The Avatars Series: Books 1-3

by Blackwood, Lisa

  “Having you here is even stupider than the plan cooked up by Gran and the demigod.” She frowned. “Don’t come crying to me when you get a tranquilizer dart in the ass.”

  He huffed and stalked away a few paces, still close enough to hide her approach from the patrols walking the perimeter, but far enough away for her to gather he was upset at her.

  “I’m sorry, but I still think this is a bad idea, we shouldn’t involve kids in this mission.” She directed the last at Vivian.

  “And you’re….how old again?” Gran arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Almost three times his age.”

  “Hmmm, a sage old twenty-two, yes?”

  “At least I’m an adult. I’m a military brat, third generation.” Anna continued her march, annoyance fueling her strides. “I’ve got older brothers in the forces too. Been training long before I enlisted. Shadowlight’s a kid. He shouldn’t be here.”

  Gran huffed, rather like a gargoyle’s sound of annoyance. “It hardly matters what we think or want. If we’d left him behind, he would have followed. Besides, this way, if Commander Gryton wants to try for Shadowlight a second time, he’ll have to go through an entire military camp on high alert to get him.” Gran ducked under a low-hanging branch, and then looked back, “Strange as it might seem, this is the safest place for our young friend. That’s why Darkness and Gregory agreed to send him here. Even his mother agrees.”

  Well that decided it. Anything that old battle axe agreed with, Anna had to automatically oppose.

  “Darkness will be with us every step of the way. He won’t allow his son to be harmed by the humans even if he does get caught.

  Anna still wasn’t reassured. Darkness didn’t have the best track record as far as she was concerned.

  And one full grown gargoyle, no matter how skilled and experienced, wasn’t a match for what they were walking into.

  He just wasn’t.

  “Oh, stop worrying,” Gran hissed at last, “and have some faith for once.”

  “Fine, ask me again in a few hours. I’ve got lots of faith.” Faith that their asses would be in cages.

  *****

  The first checkpoint was twenty feet ahead.

  Darkness, Vivian, and Shadowlight hung back another twenty feet behind her, still firmly cloaked in shadows. For the moment Anna was, too. Shadowlight was awaiting her signal to drop the shielding magic cloaking her.

  He’d promised to keep a physical barrier in place, encircling her body in case anyone got trigger happy. Anna appreciated the added layer of protection, but was more worried for the young gargoyle.

  Suddenly appearing in the middle of a base that appeared to be both edgy and on high alert did seem like a good way to get shot.

  She glanced around one more time, hoping to see someone from her unit. She’d much prefer to be taken in by one of her own. It might minimize the man handling, and Major Resnick always seemed able to get the gears turning faster.

  If she could convince him of the Fae’s good intentions, maybe he would champion her cause.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t one familiar face in her immediate vicinity.

  At least she had gargoyle back up. They’d promised to pull her out if it looked like she couldn’t convince the other humans.

  Ah hell.

  What really bothered her was the fact that the people she once relied upon, she could now no longer trust to have her back. That tore her up inside.

  “Let’s get this over with.” She waved to Shadowlight, their agreed upon signal. A slight tingle and what felt a bit like water flowing over her exposed skin was the only warning before the shadow magic cloaking her vanished. A shout of warning from the nearest soldier caused a riot of activity, and suddenly two dozen guns were pointed at her.

  With her hands held above her head, she shouted her name over a chorus of commands to get on the ground.

  “I have an important message for Major Resnick. I need to speak with Major Resnick.”

  There was more shouting of ‘get on the ground’.

  With a sigh, she dropped to her knees.

  This was going to be one long damned day.

  *****

  After much shouting of orders, marching at gunpoint, and a few painful prods to redirect her in the direction they wanted her to go, Anna finally arrived at her present location.

