Lives of Future-Past (The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson Book 1) (26 page)

                 
     Marnn disappeared to a dimensional purgatory from which he would never escape, with a sucking sound that terminated in a loud pop. He would continue existing, but in blank nothingness. For most that was a fate worse than death.
     Draagh kneeled down and picked up his brother’s staff, left behind when the fallen mage was forever banished. Appraising the dark mage’s device, he thought he might hold onto it for a while, but then reconsidered.
     
Max will not be ready for quite some time, and when the time does come, he will find his staff just like the rest of us did.
     Mentally concentrating on the local area, he saw that Max and Jennie were safe, the children had been saved by Krynos, and that the lycan king and his top two aides were quickly dispatching the invading forces, so he decided to dispose of the staff before heading down and finishing off the invaders.
     The staff of a Primulus was no ordinary walking stick, nor even a magical object of great power. Inside it was a living entity, the
ghanlo
, and although not sentient, it had immortal life and therefore could not be killed or even disposed of. The object in which it resided could not be broken; it was not affected by the elements, and it withstood the ravages of the deadliest radiation and even the burning fires of a sun. Prīmulī could change the object in which their ghanlo resided, and Draagh himself had carried his in the form of a sword many centuries before (when he used to pal around with Vikings). The
staffs of minor-mages were indeed simply wooden objects through which they channeled their abilities and collected some 3D computational data, but for the most part they were as valuable as a wooden pole. Draagh’s ghanlo was nearly old as the galaxy itself, as it was created when he was – so connected were the two.
     As he stood there, with Marnn’s staff in his hands, he felt it best to send it far away, in a place that not even he could find, to rest within an object of cultural importance (as was standard practice with a mageless staff) that was not of his knowledge. The ghanlo had already terminated its connection with Marnn as soon as its former patron was banished, so it would simply wait until again claimed.
     He gazed upon the black pole with an ornate headstock and then, setting it down, brought up his own infoscreen and started randomly typing data into the seemingly intangible interface. Before he could finish his 4d slip data entry, which would take the staff, Socrates coalesced into view.
     “Lord Draagh, greetings.”
     “Greetings, old friend. How are you?”
     “If what you ask regards my well-being, as I am technically not a being, then nothing has changed Query: Are you attempting to send Marnn’s staff to another world?”
     “I am indeed. You are aware of the law.”
     “Yes, my Lord. Data is not to be saved. The staff shall truly be lost until its next user is attracted to its frequency.”
     “That is correct. Would you be so kind as to verify the four-dimensional coordinates and make sure that I am not sending this to the center of a sun, or into a black hole?”
     Socrates slowly spun to port, as he usually did while computing data, especially the Kamiliak Equation. When he was done, he slowly came to a stop, errant particles flowing back into the floating mask.
     “The equation is complete, my Lord. The ghanlo shall be safe.”
     “You are not to save this data, so states the law.”
     “That is correct my Lord. However, data is energy, and energy is never permanently lost -it is simply repurposed.”
    Draagh sighed, and looked to the stars. He knew not where he was sending the ghanlo, but he was certain it would not be found until it was meant to be found, and hopefully, the new owner would not fall to darkness, as his now-banished brother had done. He pushed a symbol on his infoscreen and Marnn’s staff vanished from site with a small popping sound.
     He then turned and raced down the pathway to the closest stairway, as Socrates dissolved from view.

