‘Right then.’ He calmed himself from the disappointment of not finding the chief and turned his thoughts to Spyridon.
Six months after Khalid raped and gutted his own half-sister Satomi and murdered her bastard prince by the Duke of Vidor, Khalid had quietly checked in on Spyridon. He’d drunk himself into a hole on Maladaan that Khalid expected the broken duke would die in. Nothing had been heard of Spyridon since and, if the defeated duke was going to pose a problem, Khalid’s father would have foreseen it.
Khalid’s intention to teleport himself to Spyridon failed to get him anywhere, but, as frustrating as it was, he had to consider that his target could well be dead.
‘As much as I would like to fuck today right off,’ he seethed, ‘it seems a word with Father is in order.’ Khalid’s expression glazed over like a millpond in the calm before a storm. ‘I best not arrive empty-handed.’
It was late night at Dead Man Downs, but that was when the party really started here — even the ghosts of Sermetica preferred to socialise in the cool night hours.
True, no living soul besides Khalid ever came here by choice — the deep crevasse of the remote canyon in the desert wastelands of Sermetica was near impossible to reach. Once you got here, all to be seen were the ancient wreckage of spacecraft, filled with skeletal remains. The remote site was a sad reminder to all the Sermetic people of their hatred of Phemoria, for using psychic means to seize control of the planet from their menfolk and cast them into exile on Sermetica. Sermetica had thrived, however, and so had an intergalactic fear of anyone with the Powers. Every man on board these ill-stocked vessels perished; at least that’s how the legends told it. The site had been deemed cursed, as everyone who had ever set out to gain access to the wrecked craft had never been seen again.
Still, despite one thousand years in disrepair, the executive lounge of the mother ship was dimly lit and air-conditioned in anticipation of Khalid’s arrival. The embittered thought forms of Dead Man Downs looked forward to visits from their one begotten son, for he always brought them alms — soul food to feed their hunger for the fear, anger, pain and suffering of women.
Khalid materialised before his father’s favourite table with a stunned, stumbling prostitute in each hand, and he let loose both the women to let them regain their own equilibrium upon arrival. ‘Hello, Father, I’m home.’
‘Where the fuck are we, freak?’ hissed one of the horrified women.
‘The last place you’ll ever be,’ Khalid replied, removing the mask from his face, whereupon the woman gasped, recognising him.
The other woman noticed a pile a skeletons and started to scream.
‘What’s with the whores?’ hissed a malign voice from the shadows of an unlit private booth in front of where they had landed — both women shut up and backed up. ‘We need innocents, not sluts!’
‘Blood is blood, your kinky preferences are not my concern!’ Khalid replied coolly. ‘Now, have the boys scare the shit out of these bitches so you can feed, and we can get down to business.’
‘Fear is a quick fix! Purity is more sustaining, you know that!’ The shadowed figure thumped a fist down on his table, and the girls fled for their lives.
‘Well, if you want me to keep you around …’ Khalid looked to the fleeing women and with a thought lifted them both off the ground. The resulting screams were deafening and so he struck them mute as well. ‘You’d best start proving useful!’ He hauled the women back to float nearby in silence, although their squirming and facial expressions were anything but subdued.
‘Your hatred, your merciless thirst for power, is an immense vindication.’ His father was proud.
‘Someone stole Ronan from my custody and is somehow shielding him from being found by me.’ Khalid was not going to be distracted by flattery. ‘So, you stupid old sorcerer, I want to know who that someone is, or I shall shatter what little remains of your human form and you’ll be confined to mere spiritual pleasures.’
‘You wouldn’t want to lose the protection of your fathers right now, would you son? Every soul here willingly gave their life to sustain this body long enough to bring you into being!’
‘And I have spent my lifetime supplying you with victims to keep you all being, and I’m am starting to wonder why!’ Khalid challenged.
