Sidling toward it right-side first, he drew back his gladius ...
The Skygger dropped its hands, revealing the bloody mess that remained of its face; its mutilated snout shorter than ever, it now reminded him less of a jackal and more of a particularly ugly vampire bat. And yet, somehow, it still managed to speak with clear, crisp diction.
“You!” it spat. “You can’t imagine what I’m going to—”
“Not interested,” he snapped, and thrust forward with his right gladius, the left prepared to fend off any counter-attack.
At the last instant, the Skygger rolled away from his blade, underneath the pew toward the back of the church.
Damn it! Should’ve pushed for another net spell.
“It’s on the move!” he shouted as he retreated back toward the aisle.
Venubis, who was closer than Dryal, hopped onto the pew closest to him, his bow drawn and ready.
Dryal slowed her charge, but only a little. “Where is it?!”
He didn’t have a chance to answer before the Skygger exploded into view right before Venubis; the Ralalis archer released his arrow, but even as it shot straight through the Skygger’s left hand, its right claws were already on their way around.
Jaydee reached deep within himself to cast a spell, any spell, but he knew it was too late.
Except it did not play out quite as he feared: The Skygger left Venubis himself untouched, but instead slashed his bow into useless kindling. And before Venubis could draw his own sword, a weapon he almost never used, the creature spun like a whirlwind, kicking the archer in the gut and sending him flying back, its toe-claws drawing only small amounts of the Ralalis’ blood.
Then Dryal was there, swinging her sword at it. The Skygger ducked and kept moving, scurrying along the seat of the pew right past her. She pivoted, ready to press her attack while maintaining a defensive position until—
The Skygger also pivoted, crawled right up the tall Ralalis woman’s body, and — in spite of the considerable damage Jaydee had wreaked upon its snout — bit her on the face.
Dryal screamed, a muffled sound within the Skygger’s bloody maw, and punched at it with one hand while using her large sword as a saw with the other, anything to get it off.
Hold on! Jaydee thought. Crossing his swords, he shouted, “Cataptis!” He would net them both, then sort the Skygger out with his blades.
Before the net could strike, before it had fully formed, the Skygger released Dryal, shoving her toward Jaydee so that he was forced to lower his swords, and it vaulted up and back — a higher leap than any it had performed thus far — and disappeared into the shadows along the ceiling.
Even as Jaydee caught Dryal, Venubis joined him, muttered, “Nignius!” and hurled an arrow overhand after the retreating creature; the arrow failed to penetrate the church wall, but either way, it exposed no Skygger.
In his arms, Dryal was no longer screaming. She was wheezing.
Jaydee looked down at her. Even through the gloom and the Skygger’s blood-filled saliva, he could tell that her silverish face was turning blue, her irritated eyes rolling up in her skull.
“Help her,” Venubis said, his broadsword before him. “It will not touch you.”
“ ‘It will not touch you’ ...” the Skygger mocked from somewhere above.
Venubis tracked the sound with his usual impassive demeanor, but Jaydee was too distracted to match him. Dryal vocalized something, as though trying to speak, but then she convulsed once, twice—
“You have a choice to make, dear Gladius ...”
He looked up. The Skygger had crept close enough for one of the still-burning arrows to expose its bloody face.
“I’m leaving this place. You can try to stop me, chase after me ... or ... you can save your Ralalis bitch. You can’t do both, can you? Your magic is nearly drained, isn’t it?”
As much as he hated to admit it, the Skygger was right.
It grinned, an expression all the more hideous for its mutilated snout. “Yes. So you had better decide. Right now.”
Dryal convulsed again, the biggest seizure yet. And her breathing reduced to choking hitches.
Dropping his swords and pulling her out into the open center aisle, Jaydee lowered her to the church floor and held his hands over her. He pronounced, “Sanitasto!” putting everything he had into it.
As the healing spell flowed from his body and into hers, Jaydee could barely keep his eyes open, the leather-chainmail he wore seeming to triple in weight, his limbs aching and his head pounding; all he wanted to do in that moment was curl up and sleep for a week.
