tenuous at best. In fact his only qualification, at that time, was his ruthlessness. Moncoya and his sidhes infiltrated the residence of the former king during a celebration. In the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping, they rose up and slaughtered any who did not support them, including the king. Until that time, violence was not the faerie way. The faeries were thrown into total disarray, and Moncoya took advantage of the ensuing chaos to impose his will on them. He has ruled by fear ever since.”
Stella made a winding motion with one finger. “Go back a bit. What is a sidhe?”
“If you picture the faeries as a nation, a bit like Britain, then there are many nationalities within it. The sidhes make up the majority of the population. They are the ‘little people’ of Celtic legend.” Stella thought of Moncoya, who was just above her own height. “They are endowed with incredible physical beauty and are able to coexist with humans. Traditionally faeries have had the ability to shape-shift, but Moncoya frowns on it as it doesn’t fit with his modernizing ideals. Although Moncoya was elevated to the faerie gentry when he took the throne, he is a sidhe and he surrounds himself with loyal fellow sidhes.”
“So the party people at La Casa Oscura...?” Stella supposed she already knew the answer.
“Sidhes. They are Moncoya’s bodyguards.”
“I don’t understand how he can be the Ezra Moncoya he is in this world and also be the faerie king. You don’t get to build up one of the greatest games empires in the world without putting the hours in. If he has to keep dashing off to rule his faerie empire in Otherworld, I just can’t see how he manages it.”
Cal grinned. “It’s called magic. And Moncoya has such an iron grip on the faeries, he has no real opposition to his rule. He also has a very powerful weapon at his disposal...his two consorts.”
“Isn’t a consort like a queen? Does that mean he has two wives?”
“No. In Moncoya’s case his consorts are his daughters. He has trained his twin daughters, Tanzi and Vashti, to be his most powerful weapons.”
“What I don’t understand is why, if he has all this power over the faeries, he would want a presence here. Why bother with the pretense of being mortal at all, let alone this sexy, high-profile celebrity persona Moncoya has deliberately cultivated?”
Cal turned his head and gazed out the window for a moment. The plane was beginning its descent and, looking past his profile, Stella could see the lights of the towns and villages below them. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and curiously regretful. “That’s where you come in, Stella.”
“Finally.”
Cal turned back to look at her. “When I spoke of the beings who exist just beyond mortal sight, and who reside in the realm of Otherworld, there is one I did not mention. This one does not always choose to dwell in Otherworld. He, or she, will be born mortal and may, therefore, walk this mortal realm unnoticed. This, the most powerful of them all, is a rare and usually solitary being, with the ability to weave the most intricate of spells. Creating light within darkness, animating the bodies of the dead and exerting absolute control over the spirit realm. This being has no need of legions or battles, not when, with a single incantation, every undead entity within Otherworld and beyond will bow before this being in abject submission.”
Something about the solemnity of his expression made Stella’s heart flutter alarmingly. She tried to hide her nervousness by keeping her tone light. “Who is this being?”
“I’m speaking of the sorcerer known as a necromancer.” When she evinced no surprise, a slight frown creased his brow. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Sure have. Level Eight skills set. Very difficult to achieve. A couple of the guys in my halls at university managed it, but they were real stay-up-all-night-gaming geeks.” She laughed at his expression. “And you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
The frown vanished and he smiled in a slightly bemused, and utterly adorable, manner. “I really don’t.”
“‘Crypt Wars,’” Stella explained. When Cal still looked uncomprehending, she elaborated further. “It’s a computer game. Pretty basic stuff. You progress through the levels in turn and take on different forms as you do. The higher the level, the more powerful the being. Necromancer was Level Eight, just above fire-breathing dragons and just below carnivorous skeletons.”
“I’m not going to go into just how flawed that hierarchy is right now, but let me assure you that necromancers do exist outside the world of computer games. And necromancy is a spectrum, ranging from low-level skills such as conversing with the deceased to complete control over the undead, as I have described.”
“They do? How cool is that?” Stella fastened her seat belt. All around them the businesslike bustle of the plane preparing to land continued regardless of their strange conversation.
“Quite cool, until you realize the lengths to which each of these leaders would go in order to get a necromancer on their side.”
Stella thought carefully about it. “Oh, I see. If the vampire prince you mentioned, for instance, had a necromancer on his side, he could have a spell cast that would render Moncoya powerless to harm him. Powerless to do anything much at all, in fact.”
Cal shook his head. “Not quite. Moncoya is not undead, having never actually been alive in the mortal sense of the word. So, although a necromancer could have some control over him, it would not be absolute. The spell would work the other way around, however. If Moncoya got his hands on a necromancer, he could exert total control over the vampires, phantoms and therianthropes—or were-creatures as they have become known—within Otherworld as well as some of the lesser undead. It would also be possible, if necessary, to summon the earthly dead from their graves and raise an army of corpses. If Moncoya could do all of this, his dream of ruling all Otherworld would be realized.”
“A corpse army? How horrid!” Stella wrinkled her nose. “You said necromancers are rare, so I’m guessing none of the warring factions currently have one working with them.”
“Correct. You already have a very astute grasp of Otherworld politics, Stella. My sources tell me that Moncoya has uncovered the identity of possibly the most powerful necromancer of all time. The arrival of this unparalleled sorcerer was predicted centuries ago by another great necromancer, one whose very name has become enshrined in legend.”
“Who was that?”
“You would know him by the name he took during his time on earth. At that time, he called himself Merlin.”
“Well, yes. As sorcerers go, they don’t come much more well-known than Merlin,” Stella conceded. “You said necromancers are mortal, yet you just said he took the name Merlin here on earth. That implies he wasn’t human.”
“That’s because he wasn’t. Merlin was a hybrid. He was born of a mortal mother and a nonmortal father.”
“And there is really someone around today who Merlin predicted would come along and be this all-powerful necromancer? That’s mind-blowing stuff. I’m surprised he’s managed to keep it quiet. You’d think the press would be all over him like a rash. Talk about celebrity status.” Stella leaned across him as she spoke to look out the plane window. They were close enough to the ground now to see the lights of the individual cars, although, given that it was now the early hours of the morning, they were few and far between.
Cal’s
