Chapter 18: Wolf Blood
Wolf Blood, Adrian Von Ziegler
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Gently, Ezio set his teacup down at the table. In the kitchen, Drake was washing the dishes, and Morgyn was most likely picking back up with Elise (and apologising incessantly). Ezio had decided to keep to himself, for at least a little while. The anger was still there, and likely, it’d stay there. He knew that Morgyn was right, and holding onto it was a rather silly thing to do. There was no point in holding onto it.
But there were times when it felt like the only thing keeping Ezio moving was his own rage. Even as he knew it wasn’t ideal a solution, it was the only solution he had, sometimes. And maybe that was partially his own fault, but it was what it was. Maybe he was still at the point where moving, no matter how or why, was the important part. He could figure out the semantics of how he kept himself moving later, when just getting up and doing anything wasn’t so difficult anymore.
These days, his motivation was primarily aimed at finding this Kat Cave person. Ezio didn’t care why, quite bluntly, Kat had killed Morgyn. All he needed to know was she had, and Ezio wouldn’t have been in a position to have to ‘fix’ it by killing Morgyn in the first place if it weren’t for whatever Kat wanted. More accurately, if Lilith was to be believed and Ezio had never had a reason to doubt her, whatever Kat’s puppet-master wanted.
Unfortunately, if someone was using necromancy in a way it shouldn’t be used, that meant this was his problem, and whether he liked it or not, he’d get dragged into it sooner or later, even if it wasn’t now.
Turning the anger internally wasn’t going to solve anything. It was debatable whether turning it on Kat Cave, who was liable to be just as much unfortunately dragged into this as they were, would fix anything either, but it was better than any other idea Ezio had so far. If nothing else, someone needed to figure out what was going on. Someone playing with the balance between the spellcasters and the vampires was dangerous to leave alone.
Something crashed in the kitchen. Under his breath, Ezio could hear Drake curse. Ezio sighed. It seemed, first of all, he’d need to figure out what was wrong with Drake. The vampire rarely ever got this upset. Ezio thought he knew, most likely, what it was that he was upset about, but the point, sometimes, wasn’t knowing what was wrong. It was talking about it.
“Are you okay over there?” Ezio asked.
“I’m fine,” Drake said, but it certainly didn’t sound that way.
Ezio decided not to argue with him about his own feelings. Instead, he shrugged, and went back to the book he was reading. It was one of those Norse mythology books he had lying around. One way or another, he was going to figure out what a vanir is, and what it has to do with any of them.
Before he could get too absorbed in the book, however, there was a slight clanking sound. “You did it again,” Drake said, softly.
Ezio looked up at him, confused. “Did what?” he asked.
“You promised me you wouldn’t,” Drake answered, turning around. “You used to do it all the time, because it was the only way to temper Morgyn’s anger sometimes, and you were the only one that could handle the force of Morgyn’s rage. I accepted it then because it really was the easiest thing to do when Morgyn was angry, and it wasn’t hurting anything. And then it nearly killed you one day.”
Oh. That. Ezio had nearly forgotten that day. That was the last time Ezio had ever gotten into a duel with someone else, until yesterday.
“You promised you’d never do that again,” Drake said.
Ezio’s gaze fell to the table, for a moment. “What I promised was,” Ezio said, “that I wouldn’t hurt myself like that again. I’m not stuck in bed right now. Everything’s fine.”
Drake stared at him, for a moment, and then slammed the cabinet door closed. “That’s debatable,” he said.
“I feel fine,” Ezio answered. “I mean maybe I took a risk, but it’s not like it was random or I didn’t think about it.”
“Really?” Drake asked. “From what Morgyn tells me, you practically lunged out of nowhere, with no warning. That doesn’t sound like you thought about it.”
Ezio sighed, closing the book and setting it down on the table. “What do you want me to tell you?” he asked. “I’m fine enough to be having this conversation with you. I didn’t hurt Morgyn too much, even didn’t manage to hurt Elise much either. The exercise was probably good for us both. I can’t think of a single way it didn’t turn out okay.”
“Forget it,” Drake said, closing one of the drawers, and walking away.