But he still managed to glare up at the Skygger, both to keep an eye on it (not that he could do much if Venubis fell) and to hopefully convey his animosity for the damned thing.
And the Skygger returned his hatred drop for drop, its eyes glistening in the light of the burning arrow.
Oh, for Venubis to still have his bow!
“Predictable choice, oh great Gladius,” it jeered. “One you will come to regret.”
Jaydee wished he had a sharp comeback to that, but he was just too tired.
“You hurt me,” it snarled, “like no one has in a long, long time.” It smiled again, its most malevolent smile yet. “And so I am going to hurt you, in a way you could not have imagined. You ... Gladius ... Jaydee ... John Davison.”
And just like that, Jaydee — John — was wide awake.
Continuing, the Skygger sneered, “I’ll tell your brother you said ‘Hello.’ ” Then, giving him a wink full of malice, it added, almost sarcastically, “Subcinctinin.”
And it was gone.
John’s mind was in turmoil. He felt a hand upon his thigh, looked down to meet Dryal’s open eyes — irritated beyond belief but looking right at him — her breath still wheezing but no longer gasping.
“Jaydee,” she whispered, and by her tone, he knew that she had heard what the Skygger said ...
... and then, between his bewilderment, his relief, and his exhaustion, John Davison collapsed beside her.
PCA
“It doesn’t make any sense,” John steamed as he paced before the campfire. “How could the Skygger know my real name? How could it know about my brother? And why did it say it was going to say ‘Hello’ for me? Steve is long dead.”
But if Steve died that night, his earlier questions haunted him, why did he look older in the vision? And when had he ever been that muscular? And scarred?
“And even if — if — he wasn’t killed the morning I left Earth,” he argued aloud, “it doesn’t matter. Steve would have died of old age years ago, centuries ago.”
Venubis considered his words; Dryal sat by the fire with her head down, one hand rubbing at her still-irritated eyes ...
The four— no, make that three companions remained outside the township limits. Though they had reported to the clergyman their professional judgment that the Skygger had moved on, they had made a preemptive proposal to remain close, in case their assessment proved inaccurate. They had declined offers of billeting among the locals, preferring to lick their wounds, to mourn Akribos, and to brood over the Skygger’s words in private.
The golden rays of Simarian dawned, and John was more bone-weary than any time in recent memory; in spite of his “nap” after the Skygger’s departure, he needed true rest, some deep sleep ...
And yet, how could he bed down before making some sense of the Skygger’s threat? Threatening Steve ... it was just so dumbfounding! Which, he knew, might have been the bastard’s exact intent. He clenched his jaw, running his gauntleted hands through his hair as he continued to pace.
“Not necessarily,” Venubis stated.
John jerked to a halt. He had been so deep in thought, it took him a moment to figure out what the hell Venubis was talking about. “What, my brother might not necessarily be dead after almost four hundred years?” He scoffed and resumed his pacing, “The common folk don’t have magic back on Earth, Venubis.”
“Not th
e magic,” the archer clarified. “I question the four hundred years.”
Again, John’s stop was so abrupt he had to adjust his balance. “I think you had better explain that, Venubis. I’ve been here, been with you and Dryal, for three-hundred-ninety-seven Earth years. Believe it or not, I have always kept track. So what in the hell are you talking about?!”
Venubis was, of course, unflustered by his raised voice. Instead, he looked to Dryal.
John stared at her as well. “Dryal? Is there something you want to tell me?”
Dryal was silent a moment longer. Then she sighed, rubbed her inflamed eyes one last time, and raised her head to address him. “I believe Venubis is speaking of ... do you know what time-space is?”
John blinked, translating the Ralalis term in his head; since the Skygger had named him and made its threat, he found himself thinking again in English. “I think so, mainly from science-fiction. If I recall, they usually called it the ‘space-time continuum.’ That was more my brother’s kind of thing.”
