by D. N. Leo
Gale stopped pacing. “There’s a directory? Which god?”
Jaxper threw her hands up in the air. “Gale, Lythe was a minor god. Everyone in this world knows that!”
“I’m not from this world, Jaxper.” He grabbed her shoulders. “Is there a directory? Something on record in the magical world?”
“You’re hurting me, Gale.”
He released her. “I’m sorry. Can you tell me where I can find records of the magical worlds?”
The computer let out a happy ping.
“Oh! The system’s working now!” Gale rushed toward the machine. “Jaxper, are there any records I can trace?”
“I don’t know. But I can give you a list of the gods and minor gods and all their relations.”
“That would be super helpful. Thank you.” Gale held out his hand.
“It’s not a tangible list, Gale. I just know them. I’ll read them out for you.”
“That will do. Thanks.”
And then he was lost in the information and codes he created based on the information Jaxper provided him. There were millions of variables and possibilities to open the gateway Lyla and Michael had gone through. He had to be patient. He would be able to identify it as soon as he saw it.
The codes that floated on the screen were like a galaxy of their own. He had always thought the galaxy of the material world was beautiful. But the scene in front of him now—with the missing variables of the hybrid and the magical world—was magnificent.
A faint signal flashed at the corner of the screen.
A mark was displayed in ancient earth’s time.
He zoomed in.
“Earth, 1258,” he said.
Then he saw a flash on his screen.
“Hacker!” he cried out and frantically shut everything down. But he had a feeling that hadn’t solved the problem. Lyla’s location had been captured, and not by a hacker in his system but by someone or something outside of it.
He stood and whirled around. His internal scanner switched on, and he scanned the area behind him. “Got you, bastard.” He ran toward the far-left side of a small bush. From behind a tree next to a large stone, a man-shaped creature jumped out and darted away.
He heard Jaxper calling him from behind, but he ignored her and chased the creature. When he closed the distance between them, he fired two strong beams from his eyes. It happened all too fast, and he didn’t have time to process where the built-in weapon had come from or how he knew how to use it.
The beams hit the creature. It fell but scrambled quickly to its feet.
Gale charged at him, tackling him and pinning him to the ground. “Give me back the chip, you scum robot!” He tore away the thing’s shirt—but he found was no chip compartment, no lock, no handle on its chest. Just flesh. “You’re not a robot?”
Gale saw a bright flash and felt the force of a strong blast at his abdomen. He fell backward, off the man.
The man stood, tucked his gun away, and smirked. “No, I’m not a robot. But you are, you idiot.”
Jaxper rushed up behind Gale. “That’s Kan, the creature that tried to kill you before, Gale.”
Kan! Gale remembered the name. But this man looked different from the Kan he’d met before.
Kan smiled at Jaxper. “You’re lucky I’m not into pretty witches. And for your information, I’m above all creatures. I need to get to Lyla, but this stupid robot keeps getting in the way.” He raised his gun, pointing it at Gale.
Then Kan grunted in pain, dropped his weapon, and reached for his bleeding eyes.
“I don’t care what kind of creature you think you are. You’ve taken a man’s form, and that poison will send you straight to hell,” Jaxper said.
Gale sat up, but Jaxper pushed him down to the ground. “Heal the bloody hole in your abdomen, Gale. I’ll handle him.” She stood and chased Kan, who had staggered away, blinded.
Gale closed his eyes and concentrated on healing his wound. It didn’t hurt much, but it took several seconds to repair. When he recovered, he saw neither Kan nor Jaxper.
Chapter 19
They reached the bank of the lake. Lyla felt the weight of Phala’s body even before that, and she knew Michael had had enough. As soon as they touched land, he flopped down to the sand.
She checked Phala’s pulse to ensure he was still breathing. Then she went over to Michael.
She turned him over so he was lying on his back. She wiped the wet hair away from his face. He looked up at her with his beautiful soft green eyes. She loved to see the twinkle in them whenever he made his smart-ass remarks. But they were a little less full of life at the moment. “I think I have to be off for a sec to fix these broken ribs, or maybe my entire rib cage. Are you okay to stay put for a bit?”
“Take your time, Michael. I’ll—” She sighed. He was out already.
She knew his wounds were critical. He had to totally shut his system down to heal them faster. Still, his Iilos energy wasn't as strong as her Eudaizian energy. She wondered if she could help.
She opened his shirt and winced at what she saw. The side where she had hit him had already formed the black and purple bruises indicative of severe internal damage. He was right—it might be the complete rib cage he needed to fix. She hovered her hands over the wounds.
Father told her he had given Michael Eudaizian energy. This should work like magic, but there were two problems—one, she didn’t have any equipment to draw her blood and inject it into him and, more importantly, two, she didn’t have the special silver blood. Only Silver Blood commanders had that.
She wondered where the energy Michael had drawn from the fire cloud in the temple had gone. Why didn’t it help him at all? She summoned some gentle heat in the air around her and heated up her palms, keeping them over the wounds.
