dark faerie 06 - ever dead (13 page)

“Ahhh,” he exclaimed, “That explains a lot.”

Remembering something suddenly, he dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out the medallion discovered in one of the piles of ash.

“What do you make of this?” he asked as he held out the evidence bag.

Dulci visibly shivered as she looked at it.

“Where did you get that?” she whispered. She cowered away from it, as if it caused her severe physical pain.

“From one of the ones killed…Unseelie I would guess by your description. According to some witnesses, he had been asking about Luci and I. He’s the recently expunged victim of Benton and his crew.”

Dulci got up from her chair and crossed the room to a set of shelves, removing a metal box before returning. Opening the box, she held it in front of Hank.

“Put it in this box please.” She kept her eyes averted from the medallion. This was not comforting.

“It’s evidence in a case Dulci! I’m responsible for it!”

Dulci’s eyes softened as she returned his frantic gaze. “Hank, please. You have to trust me on this. Please?”

Mulling her request over in his head, he finally relented, placing it in the box before she snapped the lid closed. Holding her hand over it and mumbling a few words, Hank noticed a glow surround the box momentarily before she moved across the room and replaced it on the shelf.

For the second time that day, He immediately felt better when he released the medallion. In fact, he felt more relieved than anything.

“Feel better?” Dulci inquired as she made her way back to her seat. She peered at him curiously.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “How did you know?”

“The dark magic is strong in the Kolograt Medallions. I’m actually surprised that you didn’t suffer any burns on your skin from handling it.”

“Kolograt?” Hank questioned, leaning forward with interest.

Dulci’s eyes traveled toward the window warily before she answered. A deep, foreboding concern framed her eyes as she spoke.

“The Kolograt is a secret society of Unseelie believers. They actually refer to themselves as a clan, evoking familiar connotations even though few are actually related by blood. The society is full of exceptionally strong wizards, elves, and witches whom have turned fully to the darkness. They practice wicked sorcery while utilizing an
Alliance Ring
to increase their power. Feeding off one another’s individual powers, the magic swirls through each before it is thrust upon the intended victim. They were thought to be extinct.”

Dulci was looking down at her lap, as if unsure of herself, playing nervously with her fingers.

“But they aren’t extinct. We think their intent is to try and reverse the outcome of the war…to bring the Unseelie back to power…with the Kolograt as the new ruling class. Their leader is a ruthless wizard by the name of Pironin…he of course sees himself as the future king of Faerie.”

They were both quiet as Hank digested this new information.

“Pironin is the wizard who put the curse on Tamaki,” Dulci added as an afterthought. She peeked up at Hank with a sad, empathetic gaze.

“He did that to my grandfather? Why would one of them have been asking about me on the streets? Does he know about me?” Hank asked then.

“Because, they are afraid of you,” Dulci replied, her smile growing again. “Pironin takes it as a personal affront that you were able to enter Faerie. He’d been counting on another generation passing before he had to confront one of Tamaki’s descendants. By that time, he assumed he would be too powerful to be stopped. He wasn’t expecting you.

“Pironin and his Kolograt clan are the danger I warned you about the other day,” she added quickly.

Hank was confused again, and he was getting sick of it. It seemed to him that he now spent most of his time in that state of mind and he wasn’t enjoying one bit of it.

“Why would they even be worried about me? I’m no threat to them!”

“They are scared of your magic. Used in conjunction with other faeries of the Seelie court, we pose a viable threat to them.” Dulci reached for him, seeing his growing distress.

He jumped up, agitated beyond belief as he let out a frustrated growl.

“But I have
no
magic!” he exclaimed, swinging his staff around the room. “Everything in this room has more magic in it than I could
ever
have! What does he want from me?”

Dulci smiled at his outburst. “You have
much
magic within you, exceptional magic, which has only been intensified with the addition of Tamaki’s staff and talisman.”

Hank looked at the stick in his hand incredulously. His heart raced faster than the beating wings of a hummingbird. Could she be right? What if she was? What if she wasn’t?

“The only magic I’ve seen in
this
thing is when it turned into a snake…and I had nothing to do with
that!”

Dulci had the look of a mother as she watches her son take his first steps. Carefully radiant.

“That
was
you, Hank; you just hadn’t realized that you were the one doing it. Did you not notice the power of your voice as you spoke to the others? Did you not see the way they hesitated when they recognized the powerful magic emanating out of you? They saw it in you. Why don’t you see it?”

Hank was beside himself. How could any of this be real? How could his mind believe what this beautiful woman was telling him?

“Ok, then,” he countered bravely, “Then why am I in danger? If what you say is true, bring on this second rate wiz and I’ll whip his ass!” His doubt was fading as he pressed his fingers into the hard wood of the staff. It reassured him somehow, like his own grandfather was there pushing him on.

Dulci laughed with glee as she covered her mouth, her eyes dancing as she gazed at Hank over her fingers.

“I’m sorry, Hank. I’m not laughing
at
you. It’s just…the passion you just displayed reminded me so much of something Tamaki might have done!”

Rising from her seat, Hank suddenly found himself clasped in her arms as she gave him a hug. She was warm, soothing and so beautiful. He could hardly breathe when he was around Dulci…

His heart nearly beat out of his chest at her touch.

“You are in danger, Hank, because you are not yet trained. Your magic lies within you, completely dormant until these last few days. Now, you must submit to your training to bring it out to its full and wonderful potential!” Dulci stepped back, clapping her hands as she did a tiny yet excited dance in front of him.

“Wait…what?” Hank asked dumbly. “Training?”

Dulci nodded, her smile a beacon of confidence.

“Yes, Hank…training…we start tomorrow morning! A wizard is not born with the ability to control his own magic. He must work for it!”

