Sneak Peek of Book 2.
On the far side of Earth, the battle raged with ferocious intensity. The Mythidrian Paladins struggled with their very souls to stave off the invasion led by Shirahala and the host of Acheron - Sam Akright. The energies of the conflagration sent ripples throughout the Earth, unnoticed, even to here, high in the Himalayas.
The effects of the conflict weren’t completely unnoticed. Within a cavern, midway up the craggy eastern slope of a high mountain, something stirred. The large shape stiffened in its seat, meditations interrupted by discomfort within the mystic envelopes surrounding the planet. It rumbled a low growl, shook its shaggy head and opened its eyes. Once the being became adjusted to the dim light, it stretched broadly and focused its awareness outwards. Pronounced furry brows knitted, something was definitely not right.
It stretched a large, paw-like hand outwards to skim just above the earthen floor of its home. Dirt and sand shifted, glimmered and then took the shape of several human figures, armed with weapons of a far-off land the creature had all but forgotten, combating hideous beasts of varying descriptions. Deep-set eyes took particular note of one such beast, not fighting the humans, but fighting alongside them, helping them. The mysterious being watched further, watching the death of the strange feline beast in his animated earthen diorama, and the sudden resurrection of something far more powerful.
Above the new creature’s head floated something odd that caught the lone observer’s attention, something unexpected. It practically dove to get a closer look of what was there, above the beautifully monstrous golem. Deep brown eyes grew with shock and knowledge of what that symbol meant. It had seen enough.
It stood, waving its hand over the mystic display, making it collapse into a heap of dust and stone upon the floor. The enormous being hurriedly gathered a number of belongings heaped them into a goat skin sack and settled it upon the piles of skins it used as a bed. It turned, and shambled deeper into the cavern into a smaller antechamber.
The light within came from an unearthly glow emanating from the stalactites and stalagmites, reflecting light from a small, overhead hole in the ceiling. The creature shambled to a small dais upon which sat a small wooden chest. The glow from the hanging ice seemed to accentuate the chest, the light from above falling directly upon the miniature trunk.
Fur-covered, clawed hands deftly drifted above and around the box while the creature’s deep voice lowly mumbled an incantation, making the box unlock itself and open slowly. An ancient gleaming lyre, sat snugly within the cushioned case with strings that hummed mutely while the device lay inside. Sitting behind it, sat a book. The cover gleamed in the natural light a soothing deep green, the bindings and locks sparkled with spun gold and silver interwoven in strands across to covers to sturdy hinges at the spine. From there, the hinges almost exploded with intricate design work that only the creature beholding it understood.
The chest’s keeper scanned over the box and the things inside, closed the box and carried it into the main cavity of the large cavern and set the box into the open sack. It reached out to a fissure in the far wall, extracted a gigantic hide over coat and threw it over the heavy frame of its body. Fingers of deceptive dexterity cinched the sack closed and slung the large bag over its shoulder. It took one more look over the simple surroundings it called home and then turned to leave.
The enigmatic being shuffled its enormous mass to the opposite end of the cave and stopped. It waved a furry hand towards the wall, a slight radiance emitted from its fingertips. The stone wall also glowed and was then mystically shifted aside with a slight mental shrug of the shadowy figure. It stepped outside, and took a long look of its surroundings.
It loved the view of the high tops of the mountains, and stood to watch the late morning sky for a few minutes, marveling at the wonders of the high peaks silhouetted against the bright pristine blue wrapped around the bright sun. It blinked ursine eyes, shading its eyes from the sun for a moment. It looked down the rocky slope, draped the hood of its long coat over its shaggy head and leapt.
Stone rumbled and collected upwards to carefully catch the falling being, descending downwards to the mountain slope to begin a long and arduous trek west. Waves of stone and soil flowed and ebbed like water while the colossal being surfed upon the crests of the undulating earth beneath its feet, grim determination set in its eyes. Its mind was awhirl with thoughts and plans; it had been a very long time since it had been amongst humans, care would need to be taken to remain relatively invisible.
It thought darkly as it made its descent, “I may already be too late…”
Chapter One
Today
Callie wished that she’d not gone out. She usually didn’t mind going out with her roommate, Dani, but tonight was just a mistake. Oh, sure it was close enough to the weekend and of course the obligatory partying was expected, but tonight just didn’t feel right. She and Dani had hit their favorite club a little early to find a decent table to watch the yummiest guys walk by and crack jokes until Dani hooked up with a tall cutie in a black form-fitting shirt, baggy jeans, and a set of abs that made her do a double take. The two of them hit it off immediately and began playing tonsil hockey after only an hour or so. Callie felt uncomfortable and excused herself, telling Dani that she wasn’t feeling well; which was the truth.
She also had to meet with a new client in the morning. Yes, it meant more revenue for her company, Capricious Fantasy Photography, but it also meant meeting some people she wasn’t comfortable with. She was used to contracts with fashion magazines, women’s periodicals, and even a couple of Maxim-wannabes. The new client, however, left her cold.
Her meeting was with one of the geek space science magazines that catered more to the science fiction nerds that drooled over pictures of fantasy women in suggestive situations rather than real science; at least that’s what she gathered from the docket she received from them. She could think of bigger wastes of time other than working with some pimply-faced, overweight fan boys, but the offer was rather lucrative and she’d be stupid to pass it up. Still, a buck’s a buck and she decided it was better to be well-rested and ready than grumpy and hung over before dealing with the high-water and pocket protector set.
So now the trek home well underway, Callie scolded herself for even having considered going out to drink and dance the night away when all she really wanted to do was curl up with her cat, Lil’ Fluff, drink some hot chocolate and watch a movie that didn’t suck in the DVD player. Still, it was fairly early in the evening and there was plenty of time to jammie up and do what she had in mind anyway. Yeah, the night wouldn’t be a total loss.
The striking red head smiled inwardly as she left the nearby video store, her thoughts drawn to the little black cat waiting for her at home. Its big yellow eyes always made Callie to want to cuddle with the little twit, even though the furry menace always wound up playing with Callie’s long, wavy hair. Her hand drifted to a spot just behind her left ear where Lil’ Fluff had tugged a little too hard earlier in the evening. It throbbed still, no harm done. Callie rubbed the spot for a few seconds more and then continued on home.
The eye-catching red head walked through the club district with relative ease, her long legs carried her along deftly while she wove her way around arm-in-arm couples or groups of goofball college boys out to get themselves puking drunk and find themselves dates. A couple of times she suppressed a smile, the boys making total fools of themselves hitting on her with their cheesy pick-up lines. Each time she politely shook her head and resumed walking home.
Callie wrapped her coat tightly around herself once she’d left the relative safety of the well-lit sidewalks in front of the various clubs and restaurants and into the darker streets beyond. Her gray eyes glanced everywhere, down the street, into alleys she passed, behind her, wherever she could look. Something still felt wrong to her, something…she couldn’t put it into words. She noticed that the alleys now seemed darker than normal; the streets much quieter, even the lights of the apartments overhead weren’t on. Normally at least one or two apartment windows shone onto the street, but not tonight, which was odd. Even the lamps atop the curved streetlights failed to cast any sort of proper illumination. Callie quickened her pace while a nagging twinge of fear crept up her back to nestle at the base of her skull.
Footsteps from behind her attracted her attention. Where did they come from? She proceeded halfway down the block past a very dark alley at the entrance to a large building. She chanced a look behind her, and discovering she was alone on the sidewalk. She stole another glance over her shoulder and suddenly wished she hadn’t.
Back in the alley stood a group of thugs in tattered “punk” attire complete with hanging chains, metal-laden wristbands, and patches of varying descriptions covering a lot of the rips on the clothes the creeps wore. No…that she half-expected. What brought her fear to screaming attention were their faces.
Dirty, yes. Disheveled and unkempt hair, of course. Rotting decaying flesh dripping off their skulls...oh hell no! She tried desperately to mentally scrub that image from her mind the moment she turned to run. She ran full bore away from he spot she saw the exposed portions of skull, effluvium dripping from huge holes in their heads, or the lumps of putrefied meat falling to the pavement wetly. One was even missing his lower jaw with the remains of his tongue waggling lewdly at her she caught sight of him.
She ran as hard as her legs would allow her, the group of undead brutes close behind her. She heard one of them laughing as they gave chase. The sound reminded her of a bone-in ham tossed into a blender along with about 40 pounds of gravel. She stumbled once, losing a shoe and took off the other one as quickly as she could, tossing it away right before she bolted off again. Without heels, she was able to outdistance her disgusting pursuers. She tore down two blocks made a left, sprinted halfway down that one before she stopped and hid behind the corner of the sandwich shop she and her roommate frequented.
She looked and caught the familiar picture of the cartoon sandwich sitting on the display in front of the door and congratulated herself. Almost home! Yes! She caught her breath and stole a peek around the corner in the direction she’d just come from, praying she wouldn’t see that group of…whatever the hell those things were. She cautiously slid from her hiding spot and saw nothing of her hunters. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. Home was just a couple of blocks away, and she felt safe now to make it home unmolested.
Before she could react the punks appeared in front of her, somehow impossibly surrounding her. How did…? She never got the chance to finish her thought as a bony, decaying hand slammed against her left temple and sent stars shooting through her vision. Another moldering fist rammed into her belly, causing her to double over and fall to her knees. She struggled to breathe from the vicious attack, and fought off the urge to wretch from the horrible odor her assailants gave off. Once more they struck at her, a chain-wrapped boot to her ribs sent what little breath she had left in her lungs out of her system. She weakly begged for mercy as she was lifted off the ground and punched across the mouth; her blood sent splattering against the wall next to her.
She fought the urge to vomit more when she watched one of her attackers run to the wall and lick the rivulets of her blood from the wall’s surface. She was roughly turned and dragged backwards into the alley. The realization that this was her last night to live struck home when she caught another blow to the kidneys from one of the cadaverous punks. Through swirling colors and sparks in he vision she saw them all looking at her, licking what remained of their lips at her, their intentions frighteningly clear.
Callie’s mind gained some focus, the single thought in her head, “If I’m going down, they’re coming with me!” She extracted the palm-sized can of pepper spray from her purse. With one fluid motion, she pressed the cans activator and literally hosed every one of her aggressors in the face…to no avail. Each of them looked at themselves, each other, a couple even licking the clinging aerosol film on their faces and then back at her. The looks on their faces gave her the distinct impression that they enjoyed that, and her stomach lurched once again.
She felt a final clout to the side of her face before she was thrown roughly to the ground and smacked her head on a trash can. In her stupor, she was unable to cry out for help while one of the fiends held her face while the others roughed her up some more before dragging her further back into the alley. Her eyes rolled in their sockets as the foul gang seemed to dance with wicked triumph as if Callie had been caught up in some horrifying nightmare.
She felt their decomposing hands wrap around her ankles and pulled her legs apart, more hands keeping her hands held securely above her head. She woozily looked down her body, fighting through the fog in her vision and saw that her clothes were ruined and bare flesh was exposed to the chill, night air. The largest of the muggers, the one missing his jaw and would have given George Romero nightmares, unfastened his pants and dropped to his knees between her legs. His ruined face, replete with over a dozen piercings twitched repulsively as he exposed his revolting worm-ridden flesh. As the nightmarish horror lowered itself, the last conscious thing her mind registered was a shadow that grew behind the gang. A very...big…shadow… then she passed out amongst a cacophony of unearthly bellowing, battle, and the roar of something very angry.
All went silent in her semi-conscious mind and then there was nothing but warmth and comfort, aside from bouncing around slightly. She opened her eyes dreamily for a moment and looked into the impossible. Above her, a black feline head…is that a tiger? The white highlights around its eyes and muzzle gleamed in the now-bright moonlight. She blinked and looked down her body again. Huge powerful arms wrapped themselves under her, cradling her gently against its enormous furry chest like a cozy blanket.
The wind whistled in her ears and blew her hair into her face. She looked into the wind and saw that there was nothing there but the glittering stars in the night sky. She snapped awake immediately and looked around. Nothing seemed familiar to her; no buildings or familiar landmarks could be found until she looked down. Below, far below, the city lazily flowed beneath them as if she was watching from an airplane. Callie looked up at the creature holding her securely, but gently, to its breast and passed out again when the creature looked down at her and smiled…
***
Her legs were sore for exertion, lacerated heavily from the flinging branches and thistles that seemed to intentionally get in her way. It was bad enough that she was running in knee deep in the darkened water, but obstacles kept popping up mysteriously in her path.
She felt as though she had been running for hours, but knew deep down it had only been a few minutes. Or was it? All she really knew was to get away from him. He was close behind her, she could feel it. She could hear her pursuer and his tracking hounds in the not-too-far-off distance, and it was just a matter of time before she’d be caught and torn to pieces by the bloodthirsty beasts.
She slammed into something big and solid, and then fell backwards. She shook her head, rubbed her shoulder and peered upward at what obstructed her path. The last thing she saw was a set of immense fangs lunging at her…
***
Callie sat bolt upright, a scream half-locked in her throat, the instant change in scenery throwing her off even more than the immense fangs and swampy setting she had just escaped from. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she looked around the room slowly coming to the realization that she had been sleeping.
“You have got to be kidding! I dreamed all of that,” she groaned aloud to nobody. She looked around her room again; making sure that both of her imagined assaults weren’t real, needing that reassurance. The clock! Where is it? What time is it?
She shifted her gaze over to the illuminated blue numerals of her alarm clock. No, that couldn’t be right! Ten forty-three PM? She was still at the club or…wait a damned minute! She turned again to look at the big screen television mounted to her wall and realized one of her favorite horror movies was playing, about midway through the film, in fact. She checked her night stand again and saw the Blu-Ray cover sitting opened under the lamp. She had to have dreamt it all. Still, something didn’t feel right.
Her mug - that was it! Where was her favorite mug? She never, ever settled into her room for a movie without Marvin the Martian full of something to drink. She craned her neck looking for it, and then shifted her weight to check the other night stand, immediately regretting moving around at all.
She grimaced as every nerve in her body woke up and sent an enormous shock of pain everywhere in her figure. The slightest move made her peep with no small amount of soreness, even though she had to see just what was wrong. She slid to the edge of the bed, her joints felt like they were wrapped in barbed wire. She slowly lifted herself from the edge of the bed and gingerly heel-to-toed with a lot of support from the furniture it to the closet door and the full-sized mirror mounted to the inside.
Callie nearly fainted once the light was switched on. Her dress was virtually destroyed. What was left of it clung to her shoulders, her left breast to her hip was barely covered by threads, stringy remnants keeping it secured to her waist. The rest of her dress below her waist was nonexistent. Even her panties (her favorite ones, damn it!) were pretty much shredded to the point they barely covered her, and were losing the struggle to keep whole.
What truly frightened was the exposed flesh she saw in the mirror. There wasn’t a single inch that wasn’t covered in bruises, scratches, or the puffy beginnings of other injuries. She looked at her legs, which still glistened from fresh blood that had stopped oozing from her knees. Her elbows felt and appeared to be in the same ragged condition as her knees, and the darkening bruises along her arms made it look worse.
Then she leaned into the mirror excruciatingly to get a good look at her face, and fought the urge to vomit.
The whole left side of her face was swelling, and raw, both of her eyes were darkened and turning red. Her normally vibrant red hair clung to her scalp in bloodied clumps and hung limply from her head. She reached to her forehead to brush some of her hair back and discovered an angry, oozing wound at the back of her head which dripped fresh blood through her hair, down her back, and onto the floor.
“It’s really not as bad as it looks,” said a man’s voice from behind her.
Callie snapped the baseball bat she kept between her nightstand and closet door, turned on her heel and held the bat aloft ready to smash whoever – or whatever – just spoke to her. She immediately regretted it, as lightning arcs of pain shot through her joints from the many injuries she’d already suffered, but damn it – she was not going down without a fight!
It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to readjust to the light of the impossibly dark corner on the far side of the room. The blinds were wide open on both of the enormous windows, with the full light of the moon shining in. The outside natural, illumination combined with the light from the television, the nightstand lamp, and the closet light should have lit up the entire room, and yet that particular corner had become impossibly dark, almost to the point where she couldn’t make out the figure of a man (damn he’s big!), wearing what looked like a long coat of some sort within the shadowed nook. She couldn’t make out much more other than his eyes, with, for a second, flashed yellow.
Callie tightened her grip on the bat confrontationally, yellow eyes or not, she was going to home-run this guy’s head if he so much as blinked. That unnerved her even more, the man never blinked in the scant seconds they stood staring at each other.
“Get out - NOW!” Callie commanded. She was not ready for any more surprises tonight, and needed to be safe. She maneuvered around her nightstand and started reaching for her cell phone when the man finally stepped from the shadows. Callie raised the bat and held it, tensed ready to swing directly at the man’s head if he moved any more. She knew if he came at her, she’d break something on him enough for her to grab her phone and make for the door, or keep on swinging until this whack-o loser was so much paste on her carpet. She didn’t care.
Once in the light, she got a good look at the intruder’s face, and loosened up her stance a little. He was tall; to say the least, Callie still had to look up at him from across the room. The long coat he was wearing covered what she could only guess was an athletic physique judging by the way he moved – predatory, practiced, and slow. Looking him over further, she realized that she really couldn’t see much outside of his coat, everything else beneath was garbed in black.
She looked upward, cautiously, to his face, and drew in a sharp breath. He was handsome, no doubt about that. His features, though, looked…off. He reminded Callie of the models that came to the studios daily for fashion shoots, or like some of the men that modeled motor bikes on location shoots - square-jawed, hollow-cheeked, and pretty. She could open a magazine and find another like him anywhere in the pages; she was used to that type of guy, but still – off. Then she realized what it was. As pretty as he was, his brows were furrowed deeply, the wrinkles in his forehead impossibly long.
That look gave her a bottomless, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach as if she was staring into the face of something feral and hungry and she was seconds from becoming some…thing’s…dinner.
“You don’t need that. Put it away,” the stranger said. His voice sounded peaceful, but still more of that strange, otherworldly feeling almost dripped from his words like old sludge. For a moment, Callie loosened her stance even more, but then tightened up again, reminded of what brought her to this point, and his syrupy but growly voice unsettling her more made her think twice about relaxing.
“Yeah, right, just as soon as I drop you like a bad habit, pal,” Callie replied threateningly. To hell with him, she was going to make his pretty face pretty messed up if he tried to get funny.
“And,” she pointedly instructed, “put my cat down.” She motioned to the stranger with the heel of her bat to the stranger’s curled-up arms holding the fluffy, gloss-black bundle of fur curled within.
“But she likes me,” he mocked back, but seeing the near-murderous intent in Callie’s eyes, gently put the feline down in the easy chair sitting to his right, next to the window.
The cat looked back to the stranger dejectedly, then hopped from the chair and trotted out of the room, sending an, “I’m-not-very-happy-with-you” hissing at Callie as she passed her by.
“Lil’ Fluff! We will talk about this later, little lady!” Callie scolded to the black angora cat not taking her gaze off of the stranger still standing in the shadow of the far corner.
“And you, it’s time you left before something bad happens to you,” Callie snarled, trying to be polite with anger, fear, and indignation in her voice, she came across differently than she had intended. She raised the bat in her hands a little more, tightened her grip, and adjusted her stance once more, in case he tried something.
The stranger only laughed at her, sending chills down her spine. His voice, what little she’d heard of it, was just as strange as his appearance, just as…bizarre. Something, though, something about it sounded so…familiar?
“As you command your highness,” he responded with more saccharine and sarcasm, putting her even more ill at ease. He stepped from out of the corner and was making his way towards the bedroom door.
Callie stepped forward, tensed for a swing, “Nuh-uh, buster. Window. You use the fire escape.”
“Now, is that any way…” he started
“Up yours, pal. I’m not in the mood. Just go. That way. Now,” Callie snarled. Something about this guy was making her almost physically ill and she wanted him gone.
“I tire of this,” he rumbled back. He closed the distance between them impossibly fast, grabbed Callie by her throat, and took the bat out of her hands with a snap of his arm. Her hand spasmed with new, burning pain as the bat was forced from her grip and her knuckles cracking from the violent action. She tried to keep her eyes on him, his enormous hands forced her head upwards, so she fought to turn her eyes downwards to try and see what he was doing.
He lifted her off of her feet and swung himself around to throw Callie onto her bed, pushing the breath from her lungs viciously. She fought against the iron cords of his forearm, but it was like trying to pry steel cables apart. He smiled with a sinister look on his face, held her fast to where she could see the wooden Louisville Slugger and closed his grip on the bat, splintering it beneath his fingers; the top and handle falling to the floor, now no more than expensive firewood.
He looked her in the eyes; his face close enough she could smell his breath as well. Between the rancid, dead smell and the way his eyes flashed yellow sent creeping vines of fear up her spine.
When he spoke, it was like flesh was being pulled off the bone, “I give you this one opportunity to tell me, so this will be the only time I shall ask nicely. Where is the final relic?”
Callie’s mind went reeling, what in the hell was this, this…monster…talking about? Her face even betrayed her through fear, the incredulous confusion formed there almost instantly.
He sighed loudly at her, disappointedly. He reached up with his free hand and flicked Callie’s right elbow with his middle finger. The joint felt as though I had just exploded, the popping noise wet and sickening.
Dismissively, and almost offhandedly he explained, “You do realize that the human body has over two-hundred and fifty bones in it. I could, should I wish, break each and every one of them one at a time. I can also heal them instantly and start all over again. Now we don’t want that, do we?” The casual way he said it made Callie shiver, regardless of the arcing pain that now ran up her arm to her shoulder.
To prove his point, he took the same hand he used to shatter her elbow and touched the ruined joint. Suddenly, it felt as though nothing had happened to it. Callie looked up at it as best she could and then back to him, her face a vision of disbelieving fright.
Coming to the understanding that her situation had become even more nightmarish, Callie renewed her struggle to break free. His hand at her throat kept her from going anywhere no matter how she struggled. In fact, the more she fought, the harder it was for her to break free.
The stranger roughly brought her scant centimeters from his face so she could look directly into his eyes. She tried to scream again, but failed even more miserably than she had on her first attempt. She tried harder and harder to free herself from the grip of iron that would not yield even a millimeter.
“I think, little princess, that I would rather take what I want. No more games,” The stranger whispered after a moment’s pause.
Callie finally found her voice as the stranger’s face split open vertically, now a maw of teeth, ooze, and a blackened tongue whipping around wildly in the air. He reared back with a triumphant howl and then lunged forward, the terrifying jaws swiftly closing on her face…
Callie shot sharply upright, her scream echoing through her bedroom full of terror. She fought to reach her throat, and struggled beneath the sheets she was wrapped in. She threw the sheets off of her figure and leapt from the bed, brushing and flailing the entire time. She looked for her bat which sat propped against the closet door frame where she’d left it.
She spun on her heel and looked at the zombie film playing on her Blu-Ray player, the open container sitting next to her half-empty Marvin mug. She found her cat, Lil’ Fluff, sitting in the easy chair by the window in the unoccupied corner of her room, the moonlight illuminating that side of the room with its peaceful blue-white light.
She virtually flew to the closet, threw upon the closet door, the anticipation of what she might see there giving her chills. She looked, gasped, and then took a better look. Tank top, yoga shorts, and a muss of red hair drooped over her shoulders. Just as she…wait, what? She looked again. Nothing seemed out of place. She was in her pyjamas, as she’d remembered when she got home. She looked at where there should have been a bloody mass at her forehead, and then she looked at her elbow. No, nothing there, either.
She looked at her clock, grabbing it and turning the electronic device’s face into view: Twelve-seventeen. She’d been home for just a little over an hour. And she’d already passed out halfway through her movie. Just swell.
She took a quick glance to the corner where that mysterious creep was standing before and saw nothing, just as it should be. Lil’ Fluff hopped from her spot and then hopped up onto the bed, mewing sweetly for Callie to join her for cuddles. Callie took a step forward and stopped her eyes wide and her heart jumping into overdrive.
A brief glimpse at the window a second time and something black, a something most definitely not human, flashed out of sight to the right. Callie ran around the bed to the window, slid it open and looked out and saw…nothing. She craned her neck as far as she could in every direction she was able (huh, not sore in the least) and saw only a bat or a bird flying off in the direction of the low-hanging moon.
The whole thing was a dream, after all! She checked herself out after closing the window. No cuts, bruises, welts, or anything she noted. It was a just a vivid….horrible…nightmare. She sighed and grinned a little looking at the confused ball of ebon fluff which had left its spot on the chair to expectantly kneading the sheets of the bed.
Callie climbed in, set her pillows up against the wall and sat herself down, took a swig of lukewarm cocoa and started petting her kitty, which had settled onto her lap and was batting at her fingers playfully. On the television screen, dark and sinister undead monsters trundled through the black and white farmyard, looking for fresh human morsels to consume.
***
Mic stopped at the top of the stairs, looking back to where he’d just come. He released the breath from his lungs, and stood for a few moments more. It had come close tonight. He needed to report the incident immediately, the whole ordeal shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Instead of descending the stairs, he’d hastily beaten a path upwards to the roof. His climb went swiftly, having to only clear the last two landings, and a gate to the ladder at the top of the fire escape. His movements were graceful, swift and silent. He didn’t want Callie to hear a thing as whatever had been running through her unconscious mind just now didn’t need his help to make her even more nervous. The necessity now was to get business taken care of, and maybe get to work a little more afterwards.
The gate leading to the roof gave Mic a mild bit of nagging irritation. He hated locked doors of any kind. His first response was to plow the damned thing off of its hinges, but time and experience taught him that sometimes finesse was more in order than destroying everything in his path. That was a thought that bothered him.
He gingerly worked the lock until the wrought iron and mesh door swung open, concentrating on what was going on lately. He had enough on his mind what with the return of Acheron. Probably the most vile, black hearted villain that ever existed was back, more or less. Thanks to the efforts of the entire planet of Danitrae and his homeland of Mythidria, the Earth was safe for now.
For now, he thought. The Chaos Bringer, was back - albeit powerless - for the most part, but was back just the same. Acheron’s powers and soul had been separated and hidden in the six pieces of his armor. When all was thought lost, Acheron got a nice little surprise with there being a seventh artifact he needed to put himself back together. Mic half-grinned in the darkness at the newly released lock, but smiled also at the sly deception that was played on Acheron.
Mic stepped out onto the pebble-topped roof, confident that he’d covered his tracks well. He hated that he had to sneak around so much, it grated at him, but after thinking that he had a job to do and protecting Callie was his priority, if he had to skulk around like an alley cat to keep her safe, he’d do it. She was too important to Danitrae and Earth to lose on something so personal and petty. He was just thankful that he had been tailing her and stopped her attackers before any serious harm had come to her. If he hadn’t been waylaid by that bunch of drunken college boys wanting a fight, he would have handled the situation much sooner. His timing, though had been excellent, and releasing a little frustration on those undead scum helped to alleviate some of his tension.
Now if he could just get Locke to tell him why in the hell she mattered so much.
“Just one more thing to worry about,” he thought as he brought his left arm up,
“Gauntlet - uncloak.” He ordered to his naked forearm. The surface around his arm rippled, a silver bracer appearing where there was nothing a moment before. He tapped a spot on the chromed piece of armor, engaging the holographic mechanism within. The self-illuminated head’s up display appeared directly over the bracer, a series of control interfaces right next to it. He typed in a sequence of solid-light generated controls that activated the floating screen suspended above the interface.
The screen burst into operation, a cherubic, young woman situated in the center. The raven haired girl seemed stressed, hurrying about her station awkwardly for a moment until she looked back through the communications display. The look on her face was borderline panic coupled with tension.
“C-Command Central, Paladin OrchidKoala here…by the Great Lady!” the young woman replied, the last uttered with reverence combined with abject terror. Her eyes had grown wide and her jaw hung open as she stared in disbelief.
“OrchidKoala, encode secure channel, priority Alpha five-five-six,” Mic directed, once again tapping a series of light-generated buttons in the hovering display. The communications officer on the other end of the screen worked nervously, following her orders.
“Are you set?” Mic requested efficiently, hiding his impatience.
“Oh, I’m sorry sir. Channel encoded and prioritized. Please commence,” the tense girl replied.
Mic sighed with exasperation. His old friend and former partner, Jurin Wylderun, retired from active duty just over a month ago. That had left a void in the communications structure, and that made Mic uneasy. He needed someone he could rely upon, and got stuck with a recent academy graduate, just out of her apprenticeship and still as green as fresh grass. Mic breathed deeply and looked back into the screen.
“OrchidKoala, I have sensitive information to report, prepare for data stream. I need you to cipher it highest priority and then transmit it through the secure lines directly to Mage Locke. I also want confirmation when you’re done,” Mic instructed politely. Last thing he needed was this neophyte botching things up.
“O-o-okay, s-sir. Please confirm, ‘Granny’s not home,’” OrchidKoala challenged uneasily.
“’The wolf has a fetish for nighties,’” Mic answered back. Damn Berto and his quirky humor. Just one more thing needed addressing when he returned home. Nursery rhymes? Really?
OrchidKoala stifled a giggle, and then jolted, realizing her error. Her face turned pale, eyes once again saucer-sized.
Now it was Mic’s turn to find amusement, “At ease, young lady. How long for the cipher and transmission, please?”
“Uhm, confirming forty-one seconds,” she answered back.