Ezio released another sigh. It wasn’t like Ezio could say that he was never going to do that again. The fact of the matter was, he probably would, someday, because he could handle it now, and Morgyn was… Morgyn, never mind his own anger issues. He’d never admit to having those, of course, but he did. Anyone that knew either of the Embers could likely guess as much.
And for just a moment, Ezio wondered why it mattered. He wondered why this kind of thing was so distressing for Drake that he’d get so snappy like that. Drake never got snappy at him. Then, he remembered what Morgyn had almost said, some time ago, when the blond had insisted that Drake already loved him back. The idea was difficult to fathom, but if that was where all this was coming from…
Ezio couldn’t say it was impossible. Actually, he supposed if anyone was going to fall in love with his dumb ass, it’d be his best friend. Morgyn was right. Drake was in love with him.
“I haven’t worn that since the sixties,” Ezio said.
Morgyn laughed, setting the shirt in the blond’s hands down on the floor. “I remember the last time you wore it,” Morgyn said. “It’s hard to believe that was so long ago.”
“Yeah,” Ezio said. “Feels like it was a few days ago, sometimes. Other times, it feels like a lifetime ago.”
Morgyn smiled slightly, and then started folding the pile of clothing on the floor. They were going through Ezio’s clothes, and he was being kind enough to give some away to Morgyn. A lot of things didn’t fit him anymore, anyway. If Morgyn wanted something that wasn’t frilly and overly feminine to wear, Ezio’s clothing was a decent place to start.
It wasn’t like Morgyn didn’t have money. The sage could simply run off and buy new clothes. The blond simply didn’t want to explain where the money had come from just yet.
“I’m still not sure about just taking your clothes like this,” Morgyn said.
Ezio snorted. “Hey, it’s not like I’m wearing them. My fashion sense has changed a little.”
“I’ve noticed,” Morgyn said, giving him a rather pointed look and glancing at his lips. Today, thanks to him borrowing Lilith’s lipstick, they were painted black.
Ezio went quiet. “You’re discovering who you are,” he said. “And so am I.”
Morgyn smiled. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.” The blond went quiet for a moment, and then said, “you look nice by the way.”
“Thank you,” Ezio answered. “You do too, for what it’s worth.”
“Is this ever going to stop being weird?” Morgyn asked.
Ezio shrugged. “Someday,” he said. “When we’ve figured everything out and sorted through how we feel, and life makes sense again.”
“It feels like that time will never come,” Morgyn said.
Ezio could certainly understand that feeling. Emotions were difficult to begin with, and something like what Morgyn was dealing with would be somewhat confusing. It was all more complicated than it needed to be, but it was good that Morgyn wasn’t trying to run from it, like the blond had been doing ever since France.
Most of it was Aine’s fault. Ezio believed that if Morgyn hadn’t ever tried adopting Aine as a parental figure, the blond wouldn’t have suppressed the Morgyn that wasn’t male or female, and wouldn’t have lived a lie for so long. It was what it was, Ezio supposed, because there was no changing anything. Things had turned out the way they’d turned out.
Ezio was just glad that Aine was gone now, and Morgyn could think now.
“You can have this, too,” Ezio said, handing Morgyn one of the jackets on the bed. “I haven’t worn this since 1942.”
Morgyn laughed, adding it to the pile of clothing the blond was taking. “You know,” Morgyn said, “you’re the only one that understands, besides L.”
Was he? Ezio thought others might understand too, if they bothered to try. Morgyn also couldn’t possibly be the only person to have ever felt the way Morgyn did. There had to be others with similar ideas and feelings out there. Finding those people might be a little more difficult, but if anyone could do it, Ezio believed it’d be Morgyn. The blond was magnetic, had the sort of personality that others were drawn to without understanding why they were. That was one of Morgyn’s super-powers.
Ezio didn’t feel like he had any super-powers of his own. He was just really terrible at paying attention to his own limits. Strangely, though, he also found that, if he really believed, there was very little he couldn’t do. He supposed that might be a super-power.
