Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns

by Andrews, Christopher

  The guy (thing?) screeched, and even roaring like a bonfire, took a step toward Graham.

  Graham hit him (it?) again. And again, the third bolt striking after his target stopped moving.

  But the weirdness didn’t stop there. His victim had caught fire from head to toe, yet was already burning down to ash. Like, he had combusted big time and then just ... fizzled, leaving a pile of human-shaped soot.

  Graham blinked a few times, trying to slow his breathing, regain his cool. Because really, what had he just seen here? He had been firing lightning bolt after lightning bolt since they stormed the house, so it was understandable that he had a lot of spots floating about his vision. Maybe the guy was paranormal, maybe he wasn’t; the important part was, he was down, which was what McLane wanted on this little revenge run of his.

  Speaking of revenge, he heard more screams from the other side of the house, and these were kind of gargled and choking, which suggested they were just about done here. Better to skip out, before the cops or the PCA had time to respond.

  He sneaked one last look at the ashen remains, which barely smoldered at this point. Yeah, probably best not to mention this to McLane; he wouldn’t want the big man to think he was starting to hallucinate under pressure.

  Closing the door on this unsettling experience, Graham walked away from John Davison’s bedroom.

  THREE-HUNDRED-NINETY-SEVEN YEARS AGO

  THE GLADIUS

  One moment, John Davison was huddled in his bedroom, chanting the magic word, waiting for the rogue who could shoot lightning from his hand to burst through the door ...

  ... and then, a heartbeat later, he was very cold.

  And very naked.

  He felt no transition, no sense of movement or displacement, he was simply at home, in his room, and then he was here. Wherever “here” was.

  Blinking, shivering, John took in his new surroundings. He appeared to be in a very small grove deep in some forest. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but there was snow in dirty clumps around the trunk of each tall, thick tree. Back home, it had been after dawn, but the light here smacked more of twilight, or maybe night under a full moon; he glanced upward, but couldn’t see the moon through the trees.

  A strong shudder caused him to grip the book tighter, which was the first time he realized he still held it open in his hands. The pages were no longer glowing, the pertinent text back to normal. Why had the book come with him, but not his pajama pants? Not that the latter would have helped all that much; if he didn’t find a way to get warm soon ...

  Closing the book and holding it against his chest, less to protect it than to capture whatever body heat he could, he considered what to do. He had only the most basic knowledge of building a campfire; he had never been a Scout. In fact, the closest he had come to actual, outdoor camping was during his Dungeons & Dragons role-playing with his friends when he was younger. He doubted he would be able to build a fire by sprinkling magic dust onto some wood. Then again ...

  He considered the book in his arms, but only for a moment. He believed in magic, now more than ever; the conviction that it was the chanted “Subcinctinin” which brought him here was the only reason he wasn’t freaking out more about his sudden change in locale. But “Subcinctinin” was the only word he knew so far, and since he had no idea how to direct it — if he had, he would have teleported to PCA headquarters, not into a dark, cold forest! — he doubted he would find help therein.

  Teleported to the PCA, because my family’s in trouble ...

  But he couldn’t think about that. Not yet.

  His feet were already numb. He needed to hustle.

  His first move should be to gather wood, and maybe pine needles — he would probably need those for kindling. He would have to figure out how to make some sparks, too, but one step at a time.

  Moving underneath the nearest tree, he bent to gather the needles ... except there weren’t any.

  Stepping back again, he examined the woods, the trees, with greater attention. Given how cold it was but how lush the trees still were, he had assumed that he was surrounded by pine trees. But this was not the case. The trees were filled with dark leaves; it was difficult to be certain in the dusk, but the leaves looked almost black. What kind of trees were these? He had no idea.

  John had been so absorbed with the cold and his surroundings, he had not thought about how quiet it was, with barely a breeze making a sound ... until he heard something new. Turning his head, he tried to figure out what it was and where it was coming from; he thought it might be the mushy clip-clop of horse hooves on dirt, but he wasn’t at all sure.

