Mystic Realms: A Limited Edition Collection

by Nicole Morgan

  “What do you have?” His interest in my weaponry seemed unnatural.

  “A recurve and a cross. We can take both if you want. I don’t consider them to be great weapons in a heated battle.” I stared at him for a few seconds.

  “Get them. It might be better to use stealth until we know what we’re dealing with here.” He started to work with the guns and making sure they were in good working order.

  I nodded. I could see how his mind whirled through his thought process. “Okay…I’ll have to pull the case out…” I reached under the bed and pulled the large wooden storage chest out. Inside were my babies. I rarely got to take them out any more and I had never used them on people but obviously Lukas saw the need to be packing them this time. And I would have to rely on him in this case since he had probably been in more situations like the one we faced. I absolutely had no idea who would have the balls to attack a facility filled with Special Forces and an elemental or two.

  “We’ll have to be prudent with the arrows. I’ve only got one quiver for each of them, meaning about twelve to fifteen arrows max. After they’re gone we’ll have to use the guns. Which one do you want?”

  “I’ll take the crossbow since I’ve never used a recurve. I hope you’re fast because it doesn’t seem as if it would be.” A flash of concern crossed his face as he looked at the curved wood.

  “My point exactly but I do pretty good with it,” I whispered back. “Anything else?”

  “Don’t think so…let’s go before the party’s over.” Putting the nine mil in the back of the waistband of his pants, he carried the cross bow to the door and listened for a moment before opening it just a crack. “Please follow my lead. I’ve been on raids and been caught in situations much like this one before, so I do have a little more experience. And I can’t afford to lose you when I’ve just found you.” His large hand wrapped around my head and pulled me to him, his lips going over mine in a hard, sweet kiss.

  Acrid smoke quickly filled the room. “What the hell is it?” I asked as we snuck out.

  “I don’t know but it’s not good,” he answered, keeping low and next to the far wall. “We’ll have to go room by room to make sure no one is in any of them. I think we should go to Darien’s office first.”

  I nodded my agreement and followed him. Thankfully, we didn’t have to check any room in my hall because they had designated mine as the female only hall. One could assume they eventually would have more women than just me. Darien’s thought was correct in thinking that females need their privacy in a male dominated world. For me, being the only full-time woman in the facility, it was a godsend.

  The haze was heavy, and the smell became more distinguishable as we moved on. Burnt plastic and flesh were smells one never got over as each gave off foul odors which overwhelmed a person’s olfactory senses. Finally, we managed to get to his office door. Watching Lukas, he motioned to go on three. I waited as he lifted each finger to the count and prepared my shot. Drawing the arrow, I stood in front of the door and waited for him to open it.

  Pushing it inward, I was stunned by what I saw…something…rather someone stood over Darien’s inert body. It appeared like the intruder would finish him off or maybe pull his soul from his body, but I didn’t know which. A wispy, cloud-like aura hovered over them both as I took the moment to shoot. My arrow flew true and hit its mark. A horrid sound came out of its mouth and it turned to me oblivious until the moment the arrow creased its skin. While I could readily say I had seen someone of a similar type, this one was enough to scare me to death with its mostly white eyes with the only color being the black rim around what I thought was an iris, white hair and very pale albino complexion. Its expression immediately told me it was male, and he couldn’t believe I, a mere female, had shot him. He was seven feet tall which should have given me the first clue he didn’t belong on this world. Though long and lanky, his was as solidly built as Lukas.

  Lowering my bow, I quickly formed an orb and tossed it as I saw him reach for the arrow protruding from his shoulder. Raising some form of a weapon, he growled and started to come around the desk toward me. Right over my shoulder came the rapid fire of more arrows as the crossbow now in Lukas’ competent hand continued the onslaught. While each arrow had an impact on our intruder, it didn’t take him down. Angry, I formed another orb and put a lot of heat into it. The energy carried by the orb was the final straw and I saw him shake a moment before sinking to the floor in a massive heap before the desk.

