by D. N. Leo
“Well, we do have a board!”
“But you’re the chairman.”
“Are you from another planet?”
Caedmon rolled his eyes.
“Wait, you’re from Mid-land London.” Tann sneered. “That’s like outer space to me. People here might work for you, but you don’t own them. Loyalty and morality and all that shit existed only in ancient times, before the Great War. And if you ever bothered to study ancient history in the middle of the third millennium, you’d know it was that very idea of morality that sent humans to war.”
“Religious war?”
Mr. Tann laughed. “Boy, you really know nothing. Religion is like patriotism. It encompasses loyalty and similar ideas. Humans made up those ideas and used them as guidelines for what they should do and what they should think. The Great War wiped out all of that. It took us back to bare bones. Good versus evil—or whatever you want to call it. Yes, the people on the board work for your money at the office. But outside of work, they might kill you to get the parking spot they want—and they won’t see anything wrong with doing it.”
“But the Amaraq people still operate on the principles of loyalty and morality.”
“Caedmon, they aren’t human!”
Caedmon shrugged. “Fair enough. So what you’re saying is that someone on the board wants my head. You know about their activities, but you’re not a part of them.”
“And I won’t acknowledge this conversation beyond these four walls. I dislike you enough to send you to the North side to get some bruises. But it’s in my best interest that you stay alive because the LeBlanc business is my income.” He nodded a goodbye and exited the room.
Leanne stuck her head in and smiled. “How’s the deluxe sushi?” she asked.
20
T he Thunder Child looked at the Teacher, who was examining the basket of wildflowers and exotic mushrooms she had just collected for him in the woods. “What’s your real name, Teacher?”
“You’re suddenly not wanting to call me Teacher anymore?”
“I just want to know more about you and about your family and your children who were killed. It seems to me a good way to start a conversation like that is with your real name.” She grinned at him.
“You’re very mature for your age. I guess that’s because of what happened to your parents. Have you ever wanted to talk about that?”
She shook her head.
“Then I won’t tell you my story. It’s only fair.”
“Keymaster asked the same. He wants to know if I know who killed my parents.”
“Do you?”
“I told him I saw some spider wolf creatures.”
“Yes, but do you know who sent them? Your parents were angels. But that doesn’t make you an angel, not until you dignify their death.”
“I don’t want to be an angel.”
“What do you want to be then?”
She locked eyes with him. “What do you think your children would want to be if they hadn’t been murdered?”
He sat down on a stone and gazed into the distance.
“I’m sorry if I made you sad,” she said.
“It has been a hundred years. I’m no longer sad, Thunder Child.”
“Does that mean you feel something different?” she asked. “Hatred? Anger? The need for vengeance?”
He brushed a stray hair from her forehead. “You think too much, child.”
“The only time I didn’t think was before the first blade pierced my father’s body. Because I was an infant, I wasn’t supposed to think. I hadn’t even started talking. Then they stabbed my mother. They stabbed her again and again while she tried to crawl away from me so they wouldn’t see me.” Tears started to stream down her face.
“Come here, child!” He pulled her into his arms and held her.
“When Keymaster found me, I had to find a way to win him over. I had to make him like me so he would take me with him. I clapped my hands. I giggled. I cooed. I made baby noises. Because I was an infant, I couldn’t speak, but I could still think, and I knew what had just happened to my parents.” She started crying, and she knew the Teacher cried for her, too.
She had lost people she loved. So had he. They had to work together to seek revenge. She didn’t know exactly what he wanted. But she knew what her life mission would be. She wanted justice for her parents. She knew who had sent the spiders. And she knew how to kill them.
But first, she needed to grow into the body of an adult. She needed to develop the necessary skills. She needed both Keymaster and the Teacher to support her and train her to become what she needed to be to get her revenge.
“If you had a choice, what would you want to be, Thunder Child?”
She smiled at the Teacher. “I don’t know yet. I’m just a child.”
21
A lyna jabbed her finger at Caedmon’s chest as soon as he turned the corner outside the LeBlanc’s headquarters. “You killed Ben, didn’t you?”
“How about some thanks for giving you the information that he’s a rat? And if I remember correctly, he beat the hell out of me.”
“I saw what you did to the guards at your complex. You’re not human, Caedmon. And I think you could kill Ben if you wanted to.”
He nodded. “What I am is irrelevant. I mean you and Amaraq no harm. I did have a conversation with Ben yesterday, and he asked me to tell you to be careful, especially with the summoning.”
“You talked to him? Without us?”
“Well, the conversation was about you, and it wasn’t about your taste in fashion. So you’re right…our discussion didn’t include you. I thought you could pull ranks within Amaraq to get Ben out if you liked him that much and believed he was innocent. He was alive and kicking when I left him.”
“He escaped. I still don’t believe he betrayed me, but there’s nothing I can do with Amaraq now. They kicked me out.”
Caedmon raised an eyebrow. “Their loss. At least you don’t have to be involved in the summoning next week.”
