Planet Urth Boxed Set

by Jennifer Martucci

“So? What the hell does that have to do with me?”

  Arianna didn’t want to argue. She just wanted someone with her when she confronted him, a witness that he existed, that he was real. She quickly searched her mind for a reason that would motivate Stephanie.

  “It’s a guy I know. He’s single and loaded, but I guess I’ll see him another time.”

  She could practically see Stephanie’s brain working. She tossed a lock of platinum blonde hair over her shoulder and took Arianna’s hand and began moving through the crowds. A sea of swaying bodies, changing faces and snippets of shouted conversations became disorienting. Unsure of which corner she’d seen the mystery man in, she stopped.

  “What are you doing?” Stephanie yelled. “I thought we were going to see your rich friend.”

  “I think he left already,” Arianna fumbled for an excuse. “Since you took so long to come with me,” she added and worried she would suffer Stephanie’s wrath at any second. When it did not come, she nearly sighed aloud in relief.

  “I need a smoke,” Stephanie said. “Let’s dip outside, okay?”

  Arianna glanced around nervously. “What about Luke and the others?” she asked.

  “We can’t take our drinks outside, and I’m not leaving them lying around here,” Stephanie cautioned.

  “Gotcha,” Arianna replied.

  Stephanie turned and began leading them toward the perimeter of the club in search of an exit door. They stumbled through throngs of people until they found one and opened it.

  “Wait,” Arianna said to Stephanie as she stepped out. “What if we can’t get back in this door?”

  “We’ll go around to the front if we have to. Our hands are stamped.”

  The door led into a dimly lit alleyway. Sodium vapor lamps provided meager light as well as an eerie jaundiced glow. Dumpsters lined the walls and added to the depressing ambience.

  “This is gross,” Arianna said. “Let’s go back in and go out front to smoke, you know, where there’s no garbage or rats.”

  “Whatever,” Stephanie answered curtly.

  Arianna tugged the handle to the metal door and, as she expected, the door had locked from the inside.

  “Great. We’re locked out,” Arianna said sarcastically.

  “Who gives a shit?” Stephanie said with a slurred voice as she lit her cigarette clumsily, the ecstasy and alcohol clearly affecting her coordination.

  “Um, I do. It’s not safe back here.”

  “Don’t be such a chickenshit.”

  “Call me whatever you want, we’re not staying back here,” Arianna said then added, “One of us has to use her brain here.”

  Arianna took a step forward to lead her and Stephanie out of the alleyway when a sound halted her. She stopped and listened intently.

  “What the fuck! First you wanna go. Now you wanna stay. Make up your mind!”

  “Shh!”

  Arianna listened again and heard footsteps approaching. Fear slithered like a serpent down the length of her spine and raised bumps on her skin. Her heart began to race, adrenaline flooding her system to flee from what she perceived as danger.

  “What?” Stephanie questioned belligerently.

  “Shut up!” Arianna hissed as the footsteps sounded closer. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered.

  “Someone’s already here,” a male voice called.

  “We were just leaving,” Arianna said and ducked her head down. She grabbed Stephanie by her wrist and yanked her along.

  “What’s the rush ladies?” the voice said again and two men stepped out from the shadows.

  Grungy and bedraggled looking, both men looked as though they could benefit from a shower with soap and a stiff-bristled brush. Heavily tattooed and clad in jeans, they looked as if they’d seen and committed their share of violent acts. One wore a gray bandana on his head and a black leather vest while the other had illegible tattoos scrawled across his neck.

  “I said what’s your hurry?” neck tattoo asked in a gravelly voice.

  “We have friends inside. Came out for a smoke and got locked out,” Arianna answered and tried to sound calm.

