Chapter 1
It was boiling hot. Lyla walked along a street buzzing with activity in the middle of a city in Southeast Asia. The humans here looked different from the Caucasian race she had done some research on. Both the males and the females had small, slender bodies. They were beautiful. In her studies, she’d learned they were referred to as the Asian race.
The fact that they were quite homogeneous in complexion, hair, and eye color fascinated her. She still couldn’t explain her own looks, given her genetic makeup and her family heritage. Her father, Ciaran LeBlanc, had raven hair and striking gray eyes. Her mother, Madeline LeBlanc, was a brunette with big brown eyes. No matter how long her parents were married, her father always lost himself in those eyes whenever he looked into them. Her twin brother, Caedmon LeBlanc, was the spitting image of her father—dark hair, striking gray eyes, a strong masculine face, and a killer smile that made women swoon.
She had inherited none of these wonderful features.
She looked at her reflection in the glass window of a shop and sighed. She couldn’t understand why her hair was sandy—it made no sense. And Caedmon was naturally smart and had gotten all the supernatural abilities, while she’d had to do research to learn every bit of the knowledge she possessed. She had once asked her mother whether she and Caedmon were truly twins. It made her mother so upset that she’d never asked that question again.
“Do you really like those? I don’t think they’re suitable for multiversal traveling.”
Michael’s voice startled her. Realizing she was staring at a pair of embroidered fabric shoes in the shop window, she said, “I don’t have to wear them when I travel.”
A woman in her thirties with a gentle smile on her face stepped out from the shop. “I agree—these don’t suit you. I have some better options for you inside,” she said. “Come on in.”
Lyla hesitated.
“Come on in. You don’t have to buy anything. You’re just too beautiful to walk past my shop without trying on some of my clothes.”
The woman grabbed her elbow to guide her inside. Even though it was always nice to be called beautiful, the woman’s touch was much too friendly for Lyla’s comfort. She hadn’t had the time to study this culture, and she was feeling a bit awkward.
“My boyfriend has to go.” She pointed at Michael. “We have somewhere we have to be.”
“Oh no, we have plenty of time.” Michael shrugged nonchalantly as she glared at him.
“I see your boyfriend is a gentleman. And you deserve nice things.”
She was about to reject the woman’s offer again, but from the corner of her eye, she saw a picture on the wall of the store that she instantly recognized as Ha Long Bay from her research—the exact place they needed to go. She smiled and followed the woman inside the shop.
Michael followed.
“Is that Ha Long Bay?” she asked as she picked up another pair of shoes. Her eyes were transfixed on the picture on the wall. What a beautiful place. The still photographs taken from the multiverse’s surveillance footage didn’t do it any justice.
“Yes,” said a man who stepped out from the back of the shop.
“I’m Tammy, and this is my husband, Minh,” the woman said.
Minh approached the picture and looked at it solemnly.
Michael cleared his throat. “I’m Michael. This is my fiancée, Lyla.”
“Oh, you’re going to be married! You’re such beautiful couple. You’re going to have beautiful children. Let me show you something,” Tammy said and rushed to the back of the shop.
Lyla glared at Michael again. He winked at her then looked at Tammy’s husband. “Minh, we’re thinking of having our wedding on a boat in Ha Long Bay. What do you think?”
The man turned around and looked at Michael. “Not recommended.”
“Why not?” Lyla asked.
“Many people died there last year. The government said there was a nasty storm that was responsible for the deaths.”
Michael chuckled. “A storm?”
“Yes, a storm. Or do you think perhaps something else could have caused it?”
“Please excuse us,” said Lyla, and before Michael could answer Minh’s question, she pulled him out of the shop.
“What’s your problem, Michael? You said we’re not supposed to alert humans about us because they’re not ready for this. You also said I would be allowed have some time to myself here…”
“That doesn’t mean going out without me.”
“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I’d rather you wake me than sneak out by yourself.”
“I didn’t sneak out. It’s my right to go out and have some time to myself.”
“Not only is this Earth, a place you’ve never been, this is Asia, a part of Earth where your family doesn’t have a strong network. If we need help, we’re not getting any here.”
“Michael, the whole idea of us being here is to prevent the potential loss of three thousand lives, lives lost because of a vendetta some bad spirit has against my parents for knocking their backsides off in Ha Long Bay last year. We traveled to the past to manipulate the event, and because our plan violates every rule of time traveling, we’ve agreed not to involve my family in this, right? Oh, and you didn’t have to come. I told you I can do this by myself.”
