Alexandru warily watched Legend calm the other members of the camp. He drew in deep breaths in an effort to calm his anger and fear. He glanced down when he felt Ka’ya slide her hand into his. They both waited for Legend to turn back around and look at them.

“What is your name?” Legend asked.

“Alexandru Carson,” Alexandru replied in a curt tone.

Legend paused and glanced around the camp before motioning with his hand for them to follow him. Alexandru hesitated for a moment before he moved forward. Ka’ya reluctantly followed a second later.

Alexandru glanced around the interior of the tent before he stepped inside. He still gripped Ka’ya’s hand in his. They walked to the center of the tent before turning to watch Legend step inside and close the flap.

Ka’ya’s father glanced at their joined hands with a frown before he walked over to a table set up along one wall of the tent and poured three drinks. He turned toward them, and with a wary gaze, he held out two drinks.

“You called me something. Why?” Alexandru demanded as he took one of the drinks.

Legend shot him a puzzled look before he glanced down at Alexandru and Ka’ya’s connected hands again while he picked up his drink and took a sip. If possible, the frown deepened and he returned his gaze to Alexandru’s face. Alexandru stiffened at the steely expression in the man’s eyes.

“Surely you know what you are?” Legend retorted. He continued when Alexandru refused to answer him. “You are a vampire – a blood drinker.”

“How do you know about them?” Ka’ya asked in a soft tone.

Legend glanced at his daughter and wearily shook his head. He motioned for them to sit down on a large crate while he sat on one of the barrels, and took another slow sip of his drink.

“Tell her,” he instructed in a quiet tone. “She deserves to know the truth.”

Legend glanced up at him, then over to Ka’ya, before he nodded and stood up again. He placed the cup on the table and turned to look at both of them. With a wave of his hand, his body shimmered and his appearance changed. Alexandru drew in a deep breath while Ka’ya released a startled cry of disbelief.

Gone was the thickly built, dark-haired man. In his place stood a tall, slender man with long white hair, light blue eyes, and pointed ears. Legend smiled tenderly back at Ka’ya. An expression of resignation glistened in his eyes.

“This is my true appearance. As you can tell, I would stand out among the others here,” Legend said.

“Does… Does mother know… what you really look like?” Ka’ya demanded.

Alexandru could feel the tremble in Ka’ya’s hand. He couldn’t imagine how shocked she must be, how uncertain about the man she had always known by another appearance. Alexandru felt like the man was vaguely familiar – not Legend, but his appearance.

“Elf,” he murmured before looking at Legend. “You are an elf.”

“Yes,” Legend replied with a deep sigh and returned to his seat. “Your mother knows who and what I am.”

“What is an elf and where did you come from?” Ka’ya asked, staring at her father’s face as if for the first time.

“We are warriors, mostly known for our skill with a sword and the bow,” Legend replied with a smile. “The Huntress is our Goddess. She gives us our skills.”

“Where are you from?” she demanded, standing and walking in a circle but never taking her eyes off her father. “You say mother knows. Has she seen you like… like this?”

“Yes, she is the one who found me,” Legend said. “We always planned to tell Dru and you, but after Jorge…. Let me begin at the beginning. Nearly seventy-five years ago there was a war in which nearly every country was involved. Those with magic did what they could to keep evil from triumphing, but we also knew we had to be careful. There were certain leaders who were desperate and would do anything to win. There had always been legends of people with supernatural powers, but never enough proof to confirm it. Leaders from two of those countries developed a secret military division to hunt down magical creatures. They instructed their scientists to discover what our powers were and to recreate them. They wanted to build an invisible army of vampires, werewolves, warlocks, witches, giants, elves, and more.”

“What happened?” Ka’ya softly inquired, sinking down to sit next to Alexandru again.

“We fought back,” Alexandru replied, seeing images flashing through his mind. “I was with the French Resistance.”

“And I was in Berlin,” Legend replied grimly.

* * *

Berlin 1944:

Captain Legend ‘Stargazer’ Von Wrinkle tucked the hat he was wearing under his arm as he entered the side entrance to a small underground bunker. He walked three paces behind General Reitchoff. It had taken months for him to get into General Reitchoff’s inner circle.

They descended a set of concrete stairs and paused as two guards stood stiffly at attention while a third checked the general and his credentials. Legend kept his gaze straight ahead and waited for the man to nod to one of the guards to unlock the door.

