Approaching Storm (Alternate Worlds Book 2)

by Taylor Leigh

  Sam stopped. ‘Wait a minute, just how old are you?’

  Tollin paused for a moment. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘I’m one-thousand years old, give or take a few.’

  Sam’s jaw dropped. ‘A few what? Years?’

  ‘Maybe a hundred,’ Tollin mused.

  Sam stared. ‘You’re joking. This is just a joke. You have to be completely mad.’

  ‘Some days I wish I was,’ Tollin sighed wistfully.

  Sam put her head in her hands. She could sense Tollin was studying her, no doubt trying to decide how well she was taking it. Her thoughts were swimming. She was encountering the impossible and her brain was having some trouble taking it all in. Doorways, Daemons, different worlds, Myrmidons, her father’s murder, Tollin’s age…a few days ago she was simply wondering what she’d wear to school.

  ‘One-thousand years old,’ she muttered quietly. ‘You’ve been living on this dusty old world all that time?’

  Tollin chuckled. ‘The years begin to melt together after a while. No, I haven’t been on Scrabia all this time. Only just arrived, remember? But there is still a lot to explore on both planets. And there’s…other places.’

  Sam shook her head. ‘You’ve probably seen everything there is to see. Done everything there is to do. How do you ever stay entertained when you’re that old?’

  Tollin smirked. ‘Hardly true. It can get rather boring. But you’d be surprised just how much there is to do, it could take me another thousand just to see everything on this planet.’

  Sam studied his face. ‘Well, you’ve certainly aged well.’

  Tollin’s mouth twisted up into an amused grin. ‘Have I? How old do I look?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Late twenties, maybe? Thirty at the most.’

  He nodded, smiling. ‘Well, I suppose that’s comforting. I noticed a new wrinkle the other day. Just there, see?’

  Sam shook her head, fighting down a grin. ‘You’re absolutely barmy.’

  He flashed an incredibly boyish smile, setting his features alight.

  Sam’s stomach went to fluttering and she quickly glanced down at her ring. ‘So when did this big Daemon war end?’

  ‘About a thousand years ago.’

  She bit her lip. ‘So you probably don’t remember it, right? You’d have been too young.’

  ‘I wish that was the case. I was one of the main party members.’

  ‘But when were you born?’ Sam was growing more confused.

  Tollin sighed. ‘Another long story, Sam. Not one I want to get into.’

  ‘Tollin!’ Sam cried.

  ‘It’s not important, just leave it alone.’ His brown eyes grew dark. ‘Besides, I don’t want you getting too overloaded with information at once.’

  ‘I won’t. Don’t you think I’m taking all this well?’ Sam was vaguely aware of the hysterical edge her voice had taken. She prayed Tollin hadn’t caught it.

  Tollin regarded her. ‘You’re in shock, Sam. It won’t surprise me if you have some sort of emotional breakdown in the next few hours. Let’s just take things slow for now. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. Now, eat your apple!’

  He gave her head a gentle pat, then pushed himself up and went swaggering back down the hill, whistling to himself as he went.

  ‘I am not in shock,’ she grumbled, obediently taking a bite from the fruit. Tollin was more than likely right—though she’d never admit it. The weight of the previous day was slowly pressing in on her. Her father was dead, she was far away from her home and if Tollin wasn’t crazy, she might just have to deal with Daemons being unleashed across Scrabia. As much as she didn’t care for the planet, the prospect was dreadful.

  She finished her breakfast and, after sitting with her own thoughts for a while, went to find Tollin. He was standing on a boulder gazing off towards Layers in the distance.

  ‘So what are we doin’ here?’ Sam called over to him.

  Tollin spun off of the rock and walked through the sand towards her. ‘Waiting. Sorry, it might be a bit of a boring day.’

  Sam pulled her fingers through her tangled hair, desperately wishing for a toothbrush. ‘That’s all right. After yesterday I could use some boring. Waiting for what?’

  ‘Well for one,’ he pointed upwards. Sam looked up and stared at the huge, looming form of Scottorr hanging just above.

  ‘You’re mental!’

  ‘Nope!’ Tollin popped his lips around the word. ‘Afraid not!’

  Sam shook her head. ‘That’s impossible! You’d die!’

