The Zoya Chronicles Boxed Set

by Kate Sander

  Carter nodded. "I wasn't lying, she died a hero. Senka saved my son. I cannot ever thank you or your family enough."

  The woman smiled sadly, eyes dead. The eyes of a mother who was burying her child. "Put that name on her headstone," she said, turning away from Carter. "I lost Elizabeth along with her father in that car crash all those years ago. She chose to be Senka after that, and she should be buried as such." With that, she followed her son to the limo.

  Carter sighed and hung his shoulders, rain pouring around him, pooling at his feet. The rest of the mourners left him alone. Black Eyes watched and waited. Sighing, he turned to look at the two mounds of dirt.

  "You really left us fucked this time, didn't you?" Tears were streaming down his face. "I told you to get out of there, Senka. I told you! And you both had to go and fucking die. You left me here all alone..." He drifted off and started sobbing quietly. After a few minutes he seemed to pull himself together. "Mark my words. I will find this Freudman again. I will find the Ampulex. I will rip their organization apart, no one will be safe. I will avenge you Senka. I will avenge you Tomo."

  He turned. "I hope you found each other over there. I hope you know how much we miss you."

  Carter strode away through the mud towards the bustling street where a long, black vehicle was parked waiting for him.

  Black Eyes smiled and ran for the vehicle. She had a plan.

  Carter's head was down and Black Eyes didn't want to be seen, so she easily slipped by him into the vehicle.

  "Back to ZTF headquarters," Carter said to the driver up front. "And take the long way, I need some time to think."

  He rolled up the window separating the driver from the back of the vehicle. Black Eyes took the opportunity to make herself visible.

  "Holy shit," Carter gasped, dropping on the floor his little handheld rock that everyone carried in this world. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my limousine?"

  Black Eyes smiled at him and spun a knife in her hands. "Those are your only questions? Hmph. Tory told me you were smart."

  "Who the fuck are you?" Carter snapped. He drew a weapon and pointed it at her. It was one that Black Eyes had only seen in this world, small and black, it had a small trigger that let loose a projectile, killing everything in its path.

  "Fire at me," she said, smiling. "You won't hit much. I'm faster than you and you can't kill what's already dead."

  Carter's hand showed only a slight tremor. Black Eyes was impressed. Apparently coming to a decision, Carter clicked something on the side of his weapon and put it back into a holster on his waist. "You know what? I'm not even surprised," he said. He turned to a clear decanter in the door. "Whiskey? I promised Senka I wouldn't drink again but I have to have one shot just for her. She loved her whiskey."

  There was something in his eyes.

  "You loved her?" Black Eyes said. "Hmm, Tory never mentioned that. I didn't know that Senka was in love with anyone."

  "What do you want?" Carter asked. He raised the glass of amber liquid and drank it in one go. "Last drink, Sen, I promise."

  "Tory sent me."

  "Who, pray tell, is Tory?"

  "Tory is the most powerful being in what you would call The Other Place," Black Eyes said matter-of-factly, brushing a long dreadlock out of her face. "She was friends with Senka the last time she was over there. She sent me to find Senka and then you."

  "Senka is dead," Carter said. "I suppose you were at her funeral. She's been dead six weeks now. The funeral was only this late because we had to scrape her off the floor and the Germans just released her body. They don't take kindly to explosions of child trafficking compounds in their country."

  "She's not dead, she's back in The Other Place," Black Eyes shrugged. "There were some pills or something. I'm not sure how they worked, not my area of expertise, but that other woman designed them and they work."

  "Bullshit. There's no way you know that. There's no way they work. You can't be dead here and alive in The Other Place. Granted, most of this shit is a mystery but that's never happened. You die here, you die there. That's pretty much the only concrete thing we know about Zoya."

  Black Eyes let him ramble. "Alright then. So that makes me a figment of your imagination. How does that feel?"

  "Aren't you? I haven't slept in weeks. I need to track down that asshole Freudman before he takes more kids. I'm going through alcohol withdrawal, sleep withdrawal, and sex withdrawal. You are more than likely a hallucination that stems from all three. Oh, plus I've just buried two women I loved dearly. Yes, you're a hallucination."