Dryal nodded. “That will make this easier to explain.” Drawing a breath, she said, “You arrived here entirely by accident, having stumbled into a perfect storm of circumstances — your belief in magic; your inherent talent for that magic; your spell book getting ‘supercharged’ by that lightning paranormal; and most importantly, your survival instincts. All of those things, combined, allowed you to access the Subcinctinin spell, to use it to take you away from danger and bring you here, to the world where the spell book was created.”
John nodded, struggling with impatience for her to hurry to the point.
“But in spite of that amazing alignment of fate ... Jaydee, you were very much a novice when you cast that spell. An amateur of astonishing skill, but still an amateur.”
Venubis commented, “So you might have slipped.”
“ ‘Slipped’,” John repeated, his voice betraying his growing vexation.
“The danger,” Dryal continued, “in Subcinctinin, the reason it is so rarely used, lies in its instability. It is a monumental undertaking, and more often than not, the caster slips through time as well as space. The process is chaotic, random, far too unstable for anyone to ever use it for deliberate ‘time-travel,’ and so most mages avoid it altogether.”
“You never told me that,” John said through clenched teeth, before forcing his jaw to relax. “You just told me that I could not use the spell to get back to Earth because I would become ‘lost’.”
Venubis nodded. “That is correct.”
“It is,” Dryal agreed. “The caster might arrive at their destination in the past, in the future, or not at all. Venubis and I have known of a half-dozen mages who failed their attempted Subcinctinin and never returned. In spite of efforts to locate them, to rescue them, they appeared to have slipped out of time-space altogether.
“Those who risk Subcinctinin only do so with particular anchor points. You told me of that ‘stage magician’ whom you saw disappear into nothing after speaking Subcinctinin?”
John nodded.
“That alleyway, or something specific within that alleyway, was almost certainly his personal anchor point.”
“That,” Venubis observed, “or he was a damned fool.”
“When you arrived here,” Dryal continued, “you displaced a wild vertesa we had been pursuing. That is why we found you so quickly — we had been hired to chase it down. A few minutes difference, and you might have displaced one of us.
“Your spell book likely latched onto the vertesa, using it as a sort of beacon; I would not be surprised if that book was first enchanted by a Ralalis in that very forest, perhaps near that very tree.” She swallowed before adding, “Otherwise, even with that perfect storm of which I spoke, you, too, would almost certainly have been lost forever.”
“Why the vertesa? Why not a rock, or a lump of soil, or even that tree?”
Dryal shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. But I would lay odds that the vertesa matched your height, weight, build ... I would not be surprised if it arrived in your bedroom wearing your sleep-wear, even as you arrived here naked.”
John imagined that for a moment, a wild vertesa in his bedroom, wearing his pajama bottoms. With any luck, the thing might have given that lightning rogue a nasty little surprise.
Then he was back in the moment, and a critical moment it was.
“If I’m following all of this ...” he said, looking at them. He started to pace again, but instead held his ground. “That could be why it was morning when I left, but nighttime when I arrived — not because of a different hemisphere, but of a difference in time.”
They remained silent, waiting.
“But more than that,” he continued, “you’re telling me that it might not have been hundreds of years since I left Earth, but that I arrived here hundreds of years in the past, my past.”
Venubis nodded.
“So ... so, if Steve was not killed that morning ...”
This time Dryal nodded. “Then, it is possible that your brother is very much alive.”
“And the Skygger somehow knows about him. And has used Subcinctinin to go after him.”
Dryal sighed and looked into the fire. “So it seems.”
Silence settled over all three of them; the Ralalis sitting before the fire, John pacing once more. Simarian rose above the horizon, and their reticence held: John pacing and thinking, the Ralalis sitting and doing the same. Each of them, including John, knew what he would next say, but he had to work around to it, mull it over up one side and down the other, pushing it away and drawing it near again, opening his mouth to speak, then closing his lips ...
