THE VROL TRILOGY (50 page)
Authors: SK Benton
Tags: #vampire, #magic, #violence, #lycan, #immortality, #alien invaders, #werewolf adult fantasy
Jennie and Draagh walked further out
into the open field, removing their spectators from the 4D slip's
sphere of influence. Once a safe distance was reached, Draagh
slammed his staff to the ground, as he and Jennie disappeared from
that world.
Arriving at the edge of the Urubamba
River, in exactly the same location from where they had departed
only months before, Draagh and Jennie were both relieved to see
that the Machu Picchu was still hidden underneath its naturally
occurring camouflage, as Draagh had waved off the invisibility
cantus upon arrival.
Jennie ran to the craft, yelling out,
"Max! Max! You dork! Come out here!" but she received no response.
No longer able to smell things like she could on Earth of the
future, she looked around helplessly. "Draagh!" she cried out.
"Where is he?"
"There-there, my dear. We shall find
him," he said as he strode over to the ship, waving his arm out and
causing the loading ramp and bay doors to open. Entering the ship,
Jennie ran ahead and searched frantically, while calling out his
name, but no one replied. After a couple of minutes Draagh called
Jennie into the ship's galley, where he held a small jewelry box in
his hand - the same jewelry box Draagh had seen Max look at with a
sad expression right before he first took off from Azul. Opening
it, there was a beautiful 3-carat blue diamond ring in a gold
setting.
Jennie looked at the ring for a moment,
and then at Draagh. As tears filled her eyes she cried out, "That
idiot! I don't need a ring. I only need him!"
Then, looking out of the open back of
the Machu Picchu, she whimpered, "Max, what have you done?" as she
wiped the wetness from her cheeks.
Draagh led the distraught woman out of
the converted transport and, after conferring with Socrates, began
their quest of visiting nearly every saved destination in his staff
as they searched for the missing lycan commander.
###
Max Gunnarsson regained consciousness,
his face down in a putrid puddle of contaminated water, human waste
and oil - apparently in some sort of drainage tunnel. Disoriented
and unaware of his location, he lifted himself out of the fetid
muck, and shifting his vision to the infrared spectrum, looked for
Draagh's staff. After determining it was nowhere to be found
(although one of Draagh's chairs and some of his clothing were
nearby, floating in the putrid waste), he crawled forward, coming
up to an opening that exposed the night sky. Exiting the tunnel in
which he had found himself, he stood up and looked out over a
landscape he never imagined he would have seen.
Alien Vrol flyers soared overhead;
looking like giant, demonic bats, while dozens of hominids of
varying subspecies scrambled around and over the ruins of what
appeared to be a mostly destroyed city. He smelled not only lycans
and vampires, but also other beings he was unable to immediately
identify.
Looking up at a fairly expansive
hillside to the north he saw a large, man-made landmark, instantly
familiar to him thanks to his studies of Earth's ancient past. His
stomach soured as he scanned the horizon. He knew where he was, and
he definitely wasn't supposed to be there.
"Oh, man. This is
not
good…"
Book Two
LIVES OF LOST ANGELS
Table of Contents for LIVES OF LOST
ANGELS
LIVES OF FUTURE-PAST
(Book
One)
LIVES OF THE PROVECTUS
(Book
Three)
Chapter 5 - Luigi Meets Krynos
Chapter 7 - Lessons and
Memories
Chapter 8 - Max Parties Like it's 1999 -
B.C.
Chapter 9 - Recon Time Parte
Dos
Chapter 10 - Welcome to
Lykanrol
Chapter 13 - Gabriel Meets the
Gang
Chapter 16 - Welcome Home,
Mickey
Chapter 25 - Welcome to the Fourth
Dimension
Chapter 33 - Dissent with Double
Cheese
Chapter 1 - Rhönen Dominion
Jennie Gunnarsson sat on a small, grassy
hill, gazing out over the vast southern hills and forests behind
her castle home in the Rhönen Dominion. A light, cooling wind
gently lifted her dark, lustrous hair as she watched her adopted
daughter, Liliana, run around chasing rabbits, playfully shooting
sparkles of light at them with her wand. Even though the child
didn't need it, she still loved to channel energies through the
small device - mostly because it was a gift from her mother. She
had learned much in the six months since her father's
disappearance, but still missed him, sometimes softly crying at
nights due to her loss. The break from the day's activities was a
welcomed respite for them, as they both needed the distraction.
Jennie enjoyed going to the grassy hill to
relax away from the business inside the castle walls, which
consisted of training soldiers in her unique and devastating
fighting method - a style forged on-the-fly, in the heat of battle.
