Kaianan

  When she reached the top, Jax lifted her up into the room, and let her go to help Julius. Kaianan heard noise, it was only a tiny room with one opening, she walked to the circular window crossed by several metal bars. The view was of a large room. To her it looked like a normal common room for a king and queen. But two white and black robed men sat in the chairs, on the left, instead of royalty, and on the right, black robed audience members, in their hundreds, stood looking on.

  “Who are they?” Kaianan said.

  Jax walked up behind her as Julius patted himself down. “This is the Underworld of Earth.”

  Kaianan looked from Jax to Julius. “You worked for them?”

  “I told you, it was a cover up.” Julius said.

  “Yeah,” Jax said, “Ruby was onto you straight away, she said something about if you weren’t interested in her then you must be a traitor, she’d been looking for something to get you on.”

  Kaianan wasn’t listening, she noticed faces hidden under black cloaks moving their glowing eyes as they watched one hooded figure walk to the throne chairs. They had different coloured eyes, some glowing yellow or red.

  “What are they?” she said.

  “Morphs.” Jax and Julius said at basically the same time.

  “What do they—”

  “Lots of things …” Jax answered her. “The red eyed Night Morphs are nocturnal creatures and feed on blood, and the Day Morphs, they’re animals.” He laughed when he said: animals.

  Kaianan’s eyes didn’t leave the lone hooded cloak figure who was kneeling down to the leaders in the thrones.

  “Who’s that?”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  When the kneeling figure rose from a bow, dropping back her hood, Kaianan heard Julius snort. Blonde locks fell around this girl’s face.

  “Scorned women are becoming a bigger burden on me than I could have imagined.” Julius said.

  “Who is she?” Kaianan said. “Is that the girl you were with the night you hunted me?”

  “Ruby,” Jax said. “She’s a very strong Day Morph.”

  My exceptional ones, I am ready to take on your decree,” Ruby said to the leaders.

  The man in the long white robe, pulled up the material behind him and swung it over his arm as he stood. He had long white hair to his waste, and a thick white beard.

  “That’s Ulysus,” Jax said, “he is the leader of the Day Morphs. He spins the weather.”

  Kaianan nodded, not actually sure what that meant.

  “Ah, lovely Ruby. It is your time, is it?” Ulysus said smiling.

  “We all know the two outerworlder assassins will not terminate the girl.” Ruby replied.

  “Is that so?”

  “There have been too many missed chances.” Ruby continued. “Spies in the Ministry have alerted me that Julius and Caidus are harbouring the Rivalex Mark for personal gain. I also found out our Conductor, Rashid, is certain the Ministry cannot protect him or the citizens of Earth from oncoming invasions the Mark is bringing this way. Nor have the Ministry done anything to stop the Gorgon Princess from her Earth escapades to lessen these threats … It seems Earth is not their priority anymore … keeping a fugitive safe is.”

  “Kill … them …. all.” The voice was a harrowing deep and wretched noise.

  “Who – who’s that?” Kaianan gulped at the black robed figure in the throne chair.

  “Varrid,” Jax said, “leader of the Night Morphs. Drinks human blood. The red eyes say all.”

  Kaianan twisted her mouth in disgust.

  “The Ministry of Earth is a complete and utter disgrace.” Ulysus spat, pacing back and forth. “Have they no allegiance to Earth? They are willing to jeopardise our whole planet to invasion for hiding one girl? I will kill the Conductor myself!”

  “Hmm, this does give us a good opportunity to bargain for the Euclidean Vectors, Ulysus—using the girl.” Varrid said, stroking his beard.

  The Day Leader nodded in excitement. “You’re right. If we have the Rivalex Mark, Rashid would have no choice but to give us Vectors out. She is too important to them.”

  “Who am I too important to?” Kaianan interjected.

  “Hmm, I believe the Conductor, Rashid, told me he was obliged to keep you safe and give you a Euclidean Vector home because he had a deal with someone named Xandou.”

  Kaianan felt her heart sting at his name. Julius squeezed her shoulder and even though her muscles were sore from her transformation she appreciated the gesture.