Michael winced. “I should have listened to Ciaran. He warned me you’re a talker. You make it sound as if I volunteered for this.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I talked to Gale. You tricked me into this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Michael. Just so you know, Gale has a big mouth, and he doesn’t know everything.”
Michael waved his arms in the air. “You told me you only needed to be onsite to decode the program to stop the trigger that kills those people. I should have known a two-minute job that saves thousands of people was too good to be true.”
“But it is true.”
“No, it’s only part of the truth, and that makes it a lie.”
“Michael!”
“Lyla, please stop using all this jargon to try to fool me. The Fire trigger you’re going to decode isn’t just a program you can work on using a computer. It’s a source file that needs someone to physically control it. You don’t even know what it looks like. The file might be hidden inside a space creature. That means there will be a real fight. And with a game of this caliber, it won’t be just a fight, it will be a battle. My job is to keep you safe. But I’m only one guy.”
“We traveled to the past, remember? The event hasn’t happened yet. That means this is all speculation. We can’t send troops anywhere on speculation. And this really is a one-man job. You see, the guy challenged me in the hologame. I accepted his challenge, so he’ll think I’ll be working on the game. He won’t even pay attention to what I’m doing. If I can access his pilot tests and the program, I can get to his source file and decode it. And he’ll lose. It really is a two-minute job…if you can get me into the place where the source file is kept.”
“That’s a big if.”
“How so? We’re here already.”
Michael shook his head. “We need to get to a place called Hue. It’s an ancient city. Gale beamed us to the wrong location. We’re in the South, and the place here that they call Hue is an amusement park!”
“You’re kidding!”
“I’m not. That’s the problem when you try to do things remotely and have no real experience with the place.”
“Do you know how far away we are from the right place? Gale can’t holocast us from location to location on Earth.”
Michael sighed. “We’ll have to travel like humans. Not only does that take time, but we also don’t have any money.”
“Do they accept multiversal currency here?”
“Humans won’t take it. But creatures from the multiverse would. You know…the kind that set up the game and want to snap you up instantly as soon as they find out the princess of Eudaiz is walking around on Earth with only one guard. They’ll be delighted to accept all the multiversal currency your family can come up with to pay the ransom.”
“We’ve been super careful. They won’t find out I’m here.”
“If you say so.”
They heard a scream and then there was a small explosion inside the store. Michael tugged Lyla’s elbow, and they raced away from the shop, weaving through the crazy stream of motorbikes, bicycles, and pedestrians to cross the street.
From inside the store, there were more screams. Minh, burning like a torch, ran out to the street. Tammy and some others tried to put the fire out.
Lyla charged across the street, trying to go back to the shop, but Michael pulled her back.
“I have to help them!”
“It’s too late, Lyla. There’s nothing you can do.”
She knew he was right. The image of those people in the village in Xiilok who had followed her through the fire and died stabbed at her heart. Across the street was the latest victim. In front of his devastated wife, the man’s body disintegrated with the flames.
Michael switched on his wrist unit to call Gale, a friend who controlled their portal travel and the technology gateway from the Daimon Gate. “You hear me, Gale? They found us. We need to get back to the Daimon Gate now. Arrange the portal, please.”
Lyla stared at chaos. It was a message for her. She could feel the Shadow laughing at her naivety and inexperience. In a dark hole somewhere in the multiverse, a shadow of evil was enjoying the scene of people dying on his command. She could feel the vibration of his joy when he burned people and heard their screams. He was toying with her. He had killed a man—someone who was a husband and maybe even a father—just to send her a message. If the three thousand lives were only his pilot tests, what would full-scale destruction be?
“Lyla!”
“Yes, Michael.”
“Gale isn’t responding.” He gave his wrist unit to her.
She looked at it and checked the backlog. She ran a diagnostic program. Then she looked at Michael. “The communication channel has been hacked and possibly contaminated. We’ve been disconnected from the system.”
Chapter 2
Kan leaned back on a large leather armchair and chuckled to himself as he watched the image of Lyla on the monitor. What a beauty! he thought. Long sandy hair, striking gray eyes, an angelic face, and a voice that made his blood sizzle.
Lyla didn’t know him, but he could tell she sensed his joy as he watched the scene of death he had just created in front of her. “Lyla J. LeBlanc,” he mumbled to himself, staring at the screen and imagining her in his arms, “it’s my honor to make your acquaintance.”
“Master!” said a rough voice that made him practically jump out of his skin. It had come from behind him, and he turned. A small space creature in the form of an ape stood there.
“Why can’t you just call my communicator?” he said.