  A nice, roomy clear walled cage, probably made of some ballistic glass type compound. She’d been ordered to tie herself to the only piece of furniture, a metal bunk with no mattress, situated in the centre of the cage. Its four stout legs were screwed into the cage’s floor. Zip tying her ankles to the bench legs was easy enough, but how the hell was she supposed to tie both hands behind her back?

  So she’d asked.

  In the end, she tied them in the front and used her teeth to secure the tie.

  It was stupid.

  But she also admired how they’d learned not to touch anything they found in the forest. For all they knew, she might have been a Riven. But she wasn’t, damn it. Now she sat in a brightly lit cage, tied hand and foot while several soldiers and a number of scientists looked on.

  Great.

  She imagined more persons of importance were watching her from behind the windows of the second floor offices and other viewing rooms which circled the arena floor.

  Above her head, laying belly down upon the roof of her clear prison, Shadowlight had taken up the best position to watch the goings on below. She had to constantly remind herself to not look up and give his position away.

  There were two other cages on the floor with hers. One was intact. The other looked like it had shared a dance with a wrecking ball.

  Darkness and Gran sat on the ceiling of the intact cage.

  Anna forced her eyes away from their direction too.

  “If you won’t send Major Resnick, I’ll just start shouting my message until I lose my voice.”

  No response.

  “I am Corporal Anna Mackenzie. The night of the town wide masquerade I was attacked by creatures called the Riven. They are straight out of your worst nightmare.”

  Still no response from her audience, so she continued. “Their bite is part contagion and part venom. Once you’re bitten, you start to transform into one of them. They are as evil as it comes. Like a rabid animal, but one that retains enough intelligence to be calculating. I was bitten by one of these little monsters several times. The only reason I’m not one of them is because there was something else in the forest that night hunting them.”

  More silence. No, wait, there was a familiar thump of booted footsteps coming from outside in the hall. The person halted. She heard the whispering of voices. A crackle of a radio.

  She continued her report to the room even though her attention was on whoever was coming down that hall. “The one hunting the Riven found and saved me instead.”

  More whispering just outside the room’s main double doors.

  There was a slight squeak of a door opening, a change in the air currents, and then the sound of several more boots joining the first set. Major Resnick came into view accompanied by some other upper brass.

  Well, maybe she’d gotten someone’s attention after all.

  “And does this he have a name?” Major Resnick asked.

  Anna nodded, “He goes by the name Shadowlight. As you can guess, he’s not from around here. Neither are the Riven.”

  “Does this…Shadowlight…come from the same place as these Riven?”

  “Yes, but they are natural enemies. Here’s the kicker.” Anna cleared her throat wondering if she was about to lose whatever credibility she might still have in their eyes but figured she might as well release the big white elephant into the room.

  “They are not of earth. They are from the Magic Realm.”

  There, I just kissed away any credibility, Anna thought with dry humour.

  Resnick’s nostrils flared slightly, but that was it. He held his silence for several moments.

 
No one else said a word though the scientists standing near the back of the room were tapping away on their tablets.

  “This Shadowlight told you this? And you just believed him?”

  “Well yes. Here’s the thing. He’s a gargoyle. He has the wings, tail, and horns to back up his claim. Oh, and his blood is toxic to the Riven. Gargoyles serve the Light, and the Riven, the opposite.” She laughed at Resnick’s expression. “That takes some getting used to, sir. Magic. Not a hoax. Not space aliens. Two warring factions from another realm and we’re just catching some of the fallout. It’s only going to get worse.”

  She was going to be hoarse long before she was done talking.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Shadowlight watched from his perch and yawned for the fourth time. All they did was talk.

  And talk.

  Talk in loud voices. Talk in hushed voices. Talk in tiny whispers between each other when they didn’t want Anna to hear. Talk on radios or other devices to yet other humans in other rooms.

  They talked, but did not listen. Were they deaf?

  Anna was sounding tired and hoarse. He couldn’t blame her. They asked the same things over and over again, as if they didn’t have the intelligence to remember the answers the first ten times.

