The Light-Field

  Khalid forced a grin, but he was not amused. ‘So, who is posing as this children’s fairytale character?’

  Maiara chuckled, delighted. ‘I love how naïve you are.’

  ‘Listen, bitch.’ Khalid drew a blade, and stood over her. ‘Don’t fuck with me today,’ he warned, pinning her back in her chair with his psychokinetic skill, which was far stronger than hers these days. ‘Tell me his name!’

  ‘The Zagriata is not a man,’ she explained. ‘It is a force. You won’t find it and you can’t stop it … but it can find and will stop you.’

  ‘Fucking lie! Your bedtime stories don’t scare me! Do you think I am just pissing around here?’ He slashed the knife across her chest and blood began to flow from the cut and onto the fabric of her majestic green gown.

  The pain was momentary, and she knew the key to ending this quickly was to incite his anger. Anger was but one step from disempowerment and if he killed her quickly, all the better! For he would learn nothing, no matter how long he chose to draw out this execution — which was exactly what this was. Khalid would not openly show his power to anyone that he was not about to kill. ‘Slice away, Khalid, do your worst. It won’t change the fact that what I am telling you is the truth … by the House of Vidor, I swear it.’

  She wasn’t fearful and Khalid clearly wasn’t happy about that. He leered over her and slashed her with his blade a few more times, dissatisfaction and hatred all over his face, as she only smiled. ‘I’ll bring down every last one of them … starting with you.’

  He plunged the dagger into her body and released her from being pinned to her chair, as he pulled his blade back out again. The shocking pain was so welcome and almost instantly turned her lower body completely numb; she had told him nothing and her job was complete. ‘My release …’ She found the strength to grab Khalid and pull him close. ‘… marks the beginning of the end for you, and your beastly father.’

  Khalid cast her off and, falling back into her chair, it felt as if her body just kept falling into a deep abyss.

  ‘Silly old crone!’

  Her hearing was the last sense to fade — Khalid’s last words to her echoed down the dark tunnel that had erupted between her consciousness and the physical body she was leaving behind. Still, she couldn’t have cared less about his opinion, nor did she remember who he was, or even who she was. All she knew was that she felt liberated, as she turned to face the light that would lead her back to the source of her soul group, bound for evolution in yet another grand universal scheme.

  Maiara’s chirpy defiance had had the desired effect; Khalid was on the warpath when he arrived at Dead Man Downs.

  ‘Everyone cowers in my presence!’ If he couldn’t incite fear in an old, frail woman, then what hope did he have of making Anselm crack? ‘I want Anselm’s head on a pole!’ Khalid clutched his bloodied blade as he confronted his father.

  ‘Is that Maiara’s blood?’ Chironjivi took the knife from Khalid and licked it clean. ‘Yuk …’ He spat. ‘Fearless.’

  ‘You decrepit fossil …’ Khalid retrieved the knife and threatened his father with it. ‘Focus!’ He cast the blade aside. ‘We need a plan of attack!’

  ‘I can use remote vision to telepathically command my crew to aid you in Anselm’s abduct —’

  ‘And what if one of those light fucks turns up?’ Khalid challenged their usual combat strategy. ‘You can’t see them remotely! They could white you out entirely and I’d be on my own!’

  ‘Did the nasty old lady give you a bad fright?’ his father teased and Khalid was incensed by the suggestion.

  ‘The point is … I didn’t give her a fright!’ Khalid exclaimed. ‘I need more power!’

  Chironjivi was evasive and dismissive at first. ‘You have agents to assist —’

  ‘No, no one is to know it was me.’ Khalid refused to use even his own sleeper agents for this mission. ‘And the best way to ensure no one knows of my involvement, is to keep it in the family.’

  ‘There is something we could try,’ his father suggested sheepishly. ‘In order to seed you in your Phemorian witch of a mother, I left my form and joined with the queen’s official suitor at the vital moment and here you are.’

  ‘Have your soul inside my body with me?’ Khalid guessed where this was leading and he found the idea repulsive. ‘Dream on, you old pervert!’

