Para descended to the ground and kicked off her ruined shoes. She crossed her arms over her chest in mock annoyance. “I refuse to fight any more until I am no longer barefoot! We’re not animals.”
“They were really nice shoes,” Rose said upon seeing them. “Guys, can you be a little more careful with her outfit? Sakra, and with my ballroom?”
Vincent stared at Rose speechlessly. “Be more careful with her outfit? More careful with her outfit, woman? She could be one of the Asura! She could be an agent of Suja!”
“You’re a bigger asshole than I heard you were, Vincent,” Para remarked.
“Than you heard? Than you heard from whom?” he demanded.
Para stood there with her lips tightly shut and arms crossed defiantly.
“Whatever,” Vincent responded. “Be prepared to fight or die!”
“How about I just chill here instead?” Para suggested arrogantly
Vincent flew at Para in rage, but before he could reach her, he met with an invisible prana-shield that she had erected. “Dammit!” he cursed as he began to launch an array of energy bullets at her shield in hopes of destroying it.
“I’ll help,” said Gordin with a growl. “I don’t know how she knows about Layla, but I don’t trust her!”
Para stood calmly with her face expressionless as Gordin and Vincent launched impressive prana assaults into her shield.
“That’s impossible,” said Raymond softly. He lifted one of his hands and began to fire his own barrage of mauve-colored fireballs at the girl. They all disappeared into the invisible shield. “How tough can one measly shield be? Come on, Ash,” said Raymond through clenched teeth. “Let’s help, just to test her strength.”
“Right.”
The two Burnson brothers extended their hands and began to fire their own signature energy attacks at the shielded girl, adding to the multicolored light show which dissipated around her invisible layer of defense.
Para continued to stand there, looking rather bored.
“It’s not doing anything,” Thornton observed in awe. “Father, Raymond, Ash, and Gordin—everyone is attacking her, all at once, and her shield is able to deflect all of that?”
Actually, it’s not just deflecting all of it, Thorn, Para responded through a direct link to his mind. The shield is built to absorb some of the attacks and use the energy to make the shield stronger. So why don’t you take a shot at me too, while the whole neighborhood is firing?
Thornton felt a sudden surge of anger. “She’s toying with all of you! Stop testing her and give it all you’ve got!”
A flash of worry was visible in Para’s eyes for a moment. Can I do this? Can my shield handle all of them at full power? They wouldn’t release so much destructive energy inside of the Kalgren Compound, would they?
But they did.
Thornton clenched his fists and concentrated until his body was shrouded in silver. Asher, Raymond, and Gordin did the same, letting large auras of crackling energy surround their bodies. Para’s eyes widened as Vincent also assumed his Pure White form, the one he rarely used close to home, and certainly never in any cities to avoid causing too much destruction. The one he had used to defeat Pax over and over again on one of Jupiter’s moons. Para gulped.
“Rose, Amelia, get back!” Vincent shouted, but the two human women were already huddled nervously in a corner in their evening dresses. “Let's fire all at once!” he instructed. “3... 2...1... attack!”
Para could no longer keep her arms crossed and act like nothing was happening. She extended her arms out to either side in an effort to reinforce the shield. She could also no longer restrain her own energy levels to the bare minimum. It was no longer necessary, anyway. They knew she wasn’t weak. She could reveal some of her strength—just enough to keep alive.
She exhaled, and allowed her prana to be released from the secret box at her core. It traveled through her body with a living heat, burning all of the tranquilizer out of her veins and allowing her to access some of her true power. She closed her eyes to focus, and let the energy flow through to her fingertips. Not too much, she told herself, just enough.
Everyone was attacking her with full force. Their prana assailed her in various forms and techniques; balls of flame and beams of ice, missiles of rock from Gordin, and other alternating generic attacks.