Finally, as the golden sun cleared all obstacles and shone brightly upon their camp, as his throbbing shoulder reminded him that he had only given it the bare minimum of mending, he finally accepted what he must ask, and he stood his ground and faced his friends.
“Is there any way,” he asked, “now, with how far I have come and how much I have learned ... is there any way for me to follow the Skygger back to Earth? Without slipping through time again?”
Dryal closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Will you be able to come with me?”
And the tears flowed down her cheeks. “No.”
YESTERDAY
J.L.’S THOUGHTS!
First blog entry
Hey, everyone! My name is Jeffrey Lawrence, and this is my new blog.
I planned on doing a vlog instead, but the first few times I tried recording myself, I kept, like, pausing and stumbling over my words, and the sound quality wasn’t too good, so I decided maybe I should start a blog first. If I get enough followers, maybe I can save my allowance for a real camera and microphone and practice what I’m going to say a lot. But for now, I’m happy for anyone who reads this and leaves a comment, and maybe share it!
So what should I write about for my first entry?
I know what I want to write about, but here’s the thing: Back in elementary school, I got a reputation for being “the Paranormals boy.” It’s kind of a long story, but I wrote this essay in 5th grade about the Paranormals and the teachers made a big deal out of it. Then I wrote another one in 6th grade, to try and get out of reading a boring book. It didn’t work, I still had to read it, but the teacher shared my essay around again (at least they didn’t give copies of the 2nd one to all the PTA parents!).
So that’s my problem. Now that I’m in middle school, with a bunch of new kids who don’t already know me, I’d kind of like to get away from that whole “Paranormals boy” rep.
But the thing that’s most on my mind right now is still related to the Paranormals. Sort of.
Ugh. I just re-read what I’ve got so far, and even though I didn’t want my first entry to be about the Paranormals, all I’m doing is writing about that, which means I’m still kind of writing about the Paranormals.
Okay then. Here’s what I think now.
I think things are going so much better than they were a few y
ears ago, even better than last year when I wrote that second essay. We have REAL superheroes now! We started with Vortex, and we have Shockwave and Powerhouse and a bunch of others working for the PCA. And probably the BIGGEST news of last year (which I don’t mind writing about because, seriously, LITERALLY EVERYONE has!) is that we have REAL ALIENS living on Earth now!!! They’re called “the Taalu,” and the story is that something bad happened to their planet and they needed a new home, and when some other, bad aliens attacked us, they stopped to help and decided to stay (or something like that — it’s actually kind of vague, really, and a lot of downbeat @$$holes are claiming that’s on purpose).
But the biggest, COOLEST part of that is that their leader — the Shining Star — is not only alien but ALSO a Paranormal! He’s got all sorts of cool powers, and he and Vortex are always hanging out together and fighting Rogues. In fact, since Shining Star showed up and started working with Vortex and they both keep helping the PCA, the number of Paranormals who go Rogue has starting going down!
But that’s not really what was on my mind when I tried to record my vlog, or when I decided to write this blog instead.
Like I’ve been talking about, I’m “the Paranormals boy.” I always thought they were cool, I just didn’t like that we didn’t have any superheroes, until Vortex showed up and changed everything. I’ve always kind of hoped that maybe I might turn Paranormal some day — a Class One, not a Class Two!
So when my friend Brett asked me to go with him to the Church of the Seven Stars last Sunday, I was totally in!
See, I visited one of the Church of the Seven Stars churches last Fall when we were visiting my mom’s cousins in Michigan. We didn’t get to stay long, because they only have short services on Wednesday nights at this place, but it was cool hearing them talk about the Paranormals being proof of God! Like, how they are walking-talking modern day miracle-workers, like Moses and Jesus Christ used to do! And while I never thought about them in those exact words, that sounded pretty close to how I have always felt. Like, people having REAL SUPER-POWERS was so amazing, I couldn’t understand why people weren’t more excited about the whole thing (for that, I blame the Rogues).
Paranormals | Book 3 | Darkness Reigns Page 7