  His father said they did it to wear down the human and to try to catch her in a lie, but it wasn’t working because she’d told them nothing but the truth. A truth they didn’t want to hear.

  Shadowlight stood and stretched, circling the dimensions of the cage’s roof, looking for the impossible: a more comfortable position.

  Anna pretended to stretch her shoulders and neck, using the move to hide her true purpose: to send a dagger sharp look his way.

  He sighed and flopped his haunches back down on the surface, flicking the tip of his tail so Anna would know he was getting tired of being invisible and doing nothing.

  Hunger was starting to gnaw at his belly. It had been several hours since he’d last eaten, and his body had burned through many of its reserves during healing.

  His father looked bored as well. Gran might have been bored had she not been weaving the spells to keep the humans calm and willing to talk.

  He frowned. Gran’s spells were working too well. The humans were going to talk each other to death.

  “So this gargoyle you call Shadowlight healed you with his blood to rid you of this so called Riven’s taint. How do we know one is any better than the other? Or that this Shadowlight wasn’t just some construct created by your delirious mind to make sense of what was happening to you?”

  It was the male scientist by the name of Fleming who said the last. He was the most doubtful, having trouble accepting magic was real. He wanted to blame all the events on something called aliens. As if magic was a figment of a weak mind.

  “Have you any proof to back up your claims?”

  “What?” Anna barked out a harsh laugh. “The claws and teeth aren’t enough?”

  “They are anomalies certainly. But magic? No. I’m sure there is a better explanation.”

  “What about the sidhe and the sprite you captured and then lost. The kid told me about that.”

  “An as yet undiscovered species.”

  “Oh, come on,” Anna hissed. “They are not originally from this world. They came from the Magic Realm long ago.”

  “There is no such thing as magic.”

  Another scientist and two of the military advisors who had been part of an earlier discussion looked like they were ready to start another back and forth debate.

  Shadowlight was sure he’d parish if he had to listen to another one of their long-winded debates.

  “Human,” he called down to the greatest doubter, the scientist with the grey-peppered hair. “What will it take to make you realize Anna has spoken nothing but the truth?” Shadowlight dropped his cloaking magic and tilted his head as he waited for the human’s response.

  As Lillian would have said, they did not disappoint.

  There was a wave of noise and motion, and every gun was suddenly pointed at him instead of Anna in the cage.

  Over it all he could hear Anna swearing and shouting.

  “Hold. Hold fire! He’s bulletproof. They’ll ricochet. He’s protected by magic. Don’t fire.”

  Shadowlight merely held his position and let the humans sort themselves out. The room grew still once more, with the scientists and other persons of importance shoved to the back of the room while the soldiers with guns came forward. Shadowlight was mildly surprised none of the humans had used their projectile weapons upon him yet.

  Which was good, since Anna might be right. Once his magic deflected the bullets, there was no telling where they’d end up—possibly in a human. That wouldn’t be good for what Gran called negotiations.

  The one called Resnick had held his position a few feet in front of the cage. It was actually very brave or foolhardy, as he was within easy jumping distance of Shadowlight’s position.

  His tail flicked playfully at the thought.

  “Don’t you dare!” Anna hollered at him from below, her voice muffled by the thick cage walls. “You’ll start a firefight for sure.”

  “Ah, humans are no fun.”

  “These humans aren’t, no. What they are is ‘twitchy as hell’ and understandably so. Don’t you dare move.” Anna transferred her gaze from him to other targets out in the room. “I know he's big and scary, and far from harmless, but he’s just a kid. He’s only eight years old.”

  The one called Resnick made a series of hand gestures.

  “Hey! Whoa, wait.” Anna shouted, “Think of this as peace talks. No shooting or tranquilizing the delegates.”

  Resnick glared at Anna.

  “The kid isn’t alone. If you do something drastic to the kid, dad is going to do something drastic back, sir!”

