Necromancer Chronicles Pt. 10

What I wanted to know was why my parents hadn't been notified immediately. It wasn't like my project was important or anything. I realized if my sister had been there, they would have been by ghost messenger. We'd have probably also won the fight.

Mike got off the phone and said, "We have another site, can you get us there?"

I shook my head, "Bad idea. They traced my magic somehow. They didn't even check other buildings and went to the exact spot we were in. How about I leave a wild goose chase while you guys take Abby and Toni to the new site and get started on the making what we need.

"Just tell me where to end up, and when, to get my space suit on. When I have something figured out, you'll have to come get me and bring me in. Also, you need to have my parent's attack team on speed dial and call next time. They could have stomped those fifteen easy."

He scowled but nodded. "Be in Edward's AFB in three hours. They'll know how to get in touch with me when you want to come in."

He got back on the phone and ordered a helicopter. I waited with them, not willing to risk them to another ambush without me here. If my theory was right, the fae knew where we were right now. I told Abby to be careful, gave Toni a hard lingering kiss and gave Mike and Bob the glare that said they better be okay when I catch back up.

Once they lifted off, I began my tour of the world. I popped in and out of Hawaii, NYC, California, France, Japan, Russia, Chicago, Seattle... I hoped I was driving them crazy.

I stopped for a while New Orleans and got some Cajun for dinner. I missed my mates and wondered how they were doing. Normally a few hours I wouldn't turn a hair, but it was the end of the world and I couldn't be there to protect them. I had to protect them in a different way.

I hopped to the AFB when it was time. I was ushered quickly to a hanger where a gruff looking old man looked at me like I was dirt he'd found under his shoe.

"Listen up boy. This ain't a track suit. You will pay attention to what I tell you or I'm taking the suit and going home. I could be fishing out the end of the world, so don't waste my time."

I couldn't help the smile and said, "Yes sir."

He frowned, "Something funny boy?"

I shook my head, "Just one of those days."

He grunted and finally got to cases. He gave me a bottle of high content oxygen to breath while he explained how everything worked. The mask muffled my voice, but he seemed satisfied with my answers when he checked on me.

He helped me get the suit on, which was a genuine pain in the ass. Then to my surprise, he sent the location straight to my mind. I grinned; he must have worked on that so he could see Earth from space again...

Once he gave me the all clear, I teleported to the asteroid...

Chapter 12 – Vincent Sr. & Anise

-Anise-

I shut my eyes to contain my anger when Johnson finished explaining what happened with Vinnie and Toni.

I said as evenly as I could, "Vincent, why did you not have a ghost on our son and his new mate? They were alone and the most vulnerable."

I could swear I heard him wince and I fell into light meditation to deal with my anger.

Vince replied cautiously, "It didn't occur to me; I figured they were safe in some hidden government facility," he paused for a moment, "There, I have one on each of them now."

I blew out a breath and nodded. I've been perpetually angry lately. First, four years ago I had to let them find their own way and learn how to stand. That was hard enough. But now I was frustrated, my children had asked for help and the communities seemed to have their heads buried farther in the past than the humans did.

I flinched when I felt Vince's arms go around me, but then I melted into him as he kissed the top of my head. I hugged him back.

I asked impatiently, "Johnson, we have a target yet?"

He nodded and I felt guilty when he said warily, "There are close to a hundred that seem to be gathering near NORAD, we think they are going to attack to take out our ability to track the meteors."

I raised an eyebrow, "Would that work?"

He shook his head, "Not by itself, but it would be a good first step."

I nodded and pushed my feelings down. I was very tempted to take out my frustrations on the enemy, but fighting angry would just get me killed. Still, I knew I would feel fiercely satisfied about it when I let go of them after the fight. Kristi gave me the target site. They were out in the open in the mountains, which would make it both easier and harder.

We split up the groups. Vince teleported his group to higher ground, north of the fae, I took mine their south. This was going to be messy. I was surrounded by my white armor, and wielding two swords as I rushed into the enemy. I moved with a thought at the speed of my magic and took the first head.