  The man with the gray bandana stepped away from the man with the tattooed neck and approached Stephanie. Arianna felt her heart slamming against her ribcage as he raked his eyes up and down their bodies, circling and stalking them like prey. Neck tattoo advanced as well. The closer he got, the more hideous he became. Silver jewelry pierced the skin of his face and ears and jingled softly as he walked and he blinked often, his nearly lashless lids straining over eyeballs that protruded. His tongue continually darted from between his thin lips like a snake sniffing out its next meal. Both men looked as if they were high on something.

  “Aren’t you both just a pleasant surprise? So pretty to look at,” neck tattoo hissed and ran his serpentine tongue over his lips again.

  “Thanks,” Arianna said flatly and slid a glance at Stephanie. “But we’re leaving. Our friends are waiting.” Stephanie looked terrified and trembled so violently her large hoop earrings quivered.

  “I don’t think so,” neck tattoo warned and closed the distance between him and Arianna. He cuffed her upper arm, his grip on it vice-like. “They can wait. We’re just getting to know each other.”

  Arianna tried to wrench her arm from him and scream, but he clapped his hand over her mouth and slammed her against the brick wall behind her. With the pressure of his hand pinning her face and head to the wall, he used his other to pull a small rectangular object from his pocket. He pushed a button on it and a shiny blade appeared. He pressed it to Arianna’s throat and said, “If you make another sound, I’ll slit your fucking throat.”

  Arianna could hear her blood roaring in her ears. The man pushed his knife against her skin and she felt the sting of skin breaking. All the while, he stared into her eyes, his own completely devoid of any sentiment whatsoever. From the corner of her eye, she saw Stephanie move, attempt to run. But the man with the bandana grabbed her before she’d taken more than two steps. He slammed Luke’s sister against the far wall and Arianna heard her head connect with the brick wall with a sickening thwack. Stephanie slid down the wall slowly until her body slumped to the ground.

  “That’s all right,” bandana man said. “She doesn’t have to be awake for this.” He then crouched down over her and lifted up her miniskirt.

  “Like what you see?” neck tattoo said to Arianna, and ran his tongue up her neck. Bile rose in the back of her throat and she thought she might vomit, fear fighting to purge the beer from her stomach. “Now you be a good little girl,” he ordered her and she felt his hands touch the hem of her miniskirt. He raised it high and revealed her thong underwear. “Oh, I like those,” he laughed approvingly.

  Suddenly the sodium vapor lamps brightened considerably, transforming from a sinister, jaundiced glow to a bright, near-white hue that pulsed all around her; through her. The world suddenly buzzed and the fear she’d felt seconds earlier melted away.

  “You think I’m gonna just let this happen,” she spat.

  “I like it when they struggle,” neck tattoo said confidently, but the look on his face betrayed his confidence. He looked shocked by her lack of fear.

  Spurred, Arianna felt her muscles bunch and strain, burning to move despite the weight of his body against her. An odd but not altogether unfamiliar sensation whispered through her body, gently at first then gained momentum immediately until it throbbed through her veins with more force than her lifeblood. The man who sought to rape her had not noticed the changes that were occurring. He did not sense Arianna’s transformation. But she had, in fact, transformed. She no longer felt fear unlike any she’d ever felt before. She no longer wanted to flee. She wanted something else entirely.

  Her stomach roiled angrily as if somersaulting over a slithering serpent that moved unendingly inside her gut. The scent of garbage from the surrounding trash bins in the alleyway intensified, but was overpowered by a different scent: Blood. The metallic s
tench of blood hung in the air like mist, overwhelming her, fueling her. Her vision, shrouded moments ago by tears and darkness, now saw clearly that blood dripped from a wound on Stephanie’s skull. Fury shook her body and the urge to kill the man before her as well as the one who hovered over Stephanie overtook her. Kill or be killed. The words passed through her with the tremors that shook her, vibrating and echoing through her core. She shoved her hands forward with strength and energy she should not have had and the man launched backward. She swept her arm up and to one side and the man’s body moved, as if he were a marionette on a string guided by her hand, and slammed against the brick wall of a neighboring building. She heard loud snaps, bones no doubt, and several of them, when his body met with the wall. In the instant that it had happened she’d wondered how she could possibly hear his bones yielding on impact. But the thought had been fleeting. The hum inside her encompassed any reason she’d possessed and drowned it out completely, and she was filled with the urge to punish the man she seemingly controlled. She retracted her hand quickly and watched as he lurched forward, impossibly, his feet not touching the ground. Then she flicked her wrist away from her body and he smashed against the wall once more. A vile thrill of excitement trilled inside of her as his form met with the wall a second time. She watched as the man with the neck tattoo fell to the concrete unmoving, his leg jutting out from beneath him unnaturally.

