* * *
“You’ve got to check it out for yourself, HTM. The area’s got strong juju, maybe even stronger than here. I don’t know what’s up with the Cad-man, but he’s not himself, you feel me? It’s like he’s being super shady but at the same time, he’s like scraping the bottom of his fuel tank.”
Micah was flipping through the images on his tablet, giving His Terrible Majesty a private slideshow of the area he had just come back from. HTM was enjoying the commentary, as Micah was well aware, he seemed to find most things about Micah, his pet, amusing. Micah played it up, of course. It was one of the reasons he was so popular and successful among the Merciless, even before HTM had awakened.
By making it obvious that Micah was his favorite, the young man’s standing among the Merciless was as high as it could possibly get. Even higher than the one who was still technically the leader of the Merciless, Cadmus.
“What is this?” HTM’s voice was silky, cultured. He was pointing to one of the photos on the tablet.
“Petroglyphs. I don’t know if that image does it justice, but the whole place was teeming with juice. Raw,magickaljuice, you feel me? These petroglyphs are proof that there are ancientmagickshere. Cadmus wasn’t even aware of it until I pointed it out.”
Micah had to insist on Cadmus hiking over to that site, on one of the properties. The older man had huffed the entire way, equal parts scorn and exhaustion.
But it was worth it. HTM’s eyes gleamed with pleasure. “You are correct, young Micah,” he purred. “These are ancientmagicksthat I have not encountered before. It would be most beneficial to harness it.”
“It’s probably tied to the site, and—get this.” Micah was filled with energy that was more suitable for a tracksuit, but he was wearing a dark Hugo Boss suit, cut tight with slim fitting trousers, and a black t-shirt. The gold chains and the pendants that HTM had inscribed withmagickalsymbols hung over it. HTM liked him in well-tailored suits in his presence, which was almost every day. Truth was, Micah was beginning to dig it too.
“The presence of the petroglyphs is probably tied to the fact that the entire area is a vortex. The woods and the Faire nearby are filled with a constant supply of ready sacrifices.”
HTM smacked his lips. He had enjoyed ingesting the life essences that Micah had brought back with him. One that Cadmus had obtained prior to Micah’s arrival, and the other, Micah had personally supervised the extraction, with the help of a promising new recruit.
“The town is small, but still has a decent selection of the Michelin star level eateries and other luxe-type living that you might enjoy.” Micah continued, flipping through the slide show.
“So you would recommend that this area, this…Gardendale to be the site of our relocation?” His Terrible Majesty asked.
“So far, yes.” Micah paused.
“What is the hesitation?”
Micah pursed his lips. “Cadmus claims that he’s having trouble getting information about properties that we’d be interested in purchasing. The areas of land that seem to hold the most energy.”
“Claims?” HTM had a slight curl in his upper lip, although that may have been the scar. “You question Cadmus’s veracity, then?”
“I’m just sayin’—” Micah took a deep breath for dramatic effect, “—it’s aprettyinteresting coincidence that Cadmus has been dragging his heels on getting that information, and claiming that there’s some kind of difficulty adjusting to the influx of energy there—a difficultyIdidn’t experience, by the way. Not to mention theveryinteresting fact that he was not only in that area twenty five years earlier, but the sole survivor of that mission.”
“Ah yes, I do recall him telling me about it.” HTM said, thoughtfully. “He was responsible for wiping out the last bastion of those who would wish me harm.”
Micah rolled his eyes. “Yep, he made sure we all learned about it as well. The last living Diviners, he rooted them out, killed them all, blah blah blah. But he was theonlyone to come back from doing so, and weonlyhave his word for it. And now he’s acting all shady about being back there. Kinda makes you wonder.”
“Or it makes you sound jealous.” HTM said, his silky voice sharpening the barb in his words. “The death of all those who fought by his side… that was the reason that you were brought into the fold, after all. You would have him to thank for that.”
That was the official history. Cadmus had drilled it into all the recruits, until they almost could recite it back with his exact cadence and intonations. He had gone with a group of the Merciless, leaving behind only a few to guard the sarcophagus storing His Terrible Majesty’s sleeping form, in their hidden location in Upstate New York. In the fierce fighting that ensued when they found their enemies, all but Cadmus had died, leaving him to strike the final blows wiping out the threat to His Terrible Majesty.
When Cadmus returned, he took over the reins of leadership. There was no opposition among the few who had been left behind to safeguard the sarcophagus. His first task was to replenish the ranks quickly. Micah was one of the many young boys abducted that year, to be molded and shaped into the next generation of Merciless. They were taken young, so that they would knew nothing but incessant daily training in darkmagicksand other skills required to serve His Terrible Majesty.
It was just Cadmus’s luck that Micah had proved to be exceptional in all areas, and recognized by His Terrible Majesty as such.
“Of course I’m filled with gratz, no lie.” Micah said. HTM knew that in Micah’s twentieth year, a full fifteen years after his abduction, he had been given a test. Using all the skills he had been trained in, he was to search out his birth family, and kill them.
It was relatively easy to track down who and where they were, using a combination of hacking skills and surveillance techniques that would make a private investigator weep with envy. Of course, everything was enhanced with darkmagick, which was the point.
Micah had located them at last, and even now, there was a deep wrenching in his gut at the memory, at the shock when he first saw them for himself.
No way he came from that. No. Fucking. Way.
Micah had stalked them for days, filled with a morbid curiosity about whose DNA he shared, and sickened by what he had uncovered.
Ann-Marie and Daniel Schlossmann were not at all what he had envisioned as his birth parents, in looks or demeanor. They were a horrible couple in their forties, living in a cluttered basement apartment on Staten Island, with an even more cluttered van parked in the driveway.
