Chapter Eighteen #2
“I may own his heart, but it is his choice as to who holds it. Who do you wish to have your heart, Mage of Gray?” Diana held her chin high and stared at the glowing mass that Gre refused to take.
“Esmeray, vassal of Bastet and Diana, who does this heart belong to?” Anubis turned to me as the witness, and my breath wavered.
“It is as the g-goddess says. I—I…I wish to hold his heart. I will protect it as my own, but it is Diana’s, as Gre has bartered.” Saying it hurt, but I wanted him so badly.
“And you will take his heart. Willingly?” Anubis stared me down.
“He is my mate, in this world and the next, and where he goes, I go. In my heart is shadow, if a demon has one. Were I not bearing his child, I would weigh my own, trade my own to spare him. He gave me life, a choice, and purpose.” I kept my voice as steady as possible.
“Then come, child of dark moon. Feast upon this heart that is yours.” Anubis held the dripping thing out, and Lionel pushed me forward. “Eat, so that he may become part of you.”
“This isn’t really his heart, is it?” I whispered to Lionel, who pushed at me to approach.
“Do you honestly care at this point?” Lionel sneered, and he was right. I didn’t. “Either eat it and become one with him once more or not, and the gods can decide what happens.”
I glanced toward the towering mass of black shadow, vines, and golden eyes, and I reached for the offering from Anubis.
As his giant paw, sleek with night-black skin and claws, tilted the thing into my hands, it stained them with the gold-dripping fluid.
My instinct was to retch and refuse, but my stomach churned with hunger that made me more ravenous than I’d ever been in my entire life, and I cupped the beating mass in my fingers and brought it to my mouth and bit, sharp teeth tearing through flesh with a huff of satisfaction.
I couldn’t explain the texture any more than I could the flavor. It was him, all warm flesh, sweet, filling, and satisfying. The way my teeth sliced through it, how I barely had to chew or swallow. He became part of me bit by bit until the last morsel crossed my lips. “I love him.”
Those words crossed my wet lips from a hoarse throat, a line in the proverbial sand. Gre’s only place was by me.
“The contract is settled. Diana, owner of his heart, has made case for the care and place of it to be permanently with Esmeray Faust, a child of a dark moon. And as you, a demon, have no soul, no heart, and no presence past this form, you have taken of his soul, his heart, and will share them as your own. His sins become yours and yours become his. You do not damn yourself. You damn him, too.” Anubis opened his stained hands, still slick with golden blood, and beckoned me to approach, and I did so happily, almost running up the steps to the dias to embrace him, sinking into warm blackness, shadow, and tiny vines.
“And now there is the matter of the fate of his body and life on Earth.” Anubis put the feather and plate away, waved his hands to dismiss the scale in a rush of a breeze, the thing melting away like a dry sand sculpture.
“I ask those who hold pieces of our Mage of Gray to state their case.” Anubis stood tall and placed his hand atop mine and Gre’s heads. His steady, rhythmic breaths oddly mortal for the spirit of him.
Bastet approached first, kneeling quickly before Anubis. “Master of Secrets. I took control of the soul of Greginald Hawthorne sixty-four years ago, a mere boy at the time who longed for a goddess and thought I would be kindlier due to his hybrid form.”
Anubis nodded. “As we are all hybrids of legend, born of kings and beast.”
“In exchange for my power, he does service in my name and sees to my children.” Bastet referred to all cats, cat shifters, and especially cat shifter hybrids as her children.
“He has never once faltered. And upon reaching their final days, Gre has been known to bring my little ones into his home, to let them die warm and comforted. He treats my followers as they wish and responds to my call. So, as owner of his soul and dependent of his skill, I call for him to be returned to the mortal plane to continue his good works.”
Anubis nodded once and made a gesture with his hand that she reciprocated before tapping her sistrum and strolling off.
“Diana.” He waved her forward, and she approached, hands clasped affectionately.
“He was the Mage of Gray when I accepted his call. It was not against the wishes of Bastet he called upon me but at her suggestion. He did not ask me for power, only for intervention in a special case, a mother and child that would never live. He’d already bartered his soul, but I accepted his heart and guided a woman through my domain.
