by D. N. Leo
“I know you’re here. Please help me,” the girl’s voice said.
Tadgh looked down at himself. Nothing. He was still formless.
“Guest from the multiverse, please help me get out of here. Only you can help me.”
Shit, he said to himself. Should I respond? He didn’t know. But now that he had heard the cry for help, could he abandon a child? But then again, Nepolymbus was notorious for being elusive, deceptive, and dangerous. What if this isn’t really a child? What if this is a trap, and what if this is how they got Jo? He had come here to rescue Jo, not to fall into the same trap.
He turned and moved toward the doorway.
“If you won’t save me, at least give my mother a message. Tell her I won’t let them kill me, and I’ll wait until she comes for me. Tell her I’m being held in a place that doesn’t exist, and she can only find me if she uses her mind’s eye.”
“Okay, that’s enough kid, if you truly are a kid. You want to go for my conscience? Well, I’m telling you right now that I don’t a conscience when it comes to notorious Nepolymbus and shady multiverse creatures. I’m not going to save you and, of course, I’m not going to tell whomever your mother is about wherever you say you’re being held. So stop nagging me.”
“See me for yourself. See me the way I see you, and then you can tell for yourself if I’m genuine. Use your mind’s eye to look at me. I’m right next to you.”
Tadgh stepped back in his formless body.
“I wish I had such a talent. I can’t see you, and I won’t save you, and now I am leaving.” He turned, but he could feel a resisting force in the air preventing him from moving freely.
When he dematerialized, Tadgh knew exactly what he could and could not do. His material body transformed into flexible cells and particles that slipped into different dimensions so that ordinary creatures in the main dimension his body existed in before the dematerialization could not see him. He didn’t simply trick the vision and become invisible—he actually became material-less.
No one in this dimension could touch or prevent his movement… except something or someone with a similar ability.
“Don’t interfere with my movement. You don’t want the pieces of our material beings to get mixed up, kid.”
“So concentrate, and see me for yourself. We are similar.”
Tadgh cursed to himself and concentrated. He looked for something or someone in multiple coexisting dimensions. And there she was. In front of him stood a girl about nine years old, as beautiful as an angel. Long sandy hair, angelic face, deep blue eyes, and a gait and manner exactly like someone he knew.
“Tamari?”
The girl smiled. “Yes, this is she.”
Chapter 23
Faye twisted her long hair up and hid it under a large-brimmed hat. This was the third military bunker she had visited to look for Kai. She was sure if he’d been captured, it had to be by the sadistic gaxanxi who was Lavinia’s husband. But all of her contacts had confirmed that he wasn’t in the central prison cell.
The one thing they assured her of that she cared about more than anything was that he hadn’t been killed.
She moved around to the back entrance of the bunker. This was the last one with the capacity to hold a hunter of Kai’s caliber. Kai didn’t do magic, nor did he have any supernatural power. But he was the best hunter in Nepolymbus. Everyone involved in this civil war wanted to buy Kai if they want to win the war.
The Nepolymbus power system was in flux. The rebels and independents and royals didn’t want to start a war, not because they were afraid, but because they didn’t want to upset the balance of the triad. If two parties fought, the third one would take advantage of the situation.
None of them knew Faye’s plan was bigger than the triad.
She entered a small door at the back of the building, where her contact should be waiting. This piece of information was expensive. But she needed it, not only to save Kai, but also to take him to a safer place.
She followed a long corridor and entered a dark room. She took her hat off, letting her long, wavy hair cascade over her shoulders onto her back.
Lights on the walls turned on automatically. Show off, she thought. She knew how primitive the royal facility was.
In a dark corner, a door slid open, and a merman in royal military uniform walked in. “Master Sham will be with you shortly. Please take a seat.” He gestured to a small table, surrounded by cushioned chairs.
She nodded and proceeded toward the table as instructed.
Soon a small man, who stood only up to her waist, stepped in. His skin glowed in a deep blue shade, and she couldn’t help but smile at his handsome and angelic face.
“Faye. Always a pleasure.” He approached her.
“Likewise.” She bent down to kiss his cheek.
He sat down at the table and pushed a small computer chip toward her. She picked it up and secured it in her pocket.
“You don’t want to check it?” Sham asked.
She stood, sensing trouble. “No need. I trust you. I should get going.” She strode to the door.
“I have a gift for you.” He smiled and pressed a button on the side of the table. A guard shuffled in and placed a square box on the table.
Faye turned toward him and smiled. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Well, open it. You’ll like it. I’m sitting here with you, so if it’s a bomb, we’ll both die.” He grinned.
Faye smiled again. “I’m in a hurry. Maybe next time, Sham.” She galloped toward the door. The box flew past her left shoulder, smashed against the wall, and broke open.
A head dropped to the floor and rolled toward her. It stopped at her feet. She looked at it. It wasn't Kai’s head. Instead, it was the head of the true Master Sham. Before she could react or take action, a female voice that she had hoped she would never have to hear in her life spoke.
“You’re very good, Faye. How did you know it wasn’t him?”
Faye turned and smiled. “It comes from experience and genuinely caring for the people I work with.”