Minutes later, they were walking down another long corridor. At the end was a set of double doors. Another guard studied them before he opened the door for them to enter. Legend’s face remained blank as they walked down the center aisle of the lab. Each side of the aisle was littered with men and women strapped to beds or sitting in chairs with tubes connected to them. He paused briefly by a medium size cage where two young children – a boy and a girl – huddled against the bars.

Their eyes lit up when they saw him and a glimmer of hope showed on their dirty, tired faces. Legend bowed his head ever so slightly to let them know he saw and recognized them before staring straight ahead. Out of all those he saw in the room, only the two children possessed the powers that General Reitchoff and Dr. Jorge Steinberg were seeking.

Legend stepped forward and opened the door for the general and waited for him to enter the room before he stepped inside and to the side. His gaze swept over the small office before settling on the man behind the desk. Dr. Jorge Steinberg, psychologist and self-proclaimed occult specialist.

His gaze turned to the file on Jorge’s desk – and the amulet next to it. Jorge looked up at the same time and their gazes clashed. Legend noticed Jorge sliding the amulet off the desk and into his pocket before the general was aware of its presence.

“What have you discovered?” General Reitchoff demanded.

“I have evidence that proves magic and magical beings exist,” Jorge Steinberg replied, glancing up from the file he was studying.

“You said that a month ago and a month before that,” General Reitchoff snapped. “We want results, Dr. Steinberg, not falsified evidence and excuses.”

“Do you think I do not know that?” Jorge snapped before calming. He closed the file he was studying. “I believe I have found what we are looking for. The problem is the location.”

“What is it and where is it?” General Reitchoff snapped.

“It is a place called Magic, New Mexico. It is in America,” Jorge stated, rising from his chair. “I need a way to get there. I have to see the place for myself.”

General Reitchoff was silent for several seconds before he slapped his gloves on the palm of his hand and turned to Legend who was standing silently by the door. There was no missing the glitter of anger in the general’s eyes. His lips pursed into a straight line before he nodded to Legend.

“Captain Von Wrinkle will get you in,” General Reitchoff stated before pulling open the door to the small office and stepping out.

Jorge winced when the door slammed shut behind the general. He turned his gaze to Legend. A sneer curved Jorge’s lips.

“How much do you know about America, Captain?” he demanded, his gaze moved to the name tag on the uniform.

“Enough,” Legend replied with a grim nod.

“And New Mexico?” Jorge pressed, leaning forward on the desk.

“I’ve heard of it,” Legend replied, deliberately vague.

“Make the arrangements for our departure. It is imperative that you get me where I need to go and out again as quickly and quietly as possible,” Jorge said before he gripped the side of the table when the building shook.

Both of them glanced up at the ceiling when dust rained down on them. The sound of explosions shook the building again. There was the sound of glass breaking and shouts from the other room.

Pulling the door open, Legend stepped outside of the office. The lab was in disarray. A large crack was forming along the ceiling and light fixtures dangled from the weakened structure. Personnel in lab coats were abandoning the victims of their satanic tests.

Legend gripped the doorframe when another bomb exploded nearby. The crack along the ceiling spread until it ran down the far wall near the cage where the two children were. Stumbling forward, Legend dodged falling debris in an effort to get to the children before the wall collapsed on top of them.

He shielded his face when another bomb shook the underground facility. It must have landed nearly on top of the structure. The force of the blast blew the doors off of the hinges. The scientists and lab technicians fighting to get to the doors were thrown through the air. A fireball, channeled by the long corridor, swept through the opening and engulfed those still struggling to stand.

Legend grabbed a metal IV pole and with all his strength brought it down on the lock trapping the two children. He hit the lock two more times before it finally fell away. Opening the door to the cage, he motioned for the children to get out.

“Hurry, the wall is about to collapse,” he warned.

“Forget them! Get me out of here,” Jorge frantically ordered.

Legend motioned for the children to move away from the wall and to the center of the lab. Three more bombs shook the facility with enough violence that it threw all four of them to the ground. Legend rolled to shield the children when the corridor leading out of the lab collapsed and a rush of dust flooded the interior.

“Can you get out of here?” Legend asked the two children.

