I turn my full attention to him then and he smiles at me as I ask, “You will answer?”
“If I can,” he says.
“What do you know of The Thirteen?”
He looks only mildly surprised by my question and answers, “Probably the same as what you know. Serena is very knowledgeable.”
Yeah, so I keep hearing.
“You don’t know anything else? That might be useful to get rid of It?”
“Is there a reason you want to get rid of It?”
I stare at him. “I thought you knew everything,” I say with a half-smile. “It is…bothering me.”
He sits upright then and asks, “By ‘bothering’ do you mean coming after you?”
“Yes. It is messing with my dreams and has appeared a couple of times.”
“Appeared?”
“As someone who has crossed over.”
“It’s back then,” he says with a sigh. “We feared he one day would. You must defeat...It, my child.”
He? He said ‘he’.
Erm, duh, obviously.
“I don’t know how, hence why I asked.”
“Corinne and I will look into it further. Come back on Sunday and we may have some help for you,” he says decisively.
“Should I go and ask my mother?”
“Uhm, no need to bother Her with this. You are quite capable of getting rid of It yourself.”
“It’s quite powerful,” I insist.
“So are you,” he says with a pointed look. “Believe in yourself child. Embrace the Powers your mother gave to you.”
I nod with a gulp. He keeps calling me child and a very random question enters my head, “Erm, Ahmed. I have never even thought to ask this before, but if Tiamat is my mother, who is my father?”
It sounds bizarre that I never thought of it but when you haven’t had parents for over a millennium it isn’t really the first thing you think of.
He looks shifty and clears his throat. “That is something you will have to ask of your mother.”
“Do you know?” I press.
“I…do not,” he says but I don’t quite believe him somehow.
I drop it as he clearly isn’t going to tell me anything. I must remember to ask Tiamat next time I see Her.
We resume our silence and Devon and Corinne return shortly thereafter. He is disheveled and dirty, his hair all mussed, and his t-shirt ripped. He looks like he’s been ten rounds with Lincoln in Wolf form. He beams at me and I clap my hands excitedly. “You got it then.”
“I did.” He shows me the box.
“I knew you would, my clever boy,” I praise him, and he glows. “Let me see.” I am curious as to what it is, he got for her.