  Black Eyes shrugged, "Well if you have it all figured out... but I'm staying. Tory sent me and we've agreed to work together. Meaning you're stuck with me."

  The limousine came to a slow halt. The driver hopped out and opened the door for Carter. Carter exited, silent. The driver's eyes glazed over and he held the door open a moment longer for Black Eyes to exit.

  "Have a good day, sir!"

  Carter shook his head and strode into the nondescript high rise in downtown Toronto. The Zoya Task Force headquarters was housed on two floors about halfway up. Carter entered the elevator with Black Eyes darting in behind him. A quick flash of his wristwatch and a screen popped up on the elevator beside him. He scanned his hand and the elevator took off in a flash.

  "No one else can get to our floor. They don't even know we exist. Only ZTF members know the floor is there, most people just think this building has 33 floors instead of 35."

  Black Eyes stared at him.

  "And I don't know why I'm telling you this because you're a fucking hallucination."

  "What if they use the stairs?" Black Eyes asked. "I've been in this world for about six weeks. You have crazy stuff that I've never seen before. We live in huts in the forest. But every one of these buildings has this.... elevator? And a set of stairs. What if they use the stairs?"

  "The stairs are actually a touch bigger than regulation for the entire building. Not a big deal and no one notices, but in 35 floors it’s enough to entirely cover the fact that there are two extra floors. We have doors that lead to the stairs but they just open from the wall, unmarked."

  The elevator stopped and Carter shook his head, trying to clear it.

  The doors opened and the Zoya Task Force headquarters spread out in front of Black Eyes. There were screens everywhere, some men and women talking on their little rocks and staring at their screens. A skinny man rushed at Carter when he saw him.

  "Boss did you hear about Salvador, Brazil?"

  Carter shook his head, "Been a bit busy, Ram. What about it?"

  Ram led him to a couple of big screens. They were showing aerial footage of an ocean with the roofs of buildings poking up through the waves. Boats were driving between the buildings, pulling bodies out of the sea.

  "It's gone. There was a tsunami there this morning, wiped out the entire city. No survivors."

  Carter stared. "How many?"

  "Two million. The waters never receded, there's an entirely new coast line."

  "Holy shit."

  "That's not the worst part."

  "There's something worse?" Carter's jaw was hanging open, as was Black Eyes'. Two million people killed by the sea. She wouldn't have believed that many people actually existed until she set foot in this world, the world of a million-people cities.

  Ramjeet handed Carter his tablet.

  "I think it's going to happen again."

  5

  Senka

  The jungle was thick and Senka was lonely, but she persevered.

  “It’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity,” she mumbled to herself. Chuckling, she realized just how much she sounded like her father. Laughing harder, she realized she was laughing at herself.

  “You need to find some civilization.”

  “True that.”

  She needed to find someone, anyone, who could tell her what country she was in and how to get to Langundo. Tory would know the answ
ers. Or Tomo. Someone who was smarter than she was would help her seek revenge on...

  She wasn't even sure who she was supposed to be fighting. The Ampulex seemed like a good start, but did they even exist in this world? And if they did, were they really as bad as she thought they were?

  One thing was for sure, there seemed to be a thinning of the gap between worlds. And catastrophic events were occurring. Senka had to figure out how to stop them.

  A branch whipped her face. "Dammit," she spat and stopped running, catching her breath and listening. A trickle of water reached her ears and Senka walked towards it, rubbing the blood off her cheek. The run felt good, it opened her lungs and helped her focus but she needed to hydrate. She couldn't cramp up or get sick as she was now alone in the jungle.

  Kai was gone. His familiar aura was gone. She'd expected him to keep his distance after her outburst and to, eventually, make his way back to her. Apparently she was wrong.

  "Way to burn your last bridge with anything that actually likes your company," she muttered. The water was a small stream that ran between her feet.

  "So you should probably follow that downhill. Might take you to civilization. Or to more cannibals. But cannibals can talk back to you."

