Oriphiel coughed, staring down at my hand. I pulled back and punched her right in the nose, then picked up my sword and moved in for the kill, while the others on my team got up and intensified their attacks.
With one Perfect down and another currently struggling with Elonora, Elyon was pretty much on his own. As fast and as powerful as he was, even he couldn’t keep up with seven supernaturals at once.
A stomach-churning growl tore through the sky.
Everything came to a painful halt. I looked up and saw Araquiel as he smashed into Ridan with such strength that the force of the impact sent the dragon flying like a limp ragdoll. My eyes burned as I watched Ridan shoot out, unable to react or even move. Within seconds, he was out of sight. Blood drops fell in his wake, splattering across the ground.
We didn’t even have time to worry if Ridan would survive.
I had just moved to take Oriphiel out, when Kallisto’s scream pierced our ears, quite literally. I managed to look over my shoulder and found her standing on the edge, screaming so loudly that it defied the basic notions of physics.
I couldn’t even stand anymore. I dropped to my knees and abandoned my sword, desperate to cover my ears. That was one hell of a pair of lungs that Kallisto had. The shriek was so powerful that it brought Araquiel down in a painful crash. Douma couldn’t take it either. Oriphiel, already injured, had gone into a full seizure.
I felt blood trickling out of my ears as Kallisto kept screaming. I couldn’t hear her anymore, but I could still read her lips.
“We need to move,” Kailani said.
The diamond stairs around the arena began to crackle. Another minute under that kind of sonic torture, and my brain would certainly turn to mush. Ben helped me up. We made a run for it, practically doubling over in the process. It was hard to stand when I felt the equivalent of thousands of sharp knives slicing through my brain. We left the injured Perfects behind and climbed the arena stairs toward the nearest exit.
The farther we got from Kallisto, the less it hurt. We weren’t anywhere near the safe zone, though. I could see the others’ ears bleeding, as well. Nevertheless, we kept moving. I had some of that Perfect juice still blaring through me. It came in handy, as Ben and Zeriel were the first to collapse, no longer able to put up with that terrible scream.
I pulled them both up, and we slipped through the exit and stumbled into a ground-floor hallway. I could see the archway just fifty feet away.
“Come on! Just a little bit more!” I encouraged them.
Kailani was the first to pass through the archway. Elonora, Nevis, and Hunter followed. Dmitri, Vesta, Zeriel, Ben, and I were the last, and just in time, too, as Kallisto’s scream finally came to an end. We looked at each other, utterly shocked by what had just happened.
“They’ll be coming after us,” I breathed, then looked at Kailani.
She nodded and took my hand. We all touched each other, making sure we were all connected. Dmitri grunted from his excruciating headache.
“Provided their brains haven’t melted by now,” he muttered.
My heart stopped for a second, as we all heard the wings flapping from far away. We’d managed to put about five hundred feet between us and the Perfects, but if they were already flying out after us, that distance was shrinking by the second.
Kailani muttered a spell under her breath, her lips moving fast as she moved against the clock. I exhaled sharply, then disintegrated, enveloped in absolute darkness. It worked.
Elonora
(Daughter of Ash and Ruby)
I peeled my eyes open, then instantly breathed a sigh of relief and fell down on my butt. My entire body was hurting, and I tasted blood in my mouth. I had at least six broken ribs, which made it difficult to inhale properly, but, with some healing potions and time, I was going to recover.
The others were just as bad, if not worse. I still had all that crazy energy burning through me, thanks to the Perfect blood.
We were back in the jungle on Noagh, right outside the cave from what I could tell. It was quiet. Rose was as stunned as I was, down on her knees and staring at her bloodied, trembling hands. Nevis had trouble breathing, curled up in a ball on his side. Kailani was right next to him, fumbling through her backpack for healing potions. We’d been fortunate with Corrine and Arwen, who had designed the bags for us—slim and light, smoothly strapped to our backs and rarely an inconvenience, even during combat. Waterproof and with a metallic inner layer, they were our trusted companions during all kinds of missions and expeditions. We used them mostly to store our healing potions, first-aid kits, spell ingredients and various devices and gadgets.
