kind.

I needed him because he loved me like a father and I loved him back like a son.

But I had to let go. I had to move on. I came here to conclude, not remain stuck in the gray swampy middle. A conclusion but not an end.

Never an end.

I stood.

“Thank you,” I said. I was never more sincere or more heartfelt in my life. I bent down and kissed the crystal. Light shimmered inside it. It was alive, the whole place was.

“I’ll make you proud,” I promised. My head dipped into a slight bow and I swallowed the lump in my throat.

Despite the crying, I did feel better. I felt lighter and ready. With renewed spirit, I found the inner strength to turn and walk away from the tombstone and all the way down to the grassy field.

I exited the portal and willed it shut. The aluminum shelf slid back in place.

My cell phone vibrated inside my coat pocket and I fished it out.

“Yeah?” I said as I looked at the symbol burned on the talisman. I felt something like inner peace in the depths of my soul.

A familiar voice crackled at the other end.

“Hello, brother.”

Ryan Attard is the author of the
Legacy
series,
The Pandora Chronicles
and, as of recently,
Evil Plan Inc.
When not tormenting his protagonists or ruling over his imaginary worlds, Ryan can be found within the confines of his house on an island far, far away, either geeking out about the latest book or manga chapter he read, or a television show he just finished watching.

He can also be found spewing his opinions and telling terrible jokes on his weekly podcast, The Lurking Voice podcast, which can be found through his website (although if you are easily offended you should definitely not listen).

He is also the kind of person who writes about himself in the third person.

Email:
[email protected]

Website:
http://ryanattard.com

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Enkousama