And that woman became a devout follower, as did her child and children that came after.
And for me, Gre treats those with child that medicine has no cure for.
And he cannot charge any more than they can or will pay.
By my order, he only keeps a bowl on his counter, and what they put in it, even if only spit, is all he takes.
And for his intervention, I gain new followers.
He also sets wards of protection in my lands as I deem fit.
And now that I have entrusted his heart to a wonderful caretaker, he is fulfilling a need I have to come of a spirit to guard my lands.
A creature of power and righteousness. My vassal will need a father, and as such, I believe he should be sent back to the mortal plane to fulfill my duties.
” Diana nodded once and walked away from Anubis with only the barest nod of her head.
Without being asked, a limping old man spoke up as he barreled forward. “I am Odin, God of The Hanged, Jolnir and wanderer. I am Allfather and spear wielder and blind of one eye.”
“I know who you are, deceiver.” Anubis stiffened but made no move to stop him.
“The Mage of Gray sought justice and called upon me by name of Grimnir. He asked for the ability to see truth and to know what is right. And while I cannot say I show him what is right, the visions I give him show him the paths he may choose, and he chooses that which always has the most good. And for my gift, as I hanged on the ash tree for nine days, I asked for the souls of nine hanged men. And he still owes me five.”
“And where did he get those hanged men?” Anubis’s eyes flared with red intention, for giving a god souls diverted death from their path. He defied his own goddess Bastet.
“The bastard finds their passed ghosts that refuse to move on and sends them to me. Nothing left on them but sin and anger, bitter the way I like them. Too rotten even for Ammit. But it is when carrion reeks the worst that my ravens feast the hardest.”
Anubis settled and gave a nod. “And why does this matter?”
“He still owes me five souls, dammit! Send him back to Earth so he may pay me back!” Odin pounded his walking stick into the ground with a boom like thunder and lightning.
“That certainly is a point.” Anubis nodded and took a breath.
A whispering group of gods, Horus, Osiris, some forest spirits of lesser gods, and Hermes sat in the back, if I wasn’t mistaken.
I wasn’t the greatest with the pantheons, but the wings on his temples told me much.
They rabbled and spoke quietly, waiting their turn to be called.
Their combined sentiment was to send Gre back to Earth, where he could continue holding their names in honor and calling upon their power.
For a mage that did good in a god’s name, lifted them up.
Before Anubis could speak, another voice interrupted, a dry one full of life and charisma. “I have claim over his body and destiny!”
“Faunus?” Anubis sneered at the male I’d mistaken for a forest spirit, a beautiful and built man with leaves in his hair like ivy, skin porcelain pale.
He sported a set of golden horns, curled back like a goat and legs that stood digitigrade and melded into beautiful hooves.
And from his belt hung many simple instruments: a pan flute, a horn, a bell, and a lyre that chimed pleasantly as he moved.
“Many years ago, I traveled to the mortal plane, as I am fond of doing. And in boredom, I sought to be human for a time,” Faunus started, but Diana swore under her breath and slapped her face.
“Fuuuuuck thaaat,” Hermes spoke from the back with a huff. A gorgeous woman I’d missed earlier snorted and fanned herself, apple cheeks and flowing hair held all the beauty and lust in it that Diana vying for her days of the hunt and fertility did not.
“Hey! You’ve all done it,” Faunus said, pointing at the gathered crowd.
Odin nodded sagely. “My sons have made quite the ruckus and legend in my name for me on the mortal plane.”
“And you knocked some mortal up,” Bast said, her tone rough and exasperated.
“Hey! No, I—” Faunus waved his hand about and cleared his throat. “I happened to be an omega at the time and found myself in good company with a great many shifters and not being familiar with—eh…”
“You went into heat. Naughty boy,” the gorgeous woman spoke up.
“Can it, Eros.” Osiris glared at her from beady birdlike eyes, and she stifled a giggle. “You have no stakes in our mage.”
“Oh, I do. See, no blessing was asked of me, but I was there when they first met. I was occupying a mouse in the wall, watching the procession and driving the two together. His daeva came after me, and it was by sheer luck that the Mage of Gray decided to pin the shadow out of harm’s way and spared me humiliation or injury.