Chapter 25

“I can’t!” Hank exclaimed as he pulled away from Dulci. “I have
work t
omorrow!”

“Very important work too I might add,” Dulci agreed. “We wouldn’t want to interfere with that.”

“But then how…?”

Dulci’s smile made his heart flip as her melodious words crossed his ears like a song.

“You will put in your day at work. When that is done, we will start the day over and devote that to your training.”

He had to sit down again as his world started spinning. He would be putting in two days for every one? Could he even
survive
something like that?

As he was thinking this through, something else Dulci had said snapped into his mind.

Turning toward the beautiful woman seated beside him, his heart skipped a beat even as he sputtered out the question now on his tongue.

“Wait a minute! Did you say…wizard?”

Dulci smiled proudly, nodding to his question before speaking.

“Yes, Hank. Your family…Tamaki’s family…has always been one with wizardry threaded through it.”

“But Nana…Ariel said that Tamaki didn’t know anything about how his family had obtained the talisman. According to her, he knew nothing of magic before he came here!”

Dulci nodded knowingly.

“Not everyone in a family will be empowered with magic, Hank. Most of the time only one child out of a generation will be graced, and sometimes it skips whole generations such as in
your
family.”

Hank gave her a quizzical look as she continued.

“Both Tamaki’s father and grandfather’s generations were devoid of magic. His great-grandfather was a powerful wizard named Bukuro, but he died before he could pass the knowledge on to
his
son.”

Dulci rose and moved across the room as she continued to speak.

“This happens quite frequently in our world,” she continued as she pulled an old leather book off of a shelf. “Generations of magical knowledge can be snuffed out with the loss of a single being.”

She turned to make her way back to her chair, setting herself comfortably before she continued.

“You see, many of those in our world refuse to write down this knowledge, worried about it getting into the wrong hands. It is very common to pass down the information generation to generation within a family…even if that generation has not been graced with magical abilities.”

Patting the chair beside her, she indicated for Hank to join her on the settee. He quickly moved, enjoying the feeling of being closer to her. Her presence was intoxicating, making it hard to focus although he pushed through as best he could.

As Dulci opened the old volume on her lap, he noticed that the page was blank. Moving her hand slowly over the pages, Dulci whispered a few words before writing started showing up clearly on the page.

“
Damn
,” Hank whispered, watching in awe as the pages before him filled with beautiful script.

“That’s amazing!” he crowed when the conversion was complete.

Dulci grinned at him, enjoying his enthusiasm before turning back to the book and pointing at an entry.

“This is Bukuro…as you can see by the notation beside him; he had the mark of magic within him.”

Hank noticed the small figure beside the name…a mark that resembled an infinity symbol.

“And these are his forbearers, she added as her graceful finger slid up the page and then to the page preceding it.”

He followed her hand with his eyes, amazed at the number with the mark of magic beside them.

“How far does this go back?” He whispered when Dulci turned the page back, revealing even more names.

“Thousands of years, Hank. Your family is regarded as one of the oldest magical clans ever.”

His mind was spinning with her words. How could
he
be a part of an age-old family of magic when he only found out about it a day ago?

“How do you know all of this?” he asked suddenly. “And why do you have a book with my whole family lineage in it?”

He hadn’t meant for it to come out so briskly, but he couldn’t help being a little suspicious suddenly…even of Dulci.

Dulci smiled warmly at him, her beauty and the warmth he now felt quickly obliterating his suspicions. 

“I admit that you and your family hold a special place in my heart, Hank, and as such, I tend to study your lineage a little closer than the others.”

“Others?” Hank questioned, once more and forever confused.

Dulci nodded, “It’s my job you see…I am one of the keepers of the history of the various clans of Faerie.”

He nodded, thoughtful yet still curious about so many things.

“I hope this isn’t improper of me, but do you mind if I ask…?”

“Would you like to know what kind of magical being I am?” Dulci asked with a warm smile, apparently reading his mind.

He could only nod at her question, feeling suddenly unsure if he
really
wanted to know after all.

“I am an oracle,” Dulci replied with pride, “An elf oracle to be exact.”

Having never heard of such a thing, he found that her revelation had actually calmed his earlier fears…although he had no reason why.

“And as such…?” Hank started.

“I have many differing powers. I am what you would call psychic for one, as is probably quite evident to you at this point.”

Hank grinned sheepishly.

“I can also manipulate time, as well as being able to transport myself and others to different locations. Both of these, of course, you have already witnessed.”

“Wow,” Hank breathed as he sat back in his seat. “With all of those powers, why would you even
need
me?”

Dulci grew serious as she returned his gaze.

“Although I
do
have many powers, Hank, there is much more that I can not do…powers that you will gain with your training.”

“Oh yeah?” He grinned, “Like what?”

Dulci continued her gaze for several moments before replying. “I can not take a life.”

Hank nodded thoughtfully at her remark before sitting up straighter again, his emotions suddenly growing cold.

“Does that mean…”

Dulci nodded, “Yes Hank, you will be
more
than capable of taking even the most powerful being’s life.”

“Oh shit,” Was all that he could think to say.

***

Hank mulled over the newest revelation of his advancing powers. Having never taken a life, he was unsure if he would ever be able to utilize his predicted ability.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” he finally responded. “I’ve never taken a life…never even felt the need to. I’ve always been able to overcome even the direst situation with my Kobudo training.”

Dulci nodded silently, seeming troubled…wrestling with something in her mind.

“Having the knowledge
does not
mean that you
have
to use it, Hank. It is only another weapon in your arsenal. The wisest of wizards can indeed live their whole life without taking another’s life. Even those that are forced to, use this power sparingly.”

Hank leaned back in his seat again, relief showing on his face.

“That’s good to hear!”

Looking over at Dulci, he noticed the sadness in her eyes.