by Kate Sander
Her pimp slapping her around when she didn't make quota.
Johns gyrating on top of her as she looked past them, trying to shut down her mind.
Her heart was going to explode with fear. The convulsions stopped and she wished for the blessed freedom of death.
The most terrifying moment of her life flashed before her eyes. Her mother, dead, in the corner of the small apartment they lived in, needle sticking out of her arm. She'd loved her mother's long brown hair, they used to braid it together. By the end, the meth had caused it to fall out.
She tried to call for her. Everything went black.
The first sense that came to her was fear in her heart.
She sat upright with a start, breathing hard, looking around, terrified. She was in the middle of a field. Soft grass surrounded her naked body, gentle wind blew her brown hair away from her face. Sun shone brightly, hurting her eyes. Blinking, trying to get her bearings, she gradually slowed her heart and shielded her face from the sky.
She tried to remember how she'd come to this peaceful place. There was nothing, just darkness in her mind before this point.
"You need to stay calm," a gentle voice said softly from behind her.
Jumping to her feet, she turned quickly.
A woman, tall and blonde, was standing in front of her. Dressed in a sheer silver gown, she looked like a queen.
Holding her hands open in front of her she said, "I need you to stay calm, take deep breaths."
Kelly nodded. The woman's gentle and calm voice commanded her to listen. It comforted her to her core.
"Somewhere new to you, a place you've never been."
The girl's eyes narrowed, clearly distrusting the cryptic answer. The beautiful woman smiled, "My name is Malin. Come with me. I will make you more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
The girl liked the sound of that. The woman held out her hand, inviting.
"We are the Ampulex. We are family. You can call me mother."
The last statement did it for the girl. She didn't know why, but she craved the love and affection of a family, especially a mother. She nodded and went towards Malin, towards her new mother.
Towards power.
Towards home.
Part I
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
1
Senka
Senka was in prison... again.
"Why am I always in fucking prison?" she asked her cellmate. "I really don't do anything to deserve this. It's like bullshit is attracted to me."
Her cellmate was silent.
"You're right, this isn't prison. It's a cage. Valid distinction."
The cage rattled as it hit a bump. Her cellmate’s already hanging jaw broke free and fell to the ground in a swarm of flies. Senka withdrew her feet in disgust as the flies swarmed back to the dead man's face, now with a gaping hole. The black pulsed and moved, blurring the corpse's pale features and making the dead man seem creepily alive.
"Hey!" she yelled at one of the guards flanking the cage. "The least you could do is take this dead guy out of here!"
A sword clanged against the metal followed by a slew of angry words she didn't understand. The gist, however, was loud and clear. Rolling her eyes, she settled back into her spot. Scratching her wrists against the bindings, she frowned when the sweat dripped into her eyes. The jungle was humid and she absolutely, and whole-heartedly, detested the heat. Canada didn't get weather like this. The bars behind her head clanged as she rested her head against them and closed her eyes, trying to breathe through the heat.
She'd gotten herself into one hell of a predicament this time. She'd barely been back in The Other Place a month, hadn't even figured out which continent she was in yet, when BOOM, captured by cannibals. Now she was in a cage being pulled through a jungle by a donkey with a guy long dead as her only company.
Well maybe not her only company.
Opening her eyes, she focused and checked the auras around her. Her Zoya powers certainly came in handy sometimes. The auras of the seven guards of her cage came into focus. There were two men directly beside the cage, the other five hidden in the trees. That wasn't what she was looking for. She looked deeper into the jungle then smiled. A purple aura projected from the trees, slowly stalking the cage. It was an exact copy of her own. She'd only ever seen this once before, with her old dog Leo. Now, another copy. She was beginning to think it had something to do with being a Zoya.
Senka smiled to herself. Kai was here. She felt his energy, his power. He wanted to attack, to kill, but he wouldn't until she gave him permission.
These new powers were pretty handy.
Kai could easily exterminate the seven guards. But then she'd still be in the cage and tied to the bars. They'd have to wait. Kai wouldn't attack until she gave the signal.
Settling back against the bars, she hummed a tune to herself. A guard smacked the cage with his spear and bared his filed teeth. Smiling back at him, she spat in his face.
He yelled and thrust his spear through the bars. Moving her head to the side at the last minute, he missed his target. The momentum pulled his body forward to the bars. Senka turned and bit down on his ear. The iron taste of blood filled her mouth, hot and thick. The guard screamed and wrenched his head away, leaving his ear in her mouth. Senka smiled and spat the flabby piece of skin back at his feet. He whimpered and skittered away. The remaining guards screamed at her and started to attack.
Senka didn't think a lot of things through.
She felt Kai ripple with energy, ready to pounce.
"Stop!" a man yelled from the path ahead of them. Emerging from around a corner was an elder, dressed in an elaborate headdress, body painted with red and gold paint.
He spoke to the guards in a flurry of animated and aggressive words. Senka wasn't really paying attention, there was skin stuck between her teeth that required a tremendous amount of focus to remove without the use of her hands. Poking and prodding with her tongue, the skin remained firmly stuck.
