Approaching Storm (Alternate Worlds Book 2)

by Taylor Leigh

  Marus threw up his hands. ‘But how much time would we have once this place floods? This whole place would go under in an hour!’

  Sam looked to her companions. ‘Well, we had better decide something soon; we’re running out of time.’

  Tollin nodded. ‘Sam’s right. Marus, if you will do the honours.’

  Marus grumbled and shook himself out. His body creaked and elongated as he did so, till he was a great, hunching dragon, looking very uncomfortable in the tight space. He sat back, raised an elbow and hit the glass squarely. There was a loud crunch! and an ugly crack spread across the pane. Water started to spurt through the break in the wall, spraying everyone.

  ‘Time to go!’ Tollin hollered over the new noise.

  Marus shrunk back to his normal size, soaking. He scooped up his sword and raced for the end of the tunnel.

  ‘Hey!’ Boglight cried. ‘What about me!’

  ‘Oh, shut it! You know you won’t drown, you’re made of energy! Don’t worry; you’ll stay right where you are!’ Tollin cried, yanking Sam after him around the corner. Boglight’s howls were lost in the spray of water.

  Marus hauled the door closed even as water was already beginning to leak through the cracks.

  Sam stopped dead at the circular, open space before them. Five Daemons there, all different sizes and shapes, raised their eyes, completely shocked at the appearance of the three intruders. They didn’t question it long, however. It only took them a second to come to terms with their astonishment and start rushing towards them.

  Tollin looked to Sam and grinned. ‘This is where things get tricky!’

  * * * * *

  Arkron slid the motorbike to a stop, spewing gravel, and killed the engine. Darius dropped off the saddle, legs still feeling wobbly from the death-defying ride he’d just participated in. He wasn’t sure which had given him the greater rush: dipping around corners so far his knees nearly scraped the tarmac, or his arms wrapped around Arkron. It was certainly not what he’d expected his day to shape up to.

  The sky cracked with thunder. It was a sickly colour, far from any natural hue he thought to consider possible. Darius’s eyes traced the ugly clouds down to the Myrmidon base; his heart sank. He hadn’t quite known what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

  The building had been encased inside a giant, dirty, shimmering dome. Stabbing down from the sky was a great ribbon, which twisted and flashed with different warped images. Everything in the area seemed to be leaning in towards it, pulled in by some great force. The generator was glowing with a horrible light as it sucked that strip of light into itself. He could hear the throbbing, humming noise it made even from here.

  ‘Okay then,’ Arkron said casually, ‘let’s go.’

  She broke into a jog towards the base without a thought. Darius stumbled after her, the earth shaking beneath his feet. ‘Where exactly are we going?’ he shouted as they ran. ‘What’s happening?’

  Arkron shot the lock off of the gate, kicked it open and then did the same to the second. ‘We have to get to the chair and disconnect it from the generator before it’s able to form a stable connection!’

  They went haring across the deserted compound.

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous if the generator is still on?’ Darius cried.

  ‘It will be even more dangerous if it makes a stable connection before we can stop it. The generator will take too long to shut off properly, in that amount of time we’ll have a stable connection between Realms and we cannot let that happen!’

  Arkron shot open the delivery doors and went sprinting past the crates. She clearly had done her homework. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  Darius glanced round him as he ran. The place was, not surprisingly, deserted. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Abandoned the place. They all know by now that this place is going to explode. They’re saving their skins. No-one should be here.’

  Darius charged down the stairs after her. Even though he was fit, he found himself gasping for air.

  ‘So, we’re basically mental for being here, then.’

  ‘Basically.’

  ‘Great.’

  Arkron slowed her pace somewhat as they navigated the sleek halls beneath the building. ‘Well, think of it this way,’ she said amiably. ‘You could either die at your home unaware of it all, eating chips and watching telly, or you could be here, gasping for breath with a beautiful woman, trying to stop it.’

  Darius grinned. ‘I think I’ll take the second.’ He hurtled over sparking computers, fallen from their desks, and chairs thrown to their sides.