Both of them silently nodded. He reached out and touched each of their cheeks. He fervently hoped that their parents had survived and would be able to find them. The only thing he could do was guide them to safety.

“Focus on this thread of energy,” he instructed as a swirling thread of magic appeared above his hand. “Grasp it and follow it. It will take you to a place where you will be safe.”

“What about you?” the boy asked as he tightly clutched his sister’s hand.

“My time has come to an end. Do you have the thread?” Legend asked, turning to look at the little girl.

She nodded and glanced at her brother. The boy gazed back at her before he nodded and returned his gaze to Legend. Legend held his hands out and helped the two children stand up.

“Go,” he urged.

“What are you doing?” Jorge demanded, standing behind Legend.

Legend turned, his lips tightening when he saw that Jorge had a pistol raised and pointed at his chest. He needed to give the two children time enough to gather their magic. He wasn’t sure how strong they were, but it was their only chance of surviving.

“You were right, Dr. Steinberg. There are magical creatures that walk among us,” Legend stated, lowering his glamour so that Jorge could see what he really looked like. “You will never find what you are looking for. I will make sure of that.”

Jorge’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief as his gaze moved over the tall man with a head of white hair standing before him. Excitement and greed flared as Jorge briefly turned his gaze on the room. The beds and chairs that had contained his possible magic-users were empty. Only those already dead from his experiments or killed in the blast were left.

“How…?” he demanded.

Legend saw the gun in his hand tremble as reality struck. The building shook as more bombs began to rain down around the compound. The walls surrounding them began to crumble and he heard the children behind him whimper.

“We have always lived among you,” Legend replied before striking out to rip the gun away from Jorge.

Legend turned with Jorge in his hands just as the two children raised their own in unison. Soft words wove through the air, surrounding him and Jorge. Legend opened his mouth to protest but it was too late. He could feel the vortex opening up. Jorge slipped from his hands just as they were both dragged into it. The last things he saw were the shimmer of the two children as they disappeared and the collapse of the ceiling. Then, everything went black.

* * *

Legend released a deep sigh and stood up. “Your mother found me, nursed my wounds, and led me back to her village. We both agreed it would be dangerous for anyone else to know my true identity. When we arrived at the village, I discovered that while Jorge and I had been pulled from Earth by the same portal, we did not arrive here in the same time period. He had arrived several years earlier and had established himself as the Spiritual Leader for the village. I wanted to take your mother away, but she insisted that it was too dangerous with the Vikar raiders for us to leave. After several attacks on the village, I realized she was right.”

Legend paused, deep in thought before he continued. “I slowly learned that this world does not have magic like we do back home. Over time, your mother and I made a home in the village where I could keep an eye on Jorge. I had no proof that the Amulet of the Heart had survived the journey. I didn’t know if perhaps he had lost it when we were transported here. For years, he remained isolated from most of the villagers, leaving them alone. It wasn’t until your mother was pregnant with Dru that I wondered if Jorge may have brought something else with him. I felt the awakening of magic – but this magic was darker. I hoped it would kill him. Those who meddle in magic they are not born with tend to perish quickly from it,” he explained, glancing over at Ka’ya.

“He saw you for who you were,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Legend replied. “I felt the spell settle over the village. There was little I could do without revealing who I was to the other villagers and endangering your mother, brother, and you. Once he knew I was there, his only hope was that I would be killed if I was banished from the village.”

“Why would the villagers accept Jorge as their Spiritual Leader? Surely, they would have mistrusted him as well,” Alexandru asked with a frown.

Legend gave Alexandru a grim look. “He brought items they had never seen before and claimed they were given to him by the Goddess. I suspect he had the Amulet of the Heart with him and showed it to them with dire threats of what could happen if they opposed him,” he said.

Alexandru rose to his feet. “If he masters how to use it….” A soft curse escaped as more memories returned.

“He would have control of the underworld and be able to travel wherever and whenever he wishes,” Legend finished with a somber nod.

“What are you talking about? Control over the underworld? What is that?” Ka’ya demanded.

Alexandru turned to look back at Ka’ya. “He could control those who are dead – and travel back to our world and finish what he started back in 1944 or go even further back before the war. If he controlled the citizens of Magic, he could control the world,” he explained.

“Where is your world?” she asked quietly.

“Earth,” Alexandru and Legend stated at the same time.