  I went to stand over him and was immediately appalled by the sweet putrid smell coming from him. Holding my nose, I continued to go to Darien, who was sprawled on his desk and quite pale. Reaching for his pulse I was happy to find one but something about the erratic beat had my heart pounding. “He’s alive but probably not for long if we can’t get him to medical.”

  Lukas stood over the creature and tried to evaluate what he saw. “I hope they don’t have the same regeneration powers we have. It would be a very bad day if they did. It took a lot of ammo to get him down. And as we don’t have much, it could turn out to be a bitch of a day if they can come back. Hand to hand will be murder.”

  “Theirs or ours?” I tried to make light of the situation and was rewarded with a scowl. “Sorry. Do we have a cell or some where we can put him until we can make sure he’s dead?” I asked. “And what do we want to do with Darien? I mean, is it going to be safe trying to get him to medical?” The eerie silence grated my nerves. I had been here for weeks and never had the place been this noiseless. There was always something going on and now nothing. Not one peep.

  “There’s a closet across the hall where we can put that white bastard.” He motioned his head toward the downed thing which hadn’t moved since my last orb. “He has to be a true Q’Dahd. The ones Darien keeps talking about and not a minion of some sort. And he’s definitely the type I’ve been having flashes about these past few weeks.” The unspoken thoughts were finally out in the open.

  “If he is, he’s not like the ones I thought I had seen.” I looked at Lukas. “I mean there are similarities but this one is an albino or something and the ones I’ve come across seem to be some sort of hybrid. He’s much stronger than the other ones too. Like you said, it took a lot of ammo and orbs to take him down. Two orbs is one too many.” I shook my head and looked down at the man who was my boss. “Maybe they’ve been using hybrids to help wage their war. Obviously, they would be ones who blend in more. And did you see what he was doing? It was like he was sucking out Darien’s soul or maybe worse. It really creeped me out.” I must have had a wild look in my eyes because Lukas reached out and squeezed my hand.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe there are different races or a hierarchy because it’s obvious we haven’t seen this before on Earth. I do know we need to check the rest of the compound. Who knows how many more of them there are. We can’t let even one get out into the general populace. Just imagine what they could do to an unprotected human.”

  I grimaced because I could imagine one of these things annihilating a million humans. “I agree after all that is why we are here. But it leads us back to what are we going to do with Darien? I’m not sure there’s a medic left alive. I mean…have you noticed how quiet it is?”

  He flashed me a stoic look. “I’ve noticed.” Lukas sighed heavily then. “This is so not how I wanted to wake up this morning.”

  Smiling wryly, I chuckled. “You think? We need to get moving. The more we stay in one place, the more our chances are for being caught.”

  “Agreed.” He leaned down and picked up the bad guy, his nose crinkling in disgust. “Did you get a whiff of this guy?”

  I frowned. “Don’t remind me.” I ran in front of him, checked the corridor and tried to open the far closet door. “Do you have a key for this room?”

  “Top right-hand drawer of Darien’s desk.”

  Running back across the hall, I was surprised to hear Darien moan as I moved him over a little bit to open the drawer. �
��We’ll be right back,” I murmured and ran to give the key to Lukas.

  Once our intruder was under lock and key, we both went to see about our boss. Happy to see him stirring, Lukas put him in a fireman’s carry, enabling one hand to be free. “Take the cross bow. I think I’d rather have the gun until we get him somewhere safe.”

  Slinging the recurve over my shoulder, I grabbed the crossbow and once again we were on our way. The smoke in the corridor seemed to be clearing and the smell not as bad as it had been just ten minutes ago. I stopped at the junction of two halls and peered around the corner to see two more of those things dragging one of our men down the left corridor. I stayed motionless as I didn’t know just how acute their hearing or eyesight might be. Once they were out of sight, I motioned Lukas across to the other side, standing in the middle of the corridor, orb ready for what might happen in one hand, crossbow in the other. Once over on the other side, I quickly covered our backs as we made our way to the infirmary down the right corridor.

  Reaching the door, Lukas tried to open it and found it was locked. “Still have those keys?”