  He didn’t have to wait long to found out.

  Only seconds had passed since the clip-clop sound registered when a large beast emerged from amongst the black-leafed trees right in front of him. The black-and-white animal, which was a horse and yet not quite a horse, halted before him without a whinny, its breath steaming through its nostrils. It had no mane ... or rather, it did, but it did not appear to be made of horse hair, looking too ropey. And the teeth that gripped the bit were too long, too fang-like.

  “H-hello?” he called, craning his neck to see the rider. Because there had to be a rider, right? The horse/not-horse had a bit in its mouth, which implied reins, which implied a rider.

  He was right; a person perched atop the horse/not-horse — a tall, long-haired, feminine figure covered in brown furs against the cold.

  John remembered that he was naked and lowered the book accordingly.

  “Hello,” he repeated. “Can you please help me? I’m ... lost.”

  It wasn’t until he said “lost” aloud that he truly began to feel frightened. Not just of his strange surroundings, but for his family — except for that fleeting thought after wishing he had appeared at the PCA HQ, he had managed to hold the horror of what was happening back home at bay. But it all rushed forward now.

  “Please help me,” he gushed, “my family’s being hurt and I don’t know where I am and I think they’re all being killed by the rogue with the lightning and now I’m naked and—”

  As his ranting erupted, the rider brought her leg over and slipped in calm fashion from the horse/not-horse’s back, her dark hair whipping around her. She approached him, demonstrating that she was indeed quite tall as she looked down at him ... and then she slapped him; not hard, but hard enough.

  John stopped talking.

  “Quissen ess?” In spite of her height, standing over six feet — and the fact that she had just smacked him — her voice was soft, gentle, tender. Her eyes, the only part of her covered face that he could see, were a bright green.

  Always sharp on the uptake, he replied, “I ... what?”

  “Quissen ess?” she repeated, slower.

  “I ... I don’t understand you. Do—?” A cold shiver hit him hard, but he pushed through it. “D-Do you speak English?”

  Her head tilted to one side.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ ” he commented, forcing a friendly smile which prompted no reaction from the tall woman. “Look, do you have a cell phone?” He mimed using one. “Phone? A mobile phone?”

  Nothing. She just stared at him.

  What was with this woman, anyway? She had to know he was freezing his balls off (almost literally!), so even if she didn’t understand his words, he would have expected her to help him somehow, even if nothing more than offering him one of her furs.

  He tried something else, slipping the book under his arm, and caring far less about how it left him exposed. He mimed wrapping something around himself.

  “M-May I have a b-blanket, please?” he asked. “I’m very c-cold.” Hell, his chattering teeth should convey that.

  She had stopped looking at his face and was instead staring at the book. In total silence, she reached out and snagged it with one hand while pushing him back with the other.

  “Hey!” he protested, half because he almost fell on his butt, half out of possessiveness for his treasured prize.
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  The tall woman flipped the book open, turned a page, then another, then slammed the book shut with a loud crack. Stepping forward, she pointed a finger at him, her quickening breath steaming through her face wrap.

  “What—?” he tried to ask.

  But she cut him off. “Sonin, ubiit impattros tis?” she snapped, then repeated from before, “Quissen ess, sonin?!”

  John shook his head. “I still d-don’t—”

  Her pointing finger jabbed him in the chest with each word. “Quissen - santis - ess?”

  “I don’t understand you!” he yelled, frustration and bewilderment and fear bolstering him as he batted her hand away. “And stop poking me!”

  For a moment, her green eyes burned with such intensity, he thought she was going to punch him in the face ...

  ... but then she calmed down, her eyes and voice growing kinder once more as she asked, “Ess nani hinccen ... ess?”

  He shook his head again, folding his arms against his shivering chest. “Still n–not getting it.”

