Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy)

by Vazquez, Melissa

  He had no idea of how far he had traveled, but he knew he was alone, still. He hadn’t heard any of his friends calling for him and there was still no sign from Dirk. As far as he was concerned, he was lost.

  He settled on a tree branch to rest for a moment. Bird forms were always hard for him to hold, especially when he was flying. Whenever he exhausted himself, it was always more difficult for him to find his human shape again. Shifting back to human form would be a good idea, at least for him to rest.

  As he fluttered to the ground, he concentrated on returning to his human form. The falcon body grew and warped, wings forming back into arms; beak reforming into a separate nose and mouth. He landed on his booted feet and stumbled forward, catching his balance with human hands. All that remained from his transformation were a few spare feathers flying around him; the equivalent of losing a few strands of hair. Back in human form, exhaustion settled over him, as if he had been running the distance from the open field to his spot in the forest.

  A soft growling came from behind him.

  He whipped around, instantly alert and preparing to shift into an animal once again. Before he could shift, a black panther emerged from behind an ancient oak tree. It snarled at him.

  He could only stare, not out of fear of being attacked, but of awe. This was no ordinary panther. While different from him, he sensed a familiarity to the sort of magic the panther exuded. This was shape shifter on some level; maybe not on the same level as him, but this animal definitely had some human in it.

  In...her, that was. As he observed the snarling cat before him, he got the distinct sense that the animal was both female and partially human. Before he could alert the panther that he wasn’t a danger to her, the panther pounced, right for him.

  He tried to avoid the great cat, but there was no avoiding the collision. He expected the heavy weight of the cat, the heavy muscle, bone and slashing claws. Instead, what he found was a naked human woman pinning him to the forest floor, a dagger in her hand, at his throat.

  “Shifter...” she growled.

  

  Evangeline’s scream ripped through the portal as she tumbled through an empty, white void and landed unpleasantly...on a barn.

  Make that, through a barn. She crashed through the wooden roof, through the second story and into a bale of hay, cursing and yelling. There was an unpleasant chorus of noise that echoed her arrival, as horses reared up in fear, yelling their disapproval. The noise blended with the pain and confusion and she was sure that she was about to pass out.

  When the moment of nausea passed, she sat up. The horses were still making an unholy noise, looking as though they would die of fright. She didn’t bother to calm them down. Many wild animals feared her, and it wasn’t because she was bigger than them or that she was going to hurt them at all. It was a part of that sixth sense animals had, one that told them when to run for shelter when a storm was going to hit and even part of what helped domesticated dogs alert their owner to illness. Animals feared her instinctively, unless she spent a large amount of time with them. It was a part of her nature at work, as a half demon, half angel.

  Aware that there were no humans to question her arrival, she snuck out of the barn. Or, tried to. Her entire left leg limped along behind her. It was the most she could do with it. Putting too much weight on it hurt. She limped out and surveyed the land. There was open land before her. Farming land, it had to be. There was a lack of large farming machinery, but that was a part of what Dirk had said, right? No machinery functioned correctly on the Second Realm, or at least, not the machinery she was used to. Instead, there was an abundance of horses and related horse-drawn plows.

  What wasn’t near her were the other Assassins or the vampire who had ushered them into this world. She considered going to the house she saw in the distance, but instinct told her that she would find nothing of use there. Humans feared her instinctively as well as animals. Some ignored the instinct, but most, especially those in tune with their intuition, kept far away from her.

  Looked like she was alone, for now.

  She glanced back at the barn she had ruined. The humans in the house would no doubt want an explanation as to why the barn looked as though it had been hit by a meteor, but there was no time to stay and explain. She didn’t even know if the people who inhabited the barn were friendly or not, especially towards her.

  Pulling her gaze away from the ruined barn, she headed for the open field. She was awfully vulnerable running exposed in a field such as this, but she could see the wooden fence that edged the end of the property. Following the fence might take her to some sort of road.

  Luck was on her side as she crept along the edges of the fence. There were no animals to announce her presence or humans to demand that she leave their property. She found a dirt road and followed it, without any idea of where she was going or who she was going to encounter. She hadn’t been expecting any cement sidewalks, exactly, but she had to wonder about the kind of city she might find. The dirt road looked well-trodden by horse hooves and many feet. It was relatively clear, with only some trees lining either side of the road. No cities anywhere, just the paths of horses and carts. If she had to guess, she’d say the horse was the fastest form of transportation around here.

  In no time, the dirt road led to a large stone wall. It was the sort of stone wall that guarded a village or, no, a castle. As she approached the wall, the castle came into clear view, towering above her and stretching towards the clouds. The white stone castle shone with bright green banners. Men in armored suits patrolled on horseback while villagers in plain looking garments went along their daily business, trading and doing business in the market place that stood just inside the castle walls.