“Sorry, Michael. This will feel just like a heat pack. When we get back to the time where we’re supposed to be, I’ll get the medical pack and give you some ordinary Eudaizian blood. Something is better than nothing.”
She felt a cold rush of air at the back of her neck.
A faint female voice echoed in the air. “Lyla…”
Lyla jumped to her feet and whirled around. She saw nobody. A few feet away from her was a small wedge of forest with a winding path leading back to the village and the castle.
“Who’s that?”
Nobody answered.
“Show yourself.”
“I have nothing to show. I am now a hovering spirit…because of you.”
“Who are you?”
“You didn’t honor your promise in the temple.”
“Kannitha?”
“Don’t you dare speak my name. You killed me.”
“I didn’t kill you. I killed the vessel.”
“What vessel?”
“The body you lived in was the vessel. Your body and your brain were manipulated and turned into a vessel by someone or something from the multiverse. You might not believe me, but I knew it the moment I saw your vision in the temple. It wasn’t magic, Kannitha.”
“So why am I floating here like a spirit?”
“Where I come from, it’s called your essence. In your terms, it’s like your soul or your spirit. Something must have happened in your past that would have killed you if someone or something didn’t offer you a way out.”
“It wasn’t a way out— I was offered immortal life.”
Lyla smiled. “The souls harvested from this great Mongo invasion were your price to the immortal life, weren’t they? And you couldn’t bear the thought of your single immortal life costing hundreds of thousands of other lives. That’s why your essence is still floating. You still have a conscience.”
“I am not that saint. I wanted it. You promised me you’d submit Michael to the higher power. He will take the blame for saving these people, and I will still have my immortality. Now that you’ve broken your promise to me, these people’s lives can’t be claimed against your exile. You’ll be here forever. Your brother and siste
r will die saving you from exile. Michael is only your guard. Why is he worth so much?”
“As I said, your body and your mind were a vessel. The information you showed to blackmail me to go to the temple with you was manipulated. In short, I don’t believe you.” The voice whispered right into her ear. “But you did believe me in the castle. You’re extremely smart, Lyla. I had no chance to manipulate you into anything. But you believed me, and you planned to dishonor your promise.”
“You know nothing about me, Kannitha.”
“Oh, I know enough. I know you saved my brother out of guilt. I know you are unsure about your feelings for Michael. You’re a princess. You have to be righteous. You can’t admit your feelings and admit that you dishonor your promises because of a feeling…”
Lyla could feel the heat intensifying inside her body. She knew she was being attacked by the shadow. It was tapping into her emotional weakness. It was figuring her out, and it was getting close. Maybe too close.
Lyla tried to concentrate and force her mind to fight against the cognitive process that might lead to her weaknesses.
Kannitha was dead with her vessel. Her voice was no longer with her. So who is speaking now? Lyla’s head was buzzing with static. She had to be stronger. She let the shadow attack her, and as soon as she gave in, the consequence was catastrophic. Her vision blurred.
Her mind started to go numb.
She had to fight it.
“You were a vessel in the temple, Kannitha,” Lyla said. “You died a long time ago, and you’ve given in to the shadow. I didn’t kill you, and I didn’t break my promise.”
“You did… You killed me… You killed innocent people for your own sake. You will be exiled forever… Your brother and sister will die for you…Eudaiz will collapse because of you …” Kannitha’s voice deepened, darkened, and then turned into a male voice. “Lyla… Lyla…”
Lyla fought thin air, trying to grab whoever it was that was talking to her. The air around her was on fire. She could feel the heat sinking into her bones. It felt as if she might burst into flames in any moment. She knew this was how the shadow attacked people. She would not give into it. It could burn her into ashes, but it would never get her essence.
“Lyla…”
The heat suddenly vanished, and the heavy air around her lifted.
She opened her eyes to find herself lying on the sand. Michael was straddling her, his hands pinning hers to the ground.
“Lyla!”
“Michael!”
He pulled her up so fast it knocked the breath out of her. “You’re scaring me, Lyla. I know you were attacked. I didn’t know how to get you out of it the way you did for me.”
She looked around. The air was quiet and normal. Nothing was burning. But she had indeed been attacked. A drop of blood fell to the ground and was absorbed into the sand. She pulled Michael’s hands from her shoulders. The skin on his palms was burned and bleeding.
“Your hands, Michael!”
“It will heal. You were burning up. I tried to draw the heat from you the way I did with the fire cloud. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“But it worked, Michael. You pulled me out…”
“Was that the same shadow that attacked me before?”
She shook her head. “Your hands were fine when you drew the fire energy that would kill hundreds of thousands of humans in the temple. But they were burned to get me out of the heat of this one attack. I don’t think the shadow attacked me. I think it was the one who controls the shadow. The mastermind behind all this.”
“So we seem to be getting close to the source of the fire, right?”
She nodded. “To manipulate energy across multiple worlds and dimensions like this—whatever it is, it has a lot of power.”
“The mastermind wants to kill you directly. That means you somehow got under its radar, and it considers you a significant threat.”
