by Oxford, Rain
“What do you know about other worlds?”
“They exist. I read a lot of books.”
“In what language?” he asked.
“In whatever language they’re written in. Usually Sudo.”
“What about English?” he asked.
I paused. How in the world did he discover a human language? “What is English?” I asked, trying to cover up my stumble with confusion. Anything he knew about my mother’s world was bad.
“A language I heard about once. It’s an Earth language. Do you know what Earth is?”
“I assume it’s one of the other gods’ planets.”
“Guess which god’s.”
“There are many gods and worlds, how should I guess that? Why do you keep asking me these pointless questions?”
“What questions should I be asking you?”
“You shouldn’t be asking me any questions! You have to let me go, this is illegal!”
“Maybe I should be asking about your brother.”
“Leave him out of this.”
“He wasn’t at your home, either. Maybe he went with your mother. He’s only fourteen, right? He isn’t to blame for what your parents do. You can protect him by telling me. Don’t you want to protect your little brother?”
At this point, I was almost willing to risk the consequences by trying to escape. The only consequence I wasn’t willing to risk was that if they found me once, I could lead them back to Ron.
“Get out. I’m not answering any more of your ridiculous questions. You can’t hold me here forever. Just get out.”
The doctor stood. “I’m disappointed. I wished you would save yourself and your little brother a lot of trouble by being helpful. Think about it for a few days. I’m sure you will reconsider.” He left.
With no windows, it was impossible to know if it was day or night, and whatever power the stone bars had was making me very lethargic.
Sometime, a few hours later, a boy about Ron’s age came in with a plate of food. “Go away,” I said. The boy didn’t, though. I closed my eyes, lying curled up in the middle of the cage, and ignored him. There was a slight sound of scraping metal as the boy opened a small section built into the bottom of the cage, just barely wide enough to slide a plate through. It was a weakness in the structure I could have exploited, but no sago would have been strong enough, and I wasn’t at the point where I could risk exposing myself yet.
“You need to eat,” the boy said when I didn’t move.
“I don’t want it.”
He was silent for a moment, but didn’t walk away, so I looked at him. He was sweating slightly and trying desperately not to look around. “You need to eat,” he repeated, looking emphatically at the plate.
Nestled under a small piece of old-looking bread was something shiny. I reached for it, careful to hide the key in my hand when I picked up the bread. “You’re right. Thank you.” I nibbled at the hard bread, but my stomach rebelled.
He nodded and started to leave, but paused at the door. “There’s a storm tonight. Shomodii doesn’t have electricity, so you may not know, but sometimes storms can knock out the power.” He left.
I gave up on eating the bread and instead waited for the sound of a storm. It was at least three hours before the storm began, and still another before the lights cut out. Assuming that I couldn’t be watched in the dark, I immediately stood and felt my way to the cage door. It took a few minutes before I felt the key hole and was able to unlock it, but I found my way out of the room easily. There was a door that opened to set of stairs, which were shrouded in darkness.
It was still pitch black when I reached the top of the steps, so I had no idea what to do. Soon I heard voices to the left; hence I followed the wall to the right. Suddenly, the lights flickered on and I found myself in a hallway. Hoping luck was on my side, I took the closest door, which opened to a bedroom. It was empty, and the voices were coming closer, so I ducked into the room, shut the door, and hid under the bed.
I was away from the bars, but the lethargy still clung to me like wet clothes. I fell asleep.
* * *
“Hail… please hear me.”
I woke with a start at the sound of Ron’s voice in my head. “Ron? I hear you. Can you hear me?” No answer… “Ron?” I still couldn’t feel him anywhere close. My power stirred, sluggish, but there. Hopefully that mean that the damage those bars did wasn’t permanent.
I crawled out from under the bed carefully, but there was nobody in the room. Just as carefully, I left. I checked three doors until I found one that led to another hallway. Avoiding people was my highest priority, but I was completely lost in this huge complex. I discovered with horror that this was some sort of containment compound. There were several laboratories filled with surgical tools, drugs, and technology. Most of the rooms were empty and locked from the outside with a window into the room, like cells.
I didn’t think much of my headache when it began. When voices approached from in front of me and behind me, I ran into the only room I could. Standing there, in the middle of one of the horrifying labs, was the doctor and his assistant. I turned to run back out the door, but a guard blocked my path.
The doctor started speaking, my head suddenly pounded, and my vision faded.
When light returned, I saw my father, Edward, and two strangers in a motel room. Edward held a gun on an older man, who held a knife against the throat of a middle-aged woman. Dad was trying to talk the man into letting the woman go, but she was screaming insults at him. To the shock of everyone in the room, the man suddenly threw the woman at Dad and dived for Edward in a fit of rage. His knife easily slid into my grandfather’s chest at the same moment as Edward pulled the trigger.
Reality blinked and it was a little while later. The old man’s body was still lying on the floor, but Edward was also dead. My dad cried over his body, blood all over his hand. My dad was a doctor and healer, but sometimes there was no way to save someone.
