Aegis Desolation: Action-Adventure Apocalyptic Mystery Thriller (Aegis League Series Book 4)

by S. S. Segran

  “I love you for being part of our lives!” cried Tegan. “Going on eighteen years, Jag! Eighteen! You’re ours! Don’t you ever forget that!”

  An ache burgeoned of its own accord, its intensity both mentally and physically excruciating. Jag frantically stamped it out, disgusted. He would have to let Reyor know that something in his repurposing wasn’t holding up.

  Then, to his horror, the sutures on both eyelids ripped free. The void disappeared and he saw Mokun hovering in front of him. “Don't run back to the shadows, Mr. Sanchez.”

  The fire around Jag lunged higher, fueled by renewed rage. “I was wondering when you were gonna show up again, two-timer.”

  Blazing ribbons shot forth, striking snakes that constricted around each of Mokun’s limbs. A look of fear passed over the man’s face as cracks erupted across his projection, fractures taking on patterns denser than Jag’s own. Mokun seemed momentarily dazed, then slowly refocused. “That was not wise.”

  Blood-red essence seeped out from the fissures. Still caught in Jag’s bindings, he turned his hands over, observing them as his essence swayed like flames themselves. “Well. This is certainly unexpected.”

  Jag forged more fire and sent it hurtling toward every single crevice in Mokun’s being. The essence around Mokun turned black instantly, merging and solidifying into vines that deflected the attack. Narrow thorns as long as Jag’s thumb emerged, running along every tendril.

  Jag recoiled, letting Mokun go. “What are you—”

  The vines crept outward, obscuring his view of the man. “An act of violence carried out in the novasphere like what you just did, Jag, is the most dangerous kind,” Mokun said, “even for the practiced among us. One well-placed blow or ill-timed mistake can peel apart a person’s psyche to expose the underbelly. Once the veneer has been sliced, the ooze, the shadow, spills out.”

  “Yeah?” Movement at the base of the keystone distracted Jag. He flung out a hand and a fireball landed on Aari. The boy yowled and cursed, ducking away to recover. “So I tore something inside you. That means you’re vulnerable. But you’re not stupid enough to tell me this without a reason.”

  “I’m saying this because once we free you, I want you to remember it.”

  The vines lashed out, restraining Jag entirely, and he was bashed against the center of the keystone’s amber pawprint. The crystal around him splintered. He gasped as molten pain saturated his consciousness. The thorns along the lianas dug into his body and in the next moment he was in a different time, a different place, sailing over peaceful waters under a clear sky with the full moon in its entire splendor above him. Images of a woman with dark orange hair danced in and out of sight, her freckled face aglow. The giggles of two young voices floated through his ears. Without understanding how he knew, he realized he was reliving Mokun’s memories.

  From within, he sensed the bitter conception of Mokun’s first shadow, the first vine, born from guilt and crushing remorse for his family’s demise. Tailing it was a second tendril laced with resentment toward several faces Jag did not recognize, though their countenance emitted authority.

  Jag’s mind pulsed again, each beat harder than the one before, and he knew exactly why—while Mokun had held him hostage, the others were hammering away at his keystone.

  “Let me go!” He thrashed, his struggles tearing the crystal further. “Let me go!”

  The force of his will shattered Mokun’s hold. The shockwave threw the man all the way back to the middle of the central road. Mokun, recovering from the counterstrike, smiled up at Jag as his vines retracted back into his consciousness. “Thank you for the assistance.”

  It was then that Jag noticed he could feel nothing behind him. He spun around. The crystal was gone, wrecked by his own seismic might, leaving only the brushed metal pendant standing. Below him, Tegan, Mariah, Aari, and Kody were pressed against it. The fissures they had created earlier raced upward and with every piece that splintered and fell, Jag’s hold on himself slipped. He wanted to scream at them to stop, to tell them he was in agony, that they were hurting him, that he was terrified of his impending destruction, but the shock pulled him in its undertow and bolted him in place.

  Mokun flew back up to him. “I’m sorry, Jag.”