Para shook her head in disbelief as she communicated to all of them. Wow, you guys are really mean. The King of Devas and his son, two sons of the Fire Deva, and the Earth Deva? Five demigods in tuxedos, all attacking one girl? One girl in a very expensive and adorable ball gown, who is just trying to avoid further damage to her dress? Not cool, guys. Not cool at all.
The men began to glance at each other in amazement. They knew how formidable their combined forces were; yet, they were all attacking this one small girl at the same time—and she complained that they were ruining her dress?
“She knows too much about us,” Gordin said angrily, stopping his assault. “How does she know?”
“My idiot son probably told her!” Vincent snarled, feeding more prana into his high-voltage onslaught at her shield.
“No,” said Thornton, also pausing. “I didn’t tell her all of that. I have no idea how she knows.”
Para glanced up at the clock on the ballroom wall. Three minutes. She had to get out of there.
Raymond dropped his arms to his sides and lifted his palms in a gesture of peace. “Okay, Medea. How do you know so much about us?”
Para sighed. “Now you want to have a conversation? If you’ll all stop attacking me, maybe we can talk like civilized people.”
All of the devas in the room obediently ceased their offensives, except for Vincent, who was struggling with an internal conflict. He realized that it was highly probable that Medea was stronger than Pax. His previous reason for disapproving of Medea (publicly) was that she was far too weak for his son. His son deserved the strongest mate. Now, having learned that Medea was, in fact, the strongest available mate, Vincent still found himself very displeased with the situation. He realized that it wasn’t only strength he wanted in his daughter-in-law. He wanted Pax. Specifically Pax, and all of her positive and negative qualities. All of her stubbornness, her craziness, and bad decisions.
Pax was already family. He had trained her since she was a baby. In recent years, he had taken for granted that she would eventually become a Kalgren and produce worthy deva heirs with his son. Now, the rift between Pax and Thornton was growing greater every day. It was highly probable that Medea was not a villain or a threat of any sort. In spite of her lies about her power, she had been nothing but kind to everyone. This meant that Thornton would forgive her, and they would continue their relationship.
Vincent very suddenly stopped firing at the girl. He relaxed, instantly resuming his regular state.
Para exhaled a sigh of relief, and dropped the shield that she had been using to protect herself.
“Finally! Well, I guess you all have a lot of questions...” She was interrupted by Vincent’s fist connecting with her ribcage, and sending her flying right through the ballroom wall.
Vincent quickly followed her and grabbed her by the neck. He charged up a fatal black bead of energy on his index finger and held it an inch away from Para’s eye.
“Vincent,” she gasped in surprise. She realized that he had moved so quickly that he had ensured that they were alone, and far out in the layers of the upper atmosphere. This way, he could do whatever he wanted to her.
“Listen, bitch. If I release this beam of energy through your skull, it will sever your brain stem and you will die instantly. Permanently. My son already loves someone, and she loves him. You can’t move in on him like this when he’s vulnerable. He’s having a misunderstanding with his woman, and the last thing we need is your interference. Promise to leave him alone, and I won’t kill you.”
Para smiled. Vincent was defending Pax. Willing to kill for her. You’re awesome, Dad.
“I fear
that I can’t do that,” she said softly, calling his bluff. “I can’t leave him alone. I care for him.”
“Revise that statement. You are seconds from death.” The older man moved the little black sphere of prana closer to her eye so that she could feel the heat singeing her eyelashes. She could smell her eyelashes burning and curling as the lethal fireball grew near. “I will say that I believed you were an enemy, and they will have to accept it. My word is law among the devas.”
“Poor Vince. Just trust me,” Para said softly. “Everything will work out in the end.”
With that, she wheeled her body around, evading his grasp in an instant, and in another she sent Vincent hurtling back into the ballroom, directly into her crater. The force of his impact dug him deeper in by several feet.
Para followed quickly, crouching down at the side of the crater.
“Oh, no!” Rose gasped fearfully. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine,” Para answered, glancing up at the clock discreetly. One minute. “I’m sorry I had to hurt him. I just wanted to have a discussion with all of you and explain some things.”
