Mother of Monsters: Urban Magick & Folklore, #4

By C. Gockel

Once upon a time Beowulf defeated the bloodthirsty Vampire Grendel in the worst possible way … he captured her heart. 

 

Grendel has mixed feelings about this. Beowulf is as brave and self-sacrificing as he is arrogant and stubborn. She fears his idealism will be his undoing, and maybe hers as well.

 

After freeing enslaved Ember miners, Beowulf and Grendel are escorting the former captives on a desperate dash to safety, traveling deeper into Beowulf's homeland, where Vampires are staked on sight.

 

Unknown to Grendel or even Beowulf, greater dangers than slave traders or Vampire hunters wait for them. Dangers neither of then can begin to imagine.

 

A new human king is rising, with dreams of empire. A Fae King sees a great game afoot and won't be denied a play. Meanwhile, the trickster God Coyote has motives of his own.

 

Grendel and Beowulf will have choices to make. Choices larger than the life and unlife of a Vampire hunter and a Vampire … Choices that will affect mortals and gods, living and dead.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Gockel
• Release date: Apr 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215677599

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Grendel’s front door burst open. Beowulf rushed in, a streetlight haloing his sun-bleached hair, the expression in his dark eyes deadly. He wore the armor of his Order, a sort of SWAT meets cyber-Magick-punk affair that blurred with the world around him. He’d pulled the hood back, and she could see his face. She wouldn’t have needed to see him to recognize him. The sound of his Magick, ocean waves pounding the shore, echoed through her basement apartment.

Grendel rose from her cozy chair. Leaving him had been the hardest thing she’d done in her unlife. He’d been what had kept her going in the caves, the only light in darkness too deep for Vampire eyes. The first blood he’d given her had been to save his own life, but later … later, it had been something else. She remembered his kiss, and her mouth watered and skin heated.

God, she’d missed him. Her home felt empty without him, even though the last time he’d been here, he’d almost killed her. He had a stake in his hand. He might try to kill her again.

She should be afraid or angry. Instead, her heart leapt. Bayo, she whispered. Somehow, his gaze did not connect with hers.

A woman whispered, So this is him, in a voice as soft as starlight. Mizuki, Grendel’s adopted granddaughter, rose from her own chair, her body clothed in a yukata-inspired dress with a starscape pattern—shimmering, semi-translucent, and fading. Only her pale face and almond eyes, sparkling beneath straight dark bangs, appeared solid.

Mizuki’s Magickal talent was not invisibility.

Grendel’s skin prickled. Her gaze slid over the fading Mizuki to Bayo, still standing by the door, scanning her apartment. She glanced at the room’s only Magickal adornment, a window-sized tapestry. Normally, it displayed the scene outside her home: a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood of bustling Magickal Chicago. Now it displayed thunderclouds over a shattered slope. The low, forested, rolling mountains around the slope suggested West Virginia or maybe Eastern Kentucky. Grendel recognized the place—it was where slaves mined Ember, the source of the Magickal world’s power. She’d helped Beowulf liberate the mine’s laborers and then …

And then … She hadn’t left him.

She closed her eyes. She’d gotten aboard a train with him. A train taking them deeper into the United Magickal States, where the passengers, former slaves, could receive medical care. In the United Magickal States, they staked Vampires without trial or remorse. She’d gone with him because humans from her homeland rode with them. She needed to make sure they reached their destination and received the medical care they needed.

The starving, sick, and injured miners weren’t the only reason she’d boarded the train. She’d come aboard because of Bayo, Beowulf, the Nemesis of her namesake. The mine was an evil place. Memories of it had haunted her for hundreds of years. Bayo had destroyed it but had almost killed himself in the process. He’d looked like death warmed over this morning. She hadn’t been able to leave him like that.

But then, how was she here?

This is a dream, Grendel said, comprehension dawning.

"Yes, but I am here with you," Mizuki said, one of her delicate hands solidifying and touching Grendel’s. Her light, cool touch tugged at Grendel’s heart. Mizuki’s Magickal talent was controlling dreams, and a consequence of that talent was that she could enter the dreams of others at will. She was the saddest and loneliest of Grendel’s adopted family. The most lost. The most generous. Grendel hated to see her fade.

"I know where you are, Grendel—we know where you are, Mizuki said, her words fast and urgent. Penelope found you in her threads."

Grendel nodded in understanding. Penelope, another one of her adopted grandchildren, had woven the Magickal tapestry on Grendel’s wall. Penelope could focus on someone dear to her and capture their present in the threads of her weavings.