  Stretching her shoulders, she loosened up and followed the stream downhill. The stream eventually widened as it was joined by more water from the jungle. The small stream became a meandering river. The small river began to get loud and rough as the decline of the hill increased.

  "This land mass does end!"

  She stopped jogging as she came to a cliff and a massive waterfall. Creeping to the edge of the cliff, she lay on her stomach and looked over the hundred foot drop.

  Small huts littered a beach that stretched for miles in front of her. A dock with small fishing vessels was nestled into a small cove at the foot of the waterfall. From her perch, Senka could see the sails of a larger vessel anchored out in deeper waters. It looked like some small boats were approaching the docks from the larger vessel.

  And it seemed to her that the boats had drawn quite a crowd. There was a steep path hewn into the rock wall to her right. She used the commotion down below to quickly descend and dash to a small rocky outcrop.

  If the people of this village were also cannibals, she needed to be very careful to not be caught. She wished Kai was here.

  Biding her time, she watched the village for any movement. Surprised there was no lookout, she eyed a small fishing vessel in the cove to her left. If she could reach it and row it out to the larger vessel, she could sneak aboard and...

  "Do not move," a voice said from behind her.

  Senka raised her hands. She'd gotten sloppy in her time alone in the jungle.

  "It's been a long time since someone got the drop on me," she said lightly.

  "Turn around slowly," the voice said. It was low and gruff. Something was oddly familiar about it. The sound nagged at her distant memories.

  "I said turn around," the voice barked.

  Senka obeyed.

  Her hands dropped to her sides in shock.

  There was a loud clang of a warhammer as it fell to the rocks.

  "No," he breathed quietly. "You're dead."

  "Ujarak?" Senka said, almost breathless from the shock. "Ujarak what the hell are you doing here?"

  "Start from the beginning," Senka said. "Where are we and how did you get here?"

  They were sitting in a small cabin. It seemed that Ujarak was respected in this community. They served a fish dish with a flatbread and a mulled wine. Senka ate faster than advisable but she didn't care... the last two months of eating roots and berries had taken its toll.

  As did the sobriety.

  Stoic, Ujarak watched her eat and drink. He was a large man, towering over everyone. Dark skinned with long black hair, he was the classic Melanthios warrior. Or two Melanthios warriors, if you took into account the width of his shoulders. A villager came into the hut, eyes averted. Ujarak whispered something to him and he scurried away.

  "They respect you," Senka said through the fish in her mouth. "What did you do?"

  "I am a God to them," Ujarak said gruffly. "A concept that is new to me. The Melanthios do not have Gods. We do not think about those things. We live and die and go to the spirit world. That is all. The term had to be explained to me when I woke here."

  The villager ran in with two filled tankards of wine. Ujarak nodded to him and he all but ran away.

  "Must be nice," Senka said, drinking deeply.

  "It is not," Ujarak said. "I do not like the concept of an all knowing, omniscient being, but they will not accept any other reasoning."

  "The Melanthios had the Shaman," Senka countered.

  "The Shaman was the connection to the spirit world," Ujarak said.

  "Tory always thought he was a scam."

  "I believe she would think differently now."

  Senka looked at him questioningly.

  "That is a story for another time," Ujarak said. "You asked where we are. We are in a country called Nerane'I. It is much larger than Langundo, though the people are more primitive. It is surrounded by large oceans and has a thick jungle in between."

  "You don't have to tell me about the jungle," Senka said. "I know plenty about the jungle."

  Ujarak didn't smile. "And you asked me how I came here. That is less clear, even to me. I woke here. They pulled me out of the ocean a few weeks ago."

  "You just went to sleep and woke up here?"

  Senka thought she saw the corner of his lip turn up, but she wasn't sure. "No. I went east of Carabesh. I went over the end of the world in a ship. I ended up here."

  "Okay maybe you should start before the beginning," Senka said. The wine was starting to make her head woozy and she drank more, glad of the reprieve. "Why were you in Carabesh? Start from when I left."

  Ujarak nodded. "You died, leaving Tory broken. She was the General in charge of the war and she took your loss... especially hard."

