The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5)

by Scott McElhaney

  “If you call a doctor, I’m leaving,” I stated firmly.

  This was the first time I’d demanded anything of my hosts and it brought about the reaction I’d have expected. John’s confused expression frightened me a bit more than the other faces before me.

  “As an Army doctor…” I muttered, searching my mind for any kind of explanation that would keep me from appearing suspicious, “I’ve gained quite a distrust for doctors. I’ve seen people die that shouldn’t have died. If…”

  I groaned, shifting my gaze from John to his wife. It was in that moment that I discovered I truly didn’t know much about reading human expressions. I had no idea what anyone was thinking.

  “If you get me some antiseptic and a bandage, I can take care of this minor wound. As you can see, I stopped the bleeding and it’s not seeping anything that would provoke worry.”

  “Who are you, really?” Maisy asked, leaning on the kitchen counter.

  “Me?”

  “Yes,” she said, “Why do you drop in from out of nowhere, desire no money whatsoever, and request that you receive no attention from the outside world?”

  I held her gaze for a few seconds before I approached the table again. I sat back down then lifted one of the meat tubes from my plate. John watched me for only a moment, then scooted back to the table and returned his attention to his own plate. Both Evie and Maisy were staring at me with expressions that I simply couldn’t read.

  “I have a lot of distrust thanks to some problems I’ve faced in the past,” I said, peering at Maisy overtop of my glass of milk, “I’m sure you can understand, ma’am. And I hate to state the obvious, but the fact that I took a potential stabbing for your family should be enough to show that I have no ill intentions of any sort – at least not toward you or your family anyway.”

  “Indeed,” John muttered.

  John continued to eat while both of his kin turned their attention to him. I was sure at that moment that they probably expected more than just a single word from their patriarch.

  “I’ll grab the peroxide and some gauze,” Evie said, turning to leave the room.

  “I’ll grab the emergency serum,” Maisy said, giving a frustrated push at the counter, “for me, of course.”

  “Hmm?” I muttered.

  “Jim Beam,” John explained with a grin, “Bourbon.”

  I figured that was supposed to mean something to me, so I nodded knowingly. I examined Evie’s abandoned plate, wondering what it was that she doused her pancake with. Just as I braved the idea of forking a bite of her pancake, she called me from somewhere in the depths of the house.

  “Go on, boy,” John said, “You’ll learn it for yourself one day. Just obey the commands and hope for the best.”

  I rose from my seat and left the kitchen. Just outside of the kitchen, I found myself in a small carpeted hallway with four doorways to choose from. With this many choices, I couldn’t ascertain where the voice had come from.

  “Evie?” I asked.

  “In here,” she called from the door at the end of the hall.

  I followed her voice only to discover her sitting on the edge of a floral-print bed. I could only assume that this was her bedroom.

  “Oh my!” Drexil gasped in my head.

  “Oh my!” I agreed.

  “I think it might be best if I sign off right about now,” Rewan said.

  “Yes, please do,” Drexil said, “Cover your eyes if nothing else.”

  “If we’re going to dump some peroxide on this thing, you’d best be lying down,” she said, “And I’d rather not do this in the barn. Not trying to put your room down, but it just doesn’t quite seem as sanitary as a proper house would be.”

  “Oh my!” I said, strictly for Drexil’s enjoyment.

  “If you move this in the direction I’m hoping, Steine, I’ll love you for the rest of my life. I’ll worship you for eternity,” Drexil said, “Give me this one thing and I’ll do anything you insist for the rest of our mission.”

  “I put a towel down right here so any overflow won’t soak my bed,” she said, gesturing me into the room.

  “Oh my!” I said.

  “Cyan?” she said, holding up the bandages.

  “Sorry, I’m just…” I muttered, “Never mind.”

  I entered her room and paused at the side of her bed. She might have been a grown woman, but she still lived with her parents. This gave me something of a younger image of her in my head.

