Chapter 13

I was surprised at the Ace's answer but I knew I really shouldn't have been. He was my brother after all but he shouldn't be using Nil for his own gains. He's hurt too many people as it is with his selfish desires. Then again, according to my own memories so have I. Nil stood up looking down at the book and smiled ruefully at us.

"I'm going to read this a couple of times to see if I can find anything on my dad," he tapped the book lightly thinking of something else altogether. Walking towards the door, he opened the book and stopped. Frowning, he turned back to me.

"I'm going to need French lessons," he told us and held out the book in his hands to me. Confused, I took it from him and read the first few lines. It was in French which was weird for my brother to do. He never particularly liked them and neither had I. Flirty was one thing but some of them took it a little too far. Castor looked over my shoulder at it and sighed.

"He's showing you one of mine. The current queen at the time was from Paris and she always wanted to read what I was doing so I had to put it in story form so she couldn't read it. I couldn't give away my mission," He pointed out and Nil sighed.

"This is going to take a few months," he muttered but I reached out and grabbed his hand. Before he could say anything, I linked our minds and filled his neurons with the language as easily as if he had taken those few months to learn it. Why waste time? He wanted to find his father and I wanted to know what my brother was up to.

"Ouch," the Ace of Spades shook his head slowly trying to get the new knowledge to settle. Learning new things within the space of a few moments had constantly been a painful thing to do but the amount of pain depended on the person and the strength of the link of the two linking together. Nil, luckily, was the Ace and since we were close to begin with, we didn't have much of an issue.

"You might want to take a couple of aspirins before you begin," I offered and he simply nodded. His obedience reminded me of my teaching days and I felt the sudden hunger to just sit in a classroom again. Shaking the feeling off, I watched him leave and I turned to the Ace sitting next to me.

"You knew all along that you couldn't poison me," I stated watching his face. He shrugged and nodded.

"Of course, but I had to keep my distance in case you didn't remember this time. I've been with you for the past three thousand years but usually you never even showed signs of knowing who I really was and who my creator was. So I made sure I was able to find you at any point in time," he replied calmly.

"Elizabeth," I murmured and he grimaced.

"It was the only way I could have someone who would know who you were on sight. I honestly had no idea he would become so obsessed with her. He fancied himself in love but it was just my wishes imprinted on his brain. I didn't realize that it would lead to Shelia falling in love with him. That was completely unexpected," he scowled. Shocked at his admission, I looked down at my hands.

"So you effectively destroyed part of my current life and managed to break my heart all in one go," I stared at him waiting for him to answer. When he did, it was a soft apology.

"Would you like me to leave?" he stared quietly at me anticipating an affirmative reaction. Instead, I shook my head.

"No the first thing we need to do is find my brother. Shelia will only be where he is," I denied him his thoughts as I stood to start the search.

"We could probably get Kyle to talk to the spirits if we needed to and everyone could probably use their powers to find them," he offered and I stopped. It clicked. Staring at him with the sudden epiphany, I started to smile and before I knew it I was laughing so hard my stomach seemed to implode.

"That moron!" I grinned and reached out to find the very boy I was thinking of.

"Come here Cai. I've been thinking of you," I sent to his mind and he appeared before me in all his boyish charm. Before I could speak, he changed back to his old self and sheepishly smiled at me.

"Hey Julee lee," he muttered looking at the floor but I reached out and hugged him tightly.

"You idiot! You could've told me who you are! You had me worried!" I whacked his arm ecstatic at finding my brother. "Plus sending that dream to Nil was ingenious. It led him to actually say your name." I gestured to Castor sitting silently on the couch waiting for me to say something.

"Nil's dream? I didn't do that," he frowned thinking. Surprised, Shelia's mocking smile entered my mind and I sighed.

"Your wife's been up to her tricks then. No one else besides you, her and me can enter people's minds. The hearts may be able to read them but entering them is impossible. What's wrong?" I interrupted myself seeing his horrified face.

"She must've found out," he started running completely forgetting that he could pass through walls. Slamming the doors open, I followed him into the hallways and down the elevator. Bursting into the library, he stopped staring at empty space where Nil had so calmly studied the book before.

"What? Where's Nil?" I asked clutching his arm and he turned slowly towards me.

