“Have you thought about how long you want to be away?”
She hadn’t thought about it.
“Do I have to decide that now?”
“I might agree to help you on the condition that you agree to spend your time away working on your control.”
“My control?”
“Don’t play dumb. I’m talking about controlling use of your extra-abilities.”
“I could do that.”
“In that case, I might help. I suppose you can do a pay-as-you-go plan.”
“Wait. What do you mean, pay-as-you-go?”
The angel took her elbow and pulled her to her feet. Standing several inches taller, he looked down into her face. “You’re right, Elora Rose. It is time for you to learn something of the world. First lesson, nothing’s free.”
A few minutes later they were standing on the periphery of an enclosure – a crude, gray stone wall. From what Rosie could see, there were homes and buildings built around a park-like area, but the overall impression of the place was of a fort. Through a break in the wall that formed a gate with iron bars, she could see that they were on a hilltop overlooking the lights of a large town.
The air was scented with the welcoming smell of wood-burning fires releasing white smoke into the atmosphere. The prominent feature of the compound was a long row of motorcycles, some of which had parts shiny enough to reflect in the cold moonlight.
“Where are we?” Rosie asked.
“It’s a project of mine, Rosie. A secret. You can’t ever tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
“Promise.”
“I do.”
“They’re what’s left of a Telstar Dimension hybrid experiment.”
“Hybrid? You mean one of the worlds that went crazy with genetic engineering?”
“Guess it depends on what you mean by ‘went crazy’.”
“Okay. Let me put it this way. You start out with a wolf. You end up with a Shih Tzu or a Pug. You start out with a human, you end up with a ...”
“The flaw in your argument is, the owners of dogs like that would say they’re an improvement on the prototype.”
Rosie blinked. “So you’re saying you’re taking me to a place where I should be prepared for…” She left the end of that sentence for him to fill in the blank.
“Okay. Consider this your briefing in a nutshell. There were some experiments that went on for a couple of generations. People became concerned and even invoked religious invective to fuel a movement to eradicate all the produce of the experiment.”
“Produce?” He nodded. “You mean the people?”
“That is what I mean, yes, and I, ah, intervened. I saw an opportunity to solve two problems. There was a group of people… humans, here in need of protection, which is one of the ways hybrid skills might be used. The remnants of the human population were under threat from their own hybrid experiment gone awry. So I paired them up to keep the balance. The hybrids got freedom. The humans in this world got to survive.“
He waved his hand at the darkness. “This dimension hasn’t been ruined yet. It’s stark in places. Pretty in others. The main thing is that it gives them a chance.” He looked at Rosie. “You know?”
“Wasn’t that against some rule?”
The angel pursed his lips and heaved a big sigh. “Rules need to be placed in the context of knowing the rule makers. And their agenda.”
Rosie studied his face in the darkness. “Lally, you’re an anarchist.”
“Guess that depends on who you talk to.”
“Are there others?”
He turned to face her. “What do you mean?”
“Other elementals who think like you do.”
For a moment he thought perhaps Rosie saw him truly.
“I don’t really discuss it with others. Anyway. The hybrids have been here for a while now. Some have started families. Their own take on culture is starting to emerge. Interesting to watch. The one in charge of the place is a solid fellow. He owes me a favor. Simple as that.”
“Does everybody in the multiverse owe you a favor?”
His mouth twitched at the corner as he looked down at her. “Working on it.” His eyes drifted back to the settlement. Rosie thought she saw a hint of pride. Proud sponsor perhaps.
“This could be a good place to get your thoughts sorted out. They’ll keep you busy and who knows? Maybe a new perspective. So welcome to the EC. That’s what they call it, short for Exiled Camp. By the way, don’t mention Telstar. They don’t like to be reminded. I don’t blame them. They left that behind to start a new life.” He turned to face Rosie. “A new world really.”
She looked around again. “What’s with the motorcycles?”
His expression was definitely sheepish. “Oh. The hybrids like them. A lot. So they became part of our arrangement. I made an adjustment to the engines so they’ll run on water and threw tools and maintenance stuff in with the deal.”
“Are you saying that there weren’t motorcycles here before?”
“No. Every dimension develops differently. You know that.”
“Well, yes… So how did you get motorcycles here?”
He laughed. “Rode them.”
“You did not.”
He nodded, grinning. “One at a time.”
“I didn’t know you could ride a motorcycle through the passes.”
“For all I know, I’m the only one who knows it. Let’s keep it that way. Okay?”
She shrugged. “Okay. What do they look like?”
“Look like?” Kellareal laughed out loud. “Oh, sweet baby.”
Carnal Exiled, Book 1
The angel, Kellareal, stopped the genocide of generations of hybrids, who had been bred for research and spent their entire lives imprisoned. Against orders, he spirited them away to a dimension where they would have freedom and purpose.