  “Just lay back and pull your shirt up. Better yet, take it off so I don’t get it wet with the peroxide,” she said.

  I sighed and I noticed instantly she heard it. Finally, I tugged my shirt off.

  “Oh my!” she muttered aloud, then covered her eyes with her hand.

  “What?” I asked, looking down to see if Rewan had mistakenly covered me with other gaping wounds, “What’s wrong?”

  “You… you’re…” she muttered, then motioned toward the towel on her bed, “Just lie back so we can get this wound bandaged.”

  “Rewan, what did you-”

  “She thinks you’re hot, Steine. She think’s we’re hot,” Rewan said.

  “What?”

  “Our body was modeled with muscular perfection when they built it,” she said, “I doubt ‘perfection’ is a common trait here on Earth. Actually, it’s a stupid mistake on our part.”

  “Yes!” Drexil said, “Perfection and hotness! Now’s our chance!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said aloud, though I was apologizing for the words Drexil had spoken and she never heard.

  “Sorry?” she asked, lifting her hand from her eyes.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, then slowly lay down on the towel. She opened the glass bottle she had been holding, making a point not to look at me anymore.

  “I’m sorry if I did something or said something that upset you,” I said.

  “No, it wasn’t you,” she replied, leaning over me, “Definitely wasn’t you.”

  “Then who?” I asked.

  “Back home, our antiseptic solutions burn when they come in contact with a dirty wound, Steine,” Rewan blurted, “You need to feign a bit of pain if she decides to pour that stuff on you.”

  Rewan’s statement barely gave me enough time to process a response before Evie poured the solution on my stomach.

  “Aargh!” I growled through clenched teeth, hoping it sounded genuine.

  To my extreme displeasure, she raked her fingers through my hair and shushed me. I closed my eyes, trying to block her beautiful image from my mind.

  “I’m going to die if you don’t take the opportunity,” Drexil demanded, “I’ll never forgive you, Steine.”

  “I’m going to pour a little more,” she whispered dangerously close to my ear, “Are you ready?”

  “Remember it hurts,” Rewan whispered in my imaginary ear, “You might be enjoying this, but YOU’RE NOT ENJOYING THIS!”

  “I’m not sure,” I groaned.

  “Cyan,” she whispered.

  I opened my eyes only to discover her eyes directly above my own. Her nose was touching my nose. I opened my mouth to ask what she wanted, but her lips prevented my words from escaping. I groaned, reaching up and taking her face in both of my hands. I may have lacked the senses necessary to taste her lips, but I had all the required senses to know just how soft and tender those lips felt on my own.

  I followed her lead, kissing her the same way she was kissing me. I felt the cool medication that she was dumping on my stomach, but I refused to play along with the false pain that I truly wasn’t feeling. She drew her lips away from mine, but teased me by keeping them only an inch away.

  “Evie,” I whispered, “Please?”

  “Please what?”

  “Don’t stop,” I whispered, leaning forward to kiss her again.

  “I think that’s quite enough!” Maisy said from the doorway.

  “I’m going to kill that woman!” Drexil screamed in my head, “I’ll kill her!”

&n
bsp; “Mother!” Evie gasped, leaning quickly back.

  Evie quickly capped the bottle of peroxide, then set it on her nightstand.

  “Are we bandaging wounds on the outside, or are we fixing the wounds on the inside?” Maisy asked, taking two steps into the room, “I think it’s a bit too soon to work on a damaged heart. Wouldn’t you agree, Cyan? We wouldn’t want to risk hurting a heart that was so recently injured by someone else.”

  I sighed. Evie fumbled through the gauze, stretching out a long portion of it.

  “I’m twenty years old, Mother,” Evie said, “I’m the number one insurance representative in all of the southern region. I’m an ADULT.”

  “Really? You have a man lying half naked in your bed and you don’t even know his last name,” Maisy said, “That doesn’t sound like much of an adult to me.”

