Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my editor and friend, Marlowe Irvine for all the hours he's put into this novel. Editing isn’t easy. Editors smooth away the bumps we cannot see. Marlowe is one of the few people in the world who knows something about everything. You need to sign up for Jeopardy Marlowe. The real money’s there.
I’m sure you've heard that it takes a community to raise a child. Well, the same thing applies to writing. It takes a small community of helpers to teach the book how to speak clearly and show good manners at all times. I have too many others to thank to list here. To all who helped, a simple but emphatic, thank you!
I’d also like to acknowledge you, dear reader. When all has been said and all has been done, you were the reason for writing this story in the first place. Thank you for your support.
Please come to my website at
https://gordlanyon.weebly.com/
Here you’ll find a little information about me and what I’m currently working on. You can also leave comments and suggestions. I hope to hear from you! I always try to respond back.
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Gordon D. Lanyon
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN
Editing by Marlowe Irvine
Cover Design: Fates Alive Books
Dedication
To Arthur Winnig. He was only eighteen when he passed. So long ago. Loved to write about Atlantis and draw. Died too young.
And to Bruce Johansen. Also gone. Both great childhood friends whom I miss.
And lastly to my wife Linda. Thanks for putting up with me all these years. You really are the best!
Chapter One
I awoke to a door. One moment I was asleep, the next I stood in front of a door. A massive green door; two doors really, that opened inward. If you had a key. I didn't think I had one of those. My first impression of the door was that it was heavy, the next, that it was very, very solid. It was like nothing I'd ever seen, made of some unknown metal, edged in marble. It had no visible hinges or, for that matter, any obvious way to open it. No handle. Hundreds of little statues had been carved into its marble sides, their white alabaster standing in sharp contrast to the green.
I heard a hiss of frustration that seemed to come from behind me, but I knew it hadn't. The sound had come from inside my own head.
"Hello Kat." I tried to keep the fear from my voice and was relieved to hear a light bantering tone.
"You wake at the worst moment. And for the hundredth time, Kat is not my name!" She was angry, but that was her usual state. My problem was surviving it.
"I've told you the same number of times what I think of the name Katal-Tik. Kat is better, shorter. Easier to remember. It's a thing we do on this world, give friends fun nicknames. Yours is Kat. Get used to it."
I called her ‘Kat’, not to annoy her but to make her more human. But she wasn't human and so far our partnership hadn’t been working out too well. I ran my hands over the door lightly, taking pleasure at the feel of something real beneath my fingers. It was hot. Kat had been doing something to it. I wasn't sure how long I'd been locked away this time but I knew it had been longer than before. She must have tried very hard to keep me away from this. That meant I was getting better at escaping. It was also probably why she was so angry.
"You don't know how to open this door do you?" I asked.
I heard her sniff, "I was about to open it before you interfered. I believe the heat has weakened it sufficiently."
"Shouldn’t that be we?" Derision colored my voice. She wasn't the only one who was angry. I was too disgusted to keep my emotions inside and for a moment they got the better of me.
"As in we were about to open this door? Or have you forgotten our agreement?” I paused, pretending to think on it. “Or maybe your word doesn’t count for anything? Maybe you give your word all the time without any intention of honoring it?"
I was pushing. I knew this was a mistake but I couldn't hold the anger in anymore. Kat wasn’t living up to the terms of our agreement. In order to act in this world she needed a shadow, a body she could use. I let her use my body while we worked together to finish the hunt. That was the agreement. It was not perfect but the only one I'd been able to negotiate at the time. The alternative had been to die or let my friend die. I'd done what was needed to survive. Now I was fighting for time in my own body. Time to feel the cool air or solid ground beneath my feet, if only for a few minutes.
When I wasn’t out, I was in the box. A place in my head she’d created to hold me. Think sensory deprivation tank and you’d be close. I caught snippets of the outside world but mostly I just drifted. Lost. Time became a concept, a word without substance. That wasn’t enough. Not if you wanted to live. I struggled, got stronger. Then I found out I wasn’t alone. There was something else in there with me. Something freakishly strong. And it wanted to live as well.
Now I was out. I felt the weight of my body, the beat of my blood, and smelled the hot air. I was alive after all. Trapped inside you can lose everything, even forget what it's like to exist in the physical world. I think in time if you’re forced to stay, you rot and parts of you just slough away until nothing’s left. Then you die. A real death. Maybe that's what she wanted. Maybe that's why she wouldn’t let me out. Maybe that was the plan all along? She wasn’t the caring type after all, but I hardly knew her. Shit! I felt her rise in my mind, a powerful unstoppable force.
"You waste my time!" She seethed. “The one I hunt is inside. I won’t allow you to delay me!”
I felt her coming; searching for me. I tried to block her. I’d escaped four times and so far this tactic had only given me brief respites. She was too strong. I had only one advantage. It was my body she was in. When I was out it recognized me as the owner, not her. When I was out, it did what I wanted. Unfortunately, she was good at fixing that. If she could find me. So far that hadn’t proven to be a problem.
