Quantum wrath, p.39
Quantum Wrath, page 39
And sure, this view did make the prospect of dimension-hopping a lot more intriguing. Not to mention the fact that destroying the fuck out of evil assholes was sort of fun with the chaos and mind-blowing sex thrown in.
So… maybe this didn’t have to be as temporary as I’d first planned.
I cleared my throat. “Might keep you around for a bit, though. You know… A handful of dimensions or so.”
One sideways glance at Lu showed me how huge her grin just became, and she twisted her head to catch my gaze in a hot-pink stare.
“Ten dimensions,” she counter-offered me.
“Six.” I smirked.
“Yep, an even dozen it is, then,” she sighed happily and settled back in on the moss. “But only with plenty of sex. No short-changing me, Heathy. This sidekick gets full pay.”
My smirk was a full-on grin now.
Fuck. It probably would be a dozen. Maybe even fifteen, if she could keep herself from getting blown up that long.
I let her sleep for more than half the night, and then I nudged her awake to get a few hours sleep myself. Over time, I had found that I didn’t need as much as a normal person, or what I remembered as a normal person, but I’d still be better for a few hours of slumber.
I woke up abruptly feeling like I was on fire from the rearing flare of my zenith, and I stretched as I took in the fact that the sky was now almost as bright as the glowing foliage above us.
And as green.
“You know,” Lu said as she surveyed the horizon, “I really won’t miss this sun. It’s just… putrid-looking, really. Even the froo-froo purple one in Laylick Land was better than this.”
“It’s Laylix,” I chuckled. “But same.”
We made our way to the edge of the forest to assess the state of the obelisk.
“Fuuuuck yeahhh,” Lu crooned with her pink eyes bulging.
I had to agree.
The obelisk was a bowed and shriveled husk of what it had been when we first glimpsed it. The putrid green sunrise silhouetted it in a similar way that the sunset had when I’d spotted it for the first time. Back then, it had looked ominous and imposing, like a viper’s eye.
But now it was the bare, wilting skeleton of a building with a heap of smoldering ashes and embers at the bottom. The glowing remains were dimmer than the flames had been, but just as colorful, like the embers of some type of radioactive driftwood fire. There were still slender tails of steam drifting gently up the green horizon, and the occasional small, blinding flare when a gas pocket collapsed amongst the rubble. The vegetation around it had apparently been too sparse and half-dead to spread the blaze very far, but it was all charred black.
“Yep,” Lu said with satisfaction. “We definitely prettied this place up.”
“Let’s venture into the city before we warp out of here,” I decided. “Get some decent food in our stomach instead of this prepackaged shit.”
“Why?” Lu groaned. “I’m just going to puke it out anyway.”
“Trust me,” I said. “If we can find anything along the lines of complex carbs, it’ll help. I’ll admit, I have no idea what the odds are of finding that here, but it’s worth a shot. And we’ll be able to hear what people are saying about–”
“The way we utterly destroyed those Unit assholes?” she gloated.
I smirked. “Something like that.”
The prospect of stroking her ego clearly wasn’t something she could turn down, and she bounded to her feet so fast that her leather skirt fluttered up to reveal every inch of her perfectly-sculpted ass.
“Oopsie,” she said primly as she flattened it around her upper thighs.
I rolled my eyes, slung my rucksack over my shoulder, and started toward the city.
I approached one of the areas where the buildings jutted out closer to the trees. At this point I wasn’t that concerned about us being found out in terms of safety, but I’d rather avoid any attention at all, good or bad. Like Lu had said, the idea of people viewing us as some sort of heroes or saviors was utterly nauseating.
The outskirts of the city were oddly empty. But as we descended into the bowl-shaped valley, I spotted many of the city squares packed with people. It seemed pointless not to indulge my curiosity at this point, so I took our course toward the nearest one.
A crowd of people was standing around the remains of one of the giant statues of Alvari. Among the rubble, I spotted the severed heads and bodies of several black jumpsuit-clad men. A dozen people spat on their corpses, and a cheerful-looking mercenary slammed his sword back into its sheath.
He leaped up onto one of the bigger pieces of rubble to address the people in the square.
“Nothing like a good old-fashioned execution to start off the dawn of a new age in Ryuqin,” he said merrily. The people in the crowd cheered and bounced on their feet, and he waited for them to quiet down before he went on. “Before last night, I would’ve said those words were utter bullshit. But that was before the man some people considered the cruel god of this place was killed.”
“How d’we know for sure that he’s dead?” one woman piped up. She shuffled nervously on her feet and looked around. “What if…?”
“He’s still alive?” the mercenary finished. He shrugged lightly. “The mercenary bands have all been in touch ever since last night. We’ve got eyes everywhere at this point as we’re hunting down those Unit sons of bitches. And let me tell you, I don’t think they’d all be acting the way they are unless he was well and truly gone. After all, you saw these sniveling bastards, didn’t you?”
