Book #2
Chapter 1: Between Mountain and Metropolis
In the dip of the crater on Mount St. Helens, massive cracks began to appear in the solidified magma. Soft molten rock began to lift and swell, becoming engorged like living flesh. The pressure from the hot liquid rising below provoked undulations in the once motionless, solid surface. What had been flat and lifeless landscape now ballooned upward, a breast expanding with quivering breaths. To an onlooker, if anyone had been unfortunate or blessed enough to be looking on, the pulsations in the growing dome might have resembled the mountain’s heartbeat—racing with the excitement of approaching release.
With a sound like a sigh, a thin white plume was released from the crest of swollen rock, sending ribbons of hot ash billowing up into the air. A growing fracture began to form in the apex, from which more and more steam was emitted, spurting thousands of feet into the atmosphere. The rupture rapidly expanded, allowing the first drops of bubbling lava to trickle from its creases.
A woman’s hand abruptly broke through the crack in the rock. More steam immediately surrounded the lime green fingernails which just barely poked out of the seam. The fingers began to flex and writhe as they clawed at the crevice. A second hand smashed through the fissure, feeling around tentatively. If one could have seen through the thick steam, they would have noted the woman’s dark copper skin, slender fingers, and several eclectic rings with multicolored gemstones. The hands thrashed around in distress as lava bubbled up around small wrists, hot enough to boil rock, but apparently not the tender skin of this human being.
Finally, emitting an ethereal silvery glow, the two hands paused—they firmly gripped the sides of the gap and worked in unison to forcibly rip the rock apart. A forearm followed, elbow resting on the surface to help push the woman’s torso through the crack, and when her head was above the surface she gasped for oxygen hungrily. Crawling along the surface away from the crevice, she panted as she rested gratefully on a firmer portion of the crater—the bright light surrounding her entire body intensified. When the mountain continued to hiss, teeming with pressure from below, she struggled to rise to her feet.
Stumbling as she limped to the edge of the mountain, the woman leaned weakly against a jagged portion of rock that jutted out along the rim of the crater. The translucent white blaze which hugged her curves like an outline began to fade. She coughed as she inhaled some of the hot grey ash that was spewing out of the volcano’s mouth. She glanced up at the steamy plume with dismay, and looked down at her damaged lime-green jumpsuit. She began hastily brushing ash and clumps of drying lava from her bizarre garment.
“I am never doing that again,” she vowed.
Jumping off the edge of the crater, the woman began to levitate slowly toward the ground. She interlocked her arms across her chest and frowned at the skyline of a city visible to the north. In the blink of an eye, she propelled her body across the dozens of miles between the mountain and the metropolis. She now hovered above a busy intersection, staring down in confusion.
“Is this Seattle?” she whispered as she lowered herself to the sidewalk. “Looks different without piles of dead bodies in the streets.” She ignored the judgmental looks as pedestrians strolling by examined her oddly vibrant, neon-green outfit. When a grandmother pulled her small child away protectively, and the young boy stared up at her with his mouth in a little O-shape of surprise, the woman growled. She reached up to touch her curly black hair to check if it was out of place. Finding nothing wrong with her appearance, she made her way to a payphone.
Staring at the machine in bewilderment for a moment, she seemed to be trying to remember how to use it. Mumbling a few numbers under her breath, she lifted a hand. Her fingers paused slightly in front of the phone, not making contact, but causing the receiver to float toward her ear and mouth. Numbers on the keypad began to depress automatically, and the payphone reacted as though coins had been inserted, beginning the call. After a few rings, a polite, professional voice filtered through the receiver.
“Kalgren Technological Enterprises, CEO’s office. Nina speaking. How may I help you?”
“I was supposed to meet with Thorn Kalgren an hour ago!” The young woman in the green bodysuit acted convincingly annoyed. “God, he still hasn’t shown up and I can’t sit here all day—I have other appointments!”