  “They’re ruining me,” Jag whispered. “My purpose, who I am. If they break that, I won’t know. I won’t remember.”

  “That keystone was compromised when Reyor repurposed you. It is a virus and as long as it remains standing, you will be infected. It had to be this way.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “I don’t know. The mind is resilient but so very delicate. Perhaps this will reset you. Perhaps it will end you.”

  “Why? Why do this when it could kill me?”

  “Your friends need you. But if we can’t rescue you, then Reyor cannot have you either. You’re too powerful a weapon in her hands.”

  Jag watched the four below make steady progress. “They agreed to this?”

  “They don’t know about that last part,” Mokun said.

  The two of them hovered side by side, Jag helpless to do anything as his keystone crumbled. There was no sense of time but the pain remained tangible, the only thing that he could actually feel until, eventually, he grew numb to it. Fatigue began to close around him. Just when he thought he would lose consciousness, pure, burning white exploded behind in his eyes as an electric jolt rolled from his mind through his physical body. He plummeted to the dais, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “No,” he rasped. “What have you done?”

  “It’s for your own good, Jag.” Aari picked him up on one side, Kody on the other. “Come take a look.”

  Where the keystone had once stood was now a crater littered with the glittering remnants of his pendant. In the middle of the mess were four children, perhaps seven or eight years old. Jag’s will gave out and he collapsed out of Kody’s and Aari’s arms, tumbling head over heels into the pit. The children scampered over.

  “Jag!” yelled a small, toothy boy with a big afro. “Are you okay?”

  “I—”

  A second child, her cognac gaze adoring, timidly took his hand. The unshed tears were caught in Jag’s throat as he pulled free from her. “Go away.”

  She curled into herself, looking hurt. “But you promised you’d always be here for me!”

  Jag scrambled back as the other two children joined them. The girl with a warm complexion huffed, her cutting eyes sizing him up. “What, are you scared?”

  “He is scared,” pronounced the last child, who had a striking ice-blue gaze sitting below red waves of hair. He looked so serious for his age; under different circumstances, Jag might have laughed.

  “Leave me alone,” he growled, pulling himself up. The flames around him flared in warning.

  “Hey, dumb-dumb,” said the kid with the afro. “You know what we are, don’t you?”

  “Get lost, Kody.”

  “You realized it the moment you saw us,” the younger Aari said. “You know the truth. That giant thing up there, it wasn’t your keystone. Not really.”

  A small hand fit inside Jag’s again. Mariah scrunched her nose at him. “We are. But then you decided your identity revolved around your powers, so that became your outer keystone.”

  “Kids aren’t supposed to talk like this.” Jag tried to yank his hand from her once more but she held on persistently. “Mariah, if you don’t let me go, I swear I’ll—”

  They didn’t let him finish. Four pairs of arms circled his torso and a monsoon of memories hammered into him. He grasped his head as scenes whipped past: him and Aari as kids, working to build a treehouse in secret to surprise the others; Mariah stroking his hair as they lazed in companionable silence during the summer; playing on the football team with Kody and building iron trust together on the field; helping Tegan overcome her trepidations when she joined him in freerunning; the five of them having the time of their lives exploring nature; the nights with all their familie
s together; their quiet moments and their arguments.

  The swell of emotions that accompanied each memory went to war with Jag’s psyche. He couldn’t tell which was more real—his feelings within the reminiscences or the feelings of his repurposed self screaming that everything was wrong. He split from the top of his head through his body until he dissociated. Jag bent double, unable to keep himself aright.

  The children held him up with impossible strength. “Rest,” one said quietly.

  The word was spoken as a command. Jag sagged, and one by one every facet of the scene around him winked out of existence.

  As soon as the darkness began to descend, Mariah heard Mokun shout. “Go back to yourselves! Hurry, before he’s completely unconscious, or you’ll be trapped here!”

  Mariah took an extra moment to look at Jag and the kids, then released herself from the novasphere. She took a moment to reorient herself in her body, then rushed up to the post, hands lifting Jag’s head. His eyes were closed but his breaths were still there. “Is he okay? Did it work?”

