It appeared that they did not pay attention to all of the costumed people who paraded around the streets of Los Angeles. Even though there was a Cosplay event that had just finished up two weeks ago at the convention center. Surely there were several Tinks who participated in that event?
That was when the Commander spoke up. “We don’t actually have time to watch TV. But yes, we are what you might call ‘fae warriors’. While we don’t refer to ourselves as fae, your people over time have named us such.”
“When we first arrived on your planet about 1500 years ago, our warriors were out hunting in our forests and discovered a portal that brought them here. They dis…”
“Do you mean to tell me that you come from another planet and don’t have to travel by spaceship?” I totally interrupted what he was saying as I was just so shocked to hear that they travel by portal.
“B’Lana, we don’t come from your universe. We come from a different dimension. The portal is a way for us to travel from our realm to yours.” When Lancer said this I was just speechless. I couldn’t believe we were talking interdimensional travel.
“WHAT? Wait a minute… Not only do you come from a different planet, but you come from a different dimension? How is that even possible?” I was so shocked; I had chills going down my spine.
OK, maybe I wasn’t totally speechless…
The Commander said, “The only way to travel between dimensions is to find a portal.” He continued to tell me that they had many portals on their world that opened up to Earth. In fact, they had other units based all over our world. They were on every continent, except Antarctica.
“Are there other planets and dimensions that you have travelled to besides Earth?” I wondered if I could travel to other dimensions as well.
“We have found one other dimension that I know of, but there is only one portal to that world and it was deemed too dangerous for us to travel there. Even the rippers won’t go there.” The commander got this far off look on his face as though he was remembering an event that might have something to do with that other dimension.
“Can you tell me about that world?”
“Maybe some other time, the important thing tonight is to discuss why we are here on Earth and what we are going to do with you.” The commander looked at me like I was nothing but trouble, and those pesky chills came back all over my body. That look he gave me actually made me tremble it was so scary.
Lancer seemed to sense my fear and was almost laughing when the commander said. “OK, back to my history lesson, they discovered there were new beasts to be hunted here and so they started to consider the Earth’s forests as their new hunting grounds.
“It took over six months of hunting before they were discovered by humans. But by then, our people had started to enjoy the taste of deer meat. So we met with the local human representatives and negotiated a hunting treaty. The forest was full of various types of animals which were considered edible so the humans agreed to trade with our warriors.
“At that time, the humans were good hunters, but not as efficient as our hunters. We decided that it wouldn’t hurt to teach them how to hunt more effectively. We taught them how to create better traps based on the size of the animal they were hunting as well as how to hide their scent better from the animals.
“It was your people who shortened our name from Sennafae to Fae.”
“Commander, where on Earth, did that rift open up?” It sounded like they came over here about 500 AD; we had not yet populated much of the earth. So there were many forests all over Europe that they could have hunted.
“Our ancestors found themselves in what was once known as Eastern Germany. At that time, Germany was much bigger than what it is today. And the people of that forest were happy to trade their wild beasts for our hunting skills.
“But eventually we started to see more and more of your people in the forests where we hunted. So our hunters stopped coming over here and we almost forgot all about the portal.”
Lancer joined in the conversation with some history of his planet at that point. “Our people were also starting to have large increases in population and we were fighting amongst ourselves over land. The Sennafae and the Rippers had lived together peacefully until just over one thousand years ago. By that time we had explored the entirety of our planet and our two groups peacefully coexisted.”
“Sounds like my people here on Earth may have been a bad influence on your people. Did you have a history of war amongst your two peoples before you spent time on Earth?” I got chills thinking that our inability to get along might be what started the fighting among the fae and the rippers over a thousand years ago. Could we have been such a bad influence on an entire planet?
Just as we were discussing the possibility of Earth’s war-loving people having a bad influence on the peaceful fae, Nishni came into the room with some troubling news.
Chapter 3
“Sir, pardon my interruption, but I just heard on the police scanners that a group of rippers might have been spotted about one mile from here. They were harassing a group of college students coming from a bar. If we hurry we might be able to follow them back to where they are staying.” Nishni really wanted to be the one responsible for finding the ripper hide-out so he spent most of his down time listening to the scanners.
The Commander told Lancer to take his team out and see if they could find the rippers, or at least stop them from getting any more fodder for the ripper terrorists back on their home planet.
I stayed back at HQ with the Commander and we continued to discuss his planet and their history. Turned out he had wanted to be a history professor instead of a military man, but his father was a military man, and so was his grandfather. He said it was in his blood to join the warrior elite, which he compared to our Army Special Forces.
After about thirty minutes of his history lesson, my mind started clearing up and the fogginess left my brain. I remembered something he said to Lancer before they left and it was really bugging me.
“Commander, before Lancer and his team left, you said something about fodder for the Ripper’s attacks? What did you mean?”