“Explain everything,” Gordin demanded harshly. “How do you know my wife’s name—and her shoe size?”
“Why have you been lying, Medea?” Thornton asked seriously. “Why have you gone to such great lengths to conceal your power?”
“Okay, I’m not supposed to say this, but I guess now I have to come clean.”
Para took a few deep breaths, and looked around at everyone. She made careful, earnest eye contact with Raymond and Amelia, Asher and Gordin, and finally Rose and Thornton. She spoke evenly and with grave intent:
“I’m... from the future.”
There was a silence, as everyone around processed this information. Para had delivered it so well that even she, herself, almost believed it. She glanced at the clock. Forty seconds until midnight. Had she really needed twenty seconds to deliver that one line? She chastised herself for being wasteful of time. But then again, it had been an important line.
“From the future?” said Rose softly. “No, not this again. From the future? Oh, Sakra, Sakra, Sakra.” Rose sank to the floor, sitting on her knees miserably. “This is not good. This is not good at all.”
Amelia rushed to her friend’s side to check on Rose’s health, when Vincent erupted from the ground.
“Impossible!” Vincent shouted hysterically, almost blinded by his rage. “That’s impossible!”
“Uh, no it’s not. You, of all people, would know that.”
“Lying wench! Stop talking and die!” he ordered, reaching up high above him as if pulling the power he needed directly from heaven. A deep orange and yellow orb formed within the palm of his hand, growing exponentially by the second. Before too many seconds had passed, he aimed and fired, sending the menacing fireball directly at Para.
Perfect. Bye-bye time. Para glared at Vincent before pressing a hand against her stomach to use her teleportation technique. The ominous prana-bomb detonated precisely where she had been standing just a moment before.
A few seconds after the explosion cleared, the ballroom clock struck twelve. The chimes of midnight were heard, echoing through the empty room—or what was left of it.
“This place is ruined,” Rose said matter-of-factly.
“Dammit! She can teleport? How the hell can she teleport?” Vincent shouted with unrestrained rage. “I can’t sense her. Where the fuck is she? Dammit! Get Pax here now!”
“I can’t find Pax, Father. She and Amara went off the grid a while ago. I can’t even reach them telepathically if I can’t sense their prana signals.”
“Text her that it’s an emergency!” Vincent roared
“You know what a text is?” Rose asked in surprise.
“We need Pax. She’s the only one who knows that stupid skill!”
“Apparently not. Apparently she teaches it to someone in the future,” Amelia commented.
“Text her! Someone text her!” Vincent was yelling.
Asher cleared his throat and pulled his phone out of his tuxedo. He began to type, but found his fingers paused above the keyboard. “Yeah. Okay. So what are we going to tell her?”
“The situation, idiot!”
“That we need her to chase down Thorn’s new girlfriend because she’s extremely powerful, possibly from the future, or possibly the newest threat to the planet?”
An awkward silence swept over the room.
“Dammit,” muttered Vincent.
“Yes!” said Asher with a chuckle. “I’ll definitely text her that! It should amuse her.”
“No! She’ll take matters into her own hands. She could hurt someone, or worse—she could get hurt,” Raymond said with warning. “Not a good idea, brother.”
Rose was grinning. “So, Vince. I see that when your great godly powers fail, you turn to technology. Texting, huh?”
“Be quiet, woman,” he said begrudgingly.
“Where do you all think that Medea girl teleported to?” Gordin asked with worry. “I can’t sense her anywhere. This is freaking me out. I’m going to check on Layla and the kids.”
“Don’t forget to bring back shoes!” Rose called after him as he left, blasting through the hole in the wall. Rose let out a little helpless laugh. “Oh, dear. What a mess this night has turned into.”
“Paxie should have been here,” Raymond said in confusion. “She would have sensed that we were fighting and come to help out. This isn’t like her.”
