Dark Solar Complete Trilogy: Oleander - Wolfsbane - Maikoa

by D. N. Leo

  “I never imagined two king Sciphils would be so heavy!” she yelled down to them as she descended quickly toward the hilltop. Once she was about ten feet from the ground, she dropped the men, and they rolled on the grass.

  “Thank you,” Ciaran said, standing up. He helped Malachi stand as well. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, and you?”

  Ciaran nodded.

  Jael withdrew the light bridge and turned around. “My wife,” he rushed over to Charmine, who had collapsed on the ground from exhaustion.

  After a quick circle in the air to reduce her momentum, Dinah landed. She hurried over to Charmine. “Let me see if I can help.”

  Ciaran also approached Charmine to take her pulse.

  From the ground, she looked up, smiling at Jael. “Don’t worry, I’m just tired,” she said.

  “The injury to your leg is severe,” Dinah said. As soon as she touched Charmine, her body flew into the air like a rag doll and smashed into a rock outcropping nearby. She slid lifelessly down to the bottom of the rock and passed out on the ground.

  Ciaran ran to Dinah, and Jael grabbed Charmine.

  From the other hill, Madeline was letting Arik know what was happening.

  Arik summoned all his power and shot the light bridge over the valley without Jael’s help. Ciaran picked up Dinah and charged to the other side of the bridge.

  From the other side, Sciphil Three of the past opened the portal. Before they telecasted away, Jael’s voice echoed back, “We will be seeing each other again.”

  Then they vanished.

  Ciaran leaped to the ground with Dinah, and Arik withdrew the bridge. His excessive use of power had taken a lot of energy out of him. He slumped to the ground and spat out some blood.

  After Madeline helped Arik up, he said, “Let’s go!” He grabbed Madeline’s hand then ran over to grab Ciaran’s shoulder as he carried Dinah in his arms.

  They traveled back. This time, there was no collision.

  Part II

  19

  The muddy black substance mixed with his basic elements and his soul to form his new flesh and blood. Roallix’s mind floated around, observing his own reformation. Do I have a soul at all? he thought. Then he let the thought go as it was no longer relevant to his situation.

  He had made several mistakes over the hundreds of years of his lifespan across the multiverse. But this one was the worst. He should have trusted his partners in crime. No, he should have let them do their part.

  The reformation was excruciatingly slow. Mostly because the hit he had copped on Earth had destroyed his body. He was lucky he had chosen the magical world as his foundation and had never crossed worlds. Otherwise, the reformation wouldn’t have been possible.

  What the heck just happened?

  He knew he shouldn’t have attacked Jael and Charmine. It was too rushed. But he thought with the giant form he had taken he could crush them with his fists. When they had a collision in the middle of the multiversal transitional zone, Roallix saw opportunity falling into his lap. It was blind luck that he’d defeated Jael a long time ago. He couldn’t be blamed for taking a chance when it came his way.

  He had underestimated the humanlike creatures who had collided with Charmine and Jael. It was none of their business that he had attacked Jael and Charmine. Why had they interfered? That was a hell of a weapon they had used on him.

  “You know I can destroy you right now, and you will never be able to reform, Roallix.”

  Normally he would have turned around to see the incoming guest, but his body was only half-formed, so instead, he turned his mind’s eye and saw Asana.

  “You promised me you’d break them!” Roallix growled. He’d intended a roar but was too weak at the moment.

  “We shouldn’t have let you take the magical world circle with your feeble mind. You aren’t built to be an angel. If I made a creature of mud, it would be smarter than you are.”

  “Don’t insult me!” he coughed.

  “I rest my case.” Asana shook his head then sighed. “We have invested much in you, and so I’ll give you one last chance to reform and take your part.”

  “If I had learned nothing in my centuries’ long association with you, I would believe you. But I know you too well. You can’t afford to replace me now. It takes three of us to make the circles. Arete is recuperating after being hit by a random citizen of the multiverse. If you destroy me, the plan you’ve built over hundreds of years will suffer. And you don’t have another five hundred years to wait.”