His father gave a knowing laugh. ‘You’d miss our little get togethers …’
The silenced women dangling in the air were violently stripped of their clothes by the unseen force of dead men that Khalid called father, whilst the body that the angry thought form still employed in the physical world, emerged from the shadows of the booth. As the body of what had once been the captain of this ill-fated voyage appeared to be little more than a walking pile of rotting flesh and bones, the silent screams of the women he approached intensified, as did their squirming.
‘… I know how you love blood sports,’ the creature concluded, as he looked over the next injection of life force for his body.
The females of Phemoria had assumed that they were the only ones dabbling in supernatural magic, but the man who came to captain this legendary flight of male refugees was none other than the outcast Prince of Phemoria — Chironjivi, whose name meant ‘long lived’ and who the queen could not bring herself to kill. He had been spying on the sorcerous ways of his mother. He’d witnessed her and her female minions make a blood sacrifice of his father and his best men, then forge the crown of Phemoria from the jewellery of murdered and disgraced women cast into the pit of the obstinate. This rite had created the force now known as the Phemoray — who guarded and guided the ruling Queen of Phemoria with supernatural power. Well, Chironjivi had created his own force of lost souls, and every man here gladly contributed to the cause of revenge on Phemoria.
‘Let’s summon some fear, shall we?’ Chironjivi grinned at Khalid.
‘Make it snappy.’ Khalid was only mildly enthused. ‘I have other more pressing kills on my agenda.’
For the first time since Taren and Lucian had arrived on Frujia there was a rainstorm in Kotan Bathaar. As the torrential downpour lasted all morning and it was not a work day, it seemed the perfect excuse to stay in bed.
As the storm rained itself out, they were laying about discussing the reality of getting married and how much they hated the idea of a big hullabaloo.
‘Let’s just do it this afternoon,’ Lucian proposed, ‘before it turns into a fiasco, or some other creation threatening catastrophe crops up to prevent it.’
‘Are you serious?’ Taren was rather delighted by the idea.
‘Never more so.’ He crawled out of bed to find his communicator. ‘I’ll just call Swithin —’
‘Sweetheart,’ Taren called for his attention.
Lucian ceased his search when she manifested the item in question in her hand, and waved it about to entice him back to bed.
‘I’ll just call Swithin …’ He returned to his spot beside her and claimed his phone with a kiss. ‘… He can be our witness. As we have temporary citizenship, we can wed as simply as the locals. I know, because I looked it up.’
‘When?’ Taren wondered, as he hadn’t really been out of her sight all day.
‘Weeks ago.’ He flashed a cheeky smile, as he put a call through to his brother.
‘That’s before we even moved the project offices here.’ Taren’s heart swelled with sentiment.
‘I knew it was only a matter of time,’ he said, without sounding cocky, and Taren just had to kiss him.
‘Hello.’ A female answered Lucian’s audio-only call to his brother, as neither of them were presentable at present.
Their kiss ended abruptly, and they were puzzled. ‘Is Swithin about?’ Lucian queried.
‘Lucian, it’s Amie.’
With the news an amused look passed between Lucian and Taren. ‘Is Swithin indisposed right now?’ Lucian tried not to sound presumptuous.
‘You could say that …’ Amie sounded a little flustered. ‘… is Taren at her unit right now, do you
know?’
‘As it happens we are both here,’ Lucian advised, ‘we have a lunch meeting to discuss a merger.’
Taren was amused and held her hand out, expecting that Amie wanted to talk to her.
‘I’m at Swithin’s, I’ll be right over.’
‘Can you —’ The call was terminated and Lucian looked to Taren, realising they had about 30 seconds before Amie was on the doorstep, and then sprang into action.
Taren looked about at the state of the bedroom and did what she did every morning — envisaged it spotless and tidy, herself dressed and in this instance, Lucian dressed as well.
Lucian was still trying to find all his clothes when he realised he was dressed in them and the bedroom looked as good as knew. ‘You’re quite the little housewife, aren’t you?’