  “Only time will tell,” Mokun said. “For now, it does seem as if we’ve freed him in the mindscape. We can only hope the battle fought there didn’t leave any lasting harm.” He undid the straps around Jag and removed the communicator from his wrist. Dense lines grew around his eyes as he read something on the screen. “It seems Reyor is on her way back. She will be landing soon.”

  “We can’t face her yet!” Kody yelped.

  “We need to get you off this island.” Mokun tapped the screen a few times before tossing the communicator to Aari. “Here. Use it to keep track of where the SONEs are.” He hoisted Jag’s limp form over one shoulder and jogged toward the exit.

  Mariah caught up with him. “How are we going to leave? If Reyor’s about to arrive—”

  “We still have about thirty minutes before she does. It’ll be enough time.”

  “For . . . ?”

  “Stay close.”

  Bewildered, the friends followed Mokun out of the circus and into the resort clubhouse, scurrying through the opulent but empty lobby and through a door with a set of stairs that led underground. “Mr. Tyler, can you hear anyone below?”

  Kody stared into the middle distance, then indicated no. They descended the steps, entering a hallway with multiple doors on the left and none on the right. Mokun had them wait outside the first one while he went in.

  Jag’s communicator chimed. Aari held it up and his already pale skin blanched further. “They’re tearing this place apart. And Mokun’s body has been reported missing.”

  A nerve-wracking minute later, Mokun reappeared, handing out white shoes of the kind Mariah had seen the scientists wear around the CUBE, and passed Kody what looked to be a regular plastic prescription bottle.

  “Take one each,” he said.

  Kody popped the lid and took a whiff of tablets inside. “What’s this?”

  “Something to help suppress your presence in the novasphere. It will protect you from Reyor; she has never exposed herself there, but these are desperate times and there is no telling what she might do. Your abilities will be subdued for six hours as well.”

  “But our telepathy isn’t back yet, and we need to reach out to some people,” Tegan said.

  “That can happen later, once you’re well out of Reyor’s reach. If she does arrive before you leave, she may no longer care about hiding her consciousness if it means incapacitating you through a cerebral attack.” Mokun seemed chagrined. “I trained her in that arena as well, and I’m sure she took opportunities to test it on others by herself. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Mariah hugged her arms around her abdomen, feet pattering a nervous rhythm on the cool floor. “What now?”

  “Onward. Mr. Tyler, please keep an ear out for unwanted company until your senses fade.”

  They passed the tablets around as Mokun led them along the corridor until, near the end of it, they came to an entrance on their right. “Welcome to my archive,” he said. “It was going to be the most beautiful place in the Heart until my pupil decided to turn in into my very own mausoleum.”

  As they passed through the center of the room, a vertical case with a glass front came into view. Aari ogled it as they passed it by. “Is that a cryogenic chamber?”

  “As I said, she engineered a little twist to my original plans.”

  “Congrats on taking a nut under your wing.”

  “Damned attracts damned, I suppose. Quickly now, I need to retrieve something from my vault.”

  They reached the back of the archive where a sturdy steel door awaited them. Mokun tapped a keypad and the door clicked open. He settled Jag on the ground and instructed the friends to wait while he stepped inside. Tegan knelt beside Jag, her eyes roaming over his face. “At least we have him back, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Kody’s smile was strained. “I know I’ve said it before, but this is a weird life we’re living now.”

  Mariah, keeping an anxious ear out for more alerts from Jag’s communicator, couldn’t help but be awed by the archive. The rustic chic décor with sprawling plants, warm lighting and fragrant incense, deep rich woods and smatterings of artifacts hinted at grander possibilities for the room.

  Her momentary inattention was broken by another chime from the communicator.

  “These kids are efficient,” Aari said. “They’ve already searched aboveground, they’re almost done clearing the main level of the Heart, and they’re working their way down to us. I’m assuming they checked the CUBEs beforehand, so . . . hang on, Jag’s got a layout of the place loaded. Right, okay, we—oh no.”

