by D. N. Leo
14
A lyna approached the building complex. Her compartment was on the ground floor at the far back corner. She had chosen the location because of its backyard with privacy for her outdoor martial arts practice and the basement which was convenient for her shooting practice. What had happened with Caedmon was disconcerting. She could get past the look in Caedmon’s eyes. The rage. She knew about such emotions. She herself had a temper, and it sometimes scared off the men around her.
But what she had seen in Caedmon’s eyes was the true definition of rage. It was something she’d never seen before in her life. It was another mystery to which she’d need to find answers. And that was on top of the shadow that had tried to kill her at Tony’s place. What kind of supernatural creature was that? And why did it want to kill her?
She saw a shadow at the corner of her yard next to the fence. She’d had a hell of a day and needed nothing less than to release her frustration on a random trespasser.
“Hey!” she shouted and charged at the shadow.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Sam? Now I really have to hurt you. You didn’t show up at the club like you promised.” She playfully shoved the shoulder of the teenager she had helped the other day with a couple of credit tokens.
“I didn’t promise anything. You asked me to go. I’m here to give you back your credits.”
He opened his palm, revealing two shiny credit tokens.
“Did you steal those?”
He shook his head. “No, but I didn’t earn them, either. Ben gave them to me and asked me to spy on you, so I quit. What sort of club pays members to spy on their leader?”
“Ben Zuric?”
“Yes. When I told him you sent me, he asked me to report to him what you’ve been up to. He thinks we’re close. Before we had a chance to finish the conversation, he got an emergency call. Something about a dead body. Anyway, I left.”
“First, I am highly ranked in Amaraq, but I’m not their leader. Pukak is. Second, I know Ben. He wouldn’t betray me. Until I have hard evidence, I’m not going to draw any conclusions. Maybe he just wants to know which club I’ll be auditing next so he can prepare for it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Again, I advise you to come back. As for the credits, keep them. They’re yours, whether you join Amaraq or not. But living in this day and age, I strongly recommend you try to protect yourself. If you come back, the club door is always open for you.”
She turned to go inside.
“What’s the catch, Alyna?” Sam asked from behind her.
“You owe me a favor.”
He nodded. “I can live with that. Oh…hey…”
Alyna turned around and saw Sam approaching a cat sitting in the dark next to a trash can. He approached the cat slowly, reaching his hand out. The cat sniffed then licked his hand. He scratched the cat under its jaw. The cat purred audibly.
She approached to join him, but when she got close, the cat stopped purring. It stared at her with two glowing green eyes.
“Hello, beautiful,” she said.
The cat left Sam and approached her. It emerged from the shadows, and she could now see its long, gray fur in the dim streetlights. It was truly beautiful.
“Look at your tail,” Sam said and was about to stroke the cat’s tail, which had an unusual T-shape at the end.
“No, Sam, cats don’t like you to stroke their tails.”
The cat approached her, and it sat down in front of her and stared.
Sam chuckled. “If you want to enter a staring competition with Alyna, you will lose, cat! Why don’t you come with me? I have one credit left. I can share half of it with you and buy you a can of processed fish. How does that sound?”
It kept looking at Alyna and ignored Sam’s questions.
Alright, you’re challenging me! she thought. Her inner voice screamed at her to drop the idea, but she wasn’t the kind to obey orders easily. So she did what she didn’t think she would ever be capable of doing again. She hummed the tune of the lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was younger. As soon as she started, the cat stood up and walked slowly around her.
Next, she started softly singing the words. As soon as she did so, the cat bit her finger lightly. She continued singing. The cat bit harder.
“Don’t do that, naughty cat,” Sam said and reached over to pull the cat away. The cat turned around and hissed at him. Its eyes sparked as if they would shoot fire. Sam recoiled.
Alyna stopped singing.
The cat cast a glance at her and then at Sam. Then it turned around and walked away.
Sam looked at her. “Hey, what’s up? I’m going to get you another cat. Don’t worry. There are plenty of them around town, especially on the back streets.” Sam’s voice was a bit shaky.
She realized she was crying and wiped away the tears.
“I mean, it was a cute cat, but it bit you. I can find you another one, preferably one with a gentler nature.”
“You can’t replace him.”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t see anything special about that cat.”
“His name is Lazi. He has long gray fur, a crooked tail, and he hates that lullaby. He would bite, scratch, and meow until my mother stopped singing.”
“Oh, so that’s your cat. Don’t worry then. I’ll get him back for you.”
“Don’t worry, Sam. You won’t be able to find him.”
“Why not? He’s unusual. I could easily tell him apart from other cats. What’s the problem, Alyna?”
“When I was a teenager, my parents died in a car accident. Lazi died in that car crash, too.”
15
C aedmon awoke to the sound of a message coming through on his wrist unit. He vaguely remembered seeing Leanne to the door then rushing back into the room to turn on his eudqi and heal his injuries, leaving some of the cuts and bruises that could obviously not heal themselves overnight untouched to avoid suspicion. After that, he’d crashed on the bed for hours.