“The CEO is a busy man and he seems to be occupied with some sort of emergency. I apologize—I’ve been cancelling his meetings for the day, but I must have missed yours—who is calling, please?”
“It insults me that you even have to ask,” she told the secretary. “Never mind—is Thorn’s sister available? Amara should be able to help me.”
“I’m afraid Miss Kalgren isn’t in the office today either. Is this about one of her inventions? I could forward you to her department manager…”
“No, no.” The dark-skinned woman chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “This is a matter of some delicacy, Nina. I need to speak to a Kalgren directly—is Rose available?”
Nina seemed to hesitate. “Thorn’s mother is retired. Sorry, ma’am, who did you say you were? If you’re from the tax office, I can forward you to the financial…”
“No! Is Pax Burnson there?”
“Why, no.” The secretary paused. “In fact, I don’t believe she’s involved in any current projects. Thornton recently broke up with his girlfriend, you see.”
“What?” the young girl shouted. This seemed to bother her more than the volcanic lava. She tried to regain composure after slipping out of character. “Well, what about Asher Burnson? Any of the Burnsons really.”
“I highly doubt the Burnsons would be able to assist you with Kalgren Tech company issues. If you just call back tomorrow, I am sure we can schedule you another appointment. I’ll mention to the CEO that you called.”
“No!” the woman in the lime jumpsuit hissed. “Where the hell is he? I’m going to kill your boss.”
“Uh… excuse me?” Nina’s voice faltered.
“All of them. I’m going to kill all of them.” The woman turned her back on the payphone and it promptly exploded behind her. People traversing the Seattle sidewalks began to shriek when she levitated several feet off the pavement. The girl ignored the attention and swept her body up into the air, moving away from onlookers in a fraction of a second. Her slender silhouette barreled through the air so briskly that she was just a kiwi-colored blur. Finally, she landed in the middle of a forest clearing before a massive Victorian manor.
“Burnson Grove,” she muttered. She had been hoping to see several cars in the driveway, signifying that the Kalgrens were visiting. Instead, she could tell without entering that the house was empty. She could not detect any formidable life forces within the walls of the mansion, and the Burnsons and Kalgrens were all strong enough that they would have been easy to detect. “Damnation,” she swore, glancing to the west. Her eyes narrowed angrily. “They’re in India. I should have known.”
Before the final word had left her mouth, her toned body exploded into the sky—a sleek missile launched to a distant destination, sure to wreak carnage upon arrival.
* * *
An angry-looking blonde stood atop a hexagonal portal with her hands on her hips. Beside her was a dark-haired woman whose eyes were downcast and dismal; she was staring expectantly at the lemony light consuming their legs, traveling upward to engulf their entire bodies.
“Goodbye, everyone,” the blonde woman said triumphantly. “Sakra, please send us away.”
Clearing his throat, a skinny Indian man responded with a gesture of his arm, accentuated by an elaborately embroidered sleeve. “I bless you in your journeys, children. May you find all you seek and more in the Pseudosphere.”
The otherworldly yellow mist surrounded the two girls for a moment before they disappeared. Sighs and murmurs traveled through the small crowd gathered at the mountaintop temple. The significance of the moment hung heavily in the air like a sickness, palpable to every membe
r of the two families present at the secret Himalayan spot. A dreary, Sunday-morning silence descended on the group before they began to disperse.
A tall blonde man, clad in a custom-tailored business suit, pulled an older man aside roughly. “You might be a king among gods,” he hissed, “but that does not give you any right to play at being a father!”
“Thorn! You will not speak to your dad that way,” Rose Kalgren said in disappointment as she followed the men to a private corner of Sakra’s Point.
Thornton’s head snapped to his mother, his blue eyes fixing her with an icy glare. “Why not? He has never shown me any kind of support. I just proposed to the woman I love, and she refused because my father convinced her that I wasn’t worthy.” Thornton’s fists were clenched, pulling his skin taut over reddened knuckles. Mere minutes ago, he had smashed his hand into his father’s face—he was now tempted to begin an encore performance.
