“When Chaos relocated the familiar who was taking her, Ophelia’s spell was broken, and she reported in immediately.”
“Reported in to the Alliance?” Carter shook his head. Kate was a barista at a hip café downtown.
“It appears I’ve said too much, my apologies, I was going to let her tell you.” Presley opened a door at the end of a long hall, and gestured for Carter to enter. “This apartment is an Alliance safe house. Please clean up, you smell of blood and urine. Any familiars loyal to the Order will recognize your scent.”
“Didn’t you just destroy them both,” Carter asked.
“Ophelia was one of thousands. Each mage of the Order controls their own pack of familiars. She must have been charged with bringing you in, but others will come. You are essential to their plan. After you speak with Kate, I need your help interrogating another mage of the Order.”
Carter nodded and closed the door to the apartment. Sarah’s ghost offered him a smile.
“This is the end of my haunting days, bro. You’re safe now.”
“Are you sure?” Carter tried to hug her, but passed right through, then chuckled. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know, but I feel it pulling me. Wherever it is, I’ll be happy there,” Sarah kissed the air near Carter’s cheek. “Don’t be too hard on Kate. She’s always been with the Alliance. She really does love you Carter.”
“I… ahh…” Carter was at a loss for words. He watched his sister’s ghost vanish.
Cold water blasted Carter’s senses. He pulled rapid deep breaths, exhilarated by the chill. Washing away blood, dirt, and piss gave him a sense of acceptance. His sister was in a better place now, Kate was safe, and he would have to ride Chaos once again.
Carter looked at himself in the mirror. Not bad for random cloths in a safe house. He synched his own belt tight on the tan cargo pants that were a few inches too wide in the waist. A baggy black tee shirt declaring his love for the City completed the outfit.
“Carter?” Kate’s voice called from the safe house’s living room. “It’s me.”
“Kate?” Carter ran into her embrace. They kissed and he squeezed her in a bear hug.
“I’m sorry for keeping my true job a secret, and I’m sorry for what I said when I was mesmerized by that horrible familiar.”
“We are together now, and everything’s okay,” Carter said, stifling a sob of relief. “Do you really love me, Kate? That’s all I need to know.”
“Of course I do!” Kate kissed him and held him at arm’s length. “At first you were my assignment, the Alliance had me guarding you because Sarah explained your magical talents when she enlisted. Then I actually fell for you.”
“Marry me, Kate.” Carter dropped to a knee and opened the small black box.
Kate gasped and nodded. “Yes, yes. I will. I love you, Carter!” She slid the ring onto the third finger on her left hand, then eyed it.
Carter smiled at his lover, his fiancé. Despite the world falling to pieces around him, he had Kate. He would be with her forever. Their love would last forever. Carter pulled her into a kiss.
A sharp knock at the door startled them. Kate regained composure, crossed the room, gave Carter a wink, then opened the door.
Presley led a man into the room. A black sack covered his head and his hands were bound with zip ties. “This mage of the Order was captured by Alliance agents just after I trapped Ophelia. We saw you speak with him before Chaos warped reality. I’d like your help questioning him.”
Carter pulled the sack off the prisoner’s head. “Edgar! You’re okay.” Carter smiled at his friend.
“I would be okay if this guy believed me when I told him I am a mage of the Coven, not the Order!” Edgar spat lint from his mouth. “Can someone unbind my hands please?”
Presley gave Carter a questioning look.
“He’s Coven. We trained together. He knew my sister, too.”
Presley pulled a utility knife from his pocket and cut Edgar’s binds. “My apologies. With that wave of Chaos, we had to take every precaution.”
Edgar nodded. “Let’s put this past us. I believe both of our organizations are working toward the same goal. Perhaps we should talk shop.”
Presley opened his mouth to reply, then gasped.
Carter felt it, too. Another wave of Chaos was sweeping over the world. “Everyone join hands!” He grabbed Kate’s hand, then Edgar with his other hand.
Edgar looked surprised, then nodded in comprehension.
Presley grabbed Kate and Edgar’s hand and gave Carter a puzzled expression.
“This might prevent Chaos from pulling us into different parts of reality.” Just for extra measure, Carter shouted the names of everyone in the room and their alliances, “Kate and Presley with the Alliance, Edgar of the Coven, and I’m Carter. My magical gift is what the Order needs to control the world!”
Kate growled. Edgar gasped. Presley shuddered. Carter did his best to look brave as the wave of Chaos immersed them.
Chapter 7 Unanimous Author
The City
As Presley left the group to allow them to sort through recent events, he couldn’t help feeling an even envy at Carter and Kate for the dreams they still had for their future. He silently wished them well as he left them, but he also knew all too well how far things can go askew, no matter how much one wishes for, works for, fights for a particular “future.”
