Portals of Infinity: Kaiju

by John Van Stry

  "So that was why you killed him?"

  "Oh no, I killed him because he betrayed me, because his god betrayed my Roden. Do you know that Roden likes you?"

  I stopped and turned my head to look at her, "Seriously?"

  She nodded, "When you escorted those followers, after that idiot had killed your friend, that impressed him. You actually felt bad about what you'd done to me, and what you'd caused to happen, even though it was no fault of your own.

  "Roden is real big on loyalty and honor and all that kind of stuff. It's a big deal to him."

  "Yet he didn't stop you from that ambush," I pointed out.

  "That was my idea. I'd heard all about your reputation, I was scared of you, Will. I thought you were going to kill me when you first met me. And don't think Roden let me off easy for that either, he was pretty mad at me as well.

  "I got my hands slapped over that one," She sighed.

  I sat back, smiled at her, and gave her a kiss. "See? Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

  Evean smiled back, "No, it wasn't. So now what?"

  "Now we go upstairs to the room I rented for the next three days."

  "Only three?" Evean pouted.

  I laughed and scooped her up in to my arms and carried her off to the room.

  "Don't worry; I warned them we might be longer than that."

  END

  After Word

  If you enjoyed this book, I would be grateful if you could share that appreciation by giving the book a good rating, or a good review.

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  And thank you all again for reading!

  John Van Stry

  www.vanstry.net (vanstry@gmail.com)

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  If you liked this book, you might like my other stories:

  Urban/Modern Fantasy:

  Portals of Infinity, Book One: Champion for Hire

  William is just your typical engineer fresh out of college with a stressful job, a boring life, and not a lot of prospects of anything better in the future.

  Until one weekend while hiking in the woods he stumbles across a portal to another time, or perhaps another place. The more he investigates this new world the more he realizes that it may just be able to offer him a lot more than the one he's been living in.

  However, there are forces at work beyond anything that Will has ever come across before and the local goddess seems to have taken a liking to him. Will may soon find himself getting an offer he cannot afford to refuse.

  Portals of Infinity, Book Two: The God Game

  Will’s life has definitely changed since that day he went hiking in the woods of Pennsylvania. He’s discovered that reality is a lot bigger and stranger than he had ever imagined. Learning about the portals that link the infinite number of worlds opened his eyes to that wider reality. Learning that he was being groomed to become the Champion of a God in one of those realities was an even more startling discovery.

  But now it’s time for him to pay the bill for his ‘recruitment’. Just as the Gods on a single world fight and jockey for power and position, the older Gods from the many different spheres of the infinite play a much larger and more complicated game. The Goddess Aryanna has a quest she needs completed, and William and four other Champions are the ones tasked to do it.

  What bothers Will however is what could a Goddess possibly need? And why would it take five Champions to retrieve it?

  Portals of Infinity, Book Three: Of Temples and Trials

  With the first of what he suspects will be many favors completed, William finds himself busy with important tasks back at his home on Saladin. Queen Rachel has several jobs she needs him to do, and Feliogustus has similar tasks in mind for him as well. All in all, it seems easy enough to Will, it’s not like he’ll be fighting in any wars, or traveling across the infinite on a strange quest after all.

  But things aren’t always as easy as they might seem, and both politics, as well as the other gods, aren’t going to ignore Will, or the tasks he’s been set to complete. And is if dealing with that isn’t problem enough, when the time comes to do some serious diplomacy between Hiland and a neighboring Kingdom, a deadly problem comes from a most unexpected quarter, forcing Will to take immediate action to payback both his, and his God’s foes.

  Portals of Infinity, Book Four: The Sea of Grass

  With no otherworld tasks to run for Fel, Will has spent the last year mainly helping Rachel consolidate her hold on her expanded kingdom. Barassa has been set back, for now, but Will knows it’s only a matter of time until they’re at odds once more and Barassa still has the bigger army. So taking the time to learn more about their enemy seems like a good place to start, and of course, Rachel has more things she expects him to do, even if he has no idea just how he’s going to do them.

  Fel also has things for Will to do as well, even if they are the more mundane jobs that a Champion of the faith must perform. Escorting missionaries isn’t the most exciting or glamorous job, but its one Will must do. At least the people are different, interesting, and friendly, and some perhaps a little too friendly. But that’s never gotten him in trouble before, right?

  Portals of Infinity, Book Five: Demigods and Deities

  Life can be complicated for those who the gods pick as their champions, and for William, it's no different. Between dealing with issues at home and abroad for his god, and helping Queen Rachel defend Hiland against the threat of Barassa, William has been busy.

  With a trip back to Sireen to deal with one of the consequences of an earlier quest, William finds he has more to deal with than expected, especially when his youngest is kidnapped for unknown reasons by a god with a grudge. That leads to some further discoveries about one of his earlier enemies, as well as enigmatic instructions from his god about his child. A child that there is more to, than it would seem.

  Portals of Infinity, Reprisal

  William is the champion of a god in the sphere that he now calls home. Being a champion comes with certain powers and advantages; however it can also come with fearful and powerful enemies. When William's oldest enemy attacked his family, Will chased him across several realities, until he caught up with him, and finally slew him.

  However, champions always come back.

  Fortunately for William, his enemy was damaged years ago in one of their earlier fights, and it will be almost a year until he can come back, this time. Unfortunately for William his enemy is becoming a demigod, and if not stopped soon he may one day become too powerful for William to kill.