“It’s not like I understand,” Ezio said. “It’s just that, I want you to be whatever it is you need to be, and I don’t want to be in the way of you being whatever that is. I don’t have to understand how you feel. I just have to accept Morgyn, whoever that may be.”
Morgyn didn’t answer right away, folding clothes in silence instead. “You’ve always been like that,” the blond eventually said. “You don’t question anything, you just roll with it. I’ve never understood why.”
Ezio smiled. “I’ve always known that to be what it means to love someone.”
Morgyn smiled back, slightly.
Ezio scooted across the bed, reaching down to take Morgyn’s hands in his. “I’ll never tell you you’re wrong, you know?” he said. “If you believe in something, then I’ll believe in it too. Even if it sounds like the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my life, I will always support you. I’ll always be here for you, in any way I can, for as long as I can.”
Morgyn looked down at their joined hands, and squeezed slightly. “Ezio, I know you probably don’t want to hear this,” the blond said, “but, I want to be here for you, too. I can’t do that, if you won’t let me.”
Ezio sighed. “My problems aren’t your -“
“Aren’t they?” Morgyn interrupted. “You’re my brother, my twin, and I care about you. You’re my best friend. I don’t like to see you hurting. It hurts me, too. To see and know that you are in pain and not be able to do anything about it, it hurts you too, doesn’t it, when it’s me?” Morgyn’s head shook slightly, gaze casting downward again. “I know it won’t be easy. I know it’ll take some time, before you stop shutting me out instinctively. I know. But I want to get there. I want to get to the day where you can talk to me without lying or pretending things are okay. I can be patient with you. I need you to be patient with yourself, too.”
Ezio looked away. It always felt like a waste of time, trying to fight his instincts, because those instincts had served him well thus far, and maybe the effort simply wasn’t worth it. Ezio didn’t know what the right answer was. He sighed quietly, looking back up and meeting Morgyn’s eyes.
“I know,” he said. “I don’t know how to be. I remember to fight it and talk for a day or two, and then I go right back to burying it all, and it feels like a waste of time and effort. I hate it. I know what you mean, when you tell me it hurts you, but I don’t know how to stop.”
Morgyn smiled, sitting up and hugging him. “You stop a day at a time,” Morgyn said. “And sometimes you’ll mess up, but you’re only human. Let yourself be human.”
Eventually, Ezio had learnt that he needed to stretch out first, before practising martial arts for the day. It was much easier on him, and served as a proper reminder to his body that it did know what it was doing. He took it slow, much slower than was probably necessary, but if it kept him from hurting himself, he figured that was for the best.
Ezio didn’t feel stronger, not in the traditional sense. What he felt like was normal, and that in and of itself was a strange thing to realise. He hadn’t felt normal in… well, in a very long time. He supposed the semantics didn’t matter. The point was that he felt normal for the first time in a long time, and it was strange to get used to.
It was ridiculously early in the morning, as always it was when he woke up. Ezio had been a morning person for most of his life; there was a lot of work to be done on a farm, and the earlier you got to it, the earlier you could be done with it. Of course, it usually took until the end of the day to be done with it, even with him starting at five in the morning, before the sun was even up.
Here he was, nearly three centuries later, and he still woke up at the ass-crack of fuck that.
He was reaching the point in this particular set where Ezio didn’t have to think about it to do it. His body just knew what to do, and it did it on its own. It was almost a mindless task, something he didn’t need to think about, but that wasn’t quite right. He was thinking about it, just perhaps not entirely consciously. Ah, that was a strange phenomena to make sense of, even only in his own mind.
Ezio felt it again, though. Barely, in his subconscious, he registered the feeling of being watched. Ezio slowed to a stop, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. It was gone quicker than he could reach his notepad, however, and was gone. Every time he saw that thing, he wondered what the hell it was even more than he was wondering before. Someday, he’d figure that thing out.
As he gazed at the sky after the cluster of stars, he noticed Drake off to the side. Considering how their last conversation had gone, Ezio didn’t think it was a good idea to talk to him. Instead, Ezio turned back around, and went back to his place. If nothing else, his legs could use stretching out. The same as he’d been doing so far, he wore thick eyeliner today, his lips blackened. No one said anything about that, either, barring that momentary mention Morgyn had made. At this point, Ezio was just confused.