In a vindictive fit, Rosie Storm asked Kellareal for a place to hide out. He knew just the place for her to grow up, learn emotional control, and other things.
How do you mend a broken heart? - Kellareal
Elora Rose Storm, otherwise known as Rosie, left her dimension in a fit of immaturity over not getting her way. Some might say the behavior was easier to forgive in light of the fact that she was, chronologically, only fourteen months old. Her witch / demon genes had accelerated her physical and intellectual growth, but her emotional equilibrium lagged behind.
She called on her mother’s friend, the angel Kellareal, to find a place to hide out for a while. The angel decided the best place for her to finish growing up, learn about emotional control and having a care for the needs of others, was his special project. The hybrids in the land of Exiled.
The Exiled were a race of hybrids, who, for generations, had lived their entire lives imprisoned for research. Eventually their creators came to grips with the danger of having created beings who were faster, stronger, and smarter. Once that fear was established, the hybrids were targeted for extinction. When Kellareal learned of the plan to execute the entire subspecies, he intervened and spirited the whole population away to another dimension. There the Exiled would have the opportunity to create a balance by protecting the humans of that world from their own hybrid experiment gone awry.
Rosie thought she was getting a few weeks of asylum from confronting her own stupidity. The last thing she was expecting was to meet someone like Carnal.
CHAPTER ONE
Kellareal
If you think I’m as old as the stars, you’d be wrong.
My boss qualifies though. That’s right. I report to one of the Old Ones. It’s my job to try to keep the fabric of Earth together while creatures tied to its myriad dimensions do their best to fuck it up. The dimensions with populations that have acquired technology are starting to make my job even harder than it was.
Some little madman, tyrant of a country that occupies half a small island, is always threatening to blow the entire planet to smithereens if the rest of the dimension doe
sn’t agree to fart his national anthem. Guess how much I’d like to just take him out? Just grab him by his ridiculous haircut and throw him into space? But that’s neither here nor there, I guess. It’s just the job. And needless to say, I’m barred from acting on my own fantasies.
The latest actual disaster to come along calls itself the Council. Excuse my snort. That little band of brats behaves as if they’ve forgotten that there are beings in the multiverse that dwarf their power. Some idiot instructor gave them my domain as a homework assignment. They weren’t nearly ready to be set loose in a place where they could threaten entire sentient races, but that’s the hand I’ve been dealt.
The “Council” believes that I’m an elemental. Inferior to them. So I play that role and let them think I’m subservient. Pretending to be their errand boy is the best way to have their trust and keep a close eye on what they’re doing. They call me their Enforcer. What a joke! They’re so far up their own asses that they don’t bother to check whether I carried out their wishes or my own. So I work as an independent agent when I can.
My cover is so good that even other elementals think I’m one of them.
I know what you’re thinking. And I readily admit that things have slipped through, but omnipresence is not one of my gifts. I can’t be everywhere at once.
Admittedly, some of the mistakes have been big. Like when Heralda created vampire. She became temporarily infatuated with the darkest representations of Earth’s literary culture and, like the spoiled child she is, decided to act it out. The original vampire were created as real immortals with hearts and minds and consciences. Then, a few centuries ago she decided to cut corners by setting a virus loose in a few dimensions. Five. Or is it six? Only, unlike the original creations, the virus vampires were deeply flawed, more like zombies really.
No. Don’t get all ruffled. Zombies are fictitious. At least until Heralda decides they’re not.
I’m still paying for not being in the right place at the right time to prevent the vampire virus and, yeah, I know it’s caused its share of havoc. If there weren’t some rules that really can’t be broken, like going back in time to make corrections, I’d just follow the kids around, cleaning up their messes as they go. But since that’s not an option, all I can do, while waiting for their assignment to be over, is try to keep them from destroying everything.
Of course I’d love to simply wipe them out, but just like the fantasy about little despots, that’s against the rules, too. The conventional wisdom is that the “Council” must do their homework and learn from their mistakes, even if other creatures are harmed in the process. I don’t agree with it. In fact, you can put me in the Strongly Disagree column. But even the Ancient Ones abide by rules.
Every now and then I get a helping hand. A mere fifty years or so after Heralda unleashed the vampire virus, a couple of grieving widowers formed a reactionary organization called The Order of the Black Swan. As soon as I figured out what they were doing, I began assisting in any way that wouldn’t either break rules or alert the “Council” to my clandestine activities. And believe me. I know how to be creative when it comes to skirting the edges of rule-breaking.
The general guideline is “just let things play out” and, most of the time, that’s exactly what I do, even when I really don’t like it. I imagine I’d be pulled from this assignment if my boss knew that I’d grown personally attached to this place. But what can I say? If you work at something twenty-four-seven for eons, it’s going to leave a mark on you. Right?
I’m allowed to step in to prevent something like a nuclear catastrophe, but I’m supposed to be hands-off with all things evolution-related. Even plague. Natural selection is king. I have to watch entire species of creatures become extinct and not do anything about it unless it threatens the future of all creatures. Believe me. That’s harder than it sounds, which brings me to the Exiled.