Vesta and Hunter seemed to have fewer injuries than the rest of us. And there was no sign of Ridan anywhere. A multitude of emotions crashed into me, all at once, to the point where tears stung my eyes. I was shocked, angry, and terrified, at the same time.
“What in the ever-living hell was that?!” Dmitri gasped, rubbing his face with his palms.
“Faulties and Perfects,” Ben muttered, as he took out healing paste rations and handed them around. He gave me a double portion, which I swallowed in one gulp.
“Ridan. What happened to him?” I asked, my voice still shaky.
Rose sighed, chewing on her healing paste. “I don’t know. I hope he’s still alive,” she replied. “Araquiel didn’t have time to go after him, since Kallisto came in and… screamed. She screamed, right? I didn’t just imagine it?”
“No, no, she definitely screamed,” Zeriel said, touching his ears, then showing her the blood on his fingertips.
“I didn’t know Faulties could do that,” I managed.
“There’s a lot about them that we still don’t know,” Ben said, his brow furrowed. His split lip and facial bruises were already beginning to heal, courtesy of our Druid magic healing packs. “But Kallisto clearly has the ability to emit such a sound that it cripples any creature near her.”
“She even took down the Perfects,” Rose replied.
A smile tugged at the corner of Dmitri’s mouth. “Yeah, turns out she’s not as ‘inferior’ as they made her out to be.”
“It doesn’t change what she did,” I shot back. “She betrayed us. She sold us out and nearly got us killed. In my book, that makes her a hostile, and I don’t intend to spare her life if we cross paths again.”
“Provided you get close enough to kill her,” Nevis retorted, still holding his side as he leaned against a tree. “Which brings us to the next big issue. The blood.”
Rose and I looked at each other, equally baffled. She shrugged. “I only wanted to weaken Oriphiel. Hunter was quick to realize what I wanted to do. It was my ‘Hail Mary’ hit, I guess,” she said. “Until she pushed me away. It only took seconds for me to feel the effects. From there, I just went with the flow, to be honest.”
“And I saw what Rose did, and, well, figured it was worth a shot,” I added. “The Perfects were so stunned by Rose’s move on Oriphiel. It gave me the window I needed,” I said, then gave Nevis a nod. “Thank you for your quick response, by the way. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Nevis gave me a slight half-smile, his icy blue gaze fixed on my face. “Can you still feel it? The Perfect blood, I mean.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, but it’s starting to fade away. I don’t think I drank as much as Rose did, and the effects are definitely temporary.”
“Well, the blood was a game-changer, anyway,” Hunter replied. “You two were moving as fast as the Perfects. Like lightning. It was incredible.”
“They didn’t see it coming, either,” Rose said. “They were as shocked as we were, but, given how quickly they learned to prevent Kailani from teleporting, they’re bound to figure out a way to maybe protect themselves from any attempts to drink their blood in the future.”
“They’re ridiculously fast learners,” Ben agreed. “Imagine… They’re only a few days old, yet they’re eminent killing machines. Highly advanced and intelligent, strong and fast beyo
nd the capabilities of our most fearsome fighters. Ta’Zan genetically engineered them to the highest of standards, with few to no weaknesses. We’re in deep trouble here.”
A couple of minutes passed in absolute silence, as everything sank in. I processed all the data we’d inadvertently gathered from our snippets of conversation with the Perfects and Kallisto, as well as the bloody fights. We were definitely the weaker creatures in this picture, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to take that as an invitation to give up. My grandparents and our friends and founders were still out there—and they needed us now more than ever.