  Asana nodded. “I see you’re not stupid. But for your information, Arete wasn’t hit by a random citizen of the multiverse. It was Cooper Donovan from Iilos. And I examined Arete’s wounds. They were caused by Eudaizian technology.”

  “And?”

  Asana shifted his stance in agitation. “Maybe you’re not stupid, but you’re arrogant and ignorant, Roallix. Eudaiz is our biggest challenge in both the material world and the Amalgam world. And Iilos, the sub-dimensional universe that Cooper comes from, is a strong ally of Eudaiz.”

  “Let me ask again, Asana, why is this relevant to me? I take care of the magical world. You deal with the Amalgam, and Arete is supposed to handle the material world. It will work only if you each complete your part! If the deal isn’t going well, I’ll be very happy to take my magical world. I don’t need you. I don’t care what you have to deal with. I don’t need the full circles. So don’t tell me what to do!”

  Asana nodded. “All right then. I thought I’d offer a potion that would lock in your reformation. But it seems you don’t need me.” He turned and walked away, muttering, “Next time you get hit by a Eudaizian weapon, you won’t be so lucky.”

  “I can hear you,” Roallix said.

  Asana turned around. “It’s too late. I’ve decided Arete and I don’t need you anymore. We’ll find another partner to take the magical world circle.”

  “There isn’t anyone who can replace me!”

  Asana laughed. “As a matter of fact, I have someone in mind that may be even more qualified than you. He’s expensive, but he’s worth every bit of the investment. Plus, he doesn’t have any baggage.”

  “If you had someone, you would have traded me in a long time ago. Don’t bluff. It doesn’t suit you.”

  Asana smirked and shrugged. Then he walked away and vanished into another dimension.

  Anger consumed Roallix so badly that smoke rolled out of his reforming body. If he had a body, he could crush a mountain with his bare hands.

  He had never paid attention to worlds other than his own magical one. He belonged to the magical world and had worked and sacrificed for it. He deserved everything magic had to offer him. That focus had kept him in this world for years without crossing.

  He had never thought the material world, including the multiverse and the universes within it, could be so powerful. He had let that world go for a long time. It had always been tempting for him. There, he could find all the things he had once had when he was human—money, power, sex. And those things comprised only a fraction of what the material world could offer.

  Asana said Roallix had been struck by a Eudaizian weapon. He knew of Eudaiz. If those creatures on the hills had been Eudaizians, then perhaps he should give this matter some attention.

  You mortal sons of bitches, he cursed in his mind, thinking of the creature swinging a sword at him and destroying his body.

  Roallix’s mind smiled at his almost formed body, and he could see a face with lips forming a smile. It wasn’t yet perfect, though, and might scare children in the material world.

  But he knew magic—and with that, he could do almost anything to all creatures in the material world and the Amalgam world combined.

  Regardless of how powerful they were, they were mortal.

  20

  Cooper whirled back and forth between two giant pieces of icy rock the size of football stadiums.

  “Where the hell are we?” he asked himself.
/>   “I thought you said we were going back to Iilos for safety,” Jenny said.

  He didn’t realize he had spoken his thoughts out loud. “That was the plan. But as I’ve mentioned, we didn’t exactly use a good teleporting channel, so we were dumped in the middle of nowhere.”

  Jenny glanced around. “Can you contact someone?” she asked.

  He could tell she was nervous, and he was responsible for that. She’d trusted him.

  The place looked like a desert, with its endless red dirt hills and strange looking giant cacti. But the elusive environment around them was what scared Jenny and made her nervous.

  The two large rocks they had just seen had morphed into a dark lake. The water was so black Cooper could imagine creatures from the cosmos jumping out from the depths to attack them. An ever-changing environment like this could only come from two places he knew of—the Daimon Gate or Xiilok.

  If they had ended up in the Daimon Gate, it would be their lucky day. The Daimon Gate was like the Interpol of the multiverse. Only criminals and unworthy creatures had to worry about the Daimon Gate. But if this was Xiilok, they were in very deep trouble.