Taren smiled graciously to accept his praise, and thought she’d best bring Lucian quickly up to speed. ‘I have given Amie a Juju stone —’ Taren held her upper left arm, where her stone was hidden, ‘— to protect her from Khalid, but she knows nothing of its origins, or that I even have a Power.’
Lucian was very confused by this. ‘Are you implying Amie has a Power?’
Taren nodded, knowing Lucian would be as surprised as she was to learn this; although it did make sense in retrospect. ‘She makes you forget things, or can make you believe in something that never happened.’
Lucian appeared horrified and yet enlightened at once.
‘But she has no power over anyone who carries the Juju stone,’ Taren told him, to alleviate any lingering fears he might have. ‘I know Amie is one of us, but until she realises that and can prove her allegiance, I cannot trust her.’
‘Understandable,’ Lucian concurred. ‘I don’t know that I will ever trust her again; you are too forgiving.’
‘It wasn’t me she betrayed.’ Taren understood his position completely. ‘Still, Amie was also cheated out of a happy life with your brother, by Khalid,’ Taren pointed out, as the door chimed and she moved to open it.
‘I’ll take your word for that.’ Lucian removed himself from the bedroom and was not surprised to find the rest of Taren’s unit as spotless as usual.
‘Amie.’ Taren opened the door to greet her.
‘I’m so sorry to delay your lunch meeting,’ she said as she entered, ‘but I really need your help with something.’ Her focus was on Taren as she said this.
‘Sure.’ Taren directed Amie past Lucian in the living area, to the balcony beyond.
‘Do you know where Swithin is?’ Lucian asked Amie on her way past him.
‘Not really, no,’ she replied, with a nervous smile, and kept going.
Lucian looked to Taren, puzzled.
‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ she murmured quietly to him, and followed Amie out onto the balcony. The temperature was bearable under cloudy skies. All the furniture was saturated, but something told Taren that Amie was too on edge to sit down.
‘Is there a problem?’ Taren closed the door to inside behind her, so that Amie might feel free to talk.
She waited for Taren to join her at the rail overlooking the water, and kept her back to Lucian as she spoke. ‘I know this is going to sound like an insane question … but have you ever heard of someone’s Powers rubbing off on someone else?’
Taren gasped on the inside — she’d forgot to mention to Amie that the Juju stone brought out dormant powers in others of their soul group, but Taren couldn’t tell her that without explaining how she knew. ‘Swithin has shown signs of having a Power?’
‘He brought a fucking fish back to life at brunch!’ Amie spoke in a stressed whisper. ‘All he did was touch it! He’s completely freaked out … I don’t know where he is.’ As desperate tears welled in Amie’s eyes, Taren reassured her.
‘Go back to Swithin’s place, in case he comes home,’ Taren advised calmly. ‘I’ll see what I can do to locate him.’
‘How?’ Amie appealed.
‘Never ask me how,’ Taren suggested and Amie settled for taking Taren’s word.
‘What do I tell him if he does come home?’ Amie was beside herself with guilt.
‘I would tell him the truth, if I were you.’ Taren’s resolve startled Amie. ‘Over the course of your lifetime together, he’s going to find out anyway.’
Those welling tears finally fell and Amie was not so sure. ‘What are you, a prophet or something?’
‘I’m a friend,’ was all Taren would admit to. ‘Give Swithin this,’ Taren placed another Juju stone in Amie’s hand, ‘for his protection,’ Taren explained, ‘and it will stop him passing out every time he gets close to you.’
‘How did you know about —’
‘Never ask me how,’ Taren repeated. ‘And he’s not to know where it came from,’ Taren instructed.
‘What will we tell Lucian?’ Amie delayed her departure, not wanting to answer his questions.
‘You let me worry about that,’ Taren excused her from the chore and Amie was happy to be exonerated.
‘I’ll call you if I hear from him,’ Amie made a point of saying as they walked through the living area where Lucian was seated on the couch.
‘Do that.’ Taren let Amie out the front door and once they were alone again, Lucian threw his hands up in question and Taren pulled an agonised face.
