“That’s what vacation is for, dear, to help get us back to where we aren’t jumping at our own shadows again.” He promptly closed his eyes and rolled over.
***
Natura was lounging in her hammock in her second story loft apartment in Soren’s building. She had made over the roughly half-acre of space into a nature park setting; removed the roof—with Player’s help—so the Redwood trees could grow up and out, and so the hummingbirds could come and go as they pleased; and, of course, she’d expanded the half-acre space to about ten acres or so—all with her nature magic.
When, upon reading her latest book on faeries, her hammock started swinging, and the talking animals she’d populated her park with—she believed that all animals should be able to speak their minds—fled in a ruckus, she took note. Comments rising up from the animal kingdom varied.
From:
“Oh, no!” The owl’s eyes had popped open prior to its speaking up then taking flight.
“I’m outta here.” The snake, previously sneaking up on the owl, decided to slither the other direction, tout suite.
“This can’t be happening.” That was the rabbit giving birth to her latest. She stuffed the baby back in her womb. “Not now,” she said. “Not unless you want to be named Calamity Cate.”
“Who scheduled the end of the world in the middle of my siesta?” That was the panda bear hugging the tree.
“Run for the hills! Wait, there are no hills. Run for the trees!” The chimpanzee really didn’t sound like he cared how many takers he got.
To:
“I don’t mean to speak out of turn—now that I can speak—but this sucks!” The spider, weaving a web around his captured fly, cut the fly free. “Sorry, pal, but I need the shock absorption more than you.” The spider spun his silk cocoon instead about himself.
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling! No, I’m not kidding, the sky really is falling!” The chinchilla’s eyes, which one would think couldn’t get any wider, did, before he scampered off.
Natura had to admit, while her creatures had excitable natures by default, something felt awry to her as well.
She decided to pay a visit to Player across the hall. Earth magic was more his thing, being an elemental wizard with command of all four elements—and of late, an expanding roster of those elements on the Periodic table; and it was the earth that was shifting beneath her feet, after all. That was five earth tremors in a row now. Her nature magic, for right now, mostly extended to animals. Even the expanded nature park she’d turned her loft into had come about with the help of Naomi; Naomi was the Sponger in the group who could absorb most anyone’s powers with a touch—so it was anyone’s guess with whom any of Naomi’s abilities truly originated.
***
Player kept frustrating the owl from reaching the mouse scurrying across his hardwood floor with his command of the winds. He didn’t know why he was of a mind to infuriate the predator; he just was.
It was just one of many owls living in his loft. And now that others were joining the chase for the mouse, the game was growing more fun.
The other mice, sneaking in through a hole in the wall, became unwitting players in the game. This time of day, they couldn’t see the shadows of the owls swooping overhead, so his hardwood floor had become quite the killing field. Ironic, in that the rest of his Spartan loft was little but hardwood floor and stained-glass windows on the East and West walls; the space looked and felt much like a church; but the only sacrifices on the altar anyone would be making here would be to Player’s ego.
The owls, which seemed to be enjoying the game as much as he was, let him know when their opinions changed on the matter by pooping on him. He wiped the first milky white smear off his shoulder. “Yeah, fine. Honestly, I’m bored already.”
He stopped toying with the winds.
The orgy of mice killing should have crescendoed.
But the floor shook secondary to some earthquake, sending the mice skittering across the floor. And the game was afoot yet again. This time Player had nothing to do with it. Though, the birds had become all too responsive to his earth magic as well, and were now pooping on him in force anyway. “It’s not me, I tell ya!”
Owls might be able to hear mice at a thousand paces, but they were positively deaf to his protests.
Natura sauntered in looking like one of the faeries she read about in her books. Her spiked hair was dyed every Kool-Aid color in the assortment of flavor packets. Her pointed ears would rival Spock’s—though she’d likely object to the sci-fi reference, being Fantasy Girl through and through. Her petite pixie frame didn’t deter from her elfin nature any. Her pale skin looked airbrushed, it was so flawless.