“You’re not worthy,” Vincent said simply. “You are a descendant of the royal bloodlines of devas—and yet you act like a filthy human slug.”
“Hey, hey! Calm down, both of you!” Rose pushed herself between her husband and son angrily. She gestured to the dark-haired family chatting a few feet away. “What will the Burnsons think of us? Honestly! Hold onto your testosterone until we get home.”
Thornton was already unbuttoning his blazer and loosening his tie. “It’s better to get this off my chest here, Mom. We can’t really have an all-out fight in America. Since we’re in the middle of nowhere, I feel like I should seize the day.”
“Do you even know why I insulted you, boy?” Vincent asked, cracking his neck from side to side. He seemed unfazed by his son’s threats. “Not merely because you deserved it, but because of the moment you chose to propose. You have the most inappropriate timing thinkable.”
“Timing?” Thornton asked, moving forward until his nose was inches away from his father’s face. “That was my only chance to reach her before she entered that place!”
“She will be back in a few days—could you not have waited for her to return?”
“Time is distorted in the vector zone!” Thornton tossed his blazer to the ground angrily. “It will seem like years to her. If she isn’t strong enough… she could spend a lifetime in there. She could forget all about me.”
Rose laughed. “Honey, Pax Burnson couldn’t forget about you if she picked up a degenerative disease. She would sooner forget her own name.”
“Mom, she just entered the Pseudosphere. I know you’ve never been to a different dimension, but I have—and let me tell you this. The vector zone is exactly the kind of place that makes you forget your own name.”
Vincent scoffed. “You should have asked her to marry you months ago.”
“That helps, Father. I can’t exactly turn back time now, can I?”
Vincent shrugged. “Sure you can. You can travel back in time and ask before you cheated on her. Ask her on her 26th birthday or Christmas. Women never refuse on special occasions. Something about the atmosphere.”
Thornton began to calm down when he saw that his father was actually offering him advice. Maybe the powerful demigod was still on his side after all. “I’m not strong enough to perform the technique for time travel,” he admitted, hoping the older man would offer to help.
“You’re my son. You damn well are strong enough,” Vincent said.
Thornton’s eyes narrowed. “But I don’t have the time to go through the full procedure. I have an important full-time job.”
“Of course. Because pushing paper at the office is your main priority,” Vincent mocked.
“Honey, that’s not nice,” Rose said disapprovingly. “Thorn has been running all of Kalgren Tech for over a decade now. His role is challenging, and you don’t give him enough credit. He can’t just focus on carrying on your legacy—there’s mine too.”
Thornton lowered his voice, glancing over at the Burnsons to make sure they were engaged in conversation and could not hear his words. “Father, do you really think I can manage the time travel?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Rose said, looking skyward.
Vincent crossed his arms and shrugged. “Probably. It obviously isn’t an easy procedure to master—or every idiot with a bit of deva blood could accomplish the feat. It needs to be a grave situation. It needs to matter more than life itself. Obviously Pax isn’t that important to you or you would have already gotten her back.”
“How can you say that!” Thornton yelled. “She is the most important part of my life!”
In one fluid motion Vincent had slammed Thornton to the ground. “And what about your sister, boy? Do you care about Amara at all? Because if you did, you would know that your sister isn’t strong enough to survive the vector zone.”
Rose’s hand flew to her chest while Thornton’s eyes went wide. “Vince!” Rose gasped, beginning to hyperventilate. “You said she could… you lied to me! Did you send my little girl to die?”
Thornton glanced across the room, noticing that his best friend had stopped conversing with his family and was looking in their direction. Asher Burnson’s face had darkened when he heard Vincent confirm his fears for Amara’s safety.
“I’m trusting Pax to take care of my daughter,” Vincent said, his blue eyes flashing in rage. He grasped his son’s neck roughly to retrieve his attention. “Do you understand now, boy? Everything depends on Pax. She must focus—she needs to focus more now than ever in her life. She has natural power bursting at the seams, a fountain of pure prana—but she does not know how to channel or control it. If she makes one mistake, your sister will suffer. Amara isn’t strong.”