  Men in armor. Giant castle. It was as if Evangeline had been sucked back in time. When Dirk had said there was no modern technology here, he had obviously meant it. These people were still stuck in an age where kings and queens ruled and knights in shining armor were commonplace. Suddenly, her own outfit seemed horribly out of place. She slipped behind a large oak to observe further. There was not one woman wearing a pair of pants or even a shirt. Noble women wore elegant dresses of elaborate silks, while the commoners wore what comparatively looked like scraps. Her outfit, what Kaydee had playfully named faux-military, was an obvious hint that she was not in the correct place.

  “You there!”

  She jumped as she heard a man’s voice behind her. The voice was in her native tongue and she couldn’t tell if that was due to the foul potion she had downed earlier, or the fact that the man speaking to her actually spoke her language.

  “Excuse me, my lady!”

  She turned at that. Behind her was an elegant black horse dressed simply with a saddle, despite the decorative bridle. What got her attention away from the stallion was the man atop the horse – he wore no armor like the patrolling men outside did, but he was of noble stature. His outfit was composed of fine silks and bright colors, but there was also a long scabbard at his side. She eyed the sword that was thankfully sheathed, wondering if he had any notion of fighting her.

  “Miss, your attention, please?”

  He spoke with a slightly European accent, or at least, that’s what came to her mind. His voice was light, non-threatening and surprisingly...friendly. She dared to meet his gaze and was startled to find that his eyes were of a bright, sharp green she had never seen before, just as brilliant as the emerald banners that adorned the castle.

  The man stared down at her with a smile, as if he was amused by her silent shock. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  

  The foreign tongue was confusing. Kaydee thought she had passed out after crossing through the portal. That was probably due to the fact that she had landed on hard ground. When she came to, the first thing she heard was a tangle of foreign languages. She didn’t know if it was one separate language or two, but the foreign words wove around her, the elegant symbols curving and curling with each word spok
en.

  As her mind rearranged the syllables, it became clear that the potion was starting to kick in. Soon, the words warped and shifted, turning from a lovely foreign sound to something that she could clearly understand.

  “And the foreigner? What are we to do with her?”

  “We are crossing another trade post. She could fetch a nice profit to the traders at Govoya.”

  She sat up abruptly at that, unaware of what she would face when her eyes opened clearly. Instead of the hard dirt ground she had landed on, she was inside of a tent of some sort. Brilliant purple cloth stretched above her head to form a sort of shelter, held up by a framework of wood. She was still lying on dirt ground, but someone had lifted her onto a small pile of cloth. The cloth felt like scraps of scratchy, uncomfortable linen and burlap. As she pushed them aside, she realized a chaotic patchwork blanket of scraps had covered her.

  Hesitantly, she peeked out of her tent-like shelter. There were other tents set up around her, gathered around a central campfire. People milled around, clothed in a bizarre series of garments. Some looked like that of noble people she had seen in story books; others looked as they wore beggar rags. There was no distinction on if there was any ranking, if the brilliantly dressed people were in fact nobles or that those dressed in rags were beggars. Everyone milled around, seemingly equal. There were even children in the same mix of clothes, playing with each other. Women sat around the fire, cooking over large, metal pots. Horses were tied to a sort of stable-area, with a trough of water below them. Each structure looked temporary, as if it was meant to be torn down and re-built at a moment’s notice. This was not a permanent settlement, she realized, but a band of nomads.

  The question was, where was she? This certainly didn’t look like a school or even a place of education to her. There were no studying children or scholarly looking people, just those who looked like they worked hard throughout the day, without break or time to study at all.

  “Ah, she awakens.”

  She peered up at the woman who was staring at her, realizing that this woman was the first voice she had heard speaking.

  “Don’t be afraid, child. Come out.”

  Encouraged by the oddly foreign form of English they were speaking, she stood up and out of the tent.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” she said. At least, that’s what she heard herself say. The woman in the patchwork dress jerked back, startled, as if Kaydee had sprouted another head.

  “Mage speak!” the woman cried.

  There was a flurry of activity as other men and women surrounded her. There were all sorts of confusing questions and the magic translating the foreign tongues couldn’t keep up at first, giving Kaydee a confusing mix of foreign tongue and familiar words. Finally what emerged were repeated questions of, “Where did you come from, mage? Who is your teacher?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she cried. “Let me go!”

  She burst forth from the crowd of people and stumbled into a stand full of glass bottles and wooden trinkets. She recognized one of the bottles as what Dirk had held – a glass vial full of potion. Was this where he had gotten the potion from?

  “Mage!” a man shouted at her, as if that was her proper name.

  “What do you want from me?” she said, hating how weak her voice sounded.

  “Where do you come from, mage? Do you reside in a nearby village?”

  “N-no, I don’t, I’m not from around here!”

  She was hoping that the sudden outburst would get the people to back off from her, for them to realize that they were doing nothing more than scare her. She backed up against the stand of potions and trinkets once more, the glass bottles tinkering as she hit them, as if in protest. The men and women weren’t backing off from her as she had hoped. Instead, a few men pulled swords from their sides, the shiny metal glimmering in the campfire.