  Tollin waved that away. ‘Ah, not all the time! Trust me, it’ll be fine! We have to get off of Scrabia for the time being due to all the Myrmidons and that seems the best way! I would consider other options, but we can’t leave this Realm just yet, I’ve got to deal with this problem…’

  Sam stared at him. ‘You’re talking nonsense. I can’t do it, Tollin. I can’t!’

  He smiled. ‘Don’t worry; you’ve got all day to prepare for it!’

  Sam fought down a new wave of fear. ‘This is mental. What did you mean “for one”? Are you waiting for something else?’ She honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  Tollin looked off across the desert. ‘Well, I had honestly been hoping Marus would make an appearance.’

  Sam groaned. Her brief encounter with him had not left her impressed. ‘Ugh, him? Why?’

  ‘Like I said,’ Tollin kicked the sand at his feet. ‘He might be in trouble. Be good for him to get out of the city.’

  Sam eyed him. ‘Look, sorry, but why do you care? He doesn’t seem…I dunno, your type.’

  Tollin gave her a wry smile. ‘Oh? And I suppose you know what my type is?’

  Sam rolled her eyes. ‘Obviously not. But you’re just so different. He seems a bit rude.’

  Tollin let out a breath. ‘Yeah, he can be that way…well, he usually is. But, you can’t really be choosy in these types of circumstances.’

  She shook her head. ‘What circumstances?’

  His dark eyes met hers. ‘He’s my brother.’

  Sam coughed in an attempt to hide her surprise. ‘Your brother?’ She tried to recall the man in the club. ‘I don’t believe it. So how old is he? Seven-hundred?’

  Tollin stared at her as if she was being ridiculous. ‘Of course not! More like ten-thousand!’

  Sam blanched. ‘How is that possible? You mean he’s older than you?’

  He looked offended. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Sam stared, the ground beginning to spin beneath her feet again. ‘Well he just looks a lot younger, that’s all.’ She felt her cheeks warm. ‘I mean, you’re a thousand—supposedly—and you could pass for thirty—maybe—and you want me to believe that he’s ten-thousand and he doesn’t look a day over twenty-three! How does that work?’

  Tollin shrugged, looking away quickly. ‘Born with a baby face?’

  ‘If you’re talking about me, I hope it’s all good!’ A new voice reached them and Sam and Tollin both turned to see Marus swaggering into sight.

  ‘Ah, so you made it. On time for once.’

  Marus grinned charmingly. ‘It’s been an interesting night, to say the least.’

  Sam turned back to Tollin. ‘Hang on, I didn’t even hear him come up! If it’s that easy for someone to sneak up here, are we safe?’

  ‘You’re fine. Area’s clear. I checked,’ Marus said reassuringly. ‘Where’s my vehicle, Tollin?’

  Tollin cleared his throat and scratched his cheek. ‘Ah, yes. That. Well, we ran into some,’ he swallowed, ‘problems.’

  Marus stood frozen. ‘Problems?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tollin said, drawing the word out.

  ‘Unbelievable!’ Marus cried. ‘I couldn’t have left you alone with the thing for more than six hours and you’ve already managed to destroy it! Now I’ve got no date and no car.’

  ‘It’s not destroyed!’ Tollin shot back defensively. ‘It’s just lost out in the desert, or impounded
somewhere. See? No harm done.’

  ‘No harm done?’ Marus choked out. His face was twisting into an anguished mask. ‘That was a series one! They don’t make those anymore!’ He advanced on Tollin. A spike of concern for his wellbeing went through Sam. The look on Marus’s face made it clear he wasn’t concerned with the health of his brother.

  ‘Look, just stop it!’ she cried.

  At that moment, a blast of energy rocked the ground beneath them, throwing all three of them onto their backs. Red shot heavenwards from the ring on Sam’s finger in a ribbon of angry light. It blasted up and ripped through the clouds out of sight. Red veins of light scattered across the sky, shining crimson back down. Scottorr’s white surface looked like it had caught some horrible vein disease.

  Sam stared up at the sight in numb dizziness, pinned down by the force of the ribbon of light, which had already violently detached itself from the ring and was nothing more than a pinpoint of red. Sam could just watch in horrified fascination as it streaked towards the surface of the planet above like a missile.

