by D. N. Leo
“Okay, I lied. I’m not Sedna Aardel, but I know where she is.”
The man cocked an eyebrow, considering.
Not very smart, are you? she thought.
“Where?”
“You’re pointing a gun at me. If I tell you, I’m sure you’ll go ahead and shoot me.”
He nodded and lowered his gun. Taking the opportunity, she charged at the man for a tackle. Not a wise idea. His body was as hard as rock. Her shoulder cried out in searing pain. She felt she was going to pass out.
She couldn’t let that happen.
The man staggered back a few steps and smirked. He slid the sculpture into his pocket and holstered his gun.
Great. She followed with a roundhouse kick, the back of her foot impacting with his face. He smiled like she intrigued him. Oh shit.
He walked slowly toward her. She felt as if she was pounding a brick wall. Is he a creature? He certainly isn’t human. That much she knew. No matter how much she punched and kicked him or how much energy she used to strike him, he kept walking toward her, intact.
She hit him again and again. And she could tell it wasn’t going to work.
It was too late to run as he would shoot her in the back. She swung one last kick. He grabbed her foot. His hand was like a pair of iron pliers. One twist of his hand, and her leg would be torn flesh and shattered bones.
She yanked hard. To her surprise, she freed herself from his grip. She lost her balance and fell on her backside, skidding over the snow.
The man growled and charged at her. She kicked her feet at the snow, pushing herself away and sliding backward. She didn’t have enough energy to get up and run.
“You know what I’m going to do to you, bitch? Call Afton—he can come and collect your body after I’m done with you.”
“Who are you?”
Her world started to fade. The man smirked and advanced on her. She couldn’t let it end like this. She gathered the last drop of her strength and pumped a two-leg kick at his groin.
He roared.
But that was all of the damage she could do. She dropped back down to the snow. The man hunched over and charged at her.
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. From behind her, beams of light struck the man. He staggered. He roared and looked as if he was on fire.
“Afton!” she said.
A shadow walked past her then darted straight at the man, piercing a dagger through him from his front to his back. It was no ordinary dagger. And the man wasn’t Afton.
That was her last thought before her world went black.
4
Caedmon dampened a towel in warm water and went back to the bed where he had put Sedna. He cleaned the mud and blood from her face. She looked the same as he remembered her. Of course, in Eudaizian time, it was only yesterday that they had been intimate.
As his father had mentioned, he wasn’t sure how things had changed in the four years of Earth time that had passed or whether she would remember him. Father had said she would be pissed at him. He hadn’t had a chance to look up the meaning of the word, but he got the impression it wasn’t a good thing.
The Scorpio key would be at the temple where they appointed leadership of the mage tribe. The key would only reveal itself when the scorpion sculpture activated it. Then the sculpture has to be placed in a shield plate, and remain there, because its removal would cause a gigantic astronomical hole that would sink the Arctic. So the upcoming leader of the mage tribe would have to relinquish the sculpture, and thus, the power, so Caedmon could remove the Scorpio key and get out safely.
His father seemed to think it wasn’t possible to ask a human—in this case, a creature on Earth, a mage—to give up the power he had fought a lifetime to gain to save a multiverse that most humans and creatures didn’t even know existed.
The technology in Eudaiz was advanced by several hundred years compared to Earth. The transformation machine basically created beings to desirable specifications. It sampled his natural biological and psychological profile and simulated a version of him in the time and space of his choice, and then loaded the necessary experiences to his profile so that he could operate in the new environment. So the simulated Caedmon was uniquely him.
The machine was the creation of which his father was most proud. The technology had been initiated several hundred years ago, but it hadn’t been completed until his father’s time.
Caedmon had loaded his human profile when he met Sedna, and thus he was a human to her. He would tell her his true identity someday, but not now, not while he was on this mission. There was too much at stake. And aside from what his father thought, he understood the implications of not following protocols—he would never let his sentiments jeopardize the mission.
The tribe had to trust him enough to let him in. That way, he could be there when they took the sculpture to the temple. To gain their trust, he had to either be one of them or be a helpful human. The fact that he was from another universe would never gain trust from the mage tribe.
Once inside the temple, he had to obtain the sculpture, get the key, and lock the sculpture in place to permanently shield the hole.
Sedna stirred. Her eyes fluttered. She opened her eyes and stared at him.
Caedmon squirmed. He was still unsure about the magnitude of the expression pissed off, but he forgot his fear when he saw her wince in pain. He rushed over to the bedside.
“Hey! How are you feeling?” He tucked her long, black hair back, revealing her beautiful oval face, dark eyes, and full red lips. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. It was incredible how you pushed the bullet out of your shoulder!”
He didn’t react quickly enough, and her hand contacted his face. He saw stars and tasted blood in his mouth. Now he knew what his father had meant by that expression.
Sedna sat straight up in bed. “Don’t touch me, you bastard!” she snarled.
Caedmon stepped back and switched his eudqi on. His mind worked like a computer as it translated: ‘A bastard is a person born of parents who are not married to each other.’ That’s not right, he thought. My parents are married. But he chalked the comment up to Sedna being angry at him.