The crowd jeered with laughter as they glanced at the decapitated man.
“What about the people who did this?” a man called out as he waved in the direction of the wrecked obelisk. “I know you lot have tried to claim credit, but I heard at the Shipyard that it was these two crazy insurgents who did it alone. First they took out the weapons lab–”
“I made no claims about doing it,” the mercenary said with a disgruntled look. “But I won’t pretend to know who did. Yes, there’s been talk like you heard. In fact, I heard the same as you– a sexy little blonde and a big scowly dude single-handedly saved the day. Sounds a bit overblown to me. But there’s been so much shuffling of the population with cities being evacuated to here, it’s hard to keep track of who’s coming and going. The important thing is, the Unit is at an end.”
A deafening cheer swept through the crowd, and people started to stamp their feet in time as they clapped their hands.
I continued to relay the words to Lu, and she made a face.
“‘Saved the fucking day?’” she snarled. “I swear to god…”
Despite her powers being drained, her voice seemed to gain some level of the grating quality it usually did when she was throwing a hissy fit.
Maybe that was what drew the attention of the closest group of people. Maybe it was just the sound of someone speaking a language that was blatantly not their own. Or maybe it was the provocative sight of Blondie’s skirt flaring up to reveal the curve of her ass-cheeks when she did a little hop of rage.
Whatever it was, the group’s eyes widened as soon as they laid eyes on us.
“It’s them,” one of the people gasped.
I almost groaned out loud at the adoring tone of her voice. It was the same tone someone used when they spotted a celebrity back in Hollywood in the early 2000s on Earth, back before the US had become a bunker-dominated hellscape.
And this might’ve been a whole different dimension, but apparently, one of the constants of human nature was that people went fucking batshit when they did this.
“C’mon,” I grunted.
I seized Lu by the arm and pulled her along with me.
She tore out of my grasp and took off at a run, and I did the same. The people soon fell behind us, but the collective screech that ran through them grew and spread.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Lu hissed in a revolted voice that jolted with each step. “Are they seriously–?”
She cut off as a band of people rounded the corner ahead of us. When they caught sight of us, they all pointed and cheered.
I yanked Lu’s arm to take her down a side-street with me. She let out sharp chirrups and squeaks as we pounded down the road, and for a second, they sounded like they were coming from every which way. People’s yells branched out in different directions as they sprinted after the sound, but plenty were still hurtling along behind us, too.
The roaring fire of my zenith spurred my steps until it felt like I was flying, and I thought even Lu might be struggling to keep pace.
I could see we were coming up toward one of the city squares now. It was empty, but even now there were people skidding toward it from the surrounding streets, looking in every direction like they were hunting us.
“Alright,” I grunted as I continued my dead sprint. “Ready to give these fuckers something else to tell their grandchildren about?”
“Warp right in front of them?” she panted, and a delighted grin split her face. “Bring it, Heathy. Let’s terrify them. Teach them to think twice about singing the praises of a pair of vicious, powerful–”
“Yeah, yeah, rein it in…” I seized her by the wrist as we approached the city square, and I latched onto the blinding electric pulse in my chest. We were surrounded by people, but they were all a good thirty feet away as they started to flood into the courtyard.
The energy swept through me in a blinding rush, and I clenched my hand tight around Lu’s as I threw myself into the empty air.
My whole vision went white. Screams erupted around us, but then they were swallowed up by the deafening silence of warping.
This journey was oddly short, but something about it felt more jarring than was usual for warping. There was a moment where things sort of ‘caught,’ and it felt like I was being pulled in two directions at once– one to either side.
I tightened my hold on Lu’s slender wrist, but that was all I could do.
Then I plunged into a new existence with the same feeling as plummeting into a frigid, icy lake. The impact hit me like a shock wave, but after the initial strike, it didn’t feel all too different from usual as my senses swept in one at a time.
As always, sight came first. It didn’t help much, because my surroundings were incredibly dim. All I could see was the murkiness around me as I propped myself up on my elbow.
I was vaguely aware of the smell of cold metal, and the feeling of it through my shirt. I quickly moved to get my feet under me so I could figure out what was going on.
I managed to sit up, but when I tried to stand, my muscles wouldn’t obey. It was like they got stuck when I tried to rise.
“What the hell?” I growled.
My words sounded distant and distorted, but my grunts of effort afterward sounded clearer, and they were accompanied by the sound of dry heaves from next to me.
I looked over and saw Lu with her pale limbs splayed out on the dark metal floor. She heaved a few more times and twitched all over, but finally, she rolled over onto her back, sat up, and stared around in every direction.
“Where are we?” she asked as a violent shudder shook her frame.
Her voice sounded oddly small as it echoed off into the apparent shadowy distance.
That surprised me. I’d assumed we were in a more enclosed space.
But what caught me more off guard was that someone answered her.