Grendel, I need you, Bayo whispered.

Oh, said Mizuki, her focus shifting to Bayo. Her eyes went wide.

Grendel looked, too. Bayo still frantically scanned Grendel’s basement abode. Behind him loomed shadowy figures with empty eyes. They wore gray military uniforms that Grendel did not recognize.

Flinging aside his stake, Bayo spun, slammed her door shut, and bolted every lock. Pounding came from the other side. The door trembled. Pressing his body against it, Bayo shouted, Grendel!

Mizuki squeezed Grendel’s hand. "Go to him. He’s here."

In the dream? Grendel asked.

Yes! Mizuki said.

Sprinting to the door, Grendel flung her body next to Bayo’s. The door shook against her side. Is this my nightmare or his? she asked.

Mizuki whispered over her shoulder, His. Grendel, I can’t stay. We’re trying to help you in real life. Find a mirror!

Mizuki left them then. Grendel knew without looking. While Mizuki had been in the dream, there’d been light, ambient music, the sort that came from electric synthesizers. Synthesizers had vanished years ago. During the Change, when Ember had swept the world, all electronic devices had failed, and Magick had returned. When Mizuki left the dream, the dreamy score vanished with her. Grendel’s stomach fell at the loss. She wished with a frightening intensity that she’d been able to introduce Bayo to a member of her family. But Bayo hadn’t seen Mizuki.

His eyes shot side to side, unseeing and fearful. Grendel gulped. He couldn’t see her, either. Beowulf’s name meant War Wolf, and he was never afraid—not when captured by slave traders, trapped in a cave-in, facing horrific beasts, certain death, or a small army alone and unarmed.

Keeping her side pressed to the door, Grendel focused on him, willing him to see her. Bayo, Grendel said.

He didn’t react.

The door shook and groaned. Grendel swallowed. Who were the shadow-men pounding at the door? The uniforms they wore suggested military, but she didn’t recognize them from the armies of Earth or any other realm.

She gritted her teeth. It didn’t matter. Bayo! she said. This is a dream!

Grendel? he said, cocking his head, as though hearing a distant sound.

He heard her! I’m here.

He leaned sideways against the door and finally met her gaze. "You are here," he said. The door shook and groaned. Near the bottom, a piece of it cracked, broke off, and skittered across the floor.

Grendel nodded cautiously. Bayo’s eyes slid to the trembling door. This is a nightmare, he said. His brow furrowed. His jaw got hard. It isn’t real.

He stepped away from the door and scowled fiercely at it, his body tight as a bow.

A hair-raising wail echoed from the other side, and the door shuddered. The locks rattled, and Grendel feared they’d snap from the wall.

Snarling, Bayo held out a hand and dipped his chin. His Magick roared, and the veins in his neck bulged. He made a cutting motion … and the pounding abruptly stopped. After a moment, his shoulders relaxed. He cocked his head, expression a little arrogant, a little brash, definitely more himself. I knew if I found you … His voice trailed off. Looking uncertain again, he blinked at her.

Stepping forward, he shook his head, as though shaking away a troublesome mosquito. And then he grinned. Capturing her in his arms, he pressed his forehead to hers. Grendel, he rumbled. He pulled her tight. She felt his embrace along the length of her body as electricity and heat, lust and life … Which was very unfortunate. She stifled a grumble. Not only was he a Vampire hunter from a nation that hated hers, but the weird Order he belonged to took vows of celibacy. He’d admitted to breaking that vow before, but that didn’t make her more comfortable. Granted, he’d taken that vow under duress as a child—how could you make any choices about your future sexuality before you even knew what sex was?—but vows were vows until you renounced them, and people often hated the object of their inconvenient desires. She feared he’d blame her for the attraction that flared between them.

More than attraction, Bayo whispered, as though reading her mind.

His lips brushed her neck, and she bit her own lip to keep from gasping.

I could never hate you. He pressed a kiss to her pulse point. Never hurt you. His lips trailed down to the space where her shoulder met her neck. Never. His arms tightened around her, his hands slid down her back, and Grendel felt warm and more alive than she had in two centuries.

I need you, Grendel, he whispered.