  ‘My co-occupation would temporarily infuse you with my Powers and give you direct control of my crew.’ His father dangled a carrot that was very much to Khalid’s liking.

  ‘What’s the catch?’ He knew there had to be one, or Chironjivi would have pulled this ace from the bag long before now.

  ‘We have only minutes to complete the task … this body will die if unoccupied for more than ten minutes, and then I shall be stuck in your body with you.’

  Khalid did not fancy that idea much, but maybe that was just what his father wanted — a young, working body. ‘Why not leave one of your crew behind to sustain your bag of bones?’

  ‘As subservient as these souls are to me,’ Chironjivi was proud of this, ‘they have all grown selfish, restless and ruthless! Given a taste of physical form again — even a form so foul as this — there’s not one among them who would be able to give it up. They must all accompany us.’

  ‘And how do I know that you’re not just trying to make off with a younger, fitter body?’ Khalid challenged the twist of fate that seemed too good to be true.

  ‘Because these souls made their oath to this body,’ the captain informed, ‘and once I give it up, I give up control of my crew. If another of the crew were to claim this body, they would get control of the crew.’

  ‘And if the body is destroyed altogether, what then?’ Khalid wondered.

  ‘The crew would be free to serve whomever they choose, or not … but we would all be trapped here with no means to operate or effect the physical world outside of this crash site.’ Chironjivi feared that most of all: no more bloodletting, no more revenge. He knew Khalid would cease to bring victims for them to mutilate, taunt and play with once there was no just cause to do so. Khalid only killed for social or political advancement, and considered murder an unnecessary risk otherwise.

  Khalid was satisfied and so gave the nod. ‘Time to screw the leader of the known worlds.’ He reached for his discarded blade and willed it back into his possession.

  Finally, Jabez had a day at home in the private sector to relax and recuperate by the pool. The twins were out shopping and he was happily sipping juice as he read through proposals on his portable work station. The president could not have been more content, until a request for a transfer came through on his communicator from Taren.

  ‘I told her …’ He hesitated to agree, until a second message arrived stating that the transfer was of the utmost urgency. ‘Damn it,’ he mumbled, as he typed a reply to give her the go ahead and kissed his peaceful morning goodbye — he knew this was not a social call.

  When Taren appeared beside him, she unexpectedly hugged him tight. ‘Father, thank the universe.’ She kissed his cheek.

  ‘Have I done something right that I’m not aware of?’ Anselm made jest of her uncharacteristic affection.

  ‘Yes, you’re not dead.’ She sniffled back her tears of relief and, before her father could question her shocking statement, she said, ‘Have you received word of the dowager duchess’s murder yet?’

  ‘What?’ Anselm’s alarmed doubled. ‘No, I —’

  ‘Mr President! Mr President!’ The panicked cries of Anselm’s private security secretary echoed through to the pool house from inside.

  ‘Here it comes,’ Taren advised apologetically and rendered herself invisible before Tyra entered to inform Anselm of the sad news.

  As upsetting as the report was, Anselm was eager to hear Taren out and so asked to be left alone for a moment.

  Tyra understood perfectly and expressed her deep condolences before returning to her office to handle the incoming calls of sympathy and media queries
on his behalf.

  ‘You had a premonition?’ he figured and Taren appeared once again.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘And in it, Maiara told me that her death would be my cue that Khalid was coming for you.’

  ‘He would never dare —’ Anselm couldn’t take her seriously.

  ‘With you and Ronan out of the way, Khalid can turn the entire United Systems against the psychic bill and we’ll have nowhere but Phemoria to hide,’ she said quickly and Anselm began taking her more seriously. ‘But what Khalid doesn’t know is that as long as you hold your Juju next to your skin, his power will have no effect on you.’

  ‘Well, if I put the stone to my skin now, Khalid won’t find me at all,’ Anselm reasoned.

  ‘But we want him to find you,’ Taren said with a smile.

  ‘We do?’ Anselm was intrigued by her mischievous tone as she nodded.

  ‘If he cannot find you, he will suspect you of being one of us, and we don’t want that,’ she reasoned.

