LITMIR.BIZ

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look terrible.”

      “A reoccurring nightmare has been keeping me from sleeping at night, and I feel as terrible as you seem to think I look.”

      “Perhaps I can help. What is this nightmare that you’ve been having?”

      “My dreams have been telling me that any children I would father would be as equally as powerful as me and each of them will be corrupted with evil. I decided a few days ago not to have kids, but the nightmares keep coming.”

      “Yes, well, there are sorceresses out there more powerful than you are, Merlin, who would bewitch you to get them pregnant, so planning on not having kids and not having kids can be two different things.”

      “There must be a way to stop it,” Merlin insisted.

      “Stopping them just might make them angry,” Marbella told him. “I say let them have what they want times two.”

      “What are you talking about?!” Merlin demanded. “That would be worse.”

      “Twins, Merlin,” Marbella began. Merlin gave Marbella a confused look. “I know of an incantation that you can cast on yourself that would cause any of your children to be born as a twin, and each twin would only have half of your powers.”

      “So one twin alone wouldn’t be powerful enough to cause the destruction that I had witnessed in my dreams.”

      “Exactly,” Marbella agreed.

      “But not twins; triplets,” Merlin corrected.

      “Triplets?” Marbella echoed curiously.

      “I would feel more comfortable if my children were born as triplets.”

      “Okay, well, the incantation that I have is more for twins to be born, but modifying it to where triplets would be born shouldn’t be a problem,” Marbella said.

      “How soon can we do it?”

      “You shouldn’t be in such of a hurry.”

      “If you had the dreams that I’ve been having, you would be in a hurry as well,” Merlin retorted.

      “Right,” Marbella said with a slight grin. “Give me thirty minutes to modify the incantation.”

      Merlin nodded before following Marbella into her cottage.

      During the first few minutes of Marbella modifying the incantation Merlin doodled images of the moon and stars on a piece of paper.

      Two rats then caught Merlin’s attention. He magically summoned the rats to him with only a gesture of his hand, and as he picked up one of the rats, Marbella stared curiously at him.

      When Merlin saw the look that he was getting, he asked her, “What?”

      “That rat just came straight to you,” Marbella pointed out.

      “Yes,” Merlin said in a confused tone. “They don’t come to you if you would summon them?”

      “No,” Marbella said also in a confused tone. “What other animals can you summon?”

      “I can get any animal… and any bird to come to me, or even get them to do what I want.”

      “Fascinating,” Marbella said in an impressed tone. “You have excellent control over the four main elements; better than anyone else I’ve seen, in fact. And now you had just demonstrated that you have command over the beasts.”

      “My children shouldn’t… it’s too much power for one person to wield,” Merlin said. “Control over two of the elements is fine or even over the beasts, but not everything.”

      Marbella grinned before saying, “Okay, you had just given me what I needed to complete the modified incantation. Your children will be born as triplets. One will have control over the elements… Fire and Water; another over the Earth and Air, and the third over the beasts.”

      Merlin grinned before saying, “That sounds good. Do it.”

      Marbella thought for a second before nodding and beginning again on writing out the modified incantation.

      Before Marbella was able to get too far into it, Merlin added, “I should be able to identify which ability each one of them has.”

      Marbella’s eyes wandered as she thought of how to do it. She then caught sight of Merlin’s doodle.

      A grin came across Marbella’s face as she pointed out, “Your doodles are always about the moon and stars.”

      “Yes, well, I feel connected to the moon and stars,” Merlin defended.

      “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it. The full moon gives strength to our powers, and I just brought it up because the moon and stars seem to be your mark. Some sorcerers throughout the ages have even placed their mark on their children by magically creating birthmarks among them. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to place a moon and three stars birthmark among your children. And the darkest star of the birthmark will tell you what your child’s power will be.”

      Merlin nodded before saying, “Okay. Do it.”

      Marbella nodded with a slight grin before continuing.

      Marbella was done with the modified incantation within ten minutes and within a few minutes after that, Merlin cast it on himself.

      Once Merlin had left the cottage, Marbella had consulted her mirror and learned that her plan had worked as well as she had hoped for.

      As the years slowly passed, Merlin had never discovered Marbella for what she really was, and several generations later, Marbella—after she had switched bodies with a younger sorceress for the fourth time after Merlin’s birth—had discovered that her modified incantation was slightly flawed. On every third generation among Merlin’s descendants twins were being born, which had weakened the line further.

      To counteract this unforeseen blunder, Marbella reintroduced a forgotten ritual that a wizard would use to steal powers from another wizard, thus causing the Wizards Wars among Merlin’s descendants that lasted for centuries.

Chapter One

      “Are you Harris Bradley, the brother to Tanya Anderson?” he heard a man ask after he had sluggishly answered the phone as he continued to lie in bed.

      It was the first Tuesday of October at 3:58 A.M., Savannah, Georgia time within the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and the phone call had awakened Harris and his wife Allyson.

      The twenty-six-year-old man glanced at the alarm clock before he answered with his British accent, “Yes. Who is this?”

      “This is Detective Sykes of the Kansas City Police Department. Your sister Tanya and her husband Michael were involved in a serious auto accident. I’m sorry, Mr. Bradley, but your sister and brother-in-law had died soon after reaching the hospital.”

      “My God!” Harris uttered as he shot up into a sitting position, along with swinging his feet around until they were touching the floor.

      “What is it?!” Harris’s twenty-three-year-old wife asked worriedly in her southern accent as she too sat up.

      Harris gestured for Allyson to wait as Detective Sykes continued with, “The doctor was able to deliver your sister’s daughter in time though.”

      “Oh God, that’s right!” Harris uttered in a tone as if the memory of his sister being pregnant was brought back suddenly. “She was eight months pregnant with a girl. How is she?”

      “What’s going on?!” Allyson demanded.

      Harris again gestured for Allyson to wait as Detective Sykes replied, “In spite of her being born premature she’s doing excellent; however, according to my paperwork, you, your wife and Michael’s sixteen-year-old sister Ellen are the only ones listed as being

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