Legacy First Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 of the Legacy Series Page 11

  They were becoming very… restrictive.

  I remembered her dress, and I remembered how nice and pretty and red it was—and how much I wanted to rip that thing off of her. I don't know how she got naked in such a short time but I wasn't complaining. I remembered being face up on the bed with her on top of me.

  Again, not complaining.

  Then, the warnings began. Over the years, my brain had become trained to spot stuff that was out of the ordinary and piece it all together. And throughout the entire experience, I could hear the alarms going off in my head. But it was like a bell in a vacuum. I could see the warnings flashing but just didn't know what to do with them.

  Until, he intervened.

  I don't know if you've ever been bitch slapped by your subconscious but it's not pretty. Dark Erik, the manifestation of my subconscious, just popped up in my head and hit the reset button. All of that influence and fogginess went away and I was left wide eyed as a beautiful, naked goddess gyrated on top of me.

  She suddenly stopped and looked wildly into my eyes.

  "Interesting." Her voice no longer had that melodic tone but was now cold and powerful.

  I tried moving, but her hand shot out and pinned me down. It wasn't a playful gesture. She had the strength to snap my neck in two if she wanted.

  Sensation rushed back into my head and I remembered everything—Rose showing up and putting some glamour on me. It must have been some powerful stuff, to keep me under for so long. She had known immediately where to go: my cabin. She also didn't strip off the dress, but instead it had simply disappeared like a handful of ash in a gust of wind.

  And most bizarre of all, her eyes kept changing colors, ranging from one end of the color spectrum to the other.

  Where's Abigail? I thought. What about Amaymon and the rest? What the hell is going on?

  Rose, or whoever she was, smiled seductively. "Pity you broke free," she said. "You could have died in utter bliss."

  She bent over and her hair tickled my chest. I felt her tongue streak over my collarbone and was overwhelmed with the need to be under her spell, to give in, and let her have her way with me.

  I felt her swimming inside my head, slowly taking over again. But this time, Dark Erik was ready for her.

  My power flared and instead of pushing her back, I was pulled deep inside her mind. For a few moments I was her, with access to her memories, and saw them as a series of flashes.

  A man and a woman, together in a paradise, surrounded by natural beauty that could never exist in our world. Life blossomed all around them and bliss reigned.

  But with life came also the darkness, and it began tempting the woman. And the more she used the darkness, the larger it grew and the more it consumed of her until she had become a pitch black version of her former self.

  Seeing this, the man feared the corruption would spread. So, he called upon magic and power and cast her out of that world. She was plunged into the all-consuming abyss. Her pain, rage and sorrow were too much for her to contain, and gave rise to demons and monsters that no human could imagine without going insane.

  Eons went by and the Earth flourished. She infiltrated this seedling of a world, donating darkness and hatred. Nations fell to her powers and she conquered them like a queen. She would build her paradise here, she decided.

  But that wasn't enough. She wanted the original Paradise, and so ordered her temple be built tall enough to pierce the heavens. That failed miserably due to language problems.

  Once she accepted that she could never return to Heaven, she took vengeance upon the natives of this plane. She became a temptress, whispering in the ears of kings and warlords. She instigated wars that lasted throughout the ages, relishing in the hatred she created.

  One of her greatest accomplishments was the betrayal of Cleopatra. That Roman had been very easy to manipulate. Almost too easy.

  Her favorite was the Trojan war. She made Helen fall madly in love and told her to run away. Then, she made Helen's father go after her. Years later, she gave a certain strategist the idea for a trap and he had come up with a giant horse.

  Men, always thinking bigger is better.

  More flashes placed her in Victorian garb as she tempted one monarch after another. She had whispered in Cortez's ear of her attraction to violence, and he eradicated half a nation on her behalf.

  She was a court member during World War I. Before the vote to go to war, she leaned very close to an influential member and flashed enough of what was beneath her dress to persuade him in all possible meanings of the word. She voted for war and everyone else followed her.