* * *
I opened my eyes. It had just been a vision; I still had time to save him. Sure, I didn’t know how much time I had, but I knew it hadn’t happened yet.
I was lying in a bed, strapped down tightly, in a brightly lit room. The doctor’s assistant stood over me, regarding me with a dispassionate expression. “He’s awake,” she said, alerting the doctor’s attention. He came to stand beside me with a cruel smirk.
“Finally. I wish I had known you were a seer from the start. Whether your parents deal with the gods or not makes no difference now. You can’t imagine how long I’ve been trying to capture a real seer to experiment on. I want to see what gives you your premonitions, and how to recreate them.”
I turned my head as much as I could and saw an I.V. bag with a strange blue liquid. My parents were going to be pissed.
* * *
I don’t know how long I was there. Several times I woke in excruciating pain, and other times I woke in a drug-induced calm. My dreams were seriously messed up. I had horrible nightmares about everyone in my family dying, strange memories of my childhood, and conversations I never had. One dream involved doing things with Sari that she definitely wasn’t ready for, but it was so good I wanted to try anyway.
Probably the oddest dream I had was flying with Mordon and Rojan as a dragon. Every time I ever spoke with the gods ran through my head, including an argument between Avoli and Vretial over who we should choose to serve. Ron ended that argument quickly by assuring them both that he would never serve anybody.
At every moment, I knew I was dreaming and knew I had to wake up, but I almost never could.
Then it came again. The horrible vision of my uncle killing my father played in my head, taunting me. Maybe it was a warning, something I had to stop. I just didn’t know how. I had no idea why Mordon would kill Dad, or how to stop it. It didn’t make sense.
The vision finally ended and I opened my eyes… but I couldn’t see anything. My eyes hurt really badly. I tried to reach out, but I was s
till strapped down. Finally, I realized there was whispering from somewhere in the room. It was extremely disorientating.
“I think we got as much as we can out of him.”
“Put him in one of the rooms. Eventually, someone in his family will come looking for him and we can use them.”
It was the doctor’s voice.
“What about his magic? If we don’t put him back in the cage, his magic might return,” the assistant said.
“I doubt it. Keep watching him. If his magic does return, we can lock him back in the cage, but I doubt it will at this point.”
A few seconds later, I felt small hands unstrapping the ties on my arms. I couldn’t help but to jump a little, because I still couldn’t see anything. This time, two sets of large hands pulled me into a standing position, but both my legs hurt far too much to stand without help. “What’s going on? Why can’t I see?” I asked.
“You had a bad reaction to some of the tests,” the assistant said dismissively.
My first few steps left me gasping because it hurt to breathe. There was a tightness around my chest like I was still strapped down. I was led away, down several hallways. There was no way I could make it out without my vision. Despair swamped me so badly that when I was tossed onto a bed, I didn’t move. The door shut and a lock turned. I tried to feel for my magic, but I couldn’t feel any form of energy. It was like my connection with magic was broken.
In that case, I was no help to Ron at all.
“Mom?” I tried to call to Divina, but I knew she wouldn’t hear me. “Vretial?”
There was no hope. After hours of lying there in pain and powerless, I had no hope. Then the door open and I froze.
“Hail?” Sari’s voice was a welcome surprise. “What did they do to you?”
“I can’t see anything.”
I could feel her body heat even before she took my hand and pressed it against her cheek. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sure your father can heal you once we find him.” She pulled me off the bed and put my arm over her shoulder to help me walk. I still managed to smash clumsily into the door. “Shh! We have to be quiet.”
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know. It’s a forest out there and I haven’t found any people.”
It only took a few minutes before the floor under me gave way to soft dirt. Sari was huffing under my weight before we gave up and took a break, but she swore we were far enough away to be safe. She guided me to sit on what felt like a fallen log. I listened for the sounds of birds to try to determine where we were, but there were none. In fact, I didn’t hear any animal.
“Is the forest we’re in dark and creepy?”
“It’s night, so yeah. What happened after I escaped?”
“I very nearly escaped, but I had a vision at the worst possible moment and they captured me. They’ve been experimenting on me for days.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to make it back. I was trying to find a safe way out of here.”
I felt towards her voice until I caught her arm and was able to gently pat her hand. “What’s most important is that you didn’t get caught. You did very well.” I tried again to find magic… and still felt nothing. I was blind, powerless, and lost.
“Do your eyes hurt?”
“Yes. Does it look bad?”
“You look like you’ve been in a major fight. Your eyes themselves aren’t purple any more, they’re blue. The skin around your eyes is red and bruised. You have a bandage around your chest.”
“That explains the tightness,” I said, reaching up to feel it. It was thick and felt professional. I wanted to tear it off, but I didn’t have enough strength and I was afraid of what might be under the bandages.
“Did they ask you questions?” she asked.
I opened my mouth to say they didn’t… and then paused. “I don’t remember. I had a lot of dreams, a lot of incriminating dreams, but I don’t remember saying anything.”
“What do you mean ‘incriminating’ dreams?” she asked.