  The Hammer Commission

  Mark just watched his partner and best friend of ten years torn limb from limb by the kind of unholy horror which leaves most people gibbering in terror. Only a combination of luck and skill kept Mark from sharing his partner's fate and being killed by an abomination that by rights shouldn't exist in this day and age.

  When asked, Mark tells people he works recovering stolen artifacts, and that's true. However he's also a member of a very old and secret organization that protects the world from devils and demons summoned here to do evil. A foot soldier on the front lines of the eternal war between Heaven and Hell, things had been favoring the side of Heaven for some time now. Until today that is, when someone discovered how to summon a devil that no one had seen since WWII.

  N
ever popular with his boss, Mark finds himself sidelined as he tries to discover just what happened. Upset with being taken off the case, Mark does discover one thing rather quickly: whoever is behind this is now after him, and if he's not careful he'll be joining his partner sooner, rather than later.

  The King of Las Vegas (A Hammer Commission Novel)

  An American college student on holiday in India, Rafael fell afoul of a Rakshasa, an old and very powerful tiger-demon. When he finally manages to escape from his captivity, he is left with two small problems; the first is that he is now a Rakshasa himself, the second is that India is deporting him.

  So just where can a shape-shifting tiger-demon find acceptance in America?

  Las Vegas of course. But before he can claim his territory, there are a few small problems he'll have to clean up, like a fifty year old vampire infestation that the church and the government have been failing to control for years.

  Then there is the problem of finding enough raw emotions to feed his powers, most Rakshasa feed off of hate and anger, but Rafael is an American and is far more obsessed with sex, love, and other, more positive feelings. Things which are easily found in 'Sin City'. But when he discovers that performing onstage works so much better, well there's only one thing for a shape-shifting monster to do, and that's to become the King of Las Vegas.

  Lost Souls (Shrean Universe)

  Jarith was exiled from Elsheval, one of the great Elvin kingdoms, eight years ago for political reasons. A powerful and loyal warrior who led the Queen's armies to many victories, he was angry and upset, but he followed his orders and left. Now, eight years later, he is being summoned back from his exile to deal with a problem that apparently the Queen believes only he can handle.

  Despite his still strong feelings over this betrayal, his desire to see his home and family wins out and he decides to answer the call. But living an exile among humans for the last eight years has left its mark on him, having been forced to hide his Shrean form from those who wouldn't understand.

  And what of the lover Jarith was forced to leave behind? The woman he once thought destined to be his? How will all of this affect her?

  Science Fiction:

  Children of Steel

  Raj is just your average everyday genetically modeled and artificially created anthropomorphic worker for one of the many corporations of the future. Extensively trained and conditioned from birth he's now indentured for the next fifty years of his life; assuming he doesn't die first, or somehow manage to pay off his creation and training debts.

  Created by the corporations to deal with the harsh labor shortages of the twenty second century when humans will no longer take on the dangerous jobs Raj finds himself now in the harsh world of space exploration, trading, corporate maneuverings, and sometimes the even more dangerous fanatics that hate Raj and his fellows. No longer in safe confines of the training academies he must learn how to live and deal with both his fellow workers and the humans he encounters and not get saddled with extra bills or fines because he's screwed up or worse yet, get 'put down' because he's lost his temper one time too many.

  After all, it's not like he's human...

  Interregnum (Sequel to Children of Steel)

  The war is over, Raj and Cassandra are together, and everything should be 'happily ever after', and return to normal, right?

  Well, they would be, but Cassandra still has issues to overcome after spending three years in POW camps where abuse and even torture were commonplace and many of the guards were sadists. Raj has gotten over most of his problems, after all, he did save his mate's life, but there are still issues from his past that are dogging him. And of course, there are just a few minor things that need to be cleaned up, leftover issues from the war, and some of those issues shoot back.

  Interregnum is the sequel to 'Children of Steel' and picks up where it left off, continuing to follow the life of Raj, a genetic construct and wage slave to one of the major corporations that dominate Human explored space.

  Danger Money

  Jotun was born and bred to be a corporate assassin, back in the days of the Corporate Wars. Confined these days to life in a gilded cage, Jotun welcomes any opportunity to get out and lately he's been getting out a lot. But as a genetically designed and Laboratory bred animorph by a company that isn't quite sure if it trusts him anymore his choices are few: do the jobs that eventually will kill him, or refuse, which will also kill him.

  Of course it isn't like he doesn't enjoy the work, but when everybody wants you dead you start to wonder if there isn't more to life.

  When an unexpected betrayal kills the few friends he has and nearly him as well, Jotun realizes he has bigger problems than his lifestyle, namely finding out who betrayed him and paying them back, no matter what the cost.

  Danger Money is a Science Fiction story that takes place in my Children of Steel universe, a future where genetically created animorphs serve as second-class citizens and handle all of the dirty and dangerous jobs that are part of humanity's extension to the stars.

  Dialene

  Dialene's Captain decided to play pirate, and one well placed nuclear torpedo later she finds herself prisoner of the Corporation whose ship they were attempting to raid; her friends and lover all dead. With no corporation to ransom her back she finds herself in the unenviable position of having to work off the debt assigned to her for her part in her Captain's actions. With concerns as to where her loyalties lie she has but two choices: Work in the mines on an airless rock where a small fem like her would not last long, or work in the company bar entertaining those very same miners.

  At least working in the bar beats the alternatives, until one day an interesting character inserts himself into her life.

  A Novella from my Children of Steel universe, Dialene is a foxmorph who until her capture was a highly rated shuttle pilot working a deep space trader for one of the more notorious corporations. Like most of her kind she had no choices in her employer who considered her nothing more than a disposable asset.