  Years later she slept with a certain German soldier who also fancied himself an artist, and encouraged his twisted philosophy. He entered politics and the world experienced its second World War. She had thoroughly enjoyed herself at first, before the idiot went ahead and took all that amphetamine. No wonder he thought invading Russia was a good idea.

  And then, nothing. She seemed to give up on the world. There was already so much darkness that she had become redundant.

  So she returned to Hell and waited, until her throne was usurped by the Demon Emperor.

  Not to worry—she had lost interest in that as well.

  Some time ago, she felt the call of someone old and powerful. There was something familiar about that voice but she could not quite place it. Age and corruption had taken their toll on her memory.

  This being, neither demon nor angel, but something long lost and forgotten, had offered her power: a new purpose. She accepted the mantle of Lust. It changed her, but only superficially while her original powers had been fortified.

  The mastermind wanted to wait. He wanted to enact his plan at the right time and in the meantime she had grown impatient. So, she broke off his hold and ran to the human world, eager to wreak havoc on a new scale; to make those fragile meat bags worship her again.

  But first, she had to feed. With this new power came a cost, and she had to find something to quell her hunger. The succubus had been a youngling but she would have to do. Only she would suffice, for only she had the correct energy. To a creature like Lilith, quality always overruled quantity. She tried feeding on her many times, yet either her powers would go haywire or Heaven's agents would intervene.

  But not this time, not here on this ship. The angels were far away and all that stood between her and her meal was this idiotic wizard. A cripple at that.

  When her thoughts came back to the present and focused on me, I finally saw her for what she really was.

  "I am going to suck everything out of you," she moaned.

  I could have laughed at the pun. Instead, I looked down and I was never happier to see I was still wearing my underwear.

  "Lilith," I snarled.

  Her eyes flashed red before reverting back to their usual kaleidoscope of color.

  "So, you figured out who I am. Bravo," she said. "Was that you poking around in my head a few seconds ago?" She flicked an ebony strand of hair. "Whatever. There is nothing you can do now anyway."

  I struggled and she pressed forwards. It was like a car had settled on my chest.

  "Fragile humans," she cooed disappointingly. Her hands snaked down south and grabbed my genitals. "But you are quite something, aren't you? I figured we'd at least get to second base before you figured it all out."

  She gave my thigh a squeeze. "But I suppose this is better. I always enjoy playing with my food." She trailed kisses across my chest. "Say my name again."

  I felt her hold recede just a millimeter, just enough for me to swing my fist at her.

  "Go blow yourself," I spat.

  She didn't dodge or even flinch. Instead, she swatted my arm away and giggled. I felt searing, white-hot pain in my arm and saw it dangling over the edge of the bed, misshapen and swollen.

  "Wrong answer," she said sharply. Her hand squeezed my genitals harder. "Shall I break another bone, my dear?"

  This woman and her puns. I kept myself from saying anythin
g. I dated her type before: insane psychos. And when that type of woman grabbed you by the balls and threatened to rip them out, you had better listen.

  "Lilith," I rasped. "Your name is Lilith."

  "Good boy," she whispered as she leaned over and kissed my forehead, before straightening up.

  She flashed a smile. "Well, now I'm hungry, my dear."

  Her perfect face began changing. Her jaws elongated and lips widened unnaturally, revealing a row of serrated fangs which dripped saliva all over me.

  She may be a monster of powers way beyond mine. She may even be a goddess. Whatever she was, she was incredibly powerful, and folks with that kind of juice always make the same mistake: they underestimate the weaker guy.

  I mean, sure, I've never started wars that have been made into countless movies. I certainly haven't slept with as many women as she had or had anyone drool after me. And I may also be a cripple; a wizard who cannot use magic is about as useful as swimming lessons to a cat.

  But I do have a boatload of power and she underestimated me at her own expense.

