by Cory Barclay
Steve slowly moved his arm through the slick, cement-like water . . . until he reached the hand and grabbed its wrist, while it clutched his in a Roman forearm shake. He had no idea which way was up or down.
The arm pulled him from the impossibly wide, impossibly dark pool of Jell-O water.
When his first finger broke the surface, the thick stature of the surrounding liquid abruptly morphed into real water. It was frigid and filthy.
He emerged, even as the liquid seeped into his nostrils and ears. He plopped onto something solid and felt an immediate wave of relief wash over him.
He was lying on his back, gasping for breath, looking up at the sky.
It was still daylight. He was still on the street, but clearly a different one than before. Both Kaiko and Geddon were next to him, sitting with their backs against a building.
Next to Steve was a small puddle of water, no deeper than a finger-length, no wider than a dinner plate.
“What . . . in God’s name . . . was that?” Steve croaked. He flicked the puddle next to him, to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. They weren’t.
Kaiko smiled. “Menehune power,” he said.
“Pond-making,” Geddon clarified.
Steve slowly sat up to survey his surroundings. No museum guards were around. He wasn’t even sure if they were still on Mythicus. He pointed at the puddle. “And we . . .”
Geddon nodded. “Went through the pond and came out the other end.”
Kaiko’s smile widened. “Like riding a long, slow wave, braddah.”
Steve shook his head. The adrenaline was starting to wear off. He felt utterly beat.
He stood, groaning as he put weight on his rolled ankle. He stutter-stepped a few times to get his balance, then pointed an accusatory finger at Kaiko. “Neat trick, but pretty stupid reason to need it, pal.”
Kaiko’s smile vanished. His bright eyes turned dark again.
Geddon said, “I have to agree with Steve, Kai. What were you thinking, stealing that egg?”
With a shrug, Kaiko said, “Couldn’t help myself.”
“Couldn’t help myself,” Steve mocked, sputtering and shaking his head. “You know, for all the great tricks and powers you mythical assholes have, you sure have a lot of baggage that comes with them.”
“No one’s perfect, Steve Remington. Just like humans. We all have our blessings and our curses. It’s the balance of Mythicus.” Geddon nodded in self-affirmation, proud of his sage-like wisdom.
But Steve wasn’t buying it. He waved his hand at Geddon and Kaiko. “No, no—enough ‘wisdom for the ages’ bullshit. I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up to be a thief.” He spat the last word at Kaiko.
He felt unbalanced, and not only from his bum ankle, but mentally. It seemed traveling through the dumpster and the puddle had scrambled his emotions.
“Calm down, Steve,” Geddon said.
But Steve was walking away.
“It’s Menehune nature, braddah,” Kaiko said, like that would fix the problem.
Steve spoke over his shoulder as he walked. “I’ve known enough thieves in my life—my dad, my ex-girlfriend, a crazy leprechaun I called a friend—to know I don’t need to associate with any more of them.”
“Where are you going?” Geddon called out.
“To find Annabel.”
When he was about twenty yards down the empty road, he stopped. Swallowing his pride, he put his hands on his hips and looked around at the buildings and streets.
He turned around, facing Geddon and Kaiko.
Geddon looked at him with a sly smirk.
Steve scoffed and threw his hands in the air. “Where the hell are we? And how the hell do I get out of here?”
CHAPTER TWO
STEVE AND ANNABEL WERE no longer Bound by mythical forces. After sending her back to Mythicus via an apparatus called a Conveyor, their connection had been severed.
Thus, Steve could not retreat into his mind to find where Annabel stayed. If she had still been Bound to him, he would have been able to find her location with a simple thought.
Luckily, he knew where she often enjoyed going.
After following directions from Geddon, he escaped the maze-like streets of Mythicus-San Diego. He was back in familiar territory. Of course, the Mythics had a different name for where he was. There were no district, state, or city lines like there were on Terrus—what the Mythics called Earth. San Diego did not exist on this plane. The people here called the area Soreltris. Soreltris made up most of what would be Southern California, and a little bit of Mexico.