“What’s with the earth tremors, Player?” Natura asked, shifting her weight onto one hip, and planting her fists firmly to either side of her waist. Her entire posture screamed: “I know you’re behind this, so don’t even try to deny it, you overgrown child!”
“I have no idea, I swear!” Ordinarily the hypnotic effect of his beauty could get any lie to stick, far less the truth. The bangs of his black hair were jelled to fall over his forehead just enough to give him that well-cultivated wild, bad boy look. The sharp, haunting yellow-speckled-brown eyes were well recessed under the straight across eyebrows for just the right air of mystery, simultaneously teasing, sorrowful, and playful. Add to that his flawless skin that could only exist on the supernaturally healthy. He could make a living selling London Bridge over and over again to not just anyone, but to the same person. For all that, his beauty had no effect on her.
“You’re the elemental wizard. Get a clue!”
He sighed, then took a deep breath. The mice were gradually getting picked off if only because the ongoing tremors were sliding one mouse out of the beak of one owl and sliding another one in. The number of birds overhead was diminishing as the ones with a captured mouse made a beeline back to their nests.
Player worked to center himself better to get a fix on the source of the earthquakes. “Oh, wow. I can’t believe I missed this. The volcano at Yellowstone is getting ready to erupt. Once it does, the world as we know it will be over. So, relax, there really isn’t much anyone can do.”
“I’m sorry, but did you just say that all life was coming to an end?”
“Yep, care to join me in a game of keep the owls from reaching the mice? I was growing bored with the repast, but in light of the world ending, seems like the perfect hollow distraction.”
She grabbed him by the ears. “Ow!” he yelped as he was forced to tag along with her. “Do you have any idea the kind of power I wield, you pigmy of a tart, you!”
“Apparently not enough. If you can’t put a stop to this nonsense, maybe Naomi can.”
Player groaned. “If she can, I really don’t want to know about it. You know how I feel about being upstaged. No one is to demonstrate any ability that might humble me in or out of my presence, ever. It says so in the bylaws when I signed on for this renegade posse.”
Silence.
“You’re ignoring me! Well, I’m pretty damned sure that is an ego-deflating maneuver equally banned in the bylaws.”
More silence. “Fine. I needed to stretch my legs anyway. And why just settle for staring at your sexy swaying ass when I could swoon over both of you?”
He continued to walk bent over as his ear was still attached to her hand; it was that or stand up and wear Pixie-people-jewelry off one ear.
They had to march down two flights of stairs to get to the basement level where Soren had his lab and where Soren and Naomi were allegedly vacationing—in the Yucatan Peninsula—after Natura’s and Naomi’s mind link allowed their combined magic to reshape the lab accordingly. The space warping effect was just part of the magic; it really was the damned Yucatan Peninsula down there in all its glory, even if to the outside world, it just looked like another corner of Soren’s dilapidated warehouse space, the whole building looking like it might topple at any moment; about the one effect
ive deterrent to unwanted guests.
A few steps across the forest floor of the jungle and Player yanked Natura’s arm away from his ear. He was getting a cramp in his lower back. Besides, they had worse problems than their testy relationship. “Now what? They could be miles from here!” he whined.
Natura summoned a couple of dragons—or perhaps she conjured them out of thin air—animal magic was the one aspect of her nature magic she excelled at, even if she was still growing into the rest.
They both hopped on the screeching, fire-breathing—pardon him for saying it, smelly—beasts, and were off. His dragon was the butcher looking one with its tarnished scales and fiercer looking demeanor; thank goodness. And hers was more like fine jewelry a girl wore around her neck; there was no tarnish on those more-finely-ground golden scales. All the same, his dragon appeared keyed to her, and submissive. He sighed; It was starting to look like bullying the owls was going to be the high point of soaking in his sense of omnipotence for one day.