  My broken arm had already begun healing, and I felt magic reinforcing my body. Already I felt the pain of trying to use my powers without a channel but my options were limited.

  My hand brushed against the gym bag I had stowed under the bed and felt around for the zipper. I groped around and found a cheap plastic bottle full of holy water.

  Lilith swooped down and I shoved the bottle in her mouth.

  "Suck on this," I spat, squeezing the bottle.

  Holy water shot down her throat and she leapt backwards all the way across the room, screaming curses in an extinct language between gags. The liquid burned her flesh but her power regenerated the tissue. But take it from someone who has the same healing powers—healing doesn't mean immunity to pain.

  I saw Djinn's handle sticking out from under a pile of clothes and lunged for it. Before I could grab it, a long, black nail shot out and knocked the weapon away from my reach.

  Lilith's naked form rushed forwards and kicked me squarely in the chest. I was thrown backwards and into the wall. I felt ribs crack and saw a dent in the wall where my body had crashed against it.

  "You men are all the same."

  I felt her hand squeeze around my neck and I was lifted off my feet. "So weak," she snarled.

  She drove her fists into me, again and again, systematically cracking every bone in my body.

  "Why don't you all just die?"

  She slapped my face so hard I heard my neck snap. A cold sensation washed over me and I just hung there like a piece of meat, fresh from the kill.My magic was working on overdrive, healing the most critical injuries first, but Lilith kept creating new ones.

  Finally, she lost it.

  "I'm not going to eat you," she said, grasping my hair and yanking my head up. "I'm just going to tear you to shreds and then go back to that party. I'll rip everyone apart and bring the girl back here to show her the corpse of her supposed savior. Then I’ll kill her slowly while your cold, dead eyes look at us."

  Her form shimmered again but I couldn't see very well. My body was slowly shutting down.

  Something long, thick and disgusting slithered from her lower area. I don't want to know what it was or where it came from. It looked like a cross between an intestine and a tentacle, and it was just fucking horrible.

  The appendage wrapped around me and squeezed. I felt sucker-like mouths biting into my flesh and absorbing it. The damn thing was liquefying me.

  And just before the coup de grace, I heard Lilith say, "Thank you for the pick-me-up."

  The appendage changed again. Thick, bony spikes, like mammoth tusks, shot out of the appendage and I felt dozens of them skewering me from all directions. And just as quickly, the spikes retracted and the bizarre appendage released me. I remembered hitting something hard, most likely the floor.

  In my final moments, before darkness claimed me, I saw Lilith's naked figure walking out of the cabin and heading towards the faint music.

  Chapter 20

  I was dead.

  Not unconscious or in some comatose state while my magic healed me.

  Truly, purely, utterly dead.

  I have seen depictions of Heaven, of a fluffy, cloudy place with lots of naked, baby angels floating around. Hell, on the other hand, was this mass of red fire, where the most stereotypical demons poked at your ass with pitchforks.

  And the first thing I saw when I woke up was red.

  My first thought was crap. Not that I would be too surprised if I did end up in Hell. Although, once you've spoken with a demon and understood the whole parallel dimension concept, the afterlife becomes kind of dull.

  I felt sand in my ass and realized that I was in the middle of a desert.

  Oh, right—Hell.

  Everything was red. Red sand, red clouds and an amber red sky. Even the lazy gusts of wind had a reddish hue to them.

  But I felt… normal. I thought only my soul would remain, or perhaps I had become a mass of quantum energy that would later be reabsorbed into the Earth's plane. Instead, I felt rough sand all over my body and the itching became too much. I scrambled up, kicking sand all over the place.

  "Where the hell am I?"

  Maybe 'hell' was a poor choice of word in this particular situation. But this was definitely not the afterlife, not unless some divine being was playing a really sick joke on me.

  I looked down and saw that I was totally naked. Not only that, but I was also shimmering in crimson energy, as if I had a small nuclear reactor inside of me and was about to explode.