  ‘And once he finds me? What then? If this in anyway involves having you and Khalid in the same room, I want no part in it! I’ve worked too long to —’

  ‘Father, please,’ Taren interrupted him. ‘Maiara reminded me of one weapon we have that Khalid will never have, and I fully intend to use it. He won’t even know I’m here.’

  Taren returned to her unit on Frujia after briefing her father, to find her co-conspirators in a bit of a flap.

  She had called in Jazmay and Yasper to assist with her father’s protection, but Lucian and Yasper were not very comfortable about making each other’s acquaintance — despite the fact that Yasper was happily married to Jazmay, and Lucian to Taren.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Lucian explained quietly upon her return, ‘there’s someone at the door. I was going to answer it, but —’

  ‘I wouldn’t let him,’ Yasper interrupted.

  ‘That’s a good thing,’ Taren explained to Lucian, ‘as I thought of you to return here and I would have materialised right beside you, in front of our guest.’

  ‘See,’ Yasper concluded his case, and Lucian had to concede that when it came to political and psychic warfare, he was still rather clueless.

  Taren moved to check the monitor and then returned, speaking in a hushed tone. ‘It’s Amie.’

  Lucian frowned. ‘What could she want at this time in the morning?’ It was barely dawn here in the capital of Frujia, which was a few hours behind Sermetica’s capital, Heavensgate.

  ‘Quickly, we don’t have much time,’ she directed them all to the bedroom. ‘I’ll find out what the story is. She might just want to check on how I am.’

  Lucian nodded to concur that she was probably right, and closed the bedroom door to conceal Jazmay, Yasper and himself.

  Taren rushed to the door and opened it to find no one, and stepping out onto the walkway, she saw Amie walking away. When Taren thought about letting her leave she felt panicked and so following her gut, she called out: ‘Amie.’

  Amie turned. ‘Thank heavens!’ She ran back to Taren. ‘Khalid was here last night,’ she said. Taren immediately hauled her inside and closed the door.

  ‘What did he want?’ Taren asked, repressing an urge to panic or jump to conclusions.

  ‘He wanted to give me this.’ Amie handed over the photon-camera. ‘He said the MSS had developed it from one of your inventions.’

  The news was like a dagger in the back for Taren, and she went into momentary shock.

  ‘It photographs the light field around a person,’ Amie elaborated to fill the silent void. ‘The bigger your light field the more psychic you are, because you reject and emit more photons.’

  Taren’s mouth was gaping as she nodded to confirm the theory was correct, and accepted the weapon from Amie; this was how Khalid had identified Chief Ronan as a psychic!

  ‘Point of interest, though,’ Amie tried to take some of the sting out of the news. ‘I believe your Phemorian stone interferes with the process and, if worn next to the skin, as you said, it renders your aura to appear completely average.’

  Taren’s eyes shot up to meet Amie’s — the news was inspiring.

  ‘You also weren’t kidding when you said it would protect me from him,’ Amie added. ‘He couldn’t come within a couple of feet of me without wanting to throw up.’

  ‘You made him sick?’ Taren spirits lifted a little.

  ‘Even sicker than he makes me,’ Amie assured with a smile. ‘But only when the stone was on my person.’

  Taren was infused with a greater sense of confidence about the confrontation ahead. ‘You did the right thing, bringing this to me,’ Taren assured her, as her own Juju stone began to pulse with her father’s energy — and that was her cue.

  ‘I know,’ Amie replied, ‘and I’m not even going to ask why, but Khalid wants photos of all of you, real soon.’

  Taren showed her to the door. ‘Leave it with me,’ she said. ‘I think he deserves so much more than just a photo.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know what your beef with him is, but …’ Amie stopped outside and turned back to Taren. ‘… be careful, he is a very sick man.’

  Taren’s resentment at having unwittingly aided the MSS in the persecution of psychics was welling into fury. ‘Oh, he will be even sicker … by the time I’m done with him.’

  After a few blood sacrifices to bring Chironjivi’s dark Powers up to scratch, the captain ordered his crew forth to seek out Anselm and scan the immediate area around him for anything or anyone out of the ordinary.