“Family secrets. I dreamed of things I would never tell a person if I were conscious and lucid, but I don’t know what all they did to me. As far as I know, they could have seen everything I dreamed.”
“And if they did?”
“Then they would be after Ron.”
“It’ll be your turn soon.” That was my dad’s voice.
“Dad?”
“Who are you talking to? It’s just us here,” Sari said.
I was in shock; I had to be. “I just heard my dad. He said… never mind. We need to go.” I tried to stand, but I couldn’t manage it without Sari’s help. We walked for several hours before I stopped. “Listen… Do you hear the ocean?”
She listened for a moment. “Yes. We’ll go that way.”
“I don’t think you will, young lady. That’s our territory.”
It was the voice of a man, but there was no way I could tell his stature from his voice. Even if I could, there was no way I could fight in my condition. “What’s going on?” I whispered to Sari. She pressed herself against my front as if I could protect her, blind.
“There’s a man. He’s older and thin, but he’s got friends, at least twenty. I think maybe it’s a gang.” Several of them laughed at her words. “Please let us be, we just want to go home.”
“Home? We all want to go home, pretty.”
“Oh, no. We’re on Canjii, aren’t we?” I asked. They laughed again.
“That’s right. There is no home for you. Now, give up your girlfriend, cripple, and we’ll let you live.”
“People are scum, you know that?” I said to Sari, wrapping my arms around her. I could fight a few men blind, even as injured as I was… but twenty men… I would die for sure.
“If we make it out alive, you can marry me, and we’ll go live somewhere where there are no people, okay? Ron can live with us, I’m fine with that. Just get us out alive,” she said. I tried to take my arms away, to push her back in the direction I thought we came from, but she tightened them around her until my chest hurt.
“That was your only chance, cripple. Now you die.”
“Oh, you just had to go and seal your fate, didn’t you,” a new voice called in English. I startled because it was extremely familiar, but it still took a moment for me to place it, since I hadn’t heard it in three years. “See, he’s under my protection, and I am under orders to kill anyone who threatens his life.”
It was Xul, my father’s demon, who was bound to protect mine and Ron’s lives. He was also the demon who was after my life as a child, but I could never hate him for it, because it was the reason Dylan found me and eventually adopted me. In fact, I owed my happiness to this demon.
Of course, Xul did like to talk a lot, which was wasted on the thugs in this case because they didn’t speak English. Although he could understand a threat to mine or Ron’s life whatever the language, he did not have the translating magic that demons had in order to be understood by anyone.
“Sari, close your eyes,” I warned.
Suddenly, screams sounded and the scent of blood filled the air, but it was over in seconds. A cruel laugh told me it was done. I had seen inside the mind of this beast as he had seen inside of mine when he tried to possess me as a baby. Of course, I was two at the time, but I still remembered a lot of it. There was nothing human about Xul, no mercy or kindness. On the other hand, it was unfair to call him an inertly evil creature, as that would be like calling a virus or a shark evil. Xul was a demon; nothing less and nothing more, but he could be trusted at his word. For his bargain with my father, I could trust that he would always be there to save my life.
“Thank you,” I said.
“No problem. Shouldn’t you be with your brother?”
“Sari and I were kidnapped. Can you send us to him?”
“Actually, no. I can’t find him.”
“What do you mean, you can’t find him? Is he hurt? Is he… oh, god, please find him. Ron relies on me. If I’m
not there, there’s no telling what trouble he’ll get into.”
“I could only find you because you were in danger. Something is definitely going on, or I’d be able to find him, but he isn’t in danger or I would be drawn to him.”
“Can you send us to my father?”
“Actually, he is in a bit of danger right now, and sending you to him would put you in danger, which I am unable to do.”
“What about my mother?”
“No, your presence would blow her cover and put you both in danger. I could send you to your biological parents, but your girlfriend would have to be left behind because she hasn’t signed Dios’s book.”
“That wouldn’t work.”
“Who is this?” Sari asked. “What language are you speaking?”
“It’s complicated. What about Mordon?”
“Also missing.”
“Can you send my mother here to get us?”
“I could, but it may take several days, because I’m unable to endanger her life. She seems to have stepped into a mess she wasn’t expecting. Just tough it out here as best as you can, and I’ll do what I can to help.”
There was a small snapping sound, and I assumed he disappeared.
“Who was that, Hail? You owe me the truth.”
“Well, I guess I do… especially since you agreed to marry me if we survived, and we just survived.” I ignored her gasp. “That was an extremely powerful demon who tried to kill me before I was even two years old. My father, Dylan, destroyed him, then brought him back to protect me and my brother. By the way, my dad is Noquodi of the planet Earth, my grandfather is Noquodi of Duran, and if you ever tell anyone that, my uncle, who is a three-thousand-year-old dragon, will kill you very painfully.”
“And your mother?”
“Is a secret, so hush. Oh, and Dylan and Divina are not my biological parents. You know the dark god, Vretial? He’s my biological father, but so in Nano, the Noquodi of Dios. And it’s a secret, so really, hush.”
