MILLENNIUM (Descendants Saga)

  MILLENNIUM

  By

  James Somers

  Preview of Descendants Book Five

  AFTERMATH

  *Bonus Preview: The Chronicles of Soone*

  Warrior Rising

  *Bonus Preview: Perdition’s Gate Inferno*

  Kindle Edition

  2013© James Somers

  www.jamessomers.blogspot.com

  Discover other titles by James Somers on Amazon Kindle

  This Ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All characters and events are fictional except where taken from the Holy Bible and World History

  Listen to Preview of FALLEN AUDIOBOOK

  Announcing Descendants Saga Audio Books

  FALLEN Audio Book Now Available

  DESCENDANTS, REVENANT, MILLENNIUM and AFTERMATH set to release monthly through January 2014

  Read by British Narrator: Duncan White

  Published by Sci-Fi Publishing

  Audio Books coming in October 2013: The Realm Shift

  The Order of Shaddai & The Sword of Gideon following

  Audio Book coming December 2013:

  The Serpent Kings Saga Omnibus Edition

  (Serpent Kings, Wraith Dancer, Shadow Walker)

  Resentment

  Ishbe stood by the beds of his young wards. They had spent a long day training hard together. At five, the boy was already remarkably adept. He supposed it must be natural for vampires. Still, the girl was no slouch. Only a few years his senior, but doing well for a young girl who didn’t receive nearly the constant attention the boy received.

  They slept soundly. Their parents would be gathered for a fine meal about this time. It was their custom when one couple came to see the other in their royal palaces.

  Ishbe turned and walked out of the room onto the balcony. A bright moon looked down upon Tidus tonight. The air was calm and the temperature mild. By all accounts, it was perfect.

  He breathed fresh air into his lungs. Lycans walked in the palace gardens below. He felt content. Everything was going according to plan.

  “Enjoying the night?” a voice said behind him in the children’s room.

  He knew that voice. Ishbe turned to find Anubis standing between the children’s beds. Southresh stalked behind him in the shadows.

  “I told you not to come here.”

  “Told me not to come to Tidus?” Anubis said, coming out onto the balcony. “This is my city, Black. I should be sitting upon its throne at this very moment.”

  “That is not part of my plan,” Black said coolly.

  “Your plan? I don’t care about your plan. I am made to wait for what is rightfully mine, while you play nursemaid to these brats. While you eat fine food and dwell in my palace, I am forced to hide in the shadows.”

  Black did not react. Southresh giggled to himself while Anubis gave their brother a piece of his mind. He felt the same way. He just wasn’t bold enough to say it to Black.

  “I’ll wait no longer,” Anubis continued. “Tidus will be mine, as it should have been years ago.” He turned back toward the children, beginning a transformation into the werewolf of his host, Kron.

  “They look tasty,” he growled. “I’ll start with them.”

  His transformation became complete. Anubis lunged for the girl as she lay sleeping soundly. The children had been prevented from hearing their voices by Black’s power.

  Before he could snatch the girl in his jaws, Black landed on the werewolf’s back, grabbed his head and snapped his neck with unbelievable strength. The wolf reverted instantly back to Kron’s human body, but there was no life left in him.

  His neck broken, spinal cord severed, Anubis lost his foothold on mortality. Unseen, he slipped away through the ether as Tartarus drew him back into imprisonment. He screamed, but no one heard.

  Black dropped the body to the floor, angrily stalking toward Southresh who still wore the body of Arthur Craven. He came without a word. This made Southresh fear even more. He did not want to lose his mortal life. He did not wish to return to Tartarus at any cost.

  He turned, leaping away from Black. A gout of flame erupted from the floor at his command, a portal stealing him away from this confrontation before it became too late. A confrontation he knew he could not win.

  Black remained in the bedroom. The darkness revealed the light of power in his eyes. He turned back to where Kron’s corpse lay. A sudden epiphany struck him. He smiled. Anubis had actually done him a favor. He only had to sound the alarm and reveal to the kings and queens dining below how he had saved their children from this notorious war criminal.

  Halfway across the room, he relented. If it happened to be revealed that Anubis and Southresh were active, it might also lead back to him. He had been with them in London in this form. What if someone had seen them? As opportune as this incident seemed, it might undo all he had worked toward over the past few years.

  Black reached down and picked up the body. Despite a beautiful night, when he would have liked to rest and enjoy his surroundings, he had work to do. He couldn’t have anyone discovering Kron. He set off in the night to bury the body. The children remained in their beds, blissfully unaware of the danger they had been in only a moment ago.

  Decade

  The wind had picked up, as roiling clouds came up over Tidus. Fall weather had brought more storms and colder air. Already the leaves of the forest trees were changing colors and falling. Brilliant flakes of yellow, burnt orange and red were swept into tornadic fits, swirling and moving like a motley flock of birds wherever the wind willed.

  It was only at certain times of the year that Tidus received much rain. Otherwise, precipitation came to the mountains in the north. The city enjoyed the blessing of it by way of the river that flowed not far removed from its defensive wall.

