Chimera (The Weaver Series Book 1)

by Vaun Murphrey

  I spoke up to answer everyone at the same time because I knew what the crafty alien was about to offer as a solution. I didn’t entirely trust his motives. “That isn’t what he’s suggesting.”

  Kal's eyes sparkled with amusement. “Exactly so.”

  Maggie threw her hands up in the air to say in exasperation, “What are we talking about here?”

  Gerome figured it out first and responded adamantly as if the breath had been knocked out of him, “Absolutely not.”

  I turned to my uncle. “Can you think of a better way to keep me safe?” I directed my next comment at Kal. “If it’s against the rules for you to interfere with the development of Earth, then how are you going to justify taking me to your planet?”

  Maggie sputtered, “What?”

  Silver wanted to be excited about the prospect of space travel, but she also understood we would be alone without any possibility of rescue if Kal turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Kal said, “Sometimes, for the greater good, one breaks the rules. I cannot see how leaving you at the mercy of someone you have no chance to defeat is in any way more honorable than obeying our laws.”

  Gerome rasped out, “How much time?”

  Maggie nearly shrieked, “You are not seriously considering this, Gerome?”

  Kal raised both hands palm out evenly with his shoulders. “I am unsure. Until I deem her capable of defending herself or until there is no more my people can teach her.”

  I spoke out loud, repeating the questions that Silver was running around in our mind. “Why do you even care what happens to me, a no-name girl from a backwater planet? Why would you halt your search for a wanted fugitive to protect me?”

  Kal didn’t jump to answer me; he weighed his response in his mind before any word crossed his lips. “I believe you to be a Vector. One such as you is very necessary to the development of the sentient life in our universe and specifically your home planet. It explains the risk Shiva took in coming to your home when he knew I could return at any moment.”

  I knew Shiva was a god in the Hindu religion, mainly because Silver was rapidly digging up anything she could find on the subject and throwing it at me. Shiva was also known as ‘the Destroyer’ and ‘the Transformer’, but it was a distinctly human name for a human god. Why would an alien being from a more advanced civilization even use it?

  A vector could mean many things depending on the context. In what way were Silver and I a ‘Vector’ and what did that mean? Biologically speaking, it could translate into many varying interpretations, and that was without even touching on the mathematical references.

  Silver threw my question back at me. “What kind of ‘Vector’ does he mean? I’m thinking biological, but that’s not much of a narrow down either. I mean what? Are we like a viral vector that delivers foreign genetic material into a cell? That title tells us diddly squat!”

  As if he could read our mind and all of the many questions ricocheting around in it, Kal said, “If you are what I suspect you are, then my people will protect you and nurture your development without a second thought. It would be—as you say here—an honor. Shiva, and I suspect he calls himself that name because it appeals to his ego, has been on this planet for some time creating havoc and playing his mad games. To our shame, we did not trace him to Earth until he sent several taunts about his activities, daring us to come and find him here. Until his contact with us, circumstances had led us to believe him dead.”

  I knew there was more to this story, but I also knew Kal wasn’t one to lay all of his cards on the table, a trait that he and my uncle shared. The silence in the room was only interrupted by the sound of the wind against the outside of the house. The pulsating red alarm light in the hall had ceased to flash sometime during Kal’s reveal. I had one more question before I made my decision. “Will Shiva come after anyone else here when he discovers I’m missing? Can you guarantee the safety of the people I care for?”

  Kal response was immediate. “I promise nothing. The world will go as it will go and not as you or I would have it. I can make an educated guess based on past behavior and venture to say that his attention span is extremely short. Once you are no longer here and since his latest protégé is now deceased, Shiva most likely will move on to more…interesting pastures.”

  Maggie squatted down next to my chair and spoke in a panicked voice, “You can’t go, honey. You just can’t. I forbid it.”

