Cassandra- Magic's Hope Read online

  Then I sat on a bench, maybe a little over an hour and twenty minutes had gone on out there, for me it was sixteen months. I still had no clue about fitting the pieces together. Too many things felt wrong. However, I did gain an appreciation of the inhabitants of this world. They had gone through a lot, and had accomplished much in building their magic over the last two millennia, even if it was to me, all wrong.

  But I still had no explanation for why they weren’t perfectly adapted for their own world, it seemed these humans had less ability to channel magic than we witches did, which was nuts. Or why villages were carbon copies with almost no variation except personal housing. Even the size of the fields and crops were identical from town to town. It seemed… almost designed. But that made even less sense, didn’t it?

  I could understand why the villages didn’t war among themselves, they had a built in common foe with the dragons, and fighting the environment itself. That kind of made sense, man would put aside their differences to defend against a common foe. It wouldn’t be wise to make war with the village next door, when they held their emergency food supplies and shelters in case the dragons burned them out.

  I shook my head in frustration, got up, and walked to the back of the building. I randomly pulled a book down off the first row and opened it. My mind spun at what I saw.

  Shit.

  I should have done that to begin with. I put the book that the locals couldn’t read back on the shelf and went over all I knew based on what I’d just learned. My determination was… shocking. But I’d need to verify it. I walked out of the building and out into the forest, it didn’t take me long to find an animal of this world.

  I checked its DNA, then pulled up my memory of this world’s human DNA and examined it completely. Something I’d never done before now, what I’d done earlier was merely study the section that dealt with the mind and specifically magic. Now… the truth hit me in the face, and I was mad at myself for not checking it in its entirety earlier. Even if I didn’t really have a good reason to at the time.

  Angry and impatient, I decided I was back in the library. I’d never released my magic so I doubted anyone even knew I’d left, and I started to read all the books in the first row. It was easy for me, after all, they were written in Latin. I was halfway through the stack when someone interrupted me, very slowly.

  I let time speed up.

  The man looked nervous, I smiled gently, “What is it?”

  He spoke in a frightened voice, and I realized right away it wasn’t me he was afraid of.

  “The next town over is under attack, Maggie sent warning.”

  I frowned and put my hand on his shoulder as I asked, “Where is it?”

  The location hit his public mind, and as I let out my magic I decided I was there. I was already angry about what I’d learned, now I was past that. The dragons had preyed on these people long enough. I’d learned that both those stories Dawn learned were lies, the truth of the history between dragons and the magic human world was quite a bit… darker.

  The fields were already on fire, although the shield seemed to be holding back the dragons from the main village, for now. They were all moving so slowly as well, the time dilation on this world was really intense. Two of the dragons caught sight of me at once, outside the shield, and started into a dive. I lashed out angrily, two lances of magic so thin it would take an electric microscope to see it, if magic could be seen.

  It went through their shields as if they weren’t even there. I started laughing, and the insanely angry sound without any mirth broke through my extreme anger. I shuddered at the thought, I refused to be a monster, but these dragons needed to be stopped, and there was only one way to do it.

  I crushed the first one in a gravity field, the second I ripped all the heat out of his body, and his body shattered when it hit the ground. That caught the attention of a few more. I lanced them and exploded the first from the inside. The second dragon was a blue, so I incinerated him with fire, the third I decided to test my theory about why that other blue ceased to exist back on my world.

  I used a simply stunning spell from inside his shields, but with a lot of power behind it. He started to fall from the sky, unconscious, but more importantly, unthinking. With my magic surrounding his body I decided he was back on his world. This time, it worked, he merely disappeared.

  Sure, it had been a risk to test it, but if he was torn apart like the last one, I wouldn’t have cared considering how angry I was.

  The remaining fifteen roared, all eyes on me now, and I hadn’t even had to move yet and reminded myself that pride lead to stupidity. So I took a few steps inside the village shield as at least seven of them released their breath weapon at my previous position. I’d killed five already, and the weight of that was heavy on my heart. They deserved it for what they did, what they were currently doing, but I didn’t like being the one that did it.

  They started to attack the shield, I was surrounded by villagers that were shooting fire, lightning, even large pieces of earth. But they had to focus on one dragon at a time to have a chance of killing it. I watched as they killed one, then I killed another, spearing it then crushing its brain with gravity. The fight had been close to even, the protection holding them off, with my new skills it had turned into a one sided slaughter.

  I took my time, not out of arrogance; I was hoping they would get a clue and retreat. My anger was quickly cooling at the sight of all the death. But going slow would be the difference between a rout and a slaughter. It took two more deaths before that happened, a total of eight out of the twenty dragons dead, with one already back on their world probably still unconscious. The eleven remaining started to flee, and a golden dragon opened a world gate, I could see space on the other side so assumed it was their world.

  I cast a quick net of magic over the fields, drawing the fire straight up which almost immediately spluttered and died without anything to burn. The field was almost entirely a loss. I had the spells Dawn made on the fly, so I fixed it, and then released my magic. The villagers looked at me with… fear. Except maybe Maggie, who kind of looked turned on to be honest, it made me smile.