“It’s not next week—it’s next month. Next week is the trial. And I never planned to be involved. It’s a huge event, so they have to practice. ”
“Good. By the way, the head of the LeBlancs here just told me someone in-house wanted my head. Whoever it is sent six mercenaries, and we killed all of them. I’m going to need protection. Are you interested?”
She smiled. “You’re more than capable of protecting yourself, Caedmon.”
“I’m just a guy from out of town. Are you interested in the job or not?”
“Let me think about it.”
“All right…”
“You forgot your sushi, Caedmon,” Leanne said, stepping out from a corner of the room.
Alyna rolled her eyes and looked away.
“Leanne, you shouldn’t have done this.”
Leanne glanced at Alyna. “If you’re going to the North side again, then please take the food. Eat it before you go.”
She reached out to hand him the box with the sushi. As he touched it, a metal arrow pierced it just in front of his chest.
Alyna saw he had swiveled slightly to avoid the hit, and she applauded him for his instincts, but still she dove and pushed him over, falling to the ground with him.
“Get down!” she shouted to Leanne, who was still standing with the lunch box in her hands. She reached out and pulled Leanne to the ground. Leanne dropped the lunch box. Alyna pulled out the arrow and saw an E in fancy lettering on the shaft—the symbol of Ethesus.
“Bastards.” She raced to the arrow’s origin and chased the attacker into an alley where he stopped suddenly and turned toward her. He pulled down his hoodie and smirked.
It’s a trap, she thought. She turned around to head back to Caedmon, but the man charged at her from behind. She could tell he was a high-ranking Ethesus. It would be a tough fight.
The man anticipated her every move, and she couldn’t even get to her guns. After a few rounds, she managed to kick the man away a
nd reach for her weapons. But then he threw a smoke bomb and darted around the corner.
It was a sedative bomb, and she had inhaled the powder. She dropped to her knees. Her world started to spin. He arms seemed to weigh a ton. With great effort, she pushed herself to her feet and struggled back toward Caedmon. When she was out of the alley, she saw him battling a group of five across the street.
She collapsed to her knees again. She had plenty of willpower, but her body wasn’t cooperating. Hearing footsteps behind her, she glanced back and saw the man she had fought before. He approached, knife in hand.
From across the street, Caedmon could see her situation. She wanted to tell him not to worry, not to be distracted, but she didn’t know how. She couldn’t speak, and her world was dimming by the second. In her last moment of blurred vision, she saw that the distraction had cost Caedmon.
He pulled a dart from his neck. His knees buckled. The men he was fighting launched an increased attack to be sure he was incapacitated. And then he was down.
Leanne ran out from a side street with the same lunch box she had tried to hand Caedmon. She swung it at the men. One of them yanked it away from her, and she started slapping at them, swinging her purse and kicking at them with her stiletto heels. Alyna had to give it to her—she was brave. But the men stopped her feminine assault in no time.
All Alyna could do now was crawl toward them, making sure her movement didn’t draw any attention.
Across the road, two men carried Caedmon to a car that had just arrived and parked next to the sidewalk. A third man knocked out Leanne with a single punch and threw her inside the car.
As the car drove away, Alyna felt the hand of the man behind her pulling her up by the hair. She could feel the metal blade of a knife pressed against her throat.
Then she was released. There was the sound of a fight and a struggle from behind her. She didn’t even have the energy to turn her head to see what was happening. And then, someone turned her over. Ben was smiling down at her.
22
C aedmon opened his eyes groggily. He felt unbearably tired. He may be supernatural, but he never did well with sedatives, no matter what universe he was in. He hadn’t turned on his eudqi during the fight before he passed out, and he was glad he’d made that decision. He had no idea what the consequences would be if he had been sedated with his super power on.
He wondered what had happened to Alyna and Leanne. He sat up, trying to get his bearings.
Once upright, he realized his worst nightmare—his wrist unit was gone. It held all the top secrets of Eudaiz—his make, his DNA, and most importantly, what could kill a Eudaizian. No one could operate the unit but him, but if the reason for taking the unit had been to extract data, he was doomed.
He tugged at the metal handcuffs that held him captive. He had no chance of getting out as a human. At the moment, what others might see him as was no longer a concern. Getting the unit back was his top priority, so he not only turned on his eudqi, but also the Silver Blood, a super energy that not everyone in Eudaiz could access. In his mind, he gathered his most natural and significant talents to create a giant blade.
He used that blade to cut into the place where they held him captive. His mind blades sliced through the concrete and metal, and the grating sounds shook the building. He heard the footsteps of men rushing out to see what was happening. He turned on his internal microchip and scanned the building.
Leanne was in another room, two doors down from him. His wrist unit was on the upper level, in a room that appeared to be a computer room.
They wanted to extract the data.
Caedmon could feel his rage surging. He concentrated, trying to recreate the effects of his newfound skill that had killed two guards with a combination of heat and combustion.
