by Steve Vera
There was only a half moon left. As it disappeared, so did the tempo of the storm—it was down to mortal rainfall now, though the occasional flashes of lightning still came in hues that were not even remotely natural. The beam of light now was no bigger than a silver dollar.
When Tarsidion returned, he was carrying a big black backpack that was stuffed and zipped shut, complete with the little straps that clicked around the chest. He handed it to Skip. “You carry this.”
“Uh, whatever you say,” Skip said, taking the pack from Tarsidion and nearly dropped it. Heavy.
Tarsidion kneeled by Jack. Water beaded in tiny rivulets off the giant man’s velvet-blue cloak, and a flash of lightning revealed an unguarded and grief-stricken face. His long, drenched hair whipped around him. Tarsidion then gathered Jack’s body in his arms and lifted delicately, slinging him over his shoulder like a fireman. Jack’s body flopped lifelessly. The giant man murmured something in his deep baritone to his dead friend and though it was too low to pick out, Amanda could feel its poignancy.
Not wanting to intrude, Amanda looked away. Skip had the same idea. It was an odd moment, the rain stinging their faces as electric chartreuse and vermillion slashed the sky, a giant, cloaked exotic knight from another world standing beside them, holding a dead man who just hours before had saved their life. Thunder boomed.
“It’s time,” Tarsidion said. “Are you coming or staying?”
Amanda was caught off guard by the question but it wasn’t directed at her…it was directed at Skip.
“What do you think?” the police chief said, groaning as he got to his feet.
“You’re going?” Amanda asked.
“Of course. This isn’t over.” He looked at Tarsidion and gingerly rubbed the protruding part of the bone sticking out of his chest. “Think we can do anything about this over on Theia?”
“Yes,” Tarsidion said with a nod. “We are Shardyn. We are trained to heal before we are trained to kill.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear. Deal me in.”
Tarsidion nodded in approval. “Then we go now.”
“What about me?” Amanda asked.
“What about you?” Tarsidion countered.
“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m coming or staying?”
Tarsidion began to laugh, a hearty, strangely melodic sound that came from his belly and pushed through the rain. It was wonderful. “Stavengre would feed me my balls if I let you come. You stay here. Skip, help me with Cirena.”
Skip acceded and helped Tarsidion roll her onto his other shoulder. When they were done, Tarsidion slowly stood, two fully armored knights on each shoulder.
“Goodbye, little lady. Stavengre chose well. You have more courage than men who have trained a lifetime with arms.”
Amanda swallowed and then went on her tippy toes to kiss his cheek. He smiled briefly, and she tried not to acknowledge the blisters that had burst on his neck from the weight. “Tell him I’ll love him forever. Tell him…Please watch out for him, Tarsidion.” A strangled sob muscled through her mouth. “Tell him I’ll always remember him.”
Tarsidion nodded. “Aye, little lady. I promise.” Tarsidion then turned to Skip. “Are you ready, lawman?”
Skip cracked his neck to one side. “I’m always ready.”
“You’re really going to do this?” Amanda asked, still disbelieving.
Skip fished into his Eagles jacket gingerly and brought out his phone. “There’s a number in there under David Walkins. That’s my son. Tell him that I…went back into the field. He knows what I did in the Air Force, just say…I don’t know, make something up. Just make sure he knows I love him. As for my ex-wife, tell her I joined the circus.”
Amanda smiled. “I will.” His phone was ancient, beat up and warn. It was a flip phone, for crying out loud.
“All right, let’s do this thing,” Skip said, rubbing his hands together, screwing up his courage as if her were about to jump into a cold lake. But then his eyes widened, as if he’d just realized he’d left the iron on. “I almost forgot.”
“What are you doing? There’s no time!” Tarsidion said, his voice climbing in volume.
“One second,” he yelled and despite his heavy limp, Skip dashed across the rain-soaked field. He was back in forty-three seconds, carrying the huge sniper rifle he’d been using all night with a two-prong stand dangling from the bottom of it. “Can’t forget the Brontosaurus killer.”
Tarsidion stared at it for a dangerously long time. “Very well,” he said, as if coming to some important decision. He looked up at the moon; only a nickel-sized beam of light was keeping the portal open. Tarsidion took one last look around at Earth and bent his knees. “Time to fly,” he said and then heaved.
Skip gave her one last look, a kind of I-can’t-believe-I’m-about-to-do-this look. He grinned. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
And then he jumped into the light.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Donovan walked quietly up the driveway, neither fast nor slow, but deliberately, impervious to the driving storm. He had learned all he could from a distance.
Like a hydra from Greek mythology, for every question answered, two sprung up in its place. Donovan had watched them all, studied these strangers with bands of sheen interwoven throughout their auras, assessed their skills as they fought the creature from the tomb, was even fascinated by their strange, obsolete but alluring garb.
Formidable as they were, they had still been overmatched. Only through Donovan’s intervention had they survived this encounter.
Particular instances flashed repeatedly across Donovan’s inner eye, igniting yet another long-dormant emotion.
Curiosity.
What sort of power did these people possess, creature included, to be able to defy the laws of physics as they existed in this world and spit fire and lightning at each other?
And where did one acquire such power?