  Marus was the first to recover and was back on his feet, bristling. ‘What the hell was that? Is she doing that?’ His eyes dropped to watch Sam as she tried to massage out her hand. ‘It’s that ring isn’t it? Right, give me her finger; I’m getting rid of it!’

  Tollin jumped up and hauled Sam to her feet. ‘Just calm down,’ he said slowly. He craned his head back to stare up at the planet above. ‘Well, now, wasn’t that odd? Hit somewhere in Tartainia, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘I want this thing off my finger, Tollin. I want it gone now. What is it doing?’ Sam stammered shakily.

  Tollin nodded. ‘Ah! Fascinating! I think it’s a signal calling out. Trying to find its other half. Calling out to those who would serve it best. I think your emotions are helping to feed it, giving it the strength to do so.’

  She swallowed and bobbed her head up and down. ‘Look, I hate to say it, but maybe Marus is right. Maybe,’ she fought down her revulsion. ‘Maybe we should just try to…cut it off.’

  Marus looked thoughtful. ‘Girl’s talking some sense! It worked last time. No sense in not using tried methods.’

  Tollin sighed heavily. ‘No. It won’t work. Trust me, don’t. Don’t even try it, just don’t. I’ve thought about that, but it wouldn’t do any good. That thing has a connection with you, Sam. It’s basically feeding off of you, like a leech. Even if we were to cut it off, the connection would still be there, it would still be draining you, maybe not as strong, but none of the symptoms would go away. You’d still be under its influence. Best for now to just leave it as is, less painful, anyhow.’

  Marus furrowed his brow. ‘You know this how, exactly?’

  ‘Because those Daemons wanted Sam for a reason, they’re not just going to let us cut that ring off and be done with it. If the ring can send off a blast like that just sensing Sam’s distress then what do you think will happen if you actually try?’

  ‘Ah,’ Marus gazed down at the ground. ‘Good point.’

  Sam turned away from the two men, mind blanking. They were talking utter nonsense and it made her head spin. She searched the sky.

  It was blue, but beyond that, somewhere, were the stars. And beyond those? Another world populated by creatures she did not understand. Creatures she couldn’t see, creatures that were ruthless and cruel and knew how to hurt her. And all she had? A strange man she knew nothing about, a man who made no sense and seemed so fantastic and alien she could hardly believe he was real. Sam glanced over at Tollin and couldn’t help a small smile pulling at her lips. Maybe that would be enough.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘We’ve got an energy blast. Looks like the artefact activated again, and it’s a massive amount of radiation!’ Dillian called across the lab to Roth.

  Roth looked up from the lamp he’d been studying. So far, he could find nothing remarkable about the object. It was sealed shut with some peculiar waxy substance he couldn’t identify and had a warning inscribed across it. A warning from the mysterious, mythical hero of old, the Traveller himself.

  If there was something inside the lamp, it wasn’t showing up on any scans. And as tempted as he was to simply pry the damn thing open and have a look inside, something he couldn’t quite explain was holding him back. Funny, he almost didn’t want to know.

  ‘You mean it’s still transmitting?’ he asked, setting the lamp down and walking towards the computer Dillian was monitoring. Time was steadily slipping away from him and he was anxious to find Turner before it ran out. ‘Are we sure it’s not another decoy?’

  ‘It appears real. Our sensors picked up a massive blast, like nothing we’ve seen yet,’ Dillian pointed to a jagged spike on the screen. ‘Then it levelled off to a lower amount and has stayed the same pretty consistently.’

  Roth studied the screen. ‘I don’t recognise these coordinates.’

  ‘I didn’t either,’ Dillian confessed, his eyes glinting behind his large spectacles. ‘But then I keyed them in. It’s from the mountains bordering the city, kilometres away from where we found the abandoned vehicle. I don’t think it’s possible they managed to walk this far in one night.’

  Roth nodded, letting his mind go to working out possibilities of how they managed it.

  ‘If you’ll notice here,’ Dillian pointed to the screen with his stylus. ‘The coordinates are staying relatively constant.’

  ‘They’ve holed up somewhere,’ Roth muttered. ‘We’ll have to move fast.’ He picked up his radio and barked into it for Amy to get a team together. ‘We can’t let them go this time.’