Instead of worrying about it too much, though, he decided to simply go with it. As he reached towards his toes, Drake fidgeted slightly.
“Doesn’t this bother you?” he asked.
Ezio glanced at him. “The exercise?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Drake replied.
“It did at first,” Ezio answered. “I think my body had to remember it has muscles for a reason, which is a strange thing for it to need to remember, I guess.”
“You’d figure it’d know that on its own,” Drake said.
“You’d apparently be very wrong,” Ezio answered, snorting softly.
The two of them fell quiet. Drake settled down in the grass after a moment or two. Ezio had been expecting this to be a little more awkward than it was, but he supposed, no matter how much they bickered, in the end, it hardly meant anything.
It didn’t invalidate Drake’s concerns, though.
“I can’t tell you I won’t ever do that again,” Ezio said. He could worry about what to do with the knowledge that Drake was probably in love with him later.
Drake sighed. “I know,” he said. “You kind of lose your sense when it comes to Morgyn.”
“Actually, that was my own anger,” Ezio said.
Drake looked surprised. “Was it?”
Ezio slowed to a stop, standing up. “It turns out I was angry with myself,” he explained. “For reaching a point where I had no choice but to kill Morgyn.”
“Ezio, that wasn’t your fault,” Drake argued.
“I know that,” Ezio answered. “It doesn’t make it any easier.”
Drake went quiet, drawing a breath in. He moved up onto his knees, scuttling over closer to Ezio, and sat back down. “Is that what the nightmares are about?” he asked.
Ezio nodded mutely. Of course, the more times he woke up with the impression of how much darker Morgyn’s blood was compared to the shirt the blond had been wearing, the less it bothered him. Either that, or he was shutting down on it. That was always what he did, when he couldn’t deal with something. He cut it out, and smothered it until it didn’t make noise anymore.
He wasn’t proud of the choices he’d had to make, or the way he’d had to live. But he’d survived. You did what you had to, to survive.
“You know,” Drake said quietly, “I think I’d be more worried about you, if killing Morgyn didn’t bother you in the slightest.”
Ezio glanced at him, one eyebrow arched upward.
“Morgyn means the world to you,” Drake said, shrugging. “Anyone that knows anything about you two knows that. Even if you knew that you could bring Morgyn right back, I imagine it’d still hurt, it’d still be upsetting. And if it wasn’t, that can’t mean anything very good.”
Ezio supposed that was true enough. He didn’t like to think about it, even as he was using the anger that he felt over it as a driving force for finding that stupid vampire. He had no idea where to begin still. But he thought, maybe, Forgotten Hollow may be a good place to start. And from there, he may get lucky and be able to figure out where she was, and ruin her day.
Or at least, that was what he figured he’d do, in his head. Even Ezio sometimes had rather grand delusions, apparently. No, more likely, he’d do nothing at all, except live his life, and maybe, someday, he’d let it go.
“I know you’re after her,” Drake said. “The vampire that killed Morgyn, I mean. I know you are. I won’t ask you not to, that wouldn’t be very fair. I know some part of you needs to. But please, please, Ezio, try and come home.”
By now, he knew where he was going. The snow had fallen on the world like a cold blanket, but Ezio barely felt it, as he made his way through the streets. He knew the way back to Glimmerbrook from his doctor’s office like he knew the back of his hand, by now. He had a thousand things to do today. The mystery book had told him a little more about the ocean of stars, but it didn’t quite make sense yet. From the ocean came souls. Everyone had a little bit of the substance that was also born of the ocean in their hearts.
But what was it? That Ezio didn’t know, just yet. He was, however, determined to find out.
As he walked, he slowed down somewhat, watching the snowflakes come down from the sky. Each one was in a different pattern. There were, theoretically, no two snowflakes that were exactly alike. Ice was a beautiful, and strange, thing, even Ezio didn’t fully understand it and how it worked, or how exactly it could end up with so many different variations of the same thing. Snowflakes were tragic, as well. They were created uniquely and died alone a short time later.