I felt several head sized rocks coming toward me, but I was a sorceress too, the earth was mine to command and with a thought they fell to dust as I took the next head. The truth about the most powerful races was their long lived lives. They had the time to learn and perfect their magic beyond most others.

There was a cluster of six fae attacking my mind in concert, before my shield could fail I concentrated the air, raising the air pressure high enough to squeeze their shields and hold their bodies in place. It also made it impossible for them to breath. They switched their focus from attack and struggled to move out of the compression field, but they weren't fast enough.

I couldn't go into melee range so I hit them with fire. It wasn't quite as hot as the sun, but it was close as it ate into their shields and burned into their bodies. They quickly turned to ash.

I turned and headed for the next fae who launched a thick branch at me like a spear. It was surrounded by a fae shield. There was no way I could destroy it in time, so a pillar of stone rose from the earth to intercept it. It sounded like a thunderclap when it hit, and my pillar was falling over, but I was already around it.

I saw the consternation on his face as I closed the distance. He jumped up into the sky and I followed, my wings flared out behind me. I hated to fly, but I wouldn't let him escape. I cut him in half at the chest with my sword; his body fell back to the Earth in two pieces.

I took a moment to look around, and no one seemed to be getting overwhelmed. There were a few wounded and I launched a glyph of healing their way. I could also see Vince had a number of the dead ones enslaved. I picked my next target and dove for him...

-Vince-

When we had landed at the top of the slope, we could feel the fae below us, but not see them with all the trees and shrubbery. We started moving down. Lisa casted spells next to me while I surrounded Amy and Callie's fists with dark shadow. There were a number of other smaller groups with me, but we couldn't fight as one large group any more than the fae could in this dense mountain forest.

We moved together toward the enemy we could feel but not see until we were close to them. Callie and Amy were both liches, and with my shadows on their hands not to mention their own considerable power they started to take out the fae with crushing blows to their enemy's bodies and heads. Lisa and I followed in their wake, concentrating more on defense.

I raised the dead fae and bound them to my purpose, and worked on deflecting attacks from the fae. A stone heading for Amy's head was pulled aside by shadows with a determined thought. It all seemed to snowball in a short time as the more fae I gathered the faster the enemy went down.

The last fifteen took off up in the sky but didn't get far. I sent all my fae up after them as I spread my wings and took to the skies myself. I could also see Rafe, Anise, and Kristi join us there. We killed all of them without mercy. This was war on a scale I could scarce imagine; they were trying to kill the whole planet and I had no moral doubts at all as we took them out without mercy.

When we were finished we regrouped on the ground and Anise started healing those that were damaged. She healed both simple contusions and crushed limbs with ease. None of us had died, but for three it was worse than that. Two of the younger witches and a werewolf were being held down. Kristi did something with her magic then shook her head.

She sounded a little fragile when she said, "Their memories are gone, their minds crushed into insanity."

Kristi took a deep breath, "I can probably fix the insanity, but they'd have to start their lives over."

We waited while she did that, then we sent them home to be cared for. I felt a little guilty because all I could think of was thank god it wasn't anyone in my family.

Anise said coldly, still suppressing her emotions, "Next target?"

Johnson sighed and nodded before pulling out his phone. It was such a waste, I was already tired of this and we were just getting started. Of course, the odds would be even better next time; outside of the ones Anise burned to ash I now had an army of fae almost a hundred strong at our backs...

Chapter 13 – Hope

I woke up having no idea where I was. It was even stranger because I don't sleep, so I was fuzzy headed and alarmed, trying to clear the cobwebs from my mind.

Bree asked nervously, "You okay?"

I muttered, "I think so, what happened?"

I took a quick look around. I was lying on a metal table in an empty room. I didn't see a door.

Bree asked, "You don't remember?"

I shook my head, "Last think I remember was stepping to grays' world."

