As he grew closer he heard what they were saying.
'The Father didn't send you, don't lie to me. Who sent you?'
The smallest of worry lines marred Kali's forehead, but made her no less stunning. If anything, the addition of humanity made her even more desirable.
'It was him. He was worried about your behaviour here so far, he--'
'So who's watching me? If you've seen my behaviour, who else has?'
She cast her eyes to the ground and looked up at Luke through long dark lashes. 'Everyone. There's a screen in the Dome. It's on all the time so you can just go and watch it.'
Luke burst out laughing. 'So I'm the entertainment. Where has the Father gone?'
'He's still at the Do-- oww!'
Luke slammed his hand across her cheek and let go of her wrist. She dropped to the floor, knees making a dull thump that chased her cry of pain around the church.
'The Father wouldn't put up a screen. He wouldn't make this a spectator sport, not for you or anyone else. Who did this?'
She looked down again, shaking her head. Luke knelt beside her and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. Alex stepped closer. 'Look, Luke, surely we can do this nicely, you don't need to hurt her.'
Luke waved his hand in dismissal and Alex hesitated.
'Who did this?'
Kali's mouth stayed shut. Luke stared at her for a moment and Alex caught a glimpse of his face. His eyes flared, golden light spilling from the edges and his mouth was so tight his lips all but vanished. Alex took a step back as Luke surged to his feet and turned. 'You want proof? You want to be enlightened?'
He hauled Kali up by the arm and dragged her over the altar and past it, to where a huge golden cross towered above them. Kali writhed and whined and the sound wasn't entirely human.
'I don't want proof. Whatever you're doing, stop it, I don't want proof.'
Luke turned back, sneer on his face. 'This isn't about you. I just thought you might be interested.'
Without another word, he spun back, grabbed Kali by both arms and lifted her, slamming her against the cross. The moment she touched it a hissing sound filled the church and she screamed. Smoke rose from her back and she struggled and kicked. He gagged as a smell like burning hair filled his nostrils.
Luke held her there, every muscle tense. The hissing grew louder and Alex backed away as her face changed. The beauty was gone, just like that, replaced with red scales and a nose almost flat to her face. Her eyes shifted, melting from the front of her face out to the sides, and her mouth grew wider and wider.
He put his hand over his mouth, gasping as she changed completely. She looked like a lizard, the colour of blood and five feet tall. Her jaws extended and she snapped at Luke. He wagged his finger in front of her. 'Uh, uh, none of that. You are here now, corporeal and entirely present, and either I get my answers or I break your neck, understood?'
The soft melody of her voice had become a deep croak. 'Take me off this damned cross.'
'I think you're the damned one.' He pulled her away from the cross and threw her to the floor. She came straight back up, mouth snapping as her nails scratched on the stone floor.
'Who sent you? Who sent you to watch me and who framed me in the first place?'
'That's a lot of questions, which would you like answered first?'
'It doesn't matter, you're going to answer all of them anyway.'
The laugh that emerged was thin and rough and scraped across Alex's brain. He was already struggling to stay something resembling sane, and the voice didn't make it any easier.
Kali, assuming she was still called Kali when she was a giant lizard thing, hissed again. 'The Father sent me.'
Luke grabbed her around the throat and shoved her against the cross. The acrid smoke billowed up and she screamed. The sound faded and rattled in her throat as her struggles weakened. He held her there until her legs hung limp at her sides, then tossed her to the floor.
'My patience is at an end. You will tell me what I wish to know now.'
She laughed weakly and ran a scaled forearm over her lips. 'Trust me, Luke, the person who sent me here is far scarier than you.'
'Do you know who I am?' As he roared, golden light spat from his eyes and the shadow he cast from the flickering candles moved independently, creeping forwards to crouch above her.
'I know who you were. But that was a long time ago. You've been neutered by your time as a Guardian. Everyone knows it except you.'
Luke took a step back, head shaking back and forth. Kali clambered to her feet, mocking smile on her face. 'I mean, come on, would you have let the Father send you here before he let you back in? You're a shadow of who you were. Why do you think Sara let you in? She felt sorry for you, Luke, and she knew you were going. It was time for you to go.'
Alex cringed. Luke was going to hit her. He could see the tension in his shoulders as he wound up to it. Then the tension drained and his head dropped onto his chest. His voice was soft, defeated. 'So you will tell me nothing?'
Kali sighed and rolled her shoulders. 'I'm sorry, I can't. Worse will happen to me if I do. Had it not been my master, it would have been someone else. There are a lot of people with a grudge against you.'
Luke nodded and turned to Alex. 'We better get going. We need that cure.'
Alex let out a long breath and nodded. This was a better ending than he'd expected. Luke met his gaze and he saw another flash of gold and stiffened as Luke turned back to Kali.