Grendel’s body shuddered. She wanted to hold on to the dream and make it go on forever—outside of the dream was the world, cold and dangerous. They’d rescued thousands of people from what had been essentially a concentration camp for at least a century. It had operated at the borders of the United Magickal States, and Bayo and his government hadn’t known about the use of forced labor. In a world without electricity, where trolls hid under bridges, and other Magickal creatures haunted streams, forests, and mountains, the free flow of information was next to impossible. But for such a camp to have existed for so long without being widely known, meant people in power locally had gone to great lengths to keep it hidden. Those people would strike back as soon as they were able. She had to be ready …

Bayo’s hands slid down and around the backs of her thighs. He lifted her into his arms, and her legs automatically wrapped around his waist. Bayo rumbled deep in his throat, and she felt it in her bones. She felt complete, like she was truly home …

… and then she had a terrifying thought.

In the real world, he was lying next to her. She’d still been missing him. In a dream.

She couldn’t even be without him in a damn dream.

Oh, Unbloody Hell.

CHAPTER 2

Bayo jolted awake without knowing why. A weight curled against his side. It took a moment, but then he remembered. Grendel. He’d fallen asleep with his head pillowed against her breast, in a tiny, windowless compartment in the caboose of the Ember train. Somehow, they’d switched places. He trailed fingers through the air by her temple, not touching her but the Ember between them. At peace in sleep beyond dreams, her head resting on his shoulder, she trusted him. It made his chest ache. He didn’t deserve such trust. He’d contemplated killing her and leaving her behind. She excused all of that as a failure of intel.

He closed his eyes and absorbed her peace, wishing only a little that she would dream of Christmas time again. There’d been a different sort of peace in that dream, a sort of completeness Bayo had never experienced. He wanted it again.

The train shook. Bayo put a protective hand over Grendel’s head. What was happening?

Bayo reached out and touched the ambient Ember surrounding him. Letting his consciousness follow it past the sick, the weary, and the suicidal, he seized on the emotions of the alert, the ready, the waiting—the men and women who’d been well enough to help liberate the Ember mine. Bayo sensed no panic or immediate danger in them.

The world shook again, and he realized the train had jerked into motion. In machines powered by Ember, Ember worked its way into the gears and gave the machines personality as they aged. But he’d overheard the miners saying the engine was young and easy to control, and it hadn’t protested its new masters. He’d been in no position to notice. They’d been finishing up loading when he’d collapsed with Grendel at sunrise, exhausted from the effort of helping to heal the sick and bringing a dead man back to life.

… He’d brought a man back to life. It evoked equal amounts of awe and terror in him, like standing at the edge of a cliff or like kissing a Vampire.

The train jerked again. Even if there was no danger at the moment, there would be soon. At least one of the mine’s Magickal overseers had escaped. Pulling the ambient Ember to him, he snapped his fingers. A small Magickal spark leapt into the air and hovered there. He glanced down at Grendel, who wore the same clothes she’d worn through the caves. The Folkt had cleaned and mended them, but they’d been soiled again when they’d freed the mines. Still, her milky pale skin and silver hair gleamed. She’d bathed in Hart Hall, the mine headquarters. Bayo grimaced. He hadn’t. Grime coated the back of his neck and his waist, where dirt had worked its way between the segments of his armor.

Bayo extricated his arm from beneath Grendel. She didn’t stir. Awake, she could destroy men, Magickal and Common alike. Asleep, she was more helpless than a kitten. He should know. He’d killed plenty of sleeping Vampires. She had slept with her head pillowed on his arm. The heat of pride and desire rushed through him.

His Order had an explanation for the desire. Vampires always resembled the most perfect specimens of their sex. They de-aged to appear at the peak of fertility. Their facial features rearranged to be achingly perfect in their symmetry. Grendel hadn’t de-aged completely—her long hair was silver white, and delicate lines crisscrossed the skin at the corners of her eyes, around her mouth, and between her brows—but her heart-shaped face and features were close to that devastating symmetry.

According to his Order’s Doctrine, she was evil. Yet she’d helped Bayo liberate the mines knowing, or at least suspecting, that he planned to stake her as soon as the job was done.

Not all Doctrine was true. He’d known that for a long time.

He frowned. Some of the miners longed for suicide. They recognized her for what she was: Death. They’d called to her, begging her to take them from their misery. Doctrine hadn’t told him the dying did that. Suicide was wrong … what did that make Grendel?

