by M. L. Ryan
Special Rewards
Book 2 of the Coursodon Dimension Series
By M.L. Ryan
Copyright © 2012, M.L. Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s warped imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, business establishments, locales or events is entirely coincidental.
For my boys…
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
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
About the Author
~Acknowledgments~
Writing this second book took longer than I expected, but was extraordinarily satisfying. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped me along the way: Jason Blake and Jacob Kassulke gave me pointers on how firefighters and EMTs operate, and Michael Crimmins, Ph.D., a University of Arizona Associate Professor in the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, provided his expertise on speculative climate change in the other dimension. I used a tweaked version of a story my cousin, Lori, recounted when I posted on Facebook that I needed a weird anecdote for the book. Thanks, cuz. Thianna’s great suggestion improved the cover immensely and she was also a fantastic beta-reader — direct, concise and helpful.
Also, big thanks to everyone I know, or observe, or hear about because whether you like it or not, you’re all crazy and anything you say or do within earshot is potential fodder for my next book. Because, let’s face it. Reality is way weirder than most of the stuff I can come up with completely on my own.
I also have to thank everyone who read the first book, Special Offers. To those of you who contacted me, or posted reviews, you get a double dose of gratitude. Hearing from you makes me smile. A lot. I’m also grateful for the bloggers who are willing to review my work. They do tons of work, without monetary gain, so that Indie authors like me can get some exposure. And we need all the help we can get, because we are always trying to find new ways to introduce readers to our stories.
And more than anything, I thank my astounding husband and son for their support and love.
~1~
“Again.”
The harsh voice taunted me from above. I lay flat on my back on the desert floor, rocks digging into my flesh, and forced myself to look up into the cold, grey eyes of my tormenter. There was nothing there, no normal human feelings, only indifference. My legs, one of which had twisted awkwardly underneath me when I collapsed, seemed oddly disconnected as if no longer a part of my body. The pain that pulsed through the rest of me was agonizing; so much so, I wasn't certain what little I had eaten would remain in my stomach. Serve the bastard right if I puked all over his fancy, Italian leather shoes. Sweat poured down my face, forming wet rivulets through the salty, crusted residue that dried from the many hours of agony already endured. I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was like sandpaper across my parched mouth. I needed water badly. I was sure I wouldn’t be getting any.
Having long since shifted from wondering if death was near, to hoping it was, I used my last bit of energy to sputter, “Just kill me now and get it over with, you son of a bitch.” I was so tired, so utterly defeated. I just wanted the torture to end.
He grinned. It was pure evil. He must have enjoyed my anguish, because for the first time today his smile engaged his entire face and not just his lips. The bastard poked me with his foot and repeated his earlier command.
“Again. You have to learn to control your magic even when you are exhausted,” he barked. “And stop your histrionics.”
I had just finished my second five-mile run of the afternoon on three hours of sleep in the past two days. And now Sebastian wanted me to do five more. “I can’t do it again,” I moaned pitifully. Lifting myself so I was sitting, I hoped this new position would make my lungs burn less and the dizziness go away. Unfortunately, it didn’t relieve my discomfort.
“Get up. Now.”
I couldn’t see his face because my head was now buried between my knees, but I knew from the tone in his voice that he meant business.
“This is beyond cruel and inhumane. Don’t you extra-dimensionals have some form of the Geneva Convention? Can’t you just water-board me instead?”
I became acquainted with Sebastian Kess a few months earlier when I was inhabited by his disembodied essence that had been hiding in my newly purchased eBook reader. When I inadvertently released him into myself, I was confronted both with sharing my body with an arrogant ass as well as the knowledge that a parallel dimension exists where people with magical abilities — the Coursodon — live.
He didn’t intend to involve me. In fact, as a Xyzok, his job was to protect humans from Courso that use their magic in criminal ways. When a particularly heinous offender left him mortally wounded, Sebastian was forced to make a monumental decision: Let his essence leave his body and die, or attempt an untried, experimental technique he’d explored to transmit himself into binary code and into his laptop. It seems a Courso’s body doesn’t decompose the way ours do when we shuffle off this mortal coil, and he hypothesized that if he could “preserve” his spiritual essence, it could be returned to his corporeal self later. It would have worked, too, if his computer wasn’t damaged. Fortunately for Sebastian, a Kindle factory was right down the street, and his essence was transferred into the device that I eventually ordered.
In the end, Sebastian was returned to his own body and, much like a paranormal hostess gift, I was left with a tiny bit of his power. So far, my only magical talent was the unsettling habit of destroying things when I got really pissed off. The object of these grueling exercises was to make sure I didn’t accidentally blast someone into oblivion just because they cut in front of me in traffic. Okay, I only did that once, and I didn’t zap them, just their car. Magical prowess really brought a new level of nastiness to road rage. If not for my new Courso friends’ abilities to alter human recollection, a bunch of unsuspecting people would be wondering why the bumper on someone’s F-150 pickup randomly exploded.
Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted. Sebastard wasn’t touching me, he was using magic to get me to my feet. I hated when he did that; little jolts of energy pulsed through me whenever I was subjected to it. The sensation was vaguely reminiscent of when your leg falls asleep, except over your entire body. He knew I hated it when he used his power to force me to do something. Now my anger began to billow up. Damn it. I could sense the now familiar burst of energy beginning to expand out from my torso. I was getting ready to blow.
I tried to concentrate on taking deep, calming breaths and going to my “happy place” — visualizing me and a certain sexy blonde, naked on a windswept beach at sunset in a position I was pretty sure w
as physically impossible.
Unfortunately, despite my attempts at relaxation, I could still feel my hands reflexively shooting out in front of me, a sure sign that something was going to get obliterated. I focused on a large boulder in front of me, hoping if I did lose it, only the rock would suffer. Suddenly, I had an epiphany of sorts. If thinking about having great sex couldn’t avert disaster, maybe I should try a new approach.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid going ballistic, I conjured up the mental image of a large dead cow, bloated almost beyond recognition, and crawling with writhing maggots. And it worked. Well, almost. Instead of the boulder being reduced to pebbles, I only knocked off one baseball-sized chunk from the top.
Sebastian examined the almost intact rock and then turned back to me and said with a smirk, “Definitely an improvement. There may be hope for you yet, my dear.” He draped his arm over my shoulder, which I’m sure was meant to be comforting, but in my current state of fatigue only made it more difficult to remain upright. “Your control, while not yet perfect, has earned you a reprieve from the final five miles,” he said, obviously amused. “You will only have to run an additional two.”
I whirled away from him, and before the words, “God-fucking-damn-it-you-bastard-ass wipe,” finished spewing from my lips, a nearby barrel cactus was reduced to a steamy mass of pulp and thorns.
“And you were doing so well,” Sebastian quipped as he stomped out a few lingering flames that ignited the dry brush around the remnants of the plant.
Five miles of running later, I dragged myself back to my house and collapsed on the living room sofa. The tall, handsome blonde from my sandy imaginings leaned against the nearby kitchen counter, his vivid cornflower-blue eyes trailing over my exhausted body. Without comment, he tossed a small, damp towel at me and went to the refrigerator.
I managed to croak out a feeble, “Thanks, Alex,” as I laid the damp terry-cloth over my face. I met Alex Sunderland when he came to Tucson to find out what happened to his missing friend and fellow Xyzok. Together, we managed to find Sebastian’s body — which was held as a sort of trophy by the thug, Otto Kashanian, and return his spiritual essence to its rightful place. In the end, Alex became my lover and when it seemed apparent I needed remedial magical anger management, he convinced Sebastian to come back and teach me some self-control. I’m pretty sure Alex didn’t want to risk damaging our new relationship by being the hard-ass restraint coach. With Sebastian taking on that role, Alex didn’t have to worry about me potentially smothering him in his sleep.
Blissfully, the cool compress dissipated some of the burning in my cheeks, but the rest of my body still felt like it was trapped in a blast furnace. Vinnie, my male calico cat, jumped onto the sofa and acted as if he hadn’t seen me in weeks. How typically feline; if I wanted him there, he’d ignore me. Now, his greatest pleasure was jamming his extra warm kitty-self against me when I was already dripping and over-heated. After leaving what seemed like most of his fur stuck to my sweaty legs, he hissed at Sebastian before disappearing into the other room. Vinnie hadn’t been fond of Sebastian’s essence when it was trapped in me, and even when the Xyzok was returned to his own body, the cat’s disposition toward him hadn’t improved.
Alex approached the couch holding a big glass of chocolate milk. He asserted that the newest human exercise physiology studies proclaimed chocolate milk the perfect after-workout foodstuff; something about the mix of carbs, protein and such. Of course, these were the same folks that had once declared a big steak dinner as the ultimate fare to refill the tank after vigorous exercise. In a couple of years, the milk thing would be passé and some other latest and greatest would be in vogue. I was happy that the current fad was something that didn’t make me want to hurl.
“How’d it go, carisa?” he said as he handed me the beverage.
Carisa was his new pet name for me. I liked the way it sounded, and it wasn’t nearly as cheesy as if he called me “dearest,” which is what the word meant in his native language. I had just enough energy left to lift the glass to my mouth, but I was too exhausted to answer, so I responded with a muffled grunt. The milk was cold and sweet, and pretty darn satisfying.
Feeling a bit less worn out after slurping down my post-torture treat, I took a moment to gaze at Alex, who was currently sitting next to me and massaging my sore calves. While he concentrated on kneading my leg muscles, I was able to study him without interruption.
Lean but well-muscled, Alex was ruggedly handsome. He looked about 30 — the same age as me — but, in fact he was pushing 125. The Coursodon were extremely long-lived; Sebastian was over 250 years-old. Although I vowed to never date anyone more than 10 years older than me, in this case I decided to make an exception. Because, even though Alex was born in the same year that Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony premiered and Vincent Van Gogh lopped off his own ear, he was way hot.