  “This is the only place they have left to look, isn’t it?” Tegan guessed softly.

  “Yeah. The executive complex.”

  Kody raised his hands, the halves of his sundered staff gripped in each. “I can hear footsteps. Ten pairs, maybe. No, fourteen? Nope, wait—aaaand my powers are gone.” He poked his head into the vault. “We’re about to have visitors!”

  A grumble that carried intonations similar to the language of Dema-Ki floated through the doorway. “Hurry inside and shut that thing behind you.”

  The boys each grabbed one of Jag’s arms and carried him over the threshold. Mokun was bowed over a sturdy chest, latching the box. Around him crates, tables, and shelves were packed with heavy tomes and scrolls. Relics, gems, art pieces, and weapons had been very carefully placed among them. The vault itself was half as large as the colossal archive, yet the friends were hard-pressed to find room among the trove of texts and artifacts.

  Mariah trailed her fingers over a scarab beetle carved from a beautiful, deep-blue stone. “Was all of this what you were going to fill the archive with?”

  “Most of it, yes,” Mokun answered. “Some items are too precious to be out in the open.”

  “Hey, I think I recognize some of these runes,” Aari said, leaning over a table to parse through a tome. “Dema-Ki script, right? Or Islander script.”

  “Correct.” Mokun picked up the chest easily. “Before Dema-Ki had a proper library built within its temple, some of us had been tasked with guarding what little we had managed to rescue before our home was destroyed. Before I left the village, I procured some for myself.”

  “Seems like you procured more than just some.”

  “Ms. Ryder, Ms. Ashton,” called Mokun, “please take this box.”

  The chest was heavy, even with the two of them carrying it. “What’s in this?” Tegan wheezed.

  “Everything you will need once you get out of here. It’s hermetically sealed but I’ve unlocked the latches so you can open them as you wish. Head toward the back of the room. You will find a door leading to a cavern where my submarine is docked. I’ve already plotted a course into the nav system and the autopilot is ready to take you to Portugal. Once you’re there, and only then, you may reach out to the Elders or whomever you need to. Just remember that you must hit the blue button to open the cavern door before you back out of the cave. You
can engage the autopilot once you’re out. Don’t worry, the setup it quite intuitive.”

  Mariah’s forehead knotted. “Why are you speaking as if . . . You are coming with us, right?”

  Wistful remorse flooded Mokun’s features. “I cannot. The end of all this begins with me. I need to disengage the lathe’ad from Reyor. Everything else after will be a walk in the park for you.”

  “Wait a second,” Kody said. “Should we really leave? Reyor will be back soon, and if you manage to break her connection with the lathe’ad, can’t we take her down immediately?”

  “We’ll need Jag for that,” Aari reminded him.

  “I thought all five of us were needed only if we wanted to disconnect her from the lathe’ad. That’s why we didn’t tell the authorities about her, because if they attack head-on it’ll sense that she’s in mortal danger and go boom. But if Mokun can do it without setting it off, then maybe the four of us—and him—will be enough.”

  Mariah pressed one eye shut as her mind twisted in an attempt to comprehend. “Wouldn’t that make our roles in the prophecy moot? It was always about the five of us dealing with Reyor, right?”

  “Hold on.” Tegan signaled her to lower the box back to the ground and addressed Mokun. “The Elders had no idea how we were supposed to go about disengaging Reyor from the lathe’ad, but after we learned we could combine our abilities, we figured it would have something to do with melding together in the novasphere and then striking her that way. What’s your method?”

  “They’re halfway through the archive,” Aari warned, holding up the communicator.

  “We’re out of time,” Mokun said. “I’m not putting all my eggs in one basket, so you five need to leave.” He rolled up the sleeves of his bloodstained tunic and started toward the vault’s main door, then stopped and looked back at the friends. A patchwork of emotions flitted across the smile he gave them. “I heard what you said earlier, Mr. Tyler, about the strange lives you now lead. I must admit mine has also turned out to be quite peculiar.” His tone sharpened to a knifepoint. “Make sure you don’t lose that chest. Go.”