  She was squeezing the knee closest to her so hard I was sure the imprint of her fingers would be bruises later. I placed the hand that was sans IV on top of her fingers and pried away her vise-like grip as gently as I could. “Maggie, you can’t forbid me to go. I’m not your daughter, and I would be doing it as much to protect you and Gerome as to protect myself.”

  Throwing the fact that she was childless in her face was a low blow, and I noticed her flinch at my rebuke, but it wasn’t in her personality to give up.

  “How would you get home if things go badly? How would we protect you, Cassandra?” Her eyes filled with tears and one fat bead of distress escaped to run its way down her cheek and drip onto her shirt.

  “Can I check in with them in the Web at regular intervals to make them feel more sanguine about this?” I didn’t mention that this would be a security blanket for Silver and me, as well. I’m sure Kal knew. Not much escaped the alien’s sharp assessing gaze.

  He responded gruffly, “I am not proposing my planet be your jail, you will be as free to traverse the Web as you are now. I would only request that you let me teach you some techniques to conceal your presence.”

  Since that was what we had wanted to ask him about, it served our purpose to nod in assent.

  Gerome had already resigned himself to my departure because he raised no more objections. When Maggie made as if to argue again he cut her off, “Leave it alone, Maggie.”

  My aunt stormed out of the kitchen and down the hall to the laundry room where she slammed the door with impressive force.

  Gerome closed his eyes and took two deep breaths before he opened them to ask Kal, “When will you leave?”

  Silver whispered softly, “Are we sure about this? What about Kara and James? Who will look after them?”

  I hadn’t even considered that aspect. We had barely begun to explore the energy we could produce with the Lees. What if their abilities made them a target for Shiva regardless of what Kal said about his short attention span? My gut was telling me they would be safer without us around. In reality, there was nothing Silver or I could do to protect them. The best we could do would be to get Gerome to promise that he would watch over them in our absence.

  Kal looked to my IV solution and stated rather baldly, “As soon as possible. I see no reason to delay.” He rose, politely bowing his head to both of us. I think to give us the illusion of privacy he disappeared only to reappear in the living room seated in Gerome’s favorite chair with his eyes closed as if to take a nap.

  Another thought occurred to me. “What will you tell the Council about my absence? That I ran away? It will seem awfully coincidental that I disappear the same day Calvin died, won’t it? The police are involved now, too. What if they suspect you’ve done something terrible to me?”

  Gerome considered my questions before responding. “I imagine I’ll tell the police one thing and the Council another. Outsiders don’t know you exist, so there’s no one to file a missing person report on you and implicate us in any wrongdoing. David may raise a stink, but he’ll stay quiet if Maggie and I share part of the truth and assure him you’re safe. The Council will most likely be happy to be rid of you and use the fact that you ran away as further proof you weren’t to be trusted. I may share the real story with some of my allies on the Council, and I may not. Let me worry about the politics. You worry about yourself and don’t hesitate to tell me if you want to come home.”

  Gerome stressed the last part and reached over casually to touch our forearm. I knew he was afraid I would pull away beca
use of the difficulties between us and the secrets he seemed to like to keep. He was my mother’s brother, and those petty feelings seemed out of place. I let his hand rest on our arm as long as he wanted it to. Tension released from his shoulders at my concession, allowing peace between us.

  I sat still letting the warmth from his touch sink in. Silver nudged me about the Lee’s, and it seemed like the right time to ask a favor. “Would you watch after James and Kara? They don’t have anyone else. It would make me feel better if you looked in on them.”

  Gerome perked up at the request and squeezed my arm gently before he pulled his hand away to rest on the table. “I would have anyway.”

  “There, that ties up whatever loose ends we had…kinda. Laser Eyes is still out there.” Silver’s emotions were equally divided. Half of her wanted revenge and the other half rejoiced at the prospect of exploring a whole new world.

  Our relationship was new and old simultaneously. I remembered things from our past all the time. When she was unsure it made me feel I should be strong, and when I was weak she held me up. With confidence, I thought to Silver, “We aren’t ready to take on Laser Eyes. Going with Kal will give us the time we need to prepare. Who knows, maybe we’ll come back so strong we’ll be able to beat the Soul Eater with our hands tied behind our back.”