He initiated the large screen mode of the wrist unit, and a floating screen appeared in the air. On it was Lorcan, who frowned at his visible wounds.
“Uncle Lorcan! Long story,” he said, gesturing at his injuries, “but they’re just minor flesh wounds. What have you got for me?”
“Good news or bad news first?”
“Good news, please.”
“Because—out of the goodness of your heart—you expressed concern about Amaraq’s welfare, I dug around a bit. I found some possible connections. It seems there are tensions between Amaraq and Ethesus regarding their businesses and their spiritual territories.”
“Spiritual practices have a territory?”
Lorcan chuckled. “Apparently they do. Normal humans need some kind of structure and guidance in their lives to operate together as a functioning society. When no tangible government-established authority exists, humans turn to a higher power, a spiritual belief. It might be in the form of religion, or it could be just a belief in righteousness. Whatever it is, the business competition between Amaraq and Ethesus is more than just a fight for financial territories—their spiritual practices are a large part of it as well. Humans need to believe in something to function.”
“I was told last night that humans often discriminate against the supernaturals. On top of that, the supernaturals are territorial and discriminate among themselves. It sounds like the Great War made humans jump out of the frying pan into the fire.”
“Yes, the Great War.” Lorcan rolled his eyes. “Wiping out all governments and authorities gave Earth a spiritually barbarian society…”
“And the links to Amaraq are?”
“Oh, sorry. I got sidetracked,” Lorcan said with a chuckle. “There’s a Ben Zuric in the Amaraq who has a questionable background. Records show he joined via a recommendation by Alyna McCabe. But the Zurics are Ethesus people, meaning Ben’s family has connections with the Ethesus. Family matters are complicated, but in terms of spiritual beliefs, it’s rare that they swing betwe
en the two extremes.”
“Amaraq has a client who died yesterday, and they suspect his death was due to spiritual conflicts between family members.”
Lorcan nodded. “I don’t know what sort of records Amaraq has on Ben Zuric or what sort of person he is. But if you’re looking for people with shady connections, I’d start with him.”
“All right, I’ll look into it. Thanks, Uncle Lorcan. And by the way, there was a group of top-grade mercenaries sent after me yesterday.”
Lorcan arched an eyebrow. “That would have to do with the bad news I have for you. There’s an alert in the system. Someone tried to do a search of your records in the LeBlanc’s database. It was an amateur attempt, of course, because they didn’t have access, and they left traces of their search. But someone at the branch you’re working with is either questioning your cover or wants to leverage it for profits. Either way, the enemy is in your own backyard.”
“I have an idea of who it might be…”
Caedmon felt a sudden rush of cold air behind him. He remembered that he still had his eudqi on since starting the healing process last night, so his senses were ultra-sharp.
“I have something to show you,” he said to Lorcan and turned around as if getting something for him.
He switched on his microchip and scanned the room. The microchip eyes detected the form of a creature made of black particles. It stood on two legs and looked like a werewolf, but it had horns. The particle form was blurry. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it could dematerialize. It could be the creature that had attacked Alyna earlier.
It stood still as he nonchalantly moved toward it. It was a truly dematerialized creature. He walked right through it as he moved to the other side of the room. He predicted it would be able to will enough force to kill humans without having to rematerialize. That was how it had attacked Alyna and possibly killed her client. But it couldn’t attack him in its dematerialized form because he was also a creature from the multiverse. Whether he could attack and kill a dematerialized creature, he had no idea.
His strongest talent was to create light blades—they were like lightning that could slice through any solid surface. He could cause a small earthquake or cut off a piece of arctic ice. But his blades weren’t suitable for use in confined spaces. He could certainly swing a dagger at the creature or shoot it with his laser gun, but if his attempts failed to kill the creature, it would be alerted that he could see it in its dematerialized form.
He recalled his experience last night in the bathroom when the surge of heat and energy from his anger had blown up the two guards. Maybe he could use that against the creature. If it didn’t work, at least his attempt wouldn’t be too obvious.
He concentrated, gathered his thoughts, summoned his rage, and sent a blast of heat toward the creature. The wave of fiery torridity blanketed it.
He heard a roar.
It worked!
The creature staggered and materialized, becoming semitransparent. He sent another heatwave. It roared again and turned to run. He blasted one more time. He wasn’t sure he could grab the creature, but he wanted to make sure it didn’t get away. It looked as if it was about to jump into a dimensional gateway, so he sent one more strong blast. The blast was too strong—it sucked a large part of his energy out with it.
But the creature roared louder and completely materialized.It was a nine-foot-tall werewolf lookalike with horns. As if that wasn’t unusual enough, it was made of ice. And the ice was cracking and melting under the impact of the heatwaves.
Now it had materialized completely. It could attack him.
Because he was losing so much energy, Caedmon wasn’t sure he had the strength to go up against this creature. When it charged at him and made contact, he did what he had done last night to the two guards—he pumped his rage into it.
The ice creature exploded into thousands of pieces of ice which quickly evaporated.
On the ground lay a single palm-sized shard of red ice. It looked like frozen blood.