“I’m a little confused,” Vesta said. “So, Ta’Zan and the Faulties were in those cave pods for a long time. They’re natives, sort of. Kallisto said the Draenir made Ta’Zan, which means an entire civilization. Resources, rules and protocols, production lines and hierarchies must have been in place before the pod sleep, right?”
We all nodded slowly, following her line of reasoning.
“Araquiel said the Faulties they did keep around were submissive and fast in their… chores. And the Perfects themselves are incredibly strong and fast. Wouldn’t it be fair to assume that they built their colosseums and weaved their clothes and crafted their weapons, tools and so on, in a similar, supersonic speed?” Vesta asked.
Again, we nodded. It made sense.
“There was already an infrastructure here,” I said. “They knew where to get their materials from, how to work them and so on. The Perfects may be new and, according to Araquiel, made in hours, which is already mind-boggling and speaks of an incredible technological and probably even magical feat. But the Faulties and Ta’Zan were around since long before. So, yes, it explains the world building. I would love to understand how they can be so fast in working their materials, because, hell, diamond is a hard one to work with, for example. But everything we’ve seen points to what we’re saying here. Highly advanced creatures woke up from deep sleep, then made even more advanced creatures using our captured family and friends’ genes. In hours. Jeez…”
“Douma said something earlier,” Dmitri murmured. “She said their species is growing and spreading. That everything else in the universe is inferior to them. She said, and I quote, ‘The Perfects are coming.’ Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s incredibly dark and ominous, isn’t it?”
Ben and Rose responded with a simultaneous sigh.
“If Ta’Zan was able to produce such specimens in days and have them ready to fight already,” Ben said, “then it’s safe to assume he’s making more Perfects as we speak. I mean, you all heard them. They have our parents, they have the whole crew, and they’re using their genes to build Perfects.”
“Oh, dear,” Rose said. “Vampires. Fae. A witch and a warlock. They have quite the palette to work with, genetically speaking, don’t they? I mean, on top of what was already used to create the Faulties, which are a combination of their local animals and—what did Kallisto call them? Draenir.”
“Yeah, but they’re supposed to be extinct,” I replied.
“Sure, but Ta’Zan can still fish out the Draenir gene from the Faulties he’s already created,” Ben said. “We have every right to be worried, though. As we’ve already established, the Perfects only came to happen after Ta’Zan captured our people. Which means that our parents, grandparents, and friends’ genes helped create the very creatures that just tried to kill us.”
Kailani groaned, then pinched the bridge of her nose, genuinely frustrated. “I swear, this was supposed to be a simple search-and-rescue mission,” she muttered. “We were going to find my grandparents and the rest of their crew lost in some jungle, fifty miles from here, stargazing or whatever. I already had my reprimanding speech ready. I’ve been waiting for a long time to hold one over my grandmother’s head, if you know what I mean.”
I chuckled softly, able to breathe properly again, as my ribs were beginning to fuse.
“At least we know who has our people,” I said.
“We need to find Ridan first,” Hunter replied. “He’s out there, somewhere. He could still be alive,” he added, then looked at Kailani. “Can we trace him in any way?”
Kailani thought about it, then frowned. “Maybe. I’ll have to think about what method I can use, given that most of our spell ingredients burned along with the shuttles.”
“We’ll have to move without getting detected this time—not by Perfects or Faulties,” Ben said. “The upside is that at least now we know what sort of creatures we’re dealing with. Sure, they’re planning to take us down and probably conquer the entire universe, and their ‘father’ pops them out like cookies on a daily basis, but yeah, at least we know what we’re dealing with.”
He didn’t sound optimistic. Not that he could be blamed. We were all pretty bummed out. Most importantly, we were all worried about Ridan and Derek’s group. Strava was much more dangerous now than back when we’d come down to build that stupid resort.
“They have weaknesses,” Rose murmured. “I was able to injure Oriphiel. They can bleed. If they can bleed—”
“They can die,” I finished her sentence again. It was becoming our motto, the one thing we could tell ourselves, repeatedly, in order to sanely navigate this new and hostile landscape. She gave me a warm smile and nodded. “Yeah, well, they have the audacity to call themselves Perfects for some pretty obvious reasons.”