“I was wondering if you were going to pick up on that. When a ripper comes here, they are only looking for humans to change and bring back to our planet to fight the war against us. While we came to a semi-peaceful accord about 300 years ago, there are some factions within the ripper communities who believe they should be the ones who control our planet and we should leave it to them.
“Somehow, they believe that they were the first to populate our planet and the Sennafae were travelers who came there after they did. Most don’t believe those lies. We have been taught that we were all one species in the beginning and a plague came to our world and almost destroyed us all. We lost about sixty-five percent of our population to this plague.
“I believe it was something similar to your Black Plague.
“And when the dust settled, some people who had been infected healed. They became the rippers. And about thirty percent of the Sennafae were immune to the plague and never got sick.”
I sat there processing his story and then asked, “So the rippers used to be Sennafae and they got sick but some naturally healed? Is that why they drink blood?”
“Yes and no. Yes, they got sick and healed, but on our planet they look differently than they do here. There is something about your atmosphere that changes their look and genetic make-up. That difference is what causes their need for blood. I guess you could call the rippers here vampires since your sun hurts them and they need blood. But back at home they rarely need blood. In fact, most of us donate blood once a year and those stores satisfy the needs of rippers back on the home planet. They will always have a type of blood disease that needs treatment.”
“So rippers on your home world look different to the ‘vampires’ here? How do they look different?” This was giving me a headache; I just couldn’t understand how a species can look different as they travel from on
e dimension to the next.
The Commander explained to me that the vampires here on Earth had red eyes with blue veins; the veins had a spider web effect around their eyes. Before they left their home planet (which is called Sendryl), they only had red eyes with bags under them. They looked more like someone who had been out partying all night long in a club filled with cigarette smoke and hadn’t slept in two days.
The changes to the ripper when they arrived here on Earth were pretty quick. After about a month they started to develop the spider web veins, and about two months later the effect was permanent. No time spent back in their own dimension would cure them of the nightmarish look.
“Then why do they bother coming here? If they mostly look like you back home, why risk the permanent deformity by coming here to kidnap Earthlings?” Man these rippers must either be totally stupid, or desperate.
Coming to a planet that will permanently make them look like something out of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale doesn’t seem like a fair trade for some slaves. Something isn’t adding up here.
“Commander, is there more to the story with the rippers coming here?” I tried to give him my stern look that said ‘You better tell me all you know’, but I think it really said I’m constipated, where is the bathroom?’ My face started to redden with embarrassment when his mouth started to twitch while holding back a laugh.
“B’Lana, do you need a break? The latrine is just across the hall and two doors down if you need it.” At that point he smiled which just made my face redden even more. I needed to figure out a way to get him to tell me what I wanted to know.
I considered slapping his face, but the extremely sharp teeth in his mouth – which were very evident when he smiled - made me hold my hand still.
“Please just tell me why the rippers need humans?” I said while looking at the Commander. Hoping he saw a ‘Please help me look’ instead of a stupid face that would just make him laugh again.
“O.K., this is actually important for you to understand. The small group of dissenters, we refer to as terrorists, have been losing a lot of their own people in their attacks on us back home. About one hundred years ago they decided that they could easily come over here to Earth and kidnap people without drawing too much attention to their actions; either by the Earth government, or our government.”
“After their first attack we realized something was off with the suicide bombers. Yes, we have a similar issue with zealots who kill themselves while trying to kill or hurt as many innocent civilians as possible.”
“I think their hope is that the Sennafae will just leave the planet if too many civilians are killed. But that won’t work. We have nowhere else to go. What these terrorists don’t realize is that both of us need to work together to solve the overpopulation issue and that it is not possible to drive us away.”
“How does a human change into a ripper? Is it just like our folklore? If you get bitten by a vampire you become one after you exchange blood?”
The Commander looked at me like I was crazy. “You really need to stop watching so much TV.”
Be both started laughing which in turn caused us to laugh more and before you knew it, we were both laughing so hard tears were streaming down our faces. While his comment wasn’t really that funny, it did help to break the tension that was starting to suffocate me.
“Please explain the process of how a vampire changes a human and then uses them to become an interdimensional suicide bomber.”
“When a ripper who has been here on Earth for more than three months bites and drinks almost all of the blood of an Earthling, that person is then on the brink of death. The ripper then feeds its own blood to the dying Earthling, which isn’t too different from what your movie vampires do. But the resulting creature is very different from your vampires of lore.”
“That process begins a very painful change. It usually takes about a day for the change to complete its cycle and then you have a hybrid ripper who is very bloodthirsty. These hybrids are different from the vampires you see here as they can’t change anyone else themselves. But they do look very similar to the rippers who changed them.