  Maggie emerged from the laundry room about ten minutes later, her face a complete ruin from tears to check the IV line and the fluid levels of the bags hanging from the metal pole. Silver did something in the Web that transferred down the connection to my aunt and made her jump as if she had received a small shock from the metal.

  I thought furiously at my twin, “What did you just do?”

  Kal stirred on the loveseat and opened his eyes to look directly at us and say cryptically in a soft voice, “I see I will be teaching you manners as well.”

  My twin’s response was sly and self-satisfied. “It was just a parting gift. I did promise to cause no more harm, don’t worry about it.”

  Maggie was so preoccupied that she didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss, and I wondered if I should speak up since Kal was still frowning at me from across the room in disapproval.

  Silver added in a cajoling voice, “Let it be a surprise, Sister.”

  Gerome didn’t miss a beat, but I jumped in to ask Kal a question before my uncle could broach the subject. “Do I need to bring anything?”

  The alien closed his eyes and leaned his head against the chair before he responded with a cold, firm, “No.”

  Maggie looked down at me to touch the top of my hair and said in a voice rough from crying, “I know I’m not your mother, Cassandra. We’ve only now gotten to know one another, but I love you as if you were mine.”

  Gerome tried to rise from his chair and offer what comfort he could, but Maggie motioned with an imperious choppy slice of her hand. She raised her voice in Kal's direction. “If anything happens to her I will hold you personally responsible, do you hear me, you damn ninja alien?”

  Kal stood with a slow, graceful movement to concentrate all of his attention on my irate, fiery-headed aunt and respond with gravity, “Agreed.” Then he folded himself gracefully into his former position of rest.

  A quiet, tense waiting game ensued as the IV fluid dripped, and we were only through about a third of the big bag of fluid. The antibiotics were already in my system, and Maggie had disconnected the smaller bag to discard it in the trash.

  My aunt showed a spark of her usual self. “Is anyone hungry?”

  My juice glass was still in front of me, and she grabbed it off the table to rinse it in the sink.

  I knew she just wanted to stay busy and distract herself from my looming departure, but I wanted to make amends for my earlier remark so I overdid the enthusiasm, “Sure, that would be great!”

  Even Kal joined us while Maggie played hostess and set out the remains of a chocolate cake she had baked earlier in the week. We all played nice and pretended that not a thing was out of order. The strain to attain an atmosphere of normality was almost palpable.

  Silver spoke quietly in the back of my mind, my not so silent observer, my partner in life.

  “Love can be a shadow. At times it protects you, blessing you with its coolness. At others, it steals your warmth and hides what you fear in the dark. Whatever we face, Sister, we face it together.”

  I echoed the sentiment, “Together.”

  THE END

  (Read further for a three chapter sneak peek at CHANGELING, Book Two in the Weaver Series!)

  CHANGELING (Sneak Peek)

  Chapter One: Spewing Curve

  Space travel might seem glamorous to the uninitiated. I on the other hand know different. Saying goodbye to our Aunt Maggie and Uncle Gerome had been the easy part, even with tears and drama thrown in. Trusting an alien named Kal we’d just met to break us down into molecules and bend me and my sister across the known universe, easy peasy—keeping the contents of our stomach after…not so much.

  The world my twin and I called home dissolved into pixelated pieces, just like our barren prison cell during our rescue barely a month ago. That time our familial connection had pulled us through the Web to Gerome. This time we were merely a passenger, in the side car of our bending host’s spatial jump to his home planet of Axsa.

  Pain didn’t ride us this go around and we retained our consciousness but all of the moist wonderful chocolate cake Maggie had let us devour before we left spewed out to coat our feet.

  Kal shifted at our side making a small dismayed sound. “I should not have let you eat.”