'Oh, something you might want to pass onto your master. I may be weaker than I was, but I'm far from defeated. Tell me, Kali, what are you most afraid of?'
The succubus stared at him in horror for a brief moment, before a figure appeared in front of her. It was huge, twelve feet tall and covered in thick red hair. It could have been a bear, only it was human shaped, long-legged and narrow-waisted.
Luke said only one word as he watched the thing grab Kali around the throat and lift her off the floor.
'Az.'
Steph - Thursday: Plague Day
She pushed open the door and peered out into the corridor. There was no one there, just as she'd expected. She'd been listening at the door for a good half hour and she'd heard nothing, but it had still taken her that long to summon up the courage. She slipped out and rushed toward the lift at the end of the hallway.
She hammered the button and waited, skipping from foot to foot. The door opened and she stepped in, hitting the ground floor button repeatedly until the doors slid closed. She sighed and rested back against the lift. She had maybe ten seconds until she reached the ground. Her eyes felt scratchy from her sleep and she shook her head, trying to clear it. How had she slept for so long?
The doors slid open and she froze. Mr Moore stood across the lobby by the front door. Was he one of them? He couldn't be, he was way too nice a guy. But she'd seen Sandra out the window on the lawn and she'd been one, lurching about like some crazy person. What was happening? She wished David was here, he'd explain it all. He always knew what was going on.
'Mr Moore?'
She said it quiet enough that he didn't notice, and she stepped closer. He growled and spun and she screamed at the change in his face. He looked ninety and his eyes were sunk deep in his skull, and he reached for her with hands twisted and bent into claws. She shouted for help and took a step back but her heel caught on the rug and she tripped.
She landed hard on her tail bone and howled, tears filling her eyes. Mr Moore launched himself and landed on top of her. He was clumsy but his hands were sharp and strong and pinned her to the carpet. When he opened his mouth the smell that emerged made her cough. Bile filled her throat. What was happening?
His head went down, out of view of her eyes and the next thing she knew was a sharp, piercing sensation in her left breast. Then the pain kicked in and she screamed and screamed until everything went black.
Thirteen Roses continues in Book Two: After
Luke and Alex have only days to stop the pl
ague…
But for the rest of the crew, it's already here. The fog filled London's streets and everywhere it went, people started dying. Now those the flower seller saved from themselves have a far larger, far hungrier foe.
Can Bayleigh and Layla survive the horror that has beset them? Will Jackson prove himself worthy of God's love? Will Krystal and Ed make it across town alive? Will Dave ever stop running?
As Luke and Alex make one last ditch attempt to stop the plague, they meet someone who changes Alex's life forever, and makes Luke question everything he thought he knew.
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The Spirit Room, (The Planets, book one) Superhero/Sci-Fi.
'The Avengers meets Magician, The Assembly trilogy is superhero conflict on a global scale…'
An ancient cadre of magicians
A select team of extraordinary warriors
An unseen foe
As two ancient forces battle for control, reality as we know it is being torn apart. Caught somewhere in the middle, and tasked with ridding the world of the insidious alien intelligence are The Planets. Neptune hails from Rio, the gay daughter of strict catholic parents. Mars, from Ireland, still missing the sister he lost years ago. Uri grew up on the streets of New York, and Venus… well, no one knows and she isn't telling. Imbued with extraordinary powers, these highly trained individuals take the fight across the globe. With startling and unnerving revelations at every turn, the depth of deception is only now becoming clear…'
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Chapter One: Mars
He was called Connor, before they named him Mars. He felt odd about the titles and wondered what was wrong with choosing your own. Apparently it was all about balance. Ten planets, ten agents, all with their own place, their own expertise. No prizes for guessing what his was. Of course, he could have ended up as Pluto, or Uranus, so he should be grateful.
His thoughts scattered as the wind buffeted him against the chopper's open door. Below, the lights of London beckoned as the adrenaline began to pump. He grinned, nodding as the dulcet tones of Slayer blasted through the suit comms. The helicopter slowed as it flew out over the Thames, dropping lower until he could make out the people walking down Embankment.
He glanced back at the cockpit, where Luna gave him the thumbs up and a smile. He nodded, then turned back to the open door, facemask sliding up and sealing. The water waited, dark and choppy and he swallowed. It was a long way down; time to go. He cranked the volume until the music roared and grinned again, the vertigo fading as his anticipation of the night ahead grew. He unwrapped his hand from the strap and jumped.
Connor was confused and sick when they found him. Sick with fear of the world around him. Sick with the belief that something else was going on and he didn't know what it was. He didn't share it with anyone, or talk about it. He was too scared the doctors would look at him the way they looked at his sister Sarah when she'd shaved her head and begun talking about sub-programming of the reality field. But he couldn't deny what was happening.