The train jerked again. Something shifted at Bayo’s feet, and he felt a faint stirring of Magick very close. Bayo experienced Magick as taste. This Magick tasted like a wet dog smelled. Nose wrinkling, he blinked and noticed a small dog with long white fur, its tongue hanging from the side of its mouth by Grendel’s feet. Bayo vaguely recalled Grendel calling the creature Mop. His memories were cloudy, but he thought he remembered some miners suggesting they eat the dog. Someone had fed the creature well. Its body was round, and its fur was lustrous and thick. The same masters that had spoiled the dog had starved the miners. Mop wasn’t Magickal, but Bayo couldn’t quite identify where the Magick he tasted came from. Maybe someone had enchanted the dog with charm or luck to keep it from being eaten?

Gazing at Bayo with trusting, slightly crossed eyes, Mop thumped his tail. His tongue sagged further; his consciousness was a vague blur. Bayo sighed. Whatever enchantment the dog had didn’t make it charming. Maybe lucky? Grendel seemed protective of the tiny, useless creature.

The train lurched again. The compartment was for luggage, and not quite high enough for Bayo to sit up in. Bayo found a latch near the floor. Twisting it, Bayo lifted the hatch slightly and gazed out into a dim hallway without direct sunlight to sizzle Grendel’s flesh. Bayo turned to Mop. Stay, he ordered. He detected no comprehension in the Ember, but the dog didn’t move, either. The lucky creature got to stay with Grendel.

Slipping from the compartment, Bayo left them both, for the first time in his life determined to keep a Vampire safe in daylight.

The caboose’s walls, doors, hatches, and furniture were made of wood stained a warm brown. Latches, doorknobs, and handholds were brass. A shower and toilet were across from the storage compartment. Down the hall, sleeping miners crowded into bunks, three high on either side. Emaciated shoulders, knees, and elbows jutted sharply beneath clothing they’d stolen from Hart Hall. Past the bunks, booths sat against one wall, also filled, the occupants slumped over, also asleep. Dim light filtered in from windows covered by silky curtains—he must not have slept very long; the sun hadn’t even risen yet. At the very far end of the caboose, a brass EXIT sign marked a door. Making his way to it, he felt the train’s wheels clattering over the tracks. He checked the Ember and sensed the presence of two miners just outside the door, awe swelling in their chests. They’d probably expected to die in the mines, reason enough for awe. He stepped out onto a small balcony, vaguely aware of the miners’ respectful nods and the whoosh of the wind, his attention on the sky. The light was wrong. The sun should have been rising on his right, but though the sky was cloudless, it was dark. Storm clouds loomed to the west, just over the peaks of the mountains next to the tracks. Rain fell on that side in a visible curtain. Lightning flashed, and thunder cracked a heartbeat later.

Your doing, sir? one of the men asked.

What? Bayo focused on the man and found a boy, instead, with narrow shoulders and barely a shadow of stubble on his upper lip and chin. Unease flickered across the boy’s face.

The boy lifted his rifle in the direction of the clouds. You didn’t make the storm?

The other miner, a man somewhere between thirty and fifty, with weathered skin and sunken cheeks, said, It can’t be natural, can it?

Bayo licked his lip and tasted ozone and Ember. He didn’t know any Magickal in this region strong enough to create storms, but he hadn’t known there were two Magickals creating earthquakes, either.

The man gazed at the cloudy sky. Our enemies would be coming from that way, but mudslides start easy in these parts. The storm is protecting us.

Bayo gazed at the rain so heavy it fell like a dark curtain. The Storm King could create such a storm, but he was 500 miles away. It can’t be Magickal, Bayo whispered. Maybe the ozone he tasted came from the combination of lightning and the ambient Ember from the mine.

Huh, said the man.

Wasn’t you who put those guys to sleep, either? the boy asked, shifting on his feet.

What guys? Bayo asked.

The man spit over the side. The spittle whipped away in the train’s wake like snow. After dawn, transport of guys in standard issue military gear came down the road. Didn’t have standard insignia on them, though. Travers thinks they purchased it off market—

Bayo’s jaw got hard at the mention of Travers, the miners’ Common leader. Grendel liked him. Bayo didn’t.

The man continued. They were armed with these. He lifted his weapon. Nice, yeah?

Bayo lifted an eyebrow, studied it, and nodded.

The man shook his head and went on, All of ‘em fell asleep.

Fell asleep? Bayo asked.

The boy nodded vigorously. The transport stopped, just out of range. Patting his binoculars, he spoke almost too fast to be understood. It was an open transport, and I saw them all, front and back. I told Travers that they’d all slumped over, right where they sat. The driver. Everyone. Travers said it had to be Magick. The train wasn’t going nowhere at that point; Doc, she was operating on some who couldn’t be moved. So we went to investigate. Didn’t want them to wake up on us, did we? Travers wouldn’t let no one kill any of them, though some wanted to. But we took their weapons and their rations. He took out a candy bar, all but a tiny corner intact, and beamed. Doc said I was well enough. Tastes amazing. Too sweet and rich to eat fast, though.