  Arkron paused at a door, which was heaving as if with breathe. ‘Just don’t tell Sam.’ She gave him a wink. ‘Right, well, here we are; at the gates of insanity. Shall we?’

  ‘Guess it’s about time I joined the club.’

  The door slid open on its own accord, and all he could picture was gaping jaws. Arkron did not move, as he’d expected her to, and Darius nearly collided with her.

  ‘Oh, my…’

  Before them was the chair. What had once been glass walls surrounding the room were gone now, blown outwards by the force within. The glass crunched under his shoes. His skin prickled uncomfortably as he edged around her.

  And there it was: a metal, wicked looking thing with straps. Before it, twisting with wires, was a great arch, glowing an angry red. Its insides were a fuming storm, flashing, twisting, bubbling. It pulled at his clothes, his hair. Darius didn’t have many thoughts running through his mind in his complete shock at the sight, but what if he was to fall into it?

  A sickening, human noise tore at Darius’s attention.

  He was stunned to see there was a man in the room. A man who was bloody and shaking and wrong.

  Darius was frozen. The sight before him was so horrible it knocked the breath out of him; he might as well have been struck a physical blow.

  The stranger’s body was criss-crossed with black lines, which were wafting off in what looked like smoke. Even his eyes were coals, just gaping black pools that took in no light. Empty. His hair hung limply, oily, around his shoulders and his glasses were cracked and dangling down his nose. He might have once looked intellectual, but his lab coat was stained with sick and blood. And if Darius wasn’t mistaken, his entire body was vibrating, unable to hold still in the same spot. It was not a tremble, but as if his body was making impossibly small jumps to the right and left and up and down so fast that the man was almost a blur. It wasn’t…right.

  ‘Arkron…?’ Darius stammered, fighting back an inexplicable, animalistic panic that was slowly filling him. Everything inside of him told him to run.

  ‘He’s possessed,’ Arkron said grimly.

  To Darius’s absolute horror, Arkron stepped through the broken glass wall into the room. Hating himself, Darius found he couldn’t follow.

  The man swung his head round to watch her. The movement seemed too fluid, like an owl. Darius bit his bottom lip, fighting for the courage to do something, anything.

  The stranger smiled nastily. ‘Coming to greet the hoard?’ He spread his hands wide.

  Arkron crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Coming to stop it.’

  The man laughed. ‘You can’t. It’s too late.’ The lights from the arch cast his expression into hued shadows. ‘I imagine they’ll be through any time now. Not that it matters to us. Sahabra is connecting everywhere. We will be everywhere. Free to expand well beyond the walls of each Realm. All thanks to you and your friends, I take it.’

  ‘Hardly.’ Arkron started towards the chair. ‘It’s unstable. It won’t hold, not without something to sustain it.’

  Before she could reach the device, the man threw his arm out towards her. Sprouting from his wrist, along the crosshatched marks, twisted a long whip of smoky blackness, which snapped, pushing her back.

  ‘Arkron, get out of there!’ Darius’s voice went embarrassingly high.

  And then, strangely enough, Arkron’s body started to glow, making Dariu
s blink in disbelief. Her skin was turning green. Darius shouted her name again. His head spun. What hell was going on?

  ‘You’ve had your fun in this Realm; you’ve destroyed enough!’ Arkron shouted. ‘Tell me your name! Who are you?’

  The man threw back his head unnaturally far and let out a roar of laughter. ‘Hah! You are all so foolish, so blind! You should be asking a different question: How could the Traveller forget me? His greatest foe? How could something be so terrible the very fear of us has blocked the memory from his mind?’

  Arkron shook her head. ‘The Traveller isn’t afraid of you. You’re nothing but a delusional Daemon and this is ending now!’

  ‘You cannot stop us!’ the man snarled. His voice was a throaty growl, much too big for his body. ‘The Traveller’s blood runs through these veins. His memories reside in this being. We are the Traveller.’ More of those great, ropey appendages were pressing through his skin, whipping round him now.

  Darius spotted something odd jabbing out of the back of the man’s scalp. He had to work out for a moment what it was: a data stick.