16
Ben pushed open the door of the fight club. He had been with this club for a long time, and he knew his way around. Countless times, he had asked himself why he stayed in one place for so long. Every single time, the answer was Alyna. He didn’t like that answer.
He had been a rogue before she’d introduced him to the club. And she had been more of a rogue than he was. Did anyone question her background before she joined Amaraq? he wondered. Probably not, because she was at the highest rank, just under Pukak.
He would never forget the look on her face when she found him at the dumpster years ago. They’d both been teenagers at the time, but Alyna had already achieved a decent rank in Amaraq. People told him she had climbed up the ladder quickly though she had joined not long before he had. She had claimed her rank purely by her talent. It had taken him much longer to make progress within Amaraq.
Ben had worked for this fight club for a long time under Tomkin, a guy he didn’t have much respect for and didn’t consider to be highly talented. As far as he was concerned, Tomkin was a spineless sucker. Before he knew it, time had passed, and he’d worked for Amaraq for far too long. He was going nowhere in this so-called career.
He could move to the South. Amaraq had no idea how many times he had turned down offers there just to stay put and help them here in the North. But if his loyalty wasn’t appreciated, he should just go. If he didn’t take care of himself, nobody else would, that was for sure.
In this society, it was either kill or be killed. Wasn’t that what Alyna had always told him? He was merely protecting himself and working toward his future. That’s what everyone did, right? Feeling somewhat comfortable with his reasoning, he ran his hand under the doormat where he knew Tomkin hid the key whenever he went out of town on Amaraq business.
Ben knew his way around well enough inside the club. He could work there all night without the need for a light. He knew that on his right was a large fighting platform where they organized competitions and recruited followers for the private security business. There were several surveillance cameras in that area. Although they used an ancient technology from the middle of the third millennium, it still recorded data. He didn’t want his face to show up as a suspected thief.
He stayed as far to the left as possible. There wasn’t much surveillance on that side. There was a medical center, some changing rooms and bathrooms, and a couple of supporting offices. He used the key, sneaked into an office, and shuffled through the filing cabinets.
There it was—the file on Alyna. He pulled the folder out, flipped quickly through the documents inside, and cursed. This was a file on her training and achievements in martial arts. Not what he was looking for.
“Idiot!” he cursed himself. The file must be in Pukak’s office—or whatever he called the dump he used as the medical clinic. He didn’t have much time left, so he left the fight club and headed toward the clinic.
All was dark from the outside, meaning Pukak had left. Ben hugged the side wall, took a couple of running steps for momentum, then jumped on top of a trash can and leaped onto the roof.
Who in this day and age used tiles on the roof of a house? he wondered.
He pulled off a bit of the roof tile and peeked into Pukak’s office. It was empty. Holding onto the edge of the roof, Ben lowered himself to the ground and sneaked inside the clinic. Stepping over piles of papers and jars and buckets of god knows what kinds of medicine, Ben reached the filing cabinet. He pulled a drawer open, shuffled through the folders, and found Alyna’s file. He pulled it out.
Suddenly the room lit up. In the doorway stood Alyna, Pukak, and Caedmon.
Ben slammed the cabinet drawer closed. “It isn’t what it looks like!” he said.
“So what should it look like, apart from you being a traitor?” Pukak asked.
“No!” He saw the look of disappointment in Alyna’s eyes. “No, I can explain.”
“Sure you can. But it had better be something o
ther than the fact that your family is with Ethesus, because I’ve already told them that,” Caedmon said.
“Bastard!” Ben leaped on top of the table and jumped from it over to Caedmon. Alyna pushed Caedmon aside and caught Ben midair with a kick, sending him crashing to the floor. She pulled him up by the collar and threw him against the wall.
“I’m not fighting you, Alyna.”
She kicked him in his abdomen. “That’s for lying to me and telling me your family was dead when I picked you up at the dumpster.”
He fell to the ground and heaved.
She pulled him up again and punched him in the face. “And that’s for never telling me about your connection to Ethesus, even when you know how concerned we are about them.”
He rubbed his jaw. He knew Alyna had no tolerance for betrayal—a few more punches from her would be lethal. He could explain, but he didn’t have a leg to stand on right now. All the evidence was pointing toward him.
He could only curse his stupidity. But he refused to go down that easily. He pulled a knife out, but before he could throw it, Alyna caught it by the blade. Blood seeped out between her fingers as she looked at him.
He knew the pain of being betrayed was a lot more difficult for her to handle than the physical pain caused by the knife. He let go of the knife.
“This,” she said, “is for betraying Amaraq.” She swung her fist at his temple, and his whole world went black.
17
C aedmon lowered himself from the roof of the fight club where they were keeping Ben. His eudqi was turned on to enhance his movements and senses. The club had been quiet since training hours ended, but there were a couple of guards at the front and about five of them inside.
He had encountered Amaraq’s guards before and knew they were trained fighters. If they had been working with Ben previously and believed in his innocence, they might be upset to see him imprisoned. Would they break him out? Caedmon wasn’t sure. He knew he had to get to Ben first to get some answers.