The Blood Key (The Wander Series Book 1)

by Vaun Murphrey

  I’d been wondering when this subject would come up. The bobbing head appeared on the opposite side of the pond to dig the point further home.

  “Yes, I do. All the information you had from the Masters is inside me. That’s why you can see and communicate with it. You created the program. And then you stole it.”

  Cyril put all the weight of his upper body on his elbows and the railing shifted under my hands.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be you. Originally, I planned to keep it inside me. But then Chris was taken and I knew what I’d shared with him had been passed to Neith…” His voice trailed off as he got lost in the past.

  “You don’t have to tell me where you were all these years, Cyril. I may not want to know for my own safety. Could you at least tell me it was important enough to miss half my childhood and the pain and suffering me and Chris endured? If you can’t, then do a decent job of lying.”

  Cyril surprised me with a hug. He kissed the top of my hair. My father had to stand on tiptoe a bit to do it. Something about that made me grin. Before I knew it we were walking through a cloud of dragonflies on the path to the kitchen door.

  “Bozena, nothing in this world could be more important to me than you and your brother.”

  Ah, so it’s a lie then, I thought. Cyril hadn’t mentioned other worlds. Just this one.

  “Considering I have this foreign thing in me, I’d like to know the next step.”

  Cyril gave me a squeeze. “Going after the Masters, of course.”

  I stiffened.

  His next words were spoken in a conspiratorial stage whisper and they tickled my ear so I shivered.

  “Oh, come now, Bozena. Didn’t you like wandering to another world? It was fun! We can check in on your mother and make sure she isn’t up to any mischief and then overturn thousands of years of oppression and slavery. Piece of cake!”

  Cyril snapped his fingers at a dark corner of the garden. “Jason, Jordan, if you crush those new tomato plants I’ll have you out here pulling weeds for a week.”

  Giggles erupted and then the scattered footfalls of two sets of running feet. The two hooligans went in through the library and Cyril let me go to give chase.

  Hinges squealed and Izzy’s voice drowned out whatever my father was muttering as the kitchen door slammed open. “Hey, chica! Come eat lunch. Momma made enchiladas and sopapillas for dessert.”

  Oh yeah, this was the life.

  EPILOGUE: GUARD DOWN, TROUBLE UP

  Leaves blew inside the garage. Dom’s dark curling hair had grown so much that it draped over the side of his face as he worked with greasy hands on his engine. I stretched out on the hard concrete to relieve the tightness in my knees and lower back.

  Dom offered, “You don’t have to stay outside with me, Z. I’m fine alone.”

  I yawned. “No, you’re not. I saw how washed out you got coming down the stairs this morning for breakfast.”

  He was filling out again. Rail thin right after Otis’s healing, his body was rapidly turning to muscle and fat these days. Dom only had the occasional dizzy spell. But I still felt he needed a minder.

  Chris helped at times but my brother was busy at our new lawyer’s office signing papers with Cyril and gaining back assets that had been put in my name. Being pronounced legally living after you’d been deceased was a laborious process. Or so I was told.

  Dom threw his wrench in the army green canvas tool bag by the front tire and threw himself into a push up above me.

  Just in case his arms gave out I placed a fist into each shoulder. He smelled good, like sweat and oil and testosterone.

  Our kiss started out chaste and quickly morphed into a hungrier thing. The garage disappeared in my mind. Cold concrete grinding into my back became an afterthought. Dom’s full weight lay on top of me and I welcomed it.

  Otis cleared his throat, “Excuse me?”

  Dom took one hand out from under my shirt, embarrassment plain on his face.

  I tilted my head until I could see an upside down Otis. “Somebody better be on fire or something, Otis!”

  The irritation in my voice felt warranted.

  Otis had been gone for about a week now. Whether it was on Skala land or somewhere else Cyril didn’t seem concerned enough to ask.

  He cleared his throat again. “There are intruders to the north along the fence line.”

  Dom pulled me to my feet. He squinted at the open rolling fields behind the house. “How many? Are they human?”

  I knew Dom was picturing the bird that had attacked us and nearly killed him.