  Maggie bowed, “Thank you for coming to our aide.”

  “Can I ask you something? Do you travel to other worlds or have visitors here other than the dragons?”

  Originally we weren’t going to block their world off, but after what I’d learned I didn’t give a shit anymore, we could fight the dragons on their world if we had to, I wasn’t so sanguine about fighting them here anymore.

  Maggie frowned, “We do. All the others are peaceful though, is that a problem?”

  I shook my head, “No, of course not. It’s just I was thinking about stopping the dragons from coming here at all anymore, but I can’t do that without stopping everyone else too.”

  An old man with a staff came over, he looked familiar. This must be the last village we protected.

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that, we depend on our allies, and they depend on some of our services as well.”

  I frowned, of course. I had read that in the library, but forgotten in my anger and the excitement. That wouldn’t work.

  I nodded, “It was luck Maggie was here, and I was in the library. I need to figure out some way…”

  He shook his head, “You have done more than enough for us, we have a chance now. You owe us nothing.”

  There were tears of shame in my eyes when I left, appearing back to the library without a word. He had no idea just how wrong he was, we owed these people a hell of a lot more than that…

  When a witch embraces her power and slows down time, it also… expands our minds, is probably the best way to explain it. I had no problems at all, with finishing the stack while at the same time building a new enchantment. It was extremely complicated, it worked a little like the enchantments that detected and closed gates, except this time I worked in the triangulation ability that I had discarded for the enchantments at home.

 
In this case adding a half a second to the spell response wasn’t a problem. Then the enchantment would need to decide if it was an attack or not, since gate spells should be pretty common. So I built in aura detection. To make it more efficient, it would only check for auras where the gate opens. Then if it detected a dragon aura, it would notify me via my necklace that there was an incursion and exactly where the gate was on this planet.

  In essence, I’d built a dragon gate GPS.

  I thought about adding a close the gate spell if it determined a dragon came through, if we were lucky that meant only one or two would make it through instead of twenty. But it was all rather new and I figured it was better to test it first, make sure there weren’t false alarms.

  For all I knew the neighbors had auras close enough to dragons to set it off. All they would have to be is extremely powerful shifters of some type.

  That sounds like a lot of stuff to just throw together, but I literally had a couple of months to figure it all out while I finished the first row of books. Magic power would be easy too, there was more than enough magic in this dimension that I could simply put the same type of absorption spell on it and drop them strategically in low earth orbit.

  I summoned raw carbon from the earth and spun it into eight diamonds. This world had better than that, but this would be more than good enough and I was used to working with it. I added the enchantments, and put the diamonds around the world.

  I was still too angry, and I didn’t want to explain to Maggie what I’d found out, not yet at least. I wanted to talk to my family first. I was too worked up to make the best decision right now, and I had done what I could to make sure we would know the next time this world was attacked. I sent out a message asking the family if we could meet tomorrow, they would find it in their mind tomorrow morning if they were asleep.

  Then I decided I was home.

  I looked at the bed and Dina popped in my mind because it’s the last place I saw her, and I remembered how upset she was. She’d disappeared on me sometime last night, and hadn’t tried to contact me since, just something else to feel guilty about. I checked my phone, and it was just after five in the morning, Friday. I’d have to make sure I caught up with her tomorrow… later today I mean.

  I stripped and slid my body beneath the sheets. I was a still upset and I felt alone. I hardly ever slept alone, as normally I’d still be in Tammy’s bed until it was time to get up. Finally I had to use meditation to calm my mind, and drifted off into sleep.

  Chapter 9

  “Get up!”

  I sat up straight and looked over at Dina, who stood by the door.

  “What happened?”

  I noted the message in the front of my mind. My family agreed to meet at my grandmother’s for dinner tonight at eight… which was seven here.

  She snickered and handed me a coffee, “It’s after noon.”

  I made a face and drank it while I looked her over. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and looked like she showered today. No signs of depression, maybe she was over it already? She even had makeup on. I still felt sadness, and a little anger, but the deep depression was gone, and she was putting off a hint of humor. At waking me I assume. Misery loves company after all.

  “I didn’t get to sleep until five.”

  She waggled her eyebrows, “Tammy that good is she.”

  I giggled, “No... err, yes… umm, I mean I was on that other world again for a few hours.”

  We were both laughing now.

  “Things going okay?”

  Dina smiled sadly and shook her hand in a sort of gesture and then sipped her own coffee.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  We always talked about everything. Personal stuff, but she seemed reticent this time for some reason.

  Dina shrugged, “Yes but not yet, I need to work something out first.”

  “Have any plans? I’m free until dinner, family thing.”

  Dina tilted her head cutely, “What did you have in mind?”

  I said slowly, “When life gets tough, the tough go…”

  Dina grinned, “Shopping? That sounds like a marvelous idea. We could pick up lunch too, it’s almost twelve thirty. Where should we go?”