  These walls had not seen battle in ten years. Following the conflict with the army of Anubis, Sophia and I had put together a solid government. The elder council that had been such a burden to her, and her father before her, was nullified.

  As Queen, she would rule by her wisdom alone. A cabinet of advisors had been chosen, but they had no real power to rule. No one could supplant the sovereign in Tidus without killing them. If such a thing happened, then the next in line to the throne would assume control. It was an ancient way, but made for a stronger government when a righteous individual sat at its head.

  Following our wedding—six months after Tidus was secured again—I became the King of the Lycans. It had been Sophia’s right and responsibility to choose her husband. And, while the former elder council had hated the idea of a non-Lycan in that role, I applauded her decision. Our union was blessed by the people, especially since the remaining citizens had chosen to remain faithful to Sophia while denying Anubis.

  These had fought side by side with elves and trolls and even a vampire, trying to defend their beloved city from those rebels who had gone after Anubis when he called to them. The old way of thinking was dying already by the time we kissed for the first time as husband and wife—king and queen.

  Still, I remained more of an advisor in my role. I preferred that Sophia take leadership as her father’s daughter. She was, after all, a Lycan ruling over a Lycan city. I was a Superomancer, but still not a Lycan. I just thought it worked better this way. And, so far, it had.

  Oliver and I had never known what happened to Southresh or Anubis. Neither Arthur Craven nor Kron had shown their faces again. At least, those were the hosts we had last known them to possess.

  We had attempted to track Southresh with the blood bond. However, he remained well hidden. It was possible that he had gone so far away in the world that we simply could not track him. Only the call of Hageddon had al
lowed Charlotte to know that angel’s location in the world from so far away. Perhaps, proximity was required.

  At any rate, we had eventually decided that we would wait for both he and Anubis to show their hands first. Then Oliver and I would come for them with the twin swords, Malak-esh. These had the power to drive an invading spirit from its host. We had witnessed this with Grayson Stone and Lucifer. Unfortunately for the host, they died in the process.

  Yet, in these ten years since the death of Grayson Stone at Tidus and the disappearance of Southresh and Anubis, we had heard nothing. The world began to return to its own way. Peace seemed to have sway for now. Apart from the conflicts humans made for themselves with other humans, we saw no war. The Fallen, if they still resided in the physical world, had gone underground.

  It had been somewhat surprising how our other problems had resolved themselves. There had been thousands of vampires loosed upon the world during Hageddon’s brief reign through the Romanov tsar in Russia. However, Charlotte and Tom had taken this matter upon their shoulders.

  With the backing of Donatus and Laish, Tom and Charlotte had gone back to Russia and reined in the terrible atrocities of the vampires. Much killing had occurred during so short a time.

  At first, it seemed they would not accept Charlotte’s leadership over them. However, this resistance to the daughter of Tiberius had come from only a dozen vampires among the rest. They worked to stir up conflict, but Charlotte and the others quickly hunted them down and destroyed them.

  She became a force to be reckoned with in the years following, though Charlotte’s reign was a benevolent one. She and Tom eventually were married and bore one child—a son who would one day rule after them. To everyone’s surprise, the vampires assimilated to the new way of thinking when it came to the remaining Descendant clans. They would cooperate, or face exile for their rebellion.

  While some chose not to remain, the majority wanted the benefit that came with belonging. Charlotte and Tom remained in Russia and allowed a Romanov heir to assume power over the human population. They ruled from Greystone instead, after a new dimensional gateway was established linking the realm of vampires to Russia.

  As for the slaughter that had become the norm under both Tiberius and Hageddon, the vampires went back to their old ways. They fed upon humans, as they always had, but they did not kill any that were not worthy of death. As had been the case for millennia, most mortals did not know where their wounds originated and, contrary to popular belief, bloodletting wounds always healed within a day.

  At the time of the war with Anubis, we had all assumed that London would never be anything more than the burned and desolate city both vampires and pixies had made of it. However, the human government of the British Empire had somehow been preserved during that time. No sooner had Anubis abandoned London than a silvery tongued politician named Gladstone had sent what remained of the British military back into London to reclaim it.

  Donatus had known this politician. He was an elf who had gone out into the mortal world some time ago in order for elves to have involvement in the course of human affairs. Gladstone had quickly secured the city. He began a rebuilding project that was still underway ten years later.

  However, much progress had been made in restoring the jewel of the Empire in that time. Of course, an appeal to Donatus and the city of Xandrea for help hadn’t hurt London’s progress. Much of the work had been accomplished speedily by elf spell casters sent by Donatus to assist in returning the humans to their place as quickly as possible.

  And so matters went. We had somehow received a blessed reprieve from the former troubles. I, for one, thanked the Almighty everyday with the hopes that this time of relative calm might continue. But sometimes hardships must occur in the grand scheme of things—events we wish we did not have to experience. And some situations we perceive as peaceful are only times when the enemy is plotting and preparing. That is when we are most likely to be caught unprepared and unaware.