In the month Steve had been in Soreltris, he’d started to grow accustomed to the strange air. It played baffling tricks on his mind. He was a Terrusian—a human trapped in a foreign, different world.
But he couldn’t consider himself trapped, because he’d voluntarily come here. To seek out Annabel. When his life went to shambles in San Diego—he’d lost his music studio, his livelihood, the girl he was falling for, and was looking at serious jail time for allegedly exhuming over 200 bodies from a cemetery—he had gladly allowed Geddon to Sear him to this world.
The first couple weeks on Mythicus were strange. He’d likened it to moving from a sprawling city to a third-world country. The inhabitants of Mythicus didn’t live poor lives, but they didn’t have the amenities and technology Steve was used to.
Steve quickly realized he might have made a mistake coming here. He had no job to speak of and no sense of purpose. He tried to be with Annabel as much as possible, but she lived a busy life and wasn’t always available.
Hence why he’d gone to what he thought would be a carefree day looking at Mythic art in a gallery with Geddon and Kaiko. It turned out all the art in the gallery had actually once belonged on Terrus. The art pieces had been pilfered. Some of the pieces were very famous, though they were all unnamed to keep their origins a mystery. Still, he recognized some of the brush strokes from famous painters. Steve never thought in his wildest dreams that when a famous piece of art went missing on Earth, the reason it couldn’t be found wasn’t for lack of investigating or searching, but because it had been taken to another plane of existence.
As he walked away from what would be Downtown San Diego, it dawned on him Geddon had had an ulterior motive for going to the gallery.
“It isn’t here,” Kaiko had said. Which meant they had been looking for a specific painting.
Steve hadn’t a clue what they’d been looking for, or why. He would have to ask Geddon next time he saw him, though he didn’t expect a straight answer from the mysterious Mythic. He still didn’t even know what kind of mythological being Geddon was.
As Steve walked over a bridge and ruminated, he stared over the railing, down to a freeway. The five-lane interstate was deserted, like nuclear fallout had caused all the people to hide underground. Somehow, even though Steve couldn’t see humans on Earth, he could still see the structures, roads, and buildings that populated San Diego. It seemed there was a balance of some kind between the worlds—the buildings straddled a place between Terrus and Mythicus.
There were also structures native only to Mythicus, that he could see but no one on Earth could. Strange trees grew on tops of buildings. Vines and trestles snaked up the sides of structures. He knew the structures would be bare if he looked at them through the eyes of someone on Terrus.
It was quite peculiar. People on Earth had erected buildings on plots of land without knowing the land already had patches of woods and forests from another realm. The result was breathtaking. A lifted copse of trees from an ancient time settled atop a modern-day skyscraper. The roots of trees streamed down the sides of the building, making the entity look like it was a work of Mother Nature gone awry.
Steve stared forward. He’d traveled quite a ways while his thoughts plagued him. He wondered how many people on Earth were walking along this bridge right now, at the same time as him, passing through him like he was a ghost.
On Mythicus, Steve could only see o
ther Mythics, and humans who had been Seared from Terrus. He couldn’t see the cars on the freeway below, or the people inside them. But he knew they existed. Since it was nearing sunset, he knew they must have been out in droves, negotiating rush hour traffic. The freeway was undoubtedly a parking lot, on Terrus.
He missed his acquaintances on Earth: the clerk who sold him cigarettes at 7/11; the young woman who made his coffee; the musicians he worked with on a daily basis. Most of all, he missed his best friend, Dale.
And Aiden was still on the loose, somewhere in America. Would the dastardly leprechaun hold a grudge and try to exact revenge upon Dale? The idea made Steve shiver. It was almost funny, because Aiden’s goal had been to bring Steve to Mythicus. For what dreadful purpose, Steve didn’t know. In return, Aiden would get to come back to Mythicus. And now, here Steve was. But Aiden was still stuck on Earth. How ironic.