Almost all of the human-dominant dimensions that have acquired technology have dabbled in developing human/animal hybrids. If you’re a woman, you would probably ask why. If you’re a man, your first reaction might be to think it’s an idea worth exploring. I have this theory that men are driven by conception jealousy. The inability to bring new life into the world lies at the heart of a whole range of horrors, from cloning to a desire to see artificial intelligence overtake and obliterate humankind. The creation of hybrids is akin to that insanity. But once the creatures are here, they’re mine to protect.
I don’t normally have the time or opportunity to express opinions. So forgive my digression.
Setting the psychology of reasons aside, I want to talk about one particular group of hybrids. The ones I risked everything for. They were developed by humans on Telstar Dimension and, I’ve got to hand it to them, they did a bang up job. Over a century and a half, they experimented with both canine and feline DNA, combining one or the other with the best human stock available in terms of intelligence, strength, and endurance.
The results were impressive, but anyone looking at the scenario objectively could have guessed the outcome. The hybrids became disinterested in being a class of controlled warriors. When the Telstar humans realized they’d created a credible threat to themselves and their way of life, they conspired to gas the hybrids while they slept and call it an experiment gone bad.
It was pure accident that I learned about it in advance. I mean, what are the chances? I had stopped into one of the elemental watering holes. A salamander demon was saying he heard about it as he was passing through Telstar. He said it was a shame because the hybrids were more worthy of being the last species standing than the humans who made them. Salamander demons are known for profound insights. So I listened.
I was on my way to Telstar before I had a working plan. I just knew I wanted to do something. Somehow, on the way there, the idea came to me.
The humans on Farsuitwail had watched their civilization regress to just this side of Stone Age when a band of feral hybrids, called Rautt, had taken over. They escaped and settled on the other side of a desert wasteland, but not before they disabled every means of technological power and killed everyone they suspected of possessing the expertise to reengineer the power grid. All weaponry and parts that functioned at a distance greater than the length of an arm was also destroyed so that humans were left with nothing more to defend themselves than could be used in hand-to-hand combat.
The humans woke to find themselves terrorized, slaves to their creations because humans were no match for Rautt in close combat warfare. From a point of view, you might say it was poetic justice except for the fact that most of the humans had no say in the decision to breed hybrids or in how they were used and abused. Most were innocents paying the price for the ill-conceived actions of a few.
For that reason I intervened.
I could save the Telstar hybrids from genocide and aid the Blanthekin dimension humans at the same time. A sort of “cold war” balance would be established and balance was my goal. Always. Restoration and maintenance of balance was what I was made to do.
It was easy enough to find where the hybrids were kept. I planted a suggestion in the minds of the guards that they’d been ordered to sleep through the night. Later, when they were held accountable, they would all swear to the same story and be able to pass a lie detector test.
I looked over the adult males, who were confined in single cells when they weren’t being used as proxies for conflict or for breeding purposes. They were also controlled by collars that delivered electric shocks.
I walked down several rows of boxes with bars, it would probably be more appropriate to call them cages. Every one of the adult males was magnificent, the result of selective breeding and culling. Each was also at the prime of life.
You might say it was sexist of me to look for a leader among males, but I suspected the hybrids would be operating on limited societal organization principles. In other words, might makes right. As I passed each cell, I looked into the face of the occupants until I found what
I was looking for.
I can’t explain what that was. A hunch I guess you’d say.
Some of the males growled so softly I wouldn’t have heard it if I was human. Not that I blamed them. From what I’d heard about their treatment, they had every reason to growl at me. Some just stared without making a sound.
When I looked into the face of the hybrid who would become leader in the new world, I knew, or felt, that he was different. It might have been the spark of intelligence shining from deep green eyes or the presence emanating from his body. Regardless, he was the one I chose to approach. And it ended up being a good decision.
He was standing in the middle of his cell. To the casual observer he might have appeared to be relaxed, but I could tell that every muscle and sinew was ready to pounce.
One second I was standing in the passageway between cell blocks. The next I was inside his space. That caused a look of concern, but he’d worn a collar far too long and was too wise to respond to that unexpected event by lunging at me. He didn’t even bare his impressive set of fangs. He simply watched with a quiet wariness, waiting to see what I’d do next, exactly the sort of quality that would define a capable leader.
“My name is Kellareal,” I said. “I’m not human. I just appear that way for the moment because I choose to. I’m here to make an offer.” The creature blinked once, but stood as still as a statue, watching with a keen wariness. The intelligence in his eyes was unmistakable. “Will you give me a minute of your time?”
A slight movement of his head to the side adequately conveyed that such a respectful question was far outside the bounds of what he might anticipate. He stared for a full minute before nodding once slowly.
CARNAL (EXILED Book 1) Page 2