  Feeling her blood roaring through her veins, she turned her attention to the man with Stephanie. Stephanie’s underwear had been torn from her body and the man with the bandana had begun to unzip his pants. He produced his own blade and pressed it to Stephanie’s neck. “One more step and I’ll kill the bitch,” he said.

  At his threat, Arianna’s breaths came in short, shallow pants and she felt as though a black hole resided deep in the pit of her belly, one that could never be filled. Her eyes burned with red-hot heat as if both were glowing embers. Everything in her field of vision was bathed in crimson. She saw the man crouched over Stephanie freeze. He looked at her, shocked and confused.

  “What the fuck?” he shouted. “You’re eyes! You’re eyes are r-r-r-red!” Fear laced each of his words, but Arianna felt nothing for him. “Stay back or I’ll cut her!” he said again and pressed the point of the blade so that it produced a thin rivulet of blood. Stephanie began to stir and regain consciousness, undoubtedly in response to the pain of the blade pricking her throat.

  The coppery scent of blood filled Arianna’s nostrils once again, burning the back of her throat. All she wanted was to avenge her friend who lay littered on the ground like refuse, her skirt lifted to her waist and her underwear torn off. The man had intended to rape her, to strip from her that which was not his to take, her dignity, her worth. But Arianna would not let that happen. Her body shook as a ripple of ire passed through her, flaring to the tips of her fingers, tingling and burning. She raised her hands quickly. As her fingers lifted to the height of her shoulders, heat flashed from their tips and felt like it was arching in a scorching stream. The man rose to his feet, but not fast enough to evade her all-consuming rage. Her scarlet sight watched as he burst into flames. He rose to his feet and scampered away from Stephanie whose eyes fluttered, flames licking every part of his body. He screamed and writhed, tried to pat the flashes of fire that rose and fell like the breaths of a great beast. He howled in pain and pleaded for help as the flames grew larger and encompassed him. But Arianna did not offer help and she did not want him to feel reprieve. She wanted him to feel the fire of hell and burn.

  Arianna’s felt her own chest rise and fall, her breathing strained and labored. She looked to Stephanie who had awoken to the sight of a burning man before her.

  “W-what’s happening?” Stephanie asked groggily.

  Arianna didn’t bother answering any questions. She grabbed Stephanie and pulled her to her feet with strength that began to drain from her, leaving in its wake pain, indescribably intense pain. Every part of her ached. She tugged on the handle of the door they’d exited.

  “It’s locked, remember?” Stephanie said.

  Arianna yanked it as hard as she could and the felt the lock surrender. Thumping bass poured out from the opened door and they stepped into the darkness. The effort of opening the door had sapped what little strength had remained. She shivered, panicking about what she’d just seen, what she’d done. Her brain could not process what had just happened, her strength, her power. The club began to spin in lopsided circles and disgust ate at her. Had she killed both men? In the moment, she hadn’t cared, had actually wanted them gone, permanently. She felt the energy inside her waver and a swelling sting swept through her, tearing at her insides, branching from the center of her body and shooting out. Stephanie let go of her hand and pushed through the crowd leaving Arianna alone. The music and voices around her seemed to murmur, suddenly muffled as if she were hearing them from underwater, distorted and indistinct. Her knees threatened to give way beneath her, stabbing pain radiating from her gut.

