“Add comic book hero to your list, Ambassador,” Councilman Sullivan grinned. “They even stole the name.”
“They probably had the name first, Councilman,” Alex smirked. “Maybe Stan Lee stole it from them.”
“And then... what was the next clans?” I asked Alex before we got off on a superhero tangent.
“Flame,” Alexis offered. “They create fire and can direct it. Then there's Tide; they're water witches. They can breathe underwater and some of them can control water too. Oh! And some turn into seals but they're not considered Pack because of the water thing.”
“Uh huh,” I grimaced and looked toward Tiernan. “Seals huh?”
“Selkies,” Tiernan growled.
“Damn but you guys get around,” another extinguisher commented.
“We can't help it if you humans find us irresistible,” Conri smirked and then gave a female extinguisher a wink.
“Did you learn anything else?” I ignored the banter and focused on the twins. “What about the last clans?”
“Quake,” Alex leaned forward eagerly, “can control the energy within soil and they can cause earthquakes or even volcanic eruptions.”
“Wonderful,” I rolled my eyes.”
“Last there's Beckoning,” Alexis swallowed hard and went a little pale. “The most powerful of them all.”
“Beckoning?” I frowned, wondering what that referred to. What exactly were they beckoning?
“Necromancers,” Alex whispered. “They speak to the dead and...”
“And?” I urged him.
“They can bring them back,” Alexis shivered. “They bring the dead back to life. Except it's not really life, it's decay and slavery. Zombies. Rotting corpses with a soul trapped inside, doing the bidding of the witch who brought them back.”
The room went silent.
“Not possible,” Tiernan whispered. “No one can do that. Not any fairy or human. They didn't inherit that from us.”
“We may not have fairies who can raise the dead,” Raza mused, “but there are those closely connected with death. Like the bean-nighes, bean-sidhes, nuckelavees, or dullahans.”
I shivered, remembering my first sight of a nuckelavee; a type of water-horse with a human torso attached to it. It did kinda resemble a zombie, with its veins and muscles exposed. They were much more gruesome than the bean-nighe; washer women who clean the bloody clothes of those fated to die. The bean-sidhe were more vocal versions of the washers, crying out to foretell death. But the dullahan was probably the closest match to zombie magic. I'd never met one but reputedly, they were the original headless horsemen, carrying their severed head under an arm. They are death bringers, calling out the name of those about to die, but they are also living monuments to death; riding around with a wagon adorned with and made out of macabre objects. Candles in skulls, thigh bones for wheel spokes, that sort of thing. It wasn't a far stretch to hypothesize that their magical connection to death be altered into reanimation.
“Sweet Danu,” Gradh whispered. “Who in their right mind would shag a dullahan?”
“Or a bean-nighe. I've met a few bean-sidhes I wouldn't mind spending the night with but those bean-nighe are pretty hideous,” Conri shivered dramatically. “I can't stand the whole one tooth thing.”
“Bean-nighes?” Ainsley huffed. “What about nuckelavees? Disgusting. And how? I mean, does anyone know how the nuckelavee reproduce? Is the working member on the human torso or the horse,” he waved his hand near his crotch. “That would be fatal for a woman, wouldn't it?”
“Unless it was a human male with a female nuckelavee,” Ian mused.
“Oh please stop,” Teagan groaned.
“Most likely, it was not consensual,” Raza said grimly.
“Sweet Danu,” I whispered as my stomach lurched.
“She had nothing to do with it,” Raza declared.
“Who's having sex with a female nuckelavee?” Eadan Gale, Lord of the Wild Hunt, asked as he came into the library. “Never mind, I don't want to know,” he waved his hand dismissively and then gave me bow. “Greetings, Princess Seren. Greetings, Lord Raza,” he bowed to Raza, “and Your Countness,” Eadan smiled wide at Tiernan before leaning forward to shake Tiernan's hand.
“Lord Eadan,” Tiernan stood to reach over the table towards Eadan. “It's good to see you. How was the trip?”
