Release (The Protector Book 3) (17 page)

“It’s probably just like our elements. It’ll take time to learn.”

“I’m not so sure. I can do the same spells I’ve always been able to do, but I can’t do anything more than a basic enchantment. Nothing like I should be able to do according to Grams. The magic is there and so is my focus, but it just won’t…happen. Grams doesn’t even know why.”

“Well, between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

Rayna brushed a strand of red hair behind her ears and smiled.

“What about your dad?” I asked. “Have you talked to him?”

Rayna shook her head. “He helped me shift and I’m grateful for that, but what now? I’ve been without him for seventeen years. Marcus is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a dad, and I’m not sure…can we not talk about this?”

“Rayna?” Marcus called from the third floor above. “Can you come up here please?”

Rayna didn’t look at me as she walked past, but the awkwardness between us was definitely stronger than before I’d left. For me, I’d been gone a day, but for everyone else it had been a few days, and they hadn’t been easy.

When I left, I knew exactly what was happening, what the plan was, and where everybody stood. Now I’d been thrust into a room full of injured strangers and everything felt different. Rayna was going through her own thing with Grams and dealing with her dad, and we weren’t connecting like I hoped we would. Willy was still missing and I was frustrated with not knowing if he was okay. Riley was on the offense, going after any and all allies we had, and I was officially worried.

Marcus had been trying to get in touch with the Circle, but we still hadn’t heard back from them. I wanted nothing to do with the Elders or the hunters beneath them, but I was starting to see that we couldn’t turn anyone away who could help. I had to put the anger of my exile behind me. After all, Vincent had done worse to us and I still agreed to help him. If the Circle was willing to work with us on equal ground, I had to acknowledge that they would be an asset. Then again, Riddley Peterson was still AWOL, probably in hiding with Riley somewhere, so we didn’t even know whom in the Circle we could trust.

I knew we had to get everything in line, wait for reinforcements, and act smart, but part of me wanted to find the answers myself and tackle the situation head on. That was the approach that had hindered more than it helped, and I wasn’t going to follow through with it, but the urge was there. I had to figure out a way to get something done besides making dinner, and if that required me going into the much despised library, so be it.

******

The condo was dark and quiet. The fire crackled in the library’s fireplace, and I sat in one of the nearby chairs, flipping through pages of an old leather-bound text. The writing inside had been done with a quill on parchment, and it was hard to read, but I wasn’t about to let old pages and bad penmanship get in the way of answers.

Marcus and Tiki had been going through books all day. I told them what the worlds looked like to me, and the creatures inside them. So far they had been unlucky, and against my suggestion to rest, they stayed with me, going through book after book.

“Anything?” Marcus came up beside me, setting a steaming cup of coffee on the table.

“Thanks,” I said. “Nothing yet. The sheer number of Underworlders that exist baffles me. This is an endless search of half-creatures and legends. The seal to the other dimensions was hammered shut with magic, thousands of years ago. For all we know, the creatures we’re looking for don’t even exist in these—”

“It’s here!” Tiki shouted, and then sheepishly hunched down, as though that could remedy his yelling in the middle of the night. “I think I have it,” he whispered. He set an oversized book on the table in front of me and the light from the fire wavered over the parchment. “This is the only thing I’ve seen that comes close to describing what you saw. Is this it?”

A drawing in the corner of the page showed a pure blood demon. His lower half was thick and shaded with an orange pastel. Black claws stuck out from huge fur-covered paws, and the muscles in his four legs were bulging. A nearly hairless tail swung out behind him, with a tuft of dark brown hair on the end. His hind legs were bent like a cat’s, and the absolute strength that this picture radiated made it look like a lion on the hunt.

The upper half of its body was a subtle yellow. Two oversized eyes were filled with black, and a third eye sat between them, slightly higher than the other two. It was a bright orange orb that contrasted with the black. Dark veins and muscles rippled across a wide human-like chest, and three-fingered hands clasped deadly looking blades. Its head was smooth and shaved, with the exception of a long ponytail that matched the brown hair on the end of its tail. The mouth was opened partly, revealing a square jaw filled with long, razor-sharp teeth.

“Yeah, that’s him, and this is awesome, I just can’t wait to meet him.”

“You want to meet him? Why? He looks terrifying,” Tiki asked.

“That’s not what I meant. I was being…nevermind. What exactly is this?”

“It is called a…Kiv-rak-ai—a deadly beast of speed, agility, strength, and power.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” Tiki said. “Its third eye can unleash a flame so intense that it melts even the thickest armor. They dominate all Underworlders who cross their path, with the exception of the Drakonian, their only known predator.”

“Drakonian?”

“They are demons, much like what I’ve read the dragons of your world once were, only they can change the size of their forms from incredibly large to immaculately small. It is also rumored they can appear in somewhat of a human-like form, but that is just legend. They are respected and feared by all, but no one has seen one in ages. They live secluded in the mountains of a dimension known as Orian, a world birthed from the god Korinth. Many travel there, but nobody ventures to their mountain land in fear of their wrath.”

“What of these Kivrakai? What dimension are they from?” Marcus asked.

Tiki went silent, sliding his finger lower as he finished reading each line. “Here it says they are from Vortan…”

“And you know this world?”

Tiki looked up at Marcus and nodded, but his words said otherwise. “No.”

Confusion warped Marcus’s face.

“I know of it, but I have never been. After disregarding the warnings I’d been given of Theral many years ago, I traveled there anyway to see it for myself. After that experience, I told myself I would never return to another Ithreal-born dimension. They are all filled with fierce, honorless creatures, and I did not wish to risk my life in such a way again.”

