Courts and Cabals 2 by G.S. D'Moore (best novel books to read .txt) 📕

it open to see a space of light and shadow. Light flooded in through the high, stained-glass windows; a rainbow of hues crisscrossed rotten pews that were collapsing in on themselves, but all light abruptly stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to the altar. Aveena felt for wards, but found none, so she carefully stepped over the threshold.

Bang. The door swung shut behind her and made her jump. A small laugh echoed from deep within the altar’s shadow.

“This is like a shitty Halloween movie,” Aveena tried to remain calm. “The person who goes alone into the creepy church always gets killed by the guy with the chainsaw.”

There was no rumble of someone starting up such a device; not that it would cut her anyway, but that didn’t stop the coldness that crept into her bones.

“I’ve got a job for you,” she said, more confident than she felt, “Van Helsing.”

As if the name was the magic word, the light penetrated the barrier around the altar. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back to Aveena, was the person the noble Fae had come to see. She wore loose, white karate gi pants. Her back was bear except for the thin strap of her sports bra. The thin strip of latex did nothing to hide the tattoo of three, concentric rings covering the majority of her back. Each ring had what looked like chicken scratch etched into it. Seeing the symbology was enough for Aveena to know she’d made a horrible mistake. You didn’t enter the den of a sleeping bear and punch it in the nose. She wanted to run screaming from the room. Only the thought of her mother’s battle axe coming down on her neck kept her rooted in place.

In comparison to the Fae, humans only had an adolescent understanding of magic. Most people thought that was because the Revelation was less than forty years ago. The Fae let people believe that; but the old mage families knew better. For millennia, the Fae had financed a magical cleansing of humanity. People today would call it genocide, but to the Fae, it was simple strategy: you wanted to keep your enemy weak.

Aveena had nothing to do with that policy, but the woman sitting in front of her was from one of the bloodlines that had survived the historical purges. When the Fae infiltrated Christianity, and brought about the Inquisition, this woman’s family had survived. In the last few centuries, they’d even thrived. The stories about the Van Helsings were about as true as the old myths and legends concerning supernaturals; mostly wrong, but with a few sprinkles of truth.

The part they got right was that the Van Helsings were monster hunters. They’d hunted just about everything the supernatural world could throw at humanity; and if Aveena wasn’t mistaken, the woman in front of her had some of her family’s ancient foes tattooed in a half-sleeve between her left shoulder and elbow. There were shifters, vampires, Fae of all sorts, and in a place of prominence . . . a dragon.

What the stories got wrong was that the Van Helsings weren’t just your average humans; they were mages, extremely powerful mages. Thus, Aveena’s fear of the chicken scratch.

It might not look like much, but what looked like a drunken tattoo artist’s epic failure was actually the source code of this realm’s magical power. That was why the Fae had been periodically eradicating humanity’s magical population. If humans didn’t know the language of their magic, they were the next best thing to weak and helpless. The Van Helsings knew how to manipulate the magic of this realm better than just about every other mage alive; at the same level, or better, than most Fae could in their home realm.

As far as Aveena’s intelligence was concerned; the Van Helsings were one of five bloodlines that retained the knowledge. It made them incredibly formidable; and if the rumors were true, they were able to pass down the family’s collective knowledge through a blood ritual. So, the woman sitting by the alter in front of Aveena might just be a human mage, but she had the accumulated magical knowledge of her entire family dating back millennia. That combination of power and knowledge gave the noble Fae pause.

Today, what made other Fae hesitate, drove Aveena forward.

“Speak, child,” the woman’s derogatory tone made Aveena bite her tongue until it bled, but she didn’t lash out. “What do you want?”

“I want you to kill someone,” Aveena stated, and the woman laughed. Not the single laugh from before, but a full-throated holler that made birds take flight and rats skitter away.

“And why should I kill anyone for you, Fae?”

Van Helsing turned to regard Aveena. She wasn’t old, but she wasn’t young. She’d lost the glow of youth and replaced it with the forged steel of experience, patience, and willpower. She was also fucking ripped. An eight-pack, defined biceps and triceps underneath the tattoos, and veins that popped all over her body. More chicken scratch encircled her neck like a garrot, and when she blinked, there were even symbols etched into her eyelids. She looked like a super-scary badass that should be part of some fringe group living in the mountains plotting the downfall of the government.

That was another thing that stories didn’t get completely right about the famous family. Sure, they killed monsters, but there was a skewed motivation behind that. The Van Helsings were the type of people who fervently supported the WRA. They disliked anything non-human at a very deep level, and their ideology was ironclad; no room for negotiation or mercy. Aveena wasn’t going to go around calling them speciesists; but they clearly thought the only beings that mattered were humans. The Fae ranked above vampires, werewolves, dragonspawn, and other half-breeds the Van Helsings detested; but not by much. Certainly not enough for her to take Aveena’s