  “Thank you, Night Leader.” Ulysus said. “Ruby, my lovely Day Morph, take with you a Night and Day party and seek out the Rivalex Mark.” He looked to Varrid and the Night Leader nodded. “This can go on no longer. Rashid is up to something. The girl will be our leverage.”

  “Thank you, my Day Leader.” Ruby nodded and headed out of the Realm Room with a swarm of mixed Morphs following behind her.

  Kaianan felt her chest tighten. Did they just say they were seeking out the Rivalex Mark? She heard two voices behind her yet nothing was processing in her brain. She felt someone grip onto her tunic below her neck and pull. After a few seconds Julius’s voice tuned back in.

  “Kaianan! We have to run!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two: The Conductor of Earth

  A horn sounded and a green and yellow tram chugged past. They had raced back out onto the street and Kaianan had to get her bearings right. Or simply, get her brain to start working.

  “Watch it!” a passenger on the platform shouted at her. She leapt out of the way as sparks clicked above the tramline.

  “What are you doing?” Julius shouted from across the road.

  She had no idea they’d separated. Her heart beat out of time. She hadn’t assessed her surroundings nor tried to identify ways to escape. By now she should have devised a plan and worked out how to get herself out of this situation, but the panic surging through her—that the Earth’s Underworld were after her—scared the holom out of her.

  “Come over here.” Julius said, latching onto her hand and pulling her across the street with the other preform humans. “Keep focused,” he told her. She nodded, trying not to allow him to consume her thoughts. “We’ve got to get to Rashid, now. Your friend Xandou must be very close to him.”

  “I don’t know.” she said. Xandou hadn’t spoken his complete truth to her in a while. Whatever Rashid was doing for her, she would have to thank Xandou for it at some stage. It didn’t change the fact, Xandou was not someone she could trust anymore.

  Julius escorted her to the large mustard building of distinct antique frontage a few streets down. Kaianan noticed the green copper dome above the black clock, between stained-glass windows and pillars, and could see takeaway stands lining the concourse and street below. As if in warning, the sky was bleeding black. Dark smoke was making its way into the atmosphere above the building. Why were preforms pointing at it?

  “Up here.” Julius led them up the speckled white stairs into the large lobby that was dark and empty. “Not many trains left to go tonight,” he said. “Come, this way.” He veered them right to an isolated elevator. “In you go.”

  Kaianan did as he said and glanced down to the switches labelled one and two. “What level?”

  “Here, allow me.” Julius reached over her and removed a panel next to the buttons, clicking on another one inside that.

  “Level three,” stated the voice over the speaker as they ascended.

  Kaianan frowned. “Level three?” He smiled and pecked her on the cheek. She scowled at him.

  “Just breathe, okay.” He squeezed her hand.

  Then the elevator came to a halt between levels one and two and suddenly they began descending. “You want me to breathe? What’s going on now?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t know if I like our odds making it to level three.”

  Kaianan held her breath. The elevator hit ground level. A ding sounded.

  “Be ready,” he warned. Then the doors opened and three a
rrows flew towards them.

  “Move!” Julius threw Kaianan against the elevator’s side wall and with a glance back out the lobby, she regarded a dark clothed figure strolling toward them.

  She tried to speak to Julius about the blood coming out of her leg, but couldn’t. He had scrambled to stand in front of her and in doing so ignored her.

  Within a few seconds, the black-hooded cloak was dropped away from the figure. Scrutinising her, Kaianan could see Julius was a mixture of repulsion and anger; pink wings stretched out from Ruby’s shoulder blades, and the tight pink boots and jumpsuit took away from the messy blonde hair flying over her bitter expression—a complete disjoint to her face.

  “What do we have here?” Ruby said with a vicious grin, and Kaianan, in pain and panting, watched her twirl her fingers between the strands of her hair. The audacity, she could not believe …

  She let out a moan when she tried to shift the arrow wedged in her thigh.

  Julius glanced back down to her, sitting and grasping her bloodied left leg with an arrow protruding through it, and she watched his face drown in rage.

  “Ruby,” he said, as controlled as he could.