“Understood. You have a name, Paladin?” Mic attempted to break the ice, he needed to get the young woman relaxed and with the program. Her discomfort was a huge obstacle and that wasn’t something he wished to contend with, especially with things as they already were.
“S-Shani Harcourte: Paladin Academy Graduate: First Class. Top Honors and Commendation for Innovation,” she responded professionally, and with a little bit of pride.
“Well then, Ms. Harcourte, How did you get the dubious honor of being on the receiving end of this conversation? Where is my normal contact?” Mic asked, already knowing the answer.
“Uhh…sir? I’m not sure what you mean. This is my assignment; I’m your new contact. I was recommended by Paladin CrimsonOwl himself,” she replied, her nervousness obviously jumping into high gear.
“Relax, I’m not firing you. I need you to keep a steady head and ready at a moment’s notice if I need you,” Mic explained. “How is that message coming? Do you have confirmation yet?”
“Confirmation…denied? It says I don’t have the clearance to submit your message and file through the channel and priority you need,” the young Paladin almost cried. “Let me get my supervisor, maybe she can…”
“Negative. You will do just fine. Open a channel to Admin., try to raise Paladin AzureFox, his direct line is Optimal nine-four-two,” Mic ordered. He was getting hot under the collar, but not at the young Paladin. His security and priority should have given whoever he was assigned the proper authorization and rank to perform their duties as and when he needed. Once again, he was forced to start pulling strings he wanted to leave alone. He’d been too long on the communications system, which was something he hated to use in the first place.
Shani proved very capable in connecting Mic with the administrative offices and the head of personnel, Remy Lien, the Paladin AzureFox. His holographic screen split into two, showing both Shani and a handsome man in a crisp dress uniform, an eye patch over his left eye.
“Mic, damn! It’s good to see you again. I haven’t seen or talked to you since the big fight earlier this year,” AzureFox exclaimed excitedly when he saw Mic.
“Sir, I’m closing my end of the channel, now,” Shani reported, but was immediately halted by Mic.
“Negative. You are to stay online for this. Better than finding out later what’s going to transpire,” Mic commanded. He noticed the look of abject fear in her face when he spoke to her. Was he that much of an ogre in the corps?
“Mic,” Remy asked curiously, “What’s going on? Why are you scaring my communications officers again?” It was clear he was under the impression Mic was having a bit of uncharacteristic fun at the expense of the young lady in the conversation.
“Look, this is pretty serious, Remy. Someone assigned me an academy graduate with no clearances, no experience, and no rank. I can’t have that, not with what I have going on right now. I want this girl promoted immediately.”
Both faces and the response was identical, Remy and Shani both saying the same thing at the same time, “What?!?”
Mic clarified,”I absolutely need a capable officer with some rank and security authorization to handle my communications needs. She’s not high enough in the echelon to obtain what she needs to be effective for me.”
AzureFox piped in, “No problem. She’s replaced. I’ll take care…”
“No. I want her, nobody else. She’s already been brought into the loop, and if she’s in, then I need her up to snuff and ready to go at a moment’s notice. She doesn’t need a post in any sort of command position, but I need her working with what she needs, and with the proper authorizations,” Mic made it clear he was not requesting with his tone.
Remy Lien caught the tone and seriousness in Mic’s manner, “Okay, I can do that right now. It’ll need a command endorsement from you.”
Mic’s fingers flew over the solid-light keypad at his wrist, commenting, “Sending my authorization code now.”
“Received and input. Now what do you want done, Mic?” AzureFox inquired.
“First, I want her placed in my command, I want her as a part of my staff, assigning her a lateral transfer should suffice. Secondly, I want her moved up the ranks, three positions. I know I have open slots in the structure for that. Third, I want her security protocols increased for gold-level access. Her encryptions and codes updated appropriately, to include access for communications with the Wayfarer, Blacktalon and related systems. I need this all effective immediately.”
“Damn, Mic. Are you sure about this? She’s awfully green,” AzureFox asked with no small amount of concern in his voice.
This time, Shani chimed in the tremor in her voice betraying her excitement, “Sir, my primary study was communications, ciphers, and protocols. Part of the new paladin gauntlets new design, capabilities, and hardware was drafted by me at Paladin CrimsonRhino’s request.”
“Young lady,” Paladin AzureFox replied, more than slightly miffed, “it doesn’t matter about your involvement with your studies, what worries me is the responsibility you are being given. Rarely has this ever been done for a new academy graduate. Know your place.”
Mic rejoined calmly, “She does know her place, Remy. She needs to be my ears and voice in Mythidria when the time comes and without proper authorization, she’ll be set aside and that will put people in danger. I want you to do this for me, my friend. I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important.” This was true. His current mission demanded the highest of priorities over almost everything Mic had done in the past. He didn’t know why, he wasn’t privy to that information, thanks to Mage Locke. After time, he felt confident that other than being Callie’s personal guardian angel, the truth of this operation would be made clear to him.
AzureFox sat in silence for a moment, looking at the screen at Mic and then Shani, and then set to work as he spoke, “I have her file here, making changes and adding your specifications now. Confirmation is coming through,“ he paused watching off-screen for a few moments, “now. She’s your new communications officer. When shall I have her transfer to the Wayfarer, Mic?”
“I don’t want her on the Wayfarer just yet. I need here there in the command center. She still has responsibilities to the rest of the Corps, but all of my business I want to go through her, and her alone,” Mic directed.
AzureFox responded, somewhat unsettled, “I see. Are there any other pressing matters that need attending to?”
Mic shook his head, “No, but I’m curious as to when you’re getting the replacement. It’s been over four months and you still have the patch.”
“I’m not getting it replaced. I think it gives me something of a ‘swashbuckler’ look, don’t you think?” AzureFox joked, showing his profile and modeling himself comically.
“You do what you want. Resort to piracy, and I’m coming after you, Remy,” Mic chided, grinning.
“I see. Well the high seas won’t have anything to worry about, my friend,” AzureFox chuckled, “Anyway; I have things to do over here. If you need me, Mic, just give me a call. Congratulations, young lady. AzureFox – Out,” was the last thing said before the administrator closed his end of the channel.
Shani Harcourte was about to speak when Mic immediately cut her off, “Are we still on the secure channel?”
Perplexed, she answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Listen, you’re now in a very sensitive position. This is what I want from you. As soon as your rotation ends, I want you to change the rank on your uniform. After that, I want all of your possessions moved to Blacktalon Manor. I have my troops billeted there. Don’t advise anyone why you have moved from the Corps barracks. I also have supplies and a stipend set aside for my fighters. I want your gear updated as soon as you get settled in. Get to CrimsonRhino and tell him to help you get set up at the Manor. If at any time you feel you are in any sort of trouble, he’ll have you keyed in to the M.E.T. platform at Blacktalon. I’m not trying to scare you, but this is extremely important. Do you understand?” Mic explicated.
“As you command, sir,” Shani replied, her face having gone from flushed with excitement to a deathly pale with fear, “May I ask why, sir?”
“As soon as I return to Mythidria, I’ll brief everyone. For now, I need you to put your trust in me, just as I’ve placed my trust in you,” was Mic’s response.
“U-understood, sir. I’ve also taken the liberty of resending your initial communiqué to Mage Locke’s personal channel,” Shani reported.
“Very good. Do as I’ve instructed, and things will be fine, but for now, be careful,” Mic stated, trying not to give any signs of concern for the newly-promoted Paladin’s well-being.
“Will do, sir. Anything else?” she asked.
“No. Just be safe and I’ll smooth everything out when I return. TigerObsidian – Out,” he said as he closed the channel. The screen winked out as he pressed a couple of holographic keys on his bracer, and then deactivated the energy-based control interface.
He was probably being overly dramatic about OrchidKoala, and about getting her promoted, but he had his reasons. He did need her advanced in order to carry out her duties. What kind of fool would place a fresh-out-of-the academy neophyte in a position like that? And stick her in that position without any sort of support measures to back her up? Something didn’t sit squarely with Mic about that. Not to mention with the state of affairs being what they are, it seemed like too much of something more clandestine than a simple mistake.
It didn’t help matters either that this damned mission he was on was so secretive, that even he knew only to protect Calliope Montgomery at all costs. Tonight proved that Mic’s presence was necessary and that there was something more to this assignment than met the eye. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, based on the singular fact that Callie had been attacked by undead - more specifically targeted. Those undead had been waiting for her, not just stumbling upon a random victim. That meant that the mission had been compromised and his focus now needed to shift on Callie.
“Damn,” he thought aloud. Realizing he had a lot of other priorities to shift, plus make an appearance at the hotel in the morning to go through the motions of being Dominic McKnight for the whole day and well into the evening. Careful maneuvering of business interests on his end with his management at the periodical house where he kept his cover brought Callie and her business into their sights. It was sheer dumb luck that they liked her work so much they wanted and exclusivity deal with her photography and image editing business.
Mic Looked around the rooftop surroundings, satisfied that he was still alone and unobserved. He put a powerful leg on the raised ledge and leapt out high over the street. Just as his ascent slowed he turned his focus inward, opening up the door to the power within him. Glossy black and white fur grew from his skin, his face shifting to his feline persona, and kept changing. His body kept growing, shifting from his powerhouse physique to a lankier, sinewy form. Gigantic wings sprung from his shoulders, caught the wind and lifted him up higher and into the obscuring clouds above.
Elsewhere…
Spectral fingers clenched and released over and over again as the ghostly figure of Acheron silently paced inside his personal quarters. His helmeted appearance kept a rapt gaze on the floor in front of him, his ghostly mind deep in thought. He’d learned quickly after his confrontation with Locke and his accursed forces to keep steady concentration, his tormented mind at a semblance of balance, and he could maintain his form and a small measure of his powers. He much preferred to blast those cretins in the Protectorate to dust, to burn and tear and…
No. Steady. It took him days the last time he lost his temper and he wasn’t about to do that again. Mastering his ability to keep calm was easy, keeping it was another thing entirely, and he admitted to himself long ago, equilibrium and patience were not his strong points. Soon, though. He’ll find a way to get what was his without having to think constantly on it.
He floated to the window and looked out into his kingdom, the Nethersphere. Monsters of all descriptions pooled and eddied like water below on the rocky soil, some hopping into the rancid moat surrounding the enormous keep once maintained by the duplicitous Shirahala - the Necromancer Queen.
How she had gained access to his home he couldn’t fathom. His sorcerous protocols to keep any but his immediate followers and he were as strong as ever. Even with his armor, she should not have been able to gain any sort of ingress to his private sanctum. At least she hadn’t penetrated into the upper floors of the castle, into his personal quarters and cache. It was no great effort to take her treasure over and combine it with his own, and had been done so in short order. The damned chamber had been blasted open for whatever reason, and much of the weapons and tools within were mostly worthless pieces of junk, but the rest was quickly cleaned and taken into the upper levels to be sorted with his own personal items of plunder.
The rest he had melted down, pressed into coins, the precious gems collected and left in different containers throughout the cache which took the entire level just below his private rooms. The weapons she’d collected were also sorted and mounted in the armory adjoining the bedchamber for easy and quick access after he got his body back.
He looked out to the distant mountains, settled below a sickly green sky, and watched immense flocks of monstrous beasts soar in patches of sky, the shape of their flights undulating almost like living things in the olive atmosphere. Never once did any of the milling, wandering, or flying creatures would come close to Acheron’s stronghold. After the return of their master, and the terrible wrath wrought by Shirahala and her paramour, all of the primitive beasts now kept a larger no-approach zone out of self-preservation.
Acheron turned back, silently gliding to an overstuffed chair next to the fire he had his servants light for him. Why he bothered was beyond him, he couldn’t feel the heat or enjoy the embrace of light from the flames, or how calm a good fire used to make him feel. He couldn’t feel the velvet of the chair, or the cool hard wood which framed and supported the antique. If it weren’t for his armor, he’d be unable to touch anything or use any of his personal items at all.
Of late, he’d considered possessing any of his servants, just to have a body again, and his attempts to do so met with dismal failure. His ghostly form, combined with his armor, were too powerful for anyone not attuned to such energy would explode within seconds of joining all of the segments together. Acheron would have continued until he found one compatible, but wasn’t stupid enough to waste his entire staff, worthless as they were to begin with. Even the prisoners Shirahala had taken before his resurrection were of no use, so he had them all executed after his final effort to obtain a body.
Now, trapped as little more than a wisp of smoke, barely able to hold his cohesiveness, and forced to stay his hand from his rightful vengeance was becoming a situation he found untenable. Acheron could hold this form forever if he had to, damn the Protectorate, and when he had the last relic in his possession, he had an idea of what he was going to do, and that brought a huge, distended smile to his hidden face, that feeling adding definition to his transparent presence.
“How the mighty have fallen,” a voice came from his left and from behind. Acheron floated into a standing position to confront the stranger. How could anybody have gotten in without him noticing?!?
“You! Identify yourself!” he bellowed in reply, summoning as much of his eldritch powers he could. Even as a disembodied spirit, his powers were still formidable, as long as he could maintain his focus.
Before him was another wisp of smoke, not unlike his own appearance, with exception this ghost had no form. The cloud simply hovered and billowed like a small cyclone, spinning slowly as if in slow motion, small bolts of lightning erupting within its conical form. The top of the miniature tornado wafted a rudimentary face, appearing as if to form a mocking smile at Acheron.
“You will know who I am in time, Acheron. For now, this is all you get,” it taunted derisively.
“You mind your insolence, ghost! You are lucky I don’t blast you to vapor right here and now,” Acheron sneered back.
The tiny storm thundered out a loud laugh, arcs of lightning spilling out and lancing into nearby furniture and leaving little scorch marks.
“You shall not mock me in my own home, spirit, else I will make you pay for your impudence!” Acheron roared, his consistency fading with his anger. No matter, he had enough strength for this apparition!
“Why, Lord Acheron, perhaps you are right. I have come to teach, not to fight. Perhaps we can start anew and…” the newcomer began, but was interrupted by an increasingly angry Acheron.
“You have nothing to teach me, phantom. Leave and never return!”
The cloudy visage seemed to nod, released a breezy sigh, and replied, “Indeed, perhaps I gave you more credit than I should have. Superior intellect, feh.”
“You dare…” Acheron howled but was interrupted just as rudely as he had moments before.
“SILENCE! You speak of insolence, indignity, and power? You pout and whine like some prattling fool, strut about like a king when you are nothing more than a mewling, spoiled brat! You are beyond hope at this stage, it’s time you learned a very valuable lesson, you simpering ass!” the little storm erupted, growing in strength and size, its voice becoming a booming, thunderous report.
The whirling sentient vortex engulfed the spectral Acheron like the wind picking up a leaf, howling at the battle sorcerer with fury, “For ages you terrorized millions with just your reputation. While you lived, you were nothing more than an overpowered, murderous bully with delusions of grandeur.
“You are about to learn about what power really means, and you continue until that lesson has taken hold in your weak, pathetic mind. You shall keep your form, but not have the power to affect that around you. The paths through space and time are open, and you will take them or be forever lost in your own melancholy.
“Also, know this: events have been set into motion which will grant you the one thing you desire most in this existence. How you choose to be afterwards is up to you. The only thing I will allow you to know is one path will lead to the immediate destruction of who you are, the other – your total elimination.
“Now come, see what you are meant to see, perhaps your experience will open more than just your eyes,” the now-enormous spectral storm front boomed at Acheron before they both vanished completely, leaving Acheron’s chambers a wind-blown mess, and leaving no other trace but a slight breeze which also dissipated to nothing before alarmed guards and necromancer toadies burst into the empty chambers.
***
He had been travelling for weeks now, his trek so convoluted to avoid populated areas and people. It was easy at first, those who knew and believed the legends of his wisdom would kneel in humility in his presence, or others would close shutters and curtains out of fear and respect. The simple folk of the mountain villages held such reverence that they even sent messengers to the other towns and hamlets to give word that the fur-covered sage had come from the mountain and walks amongst them in grim determination. As he passed through, he kept his eyes on his path, speaking very little, wishing to not garner any more attention than he already had. Occasionally accepting simple offerings of food and drink, he kept on his mission.
Later, as he continued, the expanses of China, Mongolia, and Russia all seemed to try and prevent him from reaching his destination, yet failed to keep the enormous voyager from his goal. Winds, rain, and then snow and ice storms all hammered away at him with each step he took to the northeast. Headway was made once he was able to reach areas untouched by man. The earth itself embraced his presence in these areas, some areas hidden from prying human eyes provided food and shelter for the rare stop to rest and sleep. Animals of all sorts approached, from rodents to the large predators all sat in perfect harmony to watch over the wise one resting in their presence. He thanked the woodland beasts for their support each time before continuing on with his journey.
Once reaching the more heavily built-up populated areas, he went underground. No longer able to simply see where it was he needed to go, he used his prodigious control over earth and its resources to expand his senses and remain on his course. Using his magical talents as such was something that was more of a nuisance and demanded a degree of focus, but was equalized by not having to trek miles out of his way to avoid people of the 21st century. Now going in a more straight line and avoiding or creating any geophysical pitfalls, his journey and his pace picked up considerably.
Eventually, he came to the northeast corner of Russia and the Bering Strait, looking out over the ocean from a secluded vantage point and admired the beauty the rising sun gave him once again after emerging from the rocky depths of his mystical path. The ocean glittered with the red and orange, reflecting the almost limitless vista of the sky above. He took a couple of minutes to admire the beauty of it all, and then continued on.
He walked towards a shallower area of the coastline from his higher vantage point and gestured out towards the water. A small island gently rose from the cold ocean, which he stepped on and started it moving on its own. His path carried him south of the Diomede Islands to avoid detection, and only stopped once to encase himself in stone and earth to drop below the water as a large ship passed less than a mile away, heading south. He resumed his trail once more in the open air, finally reaching the other side and so close to his destination.
It was coming to the moment that he dreaded and longed for these past weeks. He meant this moment to never come to necessity, but now after so many millennia the measures for this singular purpose he had so painstakingly strove to conceal, was now the one thing he had to ensure a fighting chance for the Earth. This line of thought was what kept his focus for the past long weeks.
And now, here he was, deep in the wilds of Alaska, far from any prying eyes inside another cavern, much like his home. The traps and decoys he’d set so long ago easily bypassed and left aside, returned to the constituent stone and earth from which they had been originally constructed. He sat his belongings down, stepped towards a smooth wall and waved his hand in a circular pattern in front of the barrier, melting away the rock as if passing a blowtorch over thin ice. He stood in the darkness, unmoving and apprehensive at what lie on the other side. He prayed that what he had sequestered there was long destroyed but knew better than that.
He waved his hand once more; spoke a minor incantation causing dozens of torches mounted into the earthen walls of the antechamber to flare and burn brightly, finally exposing in their light what it was the solitary traveler seemed to fear.
The device was large, easily taking up the entire far wall of the underground room. At its highest, it stood over fifteen feet, barely below the cavities ceiling, and stretched ten feet across at the top of the immense framework. At its base it spanned a full thirty feet across at the rear edge of a granite platform. The gigantic frame was merely an inch thick and sat securely against the rock wall. The platform itself was lined with carved steps around its perimeter save for a raised dais set off to the right, a quarter of the stairs distance from the right wall. The entire contrivance was covered in dust from top to bottom that was easily whisked away with a slight thought from the room’s sole occupant.
He approached the dais and tapped its surface. The top slid forward creakily and then up to the podium’s edge. Beneath, a control panel raised flush to the top of the podium and lit up. Ancient controls activated dimly, a single red light flashing at the upper left corner, displaying some sort of error. Once more he touched the top of the pedestal, this time on the flashing light, activating the device’s screen settled in front of him.
“Warning, power supply at less than five percent - Please connect power source for M.E.T. activation,” came a female voice from the machine. He knew this was going to happen and had planned accordingly.
He stepped around the control console and opened a side panel to a rectangular container next to the base. He pulled out a length of thick wire and pulled out several yards. He opened the top of the smaller box and pressed a series of switches set within. It, too, came to life, but dimly, also needing power for proper activation. The silent figure nodded and took the other end of the wire and attached it to an outlet on the side of the podium. Taking the head of the wire, he checked it for damage, taking careful measure with the end, topped with a separate device of its own. If what he remembered was true, this little piece of equipment could take energy from any source from simple motion to artificially generated power and would get this
contraption running properly.
“Technology,” he thought derisively. He hated it, and could live comfortably without it, but in this case, was a truly necessary evil.
As he had so many times in the recent past, he extended his senses outward, focusing mostly downwards. As recollection would serve…yes! There it was. An underground stream flowed swiftly beneath his feet. This was the only reason he placed the device here. He remembered the stream, and when the need had arisen, he had a steadily flowing power source at his disposal for just this instance.
He hung the head of the wire from his fingers and slid it towards the floor. The granite platform flowed open like water spinning from a drain, allowing the wire to fall deeper into the floor, far below the surface.
The smaller device lit up within moments, whirring to mechanical life. It beeped three times in succession three times each, and then hummed steadily as it took the energy from the underground stream and fed it into the larger device. The stranger closed the deep hole he’d made around the wire to seal it to keep water from erupting to the surface. He stood and looked at the main control interface set in the top of the dais.
All of the panel’s controls lit up almost immediately, flaring weakly twice before coming to full life, “Power source found - Charging core - Please allow one standard rotation before using M.E.T.” the same voice relayed to him.
One day. It would take one more day to cross over and make them all aware of what was coming. He hoped they had already prepared, but he knew that the chances of that were slim. He warned them so long ago what going to happen, but they all thought him wrong. No, that’s not entirely correct.
There was one there, the young mage. He knew that one took him seriously. That was the one he needed to find once he got there.
What was his name again? Ah yes.
Locke.
Chapter 2
As the sun rose, Mic arrived early to Callie’s offices. He’d notified the rest of his party that he would go on ahead, wanting to get to know the layout of Callie’s business, operations, mainly to just get a basic impression for the enterprise. After much questioning, hemming – and – hawing, the magazine’s marketing and sales people relented and gave Mic the okay to get a feel for the company. The past few months events had brought so much falsifying of things, it kept a proverbial worm at the base of Mic’s mind, adding unease to every time he interacted with people. The mission, and main purpose he was on Earth to begin with was one thing, and it used to be easy to just simply gather facts, a couple of interviews here and there and turn in his work.
Now, though, he’d been brought into the forefront, and was being paraded around like a damned show pony for the magazine to display like some trophy. It was his own fault, when the Calliope Montgomery mission was dropped in his lap, it was necessary to get as close as possible to her, learn as much as he could, and do it as surreptitiously as possible. Instead of using his powers and the technology at hand, why not explore and check things out with boots on the ground? It seemed more natural to do, and didn’t appear like a waste of resources. The few times he’d “passed by” over the past weeks gave him a good layout of the exterior, and his scanners gave him the layout inside, but without actually being there left out details which could prove problematic in the future. The old adage about ‘An ounce of prevention’ was Mic’s philosophy, and it was working just as he’d planned. Slow going, to be sure, but it was more preferable than bluntly sneaking in and exploring as he could have done.
To top things off, instead of fulfilling what he wanted to do, which was to run a few mission and let loose just a little: he focused on his alter ego’s meeting today. His resources were used to their fullest to investigate the business Callie was in, right into financial records, awards and accolades, and the prestige she and her company was garnering in the industry.
Her business life started during her college years, at first studying in business and management, with a minor in journalism. She hit, what appeared to be a streak of luck after a quick and hard hitting series of tragedies, starting with the death of her parents, then her family home, and then the death of her brother during his second tour in the Middle East. Soon after she buried her brother, she used the inheritance she’d gained by starting up her own photo gun-for-hire business while earning her degree and turned into a strong player in the journalism arena.
Mic did a little checking from that, feeling that it was all too neat and tidy. He spent a while checking out her activities, but dredged up only a couple of speeding and parking tickets. She was as clean as they could come. He was confident that she was on the up-and-up, and left her personal past alone.
He looked up the business dealings of Silver Fox Media, digging deeply to see if there was anything there that seemed out of place. Nothing was out of place what so ever. Tax records were concise, contracts on the up-and-up, and the clientele had nothing but praise for Silver Fox. That still didn’t sit well with Mic. Most companies had something, anything, in the negative, even a little complaint about the most inane detail but there literally existed none at all.
That grated on Mic. Nobody was that squeaky clean. He pondered for moment. Based on his own personal history and the secrets he carried all his life, that maybe he shouldn’t judge too quickly. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a wary eye open for the duration. The moment he did find out what it was that irritated him, he would be ready to pounce.
After hours of probing, he hit the shower, changed, and then took a cab to the coffee shop where Callie had been attacked. Based on the surveillance and analysis he’d been conducting, she obviously spent a great deal of time here. Being a short distance from her offices/apartment made it the obvious choice for repeated visits. He doubted, though, that she had ventured there today after the incident last night. He made himself a mental note to not pry when he arrived, lest he wished to blow his cover.
Mic ordered three white chocolate mochas, the one for himself with a couple of extra shots of espresso, all topped with whipped cream. He didn’t need the jolt of caffeine, but for appearances sake he figured something as mundane as being selective about coffee added to his false persona. After paying the young man at the counter, Mic headed for Silver Fox Media for his meeting.
Less than a ten minute walk brought him to the front door of Silver Fox. He introduced himself to the young gentleman at the front desk and was ushered inside briskly but more politely than he was used to. The overly flamboyant employee practically clung to Mic as he sashayed with him to the conference room, fawning and flirting with practically every step. Mic merely continued with pleasantries as he was led to the meeting room, found his seat and declined any further assistance. The overly-courteous attendant left his personal business card next to the cardboard drink carrier and winked at Mic from over his shoulder before walking out. Mic looked at the card, flipped it over, seeing the telephone number printed on the back.
Now alone, Mic felt comfortable enough to laugh a little.
Callie entered the conference room from a door located at the far end kitty-cornered from the one he’d entered. She showed no sign of any injuries from the night before, both a good and a bad sign. She would have obviously noticed a lack of pain or the awful wounds she’d been dealt. Then again, he did take extra care with the memory modification he’d worked on her. He readied a few plans of action if she said anything as he stood and smiled.
Callie looked very business like, her hair coiffed up neatly in a tight bun, twin streamers of hair dangling in loopy curls on either side of her face. Her suit, although severe, hugged her curves splendidly, her red shirt a sharp contrast to the black jacket and knee-length skirt. She approached Mic with a fluid grace, a practiced gait Mic never expected for one so young. She moved smoothly, silently, giving the image of a sleek hunter boldly approaching prey before pouncing at the last second.
Her eyes lit up politely as she approached and cordially offered, “Dominic McKnight? It’s so good to meet…”
Next moment, and the loud utterance of the word, “Shit” burst forth from Callie’s lips, she was picking herself up off the floor. Mic set the drinks aside, and helped her to her feet. “What was that all about,” he thought fighting the urge to burst into laughter.
“I’m sorry. I don’t normally wear this crap. It’s the legal suits that insisted I wear this get-up for you guys. I hate suits, I hate heels. I never could walk in the frigging things,” Callie snarled at Mic, looked at him once, and then softened.
“Uh, yeah. I guess it was some sick form of karma to make an ass of myself, I suppose,” she explained.
“It’s fine,” Mic replied, amusement mixed with sympathy locked into his features, “it happens to the best of us.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. Are those for me?” she asked, nodding her head to the coffees on the table.
“I figured I would bring them, coffee on me, as an opening gesture of goodwill. I hope you like white choc…” he began before being interrupted by a human whirlwind.
Five feet-five inches of female hurricane burst into the room, ranting about lenses, software, a faulty camera, stuck up wenches in the studio, somebody named “Freddy”, a rapid-fire tale about how she jammed her thumb, her underwear “creeping into the great unknown” (unceremoniously reaching behind and fixing the afflicting material), and oh boy is that my favorite coffee? Coffee coffee coffee! She bee-lined to the carrier, lifted each one, popped the lids and then took the one Mic had purchased for himself and downed half of it before taking another breath.
“So who’s this, Cee?” the newcomer asked and licking off her whipped cream mustache, settling down long enough for Mic to finally get a good look at her.
Her face was extremely lovely, as was the rest of her. Her eyes, lined with heavy eyeliner, were a deep shade of gray and wide, like a doe’s. Her slightly round face made her look younger than she had to have been, Mic guessed. Her purple-streaked black tresses hung from twin pigtails that bounced almost with a life of their own. Beneath her pert little nose, rounded lips covered in black lipstick pursed and relaxed several times. The rest of her makeup made the girl appear pallid, even though she looked rather healthy. Her blue and black plaid miniskirt, skin tight black t-shirt with the phrase, “Photographers do it with their lens caps off” emblazoned across her bosom showed off her eye-catching figure. Knee-length leather platform boots gave an additional three inches to her stature.
“This is Dominic McKnight, he’s one of the guys here for the new contract,” Callie enlightened.
“You’re cute,” the eye-catching coffee thief blurted out, continuing, “Hey. I thought you said these guys were all a bunch of fat nerd-boys that live in their mom’s basement, and looked at internet porn all day. He doesn’t look like that at all. You don’t look at internet porn do ya?”
Callie finally interrupted the black and purple tressed cutie by firmly wrapping her arm around behind the brunette’s head and putting her hand over her mouth. Obviously there had been a conversation about the delegation from Mic’s magazine which made Callie turn a very embarrassed shade of red. The black and blue-clad whirlwind kept talking through Callie’s muffling hand until she received an impolite, but playful tap to the forehead.
