by T. G. Ayer
Vissarion
A Dark Sight Novel #2.5
T.G. Ayer
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Dark Sight
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Chapter 1
The problem with wishing that life would change, that things were different, was that some things you wish come true and it’s nothing like what you’d hope for.
At fourteen, Maximus Vissarion had made pushing boundaries and bending rules into a serious art. His parents owned a vineyard in the hills of Ralabia State, and lived a comfortable life, and as such, were completely at a loss as to how to deal with his rebellion.
For Max, rules confined him, suffocated his spirit. Or perhaps, that was just a nice way of couching the truth—that he was ungrateful and uncontrollable.
Chores were…a chore, and almost anything set him off. His upbringing meant he’d grown to be a little arrogant and was far too stubborn and unbending. School was hours spent in a restrictive hell, and the only thing he enjoyed about it was the sport. Wrestling fit well into his spirit, the need to burn off energy with the added advantage of violence was a thrill he tended to live for.
He’d often entertained dreams of entering the Olympics—before they’d suggested that full nudity would return as the dress code.
Max had laughed at the thought, though he’d felt a ripple of discomfort at the prospect and had shied away from opportunities offered by the larger entertainment consortiums who also headhunted young wrestling stars.
Men in Max’s time were not known for being shy, but Max had been raised with a strong sense of self-respect. Perhaps some would deem it as a negative, that he’d rebel against everything his parents taught him, or expected of him, though he chose to retain a strong hold on his respect for this body.
“Max, you’re just a prude, just admit it,” Augie teased, his eyes scrunched up in his round face so much that they appeared as mere slits above rounded cheeks.
Julius and Eduard both laughed and nodded, eyes watching Max for a response. They were sitting at the edge of the bath, resting after doing their lengths for the day.
“Or maybe you’re just shy,” said Julius, a glint in his eye that Max was sure was more malicious than the boy himself would have admitted.
Max shook his head and smiled, keeping his tone even and pleasant. He’d found that when in an argument, an even, calm tone won sooner than yelling or words spoken in anger. “You do realize I’ve had no problem strutting my stuff in the locker rooms, or even at the beach, clothed or unclothed. But the one thing I refuse to do, is to put my body on display in auditoriums all around the world in the name of a sporting event which benefits only the governments and councils as opposed to the actual participants.”
“Look at you, becoming all libertarian and shit,” said Eduard, grinning despite the hard response. “Have you forgotten all the money you are missing out on?”
Max shrugged. “Do I look like I need the money?” Max pushed off the edge of the water and stood to his full height. “If anything, I have a duty to leave those positions to people who need the money. Although, it depends on how much of the winnings those players actually pocket. We all know their sponsors dip into the winnings and take their cuts way before the player even sees a dollar.”
Augie’s eyes widened. “You really swallowed that bullshit?”
Max reached for a towel from the bench behind him and began to dry himself off. “I could ask you the same thing. Have you swallowed the propaganda that the government is selling? Aren’t we supposed to live in a world where freedom of speech has value?”
“Yeah. As long as you’re not an Apollo disciple,” Julius muttered, his eyes darkening.
The group of boys fell silent. Though the time of the worldwide persecution of Apollo worshippers had long passed, the period of horror still lived on in the proof they saw every time they passed an Apollo temple.
The building remains broken, columns toppled and crushed, statues destroyed.
Max took a deep breath. “Yeah. Look at what happened when people stood up for what they believed in.” He sighed, tired now of a conversation that had gone from heated to one that made him feel ill.
Not that he’d have admitted in public, but Max and his family had long been disciples of Apollo’s word. And even though a century had gone since their forefather’s lives had been torn asunder, his people still looked over their shoulders, still studied the expressions of friends, neighbors, and coworkers, looking for the telltale signs of someone who would betray them.
It was an illogical thing, and yet it had perpetrated through generations, and for some reason, Max held onto it to remind himself that courage under adversity was of far more value than following the government’s word as though they were handed down by the gods.
“Come on. This conversation is depressing. Let’s go and get something to drink.” Max was already halfway to the locker rooms as he called out to his friends over his shoulder, “Last one to get dressed is buying.”
Spurred by the challenge, the three boys surged from the water and hit the locker room, dragging clothing onto wet bodies and grunting as they shoved each other aside to get out the door.
They reached the street in an indecipherable knot of elbows shoved into ribs and feet attempting to kick the legs out from their other friends.