  We craned our head up to squint at his over seven foot tall frame, breathing shallowly through our parted lips before I said, “Don’t get mad at us, you’re the pro at teleporting.”

  Cass admonished me, embarrassed that we’d thrown up as our first act as a guest on an alien planet. “Silver, don’t get smart until we have a feel for things. You remember the whole wolf in sheep’s clothing bit, right?”

  Irritated I picked up a foot to waggle off some of the mess and thought back, “Yeah, yeah.” Our shoes were freakin’ ruined now unless they had alien stain remover. We should have worn our boots instead of our white canvas tennis shoes.

  Cass sent encouraging emotions my way at our unthinking movement of our body. I felt like a two year old getting hand claps for not peeing in our pants.

  The floor seemed to be made out of a glassy-smooth midnight black substance and what faint light there was came from fuzzy glowing green circles mounted in a straight line on the ceiling. Ceiling could be the wrong word since our environs consisted of a long tubal cavern that ended in a set of embossed metal doors with a burnished copper sheen. Definitely not a place to hang out if you suffered from claustrophobia.

  Cass murmured under our breath, “Obsidian, this place looks like it’s made out of obsidian.”

  Kal’s shaved dome was shining with a green patina as he replied, “We are underground. You are correct in your assessment of this place—it is indeed made from obsidian. Please refrain from speaking until I inform you it is safe.”

  At that pronouncement his ordinary seeming human features melted away as if they’d never been, to be replaced by skin a shade darker than coffee with heavy cream, a wide mouth filled with sharply pointed teeth, and eyes that shone just as glossily black as the cavern in which we were entombed. As we watched a clear lens flicked over the enlarged pupil, bringing to mind a shark or an owl, maybe even an eagle.

  Cass gasped and I thought to her, “Not so much a wolf, but still a predator.”

  I opened our mouth to comment on his new appearance and Kal shot us a warning look with an accompanying head jerk at the doors awaiting us. They seemed untended and lonely in their forbidding massiveness but then again, since Kal’s people could bend light, space, and time, there was always a small possibility a swarm of ninja aliens silently surrounded us at this very moment.

  At that thought my sister rotated our head in a panoramic motion, stret
ching our neck muscles to their limits and making me wonder if our cranium could do a full turn like someone demon possessed. Not that I believed in demons. Real life had plenty enough evil without adding the supernatural into the mix. We knew that from experience; the spot on our chest still throbbed, tender from the invasion of the foreign instrument that had almost been our end.

  Cassandra reached up a finger to press on the scar to the left of our heart as she picked up on my thoughts. We’d had a close call and death by screwdriver wasn’t exactly a pleasant way to go. Guilt sucked at my sister for our hand in our attacker’s death, not because she felt particularly bad for surviving, but because she’d felt a sense of triumph at his annihilation.

  Placing a heavy hand on our right shoulder, Kal ushered us forward. With his light field gone and his true self revealed our companion looked like a space cowboy from a hokey sci-fi film, mainly because of the brightly colored embroidered snap-front collared shirt he wore. His tan trench coat was stained in spots as if mud had splashed up from the ground over the years, creating a sea shell pattern of red and brown. The jeans he wore were faded and near busted through the knees. Plain black leather cowboy boots so timeworn they had molded to the boats he called feet finished off the ensemble.

  In our head I started to hum a dirge and then it morphed into the wedding march as we walked ever closer to our final destination. Cassandra swatted at me mentally to hush but the inner band played on.

  The embossed metal doors swung open when we were about ten feet away and a stronger reddish light leaked out in a line, then a bar and then a fully realized rectangle. A lone figure cut the bottom half of the block of illumination in two like adding legs to the base. Musical sounds erupted from their backlit head that we couldn’t understand.

  Kal stiffened at our side and answered back in the same tongue. His grip tightened, digging into our collarbone.

  Clipped hard tones shot back but Kal stayed calm, at least in his stance and voice. Our shoulder was beginning to beg for mercy though.