  Arkron held her ground, though her voice shook. ‘You’re not the Traveller! You’re Avery Roth! You’re being possessed by a Daemon, you have to remember yourself, you have to take control back; it’s not too late!’

  Roth let out a horrible laugh and loomed even larger. ‘You fool! Roth is gone! We ate his soul the moment he set us free.’

  Arkron froze. ‘What are you?’

  Roth continued to grow, his body twisting and snapping. ‘I am the Void, we are the Devourer, we are shadows and night and Darkness; we eat all and continue to grow. I can never be stopped and will always be hungry. All Realms are ours to invade and all souls are ours to feast on! We are the creator of nightmares!’

  ‘My,’ Arkron said, ‘that’s quite a title you’ve got there.’

  The portal flashed again, sending out another powerful wave. The wind began to pick up, pulling at Darius, sucking him towards the centre of the room. In panic, he lunged forwards and grabbed hold of one of the wall struts, all that was left of the glass walls.

  Arkron staggered backwards. The portal had grown murky before them. A roaring picked up from the centre. Something horrible, black, powerful was just on the other side. Whatever thin veil kept it at bay wasn’t going to last long. Darius couldn’t tear his eyes from it. He didn’t want to know what would happen when whatever that thing was broke through.

  ‘Arkron!’ he shouted.

  She ignored him. ‘What do you want? If you’re not a Daemon, what do you want?’

  ‘Your souls,’ Roth growled, eyes gaping black holes. ‘Every single one of you shall be ours. And…the Traveller!’ Roth’s mouth gaped wide. ‘The Traveller!’

  Arkron backed up. The portal was beginning to bubble outwards, whatever force behind it shoving against it with all of its might.

  ‘The Traveller isn’t here!’ Arkron screamed. ‘He’s gone! He’s not on this Realm.’

  Roth lifted his head, eyes smoking black. ‘Of course…he has gone to the stone. To destroy it…He is on Murkfin.’ Roth laughed. ‘Of course he is, the fool.’ He glanced back at the expanding portal. ‘It’s almost time. They’ll be here soon. The stones are all going to connect. I shall be here. Everywhere. We will come and rip your souls from your dying bodies.’

  He turned from the dark thing just beyond the portal and raised his arms. More ropes of black, sticky smoke went fluttering away from his skin. It grew—he grew—till the lab felt small. Arkron stumbled back.

  ‘We cannot be stopped. You cannot stop what only knows how to divide and grow.’ The dark stuff started leaking forward towards Arkron, sharpening to daggers. He stared at her. ‘I’d love to stay and continue with this, but it took ever so long to synthesise this body, and we cannot waste it. The gateways will open on Murkfin. And if the Traveller is there, then this body will be the one to welcome him. A pity to end this riveting conversation, but what else really needs to be said? I think we can get on without any more words.’

  Roth’s body vibrated in the centre of the black cloud that practically burst from him. And then he simply vanished, leaving behind the hulking, ugly shadow.

  Darius could not believe his eyes. ‘What’s happened?’ he was stammering. ‘Where’s he gone?’

  Arkron clenched her teeth. ‘He’s gone to Murkfin for the connection. He must have used Tollin’s DNA to modify his own, used his own supernatural power to jumpstart it. He can Realm jump.’ She staggered as the blackness knocked her roughly to one side.

  ‘Arkron! Come away from there!’ his voice went hoarse.

  When she looked back at him, her face was pale. Her eyes wide. She looked so small. ‘Shut down the generator, any way you can, as quickly as you can!’

  The stuff roared and shot towards her, snapping at her sides.

  Darius was hit by a wave of panic at her instructions. ‘What? But I don’t know what to do! I’ve never had any experience with—’

  ‘Darius! Go!’ Arkron snapped. She whirled around and tossed her handheld to him, pushing the black smoke back. ‘Get the hell out of here!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘NOW!’

  Darius swore. He cast one last look at the dark, which was looming over her like a tidal wave of ink and then turned and ran, mind racing like a frightened rabbit.

  * * * * *

  The Daemons let out wild shrieks of surprise and rage and charged towards them, hungry eyes gleaming.