  Shadowlight noticed a few pairs of eyes drifted away from him to scan for other threats, but they always returned to him every few seconds. To his left Gran and Darkness were shifting, likely preparing to do something to draw attention away from him.

  A voice rose from several places at once, and he decided it came from one of the communication devices.

  “Subdue and capture the specimen.”

  Gran shot up, her magic flaring around her. “Oh, for the love of Light. Boys and their guns.” She muttered a few choice words as she stepped off the top of the cage and dropped the eight foot distance to the ground like she was stepping off her back patio. She landed gracefully and brought her staff to the ground as her concealment spell vanished.

  Magic flashed outward from her staff, flying across the room faster than the eye could follow. By the exclamations the soldiers made as their weapons vanished, they might now be a little less skeptical about the existence of magic.

  “Oh, peace. I mean you no harm.” Gran walked over to Anna’s cage and tapped on the front. It disappeared on the second rap, and then Anna’s zip-ties vanished. “However, cages and gunpoint is no way to begin an alliance.”

  She made her way toward a side door. “A conference room is a much nicer place to talk. I just happen to know there is a spacious one through that door, up a flight of stairs, and a short walk down a hall.” Two soldiers approached her, knives at the ready.

  “Really, boys?” Gran asked them in a pleasant tone. “Need another demonstration?”

  Shadowlight hopped down from his perch and walked up behind Anna where she was attempting to reason with three soldiers trying to corner her.

  The soldiers backed off at his approach, deciding Anna wasn’t an easy snatch and grab.

  By this time, Gran had convinced her two soldiers to go elsewhere. Though Shadowlight realized it might not have been Gran’s threat which drove them off. Everyone still in the room was evacuating.

  Gran laughed. “Good to know I can still clear a room.”

  “This was pointless,” Darkness hissed from the shadows near Shadowlight’s right side. “The humans are too blinded by their fear and
prejudices to be of any use.”

  “Oh, my tall, winged friend,” Gran said and gestured to the lab at large. “This was just the start. I’m still softening them up. They will be more reasonable after they get over their shock.”

  Anna made a choking sound, which might have been a cough, he wasn’t certain. “When they get over their shock, they are going to come at us with everything they have.”

  Shadowlight heard his father’s growl.

  “Ah, my dear doubters, you will see.”

  With that Gran led the way to the conference room.

  *****

  Anna sat in a big comfortable meeting room chair—one of the ones that rolled. She rocked the chair from side to side as she chanted ‘we’re all going to die’ under her breath.

  No one else seemed to believe her.

  Gran sat in the chair across from her. Darkness stalked the room’s outer walls, and Shadowlight played with the other chairs, pushing them around the table. By the cant of his widespread ears, he was clearly delighted by rolling chairs.

  “Shadowlight, come here.” Anna caught herself about to pat her thigh and froze. Gran, however, missed nothing and grinned at her near social guffaw.

  “Nice catch,” Gran whispered in a conspirator’s tone.

  Shadowlight galloped over to her and pushed two of the chairs closer together. He then proceeded to sprawl across both seats.

  “That’s not going to…,” Gran started to say just as both chairs rolled in opposite directions, and Shadowlight landed on the floor with a disgruntled huff. “…end well.”

  Anna folded her arms on the table and dropped her head down on them. “They’re not just going to shoot us dead. Oh no. We’re all going to get dissected, and then frozen or pickled or something.”

  “Frozen?” Shadowlight asked, sounding entirely unconcerned.

  “Or maybe they’ll use gas, less damage to the bodies that way. No, wait, some politician is going to be pissing in his pants and order a missile strike. Yeah, hellfire missiles for us.”

  “Oh, hush,” Gran said, “Lillian and Gregory are on drone duty, and the unicorn and pooka are ready as well. As masters of deception themselves, they are astute at sensing and locating human devices that, shall we say, don’t want to be found.”