“Mic, this pain in the ass is Dani Alexandrova. She’s my best friend and room mate, and is pretty much my second in command around here. She’s the best in the business, regardless if she has the manners of a rabid pit bull,” Callie explained civilly for the most part, then leaned in to good-naturedly chide the muzzled Dani, “especially after we agreed to not revisit the nerd-boy conversation again.”
Dani’s eyes got wide with the realization she’d erred. She offered a muffled agreement so Callie would release her mouth. Once the hand slipped from her lips, she started in again.
“Yeah, but his gut doesn’t hang over his winky, and damn he’s hot,” She blurted out and ran to the far side of the table, Callie attempting to chase her, but stumbled in her heels again with a very loud, “Dammit!’
Dani looked at Mic giggling and keeping her distance from a now shoeless Callie, “I love to do that to her when she wears heels. She’s such a klutz.”
The two women played cat-and-mouse for a few more seconds before the door Mic had entered through flew open, a team of security personnel bursting in ready for action, followed by the front desk attendant. The entire group surveyed the room, observed the two young women smiling broadly and breathing heavily from running all over the conference room and visibly relaxed, even though many eyes were on Mic. Mic looked to the surly team of guards, then to the girls and then back again only to offer an amused, harmless-looking shrug.
“Uhh, guys? It’s okay, we were just goofing off. Go ahead and chill. We’re fine.” Callie stated somewhat sheepishly.
“But Ms. Montgomery, it sounded like you were in trouble,” the effeminate desk attendant reported, “I could have sworn someone was fighting in here.”
Dani piped up, “Oh, come on, Dave, we all know you were just looking to score with the big guy here.” She looked at Mic once more with a sly grin plastered to her lips, “Hell, I might even try him for a test drive.”
Callie reached out and slapped Dani on the back of her shoulder and shot Dani a disapproving look. Dani feigned offense, grabbed the wrong shoulder and, over-dramatically hollered, “OW! I was just kidding!”
“Now everyone not involved with the meeting may go ahead and carry on with their business – NOT you, Dani!” Callie commanded, sending everybody away, but snagging Dani by the ear, keeping her from leaving as well.
“You’re staying right here, you’re part of this meeting, too,” Callie ordered.
Dani shuffled in closely to Callie, whispering conspiratorially into the redhead’s ear as the rest of Mic’s delegation entered the meeting room with slightly confused looks on their faces, security personnel still filing out, “Then I get to sit next to Mic. These guys look like complete geeks!”
Callie took a look at the rest of the contingent from Mic’s magazine and nodded with a resigned sigh. Each of the salesmen and even the Managing Editor looked as though they all existed for comic books, World of Warcraft, and hadn’t seen sunlight in months. They all wore nice suits and carried fine briefcases, but all of them had stickers and/or patches prominently affixed to their cases bearing superheroes, game characters, and other assorted fantasy or science fiction emblems.
Callie nodded, and whispered back, “Fine.” She then put on her best face to greet the newcomers. After acknowledgments were exchanged, Callie set to her presentation, occasionally stealing a glance at Dani, who never took her eyes off of Mic, head propped dreamily in her hands. Oh yeah, this was going to be a long meeting, Callie thought as the lights dimmed for the video portion of her lecture.
Elsewhere north and west…
An enormous sigh echoed in the chamber, just audible over the steady whine of the active machinery. As the gigantic device recharged itself, the lone wanderer kept busy with events at hand. His hands busied themselves repairing the raiments he wore and carried. If he were to present himself to the Mage Council and Locke once again, he had to make himself moderately presentable. It didn’t really matter, and he honestly didn’t care what others thought of his appearance, but for decorum’s sake, he felt it prudent. As far as he knew, this Locke was like the other mages of the Council (as he remembered those he was familiar with so long ago) and had kept the useless pomp and circumstance active.
He stopped for a moment, took a drink of water from a skin he’d hung on the wall over his left shoulder, put the skin back and continued on with his work. Disgust began to worm its way into his thoughts. If it weren’t so dire, he would just let Mythidria fall and do what he could to protect the wildlife surrounding his mountain home. It would be difficult, never having moved such a large mass before, but it could be done with some effort.
His particular peak he’d made himself and that was just a small one, and then he’d only changed to top of the mountain and added extra spaces in his cave-side home. He recalled the work had left him exhausted, but not too terribly so. It was also after he had just…what ever the term was which would apply to his gaining the ability to manipulate solid matter however he saw fit. Tapping into the geothermal energy sources deep beneath the Earth would be just as easy to do as it was for the energy siphon now gathering power for the ancient doorway a few short yards away. But that was so long ago, who knows how time had affected his powers. Would it be as if no time had passed, like the energy siphon?
One hole patched in his tunic, on to the next. He thought that once he made it to Mythidria, hoped rather, that he wouldn’t be patching more holes and was going to make it early enough to be proactive to prevent any holes in the events to come.
The far side of 82 G. Eridani b…
Space erupted in a bright splash of water-like light. From within the explosion, a craft of colossal proportions emerged, swiftly decelerated to a slow drift, and eventually stopped in a matter of a few impossible seconds. Behind the starship, the portal bridging hyperspace with regular space-time collapsed as a rock tossed into a body of water only played in reverse. The silence of space in the darkness of the aquamarine-hued planet masked the activity within the space craft. The alien crew could be observed carrying out assigned tasks through the ports that pockmarked the outer hull.
Amidships, the heavily shielded bridge was alight with activity. Inside the diamond-shaped center, crew worked at their stations, all intent on their duties while atop a short dais towards the rear of the bridge the ships commander assessed the readouts on the screens embedded on the ends of the armrests of his post. Nominal readings across the board, the ship itself fed and happy, the crew healthy and active, and a quick break from duty for a short favor for the Mythidrian government. Usually, captain and crew chafed at such minor trivialities, but in this case, the short stop took them only a small distance out of their way from their assigned exploration route.
“Captain K’kkr’K, we have reached the space-time co-ordinates from the dispatch, sir,” the helmsman announced, turning his helmeted head 180 degrees to face his commanding officer.
“Very good, Ssluu, all thrusters at station-keeping. I believe our Mythidrian allies will be arriving momentarily,” the captain replied, surveying the bridge. His sense of pride showed. His ship, his crew, the best and brightest of the Concordance, performed well above any and all expectations even in the most mundane of tasks.
“Captain, sensors are picking up another ship entering our vicinity, its hyperspace gate is opening at 212 mark 331,” the officer, a man-sized mantisiid, from the post directly behind the captain spoke, “It will be arriving in approximately two minutes and twenty-four seconds.”
“Helm manoeuver the ship approximately 400 heks starboard and fifty degrees downward, let’s give them a little room,” the captain commanded coolly. Regardless of how routine the issue at hand was, caution for his people always took front seat and saw no point in remaining too rigid.
Space erupted in a soundless explosion of light and color, energy splashing out in all directions as if space was a gigantic pond beneath the surface and a stone had plunged through. Streamers of energy and bubbles of light flowed back into the opening before it silently collapsed shut, the Mythidrian ship slowly coasted to a complete stop above and behind the Concordance vessel. Small fusion generators fired the docking jets to put the sleek arrowhead/wedge-shaped craft alongside the other, much larger ship.
The captain sat watching the screen as the Mythidrian ship pulled up next to his and sat in silence. His bridge crew look at each other, the main view screen, the captain, then back to the screen, confused.
“Sir, I am detecting no communications from the Mythidrian ship. In fact, I’m not receiving any kind of signals whatsoever,” the communications officer professionally declared from her post starboard to the insectoid officer’s station.
“Have you sent a standard hail, Lieutenant?” the captain asked, rubbing the tentacles at his chin with concern.
“Yes sir, no response. Wait, I am getting a signal, now, from a hand-held unit. It’s somewhat weak but I can put it through, sir – audio only,” she answered, tapping a few controls on the panel high and to her left.
“Put it through,” replied the captain.
“…ria courier vessel, Cheetah to Concordance vessel. Captain Aurhiote here. Please forgive our communications issue. We were struck by a stray ferrous asteroid in hyperspace. Out communications array was smashed. We’re glad you could make it on such short notice,” came the voice of a male human over the system’s speakers.
Captain K’kkr’K had met the Mythidrian captain on a number of occasions. Aurhiote struck him as a forthright, honorable human. He’d been involved in a number of rescue missions in the past and had earned a reputation for himself and his crew, even though he captained a smaller frigate, he used the capabilities of his ship and his crew far above and beyond their measure with a nearly perfect success rate. Aurhiote was the type of leader beings followed because they wanted to, the inspirational air of the Mythidrian captain was that strong.
“Captain Aurhiote, Captain K’kkr’K here. You have my apologies. Is there anything we can do to help affect repairs?” K’kkr’K asked, concerned for his counterpart, the tentacles at his chin twitching with apprehension.
“Negative Captain K’kkr’K.,” Aurhiote’s voice answered, “We have short-range capabilities with our back-up antennae, but we had to assign one of our Gauntlets and patch it into our comm. system as the impact blew out our communications station entirely. We have the situation stabilized, but our mission is a time-sensitive one. We are grateful the Concordance called you in to finish this off for us.”
“Of course, Captain Aurhiote, what is your mission and destination?” K’kkr’K asked.
“It’s a simple delivery. We have a cask that need to be taken to Admiral Jountin at Halcyon Base in the Doalaahr system. The contents need to be kept sealed in this container per the Admiral’s orders,” replied the voice over the intercom.
“Do you know what the contents are?” K’kkr’K rejoined.
“Negative, Captain K’kkr’K. Orders are to deliver to the Admiral for one of the terraforming projects in the Doalaahr system.”
K’kkr’K was familiar with the Doalaahr project. Halcyon orbited just outside of what was supposed to be the prime life-supporting area around the Doalaahr sun. The problem that existed was of a deadly ring of gas and debris left behind of what was the three inhabited planets after they’d been obliterated by a wayward comet. One planet managed to escape destruction, being on the far side of the system when its sister planets exploded, but the ring of debris and volatile gas field destroyed all life on the last planet.
The Concordance had spent years clearing out the system, locating survivors, and other relief efforts. While Doalaahr was a terrible tragedy with the loss of life in the billions, the Concordance vowed to make the system a habitable one again for the natives of the system, and to continue to do so until success had been reached, therefore was seen as a definite scientific opportunity in a number of disciplines that was quickly jumped upon.
Sensors scanned the nearby area of soundless void, between their location and that of the Mythidrian courier. The captain ordered manoeuvering jets to come alongside the much smaller ship and the process of docking was accomplished in minutes.
The alien ships crewmembers opened the docking ports within the umbilical but were met with nobody from the other ship. They looked at each other for a moment, curious as to the serious lack of protocol and continued on to the airlock within the courier.
The door opposite the short tunnel opened suddenly with a hissing noise when the crew had gotten over halfway through the docking umbilical. Again, no other crewmembers met the alien crew. A small gun-blue metal box sat on the floor within the airlock. Its dark surface shone with polish while the ornate fittings along the edges of the case gleamed with a golden sparkling hue.
The curious crew stood still, unsure what to do about the box. One of the team tapped on the control panel next to the door, hoping for some sort of a response. A friendly voice chimed on after a moment. The crew stood and waited patiently for the voice to reply with the speech translator activated.
“I’m sorry,” the voice responded within moments, genuinely apologetic, “we’ve been having problems with our comms and translators today. We had to wire the intercom with one of our portable scanners so we could get it working for now.”
“We understand,” replied the lead crewman, his once-building trepidation alleviated. “We were beginning to worry. We are curious as to what we are to do with this cask sitting on the floor and why none of your people met us when we had docked with you.”
“I’m sorry, gentle-beings,” the cordial female voice responded, “we were given instructions to hand the case off to you for delivery to Rear-Admiral Jountin at Halcyon Base before you headed out on your mission. We couldn’t M.E.T. it because of the sensitive materials inside it.
“Since both ships are on time-sensitive schedules we thought you would just grab the item and take off again. Our comms being as they are…I’m not surprised you didn’t get that part of the message,” the voice explained.
“We were just lucky that you were heading in the same direction and had to be sidetracked a few light-days off-course to meet us. Had our systems been working properly we wouldn’t have had to pass this off to you,” she finished.
Nodding, the non-human officer nodded its head, “I see. Then it is our pleasure to help out our friends in Mythidria. Should we pass along any sentiments to the Admiral?”
The voice took a moment before responding, “Negative. Records of the mission are to simply deliver the box as quickly as possible and to ensure that the seals around the lid are maintained.
“We think you are probably itching to get going so we shall take our leave, with your kind permission. We shall wait until you have undocked before we open our hypergate and leave,” came the voice without any prompting, this time sounding forced and somewhat rushed.
The crew leader sent one of the others to take the box. The midshipman hurried and took the case a scant second before the door closed again, almost closing on the crewmember. They all looked at the door with concern at such rudeness, and then hurried down the collapsible hallway. The last to board the alien vessel was the group leader. A quick spin on the heel and the tapping of keys on a lighted panel later, the docking umbilical was retracting. The leader watched the Mythidrian courier speed off into space via the porthole adjacent the airlock.
The crew stood and watched in curiosity as the ship banked, sped off to their portside and then opened a portal into hyperspace to disappear in a flash of light. They all stood for mere moments, unsure of any special instructions or of what they were meant to do with the case other than to deliver the thing to the Admiral.
The lead officer tapped a couple of keys on the intercom and spoke into it, “Captain? Ssp’k here. We have the Mythidrian cask and instructions to take it to Halcyon Base. By my estimate, we will lose no time if we adjust our course accordingly and enter a parking orbit above Halcyon at 0217 hours in three days.”
“Understood, Ss’pk. Go ahead and put the cask in the secure hold and in a stasis chamber, then resume your post here on the bridge,” the captain replied over the speaker from his post on the bridge.
Ss’pk turned to the gathered contingent, “Detail dismissed. Security Officer Glrmph, you will accompany me to deck seventeen with the case and we shall place it into secure storage.”
The largest of the team, bedecked in a red-shirted uniform, gingerly picked up the cask with one enormous hand, set it in his other and then nodded readiness to Ss’pk. The senior officer signaled his own readiness and then dismissed the rest of the squad before heading to one of the lifts and the below decks cargo bays.
The ship started underway once again, a slight deviation to her course to compensate for the brief detour and she was off for just a few minutes before the tremendous bio ship sputtered, her technological components going into failure. The ship lurched twice and then completely powered down. The hulking ship drifted off, powerless and dying. Inside her organic shell, violent mayhem and death. She secured her most important sections off as best she could as the last ergs of power stopped coursing through her systems. Her last act was a few seconds of a broken distress signal and a silent prayer help would come soon.
Back on Earth…
For something so mundane and routine, Mic was enjoying himself against his better judgement. Callie Montgomery was an able leader and was able to keep everyone’s attention with her knowledge, ability to answer questions on the fly, and her wit. He had imagined the day would be boring and stuffy, but quite the contrary.
After her initial presentation, she had a continental breakfast catered in for her guests, and the ever-present Dani, after which a cordial coffee and questions session in which she would answer any and all questions thrown at her, and was, surprisingly, assisted by her comrade-in-arms who showed a degree of intellect regardless of her appearance or demeanor.
The whole contingent then went on a tour of the facility, which by Mic’s estimation, was very impressive. Callie had managed to take the mid-sized warehouse and turn it completely into a self-contained photography studio complete with any sort of tool and software photography connoisseur could ever imagine from the simplest digital cameras for preliminary shots and set adjustment to complete computer suites for image adjustments or manipulations. Dani shined here, stepping up to the plate when they arrived.
The relatively diminutive brunette even went into an ersatz photo shoot, taking an image of one of the models on break, deftly using the equipment and processes to take the few images she’d taken of her subject and changed the images to suit different backgrounds, remove blemishes, changed the model’s features to that of a fictional witch complete with pointed hat and broomstick much to the humor of her guests and the ire of the auburn-haired model who’d taken to tagging along.
By noon, Mic’s group was very impressed and muttered amongst themselves about how best to utilize the image house. With the facilities and resources at Callie’s beck and call, they could amp their magazine considerably, adding a bit of flair to their company of magazines, e-zines, and special periodicals. They were all in agreement, the move to contract Silver Fox Media for all of their imaging needs was one of the best they’d made. They thanked Mic for attending, letting him know, under no uncertainty, his presence helped to add more to their cause having him there. Mic knew they truly meant, “We’re glad you came, we needed someone pretty to make sure they wanted to play with us.”
For once, though, he didn’t mind. Yes, Callie was very beautiful, to be sure, and smart as a whip, no doubt about that. She was just business to Mic, just the same. He was assigned to protect her, and being here made everything work out for the best, even after the near-fiasco from last night.
No, it was her compatriot, Daniella Alexandrova who held his attention, literally. She’d hardly left his side through the whole event, muttered different factoid bits of information to Mic while Callie conducted her demonstration and tour, sat with him at lunch, and went so far to pull him closer to her workstation as she did her own display of skill so he could get the best view of the station and, intentionally or not, a straight shot down her dress which Mic was sure was intentional. She certainly showed she was adept at her post, as well as proving she could be quite a pain in the backside, according to a very apologetic Callie.
Mid-afternoon, after a lunch of west coast light fare, paperwork was presented, signed, stamped, notarized in triplicate, copies handed out to all parties and their legal representatives in attendance. All the while, Mic tried to get away for a few moments to update himself with any goings-on with his cloaked gauntlet, but failed to get a moments peace from the ever-present Dani. He silently agreed several times with Callie, this one was 20 pounds of pain in the ass in a five pound sack.
Still, though – she wasn’t all that bad, she was extremely attractive, and regardless of her ability to annoy, she was a capable young woman and, Mic considered a few times, she had a lot more about her she didn’t tell to the visitors. The way she moved, for one, boisterous as she was, there was a certain grace of motion Mic took interest in. She would hop and dance around like a little kid at times, high energy (or overdosed on caffeine – Mic still hadn’t decided which) yet there was always something of a little predator behind her playful attitude, like she was always poised for something to happen.
He also took keen note of the exposed parts of her body – she was all woman, definitely, but there was also some muscle beneath the girly. He noticed early on even when she was standing (relatively) still, her legs possessed the definition of a practiced gymnast or equestrian, and looked about as firm as concrete. Mic couldn’t help but stare at times, more out of curiosity trying to figure Dani out than admiring her physical attributes…even though they were spectacular in his personal estimation.
“Hey hot stuff, like what you see?” Dani asked, tapping on his forehead playfully.
Mic blinked and shook his head, confused and embarrassed he might have been staring at the little brunette ball of energy, “I’m really sorry. Uhm, what?”
“The studio set up? The layout for multiple studios? Hello?” Dani good-naturedly teased, “You’ve been staring out there for a long time, I thought you were being impressed or something.”
“Oh! Oh no, I wasn’t really thinking about the set up you guys have here. I was thinking about a couple of articles I need to work on to turn in this week is all. Waiting for quotes from sources has been difficult lately,” Mic lied, thankful he wasn’t caught staring at Daniella. True, he was lost in thought, but not about the news pieces he’d actually completed three days ago, but rather the ease of which an attack could occur with so many concealed areas. He’d been ready all day for something to drop, trying not to appear on edge and wound up appearing scatterbrained instead.
Dani chimed up again, her conduct sweetly flirtatious, ”So big fella, what do you say?”
Hmm? About what again?”
“Cute and stupid, I love that in a man. Are you coming to the little party I set up tonight? Your pals are coming for drinks at the club, and I asked if you were coming to party, too,” Dani explained, the slight Russian accent in her voice adding an extra tone of charm.
“Ah, yes. Of course. Yes, I’ll be there. What time and how should I dress?” Mic inquired, his mind drifting towards a sourness of there being a crowd he’d need to deal with on top of other issues.
“Be there at around ten, ten-thirty,” she instructed, “we’ll be there around opening time, to get your pals started and out of the way so we can enjoy ourselves while they’re soused up. And black. All black. It suits you, I think.”
Mic chuckled, this little one certainly did have some spunk, “All black and fashionably late. Got it.”
Dani’s eyes widened for a brief moment, and she bit her lower lip, cheeks flushed with color. With her hands behind her back and her chest out just a bit she backed away bashfully, turned and practically danced into the studio area. She took a peek back to see if Mic was still there, thought he had stopped to look at his watch, and when she saw he wasn’t there, did a little jump for joy and then traipsed to her office.
Mic had beaten a hasty retreat from the offices, bid some polite, courteous, but rushed sentiments to his higher-ups and the office staff (did the guy at the reception desk blow me a kiss?) and made his way to where he could find a little privacy to answer the steadily vibrating gauntlet which still sat on his arm, cloaked to any prying eyes. He ducked in between a pair of buildings and then practically sprinted further back and into an unused parking cubby before removing the invisibility screen and tapped the chromed device with his middle finger.
The gauntlet’s holographic display flared to life, a simple screen with a message Mic had left for himself, a running alarm to alert himself of an upcoming issue he needed to begin directing his focus upon. He acknowledged the message, reset the timing, and then reset his device, a look of concern on his face.
Soon he would need to sequester himself from everything living, the wyr drive to mate was fast approaching, and Mic’s was particularly strong the past few times. He leaned against the wall, allowing himself an uncharacteristic break to think about the concerns that came with the impending need to reproduce, and the dangers it posed.
He was already aware his time was imminent, the signs usually started months in advance usually in the form of stray, violent thoughts, or changes in his demeanor which one could take as being extremely forward to the point of being rude. Mic generally managed to keep the latter at bay thanks to thousands of years of discipline, and held concern his actions might slip at the wrong possible moment. The last thing he needed was to lose control and do something stupid which would blow his cover, or worse.
Then there was the obvious issue of that last week of the full moon the cycle fell on. That was what gave Mic he most worry. From the first time to the most recent, the drive turned Mic into a raging beast, his form unlike anything he ever became consciously. When that change took place, he tried to have himself safely locked away in “the Pit” – a deep man-made cavern just large enough for a man to be comfortable without any connection to the outside world at all. Mic ran a mental checklist for the provisions he would need that week. He needed enough for three days, two before the final cycle began, and the day after. Plenty of water, some solid provisions stowed in the cabinets of the compartmented “u”-shaped oubliette, program the house’s computers to run power and water on the safe days, and have other sundries stowed for his return to the world.
Mic sighed, ten days. Ten days of seclusion. Ten days he could be out fighting monsters, looking after the Earth, and caring for his feline companions.
Ten days away from his family…
Mic shook those thoughts from his head, took himself off of the wall and headed back out the way he came to the street. He turned and walked the rest of the way down the black, hailed a cab and returned to the hotel room the magazine had put him up in. It wasn’t bad. The room was large and comfortable, lots of blues, goldenrod, and other tones which made the room darker than it needed, but was kept cool thanks to the deep hues.
Mic sat at the desk, and sent the already-completed articles and the short story he’d proofed weeks ago, keeping up the appearance he was a work hound. His cover job was ridiculously easy to do, many of the stars and related subjects he’d actually been to in the past, and his connections within the Concordance made it even easier to get images and information sent he could use to publish with his articles. He got up, stretched and then retrieved his gauntlet from its cloaked configuration and began running through tasks, messages, and other functions which detailed his new role as a commander of a unit of his very own.
Part and parcel to becoming the captain of a newly-launched ship was Mic’s impression. Damned thing can’t operate without a crew, and that was a thought Mic was not very fond of. He’d been “recruiting” from all over the Protectorate, gathering the best people he could get his hands on, which was also embarrassingly easy. He’d managed to get his bridge crew gathered first, all capable Paladins in their own right, and all of whom the top in their fields, and then made them his command staff.
He managed to get them all trained up how he wanted them to perform as department heads, and then had them pass on their knowledge to the troopers Mic brought to the manor. While they trained, they all pulled duty on patrols, training, Charge of Quarters, team building, the ranges, PT, and the rest that came as a part of an extended company of fighters. He kept them flight-worthy but off of the Wayfarer for the time-being, again thanks to the activities involved with the overwatch of Callie Montgomery.
The real windfall was being able to bring Berto and Aelissi into the fold. While they maintained their auspices in the Protectorate R and D and the academy (respectively), they willingly moved into the mansion once they’d learned there was plenty of room, and were willing to add their skills to Mics growing garrison of guardsmen to give them all an added edge with the best tech and training they could offer. Of course, they couldn’t be a part of Mic’s unit having their own occupations to focus upon, but their personal time was theirs, and they were happy to be able to move out to the mansion and away from the grind of living in Certi City proper. They were both particularly happy since; Aelissi, could return to nature and be one with her surroundings as she had been in her elven homelands, and Berto just so he could watch Aelissi be one with nature in all her elven glory…principally her penchant towards nudity.
It helped to have them around, bringing them in helped the other fighters to blend in better, and the few other elves who had been brought in had someone to look up to so they didn’t feel so out of place with their human counterparts. Plus, it meant two more Paladins who could take charge when needed while Mic was away.
Once he finished his work, he gave it a quick once-over, corrected a couple of mistakes, and then saved it. He much preferred keeping the memory in his Gauntlet clear of such clutter, refusing a command post for so long, but once his change in status had gone through, it seemed that was all he had on his portable communications, computer, sensor palette any more. He checked for any other messages, orders, or changes and then, upon finding no new communiques, cloaked his Gauntlet once again, and then stepped out of the hotel room, down the hall and out into the expansive lobby. He checked his surroundings, debating whether he wanted to just stay in the hotel and have dinner at one of the restaurants on the ground floor, or head out and eat at one of the places which shared the parking lot with the enormous edifice. He headed off to his left and to the little Chinese restaurant closer to the hotel next door than the one he stayed at. He had a sudden craving for curry chicken and some noodles, so Chinese it was. He had to kill time after all, and he had a lot of it on his hands right now. Best he stayed relatively close in case something went down concerning Callie and Dani, the bugs he planted everywhere in the business and their apartment since last night would keep him well-apprised of their safety.
“So dinner and a party later on,” Mic reflected to himself, “this has got to be one of the strangest assignments I’ve ever been on.”
Chapter 3
Acheron howled in abject fury and frustration at everything around him and finding he was completely immaterial to his surroundings. People dressed in loose-fitting robes, sashes, and clothes ranging from the ornate to the most simple milled about the marketplace without a single clue there was a raging spectral despot in their midst.
Acheron stopped roaring at an old woman working her fruit stand, virtually boiling over with anger. Whatever that damned spirit had done, it had done a very good job of it. No powers in the physical universe held sway over him, even in his currently ghostly form, yet whatever, or whoever, had transported him here had power enough to render him completely wraithlike to these simple mortals. When he got his body back, there would be no end of pain for this tormentor!
He suddenly realized at that moment, he had completely lost his temper and should have dissipated again as he had so many time in the past few months. He looked at his gauntleted hands, and saw his black, smoky arms still coherent, though phantasmal, as if nothing had happened. For the first time in his long existence, since becoming the Chaos Bringer and even before his resurrection, Acheron felt a twinge of fear course down his ghostly spine. Nothing should have the ability to alter his form or do as this spirit seemed to have done to him. Nothing. How to gain this influence become one of Acheron’s priorities once he was back to his normal self. If this foul avatar held such sway over him, who was to say someone else wouldn’t attempt it in the future?
Another though struck him, why hadn’t his future self arrived to set everything right? He never brooked any sort of insolence from any creature living or dead, and yet he hadn’t been returned to his proper time, or had he gained his body back yet. He certainly had the capability when he was alive and surely would have again once his body had been obtained, unless…No. His body would be brought back and he would exact his righteous vengeance. Waiting for the right time to strike. That must be it. Acheron would hit that disturbing storm cloud with a firestorm of his own. Acheron sneered beneath his helmet at the thought of punishment for an elemental spirit. The screams it would make as it begged for mercy. Yes, there would be suffering the moment he was able.
Acheron paused for a moment, looked around at his surroundings. Odd, there were none of the modern contrivances he’d seen from his observations over the past weeks. No machines to speak of, no tall edifices of concrete, steel, and glass. The clothing worn by the passers-by were familiar, but he couldn’t quite…
“Suo’ nahaal?” he questioned aloud to himself, trying to discern where it was he had been taken. He was sure it was what was considered the Middle East, but the time escaped him. He attempted to levitate to get his bearings, but failed to raise as much as a millimeter from the dusty ground. How could this be? Ephemeral yet landlocked? Oh yes, there will be such pain for this indignity!
Acheron strode the few steps to the gates of the bustling little town, he could smell running water from nearby, and saw lush greenery blocking what could only be the docks of the city. He’d been here before, but in ages long past, a place which could not possibly exist in this nearly primitive state.
“Abydos,” he said with near wonder. He looked all about, shocked yet marveling at the wonder of having travelled so far back to a time he recalled and reveled in. Where were the battlements formed from the blood and backs of the slaves? The Black Wall? The Hungering Sands? No, none of the powerful weapons he’d set here were where they were supposed to be. What is this affrontery? Where were his necromancer troops? Why was this city not being held under thrall of the whip? When is this?
Something dark caught to the north and west caught his eye, smoke! Could it be he’d been taken to the past to witness his capture of this busy little town? To watch as it became one of his treasured holdings of verdant land filled with some of the best this part of the world had to offer? He rushed his spectral form to the source of the smoky pillar and watched, confusion settling in at what he was witnessing.