“Either way, you still managed to get on equal footing with them, even if just for a couple of minutes,” Nevis replied. “That’s a good starting point, in my opinion. It’s better than what we had six hours ago, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Absolutely!” Rose exclaimed. “Now. We definitely have to send a message out to GASP, first and foremost,” she added, then took out Sofia’s cell phone and held it up for us to look at. “I’ll record it on this nifty little thing, and Kailani will use the only interplanetary spell we have to send it back to Calliope.”
“We have to tell them everything,” I replied. “Every damn detail. All of it.”
Ben nodded, then stood up and straightened his back. “One thing is for sure,” he said. “We can’t do this on our own. Not anymore. We need help.”
We needed all the help we could get, in fact.
Even if we did find Ridan and got him back, we still had to find a way to get past the Faulties and Perfects, not to mention this Ta’Zan guy, and rescue our people. We needed all the firepower that GASP had—dragons, Druids, daemons, werewolves, all the witches and warlocks of The Shade. I was ready to suggest having GASP reach out to the Witches’ Sanctuary in the Supernatural dimension, if needed.
The Perfects brought a whole new level of danger. They required a proper response from our global organization. We had to show them that the universe wasn’t simply theirs for the taking, no matter how much of a megalomaniac Ta’Zan was.
I respected everyone’s right to live, as long as it didn’t infringe on mine, or my loved ones’. The Perfects had just started a fire that could only be put out with blood. Specifically, theirs.
Ridan
I was in the air. Not flying, but rather hurled at great speed, unable to move and not knowing where I’d land.
The last blow that Araquiel delivered was more than I could take and certainly more than I’d expected. These Perfects were stronger than anything I’d ever encountered. I’d spent my whole life thinking I was the biggest and scariest thing out there. Whenever a supernatural enlisted my services, I knew I was going to be the oversized ace up their sleeve.
Nobody dared piss off a dragon. I could breathe fire, and I was the size of an 18-wheeler in full form, for heaven’s sake. How could anyone compete with that?
Well, then Araquiel happened.
He was faster. He moved like freakin’ lightning. His hits broke several of my bones, even through my thick dragon hide—which, by the way, was rendered useless. Araquiel’s fingers extended into claws. He tore at me like I was nothing but a piece of canvas. He’d broken the skin of my right wing wit
h his body. I’d never experienced that much pain in combat before.
I’d sparred with other dragons, some bigger than me, but I’d barely come out with a scratch or two. This time, however, I’d been sent flying through the sky. I’d done my best to keep Araquiel busy and to give my team the window they needed to escape, given that Kailani needed to put some distance between her and the Perfects in order for her teleportation ability to work. These bastards were quick learners; they’d already figured out a way to stop her from zapping herself and the others out of there so easily.
As I soared over several islands, a slave to the basic laws of physics at this point, I managed to look back. I would’ve expected to see Araquiel coming after me, eager to deliver the deadly final blow. But he never came. Instead, flashes crisscrossed the area above the colosseum, then started spreading out with nervous sonic booms whenever they darted in one direction or another. They were looking for something.
Or someone.
I understood then that my people had managed to escape. Otherwise the fight would’ve kept going on the ground. I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. That didn’t work out too well for me, as I started wheezing and coughing. Araquiel had broken a rib, and it was poking one of my lungs. It didn’t pierce through, but it wasn’t going to take much to do greater damage.
I began my descent—not because I chose to, but because gravity had decided I’d spent enough time flying without flapping my wings. What was there to flap properly, anyway? I had a gaping hole in the right wing, and the left wing’s edges were tattered as well. Only then did I notice the trail of blood I was leaving behind. Large droplets fell in my wake, dissolving into the ocean or whatever patch of white sand they landed on.