  “Silence,” she demanded, holding the closing elevator doors open.

  “You can’t fight me,” he said. “It would be suicide … for you.” Julius obnoxiously smirked at the blue-eyed woman.

  “No, not for me …” Ruby waved her hand backwards. “For you.” Behind her, a hundred or so black-hooded Morphs emerged into the station and Kaianan nearly passed out at the sight.

  What were they going to do against all these Morphs? And what were they doing out in public?

  Kaianan, bleeding and barely sitting up right, noticed a few humans, who had laid eyes on Ruby and her swarm of Morphs, currently fleeing down the platforms or to the exit. Holy Seevaar! Exposure! The preforms were witnessing outerworlders! Now was probably not the time for Earth to have any further information about their Underworld, and Kaianan herself was similarly reluctant to want to know or see anything more. Besides, it was turning out they were a demanding bunch of tyrants and completely dishonest.

  “Not now, Julius,” she tried to say, watching him get in attack mode.

  “I see you’ve brought the Underworld with you.” Julius said to Ruby.

  “What,” Ruby chuckled, “scared of a little melee against Earthlings?”

  “This is not the time or place,” he said.

  Kaianan kept staring at the Morphs becoming increasingly unsettled.

  “Oh, this is the only time and place. We have been waiting for this,” Ruby sniggered—and then there was a swishing sound – red light – and the pink winged Morph fell to the ground, knocked out cold.

  When Kaianan got a visual on another beam of red light soaring past, hitting the roof and shattering pieces of the ceiling to fall in front of them, she was sure they were under attack. It wasn’t until another slow strolling figure appeared through the soot and debris, that she regarded their situation in serious rapid decline. Where the holom was Xandou when she needed him? And was Julius capable of taking on the whole Underworld on his own? Was someone going to fix up her leg that was losing a considerable amount of blood from the arrow wedged deep in the middle of her thigh?

  “Caidus?” Julius said, and Kaianan had to blink in the confusion. In black combat attire, Caidus dressed and appeared almost the same as Julius. If it wasn’t for their different hair and eye colour, they could have been twins. But what struck her most as odd, was Julius seemed happy, almost overjoyed, at the sight of him.

  Turning back around, Julius’s expression changed, “sorry,” he said and Kaianan screamed. He had pulled out the arrow in her thigh and began putting pressure on the gashing wound. “You put your hand here,” he said and she nodded, “and quickly, out of the elevator.” Julius lifted her up on her right leg and they hobbled over behind Caidus. “What took you so long?”

  “I had to hunt for your location,” Caidus replied. “You could have given me your travel itinerary.”

  Julius snorted. “You weren’t invited …. Here, help me out.” Caidus went to take the other side of Kaianan.

  “Hang on a minute, what is going on here?” she said in disorientation.

  “Come on now, Princess, I’m friend not foe.” Caidus latched onto the other side of her and they limped further inside the station while the soot had completely cleared. Kaianan opened her mouth but before she could say anything, someone else’s voice sounded.

  “What is this?” Ruby stood with her arms crossed whilst the Morphs fidgeted behind her. “A family reunion?”

  The three of them ceased moving and Kaianan couldn’t help but think Ruby took the words right out of her mouth—what the holom was this? And who the holom was Caidus really?

  “Well, hello and how quickly you’ve regained consciousness,” Caidus grinned, suddenly releasing Kaianan from under him. “What do they call you, Day Morph? Are you part-animal? You’re quite the attraction, aren’t you?” He stared at her bright pink wings. Ruby hissed back at him. “Oh, and feisty too.”

  Julius rolled his eyes and let out a noise of bother. “Get a grip, you chatterbox. How shall we do this?”

  “Well, I don’t know about you,” Caidus threw his robe down and pulled two blades from behind his back, “But I intend to get us off this damned planet.”

  “You’re right, this is our duty,” Julius said, dropping Kaianan, who stifled a groan, to the floor. “Wait here.”

  “Yes, all in a day’s work.” Caidus said, circling, “This time, it’s not swamp rats, but moronic Morphs.”