Yes, Abydos was being taken, but not by his forces. From the north, forces had taken boats and had travelled down the Nile, over running everything in their path. Not a home stood as thousands ran rampant through the streets the residents frantically fleeing before them before being either shot down overrun, or caught by the invading forces. Acheron felt his heart leap. Carnage, destruction, murder…the faint smell of blood and dirt wafted to his senses.
More. He wanted more. He hurried as best he could toward the wave of oncoming death, wanting to see more. Perhaps the wave of energy from the oncoming horde would somehow help restore some of his lost power. He had the knowledge to convert such energy into personal stores, so he had to get closer to see and work his dark arts.
He stopped and watched, not even attempting to weave the chain of spells to absorb the hate and rage from the encroaching forces. He simply stood, disgusted, seeing the wanton waste the horde left as they roared past.
Nothing human survived. Acheron realized quickly this wasn’t an invasion, but a cleansing. He turned and watched as arrows sped past into the backs of fleeing men, women and children. A group of women tried vainly to escape a trio of soldiers, who only caught up with them, slashing and stabbing them with a disturbing glee, and then on to another set of victims. All around him, as he walked through the butchery, troops mowed down innocents, many already literally covered in the blood of their victims, freshened with the gore of a fresh prey.
Acheron stopped and watched as a trooper ran up behind a pair of children, and ran the smaller of the two through with his spear, and then took the taller, older child – a girl who couldn’t be any more than twelve – roughly over his shoulder and disappeared through a doorway, slamming it against the world so he could do whatever he wanted.
Through the din of the raid, Acheron could hear screaming coming from the building the soldier and his quarry had vanished as he approached the other child, who was pinned to the ground, still held slightly aloft on dead legs like a grotesque marionette, his blood running the length of the spear protruding from his tiny chest and mingled with the dusty earth beneath him.
He just stood, looking at the dead child, the rush of death he always had from battle was lost, replaced with more disgust. What a waste of energy and resources. A child could be raised to know fear and respect, or learn to become useful and become a part of the fighting forces to sow more fear and respect throughout the planet. This, though…this was wasteful, a terrible squandering of resources!
Acheron lifted his head, noticing the screaming from the building had ceased. He turned and watched the soldier exit the doorway, buckling his belt, then turn to bend slightly down to his right, struggle for a moment, and then emerge fully from the doorway with his sword, bloodied and dripping, in his hands. The trooper strode through Acheron to the little boy’s corpse, took his spear and shook the remains of the little boy off of the weapon. The trooper looked at the cadaver for a couple of moments, and then lifted his sword high and brought it down with the sickening sound of flesh, ligaments, and vertebrae sliced with one swoop of the heavy blade. The soldier then turned and trotted off toward his fellows and more murder and mayhem.
Acheron didn’t move, and just watched the tiny little head rock slightly where it had finally come to rest. He kept speechless, rapt at the act of depravity he’d just beheld. Curious, he turned on his heel and walked through the door the soldier had just come from, knowing what had happened, but had to see for himself.
She’d been ravaged, as he’d expected. Half of her garments were gone, the rest covered in blood from her death after he’d finished. He’d not been quick about it either. Acheron stumbled backwards through the doorway, mind aflame with all of the carelessness and loss of good resources. So much could have been done with just these two, and then they were simply killed for nothing. How much terror could have been wrought with just the girl alone? With proper training she could have been an excellent thrall, or maybe even a concubine and bodyguard?
“So soon to be affecting you like this, old boy,” a mocking voice teased from behind.
Acheron spun on his heel, hands up with eldritch energy roiling from his fingertips. For a second time another has managed to appear without him knowing, his defenses being tested and failing miserably. Even disembodied he should have detected an insect approach, and again, nothing from this cloudy little nemesis.
A little spark played about in front of Acheron, a little matchstick flame danced in his vision, two tiny little blue eyes stared back at him.
“You assume another form, coward? Why not confront me as your true self, or are you truly that frightened to show me your face?” Acheron challenged.
The little flame hovered for a scant moment before it erupted into a fist-sized fireball of laughter, “You think me a coward? Oh this is…funny.”
“Have you not discovered yet you are being taught a valuable lesson? Haven’t you thought that this is just a first in a series of experiences you are meant to learn?”
“I don’t need to learn anything, spook,” Acheron fired back, sounding more like a petulant child than a despotic overlord. “All I am learning is you are afraid of me and refuse to face me like an equal.”
The spark shuddered for a moment, as if in restraint, and then hovered even closer, “You fool. You were brought here for a reason- a very particular reason, and you have failed to understand. I guess it will take more brow beating to hammer this into your thick skull. Onwards through time you go, Acheron, until you finally comprehend what it is you need to know.”
The flame flared again, engulfing Acheron, and then vanished with the roaring Acheron encompassed within its blazing structure.
***
Mic’s ears had taken to throbbing shortly after entering the club, adding to a serious headache he really could have done without. The club Callie and Dani had brought Mic and his associates to was an excellent standalone club on the southern end of The Strip called “Utopia,” so (as Mic surmised) it was probably so for the club-going set.
When he walked in, the enormity of just the lobby was a testament to excess with the violet and silver draped overhead hangings and the racks of lighting above sending diffuse reflections of purple and white of various shades all through the expansive entry way. Mercifully, the wait in line was short, Mic’s party had arrived earlier and had the club keep an eye out for their last party member and once he’d shown his ID he’d been politely ushered in by an attractive auburn-haired hostess who may as well have been naked for all of the skin she flashed seemingly with every chance she had.
Finding the group was easy enough, they were the only group of old men in the place, their bald-heads and prodigious bellies standing out against the fit and trim party-goers which milled slowly through the club. He suppressed a smile, these guys at a night club with a tableful of girls. Well, they deserve the attention. Most of them hadn’t even kissed a woman other than their mothers, so maybe tonight was their night to get lucky for a change. Who knows, one of them just might find Mrs. Right and live happily ever after…tonight at least.
Callie was also present, dressed to the nines, and looking every bit the CEO of her own company from her thigh-high boots to her expensive coif complete with dangling red curls wrapped with some reflective material that reminded Mic of tinsel. She’d also left the conservative look behind and had gone for something far more revealing, black, and skin-tight beneath a dark green bolero-style jacket. She could be all business, thought Mic, but there was no doubt she was all woman.
She smiled politely and approached Mic. Slid her hands beneath her legs to smooth her dress before she sat down next to Mic.
Callie leaned in a bit so she could be heard over the EDM wailing and thumping throughout the floor, “You’re not enjoying yourself, you don’t approve?”
Mic, trying to look as uncomfortable as he felt, leaned back, “Not really my thing. I’m not really a ‘people person,’ but I appreciate being invited, though,” he replied, then motioned to the liquor at the table. Callie took the hint and nodded sitting back into the over-stuffed booths seating. Mic fixed a pair of whiskey sours, sat back handing her one and took a long drink for his glass, taking half of it in one gulp.
Callie barked out a laugh, “You are nervous Look don’t let this place get to you. It’s loud. It’s obnoxious, but it’s a pretty decent place when you get the lay of the land.”
Mic, unconvinced, had his own ideas, “This place is a death trap. The exits are few and far between, the shape of the main floor alone is conducive to tragedy, security is laughable at best, and the service – while filled with extremely attractive ladies – sucks like a new vacuum cleaner.”
Callie shot forward, barely containing her mirth, looked back at Mic a huge smile on her ace, obviously enjoying the moment, “Don’t hold back now. How about the liquor? Is that to your liking, Mr. Critic?”
“Overpriced,” he shot back, a half smile planted on his face.
Callie nodded, a mock look of disgust on her face, ”Yeah, got me there. I could fill my car up for a few months for what the whiskey alone costs. Still though, this isn’t all bad…” then caught the look of discomfort on Mic’s face. ‘He really is like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs,’ she thought, realizing her guest was truly not having a good time.
She rocked to her feet, refreshed her drink, took Mic’s and refreshed his, and as she handed it back took his upper arm and tugged, attempting to get him to his feet. Mic looked at her curiously and then leaned forward and stood up towering above Callie until he leaned forward to her what she was saying.
“I said, ‘Let me show you around. There’s a lot more to this place than the EDM floor.’ Come on, you’ll like this,” she repeated, making sure Mic could hear her. She leaned to one of the other occupants at the overly-large circular booth – one of the accountants from the meeting – said something into his ear, and then turned towards Mic once the accountant nodded, and then looked Mic up and down.
Callie tugged at Mic again, getting his ear once more, “That’s Rob. He was my accountant who did all of the number crunching for the deal. He worked his little tail off, and I’m gonna give him a few extra days-worth vacation when the dust settles. He’s going to L.A. at the end of the month to get married. I think he and his husband will enjoy the extra time together.
“He doesn’t really care for you much, though. I think he sees you as competition or something,“ Callie added as an afterthought, half grinning.
“He’s not my type. Besides, I’m only here because I’m not much more than a showpiece for the deal. Have one of their biggest contributing writers along for the ride adds a sense of, I don’t know, certainty? Let’s you guys know they’re on the up-and-up and all of that,” Mic explained.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, your presence was a boost, I think. I know you sure made an impression on my receptionist. He’s been looking for you on Facebook, Pinterest, Snap Chat, and a few other places so he can ‘follow’ you online. If you didn’t notice, he was on the dance floor taking selfies with you in the background when I walked up,” Callie teased.
Mic sighed, his fingers back to the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.
Callie hid her smile and stifled her giggling, feeling guilty for enjoying Mic’s discomfort, but enjoyed how Mic couldn’t have been much older than her and acted like a stodgy old man, flustered at every turn. She grinned even wider thinking about Mic in an old man robe and a cane shaking his fist and yelling at kids to get out of his yard. She filed that particular thought back for later, sure that Dani would get a good laugh out of it, too.
Callie led Mic around the main floor to the stairs down to the lobby and the basement level of the club, “The Hideaway.” A short hike down and dodging guests going in the opposite direction, they emerged from the stairs into a more sedate venue. Lights of purple and blue, and black lights with a few diffuse white spotlights swinging throughout the floor illuminated the patrons, many of whom had been obviously made-up to appear undead and ghastly, in Mic’s opinion.
The floor, half dark and Victorian Gothic, did have more of an agreeable feel for Mic. The music was still loud, but not as window-rattling and tooth-jarring as the floor above. He also noted the music booming aver the speakers wasn’t anything current, either. He recognized the tune, too, a little proud of himself for recognizing it. He swayed a little in time with the opening notes of the song, caught up in the atmosphere of the basement level.
“’Plainsong’ by The Cure,” Callie spoke to Mic, not having to bellow to be heard, but still leaning in to avoid the need to bellow, “One of Dani’s favorite songs. She’s probably down here on the dance floor, somewhere.”
“This is kind of an odd thing, a retro-alternative room in a multi-million-dollar nightclub?” Mic asked, thinking about the anachronistic setting.
“Yeah, it is, a little, but the owners wanted a club that wasn’t like any other place on the Strip. Everybody has the same three floors no matter where you go, playing the same music, using the same DJ’s. So, they went a different route. The main floor, ‘The Vortex’ is the standard EDM douche fest like everywhere else, not much more than a meat market.
“Down here, though, ‘The Hideaway’ is pretty much like this most nights. It’s open five days a week, and has more regulars than the bar in ‘Cheers.’ It’s all alternative, classic alternative, and older stuff, all the way back to 60’s music. They have a lot of theme nights, costume parties, and Goth fests going on, like tonight. It’s Steampunk Night tonight, as you can obviously see, so it’s a different crowd, and different…well…different everything. I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into Dani yet, she’s always all over the place, and she’s another one who has a thing for you.”
Mic glanced over to Callie, eyebrow cocked with a look of sarcastic disbelief on his face.
“What? You made one hell of an impression on my staff today. It’s not very often we get a guy looking like a Greek god who can put more than five words together into a decent sentence. You being there did a lot of good for my people today, whether you know it or not,” Callie detailed to Mic.
“Is that professionally or personally speaking?”
“Both. People need newness. It helps to shake up the status quo. When it’s the same thing every day, people get stagnant and bored and need something fresh to keep things lively. The people who work for me are important to me and to my business. Without them, I wouldn’t have a business, or be as successful as I am.”
Mic nodded, his face awash with appreciation for her honesty, “That’s something you don’t hear much these days. I’m betting you learned that from...”
“Nobody, Mic. I grew up without my family,” Callie interrupted, “I was orphaned when I was five. I barely remember them. I didn’t want to bring that into the rest of my life, especially at Silver Fox. I want my people to be appreciated, feel needed, and comfortable where they are. They work for me, make no mistakes, but at the same time I work for them to provide them with the best as their boss.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude,” Mic apologized wholeheartedly, based on her reaction.
“It’s all right, big fella. People get snide about how I run my business and always come up with ‘better solutions’ to run it better, and usually make remarks about how a woman can’t do it by herself and should ‘bring in a more experienced man’ to take over. It really pisses me right off. I should have not come to conclusions so soon. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Mic was about to reply when the music changed, fading and blending into something louder and more sensual, a tune Mic didn’t recognize, and the dance floor became a frenzy of motion. He looked at Callie, confused, looked out to the dance floor, nodded, and leaned back to Mic.
“Once an hour the floor raises into a wedding-cake shape with customers getting their best wiggle on. The club takes pictures and then put it on their Twitter page and the photo page on their website. They bring in some pretty impressive numbers from what I’ve seen.”
“What – what is that name of the song? It’s very…”
Mic’s jaw hung open, causing Callie to give him a look of amusement, and then her jaw also dropped when she say what was going on out on the dance floor.
The top tier had already rose to its fullest, a large brass pole jutted from its very center. The figure dancing around and with the pole moved like liquefied mercury with a practiced step. The toned figure slowly moved around the pole, and danced around it with a smooth, almost unnatural grace. After a few moments, Callie finally announced who it was, just as the spotlights fell on the top tier of the raised dance floor to illuminate the nearly spectral form dancing on it.
“Dani…Dani?!? What in the hell is she…where did she…she’s actually…dancing???”
“She doesn’t normally dance like that, I take it?” Mic asked, clearly enthralled with the young woman on the dance floor.
“No, she doesn’t. I mean, she dances, but that it’s…not like her. She dances like an elephant carrying a Buick. I never knew she was taking lessons or whatever that is or even when she learned that. She’s really…good.”
Both of them stood and watched for the whole event, the music slamming down hard with an industrial seductiveness which kept the entire floor rapt, and not an eye off of the platforms in the middle of the floor, save for a few patrons into the music they kept dancing with their partners or solo. Dani looked out towards the entrance to ‘The Hideaway’ and saw Callie and Mic, smiled slowly, giving Mic a look of a sultry nature as she spun and gyrated on the top tier.
The lighting returned to its normal levels, the stage dropped down to the floor, the music masked by loud cheers and applause for the customers dancing on the main dance floor, all of them either bowing or waving as the floor returned to normal. The largest applause came when Dani’s tier submerged and the pole had sunk back into the floor. A Thunderous ovation followed her through the crowd as she shook offered hands, kissed cheeks, and hugged her fellow steampunk aficionados with merry gusto until she came to a stop in front of Callie and Mic.
“Hey guys!” she offered, her accent a little thickened after her exertions on the dance floor, “What did you think? Pretty hot, yes? I love that song and had to dance, it’s so beautiful!” She spied the fresh, sweating drinks in Callie and Mic’s hands and raised her eyebrows questioningly at the two of them. Mic raised his glass for Dani, who checked it in the light and smiled, and then put it to her ebony-hued lips and drained the drink with gusto, handing the glass back to an astonished Mic.
“Whiskey sours, my favorite! Thank you. So I thought you two were having fun upstairs. What brings you downstairs?” Dani asked her two still-dumbfounded companions, trying to break the awkward silence.
“She, I, we…Callie was giving me a tour of the place. She’s been telling me about Silver Fox and the employee morale, and then we…uhm...we caught your act on stage,” Mic managed to elucidate after recovering from Dani’s outstanding display.
Callie, on the other hand, was still overwhelmed by Dani’s routine, “Where in the hell did you learn to do that? When did you have the time? How did you manage to get the top tier?” was all she could hammer out at Dani, dozens more questions running rampant in her brain. She stood staring at her roommate, eyes wide and probing.
For the first time he’d met her, Mic saw embarrassment in Dani’s expression, and was about to intercede to avoid any more awkwardness. He couldn’t understand Callie’s reaction, unsure why she appeared to blow up in Dani’s face.
“Well? Come on! That was AMAZING! When did you find the time to learn any of that let alone, practice? I am so jealous you found the time to do learn all of that!” Callie did explode in Dani’s face, bouncing in her toes and grabbing the brunette’s shoulders with a huge smile plastered all over her face.
Mic stepped back as the two women began to rapid –fire at each other about Dani’s lessons, routine, instructor, studio, the Hideaway’s DJ being a pal, and seemingly a hundred other things at each other while he watched in interest. He learned months ago from his new-found family, Chloe and her daughter Chelsea, when they, too, became overstimulated like Dani and Callie were, to just give them space and time. To interject otherwise could have disastrous results.
A little twinge of something was nettling at the back of his mind as the girls rambled excitedly at each other. The feeling of being left out was slowly growing, and disturbed Mic greatly. He wasn’t a social animal of any sort, but at the moment he wished Dani would look at him with the same excitement as she was right then with Callie. Her deep eyes, and her tiny hands in his…no.
No! No! No! No! No! ‘Don’t get yourself involved. Let them enjoy themselves. You’re not here to play. Keep your focus, you stupid cat,’ Mic thought to himself, all the while fighting to not stare at Dani in her enthusiasm, her bright smile, the way her eyes…damn it.
“Hey, you doing all right there?” Callie intruded into Mic’s reverie, taking his arm and giving it a small shake. “We’re going to go back upstairs for a bit, you coming?” she said with a warm smile. Beside her, Dani stood expectantly, her dark eyes looking into his, her hands clasped behind her, her chest thrust out as she gazed with a doe-eyed expression at Mic.
Mic gave them both a resigned nod, how could he resist, plus it would keep Callie within eye shot longer than having to go back to playing peeping tom and watching her from afar. This party, as much as he despised crowds, was proving to be more useful than he’d figured it to be. Best to use it to his advantage, he thought.
Callie gave his arm a little squeeze before letting it go, while Dani hopped a couple of times, took his other arm, and then leaned her entire body against his arm. Callie chanced a glance back and then shook her head resignedly. ‘There was just no teaching that girl boundaries,’ she thought, half grinning / half dismayed.
She glanced back again, Dani still held tightly to Mic and Mic looking as though he milt bolt at the slightest provocation. She mused how oddly that looked. Dani wasn’t ugly by any extent, she was a weirdo to be sure, but could have any guy she wanted and the one she wanted, for the moment at least, looked deathly afraid of her and like he would rather be anywhere but here. So what was keeping him here if he hated it so much? Come to think of it, everywhere she’s been today, there he was. Even here in the club, somehow he was always within sight, weird. He didn’t come off like a creeper, at least. If it weren’t for his constant reluctance and borderline timidity, she actually felt kind of safe with him around, sort of like how her stuffed dog toy helped her feel when she snuggled in with it.
She waited at the elevators in front of Mic and Dani while the security attendant called for the elevator. She turned to talk to the two, but turned back around again, her hand to her face. The look of near terror on Mic’s face was giving her a giggle fit. When Dani could, she would really pour it on like syrup. That was something else - Dani. She liked men, no doubt about it, but she never really did all that much with them, and very rarely ever went all the way with the guys she hung out with. She also never put on such a display before, either. There must truly have been something totally different about the big guy there that really get Dani’s motor revving. Hell, the last time she was that clingy was college and old what’s-his-name…who was it again? Oh yeah – Dave the Douchebag. Boy, was he a real prize. After what he did, and all of the cheating he did, she was genuinely surprised Dani still went out in public, let alone be so affectionate with a near-total stranger no less. It made Callie feel good to know that Dani didn’t have any issues and was still the irrepressible kook she’d always known her as.
Mic though, she mused as she looked back again for a second, he was an odd one. He didn’t give off any weirdness nor did he act like some oddball. No he was uptight, quiet, mild-mannered, and (it seemed) emotionless. He could just be a soldier and got out after his time in service – she knew plenty of guys like that who were polite to the point of being rigid. No, Mic was different. He was always looking around, tense, taking things in, especially when she was around. He acted more like a bodyguard rather than some average writer/reporter. Was that for her benefit? Did he have the hots for her? She thought it could be fun for maybe a little while, but he wasn’t her type. He could be as protective as he wanted, he wasn’t her cup of tea, and Dani could have him. She wasn’t interested.
Still, there was something awfully familiar about him…
Callie brought herself out of her reverie, not realizing she had been lost in though and had already returned to the table with her friends in tow. She crouched low to enter the security code on the safety drawer beneath her seat and withdrew her purse. As she turned, Dani’s face lit up brightly and she, too, retrieved her purse, apparently feeling the need to tag along for whatever reason.
As Dani turned to tell Mic she and Callie were off for a trip to powder their noses, Mic pulled a cell phone from his breast pocket, checked it, and then held it up for the girls to see.
Dani scooted in close, drew Mic down so she could talk into his ear, “No problem, handsome. The quiet rooms are back behind close to the entrance. You’ll see them on either side of the hallway, they’re to rooms with the red and god interiors and the soundproof glass windows. We’re just going to be in the ladies room for a couple of minutes and we’ll meet you back here, okay? If you want anything before we get back, don’t be afraid to ask. We’re footing the table tonight.”
She then launched herself forward just enough to take Mic’s earlobe between her lips and give it a little nibble and then a sweet kiss. She withdrew with a smile and coquettish look in her eyes. Mic couldn’t help but smile, and felt some heat in his cheeks. He watched the girls head towards the other end of the club, and then felt the vibration in his breast pocket again.
“…the hell?” he asked more to himself. How could he have forgotten his call? The cell phone wasn’t real, but a tool connected to his gauntlet, which sat cloaked on his left wrist. Ever since Berto built the prototype, and with a little bit of input from Mic, they had a nice peripheral which could emulate he communications capabilities of the Paladin Gauntlet without looking out of place and talking into the armored braces which were standard issue. Mic withdrew the device a second time, it was Shani back on Mythidria. Good, she was using her new access codes to contact him directly.
He hustled from the table, stopped as his waitress approached, asked from some more ice and mixers, gave her a twenty, and then rushed to the entrance and the quiet rooms. It took no time to find an unoccupied room, closed the door and drew the blind for privacy. He uncloaked his Gauntlet with a command and then quickly scanned the room, discretion being the better part of valor. Once satisfied, he answered his gauntlet.
Shani Harcourte appeared in a bust-like hologram in front of Mic, looking quite flustered and concerned, “Sir, oh thank the Bright Lady! I was getting…I mean…there was growing concern for your well-being, sir.”
Mic held back a grin, “I’m fine Ms. Harcourte. Have you finished getting your gear to…”
“Please, sir,” the young Paladin officer interrupted, “I don’t mean to be rude, but there is something going on in your area.”
The hackles on the back of Mic’s neck were starting to rise, and not just at the news, “Go ahead.”
“Sir, less than two minutes ago, there was a netherfiend attack less than five miles from your location. The Paladins dispatched had things well under control and had the situation taken care of except...well…they lost one of them, they think.”
“They lost one – they think?!?” Mic’s mind was reeling – nobody was that incompetent by any stretch.
“They can’t be sure, sir. They stated they encountered six undead, but was under the impression there were more. Their gauntlet scans showed seven targets for a scant second, but then it went to six right away,” the young communications officer related.
“No sign of this last possible…” Mic began before being interrupted again.
Shani’s eyed grew wide, her face taking on a look of complete horror, “Don’t move! Your location has just been filled with some form of…wait…it’s gone!”
Mic had taken a low crouch, eyes on the door, his fists at the ready, “Ms. Harcourte, what in the name of…am I safe here or not? Never mind. Wayfarer!”
Immediately, the screen split into two, an floating icon hovering over a sea of steel gray appeared next to Shani’s image.”
“Wayfarer responding. How may I be of assistance?”
“Home in on my signal, stay cloaked, and keep static. I want M.E.T. Stage three primed and ready in case I need a quick extraction. Shani, if you’re not at Blacktalon, finish whatever you have going on at headquarters and get your stuff moved there immediately. I have the feeling I’m going to be needing your expertise very soon. Copy?”
Visibly shaken and showing signs of deeper concern, “Y-yes sir. Right away. I have contacted Mr. Wylderun and he’s already been in the process of getting my personal belongings moved to the Manor, per your previous instructions. How can I hel…”
“Just get on the move. If you’re right, I’m going to be busy for a little while. Just stay safe, and tell manor security to go to yellow alert ASAP!”
Shani Harcourte understood that tone, and cut the communication immediately. Mic mentally applauded the young lady. Greener than grass, but damn was she efficient!
Mic left his gauntlet decloaked, and issued another command. Time to test out a new function.
Tendrils rapidly snaked out over Mics arm, across his back and chest and kept expanding like rushing water, until his entire body was completely covered, and then washed away, retreating just as quickly back into his gauntlet as the effect appeared. Not even five seconds had elapsed as Mic checked out the results.
Mic’s clothes were completely gone, now replaced with his new uniform of choice. Gone were the sashes and overly long belt sashes, but now complete with a cavalry tunic over his black armored bodysuit, and his hood/scarf combination.
Not wasting any more time, Mic crept out into the hallway, immediately noticing a distinct lack of people on either end. The raised hackles on Mic’s neck went completely stiff, something was definitely not right, and getting worse by the second as he crept silently towards the dance floor, hugging the wall, and peering in to the quiet rooms as he passed, finding them empty as well.
Once he’d reached the main dance floor, he fought the urge to recoil in horror and disgust. The room was filled with a quickly dissipating golden haze, apparently some form of chemical or smoke which quickly drifted to the floor and then vanished. Amid the disappearing haze lay bodies all over the floor, the furniture, the railing, a couple had even been dangling from the mezzanine floor of the club several down feet above in danger of falling to the floor below.
Mic quietly surveyed the interior, extending his senses outward, the smell of the gaseous material reminded him of ditch weed, or that pungent green garbage people smoked recreationally on Earth. There was also a commingling of something else, like rotting meat. Mic crouched near one of the patrons, a young Asian man in a blue and gray plaid button-down shirt and dark gray blazer, and held his gauntlet up, activating the scanner.
It was as he feared, the youngster was dead, as were the rest of the club guests lying on the floor. He watched as the heat signatures diminished on the piles of bodies which littered the floor, making traversing to the other side of the floor almost impossible. He looked closer and discovered the material which had just evaporated had an adverse effect on the once-living tissues of the patrons, and was slowly disintegrating all of the club guests which covered the lighted dance floor and the walkways.
Mic tried to extend his other senses further, but the booming vibrato of the bass and electronic dance music made listening outside of the main floor a non-reality. Mic stood and worked his gauntlet’s sensors, pushing them to their limits. The floors above and below were still bustling with activity, but he couldn’t tell if it was from a panicked, fearful response a party atmosphere, or a combination of the two. This was an issue he was going to need to…damn! He scanned the other side of the main floor - no, they were still in the restroom. Probably unaware of what had just happened.
Scratch that, here they come…shit.
Mic shut down his scanner, and drew his hood back, looking in the direction of the impending approach of the girls and inadvertently brushed a corpse with his left foot. The dead body groaned and rolled from its side into a prone position, its outward arm flopping over and onto the floor like a wet slab of meat. Mic stepped back, still in silent mode, taking that response into account. A slight brush will get them to move, what, then if there was a more pronounced encouragement? Mic put that thought on the back burner as the girls rounded the corner.
Mic raised his hands immediately waving them to get Dani and Callies attention. Callie looked about to erupt into a scream when Mic raised his finger to his lips, and silently mouthing, “Shh.” Callie instantly clamped her hands over her mouth, stifling a little squeak, her eyes as wide as saucers, her normally healthy complexion now pale. Dani, on the other hand, stood stock still, looking around, taking in her surrounding like a professional warrior, a hand darting into her purse and staying there obviously holding something within as she kept her bag close to her chest.
Mic waved his hands slowly, palms down, signaling the ladies to stay calm, and them motioning to them he was going to try and get to them. Both girls nodded and waited patiently as Mic slowly picked his way around and over the bodies of the dead, stealthily winding his was making progress a few feet at a time, and then he looked towards Callie and Dani, suddenly pointing frantically at them.
Dani and Callie turned around and saw a trio of women and one male emerging from the restrooms and who saw the carnage in the main room. One of the females and the male put their hands over their mouths, another female fainted and the third nearly let out a bloodcurdling scream, but was interrupted with a timely and forceful hand to her mouth by Callie who was frantically whispering to her. He two struggled for a moment until the other woman relented and started to listen to Callie’s harsh, compelling voice, occasionally nodding until Callie let her go. Satisfied this other girl was not an issue, she checked the one who’d fainted and then drew the young man beside her to heft the woman up to help carry her out. Once finished, she looked to Dani who nodded and then back to Mic, nodding and giving a hand sign her end was okay.
Mic breathed out a sigh of relief, caught the air, and then turned to try and stop the one thing he was trying to avoid. A group of female patrons had emerged from the elevators from the uppermost level and walked right into the main floor and began screaming hysterically at the top of their lungs.
The sound of the women’s horrified screams caused a chain reaction amongst the cadaverous bodies, waking them up. Many slowly, clumsily reached their feet, arms hanging and jaws slack while others snapped right to their feet, while even more leapt to their feet, howling as their teeth were replaced by enormous pointed, needle-like fangs.