The elder obviously got his point across because the cage started moving again and Senka and her dead companion were pulled around a curve in the path. A pyramid emerged from the jungle. It was huge, at least the size of Mayan temples in her own world, made of gray rocks, with symbols carved into the side. The donkey stopped at the entrance, a gaping black hole.
Senka didn't like the look of this.
The elder commanded something and the guards swung the gate open. One held his sword to her throat while another unlocked her hands.
"Move," he said in heavily accented English. "I dare you. Zoya or not, you will not get around my sword fast enough. I will kill you with pleasure."
It took a lot of thought. Picking her teeth and finally getting that stupid piece of ear dislodged. The guards stared at her nervously. Coming to a decision, Senka didn't move. The guard beckoned to her and allowed her out of the cage. Another roughly shoved her against the outside and bound her hands in front of her.
She heard Kai's low growl and held up one finger. He retreated to the jungle. Now was not the time, not yet.
There was something she needed.
Something they stole from her.
The ring with the red ruby that Jules had meant to give to her, all those years ago, so far away from here. Jules, her first love, died saving her on the battlefield. She remembered his face as he dove off his horse, taking a knife to the chest, trying desperately to save her.
These assholes had stolen it from her. Since they had, her memories had started to dwindle. The memories of the first time she was in this world had all but disappeared, other than the memory of Jules. The memories of her home world were fading as well.
"Cars, trucks, pavement," she muttered to herself as they marched her thr
ough the entrance, picturing each object as she said it. She didn't want to forget anything and was desperately trying to keep her memories. To keep her personality. To keep the dead alive.
"Toilets, sinks, ovens, dogs..." the memories blasted through her chest. Her dog, her loyal Leo, dying for her. She almost wanted to forget holding his head in her lap as he took his last breath, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. But for some reason, ever since they took her ring, the memory was fading.
"Carter," she muttered, trying to picture her old partner. Funny, she didn't realize that she loved him until she'd crossed over again. "Tomo..." anger flashed and her breathing quickened. She had followed Tomo over here, to The Other Place. Tomo, the dumbass, had developed pills for the Ampulex to send people over here. Senka wasn't really sure what the Ampulex was, she just knew it was an organization that was running between the worlds. She had expected to see Tomo when she woke up but she hadn't. There was more at work here than she knew.
The ignorance made her angry. That was better, she needed to be angry.
They marched her through the damp cavern lit by torchlight. Water dripped from the ceiling, mould and dank assaulted her nose. A different smell started mixing in with the mould.
She'd smelled it before when she'd woken in the jungle.
The smell of death and decay mixed with fur and blood.
An animal den. And she knew the animal.
They marched her into a cavernous room lined with torches. It was so big that it took up the entire pyramid, with the ceiling arched so high the walls merely faded to black. In the corner there was a massive pile of bones and skulls.
The elder walked in front of her. Senka felt the guards' fear around her. Her eyes flashed as the elder held up her ring.
"Awake, our guardian!" the elder yelled.
Senka had faced death twice and more assholes than she could count. Not a lot scared her.
The giant pile of bones quivered and shook. Shakily her guards backed away, but the elder held his ground.
A roar sounded from the pile and a massive monster rose, shaking off the bones. They clattered on the ground as the animal stretched to its full height. It was fifteen feet tall, looked like an elk that was standing on its back hooves. Its antlers were sharpened to a deadly point, with an extended jaw full of sharp teeth. Muscled, grotesquely long, front limbs ended in sharp claws.
Claws that Senka knew were poisonous. She'd fought a smaller version of this animal when she’d woken up six weeks ago in the jungle and she'd barely gotten out alive.
She cracked her neck to the side and rolled her shoulders.
The animal roared and the guards scattered for the door, leaving her alone with her arms bound in front of her. The elder tossed her ring at the monster. It caught it in its large maw and swallowed.
"Really?" She said as the elder retreated to the door with the guards. "That seemed unnecessary."
The monster squared its shoulders, muscled front paws scraping at the ground.
"The least you can do is take the cuffs off!" she yelled at the elder.
"Azreal needs to feed," he called back. "And Zoya make the best meals."
The monster charged. Senka readied herself. Her back twinged where the claws of the last monster had cut her, leaving an infected mess that had only just healed.
Azreal closed the distance in three giant leaps. Senka dove at the last moment, rising gracefully as the monster barrelled so close to her she could feel on her arm its surprisingly soft fur.
"Enough of this," she muttered to herself, still struggling with the restraints on her wrists. "KAI!" she yelled as she dove backwards to the pile of bones. At least her hands were in front of her.
The large male panther, a beautiful mix of black and spotted fur, jumped out of the dark hall. The screams of the guards reached her ears as the monster charged. This time Senka mistimed the dive and the monster rammed her in the chest. She went flying backwards into the pile of bones. The disgusting scent of death and rot overwhelmed her as she sunk into the pile. Struggling to breathe, she writhed under the pile of bones as it slowly engulfed her. Senka wasn't one to panic, but she felt the fear overtake her and her pulse spike. Being crushed by a pile of stinking cadavers and broken bones was not the way she wanted to die. The more she struggled, the deeper she sank. Her heart raced, she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. The weight of the bones pressed on her chest. Her eyes blurred, the edges of her vision faded.