  Grabbing them out of my pocket, I handed them to him as quietly as possible. Shoving his gun in his pants again, he put one key in then another until he found the correct one and swung open the door. It appeared no one was there but I quickly found that to be wrong as I discovered the medical team hovered on the inside wall, just below the window, of their office. I put my finger to my mouth indicating the need to be quiet.

  “Has anyone else been here?” I whispered.

  “No. When the shooting started we locked the door and turned out the lights. What’s happening out there?” The young medical officer’s flash of concern made me cringe a little inside.

  I shook my head. “Good question. But we have Darien and he needs to have some attention.”

  “Darien took a hit?” The doctor was up in a flash, walking to Lukas’ side.

  Lukas glanced up from where he had laid the object of our conversation. “I don’t know exactly what happened to him. At least he’s moaning now. When we first got to him, we thought he was dying as other than an erratic pulse and breathing, he had no signs of life.”

  The young doctor eyes went from him to me. “Did you two see anything?”

  “Yeah…some weird man-creature trying to suck out his soul,” I muttered, keeping my eyes on the door.

  “Is she serious?” He turned an anxious face to Lukas.

  “About the weird man-creature? Yeah, she’s got one right at least. I didn’t see the soul sucking part though, so I can’t tell you about it at all. But we hurt whatever he was pretty good because he went down finally after about five minutes of orb throwing and filling him with arrows. We stowed him in a closet across from Darien’s office.”

  We both gaped at the doctor’s rapid intake of breath. “We need to go get him,” the young doctor said quietly.

  “What?” we almost said simultaneously.

  “It’s an Q’Dahd. Why did you leave him locked in a closet? Chances are, no matter what you did to him, he won’t stay down for long.” Concern flashed across his face.

  “You know about the Q’Dahds?” I looked at him hard. He had a striking resemblance to Darien.

  He nodded then. “Everyone in this compound knows about them. And you’re not far off in regard to soul-sucking. They drain you somehow of your life, your essence, your very being. At least we think so.”

  “I take it you’ve had experience with them before.” I watched his face carefully to make sure he regained his composure.

  He turned to look at Lukas. “No…just the remains of who they’ve left behind. You didn’t see or feel the pull of power, did you?”

  “No. It was if we stopped him before he could finish. Or maybe even start. I don’t know which, but it doesn’t matter as it looked very bad for Darien.” I turned to see Lukas nod in agreement. Still, we needed to get out of here and figure out just where our crew stood in terms of the battle.

  “So, Doc, you think you have this under control?”

  “I can handle it, but I need to make sure the Q’Dahd you killed is in a really safe inescapable place. We need to have another body to figure out even more of their physiology. If he’s a purebred, they might come back and try to find him. In the past, it’s always seemed like the purebreds are tagged or something because they always find them. We just don’t know enough yet.”

  “Why?” The tone of his voice had me concerned.

  “Why what?” The doc scratched his temple.

  “Why do you want the body?” I question, rubbing the back of my neck.

  “Because their regeneration capability is twice as fast as yours are. I’m surprised Lukas didn’t remember that part.”

  I frowned. “He did mention something about it, but he was a little fuzzy.” Lukas arched his eyebrow, but I only shrugged.

  “The only real thing which can kill it is multiple hits on the torso with bullets.” He gazed at me with a serious expression.

  I smiled to try and alleviate his concern, knowing I would question Lukas heavily once we were done today. “Will arrows do?”

  “It should as long as it was a spray pattern. They have two hearts. It’s what makes them regenerate faster as they can task one heart to fix their body while they keep fighting. You have to hit both of them for a Q’Dahd to die.”

  “Won’t a bullet to the head do it as well?” Lukas questioned, his eyes narrowing.

  “Maybe. We don’t know enough about these guys to make any guesses on how much they can take or where exactly one has to shoot them except the hearts. We’ve only had one specimen to study.”

  “Well,” I put my hands on my hips and frowned. “Now you’ll have another one. Do you know if they have the same type of defensive powers we have? You know, like the orbs? Anything elemental?”

  “I don’t know. Do you even know what all your powers are yet?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I don’t understand the relevance of the question right now.”

