The New World

I walked into the room, smiling as I heard the babies laughing with Grayson. And as I watched him on the floor, the babies were crawling over him. I almost wished that I could give him more than just these two even though we were both thankful for them. But even magic had to be careful.

“Are you okay?” I blinked a couple of times and saw Grayson standing before me with Rosemina who had her arms stretched out.

“Yeah,” I said as it took her, “I just got back from talking with Derrick.” Grayson narrowed his eyes and let out a growl, causing me to roll my eyes. “Not like that, we were talking about the weapons.”

“As if that’s any better.” He paused as he bent down to lift Rayne up. “Wait, thought Elric was supposed to be helping with that?”

“He was, but I sent him off to Spain to do something.”

“And you didn’t tell me why?” I gave him a sheepish look and shrugged.

“Things have been kind of busy and it was about me anyways and not you, nor about the things going on. At least I don’t think it is I could be wrong.”

“Oh, so that’s how this starts? You keep things because you don’t think they are important to me because they don’t deal with me directly?”

“Oh stop, I didn’t mean to make it sound like that, you did.” I laughed as Grayson rolled his eyes and moved to walk on the balcony, Rayne smiling at being outside, even if he was being held. I walked out behind him and laid my head on his shoulder. “Elric got a phone call from a coven in Spain questioning if I was still in charge and it worried me that someone would be asking that so I had him go to check things.”

“Odd, I gather there are a few reasons why that’s not a good thing.” I nodded, not wanting to go on and he left it alone. “What did you and Derrick figure out?”

“Well, a couple of designs, but we need to lay all the cards on the table and this time, it’s going to involve every one of us and it’s a lot more dangerous than even I like to admit.”

-----

Three days later, I sat across from Elric in my office and looked at him, not sure what to make of the things I was being told. It had seemed that word was spreading that that I had stepped away from the coven and the big question was why? Every damn vampire knew that I had my coven for centuries and I wasn’t the type to just walk away for no reason. And because of that, vampires were starting to make up their own stories and that was always dangerous.

I stood up and walked over to the window but I wasn’t looking at the view or at the people. My mind was just too distracted for that at this point. What was making this so much harder was the fact of people making things up and realizing I wasn’t there, then they knew something big was about to go down. Vampires were old, we all had seen way more of life then we thought we would have so of course we question oddities. The fact that it was vampires that was the source of this demon problem at the moment and that I wasn’t around to lead my coven was probably putting the fear into them that I was the probably behind that somehow.

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to know what was going on.” That had ,e turning around in a flash and looking at Elric.

“Please tell me you didn’t tell him.”

“Not everything, but I had to give him something.” I ran my hands over my face and took a deep breath.

“Okay, let’s take this slow. What was exactly said between you two?”

“When I got there, it was late so we had a night cap, made small talk and he told me he would demand answers the next day.

“The following morning when I woke up, I had a drink and then was in his office. He demanded to know why you would consider giving up your coven. And then demanded to know if it was true you had met your beloved? So I answered the easiest question first and told him that yes, you had but I refused to give a name as that had nothing to do with him.” I closed my eyes and that. In all truth I shouldn’t be surprised rumors were flying, after all, what were centuries old beings supposed to do but fucking gossip.

“Okay, and then?” Elric sat back and crossed his leg.

“I tried to tell the story with as few details as I could. I said that you and your beloved had found out that something was infecting vampires and turning them into these blood lust craze beings but that you weren’t behind it. And then I said you were trying to figure out how to stop them and everything else.”

“He left it there?” Even to her, that sounded too simple and she knew she would have way more questions then she would have liked.

“More or less.” But I could read him, had known him for too long and understood too well, he was keeping something and it was something I wasn’t going to like.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he will be here the night of the eclipse.” I ran my hands over my face again and stood up to go to the meeting room.

“Just great, I was hoping this was a problem I wasn’t going to have to take to my beloved,” I told Elric as we walked down the hallway.

“I tried, I really did. He doesn’t seem upset actually but very curious.” I paused and touched his arm.

“I know you did, and I am thankful. I guess I just should have known better; I would be doing the same thing he is doing.” I walked into the room, looking around and then nodded at Derrick, who stood up by me. “So, we did some brain storming and discussing about what needs to be done,” I started and Derrick nodded.

“We did come up with a blade design but we also know that it’s not just a knife that we need.” We glanced around the room at the many eyes that had questions and I nodded for him to go on. “We know that amongst that, we need something that can be shot, so this arrowhead design was also created.”

“Why though,” Anna asked, “I thought there were would be closer fighting? So what do we you hope to gain by shooting?”

“Witches can launch projectiles, so given that, our thoughts are that they won’t be in the mix,” I answered as she nodded.

“You want something you can shoot at them, that makes sense,” Anna said.

“Yes,” Derrick replied. “We know from Fire and Grayson that they were able to launch fire balls.”

“I remember,” Tessa chimed in, “and I have to say that is a great idea. None of us where able to get to close to her and had be mindful of those fireballs. Given that, then yes, I believe they wouldn’t be fighting but staying on the out skirts.”

“That’s what we believed. So, what you are seeing are the designs we came up with. We know they die fast, but we would need something to basically immobilize them enough so that we could finish them off faster.” He glanced at me as he showed the blades and I watched as Tessa wrinkled her brows as she looked at them.

“Black blades? Is that Onyx? A black Jasper maybe?” Derrick’s eyes cut up to mine as I shrugged, not sure how to answer her, or rather not wanting to answer her. She tilted the paper and then frowned, slowly shaking her head. “No, that almost looks like…Jet.” She stopped and quickly snapped her head around to look at me. “You cannot be using any Jet stone,” she cried out, standing up.

“Fire, you can’t be serious,” Grayson said and I looked from him to Derrick and then back to him.

“It’s from the Jet rock, yes Grayson, and yes, we are very serious. There is a reason….”

“No,” he cried out, slamming his hand on the table, shutting me up and stood up, “and as the King, I am forbidding this. No wolf is going to the dark side to get anything from that Jet rock; that damn rock is never to be touched!”