The tempest that was only now just leaving was not of the natural order, as most certainly was not the beam of light that had lanced down from the moon itself and pierced the earth.
More data was required.
Amanda was the only one left. She’d survived. Just as Donovan had said she would. She stood, staring listlessly at the formerly pierced circle of light, and as Donovan approached from behind he could hear something like whipping sails in a storm. The blackness in the hole writhed. She was not aware of him until he spoke.
“Hello, Amanda.”
She screamed. Shock and fear twisted her outer bands—white and scarlet. She backed away from him, mouth open. “You!” she cried.
“Me,” Donovan agreed, stepping toward her.
She made as if to run.
“Don’t make me chase you,” he warned. “If I had wanted to harm you, Amanda, I would have.”
She still backed away from him.
“I wish to speak to you.”
“Like last time?” A couple of threads of crimson crept into the white and scarlet. Anger. The hours since he’d last seen her had not been kind. Not only were the blows he’d rained on her previously now peaking, but she had lacerations in her shoulders, and her face was gaunt and pale. Haggard.
“No. I will not touch you,” he said, looking down at the bloody grass where the one called Jack had laid. “But I will collect my debt.”
“What debt?” she demanded.
“You owe me your life.”
Her fingers went to her mouth. She glanced at the suppressed German DSR-1 slung across his back. “So it was you who made that shot.”
“Of course. Who else could it have been? Be grateful that I am as perfect as I
am. Another second, and you would have had your face bitten off.”
He watched her shudder. She knew it was the truth; the fresh flash of scarlet confirmed it.
“Who are you?” she finally asked.
“I am somebody you owe your life to. That’s all you need to know.”
Amanda was staring down at his chest, annoyingly, instead of looking at him. There was a peculiar expression on her face. “I think your chest is glowing,” she whispered.
Donovan followed her gaze and saw that she was right, that the medallion that had been fused to his chest his whole life had awakened for the second time, the same medallion the creature had tried to take from him back at the graveyard.
It was breathing light.
The luminous vapors seeped through the fabric of his tactical jacket and slid through his fingers, reaching out to Amanda. She flinched, but it wasn’t her it was after; it was creeping toward the gateway behind her, which still simmered a muted incandescence.
As the light approached, the dim illumination of the circle in the yard trembled and blinked, gathering at the point closest to Donovan, as if he were a magnet and the light was metal filings.
“What’s going on?” Amanda asked.
Donovan didn’t like not knowing that answer. In fact, he hated it. The simmer coming from the circle was no longer serene but had now begun to pulse angrily, as if the presence of this new illumination offended it.
Bloodred streamers shot down at Donovan from what remained of the moon, a mere crescent, which had all but passed to the other side of the horizon.
Amanda stepped backward, looking everywhere at once. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded in a baffled, frightened tone.
I’m not, stupid bitch.
Donovan’s insides had begun to hum as celestial energy thrashed around him.
“Oh my God, you’re lighting up!” she screamed.
His vision was changing, becoming blurred at the corners. The portal behind Amanda suddenly ruptured, shattering into darts and prisms of refracted light. A new wind surged outward, frigid and biting, followed by a silky blackness.
Donovan backstepped. His medallion burst to life and fired legions of luminous vapors into the surging darkness, colliding with it like two charging armies. His forces of light carved in toward the middle of the circle, while darkness whipped toward Donovan like the tentacles to a kraken. They reached out toward Amanda too, swirled and clawed at her until she was enveloped and ensnared. Her screams were as loud as they were irritating.
Every time a tentacle would clash with Donovan’s light, it would vaporize, only to be replaced with another. Donovan resisted, commanded his legs to pump backward, wield the power he’d been bestowed with since his earliest memories. Yet still, he was drawn forward.
Helplessly.
From his side Amanda clutched at the ground, raking the dirt with her fingers, her face locked in terror as she was also drawn inexorably toward the mouth of darkness.
Donovan tried to rip the amulet straight out of his chest, but like all the other times before…he failed.
And then they were consumed.
*
About the Author
Afflicted with wanderlust at the age of seventeen, Steve has lived in seven states, served briefly in the U.S. Air Force as a Pararescue Trainee, and has a profound aversion to mint chocolate-chip ice cream.
Steve wrote his first invasion novella on the back of forty-seven restaurant place mats when he was in seventh grade (he still has them, too), has a doctorate in the School of Dungeon Masters and loves trying to balance his intellectual side with his physical side. Along with reading, writing and chess playing, he’s an avid fan of the martial arts, wrestling and anything Rock ’n’ Roll, though he isn’t above listening to any kind of music, even pop, just so long as it’s good.
He currently straddles two worlds—one foot in his hometown of Elmwood, Connecticut, the other in Sunnyside, Queens, New York. He has a great, fat, good-for-nothing but entirely loveable planet of a cat—Jeter (he didn’t name him!), who is a welcome distraction…most of the time.
Where no great story goes untold.
The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write.
With new releases every week, your next great read is just a download away!
Keep in touch with Carina Press:
Read our blog: www.CarinaPress.com/blog
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarinaPress
Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarinaPress
ISBN: 978-14268-9509-8
Copyright © 2013 by Steve William Vera
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.CarinaPress.com