     Deep within the walls of the castle, Liliana dropped to the ground inside her vertical access tunnel, having reached the dungeon where the phase 3 lycans were being housed. Howls and snarls immediately commenced, all having detected her scent. She used the same cantus as before, blowing out the iron grate and cautiously sticking her head out, looking in every direction for any sort of danger.
     After determining that no one was loose in death form, she crept down the corridor, attempting to find Jennie - the only problem was that she didn’t know what Jennie looked like in phase 3.
     Liliana peered into each and every cell, with nearly every werewolf growling and snapping hungrily at her. She had almost reached the end when she saw two very particular werewolves in adjacent cells. One, a female, had a particularly glossy black coat and was relatively small in size compared to the others. The male in the cell next to the female had a medium brown coat, and was slightly larger. The odd thing was that they both seemed so calm, simply sitting on their hindquarters and keeping as close together as they could, despite their common wall.
Liliana took one look and knew that they were Jennie and Max.
     “Jennie! I know it is you. I am so glad you are safe, but we need your help for we have been attacked by the enemy – vampires are in the castle, and a battle continues as I speak.”
     Phase 3 Jennie just sat and looked at the little girl without moving. The little girl neared the cage that housed her transformed friend, and for a moment it seemed as if she could reach out and touch the werewolf, but the its face suddenly contorted and snarled, as it snapped at the little girl.
     Scared, Liliana jumped back, a tear rolling down her small cheek, as she knew that she had to try to help her to change back with something untested. Frightened, she pulled out the power gauntlet. The werewolf had stopped snarling, and was watching the little girl put the quadrinium device onto her hand. Then, as if knowing what was to happen, it sat in the middle of the cage and closed its eyes. Liliana lifted the gauntlet with purpose, and pointed it at her friend.
    
“Electrincantatio quassatio!”
     A massive burst of electricity shot out from the glove and hit phase 3 Jennie squarely in the chest, knocking the werewolf back against the wall, with ample amounts of smoke and the stink of burnt fur filling the air.
     “Jennie! No! Jennie!” cried out the little lycan. “Please don’t be dead! Please wake up!”
     For a moment it appeared that Jennie was indeed no longer alive, but upon closer inspection Liliana saw that her friend was not only breathing, but also changing back to her day form.
     Slowly, muscles retracted, bones reformed and she shed her singed fur, with her lustrous black hair growing back exactly as it was before she had suffered her very first transformation earlier that evening. After approximately one minute, a beautiful and naked Jennie Escalante was laying on the floor of her cell.
     Liliana rushed up to the bars, as the lock automatically released, having intelligently detected its occupant’s transformation to phase 1. She pushed the door completely open and ran inside, first getting Jennie her clothing that had been hung on a wooden dowel on the wall of her cell.

     “Jennie! Jennie! You are ok! I came for you. I was so worried! There are vampires in the castle!”
     Jennie groggily lifted her head and said, “V-v—vampires? In… the castle? Huh?”
     “Yes! The bad vampires came and Draagh and Krynos and Donus have been fighting them, but they need help!”
     Jennie looked around, getting her head together as she regained her senses.
     “Liliana, did you blast me with the gauntlet?”
     “Yes…” she said sheepishly, afraid that she was going to be scolded.
     

     “Great! You remembered! I knew you were cool! Ok, now do it to Max!”
     “Really? You want me to?”
     “Yeah, and blast him good. Boys need to be shocked more.”
     Liliana got a devilish grin on her face, and standing back, she uttered the same cantus as before, but this time keeping the gauntlet trained on her target a little longer, not knowing that what Jennie had told her was an exaggeration - the woman just wanted to see Max get jolted a bit.
     Max’s lupine body was blasted into the back wall with a concussive force that even startled Jennie. The werewolf was lying on the ground with not only smoke emanating from his wound where the little girl had pointed her weapon, but he was actually on fire. Luckily, the fire quickly dissipated once his changing form shed the fur that had covered his canid form. Unfortunately, the rancid smell of burnt fur and flesh remained.
     “Um, shit… I think maybe that was a bit too much, sweety.”
     “Oh, Jennie. Did I hurt him? And what does it mean, this
shit
?”
     “Erm, he’ll be fine, and uh… it means…um, just don’t say it, ok?”
     “Ok,” said the little girl while smiling broadly.
     Max regained his senses and looked up as the lock on his cell door released with a loud clunking sound. Standing up, he saw Jennie and Liliana staring at him. It took a moment before he realized he was stark naked, with Jennie eyeing him appraisingly, but Liliana looking with a face of slight disgust because he was, after all, a boy in her eyes. Max thought this was incredibly unfair, as he had been denied the opportunity to witness Jennie in her full glory earlier in the evening.
     “Wow, not bad, Max, not bad,” she said as she wiggled her eyebrows.
     “Oh, shut it, Jennie. Hey, are we done?”
     He put on his tunic and trousers and walked out of his cell, grabbing his shoes, which were placed on the ground directly out front by the central barrier (to keep him from sniffing and chewing on his own shoes while in phase 3).