  She turned and left the room before either of us had a chance to respond. I looked up and saw tears forming in Evie’s eyes. I reached up and thumbed one of the tears away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I promise I have no intentions of hurting your damaged heart.”

  She smiled, then nodded after a short pause.

  “I’m breakable,” she said, “Stupid and breakable.”

  “I won’t break you. I promise,” I whispered, thumbing away another tear, “How about you bandage my wound, then I’ll go help your dad fix the fence while you go to that interview you mentioned, and we’ll talk later?”

  “You’re a god, Steine,” Drexil said, “Now if you can just kill Maisy.”

  “Yes, that sounds like a great plan,” she replied.

  LEGACY

  209 AfEl (After Elix)

  The committee spent two full days in deliberation before they returned to the courtroom. The entire underworld was focused on the decision that would be forthcoming. Judge Telliax sat down very calmly after the alarm sounded to announce that the Violation Committee had reached a decision. It didn’t appear to concern him that the whole world was anxiously waiting this exact moment. He passively glanced at his view panel, then looked up at the many cameras that faced him.

  “After a long period of deliberation, the Violation Committee has narrowed down the Judgment Committee to our goal of three judges. These three people will be sent to Violation inside an IX7 unit to live amongst them for a period of no more than five of their years. This will offer plenty of time to evaluate more than one location and more than one individual society. This will give them time to determine if the race as a whole is virus and detriment to universal peace, or if it just a minority of their civilization,

  “Their decision will be supported in full by our world because we had already voted on the forty best choices to represent us. It was from these forty people that the committee was narrowed down. It was from these forty people that our ten judges chose the best people to investigate their world. So I’m here today to introduce to you the final three people who you voted on and whom we narrowed down to investigate a world we know little about,

  “It’s my pleasure to give you a medical doctor named Rewan, a decorated detective named Steine, and a law professional named Drexil. These are the three who have made it and these are the three you have voted to represent us. These are the three who must give us a unanimous decision regarding the future of the Violation system.”

  Court

  “Your biggest mistake was not taking my advice,” Drexil stated as I climbed the ladder.

  “Your biggest mistake was not letting me delete Drexil’s profile. I swear I can do it,” Rewan said.

  I turned on the lamp at the top of the ladder, which lit the back half of my room. Although my room was very small, the lighting systems of Earth offered very little in the way of satisfactorily dispelling the dark. It was only due to the perfected night vision from my home world that I immediately noticed the figure of a man standing in the corner of my room.

  “The guard dog,” he said.

  I could see the glimmer of something metal in his hand, but I wasn’t too concerned. I was fortunate this time to have no other witnesses around, so if he attempted to hurt me with the weapon, no one would see the results.

  “And I’m to assume you’re in my room because…” I said.

  “Who are you, dog?” the man said, stepping into the light, “She was cheating on me the whole time with you, wasn’t she?”

  “The name isn’t ‘dog’. They call me Cyan,” I said, reaching for the switch on the other lamp, “And I never even met Evie until the night you tried to kill me.”

  “You’re lying, dog,” he said, lifting the weapon that I now recognized as a pistol of some sort, “She loved me just fine until a few days ago which is probably around the time you showed up.”

  I turned on the second lamp, staring at the skinny man near my nightstand. He seemed to take some sick satisfaction in the power that his weapons gave him over people who were bigger than him. I was confused however as to why he’d forgotten what I did to his knife the previous night.

  “I’m fairly certain it had nothing to do with me. I’d bet her attitude changed right around the time you started trying things you shouldn’t be trying with a respectable woman,” I said, “Why don’t you put the weapon down to save me from having to hurt you.”

  “Don’t own much, do you?” he said, opening the drawer to my nightstand and peering in, “No money, no jewelry, no cigarettes. Why are you squatting in my girl’s barn?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked.

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?” he replied, stabbing at the air with his pistol, “Where do you come from?”

  “It’s none of your business and I think it’s time you put the weapon away,” I said, taking a step toward him.

  He aimed the weapon at my head now.

  “You are going to pack whatever things you have and you are going to leave this barn and leave my girl’s life. Otherwise, you’re going to die right where you stand,” he said, “You can see I’m running low on patience.”

  “Put the gun down now, Rodney” I ordered him, “Before you get-”

  I barely had time question what had exploded before something smacked me hard in my forehead. It forced my head back quickly as my pain receptors told me I had just lost a thick portion of flesh just above my right eye. I’d almost lost my balance, before my hand located the edge of my dresser.

  “He shot us!” Rewan screamed, “We’d be dead right now if we weren’t an IX unit!”

  “The man is crazy, Steine,” Drexil added, “If he’s willing to stab someone or shoot a man over Evie, he’s the type that would shoot or stab her someday during an argument.”

  “True!” Rewan said, “He needs stopped.”

  I shook the pain from my head as the wound began to close up.

  “This i-isn’t possible,” he gasped, firing the weapon again.

  Something tore into my cheek, twisting me violently to the right. I quickly regained my bearings and lunged at the man.

  “You’re a sick man!” I said, grabbing his weapon just as he fired a third round.

  The pain receptors in my hand told me a bullet tore through my palm and travelled partially up my forearm. I brought the man to the floor beneath me as I relieved him of his weapon and slid the gun across the floor.

  “Cyan!” John called from the barn below.

  I twisted Rodney around and pressed his face to the floor, then took both of his scrawny wrists in one hand and gripped them tightly.

  “John, call the police,” I shouted back, “Rodney decided to come back with a gun this time. I think he planned to kill Evie.”

  “What? Are you okay?” he hollered.

  Rodney squirmed beneath me. I squeezed his wrists in warning, making it clear to him that I could break his bones if he kept it up. John accepted the warning for what it was and remained down below out of firing range.

  “He’s a bad shot,” I said, “But I’ve got him under control.”

  “Bad shot?” Rodney growled, “Y
ou’re a freakin’ liar and a damn alien! I wasn’t going to shoot Evie.”

  “That’s going to be pretty hard to prove when everyone in this house knows what kind of guy you are,” I whispered, hearing the barn door slam behind John as he heeded my direction, “Do you have any sense at all in that head of yours. Why would you return after you saw what I did to your knife?”

  “I’m ratting you out,” he said, “You’re a damn Commie alien. I saw what you did to your face.”

  “And yet you still come to me with threats,” I said, “Surely you know I could kill you and bury the body before anyone would even miss you. Yet I’m plagued with a little something we call common decency and common sense.”

  “I’m ratting you out the moment the police get here,” he spat.

  “I need you to remember something for me, Rodney. I want you to look back on this day and remember that I tried to give you a chance,” I said, releasing his hands and rising from the floor.

  He twisted quickly and gaped at me with a mask of confusion. He rubbed his hands on his pants, then scooted away from me.

  “What are you going to do? Shoot me?” he asked, sliding to the wall.

  I grinned at him, then pointed to his pistol where it rested beside the dresser.

  “Your gun is missing three bullets,” I said as I swirled my tongue around inside my mouth.

  I spat the little gray bullet that had entered my cheek into my hand. I held up the small projectile for him to see, then I spun quickly and threw the bullet with enough speed to imbed it into the wall near the window.

  “Hmm, will you look at that?” I said, “You aimed to kill me, but missed. There’s the bloodless bullet imbedded by the window for the detectives to find.”

  He immediately stood up, shaking his head. I raised my arm and forced the bullet to the surface that had still been imbedded in my forearm. It dropped into my left hand. I spun quickly and threw it at the other wall where it imbedded deeply into the wood.

  “Oops, you missed again,” I said with a grin.

  “You’re a liar!” he shouted, “You don’t have the common decency you claimed to have a minute ago. You’re a lying alien communist and I’m telling the police.”