“I don’t think it wants to kill me, Michael. It wanted to leverage my weakness and make me work for it.”
Michael chuckled. “It’s good to know you have a smart enemy. I hate to be hurt by idiots.”
Lyla looked at the spot where Phala had lain. “Where’s Phala?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him when I woke.”
Chapter 20
New York, 30 years ago
She lay in a ditch behind a subway station, waiting to die.
Cold.
Wet.
She didn’t know if there was a bone in her body that wasn’t broken.
Sara Fraser. Young, full of energy. Full of life.
She should have been happy with her life before this incident. But she wanted more. She wanted out of the small town in which she grew up. She wanted the city life. More importantly, she wanted a meaningful life.
The voice of a woman came to her in a dream, telling her how to make her life meaningful and telling her not to waste her youth and energy. That voice guided her to this bridge. The voice of the woman was still in her head, echoing, urging her to make the decision to turn her life around.
She didn’t mean to change her life by ending it. She had merely followed the voice. A shadow flew at her while she was on the bridge. The next thing she knew, she’d fallen into this ditch, broken like an abused doll.
But before she totally gave up, the light came. In the light, a woman in white, an angel, looked down at her with concern.
“Please help me,” Sara begged.
“Are you Sara Fraser?”
“Yes. I fell off the bridge. I’m dying. Please help me!”
“I want to, but I’m afraid you don’t know the consequence of what you’re asking.”
The woman’s voice was gentle and distant, definitely not the one Sara had heard in her dream.
“What could be worse than death?”
“A lot of things are worse than death, young woman.”
“I’m young, and I’m not ready to die…”
“I can only sustain you for eight years.”
“It’s better than nothing. Please! I don’t want to die.” Sara summoned all the strength she had left to reach her hand up to the woman. “Whatever it takes. I don’t want to die.”
“Are you sure you know what it takes to get another eight years out of this earthly body?”
“Yes. Please…I can’t stay alive any longer…”
Sara saw a tear roll down the woman’s face. She pushed her body up and grabbed the woman’s hand.
And then she saw a flash.
Everything went white as if her world had been drawn into a vacuum.
Mai opened her eyes and looked down her body, which was still feeling as if it were on fire. They were in an empty white room with no exit. In one corner of the room, Sara scrambled to her feet and looked down her body which had been, until a moment ago, fatally broken. The young woman looked totally confused.
Mai knew exactly what had happened, but it was too late to do anything to change it. Their souls were in the transitioning period. Mai had to calm this young woman down in her final moments.
“I’m Mai. I was told to help you. Don’t panic. Everything will be fine. You might have to go away for a little while, but you will return to your body.”
“What do you mean? Am I dead?”
“Whatever you promised, Lythe will be honored. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Who’s Lythe? I didn’t promise anything. I was told I could make my life better. I agreed to contribute to the greater good and make my life meaningful. I didn’t agree to die. The voice told me to go to the bridge and an opportunity would present itself to me.”
Mai smiled at the young woman although she didn’t feel like smiling at all. From behind Sara, the Shadow of Death’s soldiers came. They grabbed Sara’s shoulders. She tried to shrug her way out of their grasp without success.
“What’s happening to me? Did I die?” Sara cried.
“No, Sara. Don’t worry—it’s only temporary. Your life will become more mean
ingful after this. Your soul will be preserved. Your soul will never die.”
“I don’t care about my soul. I don’t know anything about my soul. I just don’t want to die! Why me?” Sara cried.
“You were born in a time and place that made your body special. It can produce what Lythe needs. She will trade your body for a protective soul for eternity.”
“I don’t need an eternal soul… I don’t want to die…” The Shadow of Death’s soldiers dragged her away, somewhere Mai didn’t know, in a place where she had no control.
As for Mai, her body grew larger and larger until it broke free of the room. Something snapped, and there was a blinding white flash. She felt the chill of the air around her, and her flesh touched the cold, damp ground. Mai got to her feet and looked down at the body of Sara Fraser.
“Lythe! Come out! Show yourself, you manipulative, sadistic creature of hell!”
Lythe’s distant voice came floating in on the cold air. “Don’t be too upset, Mai. Sara is only a small soul. Her soul is now preserved forever, and I believe she got the better end of the bargain.”
“You’re cruel, Lythe. I don’t know how you survive in your magical world.”
Lythe chuckled. “If you think all gods are righteous, then you’re as naive as the young girl you just swapped your body with.”
“I didn’t agree to such a thing!”
“Well, you agreed to help her sustain her body for another eight years. I didn’t force you to do that.”
“I kept her body so she could return after eight years—and so, in exchange, you’d release the souls of ten mountain witches. But she isn’t going to return, is she?”
“Well, that’s her part of the deal, and she didn’t exactly ask for that. As for you, you have what you asked for. You have only to maintain this body for eight years, and then you can return to your beautiful old body, which I will keep intact as part of the deal. See, I am the one who honors all the agreements here.”
“Is this what you did to Cole? Turned him like you did us? You manipulate and take advantage of people when they are most vulnerable.”