by D. N. Leo
“Since when is protecting oneself wrong?”
“It’s not wrong, Alyna. It’s human nature. The instinct to protect oneself is so strong and ingrained that it becomes violence when one must fight for survival. A single person was triggered and became aggressive. It escalated from there. In a crowded fight club, that was all it took. Everyone in the club was in a fight for survival.”
“So if we hadn’t left, I would be among the dead?”
“No, you don’t have that trigger. You don’t fight for survival. Your inclination is to protect others, not yourself. And that’s the difference between you and other mages. That’s why the drug didn’t kill you. It couldn’t kill you.”
“It was blind luck.”
“I don’t think so. But whoever planned this deserves to die.”
“Ethesus.”
“Nathan wouldn’t do this.”
“You don’t know him, Caedmon.”
“I am not even a fraction as good as my father in psychological profiling, but I do know a thing or two. And I’ve been trained by the best. If you believe Ethesus is your number one enemy, you might be right. But Nathan isn’t your enemy.”
“Why don’t we go have a chat with him?”
He nodded.
A man stuck his head into the room. “That’s a lot of private waste. We’ll have to charge extra for this.”
Alyna waved her arms in their air and was about to respond. Caedmon pulled her back. “Yes, please take care of this. We’ll pay the extra.”
He pulled her aside, but before he said anything, she gestured for silence. “Yes, I understand. They’re just doing their jobs.” Then she strode out of the club.
Caedmon was about to follow her out when, from the corner of his eye, he saw the shape of folded wings in a corner. “Show yourself,” he said. “ Don’t make me drag you out.”
An eight-foot-tall man walked out. Caedmon thought he had every attribute of an angel, but something in his eyes and demeanor suggested he wasn’t quite an angel. The man was menacing.
“I mean no harm,” the man said.
“Then why are you hiding in the dark?”
“Only special creatures can see me. What are you, young man?”
“I should be offended that you consider me a what instead of a who, but I won’t be. I’m a creature, and I’m proud of it. But if you ask another question to try to pry information from me about my identity, I’ll kill you.”
“There’s no need to get violent. I think you can explain what happened to those people.” He pointed to the dead bodies. “I thought I was interested only in Alyna, but now I am equally interested in you. I have a lot of profits to offer. I think you’d be interested.”
Caedmon chuckled on the inside. This angel didn’t know who he was, so he may as well take advantage of that. “What do you want, really?”
“It’s too soon to share that important piece of information with you. For now, I just want to let you know that the reason I am interested in you is because I can see the light of protection around you. You’ve been blessed, guarded by a force from the faraway magical land where I come from.”
“I don’t know any angels and demons—if they are your kind—who come from the place you call a ‘magical land.’ But if that thought pleases you, hang on to it. I don’t mind.”
He turned to leave.
The angel spoke from behind him. “Does the name Sedna Aardel mean anything to you? That’s the spirit that’s guarding you.”
The angel spoke his wife’s name and referred to her as a spirit from his magical land, wherever that was. The ground beneath his feet felt as if it was moving—as if it would open up an oblivion hole and he would drop right into it. Just like the oblivion gateway his Sedna had jumped into on the ice station.
But that wasn’t his concern right now. His rage was coming, and his adrenaline was rising at an alarming level. He knew for sure that it would soon be out of his control.
Chapter 14
Alyna had turned around and didn’t see Caedmon follow her out of the club. She tried to recall what she had said under the influence of the stimulant but couldn’t quite remember, so she let the thought pass. She returned to the club.
As soon as she stepped back inside and saw Caedmon bracing his hands against the wall, she knew something must have happened. She rushed over. “Caedmon!”
He looked at her with bloodshot eyes.
“Come with me,” she said and tugged at his elbow. As soon as she touched him, she could tell his adrenaline was very close to the limit. He didn’t resist her pull. He knew he needed help but couldn’t ask for it.
She glanced at the floor full of dead bodies. She thought she saw a shadow, and she felt a dark aura of evil hovering in the air. But with so many dead people around, she didn’t trust her gut feelings right now.
She pushed Caedmon out the back door toward the water pipe that supplied water to the club from the tank on the roof of the building. She grabbed a metal bar leaning against the wall and whacked the pipe with it. It didn’t budge. She hit it harder a few more times until the pipe broke open—along with one of her wounds.
She grabbed Caedmon and pushed his head under the freezing stream of water until he choked and was almost out of breath.
He pushed her away, and they both fell to the ground. When he finished coughing and had resumed his composure, he wiped the water out of his eyes and face and said, “Thank you.”
“Are you okay now? Everything under control?”
He nodded.
She didn’t want to ask what had happened in the club because she worried it might trigger his adrenaline again.
Then he saw the blood on her shirt. “Oh hell.” He approached her. “Show me.”