As she sat watching the sun set over the horizon to her left,
Liliana flew by her in pursuit of another rabbit, the unfortunate
creature running in fear for its life, even though the girl had no
intention of killing it - at the moment.
Shifting her position slightly, her hand
brushed up against the enhanced katana on the ground at her side,
bringing her to recall when her husband had first handed her the
formidable weapon. He and a recon team had just rescued her from a
dank, putrid dungeon in the bowels of Vladros' dilapidated castle,
where she was being held captive. The sword was a constant reminder
of when she realized she had fallen in love with him. Even though
she didn't tell him until much later, that was indeed the moment,
despite the fact that she fought off the sentiment until it was
overwhelming. The Battle of the Blood was the final straw, and she
gave in to true love and dedication to the young scientist, as he
had already long before done to her.
Of course, they had first met under
completely different circumstances, with her more than willing to
use her Stinger charge pistol to create lethal holes in him for
non-compliance of a federal order (she was aiming for his face).
But that hardly ever entered her mind anymore. She just wanted to
be back in his arms.
"Lili, sweetie, it's time to go in for
dinner," she called out to her mischievous daughter, who had begun
to create invisible walls in front of the fleeing rabbits so she
could watch them comically bounce off upon collision.
"Ok, Jennie. I'll be right there," responded
the little lycan.
Liliana was a well-behaved girl - to a
certain extent - and made her mother very proud with her advances
in school and skills of magic. Besides her typical studies of
English, German, math, and the werewolf language that all lycans
spoke when in death mode, Jennie was teaching her Rioplatense
Spanish. Liliana had nearly five months with her father to learn
various scientific principles; but that all came to a screeching
halt the day he took a little side trip to retrieve his mother's
ring for Jennie on the day before their wedding. He left and never
came back.
Max, I wish you were here to see
her. She's amazing,
Jennie thought to
herself.
Liliana managed to scatter all of the
rabbits, and having tired of chasing them, went to her mother,
giving the gorgeous woman a big smile.
"I'm super-hungry, Jennie. Wanna eat?"
The little girl was born into a world quite
different from Jennie's. But subtle linguistic differences slowly
faded, as she gradually adopted her mother's way of speaking, using
certain contractions and slang terms. But despite everything, she
was still a very polite and proper little girl, as were most lycan
children.
In the main dining hall, the two lycan
females who looked very much alike - even though they were not
blood relatives - sat down to a steaming-hot meal of grilled
venison and purple potatoes, both taking care and eating with
proper utensils. As they ate, Jennie's grandfather-in-law Draagh, a
large but kindly Viking-looking immortal mage, took a seat next to
the older of the two.
"Good afternoon, my dear girl. That looks
absolutely scrumptious, if I do say so myself. I believe I shall
join you, if you do not mind."
He raised his arm and waved over a servant,
who brought him a similar platter of the basic, yet nutritious
cuisine. As he dug into his plate he glanced at Liliana, who was
attempting to properly use her knife and fork together. Then,
clearing his throat, he addressed the two at his side.
"My girls, it seems like the two of you have
acquired quite an appetite. Especially you, Liliana."
"Mmhmmm," responded the child, not speaking
as she had her mouth stuffed full of food. She had recently
experienced a decent growth spurt, bringing her head to the height
of her adoptive mother's bust. Lycan children typically started
gaining height very quickly when they neared puberty, but Liliana
was an early growth case.
Jennie finished a mouthful of the undercooked
meat and looked to her grandfather-in-law with a bit of sadness on
her face.
"Pops, it's been six months to the day since
Max slipped out. Have you found out anything - anything at all? I
mean, I can be strong and continue waiting, but Lili misses Max so
much. I've been letting her sleep with me about every night, and
I…" Her eyes started to water up a bit, but she sniffled and
regained her composure.
"Jennie," began the old mage, having a calm
and serene look upon his weathered face, "I am most certain that
Max yet lives. There would have been signs to show the contrary, as
I am able to see into the depths of even the collection of souls
that wander without form - even the shards, and he is fortunately
not among them. However, finding him is an altogether different
thing. Socrates and I have determined that he may have been thrust
into a previously logged destination. I have checked each and every
one, as you know, having accompanied me on the majority of those
quests, only to come up short. The one location we never checked
was where I had banished Marnn's staff, but as universal law is
explicit, that data is unavailable for extraction on my own
staff."
Jennie finished another mouthful of venison
and washed it down with some mead.
"Isn't there any way to get that data? I
mean, Socrates has powerful computational abilities, doesn't
he?"
"He does, my dear. He does. And I only wish
that I had not been so adamant about following the law when sending
the staff away. It is not like I have never bent the rules in the
past."