“So now what?” I asked.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Marcus said. “If we wish to collect a soul piece, we have no option but to go to one of his worlds. Right now, this is the only one we know of.”

“I’ve heard many stories of Vortan since I was a child,” Tiki said. “If we go there, we must be prepared. Even the weaker creatures that live in these worlds are horrid in comparison to what you’ve seen.”

“Like the Visceratti?”

Tiki shook his head. “The Visceratti are born of the Proto dimension, and they never leave their world…until recently, I suppose. In comparison to the creatures of Vortan, the Visceratti are mild. Anything that can survive under these creatures,” Tiki pointed to the image of the Kivrakai, “will not be anything we should take lightly.”

“And you’ve never heard anything of them before?” Marcus asked.

“It is rare for any of Ithreal’s creatures to be brought up in discussion. It is considered disrespectful.”

Marcus pursed his lips. “We’re going to need a large group.”

“And a lot of weapons,” I added. “But still, we’ve narrowed down the world I saw, but we already knew which two we needed to visit. This doesn’t help us with where in that dimension the soul piece is.”

Marcus nodded. “We’ll need to wait until Chief and Jax return. We’ll discuss how to move forward once they can be included. Perhaps by narrowing our research to just this world, we’ll be able to find something.”

“Well, Kivrakai are usually found in the Northern part of Vortan,” Tiki said, reading down the page. “Although that may not help us either. I have never been there, and being unfamiliar with the land, I’ll have even less control than usual when teleporting us.”

“I think we can all agree we’re going to have to hope for the best on this one. Elyas has guided Chase before, and unfortunately, we need to put some faith in that.”

“Great….” I said.

“Until then,” Marcus looked up at the clock above the fireplace, “I think we all need to get our rest. I’ll see you two in the morning.” Marcus nodded and carried himself silently down the stairs.

I looked back over the page Tiki had shown me with the Kivrakai staring back at me.

“Is everything okay, Chase Williams?”

“It just sounds like this is a dangerous place.”

“Very,” Tiki said. “But why does that trouble you? We are in, and have been in, a dangerous place for some time now.”

“I don’t want to get anyone else hurt. And these are entire worlds we’re talking about. I never considered the fact that we’re putting our faith in the guidance of an invisible spirit who appears at random. I can’t lose anyone else.”

Tiki’s hand touched my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You are the Protector, Chase Williams. It is not in your fate to be defeated.”

I let out a half-laugh and shook my head. “What exactly is my fate?”

Tiki was silent and when I looked at him, he shrugged. “You are meant to save the dimensions. At least that is the interpretation I always took away from it. I do not have the answers, but I do have the faith, and it lies in you.”

“What about you? What’s your fate in all this? We collide out of nowhere in Drakar, and you just offered to help me. Why?”

“It is my fate.”

“No, you don’t get off that easy this time.”

Tiki’s orange eyes stared up at me and his neutral expression was unwavering. His unblemished caramel skin was glowing in the firelight, and his shirtless body disappeared into tattered white pants. You could take him shopping, you could tell him to wear regular clothes, but he would always appear the same. This was Tiki.

“When I was little, I was almost killed by my eldest brother and father. They were ashamed to have a half-breed in their family, and they wanted the honor of taking my life. My mother, however, would not allow it, as it was against our laws.”

“Against the law to kill?”

“You cannot challenge a youth. It is considered cowardly.”

Before I could ask, Tiki was pacing in front of me, continuing his story. “Instead, she sent me to the dungeons, where I cleaned up after dead and tortured prisoners. When I wasn’t there, I worked in the stables and on the farms. My father and brother waited until I became of age, and on my birthday, I received the challenge. The only option was to accept, or be killed, and so I accepted.”

“You had to fight your father and brother just to stay alive?”

“They fought me for the glory of ridding their family of an embarrassment. I fought them for my life, and more so, my freedom.”

“Well obviously that didn’t turn out well for them.”

“After years of working as a slave, they expected me to be starved, weak, and exhausted. But I had adapted to small meals, and the work had strengthened me. I had been taught to fight as a child, and I never stopped training. My family was also unaware that when I came of age, my demon came alive inside me. I entered the arena and put on the show that was demanded of me, and when the time was right, I unleashed my hidden Underworlder.”

“You won your freedom.”

“I took the lives of my enemies, and spared my brother and father. I left them to a worse fate than death—embarrassment. I spent hundreds of years as a drifter, wandering from world to world. I was unaccustomed to coming and going as I pleased and eating what I wished, so at first I just enjoyed it. I grew arrogant, taking what I wanted from others, and fighting any who dared to challenge me. This was how I earned respect—for the most part—among the Underworlders.”

“How did that lead you to me?”

“By my third century, I was a large, wealthy, and arrogant man. I had a small army of half-breeds who followed my every footstep and did as I commanded. I took land and slaves of my own, forcing them to do what I once did. I was full of sin and blinded by anger.”

“You were a king…” I said.

“I was a murderer.” Tiki lowered his gaze and release a quiet sigh. “After a night of too many drinks, I awoke to find all of my people dead. Poisoned by unseen hands. I should’ve been angry, and quick to react, but instead, I was sad. All the people I’d once cared for, but had come to regard as unimportant, were gone. The pedestal I’d placed myself on was shattered before I’d had an opportunity to defend it.”

“Did you find whoever killed them?”

Tiki stared into the dwindling flames. Light blue arms reached up off the ashy logs, snapping red embers onto the floor.

“I realized then I was lost. The freedom I fought so desperately for was stolen from me by arrogance and greed. I do not know who spilled the poison, but truly, it was I who got them killed. I angered the pure bloods, I stole from the rich, and I killed the innocent. I did not need to be the one to pour the poison. I was the poison.”