     “Um, no, Max. Liliana knocked us out of phase 3 with my power gauntlet – apparently the castle has been attacked by vampires.”
     “Oh, that’s what hurt………. Holy shit! Vampires?”
     “Jennie, why can Max say
shit,
but I cannot?”
     “I’ll explain later, sweety. Max, we gotta get up above. We need weapons.”
     Max looked at a huge cabinet on the near wall, and bounding over to it, threw the doors open, finding it chock-full of swords. Calling back, he said, “Hey Liliana, wake some other people up. Just start doing whatever you did to me! Just not as hard… please.”
     “Yay! Cool shit!”
     “Liliana, honey, we don’t use the word that way.”
     “Actually Jennie, that was a pretty good—”
     “Shut up, Max!”
     The sweet little girl from future-past just smiled back at Jennie, and then turned back toward the cages. With a wicked grin she started zapping every werewolf she saw, while Max grabbed their katanas from the cabinet. Once the first lycan awoke – a lieutenant named Roy – Jennie briefed him on the situation and the need to get everyone up above. Roy stated he would take care of forming a battle group, and would go up top shortly. He then turned to supervise the recently awoken, while looking for potential crashers. Wishing each other good luck, Max went for the stairs, but Jennie called him out, asking him to hold on for a moment.
     Turning to her little friend, Jennie said, “Liliana – what you did was very brave, but also dangerous. How did you get down here?”
     “I climbed down through little corridors in the walls.”
     “Ah, the ventilation and access tunnels – very smart. I am so proud of you, but now I need you to hide. Can you hide?”
     The little pigtailed lycan nodded enthusiastically.
     “Very good – hide and don’t come out until the sun rises, ok sweety?”
     “Ok!”
     Jennie gently helped Liliana to slip the gauntlet off her hand, and then placed it on her own. Turning and running for the stairs, Max took the cue and headed up in the lead. As they had both eaten while in death form, they had ample reserves, but knew they would need to stuff something else in their mouths if they were to last until the sun rose.
     Reaching the first floor, they quickly dispatched a group of bottom-tier vampire soldiers with their katanas, soaking the floor with copious amounts of blood. They then ran through the main hall, Jennie stopping near some piles of ash, which captured her curiosity.
     “I wonder what this is…” she queried.
     “They were vampires, but were killed with platinum or palladium. Even rhodium or iridium – all the same metal family.”
     “What’s the difference? Why are they ash? I mean, when I kill with my sword they just bleed out.”
     “The molecular composition of anything from the platinum family operates on a vibrational frequency antagonistic to the salubots that flow in our system. That’s why it hurts when lycans touch platinum or palladium, but with vampires, the metal causes
their
bots to freak out and basically incinerate them - if the metal makes contact with their blood.”
     “Old-Earth fiction said that only silver was painful to lycans.”
     “Yeah, silver. Right,” said Max. They both chuckled for a moment, and then concentrated on the sounds and smells of the immediate area. The scents of vampires, lycans and, unfortunately, some dead normals littered the air, giving Max and Jennie ample indication of where to go next. Suddenly, and without warning, two werewolves leaped over the hall, going from one side of the mezzanine to the other, startling Jennie.
     “Don’t worry, they’re wearing Draagh’s armor, so they have brains,” said Max, noting Jennie’s alarmed expression.
     “They’re onto something. Leave them, and let’s go join the fun outside.”
     But before they could get out the doorway to the courtyard, a massive throng of vampires that had waited on the perimeter of the castle during the invasion rushed them. These were not lower-caste sacrificial soldiers, but mid-level troops, and they had the experience to match.
     The two immediately converted to their battle form, which instantly doubled their strength. Lycans in day form were already on par with the average vampire – but these were not average vampires. They were stronger than their inferior brothers.
     Nearly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of rotting troops, Max and Jennie slashed and hacked their way toward the doorway, but each time they seemed to get close they were pushed back by a counterattack. Max threw numerous UV light cantuses, debilitating roughly half the vampires in the hall, but it was a major mistake, as he had nearly depleted his yellow line, and only had room for two more cantuses before he would suffer a substantial timeout period. His inexperience in battle was proving to be his undoing. To fight two or three vampires in an open field was one thing, but dozens of attacking mid and high-level troops in an enclosed space was something he had never trained nor accounted for.
     Suffering numerous bites and scratches, Max and Jennie were depleting resources at an astounding rate. If a vampire were to bite a lycan there would be no risk of infection, as they lycan virus basically fights off and eliminates the invading organisms, just as the vampire virus fights off that of the lycan when the tables are turned. Still, the wounds they were suffering taxed them severely, as was evident by their shrinking health lines in their readouts.
     Separated from each other for the first time in a battle, Max was overcome with rage and despair. He needed to get to Jennie and fight to keep the enemy off her, but the harder he tried to get through to her the further away he was pushed. He continued to kick, punch and hack the enemy with his katana and all of his enhanced strength, but was unable to get into position and deliver fatal blows.
Taking an incredible chance, he levitated himself up over the crowd and saw Jennie back in the corner of the room being beaten savagely, with blood all over her face and clothing, as she used part of a broken table as a makeshift shield.
     He couldn’t use a gravecantus to blow off her attackers because he would injure her at the same time – he just didn’t have the experience to be able to pick and choose who precisely was affected by his magical skills, especially in the case of an area-wide attack, as was the gravecantus. It was all he could do to protect her with a simple shield – one that kept her from being stabbed by an errant blade, but could not relieve her of the mounting pressure that pushed her back into a corner.
 He then decided to float over and try to pull her out. If he could not, he would drop down in the crowd and be by her side no matter the outcome. Quickly gliding over, he tried to reach down and grab her hand as she reached up to him, calling his name out, a look of terror painted on her normally beautiful face.
     She was going to die. Right there - in front of Max.
     He failed to grab her hand, and seeing she had a knife sticking out of her arm and was about to go down for the last time, he did the only thing he could.
    
