On the Prowl (Alpha & Omega 0.5)(75)

"Harpy," Heidar said, before I could ask. He moved around, trying to find some comfortable position, but finally gave up. "I think we need to talk." I looked at him warily. I wasn't sure I was ready to talk about what had happened yet. I wasn't sure I ever would be. "If I am stuck in enemy territory with someone, I would like to at least know who  -  or what  -  she is," he was saying. "You could start by explaining what you did to those guards."

"Which guards?" I had a vision of exploding trees and burning silver hair.

"The ones in the village, shortly after we arrived. I meant to ask you about it before but I... was distracted."

I relaxed slightly. Anything that didn't involve scales claws or fathers, I could handle. "I told you. I'm a projective null."

"Nulls block magic. That was not blocking it!"

"It's never happened that way before." I struggled for words that would make sense. "Usually, it just... goes somewhere inside me, like I absorb it somehow, and then it's gone. I've never been able to... redirect it... before."

He didn't look like he believed me. "You used it as a weapon."

I started to shrug, but stopped because it hurt. My whole right side felt sore, like I'd swum a marathon using only one arm. "It was considered one, a long time ago. Nulls used to serve as bodyguards to anybody worried about a magical assault. They brought down the wards guarding their enemies' lands, and some of the strongest stopped entire battles just by walking onto the field. But that was before the Harvesters almost wiped us out."

"To make null bombs."

"Yeah. In the eyes of most of the supernatural community, I'm not a person, I'm a weapon. And the sooner they drain me into one of their bombs the better."

"But your family protected you," Heidar said, more softly. He seemed to realize he'd hit a nerve.

"If you call trying to sell me to the Fey protection."

"I assumed they did so to keep you away from the Harvesters. If you were part of a powerful Fey family  -  "

I laughed, but it sounded bitter. "My welfare was not foremost in Father's mind."

I sat up and found that I could move with no trouble except for a little stiffness. Someone had put me in a white nightgown liberally trimmed with lace  -  not my style  -  but I didn't feel like complaining. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at poor, beat-up Heidar. Normally, I didn't like talking about my family history, but under the circumstances, I thought it might be relevant.

"My father was always too ambitious for his own good, especially in politics," I said, grimacing a little at the understatement. "When he discovered that Jonas Marsden, the mage who headed up the Great Council, was retiring, he decided he would have the top spot himself or die trying." It ended up the latter, but the prize glittered so brightly that it had blinded him to the risks.

The Council is the ruling body of the Silver Circle, which controls the actions of the entire western hemisphere's magical community. Whoever leads it wields more power than the U.S. president, the Secretary General of the U.N. and a few prime ministers thrown in for good measure  -  with the added bonus of fewer checks on his behavior. In return for me, the Fey promised to help Father's campaign with a little timely blackmail. It seemed that his chief opponent would have also sold his firstborn for power, if he hadn't already done so for a seat on the Council. I think the Fey found it amusing that one candidate would tarnish another's name by committing the same sin himself  -  it fit their sense of irony.

"Sebastian convinced Father that only the Fey could insure his victory. And he only had one thing they wanted."

"You."

"Seb thought it would get me out of the way," I explained, "and clear the road for him to inherit the business. But I doubt he had to talk very hard. I'm almost six feet tall. I tower over the rest of the family like, as Father was fond of saying, the stork forgot to leave the baby and instead took up residence itself. Even worse, I'm a redheaded, green-eyed stork in a family of mostly short, brown-eyed branets." It was a fact constantly brought up by my relatives  -  assuming they were my relatives.

"And your mother?"

"Also short, although she was blonde."

"No, I mean, did she ever mention anything about having an... unusual encounter?"

"She died shortly after I was born  -  by falling down a flight of stairs she'd climbed safely a hundred times before. So I don't know much about her. All the family ever said was that she craved hot sauce the whole time she was carrying me." A little tidbit that seemed truly ironic now. "But no one ever mentioned a liaison with anyone tall, dark, and scaly."

Heidar laughed. He looked immediately contrite, but I shrugged. "It's all right. Obviously, it happened."

He raised a brow, then winced as if it had hurt. "You aren't happy to find out about your second nature."

I stared at him. "Happy?"

He sighed and got up, moving stiffly over to the bed. "That's what I thought."

"What part of turning into a monster is supposed to be good news?" I asked, incredulously.

"You aren't a monster, Claire," he told me patiently. "You're simply one of the Two-Natured. There's quite a few of us around, what with all the inbreeding with humans that has taken place over the years. I'm half Light Fey, half human myself."