Page 77 of Fallen Heirs

My gut twisted at his words.

While I knew it needed to be done, that things had to be this way right now, it didn’t take away the pain of the coming separation. Especially when it had been bad enough that we’d been without Orpheus lately.

I took comfort in the fact that it was just temporary and also that what we were doing here would finally end this war, take out Constantine, and give us our lives back.

19

~Talon~

A new incarnation of Obsidian.

That was what Ore had called it.

But that didn’t even begin to do it justice.

We’d found out why Ore hadn’t been trackable while he’d been out here. It existed within a pocket dimension, something he’d created to keep it off everyone’s radar while he’d been developing it.

Apparently, he’d been working on it for weeks.

He hadn’t actually been up at theExemplarcompound each time he’d left Abigail’s house for hours on end. He’d been splitting his time between there and here.

Herebeing a compound in its own right.

Although, Ore called it a base of operations.

There were blocks of multi-story concrete buildings all with a purple hue emanating from them, signaling they’d been created by his magic. They surrounded a large courtyard where I took in former professor, Edgar Marlowe conducting a training session with at least three hundred beings, a mix of magic-wielders, vampires, werewolves, Light Fae and even Dark Fae.

Beyond that was a larger two-story gray stone building with arched double entrance doors, where Ore was leading me and Xavier to now. Apparently it was thehubof the operation.

“This is a hell of a thing,” Xavier said, as he took in everything like I was as we made our way around the training session, Marlowe and Ore exchanging a chin lift as we went.

“It’s coming along,” Ore said. “More recruits are coming in every day.”

“I can’t believe you did all of this,” I uttered.

“Without telling us too,” X added.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,”Ore told us. “Besides, I needed it off the ground first to see if the idea was even viable. Not to mention, before bringing you in on it, I needed things to be stable, for everyone to be back on solid ground again.”

“And you had your own doubts too because you were shaken up,” X pointed out.

“That too.”

“So going to the DFR helped to alleviate that then?”

“There was some of that, especially regarding coming to terms with my mother’s involvement. But mostly it was to get my father’s take on this new incarnation ofObsidian.He understands the political landscape better than I do from centuries of operating within it—and outside of it. He’s experienced the pitfalls of going againstExemplar.And that’s not what I’m going to do here.Obsidianwill aim to work alongside them. A militarized force that can go where they can’t, can do and act in ways they can’t because of the burden of all their bureaucracy, all the rules and procedures weighing them down.Exemplarwill no longer deal with active threats, it will manage the supernatural world, dealing with day-to-day issues. But the rest, issues like Constantine, will be dealt with byObsidian.My father believes the best way to ensureObsidianisaccepted is to demonstrate what its capable of first, to have that beingExemplar’sintroduction to it.”

“And is that what you’re going to do?” I asked.

“No. I’m going to meet with Elliot to discuss it with him. Only him. I respect what he’s trying to do, but he is weighed down by all the rest. Still, I don’t want to go aroundhim.But after we talk and I reveal what I’ve created, there will then be a show of force against the enemy.”

We made it into the central quarters and Ore took a sharp right that led through an open doorway and to a stone staircase.

As we made our way down, X asked, “How are you going to produce a show of force against the enemy when we have no idea where Constantine is?”

“We may not currently know whereheis, but we do know where a unit of his new acolytes are based and waiting on their orders from him.”

“How? The only potential lead we had was from that unit of vampire acolytes that Alena and I found, which you then sent along toExemplarthat night.”

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