“RUN! GET OUT!” Mic roared at the top of his voice...
The effects of the conflict weren’t completely unnoticed. Within a cavern, midway up the craggy eastern slope of a high mountain, something stirred. The large shape stiffened in its seat, meditations interrupted by discomfort within the mystic envelopes surrounding the planet. It rumbled a low growl, shook its shaggy head and opened its eyes. Once the being became adjusted to the dim light, it stretched broadly and focused its awareness outwards. Pronounced furry brows knitted, something was definitely not right.
It stretched a large, paw-like hand outwards to skim just above the earthen floor of its home. Dirt and sand shifted, glimmered and then took the shape of several human figures, armed with weapons of a far-off land the creature had all but forgotten, combating hideous beasts of varying descriptions. Deep-set eyes took particular note of one such beast, not fighting the humans, but fighting alongside them, helping them. The mysterious being watched further, watching the death of the strange feline beast in his animated earthen diorama, and the sudden resurrection of something far more powerful.
Above the new creature’s head floated something odd that caught the lone observer’s attention, something unexpected. It practically dove to get a closer look of what was there, above the beautifully monstrous golem. Deep brown eyes grew with shock and knowledge of what that symbol meant. It had seen enough.
It stood, waving its hand over the mystic display, making it collapse into a heap of dust and stone upon the floor. The enormous being hurriedly gathered a number of belongings heaped them into a goat skin sack and settled it upon the piles of skins it used as a bed. It turned, and shambled deeper into the cavern into a smaller antechamber.
The light within came from an unearthly glow emanating from the stalactites and stalagmites, reflecting light from a small, overhead hole in the ceiling. The creature shambled to a small dais upon which sat a small wooden chest. The glow from the hanging ice seemed to accentuate the chest, the light from above falling directly upon the miniature trunk.
Fur-covered, clawed hands deftly drifted above and around the box while the creature’s deep voice lowly mumbled an incantation, making the box unlock itself and open slowly. An ancient gleaming lyre, sat snugly within the cushioned case with strings that hummed mutely while the device lay inside. Sitting behind it, sat a book. The cover gleamed in the natural light a soothing deep green, the bindings and locks sparkled with spun gold and silver interwoven in strands across to covers to sturdy hinges at the spine. From there, the hinges almost exploded with intricate design work that only the creature beholding it understood.
The chest’s keeper scanned over the box and the things inside, closed the box and carried it into the main cavity of the large cavern and set the box into the open sack. It reached out to a fissure in the far wall, extracted a gigantic hide over coat and threw it over the heavy frame of its body. Fingers of deceptive dexterity cinched the sack closed and slung the large bag over its shoulder. It took one more look over the simple surroundings it called home and then turned to leave.
The enigmatic being shuffled its enormous mass to the opposite end of the cave and stopped. It waved a furry hand towards the wall, a slight radiance emitted from its fingertips. The stone wall also glowed and was then mystically shifted aside with a slight mental shrug of the shadowy figure. It stepped outside, and took a long look of its surroundings.
It loved the view of the high tops of the mountains, and stood to watch the late morning sky for a few minutes, marveling at the wonders of the high peaks silhouetted against the bright pristine blue wrapped around the bright sun. It blinked ursine eyes, shading its eyes from the sun for a moment. It looked down the rocky slope, draped the hood of its long coat over its shaggy head and leapt.
Stone rumbled and collected upwards to carefully catch the falling being, descending downwards to the mountain slope to begin a long and arduous trek west. Waves of stone and soil flowed and ebbed like water while the colossal being surfed upon the crests of the undulating earth beneath its feet, grim determination set in its eyes. Its mind was awhirl with thoughts and plans; it had been a very long time since it had been amongst humans, care would need to be taken to remain relatively invisible.
It thought darkly as it made its descent, “I may already be too late…”
Chapter One
Today
Callie wished that she’d not gone out. She usually didn’t mind going out with her roommate, Dani, but tonight was just a mistake. Oh, sure it was close enough to the weekend and of course the obligatory partying was expected, but tonight just didn’t feel right. She and Dani had hit their favorite club a little early to find a decent table to watch the yummiest guys walk by and crack jokes until Dani hooked up with a tall cutie in a black form-fitting shirt, baggy jeans, and a set of abs that made her do a double take. The two of them hit it off immediately and began playing tonsil hockey after only an hour or so. Callie felt uncomfortable and excused herself, telling Dani that she wasn’t feeling well; which was the truth.
She also had to meet with a new client in the morning. Yes, it meant more revenue for her company, Capricious Fantasy Photography, but it also meant meeting some people she wasn’t comfortable with. She was used to contracts with fashion magazines, women’s periodicals, and even a couple of Maxim-wannabes. The new client, however, left her cold.
Her meeting was with one of the geek space science magazines that catered more to the science fiction nerds that drooled over pictures of fantasy women in suggestive situations rather than real science; at least that’s what she gathered from the docket she received from them. She could think of bigger wastes of time other than working with some pimply-faced, overweight fan boys, but the offer was rather lucrative and she’d be stupid to pass it up. Still, a buck’s a buck and she decided it was better to be well-rested and ready than grumpy and hung over before dealing with the high-water and pocket protector set.
So now the trek home well underway, Callie scolded herself for even having considered going out to drink and dance the night away when all she really wanted to do was curl up with her cat, Lil’ Fluff, drink some hot chocolate and watch a movie that didn’t suck in the DVD player. Still, it was fairly early in the evening and there was plenty of time to jammie up and do what she had in mind anyway. Yeah, the night wouldn’t be a total loss.
The striking red head smiled inwardly as she left the nearby video store, her thoughts drawn to the little black cat waiting for her at home. Its big yellow eyes always made Callie to want to cuddle with the little twit, even though the furry menace always wound up playing with Callie’s long, wavy hair. Her hand drifted to a spot just behind her left ear where Lil’ Fluff had tugged a little too hard earlier in the evening. It throbbed still, no harm done. Callie rubbed the spot for a few seconds more and then continued on home.
The eye-catching red head walked through the club district with relative ease, her long legs carried her along deftly while she wove her way around arm-in-arm couples or groups of goofball college boys out to get themselves puking drunk and find themselves dates. A couple of times she suppressed a smile, the boys making total fools of themselves hitting on her with their cheesy pick-up lines. Each time she politely shook her head and resumed walking home.
Callie wrapped her coat tightly around herself once she’d left the relative safety of the well-lit sidewalks in front of the various clubs and restaurants and into the darker streets beyond. Her gray eyes glanced everywhere, down the street, into alleys she passed, behind her, wherever she could look. Something still felt wrong to her, something…she couldn’t put it into words. She noticed that the alleys now seemed darker than normal; the streets much quieter, even the lights of the apartments overhead weren’t on. Normally at least one or two apartment windows shone onto the street, but not tonight, which was odd. Even the lamps atop the curved streetlights failed to cast any sort of proper illumination. Callie quickened her pace while a nagging twinge of fear crept up her back to nestle at the base of her skull.
Footsteps from behind her attracted her attention. Where did they come from? She proceeded halfway down the block past a very dark alley at the entrance to a large building. She chanced a look behind her, and discovering she was alone on the sidewalk. She stole another glance over her shoulder and suddenly wished she hadn’t.
Back in the alley stood a group of thugs in tattered “punk” attire complete with hanging chains, metal-laden wristbands, and patches of varying descriptions covering a lot of the rips on the clothes the creeps wore. No…that she half-expected. What brought her fear to screaming attention were their faces.
Dirty, yes. Disheveled and unkempt hair, of course. Rotting decaying flesh dripping off their skulls...oh hell no! She tried desperately to mentally scrub that image from her mind the moment she turned to run. She ran full bore away from he spot she saw the exposed portions of skull, effluvium dripping from huge holes in their heads, or the lumps of putrefied meat falling to the pavement wetly. One was even missing his lower jaw with the remains of his tongue waggling lewdly at her she caught sight of him.
She ran as hard as her legs would allow her, the group of undead brutes close behind her. She heard one of them laughing as they gave chase. The sound reminded her of a bone-in ham tossed into a blender along with about 40 pounds of gravel. She stumbled once, losing a shoe and took off the other one as quickly as she could, tossing it away right before she bolted off again. Without heels, she was able to outdistance her disgusting pursuers. She tore down two blocks made a left, sprinted halfway down that one before she stopped and hid behind the corner of the sandwich shop she and her roommate frequented.
She looked and caught the familiar picture of the cartoon sandwich sitting on the display in front of the door and congratulated herself. Almost home! Yes! She caught her breath and stole a peek around the corner in the direction she’d just come from, praying she wouldn’t see that group of…whatever the hell those things were. She cautiously slid from her hiding spot and saw nothing of her hunters. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. Home was just a couple of blocks away, and she felt safe now to make it home unmolested.
Before she could react the punks appeared in front of her, somehow impossibly surrounding her. How did…? She never got the chance to finish her thought as a bony, decaying hand slammed against her left temple and sent stars shooting through her vision. Another moldering fist rammed into her belly, causing her to double over and fall to her knees. She struggled to breathe from the vicious attack, and fought off the urge to wretch from the horrible odor her assailants gave off. Once more they struck at her, a chain-wrapped boot to her ribs sent what little breath she had left in her lungs out of her system. She weakly begged for mercy as she was lifted off the ground and punched across the mouth; her blood sent splattering against the wall next to her.
She fought the urge to vomit more when she watched one of her attackers run to the wall and lick the rivulets of her blood from the wall’s surface. She was roughly turned and dragged backwards into the alley. The realization that this was her last night to live struck home when she caught another blow to the kidneys from one of the cadaverous punks. Through swirling colors and sparks in he vision she saw them all looking at her, licking what remained of their lips at her, their intentions frighteningly clear.
Callie’s mind gained some focus, the single thought in her head, “If I’m going down, they’re coming with me!” She extracted the palm-sized can of pepper spray from her purse. With one fluid motion, she pressed the cans activator and literally hosed every one of her aggressors in the face…to no avail. Each of them looked at themselves, each other, a couple even licking the clinging aerosol film on their faces and then back at her. The looks on their faces gave her the distinct impression that they enjoyed that, and her stomach lurched once again.
She felt a final clout to the side of her face before she was thrown roughly to the ground and smacked her head on a trash can. In her stupor, she was unable to cry out for help while one of the fiends held her face while the others roughed her up some more before dragging her further back into the alley. Her eyes rolled in their sockets as the foul gang seemed to dance with wicked triumph as if Callie had been caught up in some horrifying nightmare.
She felt their decomposing hands wrap around her ankles and pulled her legs apart, more hands keeping her hands held securely above her head. She woozily looked down her body, fighting through the fog in her vision and saw that her clothes were ruined and bare flesh was exposed to the chill, night air. The largest of the muggers, the one missing his jaw and would have given George Romero nightmares, unfastened his pants and dropped to his knees between her legs. His ruined face, replete with over a dozen piercings twitched repulsively as he exposed his revolting worm-ridden flesh. As the nightmarish horror lowered itself, the last conscious thing her mind registered was a shadow that grew behind the gang. A very...big…shadow… then she passed out amongst a cacophony of unearthly bellowing, battle, and the roar of something very angry.
All went silent in her semi-conscious mind and then there was nothing but warmth and comfort, aside from bouncing around slightly. She opened her eyes dreamily for a moment and looked into the impossible. Above her, a black feline head…is that a tiger? The white highlights around its eyes and muzzle gleamed in the now-bright moonlight. She blinked and looked down her body again. Huge powerful arms wrapped themselves under her, cradling her gently against its enormous furry chest like a cozy blanket.
The wind whistled in her ears and blew her hair into her face. She looked into the wind and saw that there was nothing there but the glittering stars in the night sky. She snapped awake immediately and looked around. Nothing seemed familiar to her; no buildings or familiar landmarks could be found until she looked down. Below, far below, the city lazily flowed beneath them as if she was watching from an airplane. Callie looked up at the creature holding her securely, but gently, to its breast and passed out again when the creature looked down at her and smiled…
***
Her legs were sore for exertion, lacerated heavily from the flinging branches and thistles that seemed to intentionally get in her way. It was bad enough that she was running in knee deep in the darkened water, but obstacles kept popping up mysteriously in her path.
She felt as though she had been running for hours, but knew deep down it had only been a few minutes. Or was it? All she really knew was to get away from him. He was close behind her, she could feel it. She could hear her pursuer and his tracking hounds in the not-too-far-off distance, and it was just a matter of time before she’d be caught and torn to pieces by the bloodthirsty beasts.
She slammed into something big and solid, and then fell backwards. She shook her head, rubbed her shoulder and peered upward at what obstructed her path. The last thing she saw was a set of immense fangs lunging at her…
***
Callie sat bolt upright, a scream half-locked in her throat, the instant change in scenery throwing her off even more than the immense fangs and swampy setting she had just escaped from. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she looked around the room slowly coming to the realization that she had been sleeping.
“You have got to be kidding! I dreamed all of that,” she groaned aloud to nobody. She looked around her room again; making sure that both of her imagined assaults weren’t real, needing that reassurance. The clock! Where is it? What time is it?
She shifted her gaze over to the illuminated blue numerals of her alarm clock. No, that couldn’t be right! Ten forty-three PM? She was still at the club or…wait a damned minute! She turned again to look at the big screen television mounted to her wall and realized one of her favorite horror movies was playing, about midway through the film, in fact. She checked her night stand again and saw the Blu-Ray cover sitting opened under the lamp. She had to have dreamt it all. Still, something didn’t feel right.
Her mug - that was it! Where was her favorite mug? She never, ever settled into her room for a movie without Marvin the Martian full of something to drink. She craned her neck looking for it, and then shifted her weight to check the other night stand, immediately regretting moving around at all.
She grimaced as every nerve in her body woke up and sent an enormous shock of pain everywhere in her figure. The slightest move made her peep with no small amount of soreness, even though she had to see just what was wrong. She slid to the edge of the bed, her joints felt like they were wrapped in barbed wire. She slowly lifted herself from the edge of the bed and gingerly heel-to-toed with a lot of support from the furniture it to the closet door and the full-sized mirror mounted to the inside.
Callie nearly fainted once the light was switched on. Her dress was virtually destroyed. What was left of it clung to her shoulders, her left breast to her hip was barely covered by threads, stringy remnants keeping it secured to her waist. The rest of her dress below her waist was nonexistent. Even her panties (her favorite ones, damn it!) were pretty much shredded to the point they barely covered her, and were losing the struggle to keep whole.
What truly frightened was the exposed flesh she saw in the mirror. There wasn’t a single inch that wasn’t covered in bruises, scratches, or the puffy beginnings of other injuries. She looked at her legs, which still glistened from fresh blood that had stopped oozing from her knees. Her elbows felt and appeared to be in the same ragged condition as her knees, and the darkening bruises along her arms made it look worse.
Then she leaned into the mirror excruciatingly to get a good look at her face, and fought the urge to vomit.
The whole left side of her face was swelling, and raw, both of her eyes were darkened and turning red. Her normally vibrant red hair clung to her scalp in bloodied clumps and hung limply from her head. She reached to her forehead to brush some of her hair back and discovered an angry, oozing wound at the back of her head which dripped fresh blood through her hair, down her back, and onto the floor.
“It’s really not as bad as it looks,” said a man’s voice from behind her.
Callie snapped the baseball bat she kept between her nightstand and closet door, turned on her heel and held the bat aloft ready to smash whoever – or whatever – just spoke to her. She immediately regretted it, as lightning arcs of pain shot through her joints from the many injuries she’d already suffered, but damn it – she was not going down without a fight!
It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to readjust to the light of the impossibly dark corner on the far side of the room. The blinds were wide open on both of the enormous windows, with the full light of the moon shining in. The outside natural, illumination combined with the light from the television, the nightstand lamp, and the closet light should have lit up the entire room, and yet that particular corner had become impossibly dark, almost to the point where she couldn’t make out the figure of a man (damn he’s big!), wearing what looked like a long coat of some sort within the shadowed nook. She couldn’t make out much more other than his eyes, with, for a second, flashed yellow.
Callie tightened her grip on the bat confrontationally, yellow eyes or not, she was going to home-run this guy’s head if he so much as blinked. That unnerved her even more, the man never blinked in the scant seconds they stood staring at each other.
“Get out - NOW!” Callie commanded. She was not ready for any more surprises tonight, and needed to be safe. She maneuvered around her nightstand and started reaching for her cell phone when the man finally stepped from the shadows. Callie raised the bat and held it, tensed ready to swing directly at the man’s head if he moved any more. She knew if he came at her, she’d break something on him enough for her to grab her phone and make for the door, or keep on swinging until this whack-o loser was so much paste on her carpet. She didn’t care.
Once in the light, she got a good look at the intruder’s face, and loosened up her stance a little. He was tall; to say the least, Callie still had to look up at him from across the room. The long coat he was wearing covered what she could only guess was an athletic physique judging by the way he moved – predatory, practiced, and slow. Looking him over further, she realized that she really couldn’t see much outside of his coat, everything else beneath was garbed in black.
She looked upward, cautiously, to his face, and drew in a sharp breath. He was handsome, no doubt about that. His features, though, looked…off. He reminded Callie of the models that came to the studios daily for fashion shoots, or like some of the men that modeled motor bikes on location shoots - square-jawed, hollow-cheeked, and pretty. She could open a magazine and find another like him anywhere in the pages; she was used to that type of guy, but still – off. Then she realized what it was. As pretty as he was, his brows were furrowed deeply, the wrinkles in his forehead impossibly long.
That look gave her a bottomless, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach as if she was staring into the face of something feral and hungry and she was seconds from becoming some…thing’s…dinner.
“You don’t need that. Put it away,” the stranger said. His voice sounded peaceful, but still more of that strange, otherworldly feeling almost dripped from his words like old sludge. For a moment, Callie loosened her stance even more, but then tightened up again, reminded of what brought her to this point, and his syrupy but growly voice unsettling her more made her think twice about relaxing.
“Yeah, right, just as soon as I drop you like a bad habit, pal,” Callie replied threateningly. To hell with him, she was going to make his pretty face pretty messed up if he tried to get funny.
“And,” she pointedly instructed, “put my cat down.” She motioned to the stranger with the heel of her bat to the stranger’s curled-up arms holding the fluffy, gloss-black bundle of fur curled within.
“But she likes me,” he mocked back, but seeing the near-murderous intent in Callie’s eyes, gently put the feline down in the easy chair sitting to his right, next to the window.
The cat looked back to the stranger dejectedly, then hopped from the chair and trotted out of the room, sending an, “I’m-not-very-happy-with-you” hissing at Callie as she passed her by.
“Lil’ Fluff! We will talk about this later, little lady!” Callie scolded to the black angora cat not taking her gaze off of the stranger still standing in the shadow of the far corner.
“And you, it’s time you left before something bad happens to you,” Callie snarled, trying to be polite with anger, fear, and indignation in her voice, she came across differently than she had intended. She raised the bat in her hands a little more, tightened her grip, and adjusted her stance once more, in case he tried something.
The stranger only laughed at her, sending chills down her spine. His voice, what little she’d heard of it, was just as strange as his appearance, just as…bizarre. Something, though, something about it sounded so…familiar?
“As you command your highness,” he responded with more saccharine and sarcasm, putting her even more ill at ease. He stepped from out of the corner and was making his way towards the bedroom door.
Callie stepped forward, tensed for a swing, “Nuh-uh, buster. Window. You use the fire escape.”
“Now, is that any way…” he started
“Up yours, pal. I’m not in the mood. Just go. That way. Now,” Callie snarled. Something about this guy was making her almost physically ill and she wanted him gone.
“I tire of this,” he rumbled back. He closed the distance between them impossibly fast, grabbed Callie by her throat, and took the bat out of her hands with a snap of his arm. Her hand spasmed with new, burning pain as the bat was forced from her grip and her knuckles cracking from the violent action. She tried to keep her eyes on him, his enormous hands forced her head upwards, so she fought to turn her eyes downwards to try and see what he was doing.
He lifted her off of her feet and swung himself around to throw Callie onto her bed, pushing the breath from her lungs viciously. She fought against the iron cords of his forearm, but it was like trying to pry steel cables apart. He smiled with a sinister look on his face, held her fast to where she could see the wooden Louisville Slugger and closed his grip on the bat, splintering it beneath his fingers; the top and handle falling to the floor, now no more than expensive firewood.
He looked her in the eyes; his face close enough she could smell his breath as well. Between the rancid, dead smell and the way his eyes flashed yellow sent creeping vines of fear up her spine.
When he spoke, it was like flesh was being pulled off the bone, “I give you this one opportunity to tell me, so this will be the only time I shall ask nicely. Where is the final relic?”
Callie’s mind went reeling, what in the hell was this, this…monster…talking about? Her face even betrayed her through fear, the incredulous confusion formed there almost instantly.
He sighed loudly at her, disappointedly. He reached up with his free hand and flicked Callie’s right elbow with his middle finger. The joint felt as though I had just exploded, the popping noise wet and sickening.
Dismissively, and almost offhandedly he explained, “You do realize that the human body has over two-hundred and fifty bones in it. I could, should I wish, break each and every one of them one at a time. I can also heal them instantly and start all over again. Now we don’t want that, do we?” The casual way he said it made Callie shiver, regardless of the arcing pain that now ran up her arm to her shoulder.
To prove his point, he took the same hand he used to shatter her elbow and touched the ruined joint. Suddenly, it felt as though nothing had happened to it. Callie looked up at it as best she could and then back to him, her face a vision of disbelieving fright.
Coming to the understanding that her situation had become even more nightmarish, Callie renewed her struggle to break free. His hand at her throat kept her from going anywhere no matter how she struggled. In fact, the more she fought, the harder it was for her to break free.
The stranger roughly brought her scant centimeters from his face so she could look directly into his eyes. She tried to scream again, but failed even more miserably than she had on her first attempt. She tried harder and harder to free herself from the grip of iron that would not yield even a millimeter.
“I think, little princess, that I would rather take what I want. No more games,” The stranger whispered after a moment’s pause.
Callie finally found her voice as the stranger’s face split open vertically, now a maw of teeth, ooze, and a blackened tongue whipping around wildly in the air. He reared back with a triumphant howl and then lunged forward, the terrifying jaws swiftly closing on her face…
Callie shot sharply upright, her scream echoing through her bedroom full of terror. She fought to reach her throat, and struggled beneath the sheets she was wrapped in. She threw the sheets off of her figure and leapt from the bed, brushing and flailing the entire time. She looked for her bat which sat propped against the closet door frame where she’d left it.
She spun on her heel and looked at the zombie film playing on her Blu-Ray player, the open container sitting next to her half-empty Marvin mug. She found her cat, Lil’ Fluff, sitting in the easy chair by the window in the unoccupied corner of her room, the moonlight illuminating that side of the room with its peaceful blue-white light.
She virtually flew to the closet, threw upon the closet door, the anticipation of what she might see there giving her chills. She looked, gasped, and then took a better look. Tank top, yoga shorts, and a muss of red hair drooped over her shoulders. Just as she…wait, what? She looked again. Nothing seemed out of place. She was in her pyjamas, as she’d remembered when she got home. She looked at where there should have been a bloody mass at her forehead, and then she looked at her elbow. No, nothing there, either.
She looked at her clock, grabbing it and turning the electronic device’s face into view: Twelve-seventeen. She’d been home for just a little over an hour. And she’d already passed out halfway through her movie. Just swell.
She took a quick glance to the corner where that mysterious creep was standing before and saw nothing, just as it should be. Lil’ Fluff hopped from her spot and then hopped up onto the bed, mewing sweetly for Callie to join her for cuddles. Callie took a step forward and stopped her eyes wide and her heart jumping into overdrive.
A brief glimpse at the window a second time and something black, a something most definitely not human, flashed out of sight to the right. Callie ran around the bed to the window, slid it open and looked out and saw…nothing. She craned her neck as far as she could in every direction she was able (huh, not sore in the least) and saw only a bat or a bird flying off in the direction of the low-hanging moon.
The whole thing was a dream, after all! She checked herself out after closing the window. No cuts, bruises, welts, or anything she noted. It was a just a vivid….horrible…nightmare. She sighed and grinned a little looking at the confused ball of ebon fluff which had left its spot on the chair to expectantly kneading the sheets of the bed.
Callie climbed in, set her pillows up against the wall and sat herself down, took a swig of lukewarm cocoa and started petting her kitty, which had settled onto her lap and was batting at her fingers playfully. On the television screen, dark and sinister undead monsters trundled through the black and white farmyard, looking for fresh human morsels to consume.
***
Mic stopped at the top of the stairs, looking back to where he’d just come. He released the breath from his lungs, and stood for a few moments more. It had come close tonight. He needed to report the incident immediately, the whole ordeal shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Instead of descending the stairs, he’d hastily beaten a path upwards to the roof. His climb went swiftly, having to only clear the last two landings, and a gate to the ladder at the top of the fire escape. His movements were graceful, swift and silent. He didn’t want Callie to hear a thing as whatever had been running through her unconscious mind just now didn’t need his help to make her even more nervous. The necessity now was to get business taken care of, and maybe get to work a little more afterwards.
The gate leading to the roof gave Mic a mild bit of nagging irritation. He hated locked doors of any kind. His first response was to plow the damned thing off of its hinges, but time and experience taught him that sometimes finesse was more in order than destroying everything in his path. That was a thought that bothered him.
He gingerly worked the lock until the wrought iron and mesh door swung open, concentrating on what was going on lately. He had enough on his mind what with the return of Acheron. Probably the most vile, black hearted villain that ever existed was back, more or less. Thanks to the efforts of the entire planet of Danitrae and his homeland of Mythidria, the Earth was safe for now.
For now, he thought. The Chaos Bringer, was back - albeit powerless - for the most part, but was back just the same. Acheron’s powers and soul had been separated and hidden in the six pieces of his armor. When all was thought lost, Acheron got a nice little surprise with there being a seventh artifact he needed to put himself back together. Mic half-grinned in the darkness at the newly released lock, but smiled also at the sly deception that was played on Acheron.
Mic stepped out onto the pebble-topped roof, confident that he’d covered his tracks well. He hated that he had to sneak around so much, it grated at him, but after thinking that he had a job to do and protecting Callie was his priority, if he had to skulk around like an alley cat to keep her safe, he’d do it. She was too important to Danitrae and Earth to lose on something so personal and petty. He was just thankful that he had been tailing her and stopped her attackers before any serious harm had come to her. If he hadn’t been waylaid by that bunch of drunken college boys wanting a fight, he would have handled the situation much sooner. His timing, though had been excellent, and releasing a little frustration on those undead scum helped to alleviate some of his tension.
Now if he could just get Locke to tell him why in the hell she mattered so much.
“Just one more thing to worry about,” he thought as he brought his left arm up,
“Gauntlet - uncloak.” He ordered to his naked forearm. The surface around his arm rippled, a silver bracer appearing where there was nothing a moment before. He tapped a spot on the chromed piece of armor, engaging the holographic mechanism within. The self-illuminated head’s up display appeared directly over the bracer, a series of control interfaces right next to it. He typed in a sequence of solid-light generated controls that activated the floating screen suspended above the interface.
The screen burst into operation, a cherubic, young woman situated in the center. The raven haired girl seemed stressed, hurrying about her station awkwardly for a moment until she looked back through the communications display. The look on her face was borderline panic coupled with tension.
“C-Command Central, Paladin OrchidKoala here…by the Great Lady!” the young woman replied, the last uttered with reverence combined with abject terror. Her eyes had grown wide and her jaw hung open as she stared in disbelief.
“OrchidKoala, encode secure channel, priority Alpha five-five-six,” Mic directed, once again tapping a series of light-generated buttons in the hovering display. The communications officer on the other end of the screen worked nervously, following her orders.
“Are you set?” Mic requested efficiently, hiding his impatience.
“Oh, I’m sorry sir. Channel encoded and prioritized. Please commence,” the tense girl replied.
Mic sighed with exasperation. His old friend and former partner, Jurin Wylderun, retired from active duty just over a month ago. That had left a void in the communications structure, and that made Mic uneasy. He needed someone he could rely upon, and got stuck with a recent academy graduate, just out of her apprenticeship and still as green as fresh grass. Mic breathed deeply and looked back into the screen.
“OrchidKoala, I have sensitive information to report, prepare for data stream. I need you to cipher it highest priority and then transmit it through the secure lines directly to Mage Locke. I also want confirmation when you’re done,” Mic instructed politely. Last thing he needed was this neophyte botching things up.
“O-o-okay, s-sir. Please confirm, ‘Granny’s not home,’” OrchidKoala challenged uneasily.
“’The wolf has a fetish for nighties,’” Mic answered back. Damn Berto and his quirky humor. Just one more thing needed addressing when he returned home. Nursery rhymes? Really?
OrchidKoala stifled a giggle, and then jolted, realizing her error. Her face turned pale, eyes once again saucer-sized.
Now it was Mic’s turn to find amusement, “At ease, young lady. How long for the cipher and transmission, please?”
“Uhm, confirming forty-one seconds,” she answered back.
“Understood. You have a name, Paladin?” Mic attempted to break the ice, he needed to get the young woman relaxed and with the program. Her discomfort was a huge obstacle and that wasn’t something he wished to contend with, especially with things as they already were.