“It’s okay. Just one that opened up again.” She walked away, pressing her palm against the wound. “I’ll stop by a clinic to get it patched up.” Her communicator buzzed. “Alyna,” she answered. Nothing. She looked at the screen and frowned. It wasn’t a call. It was an indicator letting her know something in her system had changed. Notice of the change had been sent to the database, which alerted the device.
Admittedly, neither she nor Pukak paid attention to technology. Once the consultant had set up their system, the device had sat in the office gathering dust. She had picked up the device in Pukak’s office and had planned to take a look at it and learn to use it tomorrow. But now she stared at it while it buzzed, and she had no idea what the red and green dots meant.
“May I?” Caedmon reached out his hand. She sighed and handed him the device.
She looked at him while he worked. His focus was intense. She wished he could work with her to run this Amaraq business, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Orla had said he was in charge of stations in Eudaiz that took care of millions of citizens. Those lucky millions of people! Her little mage tribe wouldn’t be able to compete in terms of numbers.
He looked up at her from the screen of her device. “Your system suggests that your special weaponry suit is down by two. And your special forces are also down by two. Do you have special forces? And how special are they, because the pile of dead bodies in the fight club doesn’t get reported here.”
“Does it say where the special forces were reduced?”
Caedmon shook his head. “There’s no map. It says Ice Spot, though. Does that mean anything to you?”
“That’s the temple. Something is killing guards at the temple.” She rushed away.
“Shouldn’t we call for backup?” Caedmon asked as he hurried to follow her.
“Ordinary fighters can’t help with this.”
“Who do you think is responsible?”
“Ethesus.”
“Come on, not again! I told you I met Nathan. He doesn’t want to attack you, let alone sneak around with poisonous worms. Plus, Ethesus are shapeshifters, aren’t they?”
“Yes, Caedmon. What’s your point?”
“Are we going need shapeshifter troops?”
<
br /> “Amaraq is a mage tribe, Caedmon. We don’t have shapeshifters on staff. Teacher said you and I have been turned into a special kind of shapeshifter. But as far as I know, I’m still human. I don’t feel like I can shift into anything.”
“I’ll call Lorcan.”
“Please do, if it will help. Just so you know, Ethesus is a large group that spans several regions. A single blue fox might not be enough.”
“Don’t underestimate what Lorcan and Orla can do. They might not be able to fight as well as you can, but to survive what they did and fight alongside my father to get where there were in their time…they’re legendary.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I don’t understand the paranormal world as well as I should, and I don’t want any of you to get hurt because you stay here and help me.”
“Noted.”
A short while later, they stood outside of the temple.
She pointed at the scorched marks on the ground. “It was an explosion.”
A group of nine men raced toward them.
“Why are you here, Alyna? This could be a trap to lure you here,” said a man who appeared to be senior in the group of guards.
“If you don’t want her here, then don’t input data into the system so that it buzzes her,” Caedmon said.
“What system?” the man asked.
“Something Pukak put in place. To keep track of things around here,” Alyna said, trying to calm the mage down.
The man gasped. “Is the temple under surveillance?”
“No. We’re not watching the temple. It’s not even on the official map, isn’t that right, Caedmon?”
“Sure…”
The man waved his arms in the air. “No, no, we’re in trouble. We don’t do technology. All supernatural creatures know that. We’ve just lost two guards because we didn’t know this was going to happen. We can’t be on the map or in any system or on any kind of traceable technology. Whoever put us there can’t be Pukak. He knew better.”
They heard a clapping sound and a chuckle that sounded like a bell ringing.
Turning around, they saw a tall and imposing woman approaching them, ten men flanking her sides.
“Lissabel! So you weren’t among the dead,” Alyna said in astonishment.
“Not only isn’t she dead, but she is the one who planted the drug,” Caedmon muttered. “I don’t strike women, but I’ll have to make an exception this time.”
Lissabel laughed, a laugh that tinkled like bells. The sound bounced back and forth between the walls surrounding the temple. Then she turned into a succubus and smiled flirtatiously at Caedmon.
“Thanks for making this easier for me,” he growled. “You’re not exactly a woman.”
He inched forward, but Alyna stopped him. “My men can handle this.” She waved her arm, and the group of nine mage guards charged forward toward the twenty shapeshifters. The front of the temple became a fighting ground.
“You don’t look happy, Caedmon.”
“I’m not. You need training in combat strategies, Alyna. We’ve just fallen into a trap.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You might be good at one-on-one or even small group fighting, but this smells more like a battle with a decent troop size. What’s in front of us is just a decoy. We’re going to be ambushed because you’ve used all of your manpower here.”
“If your speculation is right—”
“I don’t speculate when it comes to combat or when lives are at stake.”
“Point taken. You’ve identified the problem. Do you have a solution, Caedmon?”
“We have nine fighters against twenty and a succubus. You and I don’t count heads, but normally, in this situation, I’d call for a retreat. In lay terms, we might have to run.”
“I don’t run from combat!”
They heard a whistle. The mages and shapeshifters had canceled each other out, but a short distance away, a group of more than fifty shapeshifters emerged from the fog on their motorbikes.