There are no guarantees. There is no forever. He tasted bitterness in the back of his mouth. Bile vapor rose in his throat. He had put on a good show, but tears now welled up in his eyes and spilled onto his cheeks.
“That was really touching Presley,” a resonant voice pierced the alleyway. “You certainly have set back The Order, but there is still much work to be done.”
Presley looked around and found a dark figure in the shadows. He looked human but wasn’t from this planet. To the casual observer, there was nothing even unusual about him, but Presley could spot him as from another planet in the way that, with familiarity, one can easily tell twins apart. What appears to be indistinguishable at first, has many differences that the human brain can eventually recognize instantly. Presley had that kind of familiarity with these creatures. In fact, he found it difficult to see how they moved so easily among his fellow humans undetected. The differences were very slight, but they had a broader forehead, longer fingers and a more delicate, slender torso.
It was when he learned to spot these variations that he realized long ago that Ophelia and all the “non-human” Coven were, in fact, not of this earth. He felt strangely betrayed by the deception. Of course he figured that they were hiding from something. He even figured that it must be terrifying to them, this thing that was seeking them out, but his sense of betrayal was far from rational.
“You are well aware that all Coven are offensive to us,” the voice said without sentiment.
“Of course, I’m aware of that, Redondo,” Presley retorted, annoyed at being tracked so closely. He was especially angered to be denied his privacy at this particular time, when it could be acknowledged that in spite of everything, he might be in mourning for some period of time.
“Don’t lose your focus,” Redondo shot back with even more venom. “You have dealt a decisive blow to The Order’s leadership, but you must act with extreme resolve to take out the entire organization. We know you have been continuing your campaign, but it is important to not let up for a moment.
“The leadership are the original Eschelids that invaded Earth and enslaved your people,” Redondo continued. “We sense that your heart is not in it with the conviction required. Something has changed. We demand to know what it is.”
“Hey, Renaldo, how the heck did you pick your name when you started sneaking around shadows of this planet? What did you do to get this assignment?” Presley was never fond of his own name, but he was getting pissed at the presumption of this shadow crawler. He was annoyed even more by the lies he
repeated so often. It was hardly an invasion and no one was enslaved, certainly not in any significant numbers. He never let this triviality get in the way of business, but it was getting under his skin suddenly.
“What…?” Renaldo looked puzzled.
“Look, I am well aware of what needs to be done. I will not fail at my side of the bargain,” he stated truthfully. He would finish this transaction not matter what it took. He would cross Carter, Kate and everyone else he needed to turn on to complete his side of his bargain with this shadow devil. He certainly wouldn’t allow the Coven to stand in his way.
“Nothing has changed, everything is on track,” he stated less than truthfully. He knew exactly what had changed. He was busily calculating how he could find one of the half-humans before the goons with the plasma guns found her.
“Back off and keep your demands to yourself until this is done,” Presley spat venom at this creature that he suddenly was slightly nauseated by. He turned abruptly and walk quickly away without looking back. His mind was racing wondering if he was following him even now. Renaldo needed him more at this point than Presley needed Renaldo. Presley had everything he needed to complete his mission, except the location of Genera and he wasn’t going to get that from Renaldo.
Legions of goons were moving through every population center identified to have members of The Order. These were identified after years of work tracking and mapping these populations. Goons were warming the bottoms of every mage and all their familiars. What made plasma guns so effective is that they left little or, really, no evidence of their use. They were risky to use on a truly talented mage without containment, but the typical, run-of-the-mill mage was toast, literally. Mostly, they just disappeared, as in vaporized, and friends and loved ones simply had no idea what happened to them. The plan was that if they could act quickly enough, they could take out all, or close to it, of the mages before the remaining mages even figured out what was going on.
Of course, it wouldn’t take long before Carter and Kate realized that the War was not just to decimate members of the Order, but targeting the coven, too. And, of course, Carter was a particularly talented mage and a serious threat. It wasn’t going to be easy to get him into containment now that he was aware that containment was real and what was possible with it.
Therefore, it was important to keep him unaware for a long as possible of the threat to all coven. It was fortunate that Carter was still young and inexperienced and easily influenced. Presley did everything he could to keep him cooing in his love-nest with Kate. He encouraged him to chase his infatuation. It wasn’t difficult to keep him preoccupied. He was head over heels already.
“Presley, do you think we should have a white or black wedding dress?” Kate would ask when Presley would come around.
“Why not naked?” he would say with a mischievous smile, only half joking.
They would laugh and Kate would blush. In the few days since he started his campaign, Presley had wormed his way into their confidences so completely that they shared all the intimate details of their plans with him. He participated eagerly every time that Carter performed a ritual to protect them all from Chaos. No one noticed with much concern that they were becoming more frequent.
It was during one of these sessions that he was approached by a lieutenant with a small piece of news that he was waiting for.