Bree replied, "Well you weren't shielded or anything, and a few seconds after we got here, a number of the grays teleported to our location. It looked like you were about to say something, but they shot you with some kind of knock out beam."

I shuddered, "What else happened?"

"They brought you here. They didn't do anything invasive, but they scanned you with devices and stared at you for a while. I don't think they know I'm here."

I snorted, "Well, they do now if they're listening, either that or they'll think I'm nuts."

A crack appeared in the wall where I was sure there wasn't one a second ago, and opened up. I warily raised my armor, but not my sword. I wasn't here to start a fight, and apparently if they wanted me dead... I would already be.

A short man with gray skin came in. He didn't look like the fiction shows, but he did have a somewhat larger head, and the eyes were all black and larger than human. But not that much larger. They did have thinner limbs, but they were still in the human proportion, it was only that they were much shorter. I guessed he stood around four foot five.

He nodded, "That is not necessary. You are safe and welcome here, please come with me."

I shook my head in disbelief, "Welcome?"

He turned his head and looked back at me, "Our world is protected from magical gates. We did not permanently harm you, but your uninvited arrival was somewhat... alarming to us. Please, follow me and I will explain everything, we did not harm you, merely scanned your mind to ensure you did not pose a threat."

Oh, right. No harm in that, just download a damn copy why don't they.

I sighed and followed him down a hallway. Everything looked... sterile, uniform, and utterly boring. I was lead into a room with a table and chairs, another gray was already sitting there and the table was covered with different foods. I took a seat and waited for them to speak.

The one who brought me said, "I am Aris, this is Tenna. I apologize for the intrusion into your privacy, but we must protect ourselves, and you were not known to us."

His voice was without inflection, I was starting to wonder if they had emotions.

Tenna said in that same monotone, "The war before the one you know about, approximately forty five thousand years ago, happened when we were emerging as a race using high technology for the first time, much like Earth is now. I won't go into all the details, but during that war the fae tried their best to destroy us.

"However, when we went to counter invade it became clear other races would not allow it. But we have not forgotten even after all that time. It was in the Great War fifteen thousand years ago, that we sealed off our world to all but a few allies. I am telling you this, so you will understand why we are willing to help you, but only under certain conditions."

I shivered. I hadn't even asked yet. Maybe they actually had downloaded my mind. I found that thought very... disturbing. On the other hand, I didn't have to go through long interrogations as my world's time ran out. Apparently I didn't have to find someone in charge either, they'd found me.

I briefly checked in on Callie. She seemed to be enjoying killing the fae and as far as she could tell, things were going well minus a few casualties.

I asked, "What conditions?"

Tenna said, "For one, we wish you to join our alliance."

I thought for a moment and then asked, "To what end?"

Tenna explained, "Mutual defense, a promise never to attack us or the others in our alliance. We can also freely trade. The main reason we ask though, is it will make it possible for us to annihilate the fae. The politics has somewhat changed recently, but we can't follow up on a forty five thousand year old slight, even if it was to destroy our world and race. But we can attack them if you are in our alliance."

I nodded, "So you would like us to help with the attack?"

Aris shook his head, "No, if you join the Alliance, we can destroy the fae world while the humans of your world destroy the current fae invaders. Your world is not yet ready to join an attack on the fae, and I fear if we waited until it was, the politics would change again."

I frowned, it seemed like they just wanted us to join this alliance so they could get revenge. On the other hand, at least I knew what their motivations were.

Tenna said, "We will honor the alliance afterward. It is not a little thing we offer for the chance of revenge. Beyond that your world would have our friendship, we would not offer this even for revenge if we thought we couldn't honor the alliance. Besides, we also realize your Earth will grow quickly and become powerful. The alliance will be good for us both on many levels."

I asked curiously, "Who else is in this alliance?"

Aris said, "There are two other races of human that we are partnered with. One is a race not unlike the werewolves you know, but they shift into great cats. The second race is peaceful. They look much like the Sasquatch of your myths and legends. Both of the other races have high technology but prefer more natural surroundings. I can tell that you aren't very comfortable here at all."