The dragons were chewing up sky, but so far, no sign of Naomi, or Soren, for that matter.
***
Natura and Player shared the second story of the warehouse space since Naomi and the rest of her sidekicks had moved in with Soren—why exactly they’d moved in was a long story.
Naomi shared the bedroom with Soren in his section of the basement where he had his lab, along with the rest of the loft space in the section cut away from the upstairs floors in order to expose the skylights overhead. Lar, their librarian and scholar, occupied the cordoned off section of the basement where he had his library of magical books and his own lab.
But the whole first floor was Stealy’s—and that’s just how she liked it. She’d set it up as an obstacle course for her motorbike and working that course was how she steadied her mind. The category three cyclone that was constantly blowing was courtesy of Player’s elemental magic. He’d meant to screw with her X-games maneuvers on her motorcycle, but had only complicated the course for her in a way that she relished. And since then, she’d refused to live out from under it. That meant staying suited up in black leather from head to toe and keeping the helmet on with the visor down at all times while out here screwing around on the bike.
The ever-present storm also meant constant shoring up of her yurt-like dwelling—a bunch of fallen overhead beams and furniture arranged under a parachute in such a way as to create the domed enclosure.
With all the commotion going on in her loft, it really shouldn’t have been possible to sense the earth shaking beneath her. Hell was constantly breaking loose with a category three wind about, so what were a few slight earth tremors? But notice the tremors she did.
“Player!” she shouted, figuring he was bored and using his free time and lack of anything better to do to fuck with her. But the way the earth was moving beneath her sent chills up her spine. It didn’t feel like his latest renovation to her obstacle course, added for the sake of a boosted challenge—even if it was making it a hell of a lot harder to make her jumps and maneuver her bike without sliding it into a wall or skidding along the floor and nearly losing a leg in the process.
Whatever was behind this floor shaking, it didn’t feel like fun at all—not the kind that Stealy was prone to, and not even the kind Player was prone to.
It was time to find her way to the exit. Admittedly, her giant, all-too-alluring, upward-sloping, almond-shaped, yellow eyes were not asset against this storm; she adjusted her goggles to ensure their snug fit as she picked up speed. Her long straight black hair was so lustrous it looked synthetic, but batted about in this wind, those follicles lashed at her neck as if they were determined to take her head off.
She headed the bike out of her loft and down toward the basement. Whatever was causing the phenomenon, it was time to seek out their most powerful wizard, Naomi, and their most powerful scientist, Soren. Between those two, they should have most any eventuality covered.
Stealy should have felt calmer knowing what she knew about their two superstars. But she only felt more anxious. Why?
***
Lar was at his desk in his basement library and live-work space in one. The books lined the walls, and his scientific apparatuses occupied most of the floor space. Some of the instruments had been borrowed from Soren’s lab, as Lar continued his studies on nanites from various eras—anything but the modern era, where Soren’s expertise remained unchallenged.
Here, too, were instruments built from many of Soren’s books relating to transhumanism—the hundred and one ways to upgrade the human body, to merge man and machine—the insights and inspiration for which were also borrowed from other eras. It was doubtful any of Lar’s inventions worked, modeled as they were from pictures and diagrams created by far superior minds on the subject of nano-technology living in distant eras.
Soren had a way of time traveling to these different epochs whenever he submerged himself in his healing pool; the problem was he could never remember what he brought back from those distant lands and times or why he’d brought it back. So, filling in the missing pieces fell to Lar, something he was lousy at, quite frankly. The last time he’d tried to fill in the gaps for Soren, he’d killed him. While raising the dead was a bit of a forte for the Dr. Frankensteins, including the ones like Soren that worked on themselves as opposed to other people—Soren didn’t appreciate being killed. But that, again, was another long story for another time.