“S-Shani Harcourte: Paladin Academy Graduate: First Class. Top Honors and Commendation for Innovation,” she responded professionally, and with a little bit of pride.
“Well then, Ms. Harcourte, How did you get the dubious honor of being on the receiving end of this conversation? Where is my normal contact?” Mic asked, already knowing the answer.
“Uhh…sir? I’m not sure what you mean. This is my assignment; I’m your new contact. I was recommended by Paladin CrimsonOwl himself,” she replied, her nervousness obviously jumping into high gear.
“Relax, I’m not firing you. I need you to keep a steady head and ready at a moment’s notice if I need you,” Mic explained. “How is that message coming? Do you have confirmation yet?”
“Confirmation…denied? It says I don’t have the clearance to submit your message and file through the channel and priority you need,” the young Paladin almost cried. “Let me get my supervisor, maybe she can…”
“Negative. You will do just fine. Open a channel to Admin., try to raise Paladin AzureFox, his direct line is Optimal nine-four-two,” Mic ordered. He was getting hot under the collar, but not at the young Paladin. His security and priority should have given whoever he was assigned the proper authorization and rank to perform their duties as and when he needed. Once again, he was forced to start pulling strings he wanted to leave alone. He’d been too long on the communications system, which was something he hated to use in the first place.
Shani proved very capable in connecting Mic with the administrative offices and the head of personnel, Remy Lien, the Paladin AzureFox. His holographic screen split into two, showing both Shani and a handsome man in a crisp dress uniform, an eye patch over his left eye.
“Mic, damn! It’s good to see you again. I haven’t seen or talked to you since the big fight earlier this year,” AzureFox exclaimed excitedly when he saw Mic.
“Sir, I’m closing my end of the channel, now,” Shani reported, but was immediately halted by Mic.
“Negative. You are to stay online for this. Better than finding out later what’s going to transpire,” Mic commanded. He noticed the look of abject fear in her face when he spoke to her. Was he that much of an ogre in the corps?
“Mic,” Remy asked curiously, “What’s going on? Why are you scaring my communications officers again?” It was clear he was under the impression Mic was having a bit of uncharacteristic fun at the expense of the young lady in the conversation.
“Look, this is pretty serious, Remy. Someone assigned me an academy graduate with no clearances, no experience, and no rank. I can’t have that, not with what I have going on right now. I want this girl promoted immediately.”
Both faces and the response was identical, Remy and Shani both saying the same thing at the same time, “What?!?”
Mic clarified,”I absolutely need a capable officer with some rank and security authorization to handle my communications needs. She’s not high enough in the echelon to obtain what she needs to be effective for me.”
AzureFox piped in, “No problem. She’s replaced. I’ll take care…”
“No. I want her, nobody else. She’s already been brought into the loop, and if she’s in, then I need her up to snuff and ready to go at a moment’s notice. She doesn’t need a post in any sort of command position, but I need her working with what she needs, and with the proper authorizations,” Mic made it clear he was not requesting with his tone.
Remy Lien caught the tone and seriousness in Mic’s manner, “Okay, I can do that right now. It’ll need a command endorsement from you.”
Mic’s fingers flew over the solid-light keypad at his wrist, commenting, “Sending my authorization code now.”
“Received and input. Now what do you want done, Mic?” AzureFox inquired.
“First, I want her placed in my command, I want her as a part of my staff, assigning her a lateral transfer should suffice. Secondly, I want her moved up the ranks, three positions. I know I have open slots in the structure for that. Third, I want her security protocols increased for gold-level access. Her encryptions and codes updated appropriately, to include access for communications with the Wayfarer, Blacktalon and related systems. I need this all effective immediately.”
“Damn, Mic. Are you sure about this? She’s awfully green,” AzureFox asked with no small amount of concern in his voice.
This time, Shani chimed in the tremor in her voice betraying her excitement, “Sir, my primary study was communications, ciphers, and protocols. Part of the new paladin gauntlets new design, capabilities, and hardware was drafted by me at Paladin CrimsonRhino’s request.”
“Young lady,” Paladin AzureFox replied, more than slightly miffed, “it doesn’t matter about your involvement with your studies, what worries me is the responsibility you are being given. Rarely has this ever been done for a new academy graduate. Know your place.”
Mic rejoined calmly, “She does know her place, Remy. She needs to be my ears and voice in Mythidria when the time comes and without proper authorization, she’ll be set aside and that will put people in danger. I want you to do this for me, my friend. I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important.” This was true. His current mission demanded the highest of priorities over almost everything Mic had done in the past. He didn’t know why, he wasn’t privy to that information, thanks to Mage Locke. After time, he felt confident that other than being Callie’s personal guardian angel, the truth of this operation would be made clear to him.
AzureFox sat in silence for a moment, looking at the screen at Mic and then Shani, and then set to work as he spoke, “I have her file here, making changes and adding your specifications now. Confirmation is coming through,“ he paused watching off-screen for a few moments, “now. She’s your new communications officer. When shall I have her transfer to the Wayfarer, Mic?”
“I don’t want her on the Wayfarer just yet. I need here there in the command center. She still has responsibilities to the rest of the Corps, but all of my business I want to go through her, and her alone,” Mic directed.
AzureFox responded, somewhat unsettled, “I see. Are there any other pressing matters that need attending to?”
Mic shook his head, “No, but I’m curious as to when you’re getting the replacement. It’s been over four months and you still have the patch.”
“I’m not getting it replaced. I think it gives me something of a ‘swashbuckler’ look, don’t you think?” AzureFox joked, showing his profile and modeling himself comically.
“You do what you want. Resort to piracy, and I’m coming after you, Remy,” Mic chided, grinning.
“I see. Well the high seas won’t have anything to worry about, my friend,” AzureFox chuckled, “Anyway; I have things to do over here. If you need me, Mic, just give me a call. Congratulations, young lady. AzureFox – Out,” was the last thing said before the administrator closed his end of the channel.
Shani Harcourte was about to speak when Mic immediately cut her off, “Are we still on the secure channel?”
Perplexed, she answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Listen, you’re now in a very sensitive position. This is what I want from you. As soon as your rotation ends, I want you to change the rank on your uniform. After that, I want all of your possessions moved to Blacktalon Manor. I have my troops billeted there. Don’t advise anyone why you have moved from the Corps barracks. I also have supplies and a stipend set aside for my fighters. I want your gear updated as soon as you get settled in. Get to CrimsonRhino and tell him to help you get set up at the Manor. If at any time you feel you are in any sort of trouble, he’ll have you keyed in to the M.E.T. platform at Blacktalon. I’m not trying to scare you, but this is extremely important. Do you understand?” Mic explicated.
“As you command, sir,” Shani replied, her face having gone from flushed with excitement to a deathly pale with fear, “May I ask why, sir?”
“As soon as I return to Mythidria, I’ll brief everyone. For now, I need you to put your trust in me, just as I’ve placed my trust in you,” was Mic’s response.
“U-understood, sir. I’ve also taken the liberty of resending your initial communiqué to Mage Locke’s personal channel,” Shani reported.
“Very good. Do as I’ve instructed, and things will be fine, but for now, be careful,” Mic stated, trying not to give any signs of concern for the newly-promoted Paladin’s well-being.
“Will do, sir. Anything else?” she asked.
“No. Just be safe and I’ll smooth everything out when I return. TigerObsidian – Out,” he said as he closed the channel. The screen winked out as he pressed a couple of holographic keys on his bracer, and then deactivated the energy-based control interface.
He was probably being overly dramatic about OrchidKoala, and about getting her promoted, but he had his reasons. He did need her advanced in order to carry out her duties. What kind of fool would place a fresh-out-of-the academy neophyte in a position like that? And stick her in that position without any sort of support measures to back her up? Something didn’t sit squarely with Mic about that. Not to mention with the state of affairs being what they are, it seemed like too much of something more clandestine than a simple mistake.
It didn’t help matters either that this damned mission he was on was so secretive, that even he knew only to protect Calliope Montgomery at all costs. Tonight proved that Mic’s presence was necessary and that there was something more to this assignment than met the eye. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, based on the singular fact that Callie had been attacked by undead - more specifically targeted. Those undead had been waiting for her, not just stumbling upon a random victim. That meant that the mission had been compromised and his focus now needed to shift on Callie.
“Damn,” he thought aloud. Realizing he had a lot of other priorities to shift, plus make an appearance at the hotel in the morning to go through the motions of being Dominic McKnight for the whole day and well into the evening. Careful maneuvering of business interests on his end with his management at the periodical house where he kept his cover brought Callie and her business into their sights. It was sheer dumb luck that they liked her work so much they wanted and exclusivity deal with her photography and image editing business.
Mic Looked around the rooftop surroundings, satisfied that he was still alone and unobserved. He put a powerful leg on the raised ledge and leapt out high over the street. Just as his ascent slowed he turned his focus inward, opening up the door to the power within him. Glossy black and white fur grew from his skin, his face shifting to his feline persona, and kept changing. His body kept growing, shifting from his powerhouse physique to a lankier, sinewy form. Gigantic wings sprung from his shoulders, caught the wind and lifted him up higher and into the obscuring clouds above.
Elsewhere…
Spectral fingers clenched and released over and over again as the ghostly figure of Acheron silently paced inside his personal quarters. His helmeted appearance kept a rapt gaze on the floor in front of him, his ghostly mind deep in thought. He’d learned quickly after his confrontation with Locke and his accursed forces to keep steady concentration, his tormented mind at a semblance of balance, and he could maintain his form and a small measure of his powers. He much preferred to blast those cretins in the Protectorate to dust, to burn and tear and…
No. Steady. It took him days the last time he lost his temper and he wasn’t about to do that again. Mastering his ability to keep calm was easy, keeping it was another thing entirely, and he admitted to himself long ago, equilibrium and patience were not his strong points. Soon, though. He’ll find a way to get what was his without having to think constantly on it.
He floated to the window and looked out into his kingdom, the Nethersphere. Monsters of all descriptions pooled and eddied like water below on the rocky soil, some hopping into the rancid moat surrounding the enormous keep once maintained by the duplicitous Shirahala - the Necromancer Queen.
How she had gained access to his home he couldn’t fathom. His sorcerous protocols to keep any but his immediate followers and he were as strong as ever. Even with his armor, she should not have been able to gain any sort of ingress to his private sanctum. At least she hadn’t penetrated into the upper floors of the castle, into his personal quarters and cache. It was no great effort to take her treasure over and combine it with his own, and had been done so in short order. The damned chamber had been blasted open for whatever reason, and much of the weapons and tools within were mostly worthless pieces of junk, but the rest was quickly cleaned and taken into the upper levels to be sorted with his own personal items of plunder.
The rest he had melted down, pressed into coins, the precious gems collected and left in different containers throughout the cache which took the entire level just below his private rooms. The weapons she’d collected were also sorted and mounted in the armory adjoining the bedchamber for easy and quick access after he got his body back.
He looked out to the distant mountains, settled below a sickly green sky, and watched immense flocks of monstrous beasts soar in patches of sky, the shape of their flights undulating almost like living things in the olive atmosphere. Never once did any of the milling, wandering, or flying creatures would come close to Acheron’s stronghold. After the return of their master, and the terrible wrath wrought by Shirahala and her paramour, all of the primitive beasts now kept a larger no-approach zone out of self-preservation.
Acheron turned back, silently gliding to an overstuffed chair next to the fire he had his servants light for him. Why he bothered was beyond him, he couldn’t feel the heat or enjoy the embrace of light from the flames, or how calm a good fire used to make him feel. He couldn’t feel the velvet of the chair, or the cool hard wood which framed and supported the antique. If it weren’t for his armor, he’d be unable to touch anything or use any of his personal items at all.
Of late, he’d considered possessing any of his servants, just to have a body again, and his attempts to do so met with dismal failure. His ghostly form, combined with his armor, were too powerful for anyone not attuned to such energy would explode within seconds of joining all of the segments together. Acheron would have continued until he found one compatible, but wasn’t stupid enough to waste his entire staff, worthless as they were to begin with. Even the prisoners Shirahala had taken before his resurrection were of no use, so he had them all executed after his final effort to obtain a body.
Now, trapped as little more than a wisp of smoke, barely able to hold his cohesiveness, and forced to stay his hand from his rightful vengeance was becoming a situation he found untenable. Acheron could hold this form forever if he had to, damn the Protectorate, and when he had the last relic in his possession, he had an idea of what he was going to do, and that brought a huge, distended smile to his hidden face, that feeling adding definition to his transparent presence.
“How the mighty have fallen,” a voice came from his left and from behind. Acheron floated into a standing position to confront the stranger. How could anybody have gotten in without him noticing?!?
“You! Identify yourself!” he bellowed in reply, summoning as much of his eldritch powers he could. Even as a disembodied spirit, his powers were still formidable, as long as he could maintain his focus.
Before him was another wisp of smoke, not unlike his own appearance, with exception this ghost had no form. The cloud simply hovered and billowed like a small cyclone, spinning slowly as if in slow motion, small bolts of lightning erupting within its conical form. The top of the miniature tornado wafted a rudimentary face, appearing as if to form a mocking smile at Acheron.
“You will know who I am in time, Acheron. For now, this is all you get,” it taunted derisively.
“You mind your insolence, ghost! You are lucky I don’t blast you to vapor right here and now,” Acheron sneered back.
The tiny storm thundered out a loud laugh, arcs of lightning spilling out and lancing into nearby furniture and leaving little scorch marks.
“You shall not mock me in my own home, spirit, else I will make you pay for your impudence!” Acheron roared, his consistency fading with his anger. No matter, he had enough strength for this apparition!
“Why, Lord Acheron, perhaps you are right. I have come to teach, not to fight. Perhaps we can start anew and…” the newcomer began, but was interrupted by an increasingly angry Acheron.
“You have nothing to teach me, phantom. Leave and never return!”
The cloudy visage seemed to nod, released a breezy sigh, and replied, “Indeed, perhaps I gave you more credit than I should have. Superior intellect, feh.”
“You dare…” Acheron howled but was interrupted just as rudely as he had moments before.
“SILENCE! You speak of insolence, indignity, and power? You pout and whine like some prattling fool, strut about like a king when you are nothing more than a mewling, spoiled brat! You are beyond hope at this stage, it’s time you learned a very valuable lesson, you simpering ass!” the little storm erupted, growing in strength and size, its voice becoming a booming, thunderous report.
The whirling sentient vortex engulfed the spectral Acheron like the wind picking up a leaf, howling at the battle sorcerer with fury, “For ages you terrorized millions with just your reputation. While you lived, you were nothing more than an overpowered, murderous bully with delusions of grandeur.
“You are about to learn about what power really means, and you continue until that lesson has taken hold in your weak, pathetic mind. You shall keep your form, but not have the power to affect that around you. The paths through space and time are open, and you will take them or be forever lost in your own melancholy.
“Also, know this: events have been set into motion which will grant you the one thing you desire most in this existence. How you choose to be afterwards is up to you. The only thing I will allow you to know is one path will lead to the immediate destruction of who you are, the other – your total elimination.
“Now come, see what you are meant to see, perhaps your experience will open more than just your eyes,” the now-enormous spectral storm front boomed at Acheron before they both vanished completely, leaving Acheron’s chambers a wind-blown mess, and leaving no other trace but a slight breeze which also dissipated to nothing before alarmed guards and necromancer toadies burst into the empty chambers.
***
He had been travelling for weeks now, his trek so convoluted to avoid populated areas and people. It was easy at first, those who knew and believed the legends of his wisdom would kneel in humility in his presence, or others would close shutters and curtains out of fear and respect. The simple folk of the mountain villages held such reverence that they even sent messengers to the other towns and hamlets to give word that the fur-covered sage had come from the mountain and walks amongst them in grim determination. As he passed through, he kept his eyes on his path, speaking very little, wishing to not garner any more attention than he already had. Occasionally accepting simple offerings of food and drink, he kept on his mission.
Later, as he continued, the expanses of China, Mongolia, and Russia all seemed to try and prevent him from reaching his destination, yet failed to keep the enormous voyager from his goal. Winds, rain, and then snow and ice storms all hammered away at him with each step he took to the northeast. Headway was made once he was able to reach areas untouched by man. The earth itself embraced his presence in these areas, some areas hidden from prying human eyes provided food and shelter for the rare stop to rest and sleep. Animals of all sorts approached, from rodents to the large predators all sat in perfect harmony to watch over the wise one resting in their presence. He thanked the woodland beasts for their support each time before continuing on with his journey.
Once reaching the more heavily built-up populated areas, he went underground. No longer able to simply see where it was he needed to go, he used his prodigious control over earth and its resources to expand his senses and remain on his course. Using his magical talents as such was something that was more of a nuisance and demanded a degree of focus, but was equalized by not having to trek miles out of his way to avoid people of the 21st century. Now going in a more straight line and avoiding or creating any geophysical pitfalls, his journey and his pace picked up considerably.
Eventually, he came to the northeast corner of Russia and the Bering Strait, looking out over the ocean from a secluded vantage point and admired the beauty the rising sun gave him once again after emerging from the rocky depths of his mystical path. The ocean glittered with the red and orange, reflecting the almost limitless vista of the sky above. He took a couple of minutes to admire the beauty of it all, and then continued on.
He walked towards a shallower area of the coastline from his higher vantage point and gestured out towards the water. A small island gently rose from the cold ocean, which he stepped on and started it moving on its own. His path carried him south of the Diomede Islands to avoid detection, and only stopped once to encase himself in stone and earth to drop below the water as a large ship passed less than a mile away, heading south. He resumed his trail once more in the open air, finally reaching the other side and so close to his destination.
It was coming to the moment that he dreaded and longed for these past weeks. He meant this moment to never come to necessity, but now after so many millennia the measures for this singular purpose he had so painstakingly strove to conceal, was now the one thing he had to ensure a fighting chance for the Earth. This line of thought was what kept his focus for the past long weeks.
And now, here he was, deep in the wilds of Alaska, far from any prying eyes inside another cavern, much like his home. The traps and decoys he’d set so long ago easily bypassed and left aside, returned to the constituent stone and earth from which they had been originally constructed. He sat his belongings down, stepped towards a smooth wall and waved his hand in a circular pattern in front of the barrier, melting away the rock as if passing a blowtorch over thin ice. He stood in the darkness, unmoving and apprehensive at what lie on the other side. He prayed that what he had sequestered there was long destroyed but knew better than that.
He waved his hand once more; spoke a minor incantation causing dozens of torches mounted into the earthen walls of the antechamber to flare and burn brightly, finally exposing in their light what it was the solitary traveler seemed to fear.
The device was large, easily taking up the entire far wall of the underground room. At its highest, it stood over fifteen feet, barely below the cavities ceiling, and stretched ten feet across at the top of the immense framework. At its base it spanned a full thirty feet across at the rear edge of a granite platform. The gigantic frame was merely an inch thick and sat securely against the rock wall. The platform itself was lined with carved steps around its perimeter save for a raised dais set off to the right, a quarter of the stairs distance from the right wall. The entire contrivance was covered in dust from top to bottom that was easily whisked away with a slight thought from the room’s sole occupant.
He approached the dais and tapped its surface. The top slid forward creakily and then up to the podium’s edge. Beneath, a control panel raised flush to the top of the podium and lit up. Ancient controls activated dimly, a single red light flashing at the upper left corner, displaying some sort of error. Once more he touched the top of the pedestal, this time on the flashing light, activating the device’s screen settled in front of him.
“Warning, power supply at less than five percent - Please connect power source for M.E.T. activation,” came a female voice from the machine. He knew this was going to happen and had planned accordingly.
He stepped around the control console and opened a side panel to a rectangular container next to the base. He pulled out a length of thick wire and pulled out several yards. He opened the top of the smaller box and pressed a series of switches set within. It, too, came to life, but dimly, also needing power for proper activation. The silent figure nodded and took the other end of the wire and attached it to an outlet on the side of the podium. Taking the head of the wire, he checked it for damage, taking careful measure with the end, topped with a separate device of its own. If what he remembered was true, this little piece of equipment could take energy from any source from simple motion to artificially generated power and would get this
contraption running properly.
“Technology,” he thought derisively. He hated it, and could live comfortably without it, but in this case, was a truly necessary evil.
As he had so many times in the recent past, he extended his senses outward, focusing mostly downwards. As recollection would serve…yes! There it was. An underground stream flowed swiftly beneath his feet. This was the only reason he placed the device here. He remembered the stream, and when the need had arisen, he had a steadily flowing power source at his disposal for just this instance.
He hung the head of the wire from his fingers and slid it towards the floor. The granite platform flowed open like water spinning from a drain, allowing the wire to fall deeper into the floor, far below the surface.
The smaller device lit up within moments, whirring to mechanical life. It beeped three times in succession three times each, and then hummed steadily as it took the energy from the underground stream and fed it into the larger device. The stranger closed the deep hole he’d made around the wire to seal it to keep water from erupting to the surface. He stood and looked at the main control interface set in the top of the dais.
All of the panel’s controls lit up almost immediately, flaring weakly twice before coming to full life, “Power source found - Charging core - Please allow one standard rotation before using M.E.T.” the same voice relayed to him.
One day. It would take one more day to cross over and make them all aware of what was coming. He hoped they had already prepared, but he knew that the chances of that were slim. He warned them so long ago what going to happen, but they all thought him wrong. No, that’s not entirely correct.
There was one there, the young mage. He knew that one took him seriously. That was the one he needed to find once he got there.
What was his name again? Ah yes.
Locke.
Chapter 2
As the sun rose, Mic arrived early to Callie’s offices. He’d notified the rest of his party that he would go on ahead, wanting to get to know the layout of Callie’s business, operations, mainly to just get a basic impression for the enterprise. After much questioning, hemming – and – hawing, the magazine’s marketing and sales people relented and gave Mic the okay to get a feel for the company. The past few months events had brought so much falsifying of things, it kept a proverbial worm at the base of Mic’s mind, adding unease to every time he interacted with people. The mission, and main purpose he was on Earth to begin with was one thing, and it used to be easy to just simply gather facts, a couple of interviews here and there and turn in his work.
Now, though, he’d been brought into the forefront, and was being paraded around like a damned show pony for the magazine to display like some trophy. It was his own fault, when the Calliope Montgomery mission was dropped in his lap, it was necessary to get as close as possible to her, learn as much as he could, and do it as surreptitiously as possible. Instead of using his powers and the technology at hand, why not explore and check things out with boots on the ground? It seemed more natural to do, and didn’t appear like a waste of resources. The few times he’d “passed by” over the past weeks gave him a good layout of the exterior, and his scanners gave him the layout inside, but without actually being there left out details which could prove problematic in the future. The old adage about ‘An ounce of prevention’ was Mic’s philosophy, and it was working just as he’d planned. Slow going, to be sure, but it was more preferable than bluntly sneaking in and exploring as he could have done.
To top things off, instead of fulfilling what he wanted to do, which was to run a few mission and let loose just a little: he focused on his alter ego’s meeting today. His resources were used to their fullest to investigate the business Callie was in, right into financial records, awards and accolades, and the prestige she and her company was garnering in the industry.
Her business life started during her college years, at first studying in business and management, with a minor in journalism. She hit, what appeared to be a streak of luck after a quick and hard hitting series of tragedies, starting with the death of her parents, then her family home, and then the death of her brother during his second tour in the Middle East. Soon after she buried her brother, she used the inheritance she’d gained by starting up her own photo gun-for-hire business while earning her degree and turned into a strong player in the journalism arena.
Mic did a little checking from that, feeling that it was all too neat and tidy. He spent a while checking out her activities, but dredged up only a couple of speeding and parking tickets. She was as clean as they could come. He was confident that she was on the up-and-up, and left her personal past alone.
He looked up the business dealings of Silver Fox Media, digging deeply to see if there was anything there that seemed out of place. Nothing was out of place what so ever. Tax records were concise, contracts on the up-and-up, and the clientele had nothing but praise for Silver Fox. That still didn’t sit well with Mic. Most companies had something, anything, in the negative, even a little complaint about the most inane detail but there literally existed none at all.
That grated on Mic. Nobody was that squeaky clean. He pondered for moment. Based on his own personal history and the secrets he carried all his life, that maybe he shouldn’t judge too quickly. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a wary eye open for the duration. The moment he did find out what it was that irritated him, he would be ready to pounce.
After hours of probing, he hit the shower, changed, and then took a cab to the coffee shop where Callie had been attacked. Based on the surveillance and analysis he’d been conducting, she obviously spent a great deal of time here. Being a short distance from her offices/apartment made it the obvious choice for repeated visits. He doubted, though, that she had ventured there today after the incident last night. He made himself a mental note to not pry when he arrived, lest he wished to blow his cover.
Mic ordered three white chocolate mochas, the one for himself with a couple of extra shots of espresso, all topped with whipped cream. He didn’t need the jolt of caffeine, but for appearances sake he figured something as mundane as being selective about coffee added to his false persona. After paying the young man at the counter, Mic headed for Silver Fox Media for his meeting.
Less than a ten minute walk brought him to the front door of Silver Fox. He introduced himself to the young gentleman at the front desk and was ushered inside briskly but more politely than he was used to. The overly flamboyant employee practically clung to Mic as he sashayed with him to the conference room, fawning and flirting with practically every step. Mic merely continued with pleasantries as he was led to the meeting room, found his seat and declined any further assistance. The overly-courteous attendant left his personal business card next to the cardboard drink carrier and winked at Mic from over his shoulder before walking out. Mic looked at the card, flipped it over, seeing the telephone number printed on the back.
Now alone, Mic felt comfortable enough to laugh a little.
Callie entered the conference room from a door located at the far end kitty-cornered from the one he’d entered. She showed no sign of any injuries from the night before, both a good and a bad sign. She would have obviously noticed a lack of pain or the awful wounds she’d been dealt. Then again, he did take extra care with the memory modification he’d worked on her. He readied a few plans of action if she said anything as he stood and smiled.
Callie looked very business like, her hair coiffed up neatly in a tight bun, twin streamers of hair dangling in loopy curls on either side of her face. Her suit, although severe, hugged her curves splendidly, her red shirt a sharp contrast to the black jacket and knee-length skirt. She approached Mic with a fluid grace, a practiced gait Mic never expected for one so young. She moved smoothly, silently, giving the image of a sleek hunter boldly approaching prey before pouncing at the last second.
Her eyes lit up politely as she approached and cordially offered, “Dominic McKnight? It’s so good to meet…”
Next moment, and the loud utterance of the word, “Shit” burst forth from Callie’s lips, she was picking herself up off the floor. Mic set the drinks aside, and helped her to her feet. “What was that all about,” he thought fighting the urge to burst into laughter.
“I’m sorry. I don’t normally wear this crap. It’s the legal suits that insisted I wear this get-up for you guys. I hate suits, I hate heels. I never could walk in the frigging things,” Callie snarled at Mic, looked at him once, and then softened.
“Uh, yeah. I guess it was some sick form of karma to make an ass of myself, I suppose,” she explained.
“It’s fine,” Mic replied, amusement mixed with sympathy locked into his features, “it happens to the best of us.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. Are those for me?” she asked, nodding her head to the coffees on the table.
“I figured I would bring them, coffee on me, as an opening gesture of goodwill. I hope you like white choc…” he began before being interrupted by a human whirlwind.
Five feet-five inches of female hurricane burst into the room, ranting about lenses, software, a faulty camera, stuck up wenches in the studio, somebody named “Freddy”, a rapid-fire tale about how she jammed her thumb, her underwear “creeping into the great unknown” (unceremoniously reaching behind and fixing the afflicting material), and oh boy is that my favorite coffee? Coffee coffee coffee! She bee-lined to the carrier, lifted each one, popped the lids and then took the one Mic had purchased for himself and downed half of it before taking another breath.
“So who’s this, Cee?” the newcomer asked and licking off her whipped cream mustache, settling down long enough for Mic to finally get a good look at her.
Her face was extremely lovely, as was the rest of her. Her eyes, lined with heavy eyeliner, were a deep shade of gray and wide, like a doe’s. Her slightly round face made her look younger than she had to have been, Mic guessed. Her purple-streaked black tresses hung from twin pigtails that bounced almost with a life of their own. Beneath her pert little nose, rounded lips covered in black lipstick pursed and relaxed several times. The rest of her makeup made the girl appear pallid, even though she looked rather healthy. Her blue and black plaid miniskirt, skin tight black t-shirt with the phrase, “Photographers do it with their lens caps off” emblazoned across her bosom showed off her eye-catching figure. Knee-length leather platform boots gave an additional three inches to her stature.
“This is Dominic McKnight, he’s one of the guys here for the new contract,” Callie enlightened.
“You’re cute,” the eye-catching coffee thief blurted out, continuing, “Hey. I thought you said these guys were all a bunch of fat nerd-boys that live in their mom’s basement, and looked at internet porn all day. He doesn’t look like that at all. You don’t look at internet porn do ya?”
Callie finally interrupted the black and purple tressed cutie by firmly wrapping her arm around behind the brunette’s head and putting her hand over her mouth. Obviously there had been a conversation about the delegation from Mic’s magazine which made Callie turn a very embarrassed shade of red. The black and blue-clad whirlwind kept talking through Callie’s muffling hand until she received an impolite, but playful tap to the forehead.