I nodded, "So, if you've read my memories you know I can't speak for the whole planet. And entering into a treaty would probably be way past what I could offer. Let me get instructions and I'll let you know how it went."

Tenna agreed, "We expected this. We will wait."

I sent Callie the message and all the particulars. She'd go to Johnson, who'd likely call the president. Now all I needed to do was wait. It might be a long time though; the president may try and get other countries to sign it too. I sampled some of the food. It was a bit bland, but much better than I thought it would be based on how it looked.

I wondered if this is what the prophesy meant when it said us or the fae would be destroyed. Who would anticipate finding a race bent on destroying the fae and that they would be the only ones able to stop the meteors if we failed to do so ourselves. It also made me reevaluate the statement about the second born. It only said the first born would bring about humanity's destruction without the second born to stop it, it hadn't said anything about the reverse.

Maybe it would take both of us to save it...

Chapter 14 – Vinnie

Having no up or down was extremely disorienting. I pushed down the feeling of having to throw up while cheating with a little healing magic to calm things down. The view was amazing though, and I took a few minutes to look around before moving closer to the asteroid.

The asteroid was definitely surrounded by a shield. I wondered how long they took to prepare this attack. Not that it truly mattered, but I wondered if it was my push forward in science or my sister destroying the enchantment that prompted it. The idea they could set up this many meteors and enchant them all in just a few days was an intimidating thought.

Just to be sure, I sent my earth magic at the asteroid, and the signature brown of the fae's magic held it at bay. I could make out an enchantment running the shield, and wondered what to try next. My first thought was to use my own magic and just bypass the shield through limbo. But all that would really accomplish is to break it up into a bunch of smaller pieces, which probably wouldn't be any better.

I also couldn't manifest my magic into a sword out here to break the shield, because that magic was solid, and required me to be touching it to keep it active. I couldn't do that in this suit without putting a big hole through it.

Just to see how long it would take I sent a continuous attack of my magic trying to destroy the shield. After about five minutes I stopped. There was no ward powerful enough to do what I just did, and it was a failure. My sword could probably do it, but that enchantment was easily resisting my distance magic attacks. I was back to thoughts of going around the shield through limbo again. Could I wrap my earth magic inside my immortal magic and bring it along through limbo?

I'd never tried, never had a reason to, but now was as good a time as any.

Instead of condensing it into a magic grenade of sorts, I thought of it like a water balloon in my mind. I created a thin shell of immortal magic that would simply break against the meteor releasing the earth magic. It worked on the first try, but the earth magic ran out of juice when the meteor was only a quarter of the way gone. The meteor was just so huge.

Even without the shield that first missile wouldn't have been a hundred percent successful. The shield was gone now though, so perhaps it had something to do with that? The earth magic reacting to the enchantment as it ate the rock it was embedded on?

I threw more earth magic at it, and this time the same amount took out the rest of the meteor. So it was definitely the enchantment that caused the earth magic to burn out so fast. I moved toward another I could barely see, and it took me twenty minutes to get there. I didn't see how I could possibly destroy them all from up here, I'd run out of oxygen long before they hit, even getting a refill I'd fall way short of the total.

Did this mean we needed two missiles for every meteor?

We didn't have enough time for that either. It would take at least three days to make enough AG devices for one missile each. I growled. The suit was so damned quiet, my breath sounded like a damn hurricane in my ears. I needed to be calm and think. If I couldn't have two missiles, I'd need the magic itself to be in two stages.

It was a lot to hold in my head at once. A layered spell. The top layer was the thin bubble with the first earth spell under it. The next layer of immortal magic under the earth spell would be harder and hold together on impact, and then it would release the second earth spell when it sensed the enchantment fail.

I had to go into meditation to make sure it was all in my mind correctly as my magics came together. I sent it at the meteor, and it worked very well, the different stages breaking down the asteroid as designed. I needed to personally put the spells on each and every missile.

I took one last look around before I teleported back. It really was awe inspiring out here in space.