  When that was done, turned around and walked back towards the lamp, feeling feverish with desire. For once, things were actually going right.

  * * * * *

  Sam wished more than anything that she had something better to wear. In just her pyjamas, with no much-needed products to speak of, she knew she hardly looked her best. When it had simply been her and Tollin, she hadn’t been so conscious of her appearance. He seemed to look past it, unconcerned with her dishevelled state. And it had felt rather freeing. But now Marus was here. Attractive, deceptively young-looking, intimidating; she mentally cringed every time he glanced her way.

  Something else was bothering her that she was desperately trying to ignore: A crippling ill sense of misery was growing in her; seeping in around her like a poisonous fog.

  She had never felt so lonely in her life. With the new day, what would the news be at the city? Was her father’s body discovered by now? Would she be reported missing, or would they wait? Would anyone even care?

  ‘Go back…’ a very faint voice whispered inside of her. ‘We must go back to the city…we have to go back. We must re-join. We must grow…’

  Sam moaned and squeezed her eyes shut. The urge was weak inside of her, not the agonising desire as she’d been forced with earlier. Whatever Tollin had done had certainly helped, but it was still there.

  ‘Re-join with what?’ she whispered quietly.

  ‘Our unending dark.’

  Sam scowled. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You will see, one day. Death equalises all. All turn in the end.’

  ‘Turn into what?’ Sam was aware her carried a little too loudly.

  ‘Food.’

  The voice sank away to a waiting silence and Sam stood angrily, outraged that it was playing with her.

  ‘All right?’ Tollin asked conversationally from across the way. He was giving her a funny look. His eyes were just a bit too sharp for Sam’s liking.

  Sam clenched her teeth. ‘I can hear them talking again.’

  ‘Ah,’ Tollin left Marus’s side and strode towards her. ‘Saying anything interesting?’

  Sam shook her head slowly. ‘I dunno. Something about wanting to go back to the city, to where their master is. Do you think they’re talking about the Myrmidons?’

  Tollin’s dark eyes grew darker. ‘No,’ he admitted slowly. ‘I’m not sure what they mean by that.’ />
  Sam nodded slowly; she wasn’t sure what she was hoping for. ‘What are they, exactly? You never told me. Are they like ghosts?’

  ‘What? Oh, no. Ghosts are completely different. Ghosts are the residue energy of human souls, ones that can’t find wherever they’re supposed to go. They’ve still got all the regular human-ish qualities about them. Daemons are a different animal entirely. Creatures of negative energy. Not human.’

  Sam wrapped her arms about her. She hadn’t liked the little tantrum the thing in the ring had pulled just now. ‘Are you sure that the voices in my ring are trapped Daemons?’

  Tollin nodded. ‘Quite positive.’

  Sam wrinkled her nose at that.

  ‘Hate to interrupt you two getting to know each other, but I’ve come a long way.’ Marus turned to Tollin. ‘Got anything to eat?’

  ‘Um, no. Not really,’ Tollin stammered. ‘Check the caves, maybe whoever was here last left something.’

  ‘Well in that case, I know there’s some alcohol! I was the last one here. Unless that buggar O’Neill stole my stash.’ He gave Tollin and Sam a toothy grin and started off.

  Sam turned to look at Tollin. ‘Who is he?’ she whispered. ‘I mean, I know he’s your brother, but…I’ve read that name before, somewhere, and I’m sure it’s him. Why is he so important to this?’

  Tollin bit his bottom lip. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say he’s important, but he was around the last time the stars aligned, I wasn’t. He might know a bit more than me.’

  Sam huffed her breath. ‘I thought you were the one with all the answers.’

  Tollin chuckled, started walking slowly after Marus. ‘I try to make it my goal, but I can’t be everywhere at once. At the time, I was on Scottorr dealing with spore-crazed Blaiden and a mutant dragon.’

  Sam’s brain came to a dead stop before she hurried after him. ‘Hang on, a dragon! Seriously, Tollin, dragons?’

  Tollin was grinning. ‘Yeah,’ he said slowly. ‘Long story.’

  The ground was spinning beneath her, as if the very planet’s movements had suddenly become all the more personal. ‘It’s impossible. I can’t tell if you’re just saying things or if you actually believe it—or if I should!’