  My training took over and I focused on sensing the magic around me. When in doubt, do a spot check. It helps.

  At the very least it stops you from freaking out.

  I felt a vast ocean of power all around me. There was no end to the magic in here. It was above and below, in front and behind, to the left and right. This place was made out of magic.

  No, this place was magic itself. And the strangest part was that it all felt so familiar, so intimate. This magic was a part of me, living inside me and yet I had no idea it was here all along.

  Or perhaps, I knew it was here all along and just refused to acknowledge it.

  The curse, I thought.

  I was taken back to the time when Mephisto had sat me and Gil down and explained it all to us. That seemed like such a long time ago. It was because of that curse that our own father wanted to kill us and take all that power for himself.

  And it was because of that curse that I had killed him instead. It was self-defense, but patricide wasn't something to scoff at, even under those circumstances.

  It was because of that curse that I would probably never perform another spell in my life without relying on Djinn or some other channel. And it was this curse that made me heal from pretty much anything and will probably outlive anyone that mattered to me.

  It was because of that curse that I was, and always will be, an outcast.

  Knowing that, I denied it. I defiantly refused to explore it, or even acknowledge its existence.

  So sue me. That curse only brought me pain and misery.

  Then, the little voice in my head spoke out.

  This was a whole lot of power down here, it said. And you did just get your ass handed to you by a demon goddess who created Hell as we know it. You might even be dead and because of that, Abigail and a whole lot of innocent people might be in serious danger.

  So, how about you man the fuck up and use this power? Maybe stop bitching for ten seconds just so everyone else doesn't end up dead too?

  Shut up, voice of reason.

  During that little bout of schizophrenia, the world shifted. The middle of the desert parted and a large tree began growing. Its pitch black roots branched out and burrowed deep into the desert. The trunk kept growing and growing until the very top branched out and spread until it covered most of the sky. Its branches were hidden behind the clouds so I couldn't see the leaves.

  Th
en, he emerged.

  Dark Erik was just a mass of darkness at first, emerging from the trunk of the large tree. He was made from liquid obsidian and in the center of his chest, where a person's heart would be, this guy had a mass of light. Veins of red, orange and yellow snaked from the blob of light and all around the creature.

  "So, you have decided to acknowledge my existence," he said.

  The voice came from the entire form and echoed from all over the place. Dark Erik spoke with my voice but on a decibel level that could have shattered glass and cracked walls.

  "Hey, Dark Erik," I said with a weak smile. My own voice felt weird and foreign.

  Then again I guess you're bound to feel strange when conversing with the manifestation of your subconscious.

  Dark Erik cocked his head. "Dark Erik," he repeated. "That is the denomination you have bestowed upon me."

  My subconscious was more eloquent than I was. If I ever made it back to my office, I was going to finally read that Dickens book I'd been putting off.

  Dark Erik was not amused. "How presumptuous of you to assume that I am a phantom of your mind. But I suppose that is your nature as a human."

  It was my turn to cock my head. "So, are you saying that you are not a part of me?"

  "I am you, and I am not you. I am one and both. I am bane and power. I am a legacy. Your legacy, Erik Ashendale."

  Holy crap.

  "What does all of that mean?" I asked.

  Dark Erik, or whoever he was, remained silent.

  "Dammit man, at least tell me your name." I probably shouldn't be pissed off at whatever he was, but hey, what could he do? I was already dead, so joke's on him.

  "You have not accepted your true nature yet," he replied. "You have not even begun to grasp the significance of your destiny."

  I wasn't sure whether I had a heart in my current state but something definitely skipped a beat.

  "You're my curse," I whispered.

  Of course, he had just said so—bane and power.

  I remembered when I let that power take over during my fight with my drugged up Warlock of a father. I have nearly no memory of that event. All I know is that I had come close to dying and the curse took over. Then I woke up to find the mansion destroyed and my father nearly dissected. Whatever my curse was, it was not pretty.