The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Ascension (18 page)

They made their way back to the castle together, not with their not like a couple would with hands intertwined, not exchanging a few kisses here and there, and not even being awkward like what they had done was a mistake. They walked back to the castle falling into the natural teasing comradery they’d fallen into over the last few weeks and when they were headed their separate ways to their rooms agreed that he’d help her more with the summoning of the undead the next day. She went to her room and took off her dress and the sticky underwear before she went into the bathroom to take a shower.

It was as she stood under the showerhead that she began to feel agitated, not because she felt at all guilty about what she had done with Dominik. Rather she was agitated at the fact that she didn’t feel guilty at all. It was one of those things you were taught you should feel guilty of early on, yet despite that MaLeila couldn’t muster up any guilt, mostly because some dark part of her that she didn’t want to acknowledge—a part that most people had and didn’t want to acknowledge they had—wanted to show Marcel that her life didn’t revolve around him, that she didn’t need him or Tsubame’s help and could get what she wanted and needed on her own. It still wasn’t a justification for what she’d done, nor did MaLeila really care about justifying it if she were honest, but the more and more she got involved in this war, the more she began to question her own motivations. She felt abandoned by Tsubame, was still having issues with Marcel, and Nika didn’t particularly seem to care about MaLeila one way or another so she had no reason to stay here. She had no reason to figure out how to take control of the army for Tsubame’s ambitions, especially when she was sure the woman could defeat the Thorne’s demon assassins on her own if she needed to.

She didn’t need to wonder. The answer immediately came to her head. MaLeila supposed she had known all along but hadn’t wanted to admit the truth, mostly because she was convinced it was something Tsubame had put in her head, because it would be playing right into Tsubame’s game, a game that more and more MaLeila realized Tsubame continued to win not because she was good at manipulating people, but because the woman had an innate understanding of people’s inner motivations, what they wanted and needed, and could almost always count on them to act in accordance with that nature.

From the beginning Tsubame insisted that she knew MaLeila better than she knew herself. Insisting that her desire to please Bastet and Devdan, to ignore the secret urge to put the whole magical world in their place and make them regret the day they ever called her the nigger witch, was holding her back. How the proverbial “fuck you” she had given to the Magic Council while bold wasn’t a true challenge to the Magic Council if she continued to simply ignore them and never hit back when they sent opposition against her. MaLeila had dismissed the statement as a lie, as a way for the woman to plant the idea in her head that MaLeila was already like Tsubame so why not help her. But MaLeila herself said that the woman never lied. Hid things. Made vague statements and let people make their own interpretations of it. But never lied. She was just able to see things before they ever came into fruition, without having to use her magic to see the future.

And Tsubame had been right, MaLeila resigned to herself.  As soon as she didn’t have to care what Bastet and Devdan would think, without Bastet telling her to ignore the Magic Council, without Devdan’s general disdain and indifference, she had done things, said things, thought in ways that she would have never dreamed she could have.

And she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about any of it, even cheating on her lover. Even using a new friend’s infatuation for her against his own family.

When MaLeila was done showering, she wrapped a towel around herself and stepped into her room, only to find Tsubame sitting on the bed. It was the first time she had seen the woman since she sent Marcel away and the first time the woman had come to her for something in weeks.

Without preamble and with her eyes on the television that had been off when MaLeila went into the bathroom, Tsubame said, “I think you might want to see this.”

MaLeila came and sat next to Tsubame on the bed, looking at the television. There had been more demonstrations going on in Algeria and the surrounding regions for years. Some more violent than others. So it wasn’t news, not news that would concern Tsubame anyway. MaLeila tilted her head and started to ask the woman why she was so concerned about something that seemed so relatively inconsequential until a clip, followed by a picture came up on screen, making her heart clench and eyes widen in surprise. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before finally managing to find her voice and saying the first thing that came to her mind.

“What the fuck is Devdan doing?”

“Well,” Tsubame said nonchalantly. “Different media outlets are giving different stories, but the gist of it is Devdan is the leader of an extremist rebellion that’s holding a European journalist hostage in one of the most prestigious hotels in the world.”

“And what’s the real story?”

“I don’t know,” Tsubame said honestly. “There are a myriad of scenarios that could have led to this, some more and less likely than others.”

“You can see the future about as well as you could read the morning news on your tablet,” MaLeila deadpanned.

“If I wanted to,” Tsubame said. “But you and I both know there are limitations to looking into the future. You could probably see better what’s going on than I could since you’re closer to him. Besides, part of the fun is watching the future unfold without knowing what’s going to happen.”

MaLeila pressed her lips firmly together, trying to contain her mounting frustration with the woman. When she was able to contain herself, MaLeila declared, “We’re going to Algeria.”