“Sadly, these hybrids are more animalistic than anything else. They will do anything for more blood. And just attack anything, or anyone, that gets in their way. Although, they tend to revere their master who created them and will follow their orders.”
Interrupting the commander I stated, “These hybrids sound like the Nosferatu of our literature.”
The commander continued, but first gave me a look that reminded me of my seventh grade teacher when I would interrupt him. Hmmm, that look must be a universal sign of ‘stop interrupting me’.
“Are you are ready to finish listening to my story?” I nodded to the Commander to keep going.
“The rippers take their hybrids back through the portal and once they have built up a large enough group, the rippers send them out to attack certain areas. Most of these hybrids don’t survive the attack as our security forces easily kill them. But make no mistake; if they were left unchecked they could easily destroy a small city within a few days.”
I was totally freaked out by this revelation. So much so, I sat there with my mouth open and both hands wrapped around my neck, hoping that a vampire – or ripper – did not touch me.
It was at that point that the commander noticed the injury on my arm. “B’Lana, what happened to your arm?”
I pulled my left arm down from my neck and looked at it. There was more blood than there should have been by this time. Apparently my arm kept bleeding, even though Lancer had cleaned it up while I was still out of it.
“I was fighting with a ripper earlier and when I tried to pull away from his grasp, his long claws scratched my arm. It looks like it is bleeding more than I realized. Do you have anything to help stop the bleeding?”
The commander took me to their infirmary and cleaned my wound then re-bandaged it. He had a strange look on his face and asked me about my pain levels and if my head has cleared up from the drugs yet.
I told him it was more annoying than painful, and that yes the fog was finally gone. I was feeling pretty good all things considered. Then I went back to asking him questions about the war.
What I should have done was asked why he looked at me the way he did. Little did I know that simple scratch would be the catalyst for a very large change…
“Ok, so if both the fae and the rippers are stronger than us, why hasn’t either group tried to take over the Earth for themselves?”
“Neither group wants to take over Earth. The rippers just want fodder for their attacks on us back home. While the Sennafae want to find a peaceful solution where we can all live together. There are too many humans here for us to take over this planet. It would be suicide for us to try.
“And the rippers wouldn’t want this planet, even if you gave it to them. The atmosphere is such that they can’t be out in the sun here. But back home they can stay outside twenty four – seven; which is why they want our planet so badly.”
For the next hour we discussed the atmosphere of Earth and compared it to the atmosphere of the fae’s home world. Right as we were finishing this discussion, Lancer and his squad returned.
Chapter 4
“Commander, call the healers!” I heard Lancer yelling while his squad was entering the building. I figured they were frantically running, since the sound of their boots echoed off the ceiling of the warehouse, making it sound like a hundred jackbooted soldiers instead of just five. I had not heard them make that much noise before.
The commander stood up abruptly and leapt through the door. “Lancer, who is injured?”
“Sir, it’s Nishni. He found the location of the rippers and was injured when we went down into the sewer tunnels. I will give you a full report, but he might not make it. We need to get a healer here right away!”
“Maliki, call it in right now and make sure they send us Netty, she’s the best healer this side of the two moons!” The commander
ordered Maliki as he headed towards the makeshift emergency room they kept for such situations.
“Benden, get the surgical kit we keep for these situations. Make sure you grab his type of blood, he is type Z1. Lancer, get me some warm water and plenty of sterile cloths and bandages.” The commander yelled as I followed him to their ER.
Benden was the warrior from earlier who carried a long sword and used his handgun with a silencer to kill one of the rippers in that alley. He was taller than me, about six feet two inches. He wore his blonde hair just like the rest of the guys, down to his shoulders but not tied back. Of course he was good looking; the fae must have some sort of genetic code that ensures their race is extremely handsome.
Maybe that is how they were able to move around without any issues? They gave off this vibe that makes you feel all giddy when you looked at them. Strange I hadn’t notice that before. This must’ve also help to misdirect people so that they didn’t see too much of the paranormal world all around them. Which could explain why I kept focusing so much on their looks and wasn’t too worried about the fact that they drugged me and kidnapped me just a few hours ago…?
I’ll have to find some way to counteract this effect, or I am doomed! I wasn’t being melodramatic at all.
Lancer jerked my attention back when he pushed me aside. Apparently, I did not hear him ask me to move when he asked me three times. “B’Lana, if you want to watch you will need to stay out of our way. There will be a few healers and warriors coming in here shortly to help Nishni.”
At that, I moved to the corner where I could get a look at Nishni. I wasn’t sure where he went, but he had this green goop all over him. It covered his face, arms, chest and was even all over his legs. Next to him hanging from what looked to be a blood bag, was more of that green goop. “Um Lancer, is your blood green?”
Eclipse of the Warrior: The Interdimensional Saga (Book 1) Page 3