“Sir, you will want to see this,” the foot soldier said handing Presley a large envelope.
Presley, didn’t wait to be alone to go through its contents. He paused and rubbed his chin for a moment. Then he turned to Kate and Carter and grabbed a sample of fondant covered cheesecake. It was totally gild-the-lily, but he liked it.
“Go with that,” he said, “It’s totally rad. I gotta go.”
“Totally rad?” Kate shot back with a sweet smile. “What planet are you from?”
There was a ripple through Chaos and Presley stopped and held hands while Carter did his ritual.
“Talk to you later,” Presley said as he shot out the door. Once in the corridor, he said to his lieutenant, “Do you know if she is safe?”
“No idea.”
Chapter 8 S Shane Thomas
The City
“Good grief, that was unsettling!” Edgar rose from a crouch and flexed his hand open and closed, then nodded to Carter. “What about you two? A bunch of dull wedding plans?”
“How did you know?” Kate cocked an eyebrow and stretched her back. “I didn’t see you anywhere, and why are we back to where we were before?”
“Apparently Chaos even distorts time,” Carter said. “Hey, Pressley. What were you up to in between making horrible wedding dress suggestions and sucking down plastic frosting?”
“Oh, ahh, Alliance business, to be sure,” the older man offered a smile that left Carter feeling suspicious.
Kate pulled Pressley aside and began to speak to him in hushed tones. She popped her head up and looked at Carter, “Sorry hon, until HQ clears you, some Alliance intel needs to remain a secret!”
Edgar grabbed Carter by the elbow and pulled him further from the pair. “I had an out of body experience. It’s as if Chaos forgot about me, despite your precautions.”
“Well, it is a magical force that defies logic and physics,” Carter ran fingers through his hair. “My sister experienced something similar, she had access to places she shouldn’t have been and other peoples’ thoughts.”
“Same here,” Edgar replied. He cast quick glances at Pressley. “That guy is no good. He’s a double agent. We need to put him down before…”
Kate’s scream cut Edgar off mid-sentence. Carter jerked his head in her direction. Pressley had some sort of gun in his hand, attempting to aim at Edgar, but Kate was wrestling it away from him.
“Infernal Chaos! Revealing me before my plans had come to fruition! All of you must be eliminated!” Pressley jerked the weapon free and spun back toward Edgar.
Carter had used the time to dash toward Pressley, taking a wide path to his gun hand side, apparently undetected in the Alliance double agent’s peripheral view. Pressley’s gun swung back and forth, attempting to fix on Edgar who evaded its sights leaping from side to side and ducking behind cover.
Carter threw a right cross from Pressley’s side. The punch connected just under the man’s ear, right on the top of the jaw bone, with a sickening crunch. The traitor crumpled like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Carter pulled the weapon from his hand and nudged Pressley with his boot.
“Nice punch!” Kate said. She was sheathing a knife. “At least this way when he wakes up, we can interrogate him.”
“It will be nice to know how much of that nonsense I was narrated is actually part of his conspiracy.” Edgar gave the traitor a kick to the gut. “The world is in jeopardy, and this clown entertains a hidden agenda.” He shook his head.
“What now,” Kate asked as she zip tied Pressley’s hands and ankles behind his back like a hog.
“There may be more rats in your Alliance nest, Kate. For now, I’ll fix us up in a nearby safe house. I’ll tell you what the Coven knows.”
A sleek silver craft materialized above them and lowered itself to the street. Edgar uttered a spell and with a graceful hand motion used telekinesis to move Pressley’s prone form into his craft. In minutes, Carter and Edgar had Pressley locked into a cell within the vessel and they lounged in a penthouse above the Cape Central Office building.
“Carter, I hope you and Kate are willing to take a nice long vacation,” Edgar said. “You are one of a handful of people the Order could use to complete their spell to take over the world.”
“Alliance agents are eliminating Order mages all over the world. Is this really still a global threat?” Kate asked.
“Their spell is far enough along that it only takes three mages to maintain it until it is completed.”
Carter took a big drink of his gin and tonic. The time to run from his power was over. “I’ll return to the Coven and complete
my training. I’ll be safe within its walls.”
Kate beamed. “I had always hoped you would come to this decision. Since Sarah is gone, I’ll take her place and train to protect you.”
Carter kissed her and ran his hands through her hair. “I love you.”
“Easy there, you two! You’re making me blush,” Edgar said.
THE END
URGENT! Dispatch Immediately-
Recruits Needed
It’s over… What now? Well, it’s not really over. This Writer Battle was only to preface my challenge. Come try to wrestle the plot away from me! www.LARC-SciFi.com/WriterBattle is where the action continues. Use the form to submit your first chapter, then I’ll retaliate… I mean contribute the second chapter…Hehehe.
Writer Battle_Chaos Page 4