Anger, disgust, desperation; a plethora of complex emotions rose in me before I could stop them. Too much! I had to stay cold to stay hidden. It was the only way to block her search. Emotion was a fire, a beacon she could use to thread her way through the darkness of my mind! I struggled for better control while wondering again what she was. A presence was all I knew; one composed of fearsome energy. She’d pushed her way into my mind a little while ago and taken my body as if it had always been hers.
At first I’d wondered if she was the devil. She’d possessed me. But later I’d learned she was like me, just different. A human from another version of Earth. She’d been created in some lab for the hunt. Special. Feared. Able to do impossible things. Like leave her body behind while she hunted through the multiverse. Then take what she needed when she got there. When she talked of this it made her even more distant. She didn’t like where she came from.
For a while I suspected she let me escape for the sheer fun of it. She was a hunter, or so she’d told me. That had been in the beginning when we still talked. She seldom talked now. She promised to let me out when we got close but after a while I stopped believing her. I think she was just testing me, seeing if I would break. Or maybe it was something else. She wanted to know about my friends. About my life. About why I'd sacrificed myself for another. She could let me out, but she never did.
Then I'd learned something new. I learned I had power. I wasn't surprised by this. I was, a
fter all, in my own mind. I began testing the limits of my prison, searching for weakness. I found the box had seams I could exploit if I stressed them enough. I'd broken through four times. This last time had been much quicker. She couldn't hold me for long any more. That bothered her which was good and bad. Good, because I craved freedom and now had a way to get it, bad because it made her furious and she was dangerous when angry. She hadn't killed me yet. Maybe this time she would. She didn't like to be disturbed when she hunted.
“There you are little shadow.” she crowed. “I've made up a new room for you. It's smaller. Tighter. I think you’ll find this one difficult to escape. You've delayed my revenge too long already!” She sounded jubilant. She was like this whenever she caught me. Partly it was the game. The chase, even if it was just for me, was what she lived for.
The metallic taste of fear flooded my mouth, lanced its way through my body. I struggled to choke it off, push it into a box of my own. Kat reacted badly to fear. She didn't respect things that cowered. Fear made you prey. If you were fearful you were the hunted not the hunter. She respected courage. I think my courage when we first met is the reason I’m still alive. She tests that all the time. Even though I lose, I fight her when she hunts me. Of course, back when we’d first met she'd given her word not to kill me. So far she treated me like a worrisome pet, not a partner as she’d promised. To make her keep her word, I'd have to prove myself to her. And to do that I had to get her attention which was difficult now that she was close to the end of her hunt.
I'd given it some thought and decided there were two ways to get a predator's attention. Show them prey or threaten to take it away. I needed to force her to rethink my value. Kat was a practical, if psychopathic hunter. If I could get her to see me as a hunter I’d have value. To do that I had to show strength she could respect. That meant risking everything.
“You really screwed the pooch, Kat.” I emphasized her name knowing she didn't like my shortened version. “Look at the mistakes you've made, and now we're standing outside a door you can't open. The GateKeeper will love hearing about this.” I wasn’t really sure about this GateKeeper. She’d only mentioned him once and the hatred between them had been unmistakable.
“And what do you know about the GateKeeper little shadow?”
Yes, I’d definitely struck a nerve by just mentioning him.
“You think he would listen to you? You're a flea.” Then she laughed but it was ragged and full of emotion. “If he stepped on you, he wouldn't notice he’d killed you.”
“He doesn't sound like someone who forgives. Let me help! Together we can catch this guy you want.”
Now I had her really laughing but as before, without humor, only derision. When she finally stopped her voice was cold. “You are shadow. Just a body to me. A body with a mind is not necessary. It's an impediment. I'm not supposed to permit impediments. Now that he will notice. You should be quiet now.”
Even as I struggled to find something meaningful to say in reply, I realized she wasn't listening anymore. Her power rolled over me, grabbed me while I fought to stand against it; an impossible task. Caught, I spun like a deranged toy while she flung me toward the greater darkness. I'd been there too many times and screamed something inarticulate and venomous at her. Kat reveled in this; battle turned her on. I fought back, mustered my will; tried to imitate her power, tried to push back, to do anything but submit! Far, far in the blackness I heard her chuckle. Despite my best efforts, I tumbled toward the box; that point where darkness became night and I was locked away from any sense of time or feeling. Any sense of being me.
Fighting her directly led only to failure. I wasn't in her weight class. Maybe the answer wasn't to fight? Being caught by her was like being caught in a riptide. Fighting just exhausted you. Maybe I could use her power against her? Angle the direction and let her push me out of the current?
Now I pushed at an angle. Not against the flow but with it! I gave up distance, while moving slowly to the outer edge of her grip on me. I felt it was working but that was the thing with this. It was all happening in my mind and my mind struggled to interpret this. So I found myself in the darkness of an actual ocean current, swimming hard to break its grip. And it seemed to be working! The ocean’s grip slackened. From somewhere above I felt her puzzlement like a gentle rain. Her push slowed, became almost casual. To her it must have seemed I‘d given up. But I hadn't!