Normally, the kind of attention Alex was paying to my legs would progress to more northerly regions of my lower half. But right now, the thought of anything other than just lying there was too much movement to contemplate. Plus, all Coursodon — Alex included — were blessed with a heightened sense of smell and I really, really needed a shower.
When I had recovered enough to form a coherent sentence, I finally replied, “It went about as well as one might expect. He made me run 15 miles and I annihilated an innocent cactus. The good news is I am too worn out to avenge the poor plant’s honor by similarly dispatching ‘Sebastard’. He can live to torment me another day.”
“In truth, Alexander, she is showing improvement,” Sebastian began. Now he was leaning on the kitchen counter, his expression conveying his usual pompous attitude toward my less than stellar anger management skills. “She managed to control her destructive powers for a few moments. Much better than yesterday.”
I shifted my head slightly — a completely unnecessary expenditure of energy given my condition — before I scowled, but I wanted to make sure Sebastian saw me. In truth, my control was better; yesterday I had run half as far and ended up incinerating a large cottonwood tree as well as a roadside memorial dedicated to someone named Madge.
It had been four weeks since it became apparent that Sebastian had left some of his magical ability in me when he had been successfully transferred from my body back to his own. Of course, I didn’t realize I had a STD — supernaturally transmitted deposit — until I lost my temper after a particularly irksome phone conversation with my mother and used my newly acquired “gift” to destroy my kitchen table.
Aside from my achievements in demolition, the rest of my magical repertoire was decidedly remedial. Normally, Coursodon children develop magically much like a human child learning to read. Which is fortunate for Coursodon mothers, because, really, who wants to deal with a terrible two-year-old who can fling you across the room when having a tantrum? Around the age of three, Courso kids can accomplish uncomplicated feats — like elevating a small toy a few feet off the ground. As they grow up, their supernatural abilities increase slowly and in age-appropriate ways.
Regrettably, I was decidedly lacking in the hocus-pocus department. After a month of tutoring from Alex, I couldn’t even make a napkin rise up more than an inch before it flopped back to its original position. But Sebastian’s power was prolific and the small amount left in me was enough to do a lot of harm if I proved incapable of controlling it. I tried. I really did. But when I got mad, all bets were off. And it was harder to reign myself in when I was tired, which was why Sebastian worked me so hard.
The constant workouts were exhausting, but a pleasant byproduct was that I now found myself in the best shape of my life. In addition to all the running, Sebastian had me work on my upper body strength. Now I could bench-press close to my own weight and I even had definition in my abs, like a two-pack. And my body fat went from average-for-a-woman 24%, down to 14%, a number which even an elite athlete would be proud. I was a lean, mean, fighting machine. Well, I was lean.
Up until now, my l
ack of composure had only resulted in property damage, but I had to be certain that I wouldn’t accidentally zap someone instead of something. So, until I mastered my issues, I couldn’t chance being around any humans. That restriction was getting more and more difficult to explain to my friends. None of them had any idea that there was a parallel dimension, much less that Alex wasn’t human and I had been gifted with magical abilities. We had to come up with a plausible story for me becoming a recluse that would also make anyone think twice about visiting. Like a disease. It had to be something contagious, not lethal and not too weird that it might somehow garner the notice of the nice folks at the county health department. And if it entailed some sort of potentially disfiguring manifestations, that was an added bonus.
Thus, I kept my friends safe from an accidental magical catastrophe with fake chicken pox. My regular friends could be kept at bay by my claims that I was too hideous to be seen, but my best friend, Rachel, would not be so easily dissuaded. It helped that I knew she had never had the dreaded childhood ailment, and was too afraid of shots to get vaccinated. I also knew that there was no way she would risk getting a disease that could leave scars on her beautiful and pampered face, especially if I assured her that Alex was taking excellent care of me.
To assuage her guilt, she did send over a case of calamine lotion and a vat of some soothing oatmeal soak. I had no idea what to do with a lifetime supply of the pinkish anti-itch treatment, but Alex and I put the bath treatment to good use. Well, most of it ended up sloshed all over the bathroom because of an overly acrobatic sexual encounter in the tub.
After divorcing my cheating husband, I began a three-year period of celibacy. It really wasn’t that difficult to remain chaste; I had no interest even in dating. Now that Alex and I were together, though, I was definitely making up for lost time. I had been afraid that I might have completely lost my sex drive, but it was like the libido switch that had been turned off all those years was flipped on when Alex’s penis first entered my vagina. There wasn’t one piece of furniture in my tiny, rented guest house upon which we hadn’t done the lust and thrust. At least during the first week of our official couplehood. Sebastian showed up soon after my initial magical meltdown and took up residence on the sofa, an arrangement that put a bit of a damper on our erotic adventures.