Chapter 15
The beginning of time.
After a long wait sitting on a bench in a cold and empty stone temple in the middle of a land he didn’t know, Keymaster stood. He didn’t recognize the god they worshipped. He chuckled to himself, thinking that in the thousands of years he had lived and traveled the multiverse, there was still a religion he didn’t know. He wondered how many higher powers creatures could invent to guide their beliefs.
The side door slid open, but nothing—and no one—walked in. The room was completely empty. Apart from his uneven heartbeats and the lone candle quivering on the altar in worship of the unknown god, nothing in this room moved.
“Who’s there?” Keymaster asked.
The sheet of marble behind the altar lit up, and he could see the silhouette of a human shape, large with folded wings on its shoulders. An angel?
“I’m here to deliver the Scorpio key as we agreed.”
“Good. Leave it on the altar,” a distant male voice said.
Keymaster cleared his throat. “What about the settlement?”
“It will be sent to you.”
He nodded and placed a small talisman on the altar.
“Is that it?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Scorpio key. Put the key on the altar.”
“As you well know, the key is too large for me to carry. And it will only have power when put in the right place.”
“Where is your assistant? She ought to be old enough to help you carry the key.”
He chuckled. “Well, she’s pretty young. And like any teenager, she was out having fun. She never helped me much, and I doubt she knows anything about the key.”
“Hmm…so if you’re saying she’s useless, then I can kill her?”
“Why would you want to do that? She has nothing to do with this.”
“She knows about it. That’s why.”
Keymaster waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, no. It’s not worth your time to think about her. This talisman will lead you to the key. The talisman is a safety switch to guarantee you are the rightful owner. I’m sure you know that. When we signed our contract, I put your seal there and swore that the key belongs to you and you only. Don’t lose the talisman. It doesn’t lie, and it doesn’t tolerate fraud. If you lose it, you will lose the key.”
He heard a low growl of disagreement, but he ignored it. “I’ve got to go now. I trust you will send payment soon.” He nodded his goodbye to the shadow and withdrew toward the door.
As soon as he got past to the doorway to the open space of the strange land, he felt a cold breeze at his back. And he knew then that he was done. The landscape in front of him became a blur, and it wasn’t due to poor vision. The rolling black hills in front of him shifted. All the trees shed their leaves, and their limbs reached up to the sky like the skeletal hands of devils.
He knew now he hadn’t traveled to Xiilok but to an illusion of that land. Someone or something had tricked him into this dimension—this place—to steal the Scorpio key from him. The invitation had mentioned Thunder, and he’d originally thought the trap was for her. He was wrong.
He ran. He could fight this creature, whatever it was. But whoever had set a trap of this scale was not an ordinary creature. Who would benefit from stealing the Scorpio key? The minor gods he knew wouldn’t. He wasn’t sure why someone would seek to possess the key, but there was one thing he did know for certain—he was done.
The first claw in his back felt like the blades from the spider-wolves that had almost killed him years ago. He hadn’t been able to fight them back then, and Thunder, as an infant, had saved his life.
But she wasn’t here now.
The claws struck him again and again, piercing him from the back to the front.
He fell face down. As he lay waiting for the life to drain from his body, a hand turned him over. In front of him was a formidable dark angel with black wings. The angel knelt next to him.
“I can give you a second chance at life,” he said. “if you tell me where the Scorpio key is and how I can obtain it.”
“Why?”
“Telling you why is not part of the deal. The key in exchange for your life.”
Keymaster reached up, trying to grab the angel’s wings. “Go to hell.”
The angel pushed him back down. “You’ll beg me later, old man.”
“Keymaster!” Thunder called.
“Let her live. I’ll give you what you want,” said Keymaster.
“It’s too late,” the angel growled. He pushed Keymaster down and rose to his feet. As soon as he stood, Thunder charged at him. She was vicious. She pummeled him with kicks and punches and all that she had, trying to push him away. Keymaster knew she didn’t want to use her thunder claps while he was nearby, but when she and the dark angel had moved a fair distance away, she clapped her hands.
Thunder struck the angel full force, throwing him to the ground and sending him rolling backward.
“Teacher?” asked Keymaster. “I know she calls you Teacher, and I know you’re here. Let me hear you.”
Teacher answered in an old male voice. “Yes, I am here, but I don’t have a physical form to help her. I told her not to come here. The prophecy is about you. You are the one supposed to die, not her. But she’s vicious. She stands a chance against that dark angel.”
“No, she’s too young and inexperienced to fight him. You have to save her. I know you’re a soul trader.”
“You’ve got a deal to make? Because I have nothing valuable enough to trade for her soul.”
“I do.” He used his last drop of strength to pull a talisman from his pocket. “Thousand years’ worth of life. You’ll need this. Protect her.”
“What do you want her to do for you?”
“Protect the Scorpio key. She broke the bloodstone for me to make the key. It has her essence. It will call for her, and she will know where I hid it. Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”