Everything in this life was so fleeting, but it seemed like the inability to hold onto anything was what brought people together.
He could hear, somewhat distantly, the sounds of children screeching in elation. Ezio smiled to himself, and then decided to follow the sound of their playing. He ended up winding around building blocks in a nonsensical manner, it felt like, but the sounds grew louder. Ezio turned a corner, and found the source; there were quite a few children playing with a jungle gym in the shape of a boat. Ezio could see an older kid pretending to be some kind of a sea monster.
He smiled, settling down on a bench to watch them.
Ezio used to want children. That had changed, when his heart started acting up. Even if he simply adopted instead of having his own children, there was still the issue of whether or not he could keep up with a child. They tended to have a lot more energy than Ezio did these days. He’d hate to ask someone else to help him, but he knew that he’d need it. Morgyn likely wouldn’t mind helping out, but the blond was one of the sages, and had more important things to deal with.
If he wasn’t sure he could handle it, Ezio didn’t think he had any right to try anyway.
For now, though, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to come by here from time to time and watch the kids. Most of the time, his memories of France were vague, dim, and fuzzy, but once in a while, he could remember something from that time rather clearly. He distinctly remembered climbing a tree as a teen, and Morgyn attempting to do the same thing, only to fall out of it. Ezio never did climb another tree again, after that one.
He glanced at one of the nearby trees. Looking at it, he could think of how to climb it, several different ways. And then, his gaze fell to the snow on the ground, and he turned back to watching the children. Maybe he could handle it, now, climbing a tree. But he hadn’t done it in so long, it’d be just his luck to get part way up the tree, and fall out of it. Then, he’d have to explain to Morgyn and Drake that he’d just fallen out of a tree like he was ten.
The kids ran around screaming, playing a game of tag, it looked like. Ezio watched them run around, smiling softly. Some of the kids were building snowpals and making snow angels together. The world was a much simpler thing when you were a child, or at least it should be. Ezio kind of missed those simpler times, but there were some bonuses to being an adult, too. Not nearly enough bonuses, if one was asking him.
As he watched them, though, he felt someone watching him. No, come to think of it, he’d been feeling that since he’d come out of Dr. Sommer’s office, it simply hadn’t registered. Ezio glanced around, trying to find who, or what, was watching him without being too obvious about the interest. He couldn’t find them, however. They were hiding rather well.
Then, he noticed what else he sensed, and that was vampire.
Ezio stood up, then, turning on the balls of his feet and walking somewhere else. It didn’t matter where else he went, he simply needed to go anywhere else but here. If he ended up in a fight with a vampire, he didn’t want to do so anywhere near the kids. He wasn’t sure where else to go, honestly. His understanding of where anything was in San Myshuno was rather slim, but he supposed he could just go in a random direction. All that mattered was that he was away from this area. Preferably, he’d be far away from other people in general before the vampire came out of hiding.
What he didn’t know was if the vampire was going to follow him. Just because said vampire had been after Morgyn, it didn’t mean she’d be after him, too. As he thought that, however, he could sense the vampire moving, and following him.
He supposed it was time to put some of that anger to good use, then.
It didn’t take long to find somewhere relatively secluded. Ezio had somehow managed to turn down relatively abandoned streets and lead away from where most of the other people were. If any of those still in vicinity of him and this vampire had any sense, they’d scatter, too. He’d done what he could for them. The rest was up to them.
As soon as he came to a stop, however, he barely had any time to turn around before the vampire stepped out of the shadows. She cackled in a very unnerving manner, her hands balled into fists, eyes wild.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Where is what?” Ezio asked in turn.
“The All,” she answered. “We need to find the All.”
What would a vampire need the All for? That was an interesting thing for a vampire, a very dead vampire, to ask about. He could sense it. Someone else’s necromancy was what had brought Kat Cave back here. He could also sense some other spell, but he wasn’t quite sure which one it was. It had the distinct electrical feeling of untamed magic, however, but that didn’t tell him very much by itself.
“Why do you want the All?” he asked.