“Mic, this pain in the ass is Dani Alexandrova. She’s my best friend and room mate, and is pretty much my second in command around here. She’s the best in the business, regardless if she has the manners of a rabid pit bull,” Callie explained civilly for the most part, then leaned in to good-naturedly chide the muzzled Dani, “especially after we agreed to not revisit the nerd-boy conversation again.”
Dani’s eyes got wide with the realization she’d erred. She offered a muffled agreement so Callie would release her mouth. Once the hand slipped from her lips, she started in again.
“Yeah, but his gut doesn’t hang over his winky, and damn he’s hot,” She blurted out and ran to the far side of the table, Callie attempting to chase her, but stumbled in her heels again with a very loud, “Dammit!’
Dani looked at Mic giggling and keeping her distance from a now shoeless Callie, “I love to do that to her when she wears heels. She’s such a klutz.”
The two women played cat-and-mouse for a few more seconds before the door Mic had entered through flew open, a team of security personnel bursting in ready for action, followed by the front desk attendant. The entire group surveyed the room, observed the two young women smiling broadly and breathing heavily from running all over the conference room and visibly relaxed, even though many eyes were on Mic. Mic looked to the surly team of guards, then to the girls and then back again only to offer an amused, harmless-looking shrug.
“Uhh, guys? It’s okay, we were just goofing off. Go ahead and chill. We’re fine.” Callie stated somewhat sheepishly.
“But Ms. Montgomery, it sounded like you were in trouble,” the effeminate desk attendant reported, “I could have sworn someone was fighting in here.”
Dani piped up, “Oh, come on, Dave, we all know you were just looking to score with the big guy here.” She looked at Mic once more with a sly grin plastered to her lips, “Hell, I might even try him for a test drive.”
Callie reached out and slapped Dani on the back of her shoulder and shot Dani a disapproving look. Dani feigned offense, grabbed the wrong shoulder and, over-dramatically hollered, “OW! I was just kidding!”
“Now everyone not involved with the meeting may go ahead and carry on with their business – NOT you, Dani!” Callie commanded, sending everybody away, but snagging Dani by the ear, keeping her from leaving as well.
“You’re staying right here, you’re part of this meeting, too,” Callie ordered.
Dani shuffled in closely to Callie, whispering conspiratorially into the redhead’s ear as the rest of Mic’s delegation entered the meeting room with slightly confused looks on their faces, security personnel still filing out, “Then I get to sit next to Mic. These guys look like complete geeks!”
Callie took a look at the rest of the contingent from Mic’s magazine and nodded with a resigned sigh. Each of the salesmen and even the Managing Editor looked as though they all existed for comic books, World of Warcraft, and hadn’t seen sunlight in months. They all wore nice suits and carried fine briefcases, but all of them had stickers and/or patches prominently affixed to their cases bearing superheroes, game characters, and other assorted fantasy or science fiction emblems.
Callie nodded, and whispered back, “Fine.” She then put on her best face to greet the newcomers. After acknowledgments were exchanged, Callie set to her presentation, occasionally stealing a glance at Dani, who never took her eyes off of Mic, head propped dreamily in her hands. Oh yeah, this was going to be a long meeting, Callie thought as the lights dimmed for the video portion of her lecture.
Elsewhere north and west…
An enormous sigh echoed in the chamber, just audible over the steady whine of the active machinery. As the gigantic device recharged itself, the lone wanderer kept busy with events at hand. His hands busied themselves repairing the raiments he wore and carried. If he were to present himself to the Mage Council and Locke once again, he had to make himself moderately presentable. It didn’t really matter, and he honestly didn’t care what others thought of his appearance, but for decorum’s sake, he felt it prudent. As far as he knew, this Locke was like the other mages of the Council (as he remembered those he was familiar with so long ago) and had kept the useless pomp and circumstance active.
He stopped for a moment, took a drink of water from a skin he’d hung on the wall over his left shoulder, put the skin back and continued on with his work. Disgust began to worm its way into his thoughts. If it weren’t so dire, he would just let Mythidria fall and do what he could to protect the wildlife surrounding his mountain home. It would be difficult, never having moved such a large mass before, but it could be done with some effort.
His particular peak he’d made himself and that was just a small one, and then he’d only changed to top of the mountain and added extra spaces in his cave-side home. He recalled the work had left him exhausted, but not too terribly so. It was also after he had just…what ever the term was which would apply to his gaining the ability to manipulate solid matter however he saw fit. Tapping into the geothermal energy sources deep beneath the Earth would be just as easy to do as it was for the energy siphon now gathering power for the ancient doorway a few short yards away. But that was so long ago, who knows how time had affected his powers. Would it be as if no time had passed, like the energy siphon?
One hole patched in his tunic, on to the next. He thought that once he made it to Mythidria, hoped rather, that he wouldn’t be patching more holes and was going to make it early enough to be proactive to prevent any holes in the events to come.
The far side of 82 G. Eridani b…
Space erupted in a bright splash of water-like light. From within the explosion, a craft of colossal proportions emerged, swiftly decelerated to a slow drift, and eventually stopped in a matter of a few impossible seconds. Behind the starship, the portal bridging hyperspace with regular space-time collapsed as a rock tossed into a body of water only played in reverse. The silence of space in the darkness of the aquamarine-hued planet masked the activity within the space craft. The alien crew could be observed carrying out assigned tasks through the ports that pockmarked the outer hull.
Amidships, the heavily shielded bridge was alight with activity. Inside the diamond-shaped center, crew worked at their stations, all intent on their duties while atop a short dais towards the rear of the bridge the ships commander assessed the readouts on the screens embedded on the ends of the armrests of his post. Nominal readings across the board, the ship itself fed and happy, the crew healthy and active, and a quick break from duty for a short favor for the Mythidrian government. Usually, captain and crew chafed at such minor trivialities, but in this case, the short stop took them only a small distance out of their way from their assigned exploration route.
“Captain K’kkr’K, we have reached the space-time co-ordinates from the dispatch, sir,” the helmsman announced, turning his helmeted head 180 degrees to face his commanding officer.
“Very good, Ssluu, all thrusters at station-keeping. I believe our Mythidrian allies will be arriving momentarily,” the captain replied, surveying the bridge. His sense of pride showed. His ship, his crew, the best and brightest of the Concordance, performed well above any and all expectations even in the most mundane of tasks.
“Captain, sensors are picking up another ship entering our vicinity, its hyperspace gate is opening at 212 mark 331,” the officer, a man-sized mantisiid, from the post directly behind the captain spoke, “It will be arriving in approximately two minutes and twenty-four seconds.”
“Helm manoeuver the ship approximately 400 heks starboard and fifty degrees downward, let’s give them a little room,” the captain commanded coolly. Regardless of how routine the issue at hand was, caution for his people always took front seat and saw no point in remaining too rigid.
Space erupted in a soundless explosion of light and color, energy splashing out in all directions as if space was a gigantic pond beneath the surface and a stone had plunged through. Streamers of energy and bubbles of light flowed back into the opening before it silently collapsed shut, the Mythidrian ship slowly coasted to a complete stop above and behind the Concordance vessel. Small fusion generators fired the docking jets to put the sleek arrowhead/wedge-shaped craft alongside the other, much larger ship.
The captain sat watching the screen as the Mythidrian ship pulled up next to his and sat in silence. His bridge crew look at each other, the main view screen, the captain, then back to the screen, confused.
“Sir, I am detecting no communications from the Mythidrian ship. In fact, I’m not receiving any kind of signals whatsoever,” the communications officer professionally declared from her post starboard to the insectoid officer’s station.
“Have you sent a standard hail, Lieutenant?” the captain asked, rubbing the tentacles at his chin with concern.
“Yes sir, no response. Wait, I am getting a signal, now, from a hand-held unit. It’s somewhat weak but I can put it through, sir – audio only,” she answered, tapping a few controls on the panel high and to her left.
“Put it through,” replied the captain.
“…ria courier vessel, Cheetah to Concordance vessel. Captain Aurhiote here. Please forgive our communications issue. We were struck by a stray ferrous asteroid in hyperspace. Out communications array was smashed. We’re glad you could make it on such short notice,” came the voice of a male human over the system’s speakers.
Captain K’kkr’K had met the Mythidrian captain on a number of occasions. Aurhiote struck him as a forthright, honorable human. He’d been involved in a number of rescue missions in the past and had earned a reputation for himself and his crew, even though he captained a smaller frigate, he used the capabilities of his ship and his crew far above and beyond their measure with a nearly perfect success rate. Aurhiote was the type of leader beings followed because they wanted to, the inspirational air of the Mythidrian captain was that strong.
“Captain Aurhiote, Captain K’kkr’K here. You have my apologies. Is there anything we can do to help affect repairs?” K’kkr’K asked, concerned for his counterpart, the tentacles at his chin twitching with apprehension.
“Negative Captain K’kkr’K.,” Aurhiote’s voice answered, “We have short-range capabilities with our back-up antennae, but we had to assign one of our Gauntlets and patch it into our comm. system as the impact blew out our communications station entirely. We have the situation stabilized, but our mission is a time-sensitive one. We are grateful the Concordance called you in to finish this off for us.”
“Of course, Captain Aurhiote, what is your mission and destination?” K’kkr’K asked.
“It’s a simple delivery. We have a cask that need to be taken to Admiral Jountin at Halcyon Base in the Doalaahr system. The contents need to be kept sealed in this container per the Admiral’s orders,” replied the voice over the intercom.
“Do you know what the contents are?” K’kkr’K rejoined.
“Negative, Captain K’kkr’K. Orders are to deliver to the Admiral for one of the terraforming projects in the Doalaahr system.”
K’kkr’K was familiar with the Doalaahr project. Halcyon orbited just outside of what was supposed to be the prime life-supporting area around the Doalaahr sun. The problem that existed was of a deadly ring of gas and debris left behind of what was the three inhabited planets after they’d been obliterated by a wayward comet. One planet managed to escape destruction, being on the far side of the system when its sister planets exploded, but the ring of debris and volatile gas field destroyed all life on the last planet.
The Concordance had spent years clearing out the system, locating survivors, and other relief efforts. While Doalaahr was a terrible tragedy with the loss of life in the billions, the Concordance vowed to make the system a habitable one again for the natives of the system, and to continue to do so until success had been reached, therefore was seen as a definite scientific opportunity in a number of disciplines that was quickly jumped upon.
Sensors scanned the nearby area of soundless void, between their location and that of the Mythidrian courier. The captain ordered manoeuvering jets to come alongside the much smaller ship and the process of docking was accomplished in minutes.
The alien ships crewmembers opened the docking ports within the umbilical but were met with nobody from the other ship. They looked at each other for a moment, curious as to the serious lack of protocol and continued on to the airlock within the courier.
The door opposite the short tunnel opened suddenly with a hissing noise when the crew had gotten over halfway through the docking umbilical. Again, no other crewmembers met the alien crew. A small gun-blue metal box sat on the floor within the airlock. Its dark surface shone with polish while the ornate fittings along the edges of the case gleamed with a golden sparkling hue.
The curious crew stood still, unsure what to do about the box. One of the team tapped on the control panel next to the door, hoping for some sort of a response. A friendly voice chimed on after a moment. The crew stood and waited patiently for the voice to reply with the speech translator activated.
“I’m sorry,” the voice responded within moments, genuinely apologetic, “we’ve been having problems with our comms and translators today. We had to wire the intercom with one of our portable scanners so we could get it working for now.”
“We understand,” replied the lead crewman, his once-building trepidation alleviated. “We were beginning to worry. We are curious as to what we are to do with this cask sitting on the floor and why none of your people met us when we had docked with you.”
“I’m sorry, gentle-beings,” the cordial female voice responded, “we were given instructions to hand the case off to you for delivery to Rear-Admiral Jountin at Halcyon Base before you headed out on your mission. We couldn’t M.E.T. it because of the sensitive materials inside it.
“Since both ships are on time-sensitive schedules we thought you would just grab the item and take off again. Our comms being as they are…I’m not surprised you didn’t get that part of the message,” the voice explained.
“We were just lucky that you were heading in the same direction and had to be sidetracked a few light-days off-course to meet us. Had our systems been working properly we wouldn’t have had to pass this off to you,” she finished.
Nodding, the non-human officer nodded its head, “I see. Then it is our pleasure to help out our friends in Mythidria. Should we pass along any sentiments to the Admiral?”
The voice took a moment before responding, “Negative. Records of the mission are to simply deliver the box as quickly as possible and to ensure that the seals around the lid are maintained.
“We think you are probably itching to get going so we shall take our leave, with your kind permission. We shall wait until you have undocked before we open our hypergate and leave,” came the voice without any prompting, this time sounding forced and somewhat rushed.
The crew leader sent one of the others to take the box. The midshipman hurried and took the case a scant second before the door closed again, almost closing on the crewmember. They all looked at the door with concern at such rudeness, and then hurried down the collapsible hallway. The last to board the alien vessel was the group leader. A quick spin on the heel and the tapping of keys on a lighted panel later, the docking umbilical was retracting. The leader watched the Mythidrian courier speed off into space via the porthole adjacent the airlock.
The crew stood and watched in curiosity as the ship banked, sped off to their portside and then opened a portal into hyperspace to disappear in a flash of light. They all stood for mere moments, unsure of any special instructions or of what they were meant to do with the case other than to deliver the thing to the Admiral.
The lead officer tapped a couple of keys on the intercom and spoke into it, “Captain? Ssp’k here. We have the Mythidrian cask and instructions to take it to Halcyon Base. By my estimate, we will lose no time if we adjust our course accordingly and enter a parking orbit above Halcyon at 0217 hours in three days.”
“Understood, Ss’pk. Go ahead and put the cask in the secure hold and in a stasis chamber, then resume your post here on the bridge,” the captain replied over the speaker from his post on the bridge.
Ss’pk turned to the gathered contingent, “Detail dismissed. Security Officer Glrmph, you will accompany me to deck seventeen with the case and we shall place it into secure storage.”
The largest of the team, bedecked in a red-shirted uniform, gingerly picked up the cask with one enormous hand, set it in his other and then nodded readiness to Ss’pk. The senior officer signaled his own readiness and then dismissed the rest of the squad before heading to one of the lifts and the below decks cargo bays.
The ship started underway once again, a slight deviation to her course to compensate for the brief detour and she was off for just a few minutes before the tremendous bio ship sputtered, her technological components going into failure. The ship lurched twice and then completely powered down. The hulking ship drifted off, powerless and dying. Inside her organic shell, violent mayhem and death. She secured her most important sections off as best she could as the last ergs of power stopped coursing through her systems. Her last act was a few seconds of a broken distress signal and a silent prayer help would come soon.
Back on Earth…
For something so mundane and routine, Mic was enjoying himself against his better judgement. Callie Montgomery was an able leader and was able to keep everyone’s attention with her knowledge, ability to answer questions on the fly, and her wit. He had imagined the day would be boring and stuffy, but quite the contrary.
After her initial presentation, she had a continental breakfast catered in for her guests, and the ever-present Dani, after which a cordial coffee and questions session in which she would answer any and all questions thrown at her, and was, surprisingly, assisted by her comrade-in-arms who showed a degree of intellect regardless of her appearance or demeanor.
The whole contingent then went on a tour of the facility, which by Mic’s estimation, was very impressive. Callie had managed to take the mid-sized warehouse and turn it completely into a self-contained photography studio complete with any sort of tool and software photography connoisseur could ever imagine from the simplest digital cameras for preliminary shots and set adjustment to complete computer suites for image adjustments or manipulations. Dani shined here, stepping up to the plate when they arrived.
The relatively diminutive brunette even went into an ersatz photo shoot, taking an image of one of the models on break, deftly using the equipment and processes to take the few images she’d taken of her subject and changed the images to suit different backgrounds, remove blemishes, changed the model’s features to that of a fictional witch complete with pointed hat and broomstick much to the humor of her guests and the ire of the auburn-haired model who’d taken to tagging along.
By noon, Mic’s group was very impressed and muttered amongst themselves about how best to utilize the image house. With the facilities and resources at Callie’s beck and call, they could amp their magazine considerably, adding a bit of flair to their company of magazines, e-zines, and special periodicals. They were all in agreement, the move to contract Silver Fox Media for all of their imaging needs was one of the best they’d made. They thanked Mic for attending, letting him know, under no uncertainty, his presence helped to add more to their cause having him there. Mic knew they truly meant, “We’re glad you came, we needed someone pretty to make sure they wanted to play with us.”
For once, though, he didn’t mind. Yes, Callie was very beautiful, to be sure, and smart as a whip, no doubt about that. She was just business to Mic, just the same. He was assigned to protect her, and being here made everything work out for the best, even after the near-fiasco from last night.
No, it was her compatriot, Daniella Alexandrova who held his attention, literally. She’d hardly left his side through the whole event, muttered different factoid bits of information to Mic while Callie conducted her demonstration and tour, sat with him at lunch, and went so far to pull him closer to her workstation as she did her own display of skill so he could get the best view of the station and, intentionally or not, a straight shot down her dress which Mic was sure was intentional. She certainly showed she was adept at her post, as well as proving she could be quite a pain in the backside, according to a very apologetic Callie.
Mid-afternoon, after a lunch of west coast light fare, paperwork was presented, signed, stamped, notarized in triplicate, copies handed out to all parties and their legal representatives in attendance. All the while, Mic tried to get away for a few moments to update himself with any goings-on with his cloaked gauntlet, but failed to get a moments peace from the ever-present Dani. He silently agreed several times with Callie, this one was 20 pounds of pain in the ass in a five pound sack.
Still, though – she wasn’t all that bad, she was extremely attractive, and regardless of her ability to annoy, she was a capable young woman and, Mic considered a few times, she had a lot more about her she didn’t tell to the visitors. The way she moved, for one, boisterous as she was, there was a certain grace of motion Mic took interest in. She would hop and dance around like a little kid at times, high energy (or overdosed on caffeine – Mic still hadn’t decided which) yet there was always something of a little predator behind her playful attitude, like she was always poised for something to happen.
He also took keen note of the exposed parts of her body – she was all woman, definitely, but there was also some muscle beneath the girly. He noticed early on even when she was standing (relatively) still, her legs possessed the definition of a practiced gymnast or equestrian, and looked about as firm as concrete. Mic couldn’t help but stare at times, more out of curiosity trying to figure Dani out than admiring her physical attributes…even though they were spectacular in his personal estimation.
“Hey hot stuff, like what you see?” Dani asked, tapping on his forehead playfully.
Mic blinked and shook his head, confused and embarrassed he might have been staring at the little brunette ball of energy, “I’m really sorry. Uhm, what?”
“The studio set up? The layout for multiple studios? Hello?” Dani good-naturedly teased, “You’ve been staring out there for a long time, I thought you were being impressed or something.”
“Oh! Oh no, I wasn’t really thinking about the set up you guys have here. I was thinking about a couple of articles I need to work on to turn in this week is all. Waiting for quotes from sources has been difficult lately,” Mic lied, thankful he wasn’t caught staring at Daniella. True, he was lost in thought, but not about the news pieces he’d actually completed three days ago, but rather the ease of which an attack could occur with so many concealed areas. He’d been ready all day for something to drop, trying not to appear on edge and wound up appearing scatterbrained instead.
Dani chimed up again, her conduct sweetly flirtatious, ”So big fella, what do you say?”
Hmm? About what again?”
“Cute and stupid, I love that in a man. Are you coming to the little party I set up tonight? Your pals are coming for drinks at the club, and I asked if you were coming to party, too,” Dani explained, the slight Russian accent in her voice adding an extra tone of charm.
“Ah, yes. Of course. Yes, I’ll be there. What time and how should I dress?” Mic inquired, his mind drifting towards a sourness of there being a crowd he’d need to deal with on top of other issues.
“Be there at around ten, ten-thirty,” she instructed, “we’ll be there around opening time, to get your pals started and out of the way so we can enjoy ourselves while they’re soused up. And black. All black. It suits you, I think.”
Mic chuckled, this little one certainly did have some spunk, “All black and fashionably late. Got it.”
Dani’s eyes widened for a brief moment, and she bit her lower lip, cheeks flushed with color. With her hands behind her back and her chest out just a bit she backed away bashfully, turned and practically danced into the studio area. She took a peek back to see if Mic was still there, thought he had stopped to look at his watch, and when she saw he wasn’t there, did a little jump for joy and then traipsed to her office.
Mic had beaten a hasty retreat from the offices, bid some polite, courteous, but rushed sentiments to his higher-ups and the office staff (did the guy at the reception desk blow me a kiss?) and made his way to where he could find a little privacy to answer the steadily vibrating gauntlet which still sat on his arm, cloaked to any prying eyes. He ducked in between a pair of buildings and then practically sprinted further back and into an unused parking cubby before removing the invisibility screen and tapped the chromed device with his middle finger.
The gauntlet’s holographic display flared to life, a simple screen with a message Mic had left for himself, a running alarm to alert himself of an upcoming issue he needed to begin directing his focus upon. He acknowledged the message, reset the timing, and then reset his device, a look of concern on his face.
Soon he would need to sequester himself from everything living, the wyr drive to mate was fast approaching, and Mic’s was particularly strong the past few times. He leaned against the wall, allowing himself an uncharacteristic break to think about the concerns that came with the impending need to reproduce, and the dangers it posed.
He was already aware his time was imminent, the signs usually started months in advance usually in the form of stray, violent thoughts, or changes in his demeanor which one could take as being extremely forward to the point of being rude. Mic generally managed to keep the latter at bay thanks to thousands of years of discipline, and held concern his actions might slip at the wrong possible moment. The last thing he needed was to lose control and do something stupid which would blow his cover, or worse.
Then there was the obvious issue of that last week of the full moon the cycle fell on. That was what gave Mic he most worry. From the first time to the most recent, the drive turned Mic into a raging beast, his form unlike anything he ever became consciously. When that change took place, he tried to have himself safely locked away in “the Pit” – a deep man-made cavern just large enough for a man to be comfortable without any connection to the outside world at all. Mic ran a mental checklist for the provisions he would need that week. He needed enough for three days, two before the final cycle began, and the day after. Plenty of water, some solid provisions stowed in the cabinets of the compartmented “u”-shaped oubliette, program the house’s computers to run power and water on the safe days, and have other sundries stowed for his return to the world.
Mic sighed, ten days. Ten days of seclusion. Ten days he could be out fighting monsters, looking after the Earth, and caring for his feline companions.
Ten days away from his family…
Mic shook those thoughts from his head, took himself off of the wall and headed back out the way he came to the street. He turned and walked the rest of the way down the black, hailed a cab and returned to the hotel room the magazine had put him up in. It wasn’t bad. The room was large and comfortable, lots of blues, goldenrod, and other tones which made the room darker than it needed, but was kept cool thanks to the deep hues.
Mic sat at the desk, and sent the already-completed articles and the short story he’d proofed weeks ago, keeping up the appearance he was a work hound. His cover job was ridiculously easy to do, many of the stars and related subjects he’d actually been to in the past, and his connections within the Concordance made it even easier to get images and information sent he could use to publish with his articles. He got up, stretched and then retrieved his gauntlet from its cloaked configuration and began running through tasks, messages, and other functions which detailed his new role as a commander of a unit of his very own.
Part and parcel to becoming the captain of a newly-launched ship was Mic’s impression. Damned thing can’t operate without a crew, and that was a thought Mic was not very fond of. He’d been “recruiting” from all over the Protectorate, gathering the best people he could get his hands on, which was also embarrassingly easy. He’d managed to get his bridge crew gathered first, all capable Paladins in their own right, and all of whom the top in their fields, and then made them his command staff.
He managed to get them all trained up how he wanted them to perform as department heads, and then had them pass on their knowledge to the troopers Mic brought to the manor. While they trained, they all pulled duty on patrols, training, Charge of Quarters, team building, the ranges, PT, and the rest that came as a part of an extended company of fighters. He kept them flight-worthy but off of the Wayfarer for the time-being, again thanks to the activities involved with the overwatch of Callie Montgomery.
The real windfall was being able to bring Berto and Aelissi into the fold. While they maintained their auspices in the Protectorate R and D and the academy (respectively), they willingly moved into the mansion once they’d learned there was plenty of room, and were willing to add their skills to Mics growing garrison of guardsmen to give them all an added edge with the best tech and training they could offer. Of course, they couldn’t be a part of Mic’s unit having their own occupations to focus upon, but their personal time was theirs, and they were happy to be able to move out to the mansion and away from the grind of living in Certi City proper. They were both particularly happy since; Aelissi, could return to nature and be one with her surroundings as she had been in her elven homelands, and Berto just so he could watch Aelissi be one with nature in all her elven glory…principally her penchant towards nudity.
It helped to have them around, bringing them in helped the other fighters to blend in better, and the few other elves who had been brought in had someone to look up to so they didn’t feel so out of place with their human counterparts. Plus, it meant two more Paladins who could take charge when needed while Mic was away.
Once he finished his work, he gave it a quick once-over, corrected a couple of mistakes, and then saved it. He much preferred keeping the memory in his Gauntlet clear of such clutter, refusing a command post for so long, but once his change in status had gone through, it seemed that was all he had on his portable communications, computer, sensor palette any more. He checked for any other messages, orders, or changes and then, upon finding no new communiques, cloaked his Gauntlet once again, and then stepped out of the hotel room, down the hall and out into the expansive lobby. He checked his surroundings, debating whether he wanted to just stay in the hotel and have dinner at one of the restaurants on the ground floor, or head out and eat at one of the places which shared the parking lot with the enormous edifice. He headed off to his left and to the little Chinese restaurant closer to the hotel next door than the one he stayed at. He had a sudden craving for curry chicken and some noodles, so Chinese it was. He had to kill time after all, and he had a lot of it on his hands right now. Best he stayed relatively close in case something went down concerning Callie and Dani, the bugs he planted everywhere in the business and their apartment since last night would keep him well-apprised of their safety.
“So dinner and a party later on,” Mic reflected to himself, “this has got to be one of the strangest assignments I’ve ever been on.”
Chapter 3
Acheron howled in abject fury and frustration at everything around him and finding he was completely immaterial to his surroundings. People dressed in loose-fitting robes, sashes, and clothes ranging from the ornate to the most simple milled about the marketplace without a single clue there was a raging spectral despot in their midst.
Acheron stopped roaring at an old woman working her fruit stand, virtually boiling over with anger. Whatever that damned spirit had done, it had done a very good job of it. No powers in the physical universe held sway over him, even in his currently ghostly form, yet whatever, or whoever, had transported him here had power enough to render him completely wraithlike to these simple mortals. When he got his body back, there would be no end of pain for this tormentor!
He suddenly realized at that moment, he had completely lost his temper and should have dissipated again as he had so many time in the past few months. He looked at his gauntleted hands, and saw his black, smoky arms still coherent, though phantasmal, as if nothing had happened. For the first time in his long existence, since becoming the Chaos Bringer and even before his resurrection, Acheron felt a twinge of fear course down his ghostly spine. Nothing should have the ability to alter his form or do as this spirit seemed to have done to him. Nothing. How to gain this influence become one of Acheron’s priorities once he was back to his normal self. If this foul avatar held such sway over him, who was to say someone else wouldn’t attempt it in the future?
Another though struck him, why hadn’t his future self arrived to set everything right? He never brooked any sort of insolence from any creature living or dead, and yet he hadn’t been returned to his proper time, or had he gained his body back yet. He certainly had the capability when he was alive and surely would have again once his body had been obtained, unless…No. His body would be brought back and he would exact his righteous vengeance. Waiting for the right time to strike. That must be it. Acheron would hit that disturbing storm cloud with a firestorm of his own. Acheron sneered beneath his helmet at the thought of punishment for an elemental spirit. The screams it would make as it begged for mercy. Yes, there would be suffering the moment he was able.
Acheron paused for a moment, looked around at his surroundings. Odd, there were none of the modern contrivances he’d seen from his observations over the past weeks. No machines to speak of, no tall edifices of concrete, steel, and glass. The clothing worn by the passers-by were familiar, but he couldn’t quite…
“Suo’ nahaal?” he questioned aloud to himself, trying to discern where it was he had been taken. He was sure it was what was considered the Middle East, but the time escaped him. He attempted to levitate to get his bearings, but failed to raise as much as a millimeter from the dusty ground. How could this be? Ephemeral yet landlocked? Oh yes, there will be such pain for this indignity!
Acheron strode the few steps to the gates of the bustling little town, he could smell running water from nearby, and saw lush greenery blocking what could only be the docks of the city. He’d been here before, but in ages long past, a place which could not possibly exist in this nearly primitive state.
“Abydos,” he said with near wonder. He looked all about, shocked yet marveling at the wonder of having travelled so far back to a time he recalled and reveled in. Where were the battlements formed from the blood and backs of the slaves? The Black Wall? The Hungering Sands? No, none of the powerful weapons he’d set here were where they were supposed to be. What is this affrontery? Where were his necromancer troops? Why was this city not being held under thrall of the whip? When is this?
Something dark caught to the north and west caught his eye, smoke! Could it be he’d been taken to the past to witness his capture of this busy little town? To watch as it became one of his treasured holdings of verdant land filled with some of the best this part of the world had to offer? He rushed his spectral form to the source of the smoky pillar and watched, confusion settling in at what he was witnessing.
Yes, Abydos was being taken, but not by his forces. From the north, forces had taken boats and had travelled down the Nile, over running everything in their path. Not a home stood as thousands ran rampant through the streets the residents frantically fleeing before them before being either shot down overrun, or caught by the invading forces. Acheron felt his heart leap. Carnage, destruction, murder…the faint smell of blood and dirt wafted to his senses.
