1. Resurrection #2
He’d been a Skyhunt player of some note, but otherwise inconsequential both socially and in school.
He’d also been disgraced via some scandal, and expelled from Malcroix Bones, which was somewhat less desirable in the short term, but would matter not in Raughloch’s case, as Malefic would not have utilized his ancestor for that assignment, regardless.
Looking between Valefor and Raughloch, Malefic could not help but wonder how long it would be before one of them challenged him, directly or indirectly.
He would be surprised if they did not.
But it would not matter, in the end.
Malefic would have that ungrateful cur of a son of his at heel well before it happened.
Caelum may have destroyed Malefic’s original plans by marrying that dangerous bitch, but that unfortunate twist hardly left him without options.
Today’s correction was a bare slap on the wrist next to the lessons Caelum still had coming.
His son would soon learn what it truly meant to go head to head with him, and he would not like the result.
The marriage may have made him untouchable in some respects, but it made him immensely vulnerable in others, and Caelum would fast learn that lesson, as well.
Malefic had known it was a risk.
He’d researched his son’s condition obsessively for nearly twenty-five years.
He started the day of Caelum’s birth, the same day he’d first heard the diagnosis from that Obeah prick, Rontu. Malefic knew all the different ways his son’s magical deformity ended, and the few methods by which it could measurably be controlled.
He also knew an addict when he saw one, and it was clear, even in the short time he managed to cut his son’s magic off from that of his new wife, the whelp wouldn’t be able to withstand separation for long.
So no, Valefor and Raughloch didn’t worry him.
Malefic would ascend himself well before they ever became a problem.
That said, if he had to, Malefic would not hesitate to separate the offending party from the gift of new life he had so generously given them.
The third Magical standing in that small group of Resurrecteds, strangely perhaps, did not worry Malefic at all.
The red-haired, black-eyed witch stood beside Valefor, both literally and figuratively, but Malefic could feel the dedication on her magic.
He could feel the intensity of her religious fervor, her unrelenting devotion in all its nuances and particulars, her determination to see their shared goal borne out to its very end.
The single-mindedness of that obsession might have been alarming in service to a different cause, and if it wasn’t accompanied by a clear devotion to Malefic himself.
Morticia La Fey had once been the most dangerous witch alive, and still might be the most revered witch in Dark Cathedral history.
What an irony that she would share blood with the mongrel who now posed one of his most aggravating and revolting obstacles.
Malefic feared they would not be able to resurrect Morticia’s essence after what her great-granddaughter, Ankha La Fey, had done the year before.
In Ankha’s own, botched attempt to revive the great witch, she had stolen a handful of bones and a container of her ancestor’s blood from the family crypt.
Malefic personally emptied the remaining artifacts not long after Ankha’s death, and, thank Anubis, found a second jar of her precious blood. That, along with the remainder of her skeleton, had turned out to be enough.
Ankha herself would never be resurrected, of course.
Even if she hadn’t lost that privilege with her unsanctioned ambition, none of her physical remains survived her death. Her blood, burned by magical fire, had been damaged beyond repair, rendered functionally dead, thus making resurrection impossible.
Malefic felt no remorse. While he acknowledged the tragedy of losing a talented, full-blooded witch from a royal family, she had betrayed not only herself with her stupidity, but him, as well. Worse, she had betrayed the cause.
Too many had been lost over the years as it was.
They’d brought back over a hundred by the previous year’s end, but in some ways, those Resurrected served to highlight the much larger number who’d been lost. Remains destroyed or lost in wars, burned by the treasonous magic of infidels, crypts defiled or spoilt by the vindictiveness of their fellow wizards, the greed of scavengers, the stupidity of lower-bred Magicals, poor workmanship, natural disasters, failed containment spells, and even, on a few occasions, the hunger of magical beasts.
Ignorance of the old ways lost them the most.
Only a few families continued the practices of the Ancients, and preserved the bodies the way they were meant to be preserved.
The Bones family, of course, had more than most.
Even so, Malefic’s own father and grandfather refused such burials in favor of larger, more modern, and more public crypts, thinking the strict versions of the ancient practices “old-fashioned,” and, in his father’s case, “grossly superstitious.”
Despite being firm believers in the ideological tenets of Dark Cathedral, neither had been sufficiently faithful to their religion.
They’d quoted modern scientists and alchemists instead, all of whom had their thinking warped and perverted by the human world.
It was a poison that seeped into the beliefs of Magique more and more, aided by the current government with its “tolerance” and “permissiveness,” an approach that pretended humans still offered anything from which they could learn.
It was, in the truest sense, racial suicide.
Malefic thought all these things as the fire warmed his back, his mangled arm hanging off-kilter at his side.
He watched until the hall emptied completely. Only when he heard the click of the last two doors closing did he shift from his rigid stance.
He tossed the soiled handkerchief into the fire after he’d finished wiping off his suit, neck, rings, fingers, and face. The prop had done its job in conveying the message he wished to convey, and now he wished only to be rid of the whelp’s filth.
He clicked his fingers for the goblin, Yegsi, to fetch him something to drink.
Like all goblins, it moved quickly, despite its apparent lumbering and lack of visible coordination.
Long arms of blue-gray skin, short, knock-kneed legs, and strangely blank faces made all goblins look far less capable than they truly were.
Their small features, dark eyes, small mouths, small noses, invisible chins, and flat cheeks, added to the impression of vacuity, but they still proved the very best house servants, apart from humans.
Within seconds, Yegsi returned with a cart loaded with enough full glasses for all of them. The goblin rolled the cart directly to Malefic’s reach.
After he plucked a glass off the silver surface, he waited until the others had been served before clearing his throat.
“It is time,” he said, lifting the glass.
None of them spoke.
He saw a shrewdness rise to Valefor’s eyes. Something closer to greed gleamed in those of his older ancestor, Raughloch. Morticia La Fey only gazed at him fervently.
Malefic waited one more breath.
“I thought we might talk about what happens next,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. He took a swallow of the family blend, savoring it on his tongue. “Before we begin, we should perhaps discuss which parts of the human dimension of Earth each of you would like for yourselves.”
There was a silence after he spoke. A darkly humorous satisfaction reached him when he saw that he’d managed to surprise them.
All of them, apparently.
Perhaps less surprisingly, Ancestor Raughloch recovered first.
He let out a deep, raucous laugh, right as he stepped forward and clapped one of his enormous hands on Malefic’s good shoulder. The gesture was rough, borderline violent, but it also held real affection, even before he grinned warmly into Malefic’s face.
His silver eyes flashed as he measured Malefic openly, looking him over without guile, perhaps for the first time.
“How about South America?” he asked jovially.
Malefic’s lip twitched the tiniest bit.
He lifted his glass, and nodded with mock solemnity as he drank. When he lowered the glass, he let the twitch evolve into a visible smile.
“I think that can be arranged, beloved Ancestor,” he said with a short bow.
Raughloch laughed again, not hiding his delight.
He glanced at Valefor, and clapped Malefic’s shoulder a second time.
“Gods of the Underworld, I believe these pricks have chosen the right king, at last,” he boomed to the other Bones patriarch. Raughloch’s eyes returned to Malefic, and his face grew deathly serious. “When do we begin, King?”
Malefic didn’t hesitate.
“We already have,” he said calmly.
He flared his aura hotter and denser, and saw the mages and witch in front of him stand straighter, their eyes gleaming in the firelight. Malefic watched the two mages gaze at him with new respect, and let the heat of their stares warm his belly.
Yes, he would be king.
He would be the king to end all kings.