  “We could go into Chicago, or if you want New York?”

  Dina grinned, “New York sounds good.”

  I nodded, “Give me ten minutes,” and I gulped down the rest of my coffee.

  “Bitch,” she said teasingly.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  She snorted, “No other women can get ready in ten minutes and look like a model.”

  I shrugged and got out of bed, not even thinking about the fact I was naked, until I was halfway to the door and realized she’d stopped breathing. I considered teasing her but simply ignored it and got in the shower.

  A shower later and I took us via portals to Chelsea district for lunch, then we window shopped on Fifth Avenue, and hit the east side where we actually bought some stuff. We had a blast for five hours, and I hardly felt any sadness or confusion from her at all. It was a great afternoon, and I didn’t want it to end. Partly because it was just relaxing, and Dina was a blast to hang with.

  The other part was I really wasn’t looking forward to the dinner. But all good things must end, including shopping sprees. I took Dina back to her apartment, and gave her a hug.

  I smiled when I let her go, “I think Jim went home this weekend, so if you want to hang tonight?”

  She shrugged, “Maybe, don’t you have to hunt though?”

  I frowned, “I can slip it in without abandoning you. I only stick around after for Tammy or Jim, you know that.”

  I would probably have to hunt tonight, I didn’t have a pressing need to go back to magic world tonight, and wouldn’t unless they were attacked. I’d have to go back eventually though, and talk to Maggie.

  She sighed, “I know it’s a Friday night, but I think I’ll just stay home and veg. Maybe watch something mindless on Netflix.”

  “Want some company?”

  She raised an eyebrow, “Stop by if you want, but don’t let me ruin your night. After… I’m just not in a party mood. But thanks for the shopping, that was just what I needed.”

  She was my best friend, and I had no problems with a night in. I could just pick up a sex snack on the way back from NY, but I didn’t want to smother her either. The problem was I wasn’t sure what she wanted, I could feel that she both wanted me there, and wanted to be alone. We women were like that sometimes, and I’d just have to play it by ear.

  I could’ve just packaged up the memories, and my new discoveries of course, but I wanted to see the reaction to my information. Especially Cat’s, since she already knew all about it but didn’t bother to tell us. She was there after all. I was angry, but also kind of scared. If any being on Earth scared me, it was the ancient witch.

  We met up at my grandmother’s, which technically was Jezebel’s mansion, and sat around the table for dinner. Dawn and Amber gave me funny looks, but I just shook my head. I was sure they were wondering why I hadn’t just sent the memories directly. Besides Cat, my mother, and my grandmother, there were others here, but all of them family.

  Dinner was excellent, it always was when I visited Grams house, as they had a five star chef running the kitchen. They weren’t snooty people, my grandparents that is. It’s just that this was an embassy for angel world, so they hosted important people a lot. It was simply expected.

  When the dinner plates were taken away, and we had coffee served, my grandmother prodded me to explain.

  Sandy asked, “So what did you find out.”

  I sighed, “So many things about that world made no sense to me. The standard village setup, almost like they all had the same set of blueprints. Humans who not only struggled to use the available magic, but fought it, not only for control but because it could kill them, I found it odd that they wouldn’t evolve to have natural defenses for it.

  “The answers to th
ose questions were both in their DNA, and in their oldest books.”

  I paused for a minute, and then said, “They are ours. They didn’t evolve on that planet, they were moved there twenty five hundred years ago by the dragons, isn’t that right Cat?”

  Her face looked stony, so I continued, “You see, the histories Dawn got were… both wrong as far as I can tell, or at least dreadfully incomplete. The dragons were already at war with the Phoenix world at that time, and they were losing badly. So a number of dragons grouped together and left their world, in an attempt to make sure that if they lost the war, the species would survive. They decided to move far through the dimensions, in an effort to stay hidden.

  “They came out in southern Greece on our world. I’m guessing it isn’t a coincidence that Rafe appeared on our world a few weeks ago. They probably had a record of our world’s coordinates already, and thought it would be safer to contact than a completely new one. I don’t know of course if Rafe knew that, but surely Caph must have.”

  Dawn didn’t look very happy, and Cat looked stony, but I could feel her emotions roiling underneath the stony façade. I understood then, she was the matron, the witch everyone looked to for advice and guidance. She’d been entirely too ashamed to tell us her part in the story, so just kept it all to herself.

  Amber asked, “So what happened?”

  I continued, “According to what the books recorded, the dragons predictably used their greater power to take over the area and enslave the humans there. The angels and demons were thin on the ground back then, and the few witches in the area died almost immediately. They didn’t have our knowledge.

  “After that the dragons spread out, some ended up in Europe, others Asia, and they brought enslavement and brutality wherever they went. I don’t know how bad it really was, so keep in mind this was written by a human from Greece twenty five hundred years ago. Either way, it wasn’t all that good. But after a few months the dragons started to weaken. They’re huge magical capacities slowly got drained, and in this world they burned magic faster than they could replenish it.