They were asleep, Bayo repeated dumbly.

You didn’t do it, said the man. Huh.

Another part of the conversation clicked. The transport had arrived just after dawn? What time is it? Bayo asked. How could all that have happened in a few hours?

Late afternoon, said the boy.

Bayo blinked. He’d slept the entire day.

The man straightened. The Lady is awake. Turning, he started toward the door.

It took a moment for Bayo to realize he was talking about Grendel, and a moment more to appreciate what was happening. Those that wished to die sensed Grendel’s presence and sought her out. Bayo couldn’t allow it. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder. Stay here, Bayo commanded.

The man shot him an angry glare, and the Ember hummed with despair and desperation. I watched them kill my wife and girl, he snarled. Bayo gaped. The man had understood Bayo’s motivation. Surprise morphed to fury in Bayo’s stomach—his fury, or the man’s, or both. You can’t give up now, Bayo insisted.

The man’s gaze didn’t soften.

You must protect this boy, Bayo said.

Lightning flashed over the mountains. Thunder roared. The wheels clacked on the track for a moment that stretched too long. At last, the man nodded. He turned back to the storm that protected the train and concealed the setting sun.

Shoulders loosening, Bayo entered the caboose. Lightning flashed through the cracks in the curtains. Grendel stood at the far side of the car, white hair and pale skin ghostly in the lightning’s cold light, her eyes glowing. Thunder boomed. Grendel blinked, slipped on a pair of spectacles that disguised the glow of her eyes, and went from demonic to bookish and charming. Bayo closed the space between them.

You’ve got military training, Grendel said, tension visible along every inch of her body. How will the train be attacked?

Her tension would not be helpful in a fight. Good evening to you, too, Bayo said, teasing her to make that tension go away.

Grendel scowled at him. Her concern for the humans aboard the train coupled with her vexation with him for not being serious was so incongruous with everything he’d witnessed in Vampires and everything the Order had taught him—he almost laughed aloud. He held it back and didn’t hug her, either. Instead, he told her what she needed to know. Track sabotage, Bayo said. The mine owners had already tried the direct approach. His brow furrowed, remembering the tale of sleeping soldiers.

Grendel’s eyes widened a fraction. I can slip into the out-of-time and check the tracks. I should get going.

Lightning illuminated the car again, and Bayo caught her just before she turned away. "Is this storm your donor—your friend Jack’s doing? he asked, venom dripping off his words. The Storm King," he clarified, as though that would cover it up.

Grendel tilted her head. For the last twenty-five years, Jack’s avoided provoking the United Magickal States with a direct assault.

Bayo could sense lies. She wasn’t lying. Nor had she answered the question. And yet, he sensed some hesitancy. Could he create a storm from 500 hundred miles away?

Grendel’s eyes searched his, the Ember between them heavy with sorrow. She was so close he could drop his lips to hers, and yet he felt like she was slipping away. Not that I know of.

Again, no lie. Bayo squeezed her hand. Could he put a transport full of troops asleep?

Surprise flickered in the Ember, and then Grendel smiled and actually laughed. No, he couldn’t do that. Inexplicable joy surged through the Ember. It dissipated quickly. We’d better go, Grendel said, pulling from his grip.

He let her slip away.

CHAPTER 3

Jack had sent the storm, and Mizuki had put the soldiers to sleep. Grendel was certain. Both claimed their power didn’t extend further than the city limits, but Grendel knew better. They might not have as much power or control at greater distances, but twenty-five years ago, Jack had made it snow in the capital. As for the sleeping soldiers, Grendel didn’t doubt Mizuki could manage a few men in a small space. As Grendel exited the caboose, she mouthed, Well done, Jack and Granddaughter, well done, hoping Penelope captured the silent words in her threads. Bayo was on her heels—he couldn’t see her hushed praise. It was for the best. Mizuki and Jack’s actions could be construed as acts of war. And worse, Bayo despised them for actions in the past that hadn’t happened, or he misunderstood.

Reaching the front door of the caboose, she frowned. She didn’t have time to teach him the truth about the people he regarded as monsters, and she regarded as family.

A sly, tiny voice inside her snickered. Monstrous children for the monster.

Skin heating, she pushed the voice aside and opened the door. And then