  Cooper promised himself if he ever got out of this situation, he’d never ever use the cheap multiversal public teleport system again. He wanted to turn on the wrist unit Ciaran had given him but was afraid using the technology would enable his adversaries to trace him.

  “Jenny, I won’t contact anyone just yet, not until I find out exactly where we are. Using technology will reveal our location to others. And there are a lot of badasses in the multiverse.”

  “Understood.” She smiled.

  He wanted to kiss those lips right now. Jenny didn’t have an explosive and sexually appealing figure like his sexual partners in Iilos. He realized just now he had not thought of them as girlfriends. Even in Iilos, the term girlfriend had sentimental value. He had been casual about relationships before. But something in him had changed. He wasn’t sure it was for the good, but he knew he wanted to protect Jenny.

  “If we run into some shady characters, I can fight them, you know.” Jenny winked at him.

  “But you practice aikido, right? Isn’t that for self-defense and not attack?”

  “What I meant is, I can defend myself, and I can protect you—when it’s convenient.” She grinned.

  “Yes, ma’am. But I’ve got this.” He pulled out his restraint bands. “I kept these from the days I worked as a bounty hunter. If I tie them on a creature, no power in the multiverse can free it. How about you let me take care of the situation, okay? Until we can take you back home safe and sound.”

  The shadow of a creature appeared in the thick fog, walking toward them.

  Cooper pushed Jenny behind him.

  “Can you please not push me behind you? I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can. But I’m the one who got you here, and it’s my responsibility to keep you safe. You’ve never dealt with creatures in the multiverse.”

  The creature came closer. It appeared to be a harmless old man, carrying a basket in his hand. His eyes were focused on the ground, and he was stooped over to pick up something Cooper and Jenny couldn’t see.

  Looking up and seeing them, the man startled and stepped backward, bumping his back against the rock behind him.

  Cooper raised a hand to calm the old man down. “We don’t mean any harm. Do you speak English?”

  Iilos, Cooper’s native language, was English with an Irish accent, for reasons he didn’t understand. But he hoped Jenny could naturally pick up what the man said if he did speak English. He also wanted to withhold his true identity.

  The man looked at them and said in Xiilok, “You from Earth?”

  Cooper’s Xiilok wasn’t good, but he could communicate well enough. He translated back to Jenny and then responded, “Yes.”

  The man chuckled. “We must really be heading toward doomsday. Even humans can make it to the multiverse now.” He shook his head in despair.

  “What do you mean?” Cooper asked.

  “Creatures from different worlds mixing together will contaminate all the worlds.”

  “You speak Xiilok, but you don’t have the usual wormy eyes. Are you a mix yourself?”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “You’re knowledgeable, young human.”

  “So is this Xiilok?”

  “No. It’s the transitional zone bordering Xiilok. If you enter Xiilok, don’t drink the water at the gate. It’ll give you wormy eyes.” The man smiled and nodded a goodbye. Then he turned and focused on picking wildflowers from the ground.

  Cooper shook his head. He hadn’t seen the flowers on the ground before. He turned around, wrapped his arm around Jenny’s waist, and steered her away, whispering, “Let him go away. I’ll use my unit to navigate our way out of here. The Xiilok border is dangerous, and when I use my unit, we’ll have targets on our backs.”

  Jenny nodded and maintained a neutral expression.

  From a short distance away, they heard a low growl in the thick fog. A space wolf creature crept out and charged at the old man. He held up his flower basket in an effort to block the attack, but the wolf was too strong. It pushed him to the ground and landed on him, its gigantic front paws on the man’s chest.

  Its teeth were bared, and it was about to rip the man’s throat out.

  “No, Jenny!” Cooper shouted, but it was too late. Jenny had charged past him toward the wolf. She grabbed at its back and tail, sidestepped to gain momentum, and then in one swift swing, she yanked the wolf off the man.