“Sedna, I can explain. But you have to calm down. You’re injured. You have to rest.” He approached her again.
“Who do you think you are? You just wanted to sleep with me. As soon as you got what you want, you took off. Now you try to come back playing hero! Why? You want more sex?”
“I said I can explain it, Sedna—”
“I don’t want your explanation. Let me guess—you’re going to tell me you didn’t intend for us to be intimate. You were attracted to me, and things got out of hand. Then something important happened, and you had to leave without even saying goodbye. And now you’re back with an explanation for everything, hoping to get into my pants again.”
“Th-that about sums it up. Except for the getting into your pants part. That wasn’t my intention.”
“Oh, so you didn’t even plan to come back? If that creature hadn’t been about to blow my head off, you wouldn’t even have stopped by to see me?”
He moved closer to the bed. “That didn’t come out right. I mean—”
She stood and swung a kick at him. The moment the heel of that pretty foot landed on his chest, his world exploded.
He staggered backward. He couldn’t breathe. His vision wavered. Pain spread through his chest like a flash flood.
What had his father said? The critical point of his eudqi was on the right side of his chest. If he was hit at that point, the blow would be lethal. He had turned on his eudqi to use his mind’s eye to access the database, and he had left it on. Was this the end? He hadn’t even begun his mission.
His knees buckled. He saw Sedna reaching out to hold his shoulders. “Caedmon, I’m sorry. I didn’t think I kicked you that hard. Look at me, Caedmon… Come on…”
He saw her concerned face. And maybe even some tears. And then he couldn’t see anything.
5
Afton searched the area frantically. “Sedna!” he called out, although he knew that was a stupid thing to do. Fear stabbed at him. He said he’d send Anatole to go after her, but Anatole was a contract killer—an assassin who killed for a living.
When it came to Sedna’s safety, he trusted no one but himself. It had been a mistake to send her to see the client on her own. Her stubbornness aside, he should have been more insistent about her taking bodyguards with her. The day of the leadership contest was coming close, and this round would be brutal. The power hungry would have sent out assassins. After more than a hundred years of being a mage, he should have known better.
He knew he was at the scene where the incident had taken place. Afton crouched. There was a trace of blood and gore right here. But it wasn’t Sedna’s. By the looks of it, whoever had spilled blood here couldn’t possibly be alive. But if Sedna killed the assassin, where is she?
And then he saw the sculpture, broken in half. It was fake! He shook his head.
The falling snow didn’t work in his favor, but he was a damn good tracker. He looked around and saw some tracks. He was sure they were from Sedna. Afton concentrated and looked harder. He saw a second set of tracks. There had been someone else here. He ran his fingers over the imprints in the snow. He sniffed to try to pick up the scent.
This was very unusual. It was something he hadn’t come across before. Sedna’s tracks ended, but the second set went on. Afton checked to be sure his weapons were in place, then he followed the trail.
Sedna shook Caedmon’s shoulders. He was breathing, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t look like he was dying. She shook him again. His eyes fluttered and opened slightly.
“Caedmon, can you hear me? Can you get up? I’ll get you to the hospital.”
“No. Just let me lie here for a slot. I’ll be fine,” he said then passed out again.
“A slot?” she asked then realized he hadn’t heard her question.
It was strange, but then again, she was used to strange languages. She was the last line of her Alaskan tribe in Greenland. She spoke some Eskaleut, but she didn’t use it for communication. There weren’t many people around to warrant the use of the language. It was useful mainly to read old manuscripts.
Let me lie here for a slot, he had said. What the hell does that mean? It didn’t really matter, though. What mattered was that he was injured. She was a mage, and she could heal him. She opened the front of his shirt and admired the defined muscles of his chest. She shook her inappropriate thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on her healing. She had kicked him on the right side. She couldn’t see a bruise, but the blow had apparently hurt him nevertheless.
She focused, placing her palm on the spot where she thought the injury was. There was a spark of light. She felt as though she was being electrocuted. The vibration was so strong it numbed half of her body and shot her back several feet. Her head hit against the wall, and she blacked out.
After a while, she opened her eyes and sat up groggily. She rubbed the back of her head. “What the hell? What kind of a creature are you, Caedmon?” she asked out loud. But he was out of it, and she didn’t expect a response. His body had rejected her light. How strange.
She would have to let Caedmon heal himself. She fetched a blanket and tucked it around him. She brushed the hair out of his face and took a long look at him. It had been four years since she’d last seen him. She didn’t want to admit it, but she couldn’t get the last night they’d had together out of her mind. Since then, she hadn’t been able to…well, never mind. She sighed.
He looked the same but a few years older. Time had worked in his favor.
She was sure he had reasons for leaving. But whether she would listen to him and allow him back into her life now remained to be seen. A lot of things had happened in those four years. She was now moving toward becoming the leader of her tribe.