  She took a step back and looked him over, finally seeming to absorb the state he was in, how cold and vulnerable he was. “Trigiddius ess, tono ess?”

  John shrugged at that; in spite of the situation, he was beginning to feel sleepy. He didn’t know for a fact if that was a symptom of hypothermia, but he would be willing to bet on it.

  At last she got with the program and, with surprising grace, twirled her outermost fur covering from her own shoulders and onto his.

  “Th-Thank you,” he stammered, huddling into the blessed warmth; he feared he might lose some toes soon if he didn’t get his feet warm, too, but progress was progress.

  The woman seemed to understand his intention, if not his words, and said, “Tisi satta.” Which he was pretty sure was the equivalent of, “You’re welcome.”

  They just stood there in silence for a moment, John unsure of what to try next. He was so afraid for his family, and yet all of this was overwhelming him to the point where he just wanted to shut down. Pretty soon, he was going to fall asleep on his freezing feet, and this stranger would have to do whatever she was going to do ...

  Then the woman reached up to uncover her face. And, for a moment, John was again wide awake.

  “She” wasn’t a she after all ... or was she? Maybe hypothermia really was setting in, because what he was seeing made about as much as sense as ...

  As teleporting yourself away from danger with a magic word?

  Her eyes were green, he had known that, but he could not have predicted the silver hue to her skin, which was beautiful against her dark hair. Her chin was extremely narrow, given the width of her jaw. Her eyebrows swept upward at a steep angle, like a Vulcan on Star Trek. Her ears were pointed, too, though they looked less like Mister Spock and more like Nosferatu.

  Even with all the “her,” he still wasn’t positive about her gender. Her voice and her body were feminine, but those facial features left her far more androgynous. But why did she look like this at all? Why—?

  Then the explanation came to him, and it was so obvious he felt stupid.

  “You’re a paranormal,” he said aloud.

  She said nothing to that, not understanding him any more than before.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, his adrenaline rush already fading. “Sorry, I was just b-being a little slow. Of course you’re a p-paranormal.”

  She offered a little shrug to that, then placed her hand on her fur-covered chest and said, “Dryal.”

  Ah. Her name? “Dree-al?”

  She repeated, “Dryal.”

  “Dree-all.”

  She smiled and shrugged, apparently content with his effort to repeat it. And then she waited, expectant.

  He wanted to say, You know, lady, I’m a little too cold for introductions right now. But as she was his only benefactor at the moment ...

  “John,” he said. “My name is John.”

  Her high brow furrowed. “Joo-an?”

  He shook his head, his eyes barely open at this point. “John,” he repeated.

  “Juu ... on?”

  For Christ’s sake, it’s not that hard to say “John.”

  But she seemed to be having trouble with the “o,” for whatever reason, so he tried a different tactic (anything to hurry this along!), switching to a nickname a friend of his tried to get started way back in elementary school. “Try this: ‘J. D.’ ‘J’ ... ‘D’ ...”

  She mulled that for a second, then said, “Jay ... dee?”

  “J. D.”

  “Jaydee.”

  Close enough. He nodded with a sluggish smile ...

  ... and then he collapsed, pitching forward right onto his face.

  Except he didn’t land on his face. Because she caught him before he hit the ground.

  Strong for such a thin gal ... He might have chuckled, if he had the energy. Which he most definitely did not.

  The stranger — Dryal — not only caught him, she scooped him up in her arms and carried him back to her horse/not-horse.

  She gonna throw me over the saddle? he wondered, wanting to giggle over it. And what’d she do with my book? Did it just disappear? Magic!

  Then he heard another voice. A man’s voice, calling from the woods.

  Dryal called back.

  A second fur-clad figure appeared. Shorter, but stockier, more masculine, or so John thought; he was having trouble seeing. They conversed in their language, whatever it was, and then the new fellow leaned in, pulled down his own face covering.