Kat hissed in annoyance. “You don’t ask questions, you don’t, we ask questions, where is it, where is it?!”
“I don’t know,” Ezio answered. “And not to be cliche about it, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you and whoever is controlling you.”
“Controlling us, no one is controlling us,” Kat spluttered. “We will find the All, with or without you!” Kat raised her hand, and threw it at the air. A slight distortion in the air shot across the space between them. Psychic energy; vampire magic didn’t work very much like spellcaster magic. It was mostly invisible, and had the ability to cause mental damage, inducing confusion and forgetfulness.
He’d need to be very careful how many of her psychic hits he took.
Without thinking much about it, Ezio flung his arm out too, a streak of flame following the motion. The flames crashed into the psychic energy bolt, and right behind it, Ezio was already flinging energy bolts of his own. None of them were terribly powerful, but they were very rapid.
Kat had obvious trouble keeping up with those bolts, but the vampire ducked out of the way of several, throwing psychic energy at a few others.
Ezio’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t know for sure that this was her, the same one that hit Morgyn with that overload potion, but she certainly looked like she fit the bill. Morgyn hadn’t mentioned she was out of her mind, though. It was possible there were more of them, vampires that had been raised from the dead and put into service for someone.
He didn’t have too much time to think about it, before Kat launched at him with her claws out. Her fingers had metallic armouring over them, ending in very sharp points.
Ezio’s eyes widened, and he immediately disappeared in a burst of light. Kat hit the asphalt, and Ezio reappeared behind her, throwing a barrage of icicles.
The vampire scooted rapidly backward, and then threw a psychic blast at him.
Quickly, Ezio rose an ice barrier, stopping the first blast, but then Kat threw another, and another, and the ice shattered, the force of it throwing him backwards. Ezio slid across the asphalt, stopping. She was already charging him again, and Ezio hissed in annoyance, pushing off a building and sliding right under her. As she went over him, Ezio waved a hand and threw the shards of the ice barrier after her.
She turned around, and threw a bottle at him. There it was. A potion bottle. This was the mother fucker that killed Morgyn.
Quickly, Ezio disappeared again, reappearing off to the side; the potion bottle crashed into the side of a brick building. “You did it,” he said, his tone low. “You made me kill my twin!” All the rage he’d felt before came flooding back, but now it had somewhere to go.
Bursts of blue and purple energy snaked around his arms, as Ezio purposely built a magic charge, and then slammed his boot into the ground. The earth shifted violently, wrenching upward, spikes erupting in a wave.
Kat’s eyes widened, and then she threw a burst of psychic energy at the ground. The force of the explosion sent her skyward, and she flipped right over the wave of earth spikes. Kat landed behind it, and then threw a burst of psychic energy, and another potion right behind it.
Ezio quickly threw a bolt of energy back, neutralising the psychic blast, and then a second one right after it, in attempt to hit the bottle and shatter it.
Oh, it shattered it alright, but he hit it too late. The potion shattered right next to him, and the contents hit him anyway. He could feel it splatter across his shirt. This was going to suck.
For a moment, Ezio went perfectly still, and then the pain started up. He grit his teeth. He couldn’t let this weaken him, not right now. He had to get home, preferably alive, and not screaming. He’d told Drake that much. He wouldn’t come back screaming next.
It was a magical overload, he was right about that. His muscles started violently spasming and seizing, and he had no idea how someone had managed to prolong this. Of course, the real question was, how did he win this? Ezio was already toast; he’d gotten hit with the damned thing, and now he was in unending overload state, and he had no choice but to die, but he needed to figure out what to do with her.
He didn’t scream, but he did unleash a very annoyed-sounding hiss.
“Heheh, you fall anyway,” Kat giggled. “Just like the blondie. You’re stronger, though. Tougher to take down.”
“So I’ve heard,” Ezio said, through gritted teeth.
“The All is in magic realm, no?” Kat asked.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Ezio said.
“Don’t play stupid,” Kat answered. “You’re too cute to be dumb.”
Ezio snorted.