Back then, it was different. She had been carefree. She’d had her own life, and she had been in love with Caedmon. Back then, it had been her cousin who was going to lead the tribe. But then he had died in an accident two years ago, and the tribe reached out to her. Afton took her in for training, and one thing led to another. Now here she was, unsure about whether she could have a normal love life ever again.
Thinking of Afton, her head perked up. Shit! She should call him. Where is the bloody cell phone? She searched around the room and couldn’t find it. Damn!
Then she sensed him. It was the connection between trainer and trainee. She assumed it was a merely a professional connection, but whenever she sensed him around, she always felt as if she were a kid about to get caught sneaking lollipops to bed. Like she hadn’t been working hard enough and hadn’t been doing her homework.
Sedna whirled around. She knew Afton was coming for her.
She shivered.
Afton hated scholars, and when he said he hated something, he meant it.
When she first met Caedmon, he was a college boy from Oxford University, a British scholar researching Native American culture. She hung on his every word. He had incredible knowledge, and he was sexy as hell.
She had never planned to tell Afton about Caedmon. Not back then. And absolutely not now.
Caedmon was still on the floor, unconscious.
She heard Afton’s footsteps. They were the sort of footsteps that most people wouldn’t be able to hear because he walked like a cat. But her mind’s ears, if there were such things, must have been attuned.
“Sedna!” Afton’s voice came through the door. This time, her human ears heard him. She darted over to Caedmon and pushed him under the bed.
She tidied her hair and yanked open the door.
“Afton!” she grinned. But he didn’t smile back.
6
Nikki finished polishing the nail on her left little finger and gave all the nails a gentle blow of air. She looked at her beautifully manicured nails and smiled. Although she had put only a sheen of an almost transparent silver dust color on them, the nail polish made a world of difference to her look.
The only girl on this planet who would leave her nails plain because of martial arts practice was her friend Sedna. Nikki shook her head. No wonder Sedna had never had a boyfriend. They’d been friends for a long time, and she knew Sedna was a mage. Sedna had introduced her to the tribe and had been the one who’d recommended her for this job.
They needed a human to manage the natural medicine clinic—someone who could understand the tribe, be discreet, and handle problems caused by humans. As this was the only natural medicine clinic in Nuuk—the capital of Greenland run by creatures—they anticipated a number of problems caused by their human fellows. The most sustainable solution was to have a human on staff.
This clinic was the main training ground of the contenders for the upcoming leadership. There had originally been twelve candidates. After several rounds of competition, however, there were only three left—Sedna, Neva, and Keeve. But only Neva and Keeve trained here. Sedna practiced at Afton’s exclusive martial arts hub.
Nikki felt her day brighten as Keeve walked in. He looked at her with his striking blue eyes. They didn’t talk much to each other, but his eyes were always warm. “Hi, Keeve. You’re early today.”
“I’m not practicing today. I just left something in my locker,” he said and pointed to the changing room.
“All right then.”
As he turned down the hallway to the changing room, she pulled out an invitation and put it on the counter. When Keeve came back out, she called, “Keeve!”
“Yes, Nikki?”
“This is to thank you for the fishing trip last week.”
“It was my pleasure. We had a good time, didn’t we?”
“We did.” She pushed the invitation across the counter.
Keeve looked at it. “Jazz?” He raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t like jazz?”
“I love it.”
She grinned. “They’re a
local band. Opening day.”
“We should support the locals, shouldn’t we?” He smiled at her. “Thanks. See you next week.”
When he turned to leave, she asked, “Is it a date?”
He slowed down and turned around. Those blue eyes grew pensive, and she hated that. “You know we can’t, right?”
“Why not? So what if I’m human and you’re a mage.”
“It won’t work.”
“Says who?”
“I need to think about this…” His voice trailed off, and he turned around and walked out of the clinic.
Nikki didn’t know how long she stood there, staring at the door. She swallowed the lump in her throat when she saw Anatole bolt into the reception room.
“Sedna’s in trouble. Do you know what’s going on? Afton called to tell me, but then he just cut me off and didn’t say anything else,” Anatole blurted out before checking to see if Nikki was paying attention or even cared what he was saying.
Nikki arched an eyebrow. “And you came here to ask me because?”
Anatole leaned in close, glanced around, and lowered his voice. “Have Neva and Keeve been using the training room?”
“They aren’t stupid, Anatole. If they wanted to hurt Sedna, they would send someone to do that and show up for practice as usual.”
Anatole nodded. “Sorry. You’re right. I overreacted.”
Nikki rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised!”
“Come on, cut me some slack. Their leadership challenge is coming soon. I’m a little tense, okay?”
Nikki clucked her tongue. “It’s not their leadership challenge, it’s Sedna’s. You couldn’t care less about Keeve and Neva.”
“I thought you guys were friends. Which camp are you in, Nikki?” Anatole tugged absently at the side of his jacket. Nikki knew well that there was an arsenal in the lining of that jacket—special weapons used especially for assassination jobs.
“I’m a business manager—I don’t take sides. All members of the tribe who use this venue are my clients.”