‘I screwed up!’ she admitted, as Lucian shook his head in question. ‘I forgot to tell Amie about the Juju’s ability to ignite the psychic power in others we are intimately close with, and now your brother is showing signs of being a resurrectionist.’
‘A what?’ Lucian queried.
‘Someone who brings the dead back to life!’ Taren replied and, after a second to digest this, Lucian burst out laughing.
‘It’s not funny,’ Taren said, although she had to admit it was a little amusing. ‘Your brother is horrified!’ she added, but Lucian only laughed harder.
‘I can imagine,’ he explained his amusement. ‘It just seems so ironic that Swithin, who is ultimately fairly selfish, should be granted a Power that can only serve others.’
Taren appreciated the satire. ‘Well, now that he is one of us, it does save me worrying about how to swing him around to our cause.’
‘How much do you intend to tell him about that?’ Lucian curtailed his mirth.
‘About as much as I’ve told Amie,’ Taren replied. ‘Nothing. I’m working on a need to know basis, and right now these two don’t need to know anything, more than I have a means to protect them from the PMD, the MSS and Khalid.’
Lucian nodded.
‘I should go find Swithin … put his mind at ease,’ she decided.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Lucian offered.
Taren shook her head. ‘It’s nothing I can’t handle. Won’t be long.’ She closed her eyes and envisioned seeing Swithin from a distance.
Taren felt her hair and clothes being ruffled by the strong winds on the cliff top on which Swithin stood facing out to sea. As she was some way down the lookout path, Taren bolted toward him. The sound of her approach was drowned out by the wind, until she was quite close and Swithin turned about.
He urged her to stay away. ‘I don’t want company right now.’
‘I’ve spoken with Amie —’
‘Fuck!’
‘She’s concerned about you —’
‘Concerned? Revolted, don’t you mean?’ He looked back to the large drop in front of him.
‘No, that’s not what I mean.’ Taren was adamant. ‘Amie is at your place right now, hoping you are going to walk in the door, so that she can share a little secret of her own with you.’
Swithin looked doubtful and dismissive, but then frowned, as his curiosity got the better of him. ‘Do you know what the secret is?’
Taren nodded. ‘But it is not my place to say.’
‘Why would Amie confide in you?’ Swithin wondered out loud; the two women were not close.
‘Because I have worked with many people with the Powers in the cours
e of my scientific research, and I do not fear or resent them as most do. To the contrary, I have spent my life trying to prove that they are a gift to creation and not a curse. Everyone has a Power, Swithin, but only a rare few have ever been in tune with themselves, and fearless enough, to develop their gift.’
Swithin was bemused by this; obviously he’d never heard anyone speak favourably about those with Powers. ‘Is that really what you believe?’
‘That’s what I know,’ she stated resolutely. ‘And your secret, like all those I have known before you, is very safe with me … and Amie, I dare say.’
‘How can you be so sure about that?’ Swithin stepped away from the edge.
‘Come home and find out,’ she teased with a smile, and Swithin’s heavy mood lifted, as he too ventured to grin.
‘Are you bullshitting me? ’Cause if you are —’
‘I wouldn’t kid you about something like this,’ Taren said sincerely and then in the next breath joked: ‘And it’s not so bad, just no more eating with your bare hands, is all.’
Swithin sucked in his cheeks, hard pressed to be as light-hearted about it as she was. ‘But why, out of all the Powers I could have developed, did I get this one? It’s completely useless to me! I can’t heal myself after I’m dead!’
Taren was grinning broadly and Swithin was annoyed.
‘What?’ he appealed for her to share the joke.
‘Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you that you need to be more of a team player?’ She backed up, hoping he would follow. ‘As part of a team, you’d be the most prized member, I would imagine.’
‘I ain’t planning on going to combat.’ Swithin joined her on the path back down to the road.
‘But you are planning on going into space.’ Taren corrected his thinking.