  A wave of guilt wracked Senka. She'd barely thought of those she'd left behind after she'd woken, other than Jules. Quite selfish, really, to never think of how her death would affect them. She hadn't died, but there was no way for them to know that.

  "Who is alive?" Senka asked. "What happened after I died?"

  "Jules lived through his injuries," Ujarak said.

  "He lived?" Relief and guilt rushed through her. “That’s impossible. He took a knife to the chest, Ujarak.”

  “I know, but …“

  “A knife to the fucking chest.” She spun the ring on her hand aggressively. Moved on. She’d moved on. Jules had loved her. She’d loved Jules. But he was dead. If he wasn’t dead, what did that make her? What kind of a betrayer was she?

  “He lived,” Ujarak said calmly. “You both thought each other had died, Senka. I think he will understand.”

  Nodding, but still spinning her ring, she said, “So he lived.”

  "As did I, Tory and Eli. You were the only one of our group who died in the war, taking the false king with you."

  Senka shuddered at the memory.

  Dying sucked.

  "What about Tory?"

  "The Shaman sent her north to find her father. I went east. There was a revolt brewing by the Melanthios and the soldiers who defected from the Sun Gods. The man who took the throne, the Black King, the Mad King, King Sebastian the First, ran the country into the ground. He was ruthless, killing and torturing everyone, even his faithful.”

  Ujarak sighed and rubbed his face.

  “Whole towns, Senka. Children. Elderly, everyone.”

  “Sounds like the Sun Gods,” Senka muttered. “Watched them kill a whole bunch of kids.”

  “This was so much worse,” Ujarak urged. “Add the raping and killings to the drought and the famine,” he shrugged. “It was chaos. So many people died. So many lives ruined. Without Tory, I was lost. I joined up with the Revolt. A group started by Jules and his buddy Vick.”

  The name rang a bell
to Senka, but she couldn’t place it. Still shocked that Jules was alive, she didn’t even try to place the name.

  “I went to Carabesh to find Prince Sol and bring him back to Langundo,” Ujarak said. “I failed, but managed to give Sol an edge in the government. I went to prison, and then..." he faltered.

  Senka had been leaning forward, desperate for information about Langundo.

  "And then what?"

  "I'm not sure if you'll believe me."

  "That Melanthios ghost came to visit you too, eh?" Senka said.

  Surprised, Ujarak faltered. "She visited you as well?"

  "I thought I was hallucinating," Senka mumbled, lost in thought. "I was dying. This Melanthios woman came to me, told me to take some pills that would send me here and to "die angry". She said Tory sent her..."

  "She told me to go east, over the end of the world. She told me that Tory sent her. She disappeared, I listened."

  "There's nothing east of Carabesh," Senka scoffed. "Everyone knows that."

  Ujarak smiled to himself. "Well everyone is wrong. She helped me escape from prison. It didn't take me long to meet Captain Jimmy Spring. The crazy son of a bitch who would help me in that quest."

  "You went east?"

  Ujarak nodded, a glint in his eye. "I went east."

  "The silent benefactor graces us with his presence," Captain Jimmy Spring, named for his ability to jimmy a lock and the spring in his step as he left you broke behind him. "Managed to pull yourself out of your chambers, did you?"

  The ship rocked on a wave and Ujarak had to turn and vomit over the side railing.

  Captain Jimmy Spring laughed and patted him on the back, causing Ujarak to cough.

  "You'll get used to it," he said. "Or you won't. But we will be dead soon enough so it shouldn't be much of a problem."

  "Why would you come?" Ujarak blurted out. It seemed dangerous to talk and his stomach turned in the waves. "If it was a suicide mission." Ujarak closed his mouth quickly to stop any more vomit from escaping.

  "Ah, the adventure, lad!" Captain Jimmy Spring said with a smile. The crew stepped lightly around their captain and worked efficiently. Captain Jimmy Spring might be happy and carefree, but he had the reputation of making a sailor walk the plank at any sign of disobedience. "Seems to me that no one has ever sailed this far east. Can you imagine the spoils? The treasure?" with a wink. "The women?"