The first earth tremor sent books flying from the shelves, and slid Lar’s chair and his desk apart from one another. He wasn’t amused. The second tremor capsized instruments from their lab tables onto the floor, damaging some visibly; others might well be harmed in ways that might not be visible to the naked eye. Lars was no longer simply pissed; he was panicked. Soren’s next back-from-the-dead act might well hinge on the effectiveness of Lar’s machines.
Lar, the bumbling fool, who couldn’t take two steps without tripping over himself, had no way around this situation, but Cypher, the aspect of his persona with an eidetic memory of every spell written in every book in his lab, to say nothing of the scientific journals…he, on the other hand, could do quite a lot.
Lar switched into Cypher mode and immediately made his way to the spell books in question; it didn’t matter that they’d capsized onto the floor; Cypher could instantly navigate the chaos of tomes scattered across the cement beneath his feet. Dressed in his tweed suit and tie, and wearing his round steel-rimmed glasses, he looked like the perfect reference-desk librarian who could never be lost in a world of books; even his slight frame and pale skin suggested nothing could ever take him away from his tomes; certainly not any desire for sun and exercise.
He went to the pages in question, mumbled the incantation, waited a few seconds to see if the earth tremors stopped, then moved on to the next incantation book.
By the third book and the third spell, after still meeting with zero success, he realized he needed to change his approach.
Lar slipped into his other persona, Captain Klutz. Captain Klutz could use Lar’s clumsiness as a kind of superpower, allowing him to turn negatives into positives. Sure enough, the floor had become a quicksand pit; Lar couldn’t take a step without slipping and sliding over a mound of books.
By the third step, Lar, or should he say, Captain Klutz, landed face down on a book opened to the page he needed to see. In it was a picture of Yellowstone’s volcano exploding and exactly what to do about it.
But the science was just too advanced. This was one of those books Soren had retrieved from another era in time. Why? Because his unconscious often reached for answers to problems it could anticipate well ahead of Soren’s conscious mind’s ability to identify a problem.
It would be up to Soren to make sense of the book.
Lar tried to ignore the rising sense of panic as he made his way to Soren over in his section of the lab. Soren—without his mind chip, and separated from the beast—would have no way of accessing the mind power he needed to make sense of the book ei
ther.
For once, Captain Klutz might have gotten Lar into a fine mess that did not make situations better, as was in keeping with the nature of his magic, but worse.
FOUR
Makya whittled away at her ancestor’s bones. Native American, and dressed as her ancient ancestors would have dressed before battle, her radiant eyes glowed yellow in the darkness. Her skin was redder than it might normally have been under the amber lights of the whale oil lanterns. Or perhaps she was simply flushed from their exertions earlier that evening, taking out a wizard playing havoc in the sector. Her long, straight black hair was used in combat as a weapon—much as the Chinese martial artists had learned to do long ago, and in fact was responsible for taking off said wizard’s head. Each strand had been genetically altered to make quite the effective garrote. “Makya.” Her name resonated in Aba’s head—like the beat of a drum—as it was meant to, to install fear in the hearts of her enemies.
“You know, until I met a Native American huntress, I really used to laud the aborigine culture. Now, the indigenous peoples kind of creep me out.” All the same, Asim couldn’t take her eyes off of Makya. Makya was covered in bone-jewelry to begin with. “Don’t you have enough bone magic going for you already?” Asim asked.
Aba, keeping an eye on the entire group sitting in a circle inside the barn lit by the splotchy splashes of gold lantern light, was wondering the same thing herself. She was glad Asim asked the question; that way, if it generated any heat, it’d fall on her instead. From Aba’s perspective, the barn was warm enough as it was. With each of their auras dialed up to provide the heat their nighttime environment could no longer furnish, it was starting to take on the feel of a Native American sweat lodge in here. That might be for the best. Considering the possessed look on Makya’s face right now, the sweat might just flush the demon out of her.
“I’m covered in Eagle’s bones, suitable for hunting Eagles. Not for hunting demons.” Makya didn’t look up from her bone-filing.
Reawakened (Frankenstein Book 3) Page 3