A near collision with a young couple pushing a stroller was enough for the four to straighten and calm themselves, but it was only a few seconds before they were off again, striding as fast as they could across the street toward the local coffee bar, the Black Roast.
Max had meant to overtake his friends, head past the shop and hightail it home, because coffee was the last thing he wanted. Coffee made him sleepy, and he quite liked the little high that he usually rode on.
He’d gotten almost all the way past the Black Roast and was looking over his shoulder as the three boys following him when things seemed to slow down, as if time had paused.
The three boys stared, hands moving slowly to point in his direction. He sensed the person beside him, and was already turning, but even as he spun around, he knew there was no way he’d avoid the collision.
He crashed into the woman, a part of his brain aware that her frame was slight, her bones thin, and as she bounced off him, he reached for her. He caught her hands just in time, grateful that she’d grasped him as hard as he had her, or she’d have fallen backward onto the stone path.
Miraculously, time returned to normal, and Max found himself firm on his feet, enough to steady the old woman too. H
e smiled apologetically and paused to help her to her seat.
Wide, bright blue eyes stared up at him from a wrinkled face, and she smiled cheerily up at him, the expression incongruous given that he’d been expecting her to slap him hard or call for the police.
He waited only long enough to lower her into the seat before stalking off following the trio of friends who he’d now labeled as traitors. They’d left him to deal with the old woman and had hurried off. He shook his head, jogging to catch up with them, vowing he’d not let a single one of them win at handball.
They’d been playing for almost an hour when Julius had cocked his chin at something beyond Max’s shoulder.
“You have an admirer, Vissarion.” Julius smirked, and Max threw the ball at him a little too hard. He ignored the ‘oof’ his friend emitted as the hard leather-covered ball hit him full in the gut.
The old lady now sat on a bench across the path on the other side of the court.
Chapter 2
The playground was large, dotted with climbing gyms and exercise equipment, a blend of activities for all ages.
All forms of seating were available from fallen logs to concrete steps to grassy knolls and benches. The woman he’d almost knocked to her death—she certainly looked fragile enough to have broken had she hit the ground too hard—now sat quietly on the bench, her hands folded in her lap as she people-watched.
Frowning, Max turned back to the boys and continued to play, determined to ignore her. Despite the boys’ teasing that he’d acquired a groupie, Max ignored the woman for a while and then, in the space of a few minutes, decided what he was doing wasn’t right.
Gasping for breath, he threw the ball to Augie and said, “I’m going to go see what she wants. Who knows, she probably wants to arrest me or something.”
“What if she does?”
“So be it. I’ll say my piece. You guys will speak for me, right?”
All three assured Max they would, and he left them to cross the court and head toward the bench.
Here goes nothing.
As his feet drew him toward the woman, he resolved that should she proposition him, he’d turn her down politely. It wasn’t unheard of for younger men to take older women as lovers, and he didn’t have anything against people who would choose such a lifestyle. Only, it wasn’t something he’d ever considered, so if that was what the old woman as after, she’d be sorely disappointed.
Besides, what else could she want from him? Max was frowning as he paused when he reached the stone path. He hesitated there for a moment, oddly enough. He’d walked over with every intention to speak to her and now that he was a few feet from her, he found himself unable to move.
She tilted her head and studied him with her bright blue eyes. Her hair was gray and piled up on the top of her head, half up and the rest hanging at her back in soft curls. She was petite, and appeared fragile enough that a stiff breeze would likely knock her over.
She waved him over, and he found his feet obeying even though he’d all but decided he wanted to turn and run back to his friends. Perhaps this was a mistake, and he hadn’t thought it through.
What if the woman was looking for a slave? Perhaps she was part of a human slave ring, stealing young boys and selling them off to rich sheiks in a far-off desert.
Then she let out a soft breath and patted the bench beside her. “Sit, my dear boy. Please sit. We have much to talk about.”
Laughter bubbled up from inside him. They had much to talk about? What was this old woman on about? He didn’t know her apart from almost toppling her over. But, out of respect drummed into him by his parents, he swallowed the laughter and schooled his features.
She leaned against the bench, the sunlight reflecting off her pale hair, and he saw a beauty in her, one that told him she must have been a stunner in her younger days.
Now she smiled serenely. “Young man, you are so much more important than you know,” she said, her voice shaking, confirming her advanced age.
Max swallowed and remained silent, partly because he wasn’t sure what to say to that, and partly because he was still contemplating running for his life.