“You told me to come to you if I had important news. You don’t want the message to be tracked via the communication system.”
“Well, if it’s important enough to justify your trip here, let’s hear it.” He gave the creature a smile, but still, the creature’s knees shook slightly. He knew he didn’t have a reputation for being kindhearted and gentle in nature.
The creature mumbled something that didn’t make any sense to him.
He smiled again. “You can call me Kan if that makes you feel more comfortable. Contrary to what people might say, I’m a friendly guy. So tell me, what did you find out?”
“The new citizens we have just recruited from Black Rock can’t be revived. It appears there’s a glitch in our system.”
He wagged his finger. “One thing at a time. If the new people can’t be revived, it means their essence is weak, and I don’t want them anyway. So let them die. Regarding the system issue, that’s not possible. My system has been tested over and over again in the last century. Unless you’re claiming there’s a connection between the system’s problem and the dead recruits—and that’s a very bold claim that I’m sure you wouldn’t dare make if you didn’t have proof.”
“I have evidence, Kan. In your tests, any variable having to do with the time dimension has been polluted with fuzzy data. The new recruits are from the future. Because the time dimension variables were unstable, their codes in the Fire source files were contaminated, and the noise in the data made it impossible to revive them. I’ve looked into another group of recruits from the past, and the same thing happened.”
“So you’re saying the time dimension is a weakness in my system?”
“Yes, Kan.”
“Have you told the tech department in your division?”
“No, Kan. I wanted to tell you first.”
“You’re after advancement, aren’t you?”
The creature nodded solemnly.
“Smart move. Under normal circumstances, I would promote you instantly. But the thing is, I already knew that time dimension is the system’s weakness. Do you have anything new for me?”
“But time traveling is a crucial part of your plan. There aren’t enough souls to recruit in the current time—”
“I know that, too. And here is your last chance—I ask you once again…is there anything new?”
“Yes…your love interest has traveled to Earth…in a time capsule,” the creature stuttered. “And that has to do with the time dimension. So I think you would care about that…”
Kan pointed at the monitor. “By love interest, do you mean her?”
The creature nodded.
“If I didn’t know she had time traveled, why would I have her picture taken from Earth on my monitor? If I thought she’d accepted my current hologame challenge, I would assume she was still in her station in Eudaiz, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes, Kan. You know she has time traveled, but because of the issue with your system, you can’t do anything to her until she returns to your current time.”
He laughed. “You think that because you know I’m interested in Lyla, it gives you an edge for your advancement? Well, you’re absolutely right. I’m promoting you to an executive role.”
The creature grinned.
Kan reached his hand toward a button on the dashboard and slammed his fist down on it. A beam of bright red light covered the creature. His flesh instantly began to sizzle, and in less than a minute, he had turned into a puddle of red liquid.
“I forgot to tell you that your new position is in hell, and they only recruit dead things,” he muttered and switched on the speaker. “Custodian, clean up this mess on the floor.”
“Yes, sir,” a robotic voice responded.
Kan returned to his computer monitor and gazed again at Lyla’s image. It was a pity she was mortal. But as a Eudaizian, she would live a long time, and that would be enough to keep him company for a while. Once he was done with her, he’d use her to torment her parents.
Kan chuckled. To do that, he’d have to figure out the time travel weakness in his system. He had made a promise to seek revenge on Lyla’s parents, and he always honored his promises. But meeting Lyla was unplanned. He’d lived for thousands of years and yet still found her dazzling. Love was a funny little emotion, and he’d always thought only primitive species like humans felt it.
Now he knew immortals felt it, too.
Chapter 3
In their executive hotel suite, Michael gently pushed Lyla down onto a chair. “Promise me you’ll stay here until I come back, Lyla.”
She nodded, saying nothing, but Michael knew she wasn’t going to stay put. He couldn’t exactly tie her up, so if he wasn’t able reason with her, this could turn into a trip to hell. He knew now better than ever that if a mission was important enough for Ciaran to assign it to him personally—from across universes—it was not going to be a simple one.
The reason Ciaran had asked him, rather than an army of his commanders, to protect Lyla was not because of his supernatural ability, because he had pretty much zero when it came to that. He was a New York street kid who had survived the first eight winters of his life under a bridge. Those survival skills were far more important when it came to keeping Ciaran’s precious daughter safe in a situation that Ciaran could predict years in advance from the past.