He watched his mother grow old, again and again. He'd catch sight of her out the corner of his eye and her face would look like a crumpled, yellowing map, like she'd aged decades in seconds. He shared his wild brown hair with her and seeing it turn grey and fall out made his stomach turn.
It happened more than once, enough that he kept his slate-brown eyes closed around the people he loved. That's why he had run away. That and Sarah. They'd called her mad when she ranted about 'parallel events across alternate realities' and they'd locked her up. He'd believed them. He didn't now, of course. Sarah had been entirely sane, there just hadn't been anyone to tell her that before the pills and blank walls and knowledge made death the only option.
He'd been close to that when they found him, his strong features gaunt and lined. He was living in a squat, reality crumbling around him as he saw what people were going to do before they did it. When he was a teenager, he found he knew what a girl was going to say before he asked her out. It saved on the heartbreak, but he'd been lonely. As he grew older, so the power got stronger. By the time The Assembly appeared he could see a person's entire life stretched flat like a sheet. Making friends with someone whose death you could predict was a difficult thing to do. As was falling in love.
The lights rushed to meet him as he snapped back to the job at hand. His on-board nano tech fed him all the necessary info but he liked to be 'live' before he landed. The smart suit tightened for impact then released anti-shockers as the Thames swallowed him up. He surfaced near Wapping, dumped the air-tank and travelled rapidly inland to a small house off the high street. Approaching the door, he checked for signs of life inside and, as Luna had assured him, found none. He pushed the door open and stepped in, read out providing both infra-red and daylight-vis. His suit disengaged the helmet and gloves as he prowled. He reached the second floor and there he was, just as promised. The God before him, if God was the right term, was a Shamanic totem made physical. His power came from thousands of years of worship and sacrifice. Why he chose to appear as a squat French man was beyond Mars.
"You are Mars?"
"And you must be Apport. I have to ask, is the look your choice, or is that really how your worshippers see you?"
Apport smiled. The room around Mars swelled and stretched away from him. The door became massive and towering and before him, the totem loomed tall and powerful.
"It is not so much how my 'worshippers', as you call them, see me, but how you do. What could we learn of you that you view a God in such a way?"
"Fair enough." Mars grinned. Maybe not the right time for those sorts of questions. The room re-shaped and he stood looking down on the Totem, although he did seem somewhat taller and rather less fat than previously.
"My bosses told me you have something we want." Mars said.
"Indeed I do. Your bosses can be quite persuasive. This thing I give to you is not something given lightly, nor should it be taken with anything less than absolute respect. However, those you work for should also have told you that you will be performing a small job for me this evening, in return for the key to the Spirit Room."
"I don't know anything about the Spirit Room, but if you've got the key then fire away. Hope we've enough time for this. Sun's up in four hours."
"There will be plenty of time, Mars. You of all people should know that. Your task is to eliminate someone both myself and your employers wish removed from the struggle. He is a man called Edward James and is known to the country as the personal aide to the Prime Minister. He's also known in certain other circles as Jane, and shares with the Prime Minister an affinity for young boys in fishnets. He's also an agent for The Unseen. You will find him in 10 Downing Street. There's a private party there this evening so you are also welcome to take photos should you wish to create some chaos, assuming your masters wouldn't mind."
"They're not my masters. And would you rather chaos or The Unseen's version of order?"
Apport blinked. It only registered because it was the first time he had. Mars could live in this world forever and still never get used to
the crazy shit he dealt with. He was having a conversation with a God and was about to break into the seat of power in England to kill someone he knew nothing about.
"Seems like a win-win to me. We'd have done this anyway, so why do you want this guy killed?" Mars asked.
"I dislike people who prey on children. He has been going further afield to find his more recent 'dates'. The PM and he enjoyed a boy who had recently emigrated from America, from a Native American family. Unlike the Christian God people here profess to love, the love of my people means more than simple supplication and goes both ways."
"This guy steps on your turf and you retaliate. Seems reasonable."
"I am glad. In that case, you should be off. I will be here when it is done."
Mars left the house and travelled west towards the centre of town. Downing Street lay silent before him, black street lamps casting blacker shadows. He flowed between them, unseen. The shockers in his gloves heated up as he neared the house and spotted the two guards. One of them gestured to his colleague and walked away down the street. Mars moved silently behind the second man and laid on the shocks. He convulsed for a moment then collapsed. He reached the other guard in three leaps and put him down the same way, then headed back to the front of the house, scanning for movement. His suit put out reality mist, causing any digital surveillance to see nothing but blurred shadows, but in the flesh he was visible. His training made him fast, agile and entirely silent, but you could never be too careful.
Thirteen Roses Book One: Before: An Apocalyptic Zombie Saga Page 23