“What’s this?” a smooth, feminine voice asked with apparent delight. “Two changelings caught in my trap? And one of them an interloper, at that. Well, well, well…”
The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Its sound was smooth and liquidy, like warmed honey, and something made it musical and almost mesmerizing to my ears.
Despite that, the voice was about as ominous as they came, and not just because of its words. Its sinister delight, combined with the fact that I was apparently pinned down by some type of magic, made chills go down my spine.
I heard the distant sound of footsteps. They were slow and leisurely, and as the walker came into view, something shocking happened.
On her left and right, tiny shoots sprouted from the metallic ground. Within seconds they grew to saplings, and then to slender, white-trunked trees blooming with blood-red flowers.
Above her, clouds of spinning gold dust appeared. They were laced with gauzier white clouds that were almost low enough to brush against the woman’s raven-black hair.
Below her, the dark metal ground turned into a carpet of wildflowers, but she carelessly crushed their petals beneath her feet.
She was wearing black cargo pants that gathered around the ankles of her combat boots, and a black tank top that was crisscrossed by leather straps to hold at least a dozen weapons, including daggers, guns, and things I didn’t even recognize. Golden bracers covered her forearms to match a golden gorget around her throat. Gold studs and cuffs glittered on her ears and nose, too. Despite all the adornments, her panther-like gait and toned arms gave me the impression she was capable of more than just pretty, magic displays.
I narrowed my eyes.
She’d made a hell of an entrance, but I was still trying to figure out what the hell her game was.
Now that she was close, I noticed that she had elven ears. As she got even nearer, I saw her honey-colored cheeks were rosy and dappled with freckles. Something about that was ethereal, almost angelic.
But there was nothing angelic about her liquid amber eyes as she sank into a crouch next to me.
“How handsome you are for a changeling.” She traced a cold finger over my cheekbone and smiled dangerously. “I think we’ll enjoy your time here immensely. And yours too, darling.”
She reached over and moved to trace her finger across Lu’s face in the same way.
But Lu pulled away and then struck out with her teeth like a snake. Air hissed between the elf’s teeth as she yanked her hand back, and her fingers were red with blood.
“Lu,” I muttered. The last thing I wanted was to spur this elven woman into rage right now, but I was keenly aware of how low Lu’s zenith was, and that she was relying on me a lot right now. “Calm down.”
“She doesn’t like to play?” the elven woman asked with a wicked little smile.
“Oh, she loves to play,” I assured her as I saw Lu licking her bloody teeth nice and slow from the corner of my eye. “You didn’t find that fun?”
The woman shot me an annoyed glance, straightened up, and reached high to trail her bleeding finger in the golden galaxy that hovered overhead. When she pulled her hand out, it looked completely healed.
“No matter,” the elven woman said briskly. “Quite the little spitfire, though. I like that in a woman.”
Her voice was somehow both seductive and lethal sounding, but that wasn’t what caught my notice the most at this particular moment.
No, what was far more alarming were the twin, curved golden daggers that had appeared in her hands.
“Knives out already?” I asked, and I arched an eyebrow as I allowed the ghost of a grin to shadow my face. “Don’t you want to buy us dinner first? Learn a thing or two about who, and what, you’re toying with?”
“I don’t generally consort with my prisoners,” she countered. Then she tilted her head as she roamed her amber eyes over every inch of me. “But your… style of arrival was intriguing. And, well, you certainly do have a way about you. Even the sound of your voice…”
She trailed off as her eyes finished their leisurely journey across my skin, and our eyes locked again.
“Perhaps I should keep you as my plaything,” she said thoughtfully. Then she licked her lips in a way that took any hint of ambiguity out of the words. “Your charming friend would be a welcome addition to our coupling.”
I chose to bite my tongue as I tried to figure out what the hell this woman’s angle was. She seemed to be genuinely weighing this idea rather than saying it just for show.
“But in any case,” she went on in an airy voice. “These aren’t only knives, sweetling. They have other uses.”
She raised the golden objects, and two thin, gold rods the length of toothpicks slid smoothly out of the inside of each crescent. Each rod had a flat circle the size of a penny at its end.
The elven woman smiled again as she reached out and positioned one of the crescent-shaped devices over my throat. The gold rods lengthened until the penny-sized discs were pressed flat against my skin.
“Yes,” she said softly. “We’ll start with you, I think.”
She licked her lips as she stepped back and raked her eyes over every inch of my body.
Her gaze seemed oddly ambiguous, like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to torture me or tear the clothes off me. She very much seemed like the type who enjoyed dismembering her prisoners one digit at a time, but the heated look in her amber eyes was enough to send liquidy arousal straight through any mortal man with a pulse.
Oddly enough, this scary-sexy combo was a “type” I wasn’t wholly against getting to know these days.
But either way, this sure as hell was going to be an interesting seventy-two hours.
End of Book 1
End Notes
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