  Panic settled into Kaydee. She had never been the one to fight, leaving the three other Assassins to fight while she lagged behind, healing those who needed it. She wasn’t a great fighter but she could feel her own magic building. These people already suspected she had magic. She didn’t know what would happen if she used it, if they would fear her for it or attack her, but there was only one way to find out.

  Her concentration dipped down below her feet, to the ground below. She sifted through the dirt with her magic, looking for seedlings of life. Her magic influenced those seedlings to grow at an alarming rate, sprouting up out of the ground to form a wall of vines and ivy plant that separated her from the people threatening her.

  “Earth mage! This one is an earth mage!” the first woman she had heard shouted.

  The second woman she had shouted joined in the fray. “Sell her to Govoyan traders! She’ll be worth much more now!”

  Kaydee had no idea of what would happen if she was sold to a trader, but she didn’t want to stick around and find out. Her powers lashed out again, making the vines and ivy grow taller. If she had to destroy this entire campground to protect herself, she would do it. She heard the men on the opposite side of the wall trying to fight the plant growth to get through her. Finally, someone must have grabbed a torch or some other scrap of wood holding fire, because the vines she had summoned burst into flame.

  She screamed and her concentration dropped. The plants stopped growing and continued to burst into flame, withering and dying on the spot as they incinerated. The men pushed the smoldering plants out of the way and seized her.

  “A draught of sleep should do some good,” the first woman said, reaching to the glass bottles behind Kaydee. She pulled the cork out of a bottle and shoved the glass rim to Kaydee’s lips.

  Kaydee tried to fight but the men held her steady. The woman shoved the bottle into Kaydee’s mouth, forcefully pouring the liquid down her throat. Kaydee choked on the bitter, minty liquid as she struggled, but the concoction was instantaneous. The fight leeched out of her and her muscles went limp, as if she had been fighting for days.

  The woman caught her as Kaydee collapsed. The last thing Kaydee heard was something about finding rope to bind her with, and contacting the Govoyan trader...then she fell into a deep, deep slumber.

  

  Out of one forest and into another. That was the phrase that stuck with Marco after he landed in the Second Realm. Wherever he was, this was no school that had been promised. This was more forest, but a different type of forest. Instead of the brilliant greens and browns that made up the forest behind Fyrn manor, this was different. Darker. More ominous, perhaps.

  None of his cohorts were with him. He thought that, as the last one to land, he would land with them, but he was alone. Well, not totally alone. He heard the sounds of birds in the trees and rustling from the underbrush of bushes that tangled giant trees, but other than that, there was no living person near him.

  “Kaleb? Evie?” he asked, his voice strangely loud in the quiet forest. “Kaydee? Are you guys here?”

  His only answer was the sound of a healthy forest ripe with life. No voices answered, save for the birds above him. His heavy boots crunched over the undergrowth of the forest, all the fallen leaves and twigs that made up the ground. This was not the forest behind the Fyrn manor at all. This was like no forest he had been in before. In Moonlight Hills, the only forests were the remains of undeveloped land, and even that wasn’t quite as wild as this was. There were no bits of litter here and there, that suggested that messy, careless humans inhabited this forest. This forest was wild, untouched and free of human taint.

  Figuring that his companions may have moved, he began wandering through the forest. He had hoped to find a clearing or even a building or a river to mark his location, but there was nothing but more of the sameness; that was, trees, trees and more trees.

  Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes and reached into his inner mental powers. Stretching his powers out as far as they would allow, he searched for living creatures. He found plenty instantly, but filtered them
out of his mind. Creatures of the woodland were of no interest to him. There were a few creatures that flagged his attention. He could feel a magical aura coming from them, but couldn’t figure out what they were. There were no humans at all, no sign of his missing friends. Finally, at the edge of the forest far from him, there was a living creature, a female creature roughly humanoid but not human. The notion confused him. There was magical energy coming from her, but it didn’t seem dangerous. Figuring that this would be a good place to start, he tracked how far she was from him and started heading towards her.

  Along the way, he quickly found out that he was not made for trekking through the wilderness. He was a city boy used to the concrete jungle that downtown Moonlight Hills provided. This forestry, this wilderness, was outside of what he was familiar with. He tripped over plants, stumbled into burrows and snagged his jeans on a thorny bush. All the weapons he had packed on him came in handy. He had a slim, six-inch dagger in hand, slashing through what his clothing caught on. A machete would be more appropriate. Or a chainsaw. Maybe a tank.

  He amused himself with ways to roll through the forest, even as he struggled. He came to a stream where there was no bridge to cross through and found himself stepping through the water, cringing as the water flooded into his jeans from the knees down and into his boots. There didn’t seem to be anything dangerous in the water, like say a piranha, but now he would be trekking through the woods with wet clothing, and that was just unpleasant.

  Marco had no idea of how far he had traveled, but he used his powers to again see where that woman was. She was close to him, so close in fact that his powers couldn’t track her anymore. She was too close–