  Cooper rushed over to pull Jenny away. The man scrambled up from the ground. He picked up his flower basket and threw it at Cooper. The flowers poured out from the basket and rained down on him.

  Cooper inhaled the dust and powder from the flowers. Before he knew what was happening, his throat started to close, his world became blurry, and his knees buckled.

  “Cooper!”

  He felt Jenny’s arms wrapping around his shoulders.

  “Cooper, don’t scare me.”

  He gasped for air. The old man approached and crouched.

  “Get away from him!” Jenny pulled Cooper backward. “What do you want?”

  The man reached out and, fast as lightning, grabbed Cooper’s right arm and pressed. Jenny kicked the man away. On Cooper’s wrist, his Iilos wrist unit emerged. He was a native Iilos citizen. Thus the wrist unit—his personal identification—was embedded into his body.

  “You’re Cooper Donovan. The only Iilos wandering this no-man’s-land.” The man chuckled.

  Cooper lay on the ground. He had seen Jenny charge at the man and had thought he had been totally wrong to think she wouldn’t attack just because she studied aikido.

  “What did you do? You fix him, or I’ll break your neck!”

  Cooper thought he’d believe her if he were that man. The man turned and grew nearly ten feet tall. But Jenny didn’t hesitate. She used momentum to supplement her disadvantage in size and strength. She attacked him with a torrent of punches, kicks, pushes, and twists, all that her human body could possibly give out.

  Cooper could see the man was intrigued by her tenacity. He could kill her with a flick of his finger, but he played around and let her fight.

  Behind Jenny, the wolf had now shifted into a tall creature that walked on two legs but still had a wolf’s head. It grabbed her from behind. It was bigger than she was and lifted her off the ground.

  The man approached Cooper and crouched. “You don’t know as much as you think you do. Native Iilos should never go near wolfsbane. Not the flower, but the chemical I compounded. Now I’ve told you I’ll have to kill you. But not before I use your wrist unit.”

  He raised a finger to stop Cooper before he could respond.

  “I know the unit works only when you’re alive, and it will work only with your command. I have no intention of extracting its technology over your dead body, so don’t worry, I’ll keep you alive.”

  Then he loo
ked at the wolf creature and said, “Get rid of her.”

  “I have the secret inside Mon Ciel,” Cooper said.

  “Stop!” the man called out to the wolf creature.

  “Asana, are you sure?” the creature asked.

  “Are you questioning me?”

  It shook its head.

  “I want to talk to Jenny,” Cooper said.

  Asana smirked. “I’ll see what I can do.” He looked at the creature. “Let her go.”

  It released Jenny. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she rushed toward Cooper. He reached his hand up, and she grabbed it. “Please don’t die, Cooper.”

  He hated to see tears rolling down that pretty face. “I’d run for my life as soon as my feet hit the ground if I were you.”

  “Then who’s going to save you?”

  He pulled out a restraint band in his pocket and snapped her hand to his hand. He looked at Asana and said, “If she loses a hair, you’ve got nothing.” Then he passed out.

  21

  Arik hung up the phone and looked at Ciaran and Madeline. They were back in their current time, and Ciaran had placed them in an exclusive high-rise apartment in the middle of vibrant London.

  Ciaran’s philosophy was that the most secure place would be right under the enemy’s nose, where it appeared to be the least secure. Although Ciaran had blocked out the top five floors for exclusivity, Arik’s stomach still churned whenever he saw the shadow of anyone walking in the foyer or out on the street.

  Arik admired Ciaran for his leadership ability. He’d never told Ciaran that and made a mental note to himself that he must learn some of Ciaran’s skills to use when he became the leader of the Yellow Shield tribe in Xiilok. He was too jumpy to think about that now. He had almost punched the security officer at the car park when his phone went off suddenly with a Star Wars sword-swinging jingle. Ciaran had had to pull him away and threaten to drug him to calm him down.

  “So?” Ciaran asked, leaning back in the three-seater sofa located at the center of the endless marble-floored living room.