The worst part was he was starting to forget memories from his time on Earth, as Geddon warned him might happen. He had no connection to that world anymore. His thoughts were fuzzy when he recalled an anecdote, like a funny studio session with his best friend. Or a kiss with Annabel as they stared at the setting sun along the beach.
He had no idea how to retain those memories, and he was terrified of losing them.
He felt around the back pocket of his jeans and gripped the crumpled dollar bill he always kept there. It was assuring. It was the Conveyor used to transfer him to this world, the item that Bound him to Geddon.
Sighing, he remembered if all else failed, he could always return home by using that dollar, if Geddon allowed him. He didn’t like having another person have so much power over him. What if Geddon wouldn’t transport him back home, if the time ever came? He felt somewhat like a slave, and it made him angry. He’d given away too much of his freedom to be here.
But, he still had a reason to be here.
As he reached the end of the bridge, he came to a small wooden structure he knew would be there. It smelled of horseshit, hay, and filthy troughs.
It was a wooden barn, native to Mythicus. It was odd to see it sitting on the side of a modern, tar-and-cement road.
Three horses roamed around separate stalls, neighing and snorting and eating.
A man appeared from around the side of the barn. He was old, sporting a graying beard and bushy, caterpillar eyebrows. His wrinkled face was dark from the heat. He was a Mythic—Steve wouldn’t have been able to see him if he wasn’t—belonging to this world, through and through.
“Well met,” the man said in a gravelly voice. “What’s your need, boy?”
Steve frowned. He was almost thirty years old. Why did everyone in this damned place call him “boy”? It was another thing that irked him.
The stableman looked askance at him. “You deaf and dumb, boy?”
That single line brought a smile to Steve’s face. He recalled Dale singing a song by The Who, about Tommy, the deaf, dumb, and blind pinball wizard.
“No, good sir,” Steve said, trying to sound like he belonged. “I’m here to rent a horse.”
“What’s your need and what’ve you got for me?” the stableman asked.
I’ve got no job, Steve thought, shaking his head. I have no currency, nothing to barter with . . .
He clenched his jaw, feeling embarrassed, and said what Annabel had told him to say.
“I’m a guest of the House of Lee. They will cover my credit, sir.”
The stableman’s eyes widened a bit. The House of Lee was an important house in Soreltris. Annabel’s parents were semi-powerful people.
“Only our best for esteemed House members, my lord,” the man said, hurrying toward one of the stalls.
Steve thought the stableman was too trusting. What was stopping him from lying and saying he was a member of the family just to get a free horse?
The stableman pulled open a door and grabbed the reins of a large, gorgeous black horse. He yanked on the bit, bringing the horse to yield in front of him. The horse finished its hay and stared at Steve, looking into his soul. After what Steve had seen at the art museum, he almost expected it to start talking to him.
“Why can’t this painting talk?”
“Because it’s a horse, Steve.”
Geddon had embarrassed him at the gallery, but now it made Steve smile. At least some things on Mythicus were the same on Earth: for all intents and purposes, horses couldn’t talk.
The old man gave the reins to Steve, who ran a hand over the skittish beast’s neck and mane. “I’ll take him, and I’ll have him returned tomorrow.”
“On the morrow it is, good sir,” the stableman said, nodding. “When can I expect payment from your House?”
“Upon my return, my good man.”
The stableman smiled crookedly. “Very well, sir.” He looked at the sky. “You’d best be on your way, before darkness takes the land.”
STEVE WAS A POOR RIDER. He’d never had to ride horses on Earth. Since horses were the main mode of transportation on Mythicus, though, he’d gotten a better during his short stay.
He struggled to mount and stay atop the beast, wavering in his saddle. He tightened his hold on the reins, digging his heels into its flanks, giving the animal its head. Off it went.
He tried to send a telepathic thought to the steed, to give it an idea of where it was going, but he wasn’t sure it did any good. He knew psychic communication on Mythicus was a thing, but didn’t know if he was doing it right.