He summoned his rage by focusing on his negative energy and emotions. He could feel the heat rising in his veins, but instead of causing an explosion as he had before, he directed the heatwave into a small blade, and with laser precision, he cut through the handcuffs.
The heat burned his flesh, so he took some time to heal himself. The wounds would be inconvenient in an upcoming fight. Then he went to the far end of the room. He stood there, staring at the metal door. He blasted an extreme heatwave to the door to soften the metal. Then he charged at it and gave it a hard kick. The softened hinges released, and the door collapsed.
Using his new talent seemed to drain his energy quickly. He needed more time to learn how to control it. But right now, it was available and he could use it to his advantage.
Three guards inside the building rushed at him. He waited until they got close, and when two of them grabbed him, he pumped heatwaves into them. Like the guards he had killed before, these two exploded. The third ran away. He picked up a gun from one of the dead guards and shot the third one. He didn’t see any keys on the floor near the two guards, so he searched the body of the third and found a key.
Caedmon rushed to Leanne’s cell and opened the door. She was cringing in a corner, but when she saw him, she ran into his arms.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “And you?”
“I’m fine, but they took something from me that I have to get back. There will be a fight, so I want you to stay behind me at all times. Understood?”
She nodded and scurried after him.
The hall was wider on the upper level, and quiet. It looked as if most the staff had gone out to see the destruction he had caused outside. He wondered what it might look like.
Caedmon found the computer room easily. A single engineer remained. Caedmon entered the room, gun pointed at the man, who raised his arms.
“Take whatever you want,” he said. “I just work here. I don’t care what you take. I won’t make a sound.”
Caedmon, gun pointed at the man, strode toward the far end of a long table where his wrist unit was connected to four computers. He grabbed the unit from the table and disconnected the wires. Then he pointed the gun at the engineer. “Delete the data. Now.”
The engineer didn’t wait for a second request. He ran to the keyboard and entered commands to delete all data.
From the door, Leanne said, “They’re coming back.”
The progress bar on the monitor indicated eighty percent completion of deletion. The footsteps came closer. Before Caedmon could stop her, Leanne exited to the hallway. She smiled at the approaching engineers.
“Hello!”
Caedmon was surprised to hear the friendly greeting. The engineers didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on in the prison section.
As Leanne started a conversation with the engineers, the happy ping of deletion completion sounded on the computer.
“Don’t make a sound until we’re out of the building,” he told the engineer in the room. “You don’t want casualties. I don’t, either. Understood?”
The engineer nodded. He turned on a computer game and began playing it as if nothing was going on.
Caedmon walked out casually and called to Leanne. “It’s time to go, honey!”
She grinned. “That’s my boyfriend. Sorry, I have to go.” She walked to his side, leaving a very disappointed group of engineers behind.
Together, they walked down the corridor and out of the building. As soon as they stepped outside, someone yelled at them from behind.
“Hey!”
Caedmon didn’t turn around. He knew what it meant. “Run,” he said.
They ran along a wide street into an open area that looked like a market. No one so much as gave them a curious glance as they were chased through the market at gunpoint. Caedmon gave up hope that anyone would question violence in a public place. This was normal life on New Earth. It sucked.
Caedmon glanced back and saw that one of the people chasing them had raised a gun. He had to act first. He shot down the gunman.
If they could make it across the street, he could get Leanne to the back alley, and there, he would be able to kill the man c
hasing them. He glanced back again and saw four of them.
“Cross the street, Leanne.”
She nodded at him and turned. As soon as she turned back to continue to run, he watched as a bullet—as if in slow motion—penetrated her body from the back and exploded out the front.
He turned and fired. He didn’t care whether there were innocent bystanders. He just pulled the trigger. Again and again. Soon their pursuers were down. He rushed over to Leanne, who was lying in a pool of her own blood.
23
A lyna bolted upright, gasping and panting. She saw Ben grinning at her, but before she could make a move, he said, “Remember, I risked my neck to save your pretty ass, Alyna. So you should think twice before you kick mine.”
She jumped off the bed. “Where’s Caedmon?” she asked and rushed toward the door.
“You’re welcome,” Ben said and headed toward the kitchen to make himself something to eat.
Alyna was back, standing at the door. “I meant to say thank you. I know you’re always looking out for me, and I appreciate it. I’ll do the same for you. I promise.”
He nodded.
She nodded her goodbye and left the apartment.
CAEDMON USED his microchip to help navigate to a medical center. He carried Leanne in his arms. She was so quiet it scared him. She was no longer gasping for air. Blood seeped from her wound, soaking into his shirt and dripping to the ground as he walked.
Nobody around them cared.
He kept walking.
She stirred and opened her eyes.
“There you are. I’m going to find a medical center. You’re going to be okay.”
“Put me down, Caedmon.”
“We’re nearly there.”
“Put me down, please.”
He put her down on the sidewalk. She looked at him and smiled.
“I’m not going to make it, Caedmon. Everyone dies someday, and I guess my number is up.”