“I think whatever contraption Amara is using to mask their energy from us probably masks ours from the girls too,” Thornton suggested with a frown. The blonde man suddenly noticed the high-heeled silver shoes that Para had kicked off during the fight. He absent-mindedly walked over to them and stared down at the heels. He bent over and picked one up, and studied it carefully. It was an exquisite shoe.
He caught himself and shook his head at how pointless that action had been. It wasn’t like the shoe had a map to Medea embedded in it. He dropped the shoe and turned back to the other devas apologetically. “I’m sorry, guys. This is all my fault. I scared Pax away earlier. Let me text my sister. Hopefully she’ll take pity on me and convince Pax to help us out.”
“Thorn, darling, it’s not your fault,” Amelia said with a shake of her head. “Not this time, at least. If your father hadn’t scared Medea off by trying to kill her while she was giving us information, then we wouldn’t even need to bother Pax for help right now.”
“How dare you question me!” Vincent said, still panting in rage, and trying to calm himself down.
“Goodness. Because everyone can see that you were wrong to overreact. More doors are opened with ‘please’ than with keys, Vincent,” Amelia said softly.
He glared at the old woman angrily, but he did inwardly acknowledge that he had been wrong. He hated when he lost his temper and acted foolishly. It had been a problem of his in battle since his youth.
Rose sighed, drawing circles on the ground. “I guess I should go tell my guests that the party is over. How am I going to explain the explosions? Let’s turn to fiction. A young chemist was in the lab, burning the midnight oil while working on a new source of energy when his experiment went awry. That should do it.”
“I’ll do it, mom,” said Thornton gently. “Let me cover for you. I’m as skillful a liar as you are, I promise.”
“Thanks, Thorn. Wait—sweetie?”
“Yes, Mom?”
Rose picked herself off the ground and sighed, opening her arms to her son. “Can you forgive your old lady for interfering, sticking her nose in your business, and causing such a huge mess? I realize now that she’s a nice girl—and you deserve to make your own choices. I’m sorry for being so suspicious.”
Thornton moved forward and embraced his mother tightly. He held her for a few seconds, knowing that she was shaken up.
“Mom, you were right about everything and I should have listened to you. She was hiding something big, and I never wou
ld have known if not for your interference. Thank you for caring so much about me,” he said gently. “I’ll go out there and take care of the press and the guests for you. How’s my hair?”
Rose nodded and smiled at him, reaching up to adjust his blonde locks. She wiped a tear from her eye as she watched Thornton leave, and then abruptly turned to the others in the room. There was no longer a loving, motherly expression on her features; she had her war-face on.
“Okay, guys. I think we all have much bigger problems than Medea. If she’s really from the future—well then, it’s likely that she’s here to warn us about something terrible. You all remember what Nyssa came to tell us, not too long ago. Some of you are even old enough to remember what happened a few decades ago, the first time someone made a trip back in time.”
There were a few nods across the room.
“I can’t go through something like that again,” Amelia whispered. “I lost my husband in the last war.”
“We’re stronger than we were before,” Asher told his mother in a comforting tone. “We will face whatever comes together, without losing anyone.”
“I’m not ready,” Raymond said in a low voice. “I should have prepared more. They didn’t just take our father. They killed my wife, and she was a harmless human being. I’m not going to let anything happen to my family this time around.”
Everyone could feel the tension in Raymond’s words. They knew how much the past had affected him, perhaps more than anyone else.
“We have the kids now,” Vincent reminded him. “Pax and Amara aren’t little toddlers that we have to watch over—they’re assets to the team. They’ve been through the trials of the Pseudosphere. Pax and I train regularly and I can attest to the fact that she’s sharp and prepared for every eventuality.”
Rose sighed deeply. “That’s great for us, but Gordin’s daughters are still young and vulnerable. Nyssa and Olive are barely able to defend themselves—and Oren is hardly able to walk.”
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 88