  Lukas glanced at me. “All of us have more than one power, Aingeal. Remember, we discussed it a little bit last night. I did get the feeling you knew more about your powers than you were saying.” He stopped and glanced at the doctor, who gave a slight nod. “For instance, I can resist your orbs yet if I needed to form one in conjunction with you, I could. I can also travel into the past up to thirty minutes. It takes a lot out of me, but I can do it if absolutely necessary. We all can heal, which by now you’ve figure out for yourself. Sorry I forgot about the Q’Dahd’s rapid healing. Some days my mind is like a sieve on certain details and it’s something I’ve been working on.”

  “Good to know,” I muttered trying to remember if I could do anything else because it seemed so much more important now than the brief discussion last night or the unbidden thoughts I’d been having on the subject. “I don’t know if I have any other powers. I guess it was one of the things Darien would get around to testing later. How does he know all of this stuff?” I watched Lukas who gave the Doc a quizzical look. “You two know something, don’t you?”

  “Doc?” Lukas’ wary gaze shifted to the young man standing beside the medical table where Darien was at the moment.

  The doctor sighed heavily then. “Why do you give me all the dirty stuff?” He almost glared at me for a moment before continuing. “You were right when you said you were part human.”

  “How did you know about that?” I stared at him. No one except myself and Lukas had been in my room when I had made the comment.

  “Darien came and talked to me after you’d been in his office. He muttered something about you being too human. He talks to me about problems all the time. I am his oldest son.”

  “Okay…so now I understand the connection there…since I thought you looked a lot like him. It still doesn’t explain the part where you know I’m half human. Other than Lukas, I’ve never told another person.” My brows drew closer together. How did this man know anything
about me?

  The pause was almost imperceptible, but it was there. “And you’re his oldest daughter. Matter of fact, you’re older than me by a couple of years.”

  It was as if all the air had been knocked out of me. Suddenly, my thoughts settled into place. The ease at which I believed him, never having a need for money, the feeling of always being watched over. I had truly never been alone or on my own. I began to breathe rapidly, my mind racing as I tried to put everything into a context that didn’t make me mad.

  “Are you all right?” Lukas touched my shoulder and I turned to him, a wild look in my eyes since I was still processing everything.

  “I’ll have to be.” I turned back to the young doctor, my face now devoid of emotion. Lukas and Darien would pay for this later. “What’s your name?”

  He gave a sigh of relief. “Matt…Matt Cochran…what are you going to do?”

  I smiled, baring my teeth like some feral animal. “First, I’m going to kick some alien butt. Then I’m going to come back and kick yours then Lukas’s. If my apparent father survives his ordeal, then I’ll kick his butt last.” The last said through clenched teeth as I did my best not to get angry.

  A big grin broke out on Lukas’s face. “Is that a promise?”

  “I’m not ready to give anyone a promise yet but I will try.” I walked over and looked down at the man on the gurney, a sudden rush of feeling clenched my chest. “Just make sure you keep him alive until I come back. Please?” I glanced up at Matt who nodded. Turning to Lukas, I watched him for a moment before going into total attack mode. “Choice of weapons?”

  “How many arrows?”

  Looking at my quiver and crossbow, I frowned. “It looks like there’s only a total of eight left. I have five for the recurve and there’s three for the cross. Is there a weapons locker anywhere?”

  “We have a small one right here in medical,” Matt said and led us to a small in wall safe. “It’s not much but maybe it would help.”

  Inside there were two more Berettas as well as ammo. It would have to do until we found more personnel and another cache in the facility. “We’ll make it work.” I sighed heavily. Most of my battles had been protecting humans from what I thought were each other. Obviously, sometimes it had been and sometimes not. But I had never been in a full out battle with any Q’Dahd that I was aware of and while I wasn’t scared I was apprehensive yet totally calm. From experience, I knew I was at my angriest when this way. I had never worked with a partner but if Lukas’ and my trek here was any indication, we should do well together. Complements, Darien had said. I took a glimpse at the man standing beside me and realized my father had been correct. We did complement each other in ways we wouldn’t know until we needed it. Questions and accusations would have to wait until this battle was over.