Crushed to death. Not a way she thought she’d ever go out.
Black overtook her vision. A loud screech reached her through the mass of bones and lack of oxygen. The monster, Azreal, exploded through the bone pile. Senka was launched against the wall. The impact was a relief as she was tossed like a rag doll and went crashing back to the floor. It took her a second to catch her breath and come to her senses. The unearthly shriek continued.
Kai was on the back of Azreal, claws in his shoulder, jaws clenched around the massive animal’s neck. Azreal was screaming a terrible sound, clawing at Kai and trying to throw him.
Senka winced when she saw Azreal's poisonous claws rake against Kai's shoulder in a spurt of blood. "Kai, let go!" she yelled. Kai obeyed and Senka was already running full tilt at them. She jumped higher than she'd ever jumped before, her inhuman speed helping. The monster clawed through the air at her but missed, distracted by its blood flowing out of its neck. Senka landed on its shoulder. Her hands were still bound in front of her. Using it as an advantage, she swung her arms over a horn and pulled down. The monster lost its balance and teetered to its side. The horn pierced her bindings and broke them.
Hands free, Senka dove away from the monster as it crashed to the ground. She turned swiftly and grabbed its jaw. Using her new found incredible strength, she ripped off the bottom jaw in a spurt of blood.
Azreal tried to scream and struck out weakly with its front claws, tongue flapping uselessly against its neck. Senka easily dodged and skidded to a halt. Her feet tripped slightly on something. She smiled and picked up the stray, broken piece of femur from the ground. She ran, jumped and with both hands, shoved the sharp end through Azreal's eye into its brain.
Senka landed and immediately looked around to find Kai. He limped towards her, dark blood leaking from his shoulder.
"Thanks, buddy," she said, rubbing his giant flank. He purred, leaning into her, and his giant form almost knocked her over. Kai was easily four hundred pounds and his head was almost even with her shoulder. Pure muscle, he'd come to her aid when she was hurt after her last fight with one of these monsters. All he needed was a scratch behind his ears.
“Good job, buddy,” she mumbled. Kai huffed, turned away, and limped his way to the door.
Senka followed him. All seven of the guards were dead, Kai had done a number on them. Senka stooped and picked up a sword, following a blood trail out into the hall. She quickly caught up to the elder, who was dragging himself on his hands and knees for the exit.
She dragged the tip of her sword along the stone wall as she approached. Kai merely stepped over him and padded silently into the jungle to nurse his wounds.
"Please," the elder said. He turned to face her and tried to scramble away. "You wouldn't kill an unarmed old man?"
Senka smiled.
"Watch me."
2
Carter
Nerves.
They made his hands tremor and sent his heart racing. Funny, he could guide agents through insanely dangerous situations without even breaking a sweat, but sitting here in this clean kitchen made him want to run out the door.
"Anything in your coffee?" Shelly Hayes yelled from the kitchen, tone terse but trying to remain as friendly as possible.
It had been almost sixteen years since Carter had seen Shelly. And apparently, as he recently found out, he'd left her alone and pregnant with his son.
"No, thanks Shelly. However you make it is fine."
Shelly walked into the modern kitchen, tray of coffee mugs tin
kling as she placed it gently on the table, carefully ensuring the coffee wasn't spilled. It must be keeping her thoughts off the situation.
Carter wished he could take part in some mind-numbing task to forget what this discussion was going to be about. Even if just for five minutes.
"Chris is just washing up after work. He will be down shortly," Shelly said. She took a seat across from him at the table and grabbed a coffee mug. "Isaac is staying with a friend. I didn't want him to be here for this."
Carter nodded. He followed Shelly's lead and took a coffee mug, not quite hiding the tremor in his hand.
Chris walked through the door. Carter stood to shake his hand.
"Bring it in," Chris said, beaming, pulling Carter into a bear hug. "You found my son. No handshakes here."
Carter allowed himself to be pulled into a hug and tried to lock eyes with Shelly, who kept hers focused squarely on her cup of coffee.
She hadn't told him.
Chris didn't know.
The situation just got infinitely more complicated.
"Sit, sit!" Chris said, taking a seat and grasping his wife's hand. "I just called you here for this coffee to thank you and your team," Chris said. "Isaac has told us a little of what happened. You rescued him from child traffickers in Germany. When I came to you for help, I didn't think... I had no idea..." He took a deep breath. "I'm rambling. Thank you. And your team." Chris looked at the door. "Is anyone else coming?"
"No," Carter said, voice breaking. "No."
Shelly looked at Carter and he understood. Chris apparently didn't get the hint.
"We've been doing therapy with Isaac. We have a wonderful team of psychiatrists and psychologists provided by the Canadian Government. He's been struggling, but we're taking it day by day. One thing he made clear. He wanted to ask you about a woman named Dr. Charlie Penner?" Chris looked at Carter, smiling. "She helped him escape, and he really wanted to thank her."