Michael shook his head. He might have to lowball now. He gazed into those striking gray eyes with thick lashes that he wished she didn’t blink so often because whenever she did, his stomach did a somersault. “Lyla, I know you are more than capable of turning on your equipment now and reconnecting us to the Eudaizian system so we can call for help. But I’m asking you to just wait a bit and let Gale find us his way.”
“I can’t just sit here waiting while people are bursting into flames around me.”
“It’s not your fault that the Shadow tracked you here. It’s done that before. It’s killed people in massive scale just to lure you out. Gale has arranged this location, and it’s safe for now. I’m sure he’s frantically searching for you now—”
She nodded and cut in. “If I trigger the signal, it might jeopardize Gale’s effort. It could backfire and put him in danger, too.”
“I’m glad you understand that.”
“But you have to stay here, too. A large percentage of your make is human, and it could burn you like it burns others. It happened before in Xiilok. Don’t go out there by yourself.”
He sat down on a chair opposite her. “The problem is, Lyla, we don’t know how long it’s going to take for Gale to find us. This is Earth, not Eudaiz. Gale has arranged this suite, but anything else—such as arranging our next meals or getting transport to go to Hue, if you still want to do that—requires cash. And we have none.”
“Cash?”
“I mean money. Currency. And even if we had the money, I would still have to physically go to buy the air tickets. Or I could get a car—a means of transport here that’s similar to the private capsule in Eudaiz. But whatever it is we need, I have to go out there and get it, and I can’t have you tagging along.”
“I could help.”
“No, you draw attention. And that’s not good.”
“You mean I stick out like a sore thumb because of my looks? And you don’t?”
“No, I blend in. And it’s not just your physical looks I’m worried about. It’s your Eudaizian energy. I’m sure they can track that. But because I am largely human, I blend in better.”
“But they can track me here, too!”
“Gale has a system in place to protect this room. In terms of technology, you’d know better than me what it might be.”
She nodded. “He might have put a frequency deterrence system in place to mask our signals. But that can only be tracked if I turn on my machine.” She frowned. “So you’re saying I not only have to stay here, but I’m not to operate any equipment, either?”
Michael nodded. “That would be best.”
“I understand. I’ll wait here.”
He stood to leave the room.
“Michael.”
“Yes.” He turned around and saw she had followed him to the door.
“Please be careful.”
“Always.”
“In Xiilok, when you were in the Fire, you do know if you didn’t pass, the Shadow could have killed you, don’t you?”
“I know. If you hadn’t pulled me out, I would have died. And to help me, you had to look into my past and invade my privacy—your words. But I don’t mind, Lyla. I know why you did it, and I know what I’m doing now.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think you know what you’re doing as much as you’d like to believe. What I saw in your mind wasn’t just the incident that led to the death of your mother and your stepfather. That was just the surface. The only reason I was able to pull you out of that fire alive was that the Shadow thought it was your emotional wound, your weakness, so it kept attacking that point.”
“So let’s keep it that way then.”
“Give me your hand.”
“What?”
She reached her hand out. “Come on.”
He stuck out his hand. She pressed her fingers against the vein on his wrist.
“You’re taking my pulse?”
“Shss.”
He shrugged.
“Okay, I’m right,” she said nonchalantly and let go of his wrist.
“Of course you are. You’re always right.”
“This isn’t a joke, Michael. You might take your life lightly, but my father certainly didn’t. And I don’t, either. You don’t have to confirm or deny what I’ve analyzed based on the surface information I saw in your mind. I won’t even speak of it.”
“So not only did you invade my privacy and read my mind, you analyzed the data, too?”
“That’s how we win technological wars, Michael. The Shadow and our adversaries rely on the amount of data they can steal, buy, or kill to get. But their analytics are pathetic. We build on our ability to make sense of the data. I’m sorry I used that ability on you. But the situation called for it.”
“It doesn’t matter at this point. Let’s worry about the situation at hand.”
“This is the situation at hand, Michael. When you walk out that door, I want you to be fully prepared—and I want you to come back here alive. Because I won’t be there this time to pull you out of a fire.”
“You won’t have to.” He turned toward the door.
“You think my father sent you to my time to protect me?”
“He told me so.”
“It’s partially true. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s not a lie, either. He wanted me to protect you, too. He knows what you are.”
“That’s impossible!” Before he realized what he was doing, his fist hit the wall, leaving a big dent. A picture hanging there fell to the tile floor and shattered.
“You’re upset because you know I’m telling the truth. I spent only one second in your mind, and I know that much. My father killed a man for you, pulled you out of that pool of blood and gore, and carried you around in his arms for hours. Do you think he wouldn’t know?”
His head was ