Surrogacy

by Rob Horner

  SURROGACY

  Book 2 of The Chosen Cycle

  By: Rob Horner

  Copyright © 2019 Rob Horner

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Marek Chalabala

  For my family, as always,

  And for the real heroes of the world,

  Police, firefighters, EMS and military:

  Thank you for keeping us safe.

  Other Titles by Rob Horner

  Darkness & Light: The Richards’ Saga

  Brightness

  Into Darkness (coming 2020)

  The Chosen Cycle

  Waking Light

  Surrogacy

  Ascendancy (Spring 2020)

  The Bechtol Files

  The Dungeon

  The Fall of Icarus (coming 2020)

  Night Zero

  Project: Heritage

  Surrogacy

  Book 2 of The Chosen Cycle

  By: Rob Horner

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part I

  Everything You Know is Wrong

  Chapter 1

  Orientation

  The bright lights of the nighttime carnival disappeared the minute the van doors closed. The sounds of demons screeching, guns firing, and people dying were also gone.

  Nothing could remove the memory of the past couple of hours.

  The ride away from the carnival was long and silent. The faces sharing the space with me showed defeat, loss, and fatigue. The demons, the Dra’Gal, with superior numbers and the emergence of something large, something out of a nightmare, drove us away.

  This well-armed and informed force had been routed, and from their sullen silence, it wasn’t something they’d been prepared for.

  I could relate.

  Up until just a few hours before, my friends and I believed we were up to the challenge of storming the carnival.

  How crazy a statement is that?

  Just four days ago, I was a normal high school kid. I had a car and a part time job, and the only thing on my mind was having some fun at the local carnival. I ran into a pretty girl from school, and we hooked up. (For those unused to 1991 parlance, that means we held hands and shared a kiss—this is a family story, no gutter-minds allowed.) Her mom picked her up at the end of the day, and that’s when my life left normalcy behind and took a wrong turn into The Twilight Zone.

  These demons came out of a box, and a cascade of light came down from the heavens. It gave me the ability to project force with any punch or kick…a lot of force. I’d studied Tae Kwon Do for ten years, so gaining a power that amplified my skills was amazing. It was like the power was meant for me, like some writer made me the star of his book and said, “Huh, Tae Kwon Do black belt? Let’s make his strikes more powerful.”

  The demons were terrifying. The shortest one I’d seen stood close to six feet tall, and they came with all the bells and whistles you can imagine: scales, horns, fins on their heads, claws on their heads, and fangs in their mouths. Through some weird pipeline to hell, they possessed regular people, then transformed into these monsters.

  Early on, we figured out that the light gave me one other power. I could banish the nasty things if I could make skin to skin contact with them.

  The girl I met at the carnival, Crystal, also received a power. Hers wasn’t as dramatic as mine, but it saved our butts more times than I could count. Pretty and blond, with these big, blue eyes, she could tell who was possessed by a demon, or who’d been gifted with a power. She saw auras of light around them. Demons were red, and people like me glowed white. She could share her sight with other gifted people just by holding their hand.

  She also saw people with a yellow aura, but we hadn’t figured out what that meant yet. Don’t worry, that mystery gets solved in the next few pages.

  The morning after the lights came down, only a few hours after the demons arrived, they’d already spread their influence enough to take over my school. They brought in these ugly statues which could hold a demon spirit and transfer it to people who looked into their eyes. We were so busy running for our lives at first that neither of us wondered how they set up a production line so fast and so efficiently. It wasn’t just my school, either. Every working member of the carnival was converted, and they got police officers, members of the news media, even the municipal park employees where we fled.

  In desperation, we ran to the home of a friend of mine who lived a couple of cities away, in Hampton, Virginia. If Crystal was pretty, Tanya was beautiful, tall and lean with thick brown hair and the deepest brown eyes you can imagine. Tanya and me, we’d decided months before that we were okay just being friends. At least, that was my understanding of the situation.

  Tanya also had a power, telekinesis, something every fan of the X-Men would recognize. The three of us practiced using our powers, and saved Tanya’s mother from being possessed. We were powerful. If we could get to the carnival and destroy the demon-box, maybe we could put an end to the unholy invasion.

  We had a lot of hints along the way that things probably wouldn’t be that simple: the CNN anchor was a demon; there were protests outside the Vatican demanding the church acknowledge that demons walked among us; the lights that gave me and the girls our powers were but a few of a multitude which struck all over the world. There were others glowing white everywhere we looked. But we were kids, and our thoughts didn’t reach beyond our own immediate area of concern.

  Listen to me, acting like I’d somehow grown up in a few days. If I was a kid the day before, what did that make me now?

  I’d seen my friends taken from me, and there was nothing I could do to save them. They were transformed into demons and set to taunting me, daring me to hit them and knowing I wouldn’t. I’d seen innocent people, adults and children alike, fall victim to the possessed toys, pictures, and stuffed animals molded in the shapes of demons and given as prizes for winning the games of chance scattered along the carnival midway.

  I’d seen a young soldier die in front of me, struck in the head by a bullet.

  New allies made themselves known, a well-organized group of fighters consisting of soldiers and gifted people. I didn’t know why they attacked the carnival, but they provided a welcome distraction enabling us to get into the trailer park behind the midway. After losing Crystal and Tanya, I joined forces with them. More of their people died, and we fled.

  So now here we were, running away from the carnival in a caravan of black vehicles. I was surrounded by people that I didn’t think were enemies, but whom couldn’t yet be called friends. We were fellow fighters against a common enemy.

  Here’s the strangest thing: I knew two of the strangers. Not as in we’d shaken hands before or shopped at the same Woolworths, nothing like that. A few nights back, just after me and the girls fought a bunch of invisible demons in the Coliseum parking lot, I had a dream.

  It was mixed up and crazy and presented me with a choice between Tanya and Crystal. Whi
ch one would I save? I couldn’t decide fast enough, and both were lost. The dream didn’t end with that. A red light, rushing like a tsunami, raced toward me and I ran away, tearing hell down a dark corridor like from a medieval dungeon. There were alcoves in the hallway, six in all, and in each one a body hung from a meat hook. The first body belonged to the redhead sitting across from me, Gina. The second one was the black guy sitting next to her, James. To me, that meant those two were going to die, unless I could find some way to prevent it.

  Now, with all that out of the way, let’s do some introductions. Names only go so far; you gotta have an idea what people look like.

  My name is John Wilson. My friends called me Johnny. It didn’t matter how I introduced myself, I look like a Johnny. I’m five-eight and have light brown hair and green eyes. My nose got broken once during a Tae Kwon Do competition, so it has this little bump right in the middle and appears a little crooked.

  Tanya Fields was just about my height, though she used to be taller than me when we first met. You know girls get a crazy growth spurt before guys. She was a rare beauty. Chocolate-brown hair framed symmetrical features, one of those faces you see but can’t believe and so pleasing to the eyes you can’t look away, a Jessica Alba face before anyone knew who she was.

  Crystal Pierce was the girl I met at the carnival, though we’d both pined for each other during the school year. I thought it was shyness that kept me from speaking out, preventing me from finding someone. It wasn’t, though it took being reunited with Tanya to make me realize the truth.

  For all that I was attracted to Crystal, with her petite frame and blue eyes, there was a history between me and Tanya. It was more than physical attraction. Crystal saw it and stepped aside, saving us from the teeny-bopper drama that defines so many of these young adult stories, where the action takes a back seat to the twisted romantic intrigue.

  The dream about the hallway, dead bodies, choosing one girl over the other…that’s not the only seemingly prophetic dream I’d had.

  It was only the first, and I still hadn’t figured out where they came from. Maybe it was an extension of my powers. The night before our trip to the carnival, I dreamed of a possessed Crystal. The weird thing is, it occurred in the carnival and featured some specific events, like diving under a trailer to avoid a host of demons. Those events happened in real life just a few hours ago. She said the same words to me and taunted me in the same manner. It was remembering the dream which allowed me to find a way to escape.

  The devil is in the details, though, so if I missed something in this brief recap, feel free to refresh your memory by re-reading the first volume in this series of notes.

  Though it tore my heart to do it, I ran away after Tanya and Crystal were converted. The demons were hot on my tail, eager to kill me or bring me into their ranks. As I burst out of the night-shrouded trailer park and back into the multi-colored light of the carnival midway, I was sure they’d catch me. That’s when I met Gina.

  She was the redhead on the other side of the van. Pretty, if a little older than me, with a face full of freckles and bright green eyes, she had the power to create a wall of light. In a weird symmetry, something that would soon become commonplace, her power could be amplified by other gifted people. The one time she got me to help, it felt like I was pouring my strength into a vacuum. We managed to force the wall outward, acting like the blade of a bulldozer, driving the demons before it.

  Beside her, with his head on her shoulder, was James. He was taller and leaner than me, with rich, dark chocolate skin and eyes the same color. He had a cursive J.Mann etched into his fade. It was that detail I remembered most vividly from the dream. James created lightning in his hands. Maybe he could do other things with electricity too, I didn’t know. Our only introduction happened during the last fight, and most of my attention was on not dying.

  The others in the van were only names and vague impressions of faces so far, without enough context to understand personality. To my right was a young, dark-haired guy named Bart. He was one of the soldiers who’d been manning the barricades on the midway before everything went wrong. His head was still lowered in his hands, so I had no idea what his face looked like.

  On my immediate left was a guy named Fish, though there wasn’t any obvious reason for the nickname. Of all the others in the vehicle, he was the only one who hadn’t removed his helmet, a futuristic thing like a cross between a motorcycle helmet and the headgear the marines wore in Aliens. It had some high-tech capabilities. He maintained constant communications with their command center and could pick up media outlets in the area. Other than the helmet, Fish was unremarkable. He had an average height and build and the voice of an older man, though mellow, like a professor.

  Next to Fish, occupying the space just behind the barrier that separated the cab from the back, was the military leader of the operation. This guy went by the name Iz, but he looked and sounded the part of every soldier ever named “Sarge” in a movie. He stood close to six feet tall but had that rounded shoulder and barrel chest look that gave an impression of thickness and durability. He had short, brown hair with more than a little gray in it, and a pocked and lined face which fed the “grizzled veteran” image.

  Across from Iz was one of those guys with a nickname that fits, in a humorous, paradoxical way. Tall and very wide in the shoulders, like a body builder or a football player, Little Jack also sported a military brush haircut, though the short hairs standing at attention on his head were all brown. He looked younger than Iz in the face, soft skin, full cheeks, but his eyes were every bit as hard, like gray marbles staring out of the broad features. The only time I’d heard him speak was when he introduced himself, and he didn’t seem in the mood to talk now.

  Between Little Jack and Gina was the only other gifted person in the van, what these people called Chosen. Angelica was older, mid-thirties, maybe, with lanky, brown hair sweat plastered to her head, a result of wearing one of those weird helmets for too long. She had brown eyes to match the hair and her face was pleasant, with fine lines around the mouth and eyes that spoke of a life spent laughing. Someone had hurt her, however, and recently. An angry red slash ran from the left side of her nose down to the jawline. I didn’t know much about medicine, but it looked like whoever stitched her up did a good job. At least, the stitches were lined up and close together, if that meant anything.

  She had a power like Crystal’s in that she could tell who was Chosen and who was possessed, though she’d learned to turn it on and off at will. Crystal hinted at being able to do the same thing, but I wasn’t sure if she’d mastered it or just decided to leave it on all the time, especially since meeting the young man who could turn others invisible. Angelica could also use her power to heal, which was amazing. Maybe Crystal could do that as well…

  I needed to stop thinking about my lost friends. At least for now.

  Before my arrival, none of these fighters knew people could be both Chosen and possessed. From their conversation, they believed that being Chosen conferred an immunity to possession. When Angelica confirmed she could see red and white auras flickering around some of the demons, Fish sent a request for clarification to whoever was on the other end of his helmet-communicator. So far, he hadn’t received a response.

  “Ms. Angelica,” I said.

  Little Jack snickered, but Angelica looked up at me. “Just Angie, please.”

  “Least you can tell the boy was raised right,” Little Jack said, surprising me with a low, smooth voice that didn’t match his face or his eyes, like someone transplanted Barry White’s into a big, country-fed, farm boy. His smile was genuine as he looked up, and it transformed the steely-eyed glare into something more natural, grief and fatigue laying a heavy blanket over a light-hearted face.

  “All right. Angie, then,” I replied. “Have you seen any different auras? Other than red or white? I meant to ask you earlier, but everything got crazy.”

  She sat up straighter, looking like she’d fo
rgotten that I knew what she could see. Or like she’d been trying to forget. “What do you mean?”

  “I told you this one girl could see the colors, and she could share her vision with us, if we held hands.” She nodded, and I continued. “At first it was just red and white, but then we saw something new, a person with a yellow aura on one of the newscasts.”

  A shift on my left, from the other side of Fish, told me Iz was paying attention now. Gina’s eyes were open as well, and James no longer had his head on her shoulder.

  “We saw them again in the footage outside the Vatican.”

  Fish wasn’t paying any attention to us. Or if he was, I couldn’t tell.

  “And then earlier tonight, when you guys first attacked…Crystal and Tanya and I…we were at the far end, heading into the trailers—"

  “Why would you want to go in there?” Iz interrupted.

  “Shhh,” Little Jack murmured, his big hands patting the air, “let him finish.”

  “Well, we linked hands, and we could see one or two yellow figures, fighting on our side. Who are they? Can you see them, too?”

  Iz slammed a big hand on the metal divider, startling me.

  “Yeah?” a muffled voice said from the other side.

  “What’s our twenty?” Iz asked.

  “We’re about to enter the HRBT,” came back.

  “And our ETA?”

  “Another twenty to thirty after that.”

  Iz grunted, then repeated his question to me. “Why did you kids think it was a good idea to go into the trailers?”

  His gruff demeanor was irritating. Wasn’t it bad enough that I felt terrible for leading my friends into such a disaster? I didn’t need this old guy, who hadn’t even been there, and his accusing questions, making me feel worse.

  “It seemed like a good idea,” I answered lamely.