“Father… why did you let her go in there?” Thornton pictured his little sister’s face. He gulped, more from fear than the pressure on his trachea.
“I am hoping it will change her. The easiest way for a person to accomplish anything is if there is a need to do so. When failure is not an option, you will find that people fail significantly less.” Vincent released his son, offering him a hand to help him off the ground.
Thornton grasped his father’s forearm to lift himself, feeling embarrassed once he was standing before the older man. He felt humbled by his father’s great wisdom and strength, and the continually impressive scope of Vincent’s forethought. “I’m sorry. I guess Amara does deserve this opportunity,” he admitted.
“Hmph. The truth is I don’t expect Amara to grow much. I believe she will continue to hide behind Pax and double the pressure on the poor girl to keep the both of them alive. No matter—Pax can handle that if only she doesn’t allow herself to be distracted. Do you understand now, boy? She doesn’t need trivialities on her mind right now. She doesn’t need to be thinking of whether her wedding cake should be chocolate, vanilla, or fucking marble! She needs to be concentrating on growing connected with the source of her power—on meditation and controlling her prana—for the future of our whole race!” Vincent turned to Rose and spoke softly. “For the record, I prefer chocolate.”
“I’ll make a note of it, dear,” said Rose Kalgren with a nod. She whipped a notebook out of her lab coat and pulled her glasses down from her head, dropping them on the bridge of her nose. Retrieving a pen from behind her ear, she scribbled the shorthand for “chocolate” directly beside a complex drawing of infinite space.
“Future of our whole race?” Thornton said in confusion. He was sure that his father was just spouting grandiose garbage, but he was curious nonetheless.
“Yes,” Vincent said. “I have given up any expectation of my own children taking pride in our heritage. Pax is my only hope. I know she won’t disappoint me—she’ll be the one teaching my grandchildren and great-grandchildren our ways long after I’m gone. I may be a deva but I won’t live forever. It’s imperative that the legacy of what we have achieved is not lost, and Pax is the only one interested and dedicated enough to take charge. She cares about her roots. Unlike you and Amara, she cares about her strength.”
Thornto
n stared at his father in shock. He had not known that the older man had such long-term ambitions for his fiery young girlfriend. He swallowed, rubbing his sore neck. Could Pax handle all these responsibilities? How could it be that Vincent was always looking ahead, always planning for battles to come?
“You made her angry, boy. Whether or not you know it, that was the best thing you could do for her. A blessing in disguise. No one seeks power when they are happy—but anger motivates a person to travel great lengths. I hoped that you would have enough sense not to interfere in the girl’s dedication until she had finished achieving the heightened level of strength she seeks.”
“So what you’re saying is that you didn’t want me to propose to her so that she would stay angry at me?” Thornton asked in disbelief.
“Precisely.”
“Don’t you care about my life, Father? Don’t you care that her anger is directed at me? Don’t you care that it’s killing me to be separated from her?”
“Not really.”
Thornton shook his head incredulously. “You can’t just manipulate me like some emotionless pawn. You can’t play with our lives like this!”
“You did this to yourself, son. I wasn’t the one who put my dick in another woman.” Vincent was turning to leave when he noticed the death-glare that Rose was sending him. Realizing how callous he sounded, he tried to soften his expression and tone of voice. He glanced back at his son. “If you want to know the truth, Thorn—she’s going to agree to marry you. She’ll be yours in the end regardless of how much she tries to resist.”
“Why do you say that, Father?”
“It’s in her blood to choose the strongest available mate. In addition to that, she’s been emotionally attached to you since her birth. Pax may be the strongest woman on earth—but she doesn’t have the emotional strength to let go of you, regardless of what you put her through and how you hurt her. Deep down you already knew this, and that’s why you took advantage of the situation.”
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 31