In front of her was a magnificent female warrior. Faye knew of her reputation for killing skills. “Sabian, the greatest and most ruthless mercenary in the multiverse,” she said with a smile.
“I accept the first part. As for ruthlessness, it depends on who I’m dealing with.”
“Nobody wants to incite your wrath. What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything. But one of my clients wants a lot, and he’s paying a very handsome price for it.” The sultry, alluring voice of the mercenary vibrated in the air, and every word echoed and bounced from wall to wall in the room.
Faye knew of Sabian, and for her whole life, she had hoped never to encounter her.
“What exactly does your client want? I’ll see if I can accommodate.”
Sabian sat down and crossed her legs. She wouldn’t be so casual if she anticipated a fight or was encountering a dangerous opponent. Faye took it as a friendly gesture. She approached and sat down on a chair.
Sabian smiled. “That’s much better.”
Faye repeated her question. “What does your client want?”
Sabian leaned back in her chair. “If you won't give it to me, why should I waste my breath telling you?”
“Why are you here? Why did you kill Sham?”
“Now that I can tell you with ease. I asked him to arrange access to you. But he refused. He gave me no choice but to kill him. That's what will happen to anything that stands in my way.”
“Sham wasn’t a thing.”
“That's a matter of personal opinion. But I admire the loyalty of your friends. Unfortunately, they’ll all die soon because of you.”
Faye stood. “I’ll ask you one last time—what does your client want that I cannot give?”
Sabian clucked her tongue. “Why the rush? Unlike us commoners, you’re immortal.”
“If that’s the case, you can’t kill me.” Faye headed for the door. Sh
e felt a brush of cold air against her back and then the sharp edges of Sabina’s nails pressing against her jugular.
“Immortals can be killed. You just don’t die from natural causes. Didn’t you know that, Faye?”
“Then kill me, or let me go.”
Faye moved forward and felt the warmth of a drop of blood rolling down her neck where the sharp blades cut her skin. She bit her lips to bear the pain and kept walking forward. She could never win a fight with Sabian. She would have to play with what she’d been given. As she predicted, Sabian eased her hand away before her nails did more damage.
Either Sabian had been ordered to keep her alive, or whatever she wanted to get depended on the fact that Faye remain alive. Faye smiled to herself, pushed Sabian aside.
“My client wants the location of the siren’s heart, Faye. I’ll give you one day to think about it. If you don’t return with the information, you will never see Kai again.”
Sabian dropped a dagger to the floor and kicked it toward Faye. It swung with momentum and then stopping at her feet. Faye looked down and saw that it was the dagger she had given Kai,
“You can’t afford to lose Kai. He’s the only creature that loves you.”
Faye turned and walked away as fast as she could.
“One day, Faye. That’s all I can give you.”
Outside the building, Faye raced toward her shell. She didn’t want to lose Kai, but she couldn’t afford to lose her family’s legacy either. In the shell, she pushed the control panel buttons so that the vehicle traveled as fast as the technology in Nepolymbus allowed. She needed to feel the speed. She needed time to think.
She let the vehicle autopilot. She pulled down the zipper of her top, revealing the upper half of her chest. She traced a finger along the curve of her left breast, close the position of her heart, and then pressed it slightly into her flesh. A thumb-sized compartment opened. She extracted a small chip. Placing it on her left palm, she pressed her right thumb on it. The chip glowed crimson, and a beam shone up to her face.
She was connected.
“Lorcan, you owe me your life. Now I need a favor. I am in Nepolymbus, and I need your help. Connect with the chip in your heart, and you will get to me.”
Chapter 24
Tadgh cursed to himself and used his mind’s eye to look at Tamari again. He imagined when Lavinia was this age, she looked just like this—a little angel. But what was missing now in Lavinia was the innocence. It was pure and deep in Tamari, and he could see a halo of it around her. All children were innocent at nine, Tadgh thought. But somehow he couldn’t connect the now cold and calculating Lavinia with what had once been an innocent girl.
“What’s your name?” the little girl asked.
“Tadgh. You said we’re alike. How?”
Tamari smiled. “We can vanish. Others sense when we’re nearby, but they can’t see us. We see each other because we are alike.”
“I don’t vanish. I dematerialize. There’s a fundamental difference between the two.”
“Oh, so is that why you can go through the door and I can’t? I’m invisible, but I’m still stuck here.”
Tadgh looked toward the doorway. “I don’t see a door. If you hadn’t called out to me, I wouldn’t have known you or this room existed. If I can only see you in my mind’s eye, how will I get you out of here? I can’t exactly open a door I can’t see.”
Tamari’s eyes gleamed with tears.
“All right, all right, let me think… Can you revert to your tangible form? If you can, maybe you won’t see the door anymore, and then you could simply walk away.”
“I don’t know how to get back to my tangible form. I used to know how to become invisible and then come back. But when they kidnapped me, they made me turn invisible, and since then, I haven’t been able to change back.”
Tears rolled down Tamari’s face.
Tadgh approached her. “How did they make you turn invisible?”