More. He wanted more. He hurried as best he could toward the wave of oncoming death, wanting to see more. Perhaps the wave of energy from the oncoming horde would somehow help restore some of his lost power. He had the knowledge to convert such energy into personal stores, so he had to get closer to see and work his dark arts.
He stopped and watched, not even attempting to weave the chain of spells to absorb the hate and rage from the encroaching forces. He simply stood, disgusted, seeing the wanton waste the horde left as they roared past.
Nothing human survived. Acheron realized quickly this wasn’t an invasion, but a cleansing. He turned and watched as arrows sped past into the backs of fleeing men, women and children. A group of women tried vainly to escape a trio of soldiers, who only caught up with them, slashing and stabbing them with a disturbing glee, and then on to another set of victims. All around him, as he walked through the butchery, troops mowed down innocents, many already literally covered in the blood of their victims, freshened with the gore of a fresh prey.
Acheron stopped and watched as a trooper ran up behind a pair of children, and ran the smaller of the two through with his spear, and then took the taller, older child – a girl who couldn’t be any more than twelve – roughly over his shoulder and disappeared through a doorway, slamming it against the world so he could do whatever he wanted.
Through the din of the raid, Acheron could hear screaming coming from the building the soldier and his quarry had vanished as he approached the other child, who was pinned to the ground, still held slightly aloft on dead legs like a grotesque marionette, his blood running the length of the spear protruding from his tiny chest and mingled with the dusty earth beneath him.
He just stood, looking at the dead child, the rush of death he always had from battle was lost, replaced with more disgust. What a waste of energy and resources. A child could be raised to know fear and respect, or learn to become useful and become a part of the fighting forces to sow more fear and respect throughout the planet. This, though…this was wasteful, a terrible squandering of resources!
Acheron lifted his head, noticing the screaming from the building had ceased. He turned and watched the soldier exit the doorway, buckling his belt, then turn to bend slightly down to his right, struggle for a moment, and then emerge fully from the doorway with his sword, bloodied and dripping, in his hands. The trooper strode through Acheron to the little boy’s corpse, took his spear and shook the remains of the little boy off of the weapon. The trooper looked at the cadaver for a couple of moments, and then lifted his sword high and brought it down with the sickening sound of flesh, ligaments, and vertebrae sliced with one swoop of the heavy blade. The soldier then turned and trotted off toward his fellows and more murder and mayhem.
Acheron didn’t move, and just watched the tiny little head rock slightly where it had finally come to rest. He kept speechless, rapt at the act of depravity he’d just beheld. Curious, he turned on his heel and walked through the door the soldier had just come from, knowing what had happened, but had to see for himself.
She’d been ravaged, as he’d expected. Half of her garments were gone, the rest covered in blood from her death after he’d finished. He’d not been quick about it either. Acheron stumbled backwards through the doorway, mind aflame with all of the carelessness and loss of good resources. So much could have been done with just these two, and then they were simply killed for nothing. How much terror could have been wrought with just the girl alone? With proper training she could have been an excellent thrall, or maybe even a concubine and bodyguard?
“So soon to be affecting you like this, old boy,” a mocking voice teased from behind.
Acheron spun on his heel, hands up with eldritch energy roiling from his fingertips. For a second time another has managed to appear without him knowing, his defenses being tested and failing miserably. Even disembodied he should have detected an insect approach, and again, nothing from this cloudy little nemesis.
A little spark played about in front of Acheron, a little matchstick flame danced in his vision, two tiny little blue eyes stared back at him.
“You assume another form, coward? Why not confront me as your true self, or are you truly that frightened to show me your face?” Acheron challenged.
The little flame hovered for a scant moment before it erupted into a fist-sized fireball of laughter, “You think me a coward? Oh this is…funny.”
“Have you not discovered yet you are being taught a valuable lesson? Haven’t you thought that this is just a first in a series of experiences you are meant to learn?”
“I don’t need to learn anything, spook,” Acheron fired back, sounding more like a petulant child than a despotic overlord. “All I am learning is you are afraid of me and refuse to face me like an equal.”
The spark shuddered for a moment, as if in restraint, and then hovered even closer, “You fool. You were brought here for a reason- a very particular reason, and you have failed to understand. I guess it will take more brow beating to hammer this into your thick skull. Onwards through time you go, Acheron, until you finally comprehend what it is you need to know.”
The flame flared again, engulfing Acheron, and then vanished with the roaring Acheron encompassed within its blazing structure.
***
Mic’s ears had taken to throbbing shortly after entering the club, adding to a serious headache he really could have done without. The club Callie and Dani had brought Mic and his associates to was an excellent standalone club on the southern end of The Strip called “Utopia,” so (as Mic surmised) it was probably so for the club-going set.
When he walked in, the enormity of just the lobby was a testament to excess with the violet and silver draped overhead hangings and the racks of lighting above sending diffuse reflections of purple and white of various shades all through the expansive entry way. Mercifully, the wait in line was short, Mic’s party had arrived earlier and had the club keep an eye out for their last party member and once he’d shown his ID he’d been politely ushered in by an attractive auburn-haired hostess who may as well have been naked for all of the skin she flashed seemingly with every chance she had.
Finding the group was easy enough, they were the only group of old men in the place, their bald-heads and prodigious bellies standing out against the fit and trim party-goers which milled slowly through the club. He suppressed a smile, these guys at a night club with a tableful of girls. Well, they deserve the attention. Most of them hadn’t even kissed a woman other than their mothers, so maybe tonight was their night to get lucky for a change. Who knows, one of them just might find Mrs. Right and live happily ever after…tonight at least.
Callie was also present, dressed to the nines, and looking every bit the CEO of her own company from her thigh-high boots to her expensive coif complete with dangling red curls wrapped with some reflective material that reminded Mic of tinsel. She’d also left the conservative look behind and had gone for something far more revealing, black, and skin-tight beneath a dark green bolero-style jacket. She could be all business, thought Mic, but there was no doubt she was all woman.
She smiled politely and approached Mic. Slid her hands beneath her legs to smooth her dress before she sat down next to Mic.
Callie leaned in a bit so she could be heard over the EDM wailing and thumping throughout the floor, “You’re not enjoying yourself, you don’t approve?”
Mic, trying to look as uncomfortable as he felt, leaned back, “Not really my thing. I’m not really a ‘people person,’ but I appreciate being invited, though,” he replied, then motioned to the liquor at the table. Callie took the hint and nodded sitting back into the over-stuffed booths seating. Mic fixed a pair of whiskey sours, sat back handing her one and took a long drink for his glass, taking half of it in one gulp.
Callie barked out a laugh, “You are nervous Look don’t let this place get to you. It’s loud. It’s obnoxious, but it’s a pretty decent place when you get the lay of the land.”
Mic, unconvinced, had his own ideas, “This place is a death trap. The exits are few and far between, the shape of the main floor alone is conducive to tragedy, security is laughable at best, and the service – while filled with extremely attractive ladies – sucks like a new vacuum cleaner.”
Callie shot forward, barely containing her mirth, looked back at Mic a huge smile on her ace, obviously enjoying the moment, “Don’t hold back now. How about the liquor? Is that to your liking, Mr. Critic?”
“Overpriced,” he shot back, a half smile planted on his face.
Callie nodded, a mock look of disgust on her face, ”Yeah, got me there. I could fill my car up for a few months for what the whiskey alone costs. Still though, this isn’t all bad…” then caught the look of discomfort on Mic’s face. ‘He really is like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs,’ she thought, realizing her guest was truly not having a good time.
She rocked to her feet, refreshed her drink, took Mic’s and refreshed his, and as she handed it back took his upper arm and tugged, attempting to get him to his feet. Mic looked at her curiously and then leaned forward and stood up towering above Callie until he leaned forward to her what she was saying.
“I said, ‘Let me show you around. There’s a lot more to this place than the EDM floor.’ Come on, you’ll like this,” she repeated, making sure Mic could hear her. She leaned to one of the other occupants at the overly-large circular booth – one of the accountants from the meeting – said something into his ear, and then turned towards Mic once the accountant nodded, and then looked Mic up and down.
Callie tugged at Mic again, getting his ear once more, “That’s Rob. He was my accountant who did all of the number crunching for the deal. He worked his little tail off, and I’m gonna give him a few extra days-worth vacation when the dust settles. He’s going to L.A. at the end of the month to get married. I think he and his husband will enjoy the extra time together.
“He doesn’t really care for you much, though. I think he sees you as competition or something,“ Callie added as an afterthought, half grinning.
“He’s not my type. Besides, I’m only here because I’m not much more than a showpiece for the deal. Have one of their biggest contributing writers along for the ride adds a sense of, I don’t know, certainty? Let’s you guys know they’re on the up-and-up and all of that,” Mic explained.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, your presence was a boost, I think. I know you sure made an impression on my receptionist. He’s been looking for you on Facebook, Pinterest, Snap Chat, and a few other places so he can ‘follow’ you online. If you didn’t notice, he was on the dance floor taking selfies with you in the background when I walked up,” Callie teased.
Mic sighed, his fingers back to the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.
Callie hid her smile and stifled her giggling, feeling guilty for enjoying Mic’s discomfort, but enjoyed how Mic couldn’t have been much older than her and acted like a stodgy old man, flustered at every turn. She grinned even wider thinking about Mic in an old man robe and a cane shaking his fist and yelling at kids to get out of his yard. She filed that particular thought back for later, sure that Dani would get a good laugh out of it, too.
Callie led Mic around the main floor to the stairs down to the lobby and the basement level of the club, “The Hideaway.” A short hike down and dodging guests going in the opposite direction, they emerged from the stairs into a more sedate venue. Lights of purple and blue, and black lights with a few diffuse white spotlights swinging throughout the floor illuminated the patrons, many of whom had been obviously made-up to appear undead and ghastly, in Mic’s opinion.
The floor, half dark and Victorian Gothic, did have more of an agreeable feel for Mic. The music was still loud, but not as window-rattling and tooth-jarring as the floor above. He also noted the music booming aver the speakers wasn’t anything current, either. He recognized the tune, too, a little proud of himself for recognizing it. He swayed a little in time with the opening notes of the song, caught up in the atmosphere of the basement level.
“’Plainsong’ by The Cure,” Callie spoke to Mic, not having to bellow to be heard, but still leaning in to avoid the need to bellow, “One of Dani’s favorite songs. She’s probably down here on the dance floor, somewhere.”
“This is kind of an odd thing, a retro-alternative room in a multi-million-dollar nightclub?” Mic asked, thinking about the anachronistic setting.
“Yeah, it is, a little, but the owners wanted a club that wasn’t like any other place on the Strip. Everybody has the same three floors no matter where you go, playing the same music, using the same DJ’s. So, they went a different route. The main floor, ‘The Vortex’ is the standard EDM douche fest like everywhere else, not much more than a meat market.
“Down here, though, ‘The Hideaway’ is pretty much like this most nights. It’s open five days a week, and has more regulars than the bar in ‘Cheers.’ It’s all alternative, classic alternative, and older stuff, all the way back to 60’s music. They have a lot of theme nights, costume parties, and Goth fests going on, like tonight. It’s Steampunk Night tonight, as you can obviously see, so it’s a different crowd, and different…well…different everything. I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into Dani yet, she’s always all over the place, and she’s another one who has a thing for you.”
Mic glanced over to Callie, eyebrow cocked with a look of sarcastic disbelief on his face.
“What? You made one hell of an impression on my staff today. It’s not very often we get a guy looking like a Greek god who can put more than five words together into a decent sentence. You being there did a lot of good for my people today, whether you know it or not,” Callie detailed to Mic.
“Is that professionally or personally speaking?”
“Both. People need newness. It helps to shake up the status quo. When it’s the same thing every day, people get stagnant and bored and need something fresh to keep things lively. The people who work for me are important to me and to my business. Without them, I wouldn’t have a business, or be as successful as I am.”
Mic nodded, his face awash with appreciation for her honesty, “That’s something you don’t hear much these days. I’m betting you learned that from...”
“Nobody, Mic. I grew up without my family,” Callie interrupted, “I was orphaned when I was five. I barely remember them. I didn’t want to bring that into the rest of my life, especially at Silver Fox. I want my people to be appreciated, feel needed, and comfortable where they are. They work for me, make no mistakes, but at the same time I work for them to provide them with the best as their boss.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude,” Mic apologized wholeheartedly, based on her reaction.
“It’s all right, big fella. People get snide about how I run my business and always come up with ‘better solutions’ to run it better, and usually make remarks about how a woman can’t do it by herself and should ‘bring in a more experienced man’ to take over. It really pisses me right off. I should have not come to conclusions so soon. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Mic was about to reply when the music changed, fading and blending into something louder and more sensual, a tune Mic didn’t recognize, and the dance floor became a frenzy of motion. He looked at Callie, confused, looked out to the dance floor, nodded, and leaned back to Mic.
“Once an hour the floor raises into a wedding-cake shape with customers getting their best wiggle on. The club takes pictures and then put it on their Twitter page and the photo page on their website. They bring in some pretty impressive numbers from what I’ve seen.”
“What – what is that name of the song? It’s very…”
Mic’s jaw hung open, causing Callie to give him a look of amusement, and then her jaw also dropped when she say what was going on out on the dance floor.
The top tier had already rose to its fullest, a large brass pole jutted from its very center. The figure dancing around and with the pole moved like liquefied mercury with a practiced step. The toned figure slowly moved around the pole, and danced around it with a smooth, almost unnatural grace. After a few moments, Callie finally announced who it was, just as the spotlights fell on the top tier of the raised dance floor to illuminate the nearly spectral form dancing on it.
“Dani…Dani?!? What in the hell is she…where did she…she’s actually…dancing???”
“She doesn’t normally dance like that, I take it?” Mic asked, clearly enthralled with the young woman on the dance floor.
“No, she doesn’t. I mean, she dances, but that it’s…not like her. She dances like an elephant carrying a Buick. I never knew she was taking lessons or whatever that is or even when she learned that. She’s really…good.”
Both of them stood and watched for the whole event, the music slamming down hard with an industrial seductiveness which kept the entire floor rapt, and not an eye off of the platforms in the middle of the floor, save for a few patrons into the music they kept dancing with their partners or solo. Dani looked out towards the entrance to ‘The Hideaway’ and saw Callie and Mic, smiled slowly, giving Mic a look of a sultry nature as she spun and gyrated on the top tier.
The lighting returned to its normal levels, the stage dropped down to the floor, the music masked by loud cheers and applause for the customers dancing on the main dance floor, all of them either bowing or waving as the floor returned to normal. The largest applause came when Dani’s tier submerged and the pole had sunk back into the floor. A Thunderous ovation followed her through the crowd as she shook offered hands, kissed cheeks, and hugged her fellow steampunk aficionados with merry gusto until she came to a stop in front of Callie and Mic.
“Hey guys!” she offered, her accent a little thickened after her exertions on the dance floor, “What did you think? Pretty hot, yes? I love that song and had to dance, it’s so beautiful!” She spied the fresh, sweating drinks in Callie and Mic’s hands and raised her eyebrows questioningly at the two of them. Mic raised his glass for Dani, who checked it in the light and smiled, and then put it to her ebony-hued lips and drained the drink with gusto, handing the glass back to an astonished Mic.
“Whiskey sours, my favorite! Thank you. So I thought you two were having fun upstairs. What brings you downstairs?” Dani asked her two still-dumbfounded companions, trying to break the awkward silence.
“She, I, we…Callie was giving me a tour of the place. She’s been telling me about Silver Fox and the employee morale, and then we…uhm...we caught your act on stage,” Mic managed to elucidate after recovering from Dani’s outstanding display.
Callie, on the other hand, was still overwhelmed by Dani’s routine, “Where in the hell did you learn to do that? When did you have the time? How did you manage to get the top tier?” was all she could hammer out at Dani, dozens more questions running rampant in her brain. She stood staring at her roommate, eyes wide and probing.
For the first time he’d met her, Mic saw embarrassment in Dani’s expression, and was about to intercede to avoid any more awkwardness. He couldn’t understand Callie’s reaction, unsure why she appeared to blow up in Dani’s face.
“Well? Come on! That was AMAZING! When did you find the time to learn any of that let alone, practice? I am so jealous you found the time to do learn all of that!” Callie did explode in Dani’s face, bouncing in her toes and grabbing the brunette’s shoulders with a huge smile plastered all over her face.
Mic stepped back as the two women began to rapid –fire at each other about Dani’s lessons, routine, instructor, studio, the Hideaway’s DJ being a pal, and seemingly a hundred other things at each other while he watched in interest. He learned months ago from his new-found family, Chloe and her daughter Chelsea, when they, too, became overstimulated like Dani and Callie were, to just give them space and time. To interject otherwise could have disastrous results.
A little twinge of something was nettling at the back of his mind as the girls rambled excitedly at each other. The feeling of being left out was slowly growing, and disturbed Mic greatly. He wasn’t a social animal of any sort, but at the moment he wished Dani would look at him with the same excitement as she was right then with Callie. Her deep eyes, and her tiny hands in his…no.
No! No! No! No! No! ‘Don’t get yourself involved. Let them enjoy themselves. You’re not here to play. Keep your focus, you stupid cat,’ Mic thought to himself, all the while fighting to not stare at Dani in her enthusiasm, her bright smile, the way her eyes…damn it.
“Hey, you doing all right there?” Callie intruded into Mic’s reverie, taking his arm and giving it a small shake. “We’re going to go back upstairs for a bit, you coming?” she said with a warm smile. Beside her, Dani stood expectantly, her dark eyes looking into his, her hands clasped behind her, her chest thrust out as she gazed with a doe-eyed expression at Mic.
Mic gave them both a resigned nod, how could he resist, plus it would keep Callie within eye shot longer than having to go back to playing peeping tom and watching her from afar. This party, as much as he despised crowds, was proving to be more useful than he’d figured it to be. Best to use it to his advantage, he thought.
Callie gave his arm a little squeeze before letting it go, while Dani hopped a couple of times, took his other arm, and then leaned her entire body against his arm. Callie chanced a glance back and then shook her head resignedly. ‘There was just no teaching that girl boundaries,’ she thought, half grinning / half dismayed.
She glanced back again, Dani still held tightly to Mic and Mic looking as though he milt bolt at the slightest provocation. She mused how oddly that looked. Dani wasn’t ugly by any extent, she was a weirdo to be sure, but could have any guy she wanted and the one she wanted, for the moment at least, looked deathly afraid of her and like he would rather be anywhere but here. So what was keeping him here if he hated it so much? Come to think of it, everywhere she’s been today, there he was. Even here in the club, somehow he was always within sight, weird. He didn’t come off like a creeper, at least. If it weren’t for his constant reluctance and borderline timidity, she actually felt kind of safe with him around, sort of like how her stuffed dog toy helped her feel when she snuggled in with it.
She waited at the elevators in front of Mic and Dani while the security attendant called for the elevator. She turned to talk to the two, but turned back around again, her hand to her face. The look of near terror on Mic’s face was giving her a giggle fit. When Dani could, she would really pour it on like syrup. That was something else - Dani. She liked men, no doubt about it, but she never really did all that much with them, and very rarely ever went all the way with the guys she hung out with. She also never put on such a display before, either. There must truly have been something totally different about the big guy there that really get Dani’s motor revving. Hell, the last time she was that clingy was college and old what’s-his-name…who was it again? Oh yeah – Dave the Douchebag. Boy, was he a real prize. After what he did, and all of the cheating he did, she was genuinely surprised Dani still went out in public, let alone be so affectionate with a near-total stranger no less. It made Callie feel good to know that Dani didn’t have any issues and was still the irrepressible kook she’d always known her as.
Mic though, she mused as she looked back again for a second, he was an odd one. He didn’t give off any weirdness nor did he act like some oddball. No he was uptight, quiet, mild-mannered, and (it seemed) emotionless. He could just be a soldier and got out after his time in service – she knew plenty of guys like that who were polite to the point of being rigid. No, Mic was different. He was always looking around, tense, taking things in, especially when she was around. He acted more like a bodyguard rather than some average writer/reporter. Was that for her benefit? Did he have the hots for her? She thought it could be fun for maybe a little while, but he wasn’t her type. He could be as protective as he wanted, he wasn’t her cup of tea, and Dani could have him. She wasn’t interested.
Still, there was something awfully familiar about him…
Callie brought herself out of her reverie, not realizing she had been lost in though and had already returned to the table with her friends in tow. She crouched low to enter the security code on the safety drawer beneath her seat and withdrew her purse. As she turned, Dani’s face lit up brightly and she, too, retrieved her purse, apparently feeling the need to tag along for whatever reason.
As Dani turned to tell Mic she and Callie were off for a trip to powder their noses, Mic pulled a cell phone from his breast pocket, checked it, and then held it up for the girls to see.
Dani scooted in close, drew Mic down so she could talk into his ear, “No problem, handsome. The quiet rooms are back behind close to the entrance. You’ll see them on either side of the hallway, they’re to rooms with the red and god interiors and the soundproof glass windows. We’re just going to be in the ladies room for a couple of minutes and we’ll meet you back here, okay? If you want anything before we get back, don’t be afraid to ask. We’re footing the table tonight.”
She then launched herself forward just enough to take Mic’s earlobe between her lips and give it a little nibble and then a sweet kiss. She withdrew with a smile and coquettish look in her eyes. Mic couldn’t help but smile, and felt some heat in his cheeks. He watched the girls head towards the other end of the club, and then felt the vibration in his breast pocket again.
“…the hell?” he asked more to himself. How could he have forgotten his call? The cell phone wasn’t real, but a tool connected to his gauntlet, which sat cloaked on his left wrist. Ever since Berto built the prototype, and with a little bit of input from Mic, they had a nice peripheral which could emulate he communications capabilities of the Paladin Gauntlet without looking out of place and talking into the armored braces which were standard issue. Mic withdrew the device a second time, it was Shani back on Mythidria. Good, she was using her new access codes to contact him directly.
He hustled from the table, stopped as his waitress approached, asked from some more ice and mixers, gave her a twenty, and then rushed to the entrance and the quiet rooms. It took no time to find an unoccupied room, closed the door and drew the blind for privacy. He uncloaked his Gauntlet with a command and then quickly scanned the room, discretion being the better part of valor. Once satisfied, he answered his gauntlet.
Shani Harcourte appeared in a bust-like hologram in front of Mic, looking quite flustered and concerned, “Sir, oh thank the Bright Lady! I was getting…I mean…there was growing concern for your well-being, sir.”
Mic held back a grin, “I’m fine Ms. Harcourte. Have you finished getting your gear to…”
“Please, sir,” the young Paladin officer interrupted, “I don’t mean to be rude, but there is something going on in your area.”
The hackles on the back of Mic’s neck were starting to rise, and not just at the news, “Go ahead.”
“Sir, less than two minutes ago, there was a netherfiend attack less than five miles from your location. The Paladins dispatched had things well under control and had the situation taken care of except...well…they lost one of them, they think.”
“They lost one – they think?!?” Mic’s mind was reeling – nobody was that incompetent by any stretch.
“They can’t be sure, sir. They stated they encountered six undead, but was under the impression there were more. Their gauntlet scans showed seven targets for a scant second, but then it went to six right away,” the young communications officer related.
“No sign of this last possible…” Mic began before being interrupted again.
Shani’s eyed grew wide, her face taking on a look of complete horror, “Don’t move! Your location has just been filled with some form of…wait…it’s gone!”
Mic had taken a low crouch, eyes on the door, his fists at the ready, “Ms. Harcourte, what in the name of…am I safe here or not? Never mind. Wayfarer!”
Immediately, the screen split into two, an floating icon hovering over a sea of steel gray appeared next to Shani’s image.”
“Wayfarer responding. How may I be of assistance?”
“Home in on my signal, stay cloaked, and keep static. I want M.E.T. Stage three primed and ready in case I need a quick extraction. Shani, if you’re not at Blacktalon, finish whatever you have going on at headquarters and get your stuff moved there immediately. I have the feeling I’m going to be needing your expertise very soon. Copy?”
Visibly shaken and showing signs of deeper concern, “Y-yes sir. Right away. I have contacted Mr. Wylderun and he’s already been in the process of getting my personal belongings moved to the Manor, per your previous instructions. How can I hel…”
“Just get on the move. If you’re right, I’m going to be busy for a little while. Just stay safe, and tell manor security to go to yellow alert ASAP!”
Shani Harcourte understood that tone, and cut the communication immediately. Mic mentally applauded the young lady. Greener than grass, but damn was she efficient!
Mic left his gauntlet decloaked, and issued another command. Time to test out a new function.
Tendrils rapidly snaked out over Mics arm, across his back and chest and kept expanding like rushing water, until his entire body was completely covered, and then washed away, retreating just as quickly back into his gauntlet as the effect appeared. Not even five seconds had elapsed as Mic checked out the results.
Mic’s clothes were completely gone, now replaced with his new uniform of choice. Gone were the sashes and overly long belt sashes, but now complete with a cavalry tunic over his black armored bodysuit, and his hood/scarf combination.
Not wasting any more time, Mic crept out into the hallway, immediately noticing a distinct lack of people on either end. The raised hackles on Mic’s neck went completely stiff, something was definitely not right, and getting worse by the second as he crept silently towards the dance floor, hugging the wall, and peering in to the quiet rooms as he passed, finding them empty as well.
Once he’d reached the main dance floor, he fought the urge to recoil in horror and disgust. The room was filled with a quickly dissipating golden haze, apparently some form of chemical or smoke which quickly drifted to the floor and then vanished. Amid the disappearing haze lay bodies all over the floor, the furniture, the railing, a couple had even been dangling from the mezzanine floor of the club several down feet above in danger of falling to the floor below.
Mic quietly surveyed the interior, extending his senses outward, the smell of the gaseous material reminded him of ditch weed, or that pungent green garbage people smoked recreationally on Earth. There was also a commingling of something else, like rotting meat. Mic crouched near one of the patrons, a young Asian man in a blue and gray plaid button-down shirt and dark gray blazer, and held his gauntlet up, activating the scanner.
It was as he feared, the youngster was dead, as were the rest of the club guests lying on the floor. He watched as the heat signatures diminished on the piles of bodies which littered the floor, making traversing to the other side of the floor almost impossible. He looked closer and discovered the material which had just evaporated had an adverse effect on the once-living tissues of the patrons, and was slowly disintegrating all of the club guests which covered the lighted dance floor and the walkways.
Mic tried to extend his other senses further, but the booming vibrato of the bass and electronic dance music made listening outside of the main floor a non-reality. Mic stood and worked his gauntlet’s sensors, pushing them to their limits. The floors above and below were still bustling with activity, but he couldn’t tell if it was from a panicked, fearful response a party atmosphere, or a combination of the two. This was an issue he was going to need to…damn! He scanned the other side of the main floor - no, they were still in the restroom. Probably unaware of what had just happened.
Scratch that, here they come…shit.
Mic shut down his scanner, and drew his hood back, looking in the direction of the impending approach of the girls and inadvertently brushed a corpse with his left foot. The dead body groaned and rolled from its side into a prone position, its outward arm flopping over and onto the floor like a wet slab of meat. Mic stepped back, still in silent mode, taking that response into account. A slight brush will get them to move, what, then if there was a more pronounced encouragement? Mic put that thought on the back burner as the girls rounded the corner.
Mic raised his hands immediately waving them to get Dani and Callies attention. Callie looked about to erupt into a scream when Mic raised his finger to his lips, and silently mouthing, “Shh.” Callie instantly clamped her hands over her mouth, stifling a little squeak, her eyes as wide as saucers, her normally healthy complexion now pale. Dani, on the other hand, stood stock still, looking around, taking in her surrounding like a professional warrior, a hand darting into her purse and staying there obviously holding something within as she kept her bag close to her chest.
Mic waved his hands slowly, palms down, signaling the ladies to stay calm, and them motioning to them he was going to try and get to them. Both girls nodded and waited patiently as Mic slowly picked his way around and over the bodies of the dead, stealthily winding his was making progress a few feet at a time, and then he looked towards Callie and Dani, suddenly pointing frantically at them.
Dani and Callie turned around and saw a trio of women and one male emerging from the restrooms and who saw the carnage in the main room. One of the females and the male put their hands over their mouths, another female fainted and the third nearly let out a bloodcurdling scream, but was interrupted with a timely and forceful hand to her mouth by Callie who was frantically whispering to her. He two struggled for a moment until the other woman relented and started to listen to Callie’s harsh, compelling voice, occasionally nodding until Callie let her go. Satisfied this other girl was not an issue, she checked the one who’d fainted and then drew the young man beside her to heft the woman up to help carry her out. Once finished, she looked to Dani who nodded and then back to Mic, nodding and giving a hand sign her end was okay.
Mic breathed out a sigh of relief, caught the air, and then turned to try and stop the one thing he was trying to avoid. A group of female patrons had emerged from the elevators from the uppermost level and walked right into the main floor and began screaming hysterically at the top of their lungs.
The sound of the women’s horrified screams caused a chain reaction amongst the cadaverous bodies, waking them up. Many slowly, clumsily reached their feet, arms hanging and jaws slack while others snapped right to their feet, while even more leapt to their feet, howling as their teeth were replaced by enormous pointed, needle-like fangs.
“RUN! GET OUT!” Mic roared at the top of his voice...