If Jennie dies, she dies in my arms and I’ll go with her.
     Max dropped down into the crowd and desperately hacked and slashed his way to her side. Pulling out his smaller sword, called a
tachi
, he did all he could to keep the attacking troops away from the woman, taking the brunt of their abuse and trying to give her precious seconds to live.
     All seemed lost, with everything going by in agonizingly slow motion. As he fought harder and harder while keeping his back pressed up against Jennie and making sure she was pinned back into the corner, he started to lose consciousness. The edges of his vision started to fade to black -his existence was ending right there. With Jennie behind him and in a final moment of desperation he executed a gravecantus, pushing back nearly all of the attacking soldiers - only to see them bound back up and attack again.
     Turning around he wrapped his arms around her, using his massive back as a shield against the marauding troops and said, “I’m sorry, Jennie. Please, I’m so sorry…”
     He felt a knife penetrate the meat of his shoulder as clubs beat him over the head, but he was feeling peace. He had resigned himself to death. His only regret was that he never got the chance to hold her – to tell her how he felt.
     He was near an unconscious state when out of his almost nonexistent peripheral vision he saw a brilliant flash – a blinding white, followed by screams. The pressure on his back was gone. He had no idea what had happened, but he would die with Jennie in his arms. Was it Heaven? Was it some sort of afterlife? He had heard stories of people seeing bright white lights when they died and were later revived.
     Then, without further warning, everything went black.