  Chironjivi sat his body down in his favourite booth at Dead Man Downs, and Khalid sat there also. After a moment of silent concentration, the captain advised, ‘The boys are giving us the all clear — Anselm is alone.’

  ‘Then get on with it.’ Khalid was eager to have this merger over and done with, so he could get on with tracking down and killing the Zagriata — whatever the fuck that was!

  ‘As you wish.’ Chironjivi’s blood-splattered face fell dead of expression as his head rested against the high back of the seat.

  A great wave of revulsion and hatred swept through Khalid, and he began to convulse as the dark horrors of his father’s past infused him with a far deeper sense of revengeful resolve and contempt for all things living.

  As he regained his composure, Khalid’s thoughts turned to his target, and the memories of his past treacheries against the Sermetic president made him smile. I severed your lover from your life, estranged your child, and primed myself to step into your esteemed position. ‘Jabez Anselm …’ his father’s evil chorus echoed Khalid’s voice, ‘time to die.’

  ‘Hello, Mansur,’ said Anselm, from the comfort of his sofa, as Khalid appeared before him. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected appearance?’ In one hand the president held a drink — his other hand was sunk deep in the pocket of his jacket. ‘Have you come to pass on your condolences on the passing of my dear great aunt?’ Anselm’s steely glare seemed to indicate that he already knew the truth on that count.

  ‘Such a shame … I just loved dear Nanny Mai to death,’ replied Khalid with a grin. The additional voices in Khalid’s tone startled Anselm; Chironjivi’s acute sense of fear detected this and hence so did Khalid. Anselm was not as fearless as Maiara had been — this additional boost of dark power was working a treat.

  ‘So, you’ve come to kill me now, is that it?’ Anselm concluded, throwing open the arm that held his drink. ‘Well then, do your best.’

  ‘Why are you all in such a hurry to die?’ Khalid was in Anselm’s face in a second, but Jabez did not flinch. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to hide something, would you?’

  As Khalid gripped Anselm to take him back to Dead Man Downs, the president exploded with light, and Khalid felt immediately crippled by illness.

  As four other glowing beings of light suddenly appeared in the room and were spotted by the ghostly pirates who were Khalid’s eyes in the celestial world, the dark force began to whip up the atmosphere in the room
in protest.

  ‘What’s wrong, my old friend,’ Anselm jeered. ‘Are you not up to this assassination at present?’

  The light-filled agents quickly descended upon Khalid, completely paralysing him with their presence. As one of them slapped a psychic neutraliser on Khalid’s ankle, his ghostly crew fled and the disturbance in the room ceased.

  ‘No!’ Khalid screeched in protest. As the last ounce of psychic power drained from his being, in his mind’s eye he and Chironjivi perceived their rogue crew, now severed from their control by the restraining device on their ankle, racing back to Dead Men Downs to lay claim to the body of Chironjivi first. In their frenzied attempt to enter the ancient corpse at once, the body of the lost Prince of Phemoria was completely destroyed — just as Maiara had predicted.

  ‘And what’s this?’ Anselm used his handkerchief to retrieve a dagger from Khalid’s hilt that still had traces of blood on it.

  ‘There’s no death penalty on Sermetica.’ Khalid grinned, his voice back to normal.

  Tell him, boy. Chironjivi was fuming in Khalid’s mind. Tell him we are going to fuck his entire family into oblivion!

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Khalid yelled in frustration. ‘I can’t hear myself think!’

  ‘Tyra!’ Anselm called for his security guard and then quietly uttered, ‘Crew dismissed, we can handle things from here!’

  ‘I am going to find your precious light source and then I’m going to destroy every last mother-fucking one of you!’ Khalid roared — all his new powers of perception gone, along with his own power. He had no idea if his illuminated attackers were still here or not. ‘Now get the fuck away and stop making me ill!’ he moaned, as Tyra raced over to put him in binders and drag him away from the president.

  Once Anselm was alone in the room he drew a deep breath to try and control his shock. He’d expected Khalid, but not whatever other dark force he’d brought along with him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Taren appeared, and startled the life out of her father.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ he protested, so Taren made herself invisible.