Tsubame raised her eyebrows slightly and with her hands folded into the sleeves of her kimono dress, she said, “Why so worried about him? I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

Of that, MaLeila had no doubt. He had proven that numerous times over the years and had taken it upon himself to take care of her along the way. Devdan always did whatever was in his power to crush his opponents and MaLeila didn’t think even death could stop his single minded determination.

But that was the problem.

MaLeila couldn’t begin to count how many times she’d gotten between Devdan’s wrath and the person or thing he had directed that wrath toward; how many times she’d reached up to stay his hand when he pointed his gun at a perceived enemy whether that was a boy in her class that was harassing her, a past opponent, the Magic Council, or even just someone he didn’t particularly care for. Regardless, she had always been there to make him see some semblance of reason, and despite everything that had inevitably split them apart, MaLeila feared that if at some point he decided to unleash his full wrath, so would his many enemies. And if they all came together against him, he might not be able to handle it.

“Maybe he can,” MaLeila said as calm as she could while clenching and unclenching her fists and trying to ignore her racing heart. “But let’s not sit here and pretend that if it were Marcel, you wouldn’t have already left to go see what he had gotten himself into. So regardless of why I want to go or whether I need to go, I’m going to Algeria. You can stay here in hiding if you want. I’ll get Dominik to go with me if I have to.”

Tsubame stared at MaLeila for a few beats. Her face making that unreadable expression that a poker player could only dream of having for the game. It always set MaLeila on edge and reminded MaLeila how unpredictable Tsubame could be.

Finally the woman said, “Well look who’s finally grown a backbone?” Then she shrugged and added, “Of course we’re going to Algeria. You’re didn’t think I’d let something so unexpected happen without going to investigate it. Not going would be careless. I simply wanted to see what you’d say about it.”

MaLeila huffed. “You wanted to see what I’d say? After you ignored me for weeks?”

“I wasn’t ignoring you. I was simply allowing you to find your way and come to realize about yourself what I knew about you back when you were bored during that conference and playing on your cell phone the whole time. I needed you to learn to stand on your own two feet without having to rely on anyone else steering you in the right direction. If you’re going to rule this world as part of my universal kingdom, you’re going to have to only rely on yourself to make the hard choices and be willing to live with the consequences afterwards,” Tsubame replied. “That’s why I let you decide how to ensure we could be certain we’d have access to Marie’s army. That is a guarantee at this point, correct?”

MaLeila nodded slowly. Every time she thought she’d gotten a step ahead of the woman, it turned out she was still ten steps behind. Still, while that certainly explained why the woman had been distant from her, MaLeila still had the nagging feeling there was still something else going on that Tsubame was purposefully keeping from her.

“Good. Let’s go then.”

“Dominik will probably want to come with us,” MaLeila said as she went over to her drawer to pull out under garments before going to her closet. “Will Marcel get back in time to go with us?”

“No,” Tsubame said as she started to leave the room. “Marcel is already there. I sent him ahead of us.”

18

Nothing had gone the way he and Bastet had planned. They were supposed to bring the African families on board, maybe get in contact with the South American families whom many of the African families were closely tied with and quietly make their way to the Vatican to vote for the indefinite removal of the Magic Council. He wasn’t supposed to piss Anya off. Anya wasn’t supposed to try to get in touch with the United Nations Embassy and in touch with sorcerers who secretly ruled the embassy on the Magic Council’s behalf and who secretly despised Farah for her refusal to cooperate with the Magic Council. Farah wasn’t supposed to rally most of the African families and threaten the rest into holding Anya hostage so she couldn’t ruin their plans because if the Magic Council didn’t have her, they couldn’t know what they were up to. Devdan had little choice but to agree to the plan if he wanted to keep what little trust he’d earned from them.

However Anya turned out to be only the first of their problems. Next they had to weed out the traitor who told Anya the plan in the first place as well as hold off the forces that the embassy sent to retrieve Anya. Even in the aftermath Devdan wasn’t truly able to recall or process what happened. In order for him to fully remember he was sure it was going to take weeks using his ethereal sight to search his memories and look into the past to figure it out and rather sooner than later because the longer he waited, the harder it would be to see. Time only moved forward so it was easier to figure out where time was going rather where it had already been and what had happened in its wake. All Devdan knew was that Mekonnen, who had been conspiring against him with Anya all along, ended up dead by his gun, and Ezra became the effective new patriarch of the Ethiopian Magic Family, made official by the passing on of the magical robes that had been passed down from each matriarch and patriarch since. Then Devdan stood up, not too worse for wear though slightly battered from the confrontation and fight with Mekonnen, and threw his gun on the floor asking if there was anyone else amongst them that wanted to kill or betray him to gain favor with the Magic Council.

There had been no takers.