I was deep below the water’s surface. That’s where my imagination had put me. My lungs burned for imaginary air and I wondered why? This was in my mind. I couldn't drown in an imaginary sea. Or could I? I ignored the burning, the pain that told me in every way I was dying, and would in fact die if I continued resisting. I decided this was Kat, another trick. The sneaky bitch!
But now I felt doubt from her. The force she applied lessened even more, as if she were afraid of breaking me. Perhaps I was dying? Maybe she didn't want that after all. She'd given her word and meant to keep it. In all this time she hadn't killed me. I guessed her word meant something after all.
I blocked out the pain. You can only die once. Unless you're in the box. There you wait for time to start, or something real to happen. Hell without time, without pain, without anything. That’s the box. It’s as close to death as life can get.
I kicked feebly upwards with the last of my strength. Was that light? A surface? I felt dizzy, sick from my struggle. Weak. I clawed my way upward, stroked, pulled and paddled until I felt a slight tearing, as if I'd pushed through something tangible. And there it was! The light! It was like putting on an old and familiar suit. Or riding a bike. Suddenly I could feel again, see! My eyes widened in shock! Kat had been busy while we'd been playing.
"Oh shit!" was all I could say.
I was running towards the door at an impossible speed. My right leg exploded outward smashing into the frame with the full force of my considerable two hundred and twenty pound weight. The great door shook, even moved slightly under the blow but did not spill open. I rebounded off it like a demented boomerang while pain, real pain this time, rocketed through me in agonizing waves. My foot was broken! The stupid bitch had broken my foot trying to kick down a hulking, green door! If she'd asked I could have told her, this was not a door you kicked down. Horrified, I watched myself back up for another run at it.
“Stop!" I shouted.
Kat couldn't hear me or wasn't in the mood to listen because once again I was aimed at the door. My foot smashed up against it with all the physical power my body could muster. Again, the door gave but didn’t break. My foot, my whole leg went numb. More damage! I was on my backside now in front of the door while waves of pain rode through me, taking away the ability to think a single coherent thought. Dimly I realized I‘d gotten up and was getting ready for another try.
"Kat, don't," I whispered, struggling for a connection, struggling to even form words through my pain. I felt her pause, considering.
"You’re back," she said with some surprise. “How did you…”
I heard her surprise change to disgust as she took in my pain and shock.
"Weakness,” she spat. “Why do you think I keep you away from this? You are no hunter!"
I realized my cheeks were moist, wiped the moisture away; steadied myself as best I could against the pain. Tried for more control. A hunter never showed pain.
"Unfair Kat. I had no warning, no time to prepare. Of course I'm in shock! You keep me in the dark. And now you've broken my god damn foot, maybe even my leg!"
I sounded desperate and worked to rein that in. Fear and desperation were not qualities she responded to. I steadied myself. Retrieved a measure of control.
"I can fight! Otherwise how would I be here? I beat you!"
"Beat me?" She laughed. "You beat no one."
Then, grudgingly, "But somehow you’re here."
She went quiet and I had a sense she was looking inside herself, inside me, reviewing what happened.
"You fought well,” she amended. “Bu
t you‘re not a hunter. Look at yourself. On your knees because your foot hurts.” Her voice became serious. For the first time I had the sense she was really talking to me.
“Kailex is here. I have to get to him before he runs! You think I do this for the hunt alone? I do this because he’s a danger to your world."
"We‘ll get him!" I interjected quickly, “But together like you promised. I just need you to stop using my body like a battering ram. I have no idea how quickly you heal, but for me, this will take time. My foot will be in a cast for a month after this."
I sensed her gathering her power. I hadn't convinced her of anything yet.
"I’ll resist with everything I have,” I promised. “You know that now. Maybe, in the end, I can't beat you, but I can delay you. If nothing else that's what I'll do. This guy you're chasing, Kailex; he’ll get away. Don't make another bad decision. I can help! Just let me try. You gave me your word."
“I should have crushed you in the beginning. But I gave my word.” Her voice was soft, musing. “Then I thought to protect you from the hunt. Now I see that won’t work. I can either kill you now or try this partnership you proposed. Either way, I doubt you will like it.”
I felt her thinking. She must have been going through some strong emotions because my mind was rocking. For a moment she was all over the place then she came to a decision with a sigh which sounded almost human.
“I will allow you to call me Kat.”
Her power swelled inside me but this time it felt almost pleasant. Something moved inside that wasn’t Kat or me.
"Your stubbornness endangers your world and my purpose, so time is your ally. I can’t risk losing Kailex and I've given my word to keep you safe. I doubt both can be accomplished. You may soon regret your choice. Still, let me deal with your first concern. There is a ’Beast’ in you now. I woke it after we first met thinking a time might come when it would be needed. It will make you different; more like me. You might call it a parasite with benefits.” I felt her shake deep inside me. “It can alleviate your pain and speed your healing. In fact, it's already doing that."
The God Hunters Page 1