  Otis frowned. “I didn’t get close enough to make out their kind. They appear to be reporters judging by the gear they carried. Based on the fact that the defenses I built for your father didn’t retaliate at their intrusion I would hazard they are human.”

  “Lead the way.” I ordered.

  Dom pulled on my arm. “Wait, shouldn’t we have backup?”

  “We?”

  He let me go as if stung. “I’m coming with you, Zena!”

  “No, you’re staying here. Otis can be my backup. You’ll just slow us down, Dom.” I gave him a light punch to the chest. “Can you really keep up or are you going to pass out if we hike for half a mile in this humidity?”

  Dom kicked his tool bag.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll be back, Dom.”

  Otis and I took off. The trail of trampled grass was easy to follow. Dragonflies and other insects buzzed around me. A few bees hummed past my nose angrily at my intrusion. Pink and blue flowers stood proud against the tall field grass. Slithering so fast I almost missed it, I saw a snake flee the vibrations of our footsteps.

  We made it to the tree line and its shrouded trunks. Daytime was different under the foliage. All the night terrors and scary stories you ever heard in your lifetime hissed and stewed inside your thoughts. The dragonflies flew ahead into the shadows. A few lightning bugs lit the way, too.

  I wondered at my insect escort. Surely it wasn’t normal? A memory of playing in the fields alone flashed. Plastic gloves and dark soil as I dug around for worms and beetles under the roots of plants. Insects chattering around me. Had they always been with me?

  Otis went around and stood about ten feet in, waiting. His eyes picked up light through a break in the leaves. Suddenly I was uneasy. This felt like a trick or a trap.

  I shook my head to clear it. What reason would Otis have to betray me?

  Deeper and deeper we went until Otis threw out a warning palm and turned with a finger to his thick lips.

  Somewhere to the right, it was hard to be exact, I heard others disturbing the underbrush. A man cursed and I heard a smacking sound followed by, “Damn mosquitoes!”

  Someone else, a female it sounded like, said, “Shhh!”

  I cupped my hands around my mouth to increase my range. “Ya’ll are trespassing! Turn around now before I call GPD!”

  More rustling and harsh whispers as they tried to pinpoint where my warning had come from.

  I added, “You know we’ve got snakes out here, right? We startled a copperhead on the way over.”

  That was bullshit. I had no idea what sort of snake I’d scared up but it was the only venomous kind that sprang to mind.

  The rustling became more frantic but it didn’t appear to be getting closer. This could go on all day. I had better things to do. Like Dom.

  “Otis, do you wanna guide them our way?”

  He nodded and walked straight into a gap in the trees. Scary how fast he disappeared. Otis was at home in this wilder, less civilized place.

  I felt a change in the air. A drop in the barometric pressure that made my sinuses fill.

  A wavering oval appeared. And out of that displaced space came Neith’s head.

  Before I could scream or run her green skinned fingers dug into my wrist. I was falling forward with no way to stop. Nothing to brace myself against. Something ticklish tugged at my ankle. It was a struggle to turn my head. A chain of i
nsects had anchored themselves to a tree trunk and were desperately trying to keep me in my own world.

  Otis sprung from the underbrush and ran to the portal.

  At first I thought he was going to help and then I looked on in fascinated horror as he thrust his wide brown hand through the bug chain—crushing it along with my tiny helpers. The portal began to telescope closed.

  Otis mouthed ‘I’m sorry.’

  And then he was no more.

  Neith’s mad navy eyes were all I could see.

  She kissed me in a motherly way and hugged me to her full breasts.

  “Now I have you, sa. I will never let you go.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Vaun Murphrey lives in Lubbock, Texas with her husband, two sons and a shaggy black and white four-legged friend. Her life is composed of one ordinary day after another, at least from the outside—on the inside she travels to different worlds. If Vaun ever seems distracted, now you know why… Be patient; she returns on a regular basis to visit Earth.

  www.vaunmurphrey.com

  vaun.murphrey@yahoo.com

  www.Facebook.com/VaunMurphreyAuthorPage