  The wind was growing cooler, but there was still some of Summer’s warmth to it. This was the kind of storm that would produce much thunder and lightning, perhaps even some hail. I had searched the meadow, but had not found the person I was looking for. Scanning the tree line of the forest beyond the river, I saw some of Tidus’s citizens returning from their hunt, but not the one I sought.

  I felt a sudden chill that had not come from the temperature of the wind. I started back toward the city wall. The feeling grew. I was being hunted.

  I had not found my predator, but they were there. The dark clouds blotting out the sun did not help with my ability to determine which direction my attacker was coming from. Searching would do me no good now.

  I broke into a sprint, trying to get back to the safety of the city as the thunderhead lowered. Lightning came down upon the forest in places, even striking near to Tidus. Thunder rolled across the heavens, bellowing out the storm’s fury in waves that could be felt even in my bones.

  Just before I got to the main gate, the hunter appeared. A Lycan of particular ferocity had caught my scent. I knew that I was in trouble. I would never make the main gate in time.

  The werewolf came at me, running much faster than I could manage in human form. I decided to elude this predator with a bit of Superomancey, teleporting to zigzagging locations, forcing the confused werewolf to seek a moving target between dimensions while bringing me closer and closer to the main gate.

  Unfortunately, my pursuer was more adept at the chase than the average werewolf. She teleported in the same zigzagging manner, so that between us we appeared to blink in and out of existence, until we finally collided. The predator had caught me despite my ruse. I was done for.

  I lay on my back with a set of razor sharp teeth set just above my face. I tried to move, but a furious growl kept me in my place. Fearing certain doom, I said, “I surrender! You win!”

  The jaws snapped at me. She wasn’t giving in so easily. I reached up quickly to the werewolf’s ribs and attacked with a deadly tickle. Almost instantly, the werewolf relented, trying to get away. The wolf returned to her human form, struggling in the grass to not wet herself with laughter. “Stop it, Daddy! Stop it!” she giggled.

  I let her go.

  “Does that mean I win again?” I asked.

  “Not this time,” Sadie reported. “I caught you even though you tried to teleport.”

  “True,” I said, smiling. “That was pretty clever of you. Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Uncle Laish taught me,” she said, standing up.

  “Sadie? Sadie, where are you?”

  “Your mother is calling you, young lady,” I said.

  It had begun to rain by now, and the lightning increased its intensity.

  “We had better get inside, before she skins us both,” I suggested.

  My ten-year-old daughter pulled me up to my feet. “I want a piggy-back,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes, but allowed her the ride anyway. She scrambled up onto my back as a downpour began in earnest, forcing those of us caught outside the wall to run for shelter. By the time we got underneath a palace awning, we were both soaked.

  “Do you think Laish will teach me that trick?” I asked.

  Sadie swept her golden hair over her shoulder, placing her finger on her chin, considering my options. “If I talk to him for you, he probably will.”

  Tunguska

  A lone figure, dressed in furs made from the coats of wolves and lined with a layer of seal skin, made his precarious way through the densely forested Siberian landscape. A frigid wind pushed on the trees, winding through pine trunks to blast the man who had come without food or water to this frozen world. A cloudy sky dumped snow into the mix, driven horizontal by the gale.

  Steadily he came, trudging through snow that had drifted in places up to his waist. But the man came on just the same, until he reached his goal. Here the snow had melted completely. A patch of dead grass ringed an object that, at first, might have passed fo
r an old stump. However, the object was made of stone, mixed with otherworldly alloys that reflected no light.

  The man, in his wolf skins, came to stand before the pedestal. He felt heat coming from the object and smiled somewhere beneath his heavily insulated garb. Only his eyes were visible, and that only if you could peer into the dark shadows of his fur-lined hood.

  He examined the concave surface which spanned twelve feet in diameter. Seven smaller, deeper concavities were spaced in a way that bore no resemblance to any pattern used by mortals. Whatever had made these imprints had to be spherical, at least on one side, with seven smaller spheres to fit with these concavities. If such an object were found, this pedestal might operate some mysterious lock.

  In fact, that was exactly what the object was. A lock, requiring a very unusual key. The man looked into the sky, noticing the odd behavior of the weather, now that he was close enough to see. The eye of this storm hovered directly above the lock, a cylindrical vacuum where not even one flake of snow crossed, neither wind nor cloud. Around this space the storm raged, but not here.

  The man could see directly into the night sky and the stars above. However, he was not interested in stars tonight. A particular object, a keystone, of exacting dimensions was now waiting directly above the strange pedestal jutting from the Earth below. Just as it had come every one thousand years, remaining suspended over this place for one day, so it waited now for one with the power to bring it down.

  Raising his hands to the sky, and the keystone too far above the Earth to perceive with mortal eyes, the mysterious stranger exerted his will. He seized hold of the keystone with his thoughts and the vast energies available to him. From a distance, he might have appeared to be praising God. In actuality, he was defying the very will of the Almighty.