  Julius laughed. “Ah dear Caidus, how you are the one with the quick wit these days.”

  “I got all the brains, you see.”

  Kaianan scoffed at their banter and watched them both fire up in red aura. Her senses kicked in—in overdrive. The aura they were emitting was familiar, she had felt it before. In truth, she always knew there was something different about them, she had this same feeling from Prince Addi on the night of her transformation. It was the Silkri aura, she remembered it. But where had they come from? Namea? Or Rivalex? Julius knew who she was, so he must have been from Rivalex. Julius, a Silkri Drake? Something just didn’t add up. Her brain hurt. “Holom, I really don’t know what’s worse anymore …” She couldn’t finish before Caidus chimed in: “You should be so lucky.”

  Her face flushed at the retort and she promised herself if she got out of this alive, she’d show him how angry she could really get.

  “This isn’t what was written on the Tourism Earth brief,” he said over the top of her thoughts to Julius, who was about to engage a red-eyed preform.

  “Must have been in the fine print,” Julius said, “and Caidus,” he added with a very quiet voice, “don’t overdo it with the Siliou.”

  Kaianan hadn’t realised the Morphs had spread out around them. Watching a preform in front of Julius drop his cloak and transform into a pale, pointy toothed blood sucker, had Kaianan fearing her own transformation a little less. And when a hairy, four-legged animal with dark fur, sharp nails, and a long razor-sharp toothed mouth came at Caidus—its jaws widening to bite down on his neck—she was certain her serpent form was a holom of a lot prettier.

  “It bloody tried to bite me?” Caidus said and Kaianan for a second, wished it had. “Did you see that?!” He said to Julius. “What the holom are these things?”

  “You’re the ideas man, Mr Brainiac,” Julius shouted over the top of another pale Morph who hissed at him. Both boys gyrated their aura and the red flames spinning out around them had the Morphs backing away.

  Caidus advanced. “Yes, they seem … hungry … how about … we feed them … the girl?” he got out in between breaths.

  “I’m trying to do a job over here, do you—”

  “There you are,” the derisive voice said, and Kaianan felt an unexpected tight squeeze against her windpipe.

  “Juli… us,” she could hardly speak from the restri
ction on her throat. Her eyelids, slowly opening and closing, were only just able to see Julius kick another Morph into three others and charge at them. He swivelled his aura-glowing knife in his fingers and cocked his arm back aiming it at them—what the holom was he doing? If he missed her attacker, Kaianan would have that blade stuck in her head. Too late, the blade left his hand, coming at her like a twirling ball of red flames. She snapped her eyes shut and tried to scream.

  “Fool.” It was Ruby’s voice above her. She let go of Kaianan and when Kaianan opened her eyes, she ceased screaming and regained her inhalation—the blade was somewhere on the tiles and Ruby was metres away, flying through the air.

  “I feel like the whole damsel in distress thing suits her,” Caidus managed to say while running through a Day Morph with his blade. “Don’t you think?” The lifeless body fell away from him. “Okay, don’t answer me then,” he breathed to the fresh corpse.

  “Need some ‘elp?”

  Kaianan turned her head from the floor to see a person standing next to her in a black suit. “Who are you?” she asked with a scrunched-up face. She watched the black suited individuals multiply in numbers and suddenly Ruby and the Morphs backed away from them.

  “Who in holom’s name are they?” Caidus looked back to Julius, both boys had dropped their auras.

  “We are the cleaner-upperers. More formally known as the Ministry of Earth.”

  Julius observed the gentlemen next to Kaianan. “Jax?”

  “Ah, welcome Ministry!” Ruby boasted in a prima donna wail. “How we have a show for the humans now.”

  “There will be no show.” The voice had come from the suited crowd. Silence had fallen in the entire lobby. Kaianan heard his footsteps. Big black boots stepped, one after the other, forward. Kaianan’s eyes scanned upward, a long black coat, from ankles to broad shoulders went up by at least six feet. Dark skin and dark bloodshot eyes, under a long ponytail of brown dreadlocks, headed for Ruby.

  “Ah, Rashid,” she smirked, “not like you to come down off your throne.”