But, he must have, because the horse started to go where he wanted it to, without him having to command it aloud.
It galloped down the road, its hooves clopping against the cement. Before long, they were free of “Downtown,” streaming into a wild countryside. On the horizon was a particular hillside he headed toward.
He raced through a golden field of grain, reminding him of the painting he’d seen at the gallery. The plains gave way to green, rolling hills.
Within an hour, he found himself cresting the top of the steep hill. The hill was tall enough to overlook much of Soreltris, on all sides. At the peak of the hill was a single, towering oak tree.
Underneath the oak tree was a girl in a white dress, sitting against the trunk. The girl he’d been looking for.
Annabel turned at the sound of approaching hooves. She didn’t have her guitar—she’d left it on Terrus, unfortunately—but instead she held an open book in her hand. She closed the book as Steve neared, facing him and smiling wide.
Steve dismounted awkwardly, nearly tumbling off the tall animal’s back. He took the reins to the tree, reached up, and tied them around a low-hanging branch.
“Hello, my dear,” he said, stepping toward Annabel.
Annabel jumped up and wrapped her arms around Steve.
The warm embrace tingled Steve’s entire body. He put his hand under Annabel’s chin, lifted her face, and dipped his head to kiss her.
They locked lips. Annabel’s eyes glittered.
She said no words as she leaned back against the tree, pulling Steve with her. Their mouths found each other again, more savagely this time—in earnest.
Steve kissed Annabel all over her face: her nose, her cheeks, her neck. Then he got the hint why she had backed into the tree. He gently hoisted her up. She latched her arms around his neck as he fumbled with his belt.
They both moaned in delight as the sun began to set and the warm day gave way to a mild twilight . . .
When they were done with their moment of heat and passion, Annabel panted and smoothed her dress. Droplets of sweat ringed her thin collarbone. Steve wiped the sweat away.
Annabel let her body skid to the ground, until she was sitting against the tree. Steve joined her. She smiled and finally spoke.
“How was your time at the art museum?”
“Geddon’s friend tried to steal something. We were almost caught.”
Annabel’s smile turned to a look of dismay. “How frightening!”
“I’m safe, my dear. But, yes, it was quit
e scary.”
“You have to be careful with those ones, darling. They act on impulse, like rebels, with no thought for whom they might harm.”
It wasn’t the first time Annabel had chastised Geddon and his crew of misfits. Ever since he’d arrived on Mythicus, she’d disapproved of Steve’s friendship with the “vagrant.” Steve often reminded her he was Bound to Geddon, who was in possession of his only means of leaving Mythicus, if the need ever came.
The conversation always stopped there. Annabel didn’t like to hear about Steve leaving Mythicus, even theoretically.
“Just be careful, my love, and know what you’re getting yourself into,” she said, running a hand along his arm.
“I try,” Steve said with a shrug. “I didn’t see how an innocent outing to an art gallery could turn into a violent bank robbery. I’m sorry.”
Annabel leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be. Just be more cautious.”
“I will,” Steve said. Annabel had been quite timid on Terrus, but she seemed to be a completely different person on Mythicus. She was more confident here, in her homeland, and had more control over her emotions. She had control over Steve’s emotions, too, though that was something he’d gladly give up if it meant being with her.
They stayed silent for a time, star-struck lovers lost in each other’s gaze. Before long, the sun set completely and night was upon them. It was a cloudless, purple night, with thousands of stars dotting the sky.
After what seemed like an hour of silence, both lost in their own thoughts, Steve asked a random question that popped into his head.
“Bel, have you ever been in love?”
“Besides now, you mean?”
Steve blushed. He wanted to justify why he’d asked the question: she’d been alive for a long time, supposedly since the late 1700s. Surely she must have had many other lovers.
Annabel chuckled. Her face grew serious and distant as she stared up at the sky, through the tangled branches of the oak tree. “There was one other I’ve loved in my life, my love, but that time has long since passed. Now there’s only you.”