So, I blessed them with lust to draw them back together.
” Eros giggled, and Hermes elbowed her right in the tit, earning a shriek of protest.
“In any case! Eros. I found myself with child. It was the hardest year of my life. I was sick and not sick, and my magic was on the fritz. I didn’t even know which giraffe was the father, so it wasn’t like I could drop the baby off in his lap—directly.
” Faunus twiddled his hands. “So once I knew it was a giraffe, I hunted down the men I’d laid with, and it turns out that the father was a participant in a ménage-à-trois I’d participated in… So I persuaded them to adopt.”
Gre raised his eyes to the god, narrowed his gaze in an expression of pure confusion. I’d grown very accustomed to reading the emotions in a shadow’s face.
“So which one was my father?” Gre’s hoarse voice spoke up.
“That’s difficult to say. Their essences were bonded, so I could only say it was one of them. Well, you know, knowing my powers, it could very well have been both of them? But they both participated.” Faunus coughed.
“Alllllll night long.” Eros made a hip thrusting gesture, and Hermes made quick with the elbow again.
Anubis gave the world’s loudest and longest sigh. “The gods invented paternity drama reality TV. Humans merely echo it. So, Faunus, by body and destiny you claim him as an heir? You vest him as a recognized son, a demigod?”
A god was only allowed to claim one heir at a time until their mortal days ended.
And Faunus? The father of shifters. The king of animal spirit in mortal form?
He’d sired many children but never claimed one.
But he stared at the shifted mess of my mate with bright golden eyes full of thought.
“I vest him with his powers as a demigod. He has earned the right to wear my name.”
“Then it is decided that I too cast my gift onto the mortal. I give you the gift to travel between planes, so that anywhere your mate goes, you too can follow. And so too may you come home to be amid the gods when you choose.” Anubis patted Gre’s head. “Do us all proud, Mage of Gray.”
Gre stiffened as a golden light connected the two.
So many rules for the creation of a full demigod existed for a reason, so likely it was the best course to make sure that Gre was raised by mortals.
There was no doubt, though, that he’d earned his gifts.
Faunus approached, hands raised as Gre shifted in form, the shadow coalescing and form shrinking.
“I give to you the gift of form, to hold the shape you please always. And I gift you two things you will greatly appreciate—as well as your mate.”
I perked up as Faunus leaned forward to whisper to Gre, and as his form solidified into the human form I so treasured, a smile of delight and gratefulness twisted his features. “I’m sure Esmeray would love that.”
“Child of a dark moon. Love my son well. I am, unfortunately, no parent, but my hand is in your lives for always, now. And may your little one carry the gift Diana needs the most.” Faunus approached me with a swagger in his step, a smile on his too-white teeth and those green eyes raked me up and down with such adoration.
He cupped my cheeks and leaned down, placing a kiss on my forehead.
Then, he whispered, a message only for me.
“I have the gift of divination and future sight. Do you wish to know your child to come?”
I glanced up at Gre who had fire in his eyes, that gold all demigod, a force of nature. I whispered in turn, “Please.”
He leaned into my ear and spoke as the world spun and shattered around me, falling to pieces and dust, sandcastles collapsing and spinning.
“You are lust and power, two things I know very well. Gre is a demigod, not of your maker’s pantheon.
What you have created is something that the world will have never seen before.
They are conceived in magic, imbibed with a god’s gift, and blessed to know and protect nature.
They are nefalem of a new breed. They are demonborn and godspawn.
Your child will be omega, and his wings will be that of the mortal plane.
He will be born on my holiday, and as such will be revered by shifters. ”
I nodded, my skin prickling.
Faunus rested a hand on my belly. “But you already know who he is. We will call them a warlock.”
I didn’t, but my mind spun as he whispered in my ear. “Born of shadows, the great darkness of the deep, Ausmius.”
And at that, the world righted itself and I was wrapped in a blanket on my cell floor with several guards panicking about while Lionel sat, arms crossed, on my bunk.
“Thank the gods you’re okay,” a familiar officer said. “How is your babe?”
They moved within me, a strong and healthy stretch and I leaned into their touch. “Everything is fine. It’s good. He’s wonderful.”