And all that was without figuring out how the fuck Marcel had gotten involved with the situation right under his nose. Devdan shouldn’t have been surprised though. He had always been shit at politics and diplomacy.

“Fuck,” he muttered tossing back another shot of vodka.

“I think that’s enough,” Adina said firmly reaching to take both the bottle.

Devdan firmly grabbed the neck of the bottle before she could touch it, set his jaw, and glared at her, daring her to keep reaching for the bottle. Adina wisely pulled her hand back, and Devdan hung his head back down in his left hand.

Marcel rolled his eyes and said, “She’s right. Drinking yourself into a stupor isn’t going to help any.”

“I know it’s not,” Devdan snapped at the currently blue-eyed, blonde haired man. “And my magic is so fucking strong I couldn’t get into a stupor if I wanted to. But excuse me for trying because within the span three fucking weeks, I’ve started a rebellion, held a woman hostage, killed a diplomat and put a new one in his place, pissed off the U.N. and got the embassy outside of one of the most prestigious hotels in the world which I’ve managed to secure as my base, and am looking to overthrow the Algerian government. And that’s the story that CNN is giving, all of which is true and only becomes a different story with different perspectives. So while I understand that this probably isn’t the best way to cope or reconcile the situation, all I’m asking for is just a moment of quiet to my fucking self before we discuss what we’re going to do about this shit mess we’ve gotten ourselves into and how we’re going to get out of it alive.”

“Good. That’s what we want too. Glad we’re already on the same page.”

For a moment, Devdan was certain that maybe he had succeeded in drinking himself into a stupor and was hearing voices. He had sensed the presence earlier too, but had written it off as the vodka messing with his magical senses. But honestly? He hadn’t had that much vodka. He looked up to see MaLeila, standing just across from the table he had sat himself at in the closed restaurant of the hotel. She wasn’t by herself. Tsubame and Nika were with her, as well as a dark haired blue-eyed man, but MaLeila always possessed the ability to capture his attention when she was just in the room, let alone by talking.

He took a moment to take her in with all his senses. He visually took in her dark hair in a crown braid, milk chocolate covered skin, almond shaped eyes, a petite feminine body that was barely 5’2” but stood a little taller because of her shoes and was dressed in a shiny flowing dark pink brocade halter dress with wide billowing sleeves that he was sure exposed her back. He inhaled her scent, so strong that he could also just taste it, one that he’d never quite been able to pin but was best described as the flowery and honey scent of spring in Georgia, back before urbanization and large cities. He felt her aura, always a shining beacon to him even when she was trying to be discreet. And her voice kept playing over in his head, still unable to quite register that she was in his presence again.

He wanted to be angry that still after severing of the bond that forced them together and close to four months of being apart, she still had the same effect on him. A bigger part of him was relieved she was back. He wasn’t willing to show how much power she had over him though, and carefully restrained his aura, which innately reached out towards hers, and fixed his face with a scowl.

“How the fuck did you get through the loop?” he asked.

She didn’t seem affected by his apparent cruelty one way or another and only gave him a deadpan look as she said, “I’m the one that showed you how to create a magical loop. Of course I know how to pass through them. And even if I didn’t, Tsubame’s with me. She could do it too.”

“Right,” Devdan muttered and then said, “Just when I didn’t think this mess couldn’t get any fucking messier it does.”

MaLeila’s response was to roll her eyes. Then she looked at the bottle of vodka on the table, the glass in his hand, and then back at him.

“As much as I’m sure you want to continue drinking yourself into a stupor out of despair, we’ve got to go ahead and see how we’re going to deal with this mess before the Thorne’s decide that the best way to deal with it is to rain bombs on Algeria in effort to destroy the insurgents and extremist that they’ll tell everyone have managed to invade,” MaLeila said.

She reached over to grab the vodka and the glass. He glared at her from across the table and put his hand around the neck of the bottle much like he had when Adina tried. MaLeila didn’t back down though and instead put her hand on top of his and grabbed hold of the glass in his other hand. Until now, he hadn’t been aware of little they touched each other over the years outside of protecting each other in a fight or pretended to kiss or when she stayed his hand when he was getting ready to shoot someone she didn’t think necessarily deserved it. All those times he hadn’t gotten a chance to focus on how small and soft her hands were despite years of fighting off enemies.

“Stop being such a fucking asshole,” she snapped. “I don’t know how you got yourself into this mess, but drinking isn’t going to get you out. You can drink yourself silly after we’ve won.”

While he was temporarily taken aback, she took the bottle and the glass from him and took it over to the bar at the other side of the restaurant. Then she walked back over and sat down right across from him making everyone else, including Adina and Marcel who had been keeping their distance from him, follow suit.

She always did act like she owned a place when she was determined to get something done. Devdan didn’t think that would ever change about the girl. In fact, Tsubame’s influence may have exacerbated the trait.