  She hunched and clutched her stomach about to drop to the floor and curl into a ball against the blinding pain she felt when a pair of warm hands cupped her face. And just as suddenly as the pain had come, it receded like a wave. She looked up to see who held her face and drew in a sharp breath when she saw him. Tall and broad-shouldered with golden hair and blue eyes that penetrated the dimness of the nightclub, the man’s touch calmed her, yet evoked a stirring of warmth in her torso that expanded and touched the tips of her fingers and toes. Faint light from a roving spotlight shined behind him, haloing his exquisite shape, and if he’d whispered in her ear that he was an angel, she would have believed him.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” he said in a voice as beautiful as he was.

  For unclear reasons, she did not fight or protest. The man she’d seen on the side of the road twice, the same one she’d seen before she’d gone outside with Stephanie, took her hand in his and stepped forward.

  “Who are you?” she managed. “What do you want from me?’

  “You know who I am, Sola. And who I am does not matter. Who and what you are is all that matters.”

  “What? What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Take my hand and I’ll show you,” he replied.

  He pulled her close to him and the world around them disappeared, the club, the people, the tables, everything vanished from sight. Light burst into her mind, brilliant white light, and she was on a roaring wave. The warmth she’d felt moments ago filled her so fully she thought it would burst through her arms and legs. Warmth, comforting, enveloping warmth charged the center of her being. She was light. She did not feel pain or fear. Her worries disappeared like grains of sand in the wind. She was free.

  About the Authors

  Jennifer and Christopher Martucci hoped that their life plan had changed radically in early 2010. To date, the jury is still out. But late one night, in January of 2010, the stay-at-home mom of three girls under the age of six had just picked up the last doll from the playroom floor and placed it in a bin when her husband startled her by declaring, “We should write a book together!” Wearied from a day of shuttling the children to and from school, preschool and Daisy Scouts, laundry, cooking and cleaning, Jennifer simply stared blankly at her husband of fifteen years. After all, the idea of writing a book had been an individual dream each of them had possessed for much of their young adult lives. Both had written separately in their teens and early twenties, but without much success. They would write a dozen chapters here and there only to find that either the plot would fall apart, or characters would lose their zest, or the story would just fall flat. Christopher had always preferred penning science-fiction stories filled with monsters and diabolical villains, while Jennifer had favored venting personal experiences or writing about romance. Inevitably though, frustration and day-to-day life had placed writing on the back burner and for several years, each had pursued alternate (paying) careers. But the dream had never died. And Christopher suggested tha
t their dream ought to be removed from the back burner for further examination. When he proposed that they author a book together on that cold January night, Jennifer was hesitant to reject the idea outright. His proposal sparked a discussion, and the discussion lasted deep into the night. By morning, the idea for the Dark Creations series was born.

  The Dark Creations series, as well as the Arianna Rose series and the Planet Urth series, are works that were written while Jennifer and Christopher continued about with their daily activities and raised their young children. They changed diapers, potty trained and went to story time at the local library between chapter outlines and served as room parents while fleshing out each section. Life simply continued. And in some ways, their everyday lives were reflected in the characters of each series.

  As the story line continues to evolve, so too does the Martucci collaboration. Lunches are still packed, noses are still wiped and time remains a rare and precious commodity in their household, but it is the sound of happy chaos that is the true background music of their writing. They hope all enjoy reading their work as much as they enjoyed writing it.

  Books by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci:

  The Dark Creations Series (A YA paranormal romance series)

  Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising (Part 1)

  Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising (Part 2)

  Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising (Part 1&2)

  Dark Creations: Resurrection (Part 3)

  Dark Creations: The Hunted (Part 4)

  Dark Creations: Hell on Earth (Part 5)

  Dark Creations: Dark Ending (Part 6)

  The Arianna Rose Series (A paranormal romance series)

  Arianna Rose (Part 1)

  Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2)

  Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3)

  Arianna Rose: The Arrival (Part 4)

  Arianna Rose: The Gates of Hell (Part 5)