  Sam, completely bewildered, awkwardly gripped at her sword. She’d—of course—never been in a sword fight in her life and didn’t have much idea how to go about it. She had a feeling the cocky assurance of Tollin that pulsed through her would more likely get her killed than help.

  Sam hefted her sword and stepped forward with Tollin as the first Daemon, a spindly, doglike thing, dove for her. She dodged around the creature and sliced her sword upward. She yelped in surprise as an explosion of red ashes burst in her face; the creature had burst into nothing but foul vapour. She stopped short to marvel. Her blade had barely nicked the creature! Wherever it was now, she couldn’t see or feel it. She supposed that was a good thing.

  Marus shoved past her and cut two Daemons to smoke before Sam recovered from her awe. By the time she looked up Tollin had finished their attackers off. They were alone.

  Sam backed towards Tollin before noticing how wet her footstep sounded. She looked down; water lapped at them in a spreading, thin sheet.

  An alarm sounded, ugly and hoarse. Tollin grabbed Sam by the arm and yanked her away from the source of the growing trickle. ‘Time to go! That door won’t hold for much longer!’

  She pointed to one of the halls, feeling the tug in her gut grow all the stronger. ‘That one, I think.’

  Tollin pulled both of them into the shadows of the passage just as a troop of Daemons rushed past. Their cries were suddenly drowned out by a crash! The water lapping at their feet rose a few centimetres.

  Tollin winced. ‘Ah, our time just grew shorter,’ he whispered.

  Several more Daemons ran by. Sam was amazed at the variety of them. Some had horns, some looked like fish or wolves or creatures so strange she couldn’t begin to describe.

  Sam exchanged glances with her companions. ‘So, how long do you figure until we’re treading water?’

  Tollin made a face. ‘Half an hour, probably?’

  Sam winced. ‘Not much time. Now what?’

  ‘Well,’ Tollin glanced to Marus. ‘This is where things get interesting. We’ve got to work quick while the Daemons are gone. You ready?’

  Marus sighed. ‘All right, you two go first, there’s not enough room for us all in the passage when I change.’

  Tollin grabbed Sam’s hand and started trotting towards the end of the hall. ‘Remember, Sam,’ he lectured as they hurried along. ‘Don’t touch the stone, whatever you do. I don’t know what will happen exactly, but I doubt it will be anything good.’

  Sam shi
vered. ‘Right. Well, I’ll just follow your lead.’

  Tollin grinned and, releasing her hand, bounded to the end of the hall. He slid around the corner, squeaking loudly in his shoes, and let out an unhappy sigh at the sight before him. Sam jogged up behind him and froze.

  Before them was a hoard of Daemons, and at the back of the room was what they’d come for. The stone—Sahabra—was shining with a brilliant red. Her hand burned and Sam looked down in pain to see her own ring shining blindingly. The Dark in the ring was struggling madly to break out, welling her with frustration. It wanted to be here badly.

  Sahabra was like a giant ruby, the size of a dining table and round like a dome—save for one blemish on its side where a large chunk had long ago been removed. From the heart of the glowing stone different, faint images flashed, like channels changing. All different places. It took Sam a moment to figure the stone was scanning through different Realms!

  Every now and then the air above the stone would flash like lightning and a web-like window, incomplete and static, would briefly flicker. It was trying to make a connection. That window had to be a portal. And by the shortening intervals between each burst of light, Sam didn’t think it would be long before a connection was established.

  She had to take all of this in in a matter of seconds because that was how long it took Tollin to keep the Daemon’s attention.

  ‘Hello!’ he cried cheerfully. ‘We’re just visiting. Looking for a good place to have lunch, can you recommend one? I hear the seafood is terrific here!’

  ‘What in smog are you doing here?’ A Daemon gagged.

  There was a rocking explosion somewhere further down the tunnel and the distant echoes of horrified Daemons bounced back to them. A flare of fire and a crash! came from outside the door. Marus must have met some resistance. Sam looked down to her feet. The water was rising. Her trainers were soaking now.