“They must have known about my ability, and that I often became invisible just for fun and to tease the people around me. Some big men jumped through the window into my chamber in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep that night, so I saw them come in. They came at me with knives and swords. One of them told the others to grab me quickly before I disappeared on them. That gave me the idea, so I turned myself invisible. But as soon as I did, they threw a net over me.” Tamari sat down and started crying again.
Tadgh said nothing. He couldn’t materialize now because the guard might see him.
Tamari swallowed her tears and continued. “They kept me in that net for a long time. Whenever I tried to become visible, it zapped me, and it hurt. For a while now, I haven’t been able to come back. Just like I’ve lost the way to go back to my family.” Her tears dried, and she stared into the distance. “I just want them to know I’m here.”
Tadgh could feel the blood in his formless body boiling with anger. What sort of creature would hurt a child? “Those people were very cruel to you. But you can’t lose the ability to go back to your original form. I’ll help you get back to normal. But first, we need to get you and my wife out of here.”
“Is your wife invisible, too?”
“Unfortunately, no. That isn’t her power. Now tell me, Tamari, has anyone here talked to you as if they could see you?”
She shook her head. “No one talks to me. But one time, they wanted to record something on a screen. They used reflective mirrors. My image appears in reflective mirrors under blue light.”
Tadgh nodded. “I think I know what they did to you. My brother would be a better person to ask for help. But since I can’t contact him right now, we’ll have to work with what we’ve got. You’ll have to trust me.”
She nodded. “I do. Please help me.”
“In theory, they are trapping you in another dimension, different from the one the building is in. They built your surroundings in that dimension, too.”
“Like a prison in another place, but still existing in this place. So I’m here, but then again, I’m not here. Does that mean no one can rescue me?”
“That’s right, Tamari. But I am going to navigate to your dimension. Then I’ll take you back to this current dimension where you won’t see the door and the wall. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
Tadgh concentrated and then walked into a dimensional gateway to navigate toward Tamari. Soon, he stood next to her. He knew he was in the right dimension because he could now see her prison. He could see the surrounding walls—and the door.
“All right, the next part is more difficult. Follow my instructions exactly, step by step, and we will return to the dimension of the physical building. Is that clear?”
Tamari nodded with determination. He walked. She followed. He saw the gateway he just come out from. Now it was only a matter of stepping back in. He did so, and Tamari was right behind him.
The moment both of them were inside the gateway, the dimensional corridor turned dark, and the whole tunnel lit up with blue beams that crossed the tunnel, from one end to the other.
“Fuck!” Tadgh muttered.
“Yes, fuck.”
“Tamari, that word isn’t one you should use.”
“I shall not then. But is there another way to go?”
“Yes, but we haven’t got the time. These are just beams. We don’t know what the other gates might have or where they lead. This one goes directly to where we were before. It’s better to deal with the devil you know. Are you ready?”
Tamari nodded, looking at the beams with zero confidence, her determination fading.
Tadgh reached his palm out and waved it through the first beam.
He felt his flesh sizzle, even though he had no tangible form. Startled, he cursed, but the beam that had just burned him was now turned off.
“I thought you didn’t like profanity.”
Tadgh puffed. “It’s not good coming out of a child’s mouth. That’s all.”
He knew wh
at he needed to do. He needed to walk through these beams without his eudqi and turn them off one by one so Tamari could follow. It would hurt, but his eudqi would heal him afterward. If he left his superpower on, these two-way beams would hit the eudqi point on his back sooner or later, and in that case, it would be fatal.
He materialized and switched off his eudqi.
“You look much better this way.”
“Well, this flesh will be burned and singed when we walk through the beams. But I want you to follow me without panicking. I have a supernatural power inside me, and that power will heal my injuries when we get through. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Tamari nodded.
He walked into the second beam. It was like being electrocuted by high-voltage currents, not that he’d had that experience before. He swore to himself he would never do this again. Each beam turned off after it hit him. Tamari continued to follow behind him.
One. Two. Three. Four… Twelve… Eighteen.
Three more beams to go, but he was injured so badly he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. “I’m sorry, Tamari, but I don’t think we can make it.”
He walked through the second to last beam, and his body totally collapsed. His willpower did him no good.
“No, please don’t die.” Tamari walked in front of him and pulled his arms.
“Don’t do this, Tamari. If you can, just go through the last beam yourself.” His vision was blurry. The world was dimming in front of him. He might never recover from this.
Tamari kept tugging at his arm. Tadgh didn’t understand how she could have such strength. “Please don’t. Just leave me here, Tamari.”
She said nothing and kept pulling, dragging him across the ground. She approached the last beam, and her tiny body passed through it. The light sparked. She pulled him hard, but she couldn’t move his body. Her tiny body was thrown to the other side of the gate, in her visible form. She had returned in the flesh.
After the last beam hit Tamari, it turned off. Tadgh crawled through, and the gateway closed right after he passed its entrance. From the floor of this building in the rebel dome, he saw Tamari in the flesh. He knew he needed to rest, and that it would take time for his eudqi to repair his body. He was on the verge of passing out when he saw a small group of guards charging toward them from the end of the corridor.