"Shelia has him," he gapped completely shocked by the turns of events.

"What would Shelia want with Nil? He's the Ace of Spades not a plant or you for that matter," my voice rose with panic as he turned away running a hand through his hair.

"Nil's the next best thing," he muttered.

"How? What aren't you telling me?" I demanded.

"Nil's the Gardener's son," Castor answered for him striding in the room and going over to where the boy had sat no more than five moments ago. Completely taken aback, I stared at my brother in shock.

"Cai, what is he talking about?" I asked levelly. He knew we couldn't have children. It was too risky. Our own parents had paid the price when we were born.

"I wasn't thinking and she looked so beautiful...she was so warm and amazing Julee lee. She made me feel better than even Shelia did. Rina was...I wanted her to be my wife but then Zekan came into the picture and I had to spy on him unless things got out of hand. I didn't know he would take away all of her memories. I just didn't realize Shelia could still be that angry. I thought she was alright after she had taken you away from me. I'm sorry Julia, I didn't think anything like this would happen," he pleaded under my fiery stare.

"Do you even understand how destructive you've made this poor kid's life? He's not just an Ace anymore but something at our level. If Shelia kills him, which I'll never forgive you or her for, then she'll be able to obtain a power that none of us have ever seen before. He doesn't even know it! He's gone through his entire existence believing that he'll be a normal kid with a genius mind and that everything will be ok! But it won't Cain! How many times do I have to tell you to not do anything like this? I just heard a few days ago about what you did to Castor! For the love of Heaven, Cain, can't you just once shut up and not screw something up?" my outburst left me steaming and angrier than before but it got through to him.

His white face stared down at his hands for a long moment before he looked back up at me with such a painful guilt that I almost felt bad for yelling at him. Almost. He did have over a thousand years to learn his lessons and so far he hadn't even learned the basic one. We can't meddle in the lives of humans. It isn't our job. We take the supernaturally inclined, train them, and let them do as they will. We don't let the world know of our existence, which we did when Shelia started the battle in the first place. We don't allow outsiders into our home and we sure as hell don't allow one of ours to screw up. Which he had done so totally and completely.

"What do we do?" his voice was small and he seemed to curl up into himself as he went into panic and guilt mode. He tended to do that when I reprimanded him.

"What we were supposed to do a long time ago. Kill Shelia. I held back because you loved her. So if you'll excuse me, I've got to find my nephew. Castor, let's go," I ordered and he left the room following my quick walk.

"I thought you would be happy to see the Gardener," he frowned watching my stride get longer as I mulled over Cai's latest screw up.

"Shelia wasn't even supposed to exist. She was the main cause of all of our problems because Cai couldn't help but want a family. So he created Shelia. He masqueraded her as a country girl, lied to me when he said he didn't know who she was, and then married her within a couple of years. Yes, I was thrilled to see him again because I love him and he's family but he always, always manages to do something to make my life a little bit harder," I fumed striding into my overly large apartment.

"How do you know he created Shelia?" he wondered curiously.

"He confessed after he married her. He promised me he wouldn't have kids so that they wouldn't have to go through anything like what we went through. My mother died giving birth to us and our father never forgave us. Out of the entire human population, which wasn't very large at the time, we were the most powerful beings on the planet. My mother's body wasn't able to handle containing three of them. One maybe but three was beyond any living things' limit. An elephant probably would've died the same way as my mother did and with the same issues. Believe me when I say I was raised with guilt as my conscience and I had to watch for my father's mood swings. He got angry fairly quickly. The ironic thing is that in this life it was the other way around. My father was the nurturing one and my mother thought I was the devil. To this day, I still have no idea where my father is, well, this life's father. I know exactly where my other father is. He's buried under three thousand tons of pure molten magma where I put him when he tried to rape me," I replied calming down remembering as I opened a door which had the appearance of a closet.

"What's in there?" He questioned staring at the door in mild confusion. I opened it and smiled. Inside was an enormous stone with a girl floating quietly on the inside.

"This is my sister. Say hello to Lucy. She's my older sister and managed to form a crystal around herself when she was barely eleven. We're going to wake her up."

Author's note: Well... This was a long time in coming. Let's just say my senior year finally caught up with me. Sorry for the wait!