  Same silver skin, same brows, same ears; the only differences were a somewhat wider chin and purple-ish eyes.

  Huh, John thought. Two paranormals who changed the same way? What’re the odds? Any takers?

  Then they were lifting him up, and the last thoughts John Davison (who would apparently be known as “J. D.” for the time being) had before he drifted away into a dark, cold, fitful slumber were of his family, prayers that they would be all right, and that he would see them again soon ...

  THREE WEEKS AGO

  THE GLADIUS

  Jaydee relaxed upon the hillside, sitting in the grass in his black leather-chainmail armor and taking in the golden warmth of the Simarian sun; the bluer Pecunium sun lay beyond it, this being the roughly one hour per day where they hung close together in the sky. Simarian’s glory would set soon, but the dimmer Pecunium was just rising, so that it would never quite be “night” as he recalled from his youth. Legend told that, in several thousand years, the two suns would swap dominant positions, shifting the world of Trolidi from never-quite-night to never-quite-day.

  Thoughts of his previous life, which only reared their heads on occasion, sparked another recollection that brought a casual smile to his short-bearded face: A blond boy standing in a sandy desert, staring at twin suns, much like he was doing at this very moment. What was the boy’s name? Luke something. And the movie was ... Star Wars? He thought it might’ve been Star Wars.

  But he himself was no longer a “blond boy,” to be sure. His hair was still mostly blond, except for the grey at his temples, but it was thinner nowadays, and a little higher above his lined forehead. Of course, by all accounts, he should have died of old age at least three centuries earlier, but hey ... magic got him into this mess, so it was only fair that magic make up for it somehow, right?

  These ruminations, he knew, were an attempt to distract himself. Nearly four hundred years of “adventuring” failed to bring him to the imaginary point where he would not get nervous before a perilous battle.

  But nerves would neither help nor hinder him when the time came; they simply were. And he would ignore them to the best of his ability, even if that meant drudging up trivia from his long-lost life on another world in another dimension.

  For now, he chose to breathe and enjoy the view.

  “Penny for the thought?” called a feminine voice in broken English.

  Jaydee smiled again and looked over to Dryal, the fading light glistening off her silverish
skin as she climbed the hill to join him. He answered her in turn, “It’s been a while since we’ve used my first language.”

  Joining him, the Ralalis woman folded her long legs to sit by his side, Jaydee nudging the scabbard of his left Roman gladius sword aside to accommodate her. Unlike him, she had not aged even a day since they met that first night. Between her features and incredibly long life, Jaydee always thought of her and her people as “Elves,” though they were perhaps not as ethereal as Tolkien had described them. Then again, that attitude smacked of his old view, when he had actually considered her face to be “androgynous,” a recollection that struck him as naïve and ludicrous in his current wisdom. Indeed, they had been on-and-off lovers (and currently somewhere between) for hundreds of years. The Ralalis could do things that no Earth woman could ...

  And there he went again, bringing things back around to his old life.

  “I’ve been thinking of my home world,” he confessed in the Ralalis language.

  “That makes perfect sense,” she replied, also switching back to her native tongue. “I found you not far from here, naked and clutching a Ralalis book of magic.”

  “Did you?” And yet, he was not truly surprised, was he? In the back of his mind, he must have known that.

  “Oh, yes,” she teased, “when you were a child, frightened and lost and the most clumsy lover I had ever taken to my bed.”

  Jaydee grabbed a handful of grass and threw it at her; she laughed and dodged the clump without seeming to move.

  “Maybe,” he admitted, “but at least I could say ‘John’ properly.”

  She made a face. “That’s not fair. Not all of us have your command of languages.”

  “ ‘Jooo-aaaan’?” he mocked with a heavy twinkle in his eyes. “‘Juuu ... ooooon’?”

  This time she was the one who threw the grass, and he was not nearly as graceful in his evasion.

  Then she grew solemn. “Are we still destined to fight it tonight?”