What all did he know about magic overload? It was as if too much magic was trapped inside you, and overload was what happened when it violently exploded out of you. But magic attracted magic, after all; so when the body stored too much magic and lost control of it all, more magic was attracted to you. But where did that magic come from? It couldn’t come from nowhere.
When you overloaded yourself, the magic was simply your own. If this potion truly replicated a magical overload, then maybe it created one in the same way.
That meant this was his magic. Maybe, he could control it, then.
Ezio set his jaw, his nostrils flaring as he fought his way through the overload, and moved one arm. He waved his hand, trying to get the magic to go where he commanded it to go. The tendrils of purple and blue swirled around his arm violently, and the pain level suddenly spiked.
He did scream that time, though he tried not to, and clamped down on it as quickly as possible.
He wasn’t going to control it that way, that was for sure.
“I do try,” Ezio said, through clenched teeth.
Kat giggled. “We can go through all of the powerful spellcasters,” she said. “Until there are none left to defend magic realm.”
He had to wonder about that. Of course, spellcasters were rapidly dwindling in number. There weren’t nearly as many of them as there had been, once. Even back in the 1700s, there were dozens more spellcasters than this. The five families had died out, spellcasting blooded out of other lines, and now there were so few of them left.
Maybe someday, there really wouldn’t be anyone left to protect magic realm.
In his mind’s eye, he could see the sparks of Morgyn’s overload springing for a snowflake above his palm. It was attracted to magic, but it was also attracted to living people. He could sit there and debate the semantics of Kat’s being alive or not all night and probably still not come to a conclusion, but she was the only other ‘living’ thing around besides him.
That was how Ezio was going to control this.
He didn’t know if he could do it. If he teleported… but that would probably – then again, he was dying anyway. The worst that happened was, he died. At some point, you had to just let caution go. When you didn’t have anything else to lose, there was nothing to second guess your decisions for.
Ezio focused, pooling the magic together, and then teleported the short distance between himself and Kat, appearing right in front of her. He reached out with both hands, wrapping them around her neck. The magic went everywhere, thrashing angrily against the snow below them, flowing from one of them to the other. Kat frantically reached up, scratching at his hands, trying to force him to let go.
He only squeezed harder.
“If I am going to die… I will take you with me,” he snarled.
Kat screeched an unearthly wail, her eyes alighting with the glow of magic, a vibrant, angry orange-yellow. As she clawed and scratched at his skin, streaks of blood slid his wrists, dripping into the snow beneath them. Maybe a few minutes, and she stopped fighting him, and burst into blackened ashes in his grip.
Fortunately, Ezio didn’t have to figure out how to make his hands let her go when his muscles were having so much trouble relaxing. Ezio stood there, for a moment, watching the ash swirl around at his feet. He hoped she found some sense of peace.
“You always were a thorn in my side,” a voice said.
Ezio’s head snapped up, finding an impossibly pale, black-haired woman standing in the snow, several feet away.
“Aine,” he hissed.
“So nice to see you, too,” Aine replied.
“Are you the one messing with the vampires?” Ezio asked.
“So what if I am?” Aine asked. “You can’t prove it’s me, and trying to convince anyone that it is me will only end in them smiling and patting your little head. You never did like me. Who else would you blame?”
Ezio unleashed another extremely annoyed hiss.
“You know,” Aine started, “it’s almost like you’ve forgotten you’re one of us, and not them. That’s the issue with Embers. One of you thinks you’re a boy, and the other thinks he’s a vampire.”
Ezio hissed yet again, and shifted his foot. Ice shot across the ground towards her, and then burst into an ice spike.
Aine disappeared, and reappeared further back. “You’re going to die anyway,” she said. “I won’t do you the favour of speeding up the process.”
When Aine disappeared that time, she didn’t come back. Ezio dropped into the snow, panting heavily. His heart had started to hurt some time ago, but he still needed to deal with this overload potion. The easiest thing to do was going to be dying, and going back to magic realm for the resurrection potion he’d already made. First, he needed to die.
His eyes looked up, staring through his lashes. Forgotten Hollow. Lilith.
Though it took work, he grit his teeth, and forced himself to stand.
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