Then she smiled, and Max understood that his silence had pleased her.
Strange old bat.
“You are a rare breed my boy. And I mean that literally.” She leaned toward him, and he had to steel himself against bending away. She met his gaze and asked, “Do you know how important you are?”
Max could only shrug in response. What kind of a question was that? He felt like he was in some kind of herb-induced dream. Maybe he’d wake up soon and find it was all a figment of his imagination.
“One day you will come to work with me,” the old woman said, her smile growing wider. “You are the one. I touched you . . .”
Uh oh.
Max was beginning to be convinced that the woman was a little touched, perhaps senile considering her advanced age.
“I knew you’d be here. A dream…it was a dream that brought me here and I knew the moment I touched you.” She paused to stare at his face. “It’s the touch, young man. The touch…it’s what tells the truth of it all.”
A little unnerved and a lot uncomfortable, Max got to his feet. Possibly all that talk of touching him had gotten under his skin. He was beginning to bet a little heavier that she was a slave trader.
“Don’t go. I think I’ve scared you,” she said reaching out. She stopped short of touching him when she saw the look in his eyes.
Max shook his head. “I’m not scared.”
Liar.
Chapter 3
Pssht. It’s good to be scared,” the old woman said, letting out a cackling laugh. “Keeps the blood in your veins warm.”
Again, Max was at a loss for words. The old woman set his nerves on edge for so many reasons, but oddly, he didn’t find himself running for the hills. Something about her assured him that despite her oddness she was safe enough.
So far, he’d acted out of instinct, catching her in time before she fell, coming over to speak to her, not running off before she said her piece. Still, though he was waiting to hear what she really had to say, not the nonsense about touching. If she continued on that vein, he’d be gone in an instant.
“You must have heard of the prophecies, of the destinies of the oracles. They search for these women, decade after decade, century after century. They put them through tests, make them jump through hoops, all because of a tweak in their DNA, the curse of a bloodline.” The old woman sighed and rubbed her palms together. She ran her fingers over the back of her hands, and it was easy for Max to see how pale and wrinkled her skin was, how papery thin it was.
She seemed to be absently wiping something off her left hand just above the fingers, then she turned her palms over and stared at them. He wasn’t sure if she was reading her lifelines or if she was imagining seeing something covering her skin.
Max sat there and let her talk softly, wondering not for the first time what in Hades’ name he was doing sitting with her. She was definitely senile.
Max’s lip curled. He didn’t need to be here. He was popular, he knew people, important people. He had a future ahead of him. Sitting here with this old woman was so out of character for him.
And what would people think if they saw him? He glanced up and scanned the empty court. His friends had left him, possibly to head straight to tell the rest of their classmates with a weirdo he was.
This little stunt, his moment of community service, would probably be his downfall.
“You think you’re special, don’t you?” she asked, her words pulling him out of his thoughts. When he met her gaze, he found himself staring at her blue eyes, now flashing with what he interpreted as criticism.
“I…er…” Stammering just made him furious. Max hated feeling uncomfortable.
Then she laughed softly. “Well, you are special. Just not in the way you expected. Or probably not even in the way you want.”
The old woman’s blue eyes
sparkled although her smile was sly. She seemed to enjoy directing their conversation, as if she liked him being in the dark as she fed him bits and pieces of information.
Well, she may enjoy it, but Max certainly wasn’t about to put up with it.
He shifted in place, projecting an air of confidence—that he didn’t have—and folded his arms. “Special how?” he asked. His muscles were taut, his jaw tight as anger filtered through him. But that anger was edged with curiosity. She may have said a lot of things that he’d have to chalk up to senility, but what fourteen-year-old in his right mind didn’t like to know he was special?
“You are Immunis,” she said, her voice swaying with music, her eyes joyful. In her exuberance, her voice broke, and she took a breath, looking away beyond Max’s shoulder.
But he was no longer paying attention to her state of mind. Her words had piqued his curiosity. Forehead scrunching, he asked, “What’s an Immunis?” He leaned toward her. “What’s so special about it?”
Immunis.
The sound of the word sent a thrill through his blood, but perhaps it was just because he’d never heard it before. Was this part of her seduction? He was still yet to find out what it was that she wanted from him.
She didn’t answer the question. Instead, she met his curious gaze, her blue eyes, a little cloudy now, briefly became clearer. “You are unique. In all the world, there is only one of you. And you are vital to me and to my kind.”