“Now we’ve got one story from the news,” MaLeila said. “Now tell us what the fucking hell is really going on.”

He let Marcel and Adina alternate explaining while he continued to glare at everyone in the room with his arms resting on the table. It took a while, so long that MaLeila did eventually go back to the bar and come back with glasses for everyone and something weaker than straight vodka.

“Now I understand why you needed that vodka. And I thought I was a trouble magnet,” MaLeila teased with a small smile as she poured him and herself a glass before passing the bottle around the room. Devdan resisted the urge to smile back at her.

When Marcel and Adina were done, for a moment everyone sat back in their seats, sipping on wine. Then they all looked at Tsubame who was twirling the wine in her glass with a smile on her lips, looking as though they had just gotten through talking about something as mundane as a funny story about a long deceased family member.

“I’m guessing you want my say in all this?” Tsubame asked.

“Well you took over a world once. We’re pretty sure you’ve got some say in this,” MaLeila replied.

“Well, you’ve lost any chance at making yourself look good to anyone in important places outside the ruling African magical families. Good job with that by the way. Even I couldn’t get them to cooperate when I initially began to take over. But I can’t really blame them. I had been married to the heir of one of the leading European families and though we were estranged at that point, technically we still were married,” Tsubame said wistfully. “I ended up having to go to war with them. You’re going to have to resign yourself to going to war too.”

“When me and Bastet discussed this, war was not involved,” Devdan snapped.

“Maybe it wasn’t, but diplomacy was thrown out the window the moment you challenged Anya and you let the other families hold her hostage. If you’re anything like Marcel, you hate diplomacy and wanted to openly fight anyway. Now you’ve got the chance to fight. Don’t tell me you aren’t looking forward to it,” Tsubame said.

Next to him, he felt Adina staring at him and the dark haired man that had come with MaLeila stared at her as well. It appeared they’d both be explaining some things later.

“Besides,” Tsubame continued. “The world thinks you want to start a revolution and take over Algeria and you’ve already done a pretty good job getting started if you ask me. So why not finish the job.”

******

Devdan didn’t need Adina to repeat back to him what he’d said in order to know that she followed the events that he had told her. She was the type to silently ingest what was told to her while making sure the events were straight in her head. Therefore, Devdan simply lay quietly next to the woman on the bed, both too tired after the last few weeks and the evening of planning to do much else.

“It certainly explains much,” Adina said rolling over on her side to face him. “Their auras are nearly identical. I almost couldn’t tell the two apart.”

Devdan could. Instantly. But that was none of her business.

Before Devdan could reply, there was a knock on the door of their suite. The only reason he got up to even answer it was that he sensed MaLeila at the door. He swung it open but blocked the doorway. She still had on her dress, but her braid was undone, leaving her hair in big puffy waves, and she looked like she could use a few hours of rest.

“What?” he asked.

MaLeila covered her mouth as she yawned, confirming Devdan’s assumptions that she was tired. Then she said, “Can you just let me in and we can skip the part where we’re assholes to each other?”

Devdan sighed and let her in the room, guiding her to the living area. MaLeila paused for a moment when she saw Adina standing in the doorway of the bedroom, but then silently acknowledged her with a nod before continuing to follow Devdan. She sat on the couch and Devdan sat adjacent to her in the armchair.

“Give us a minute, Adina,” Devdan said.

Once Adina closed the door to the bedroom of the suite, Devdan asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Is Bastet okay?”

“She’s fine. Back with the Magic Council at the Vatican.”

“Is she safe there? Do we need to go get her?”

“She’s fine. She’s not here so why wouldn’t she be safe?”

“Because I know this was all her idea. Only she could have put you up to coming here and doing… whatever this is you’re trying to do. Seems like you’re trying to take over the world like Tsubame, except a lot less subtly,” MaLeila said dryly.

“It didn’t start out that way.”

“I believe you,” MaLeila said in a way that Devdan wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or being sarcastic. Then she added, “Who’s that girl?”

“Adina.”

“I know her name. Who is she to you? And why is she in your suite with you this late?”

“You are aware you’re in my suite at a late hour too.”

“She was already here.”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me who Dominik is.”

“A friend.”

“You got a friend, a male friend, to follow you from… Germany? That’s what his accent sounded like,” Devdan shot back. “A thing for white men with blue eyes I see.”

MaLeila flushed and Devdan resisted the urge to smirk. She was still easy as ever to mess with.

“Technically, Marcel’s not white. He’s as black as you are… literally.”

“But you thought he was white when you first dated him. Not your type anymore? Is that why you moved on to Dominik?”

MaLeila bristled. “You know damn fucking well I’m not that shallow. And if you’re just going to sit here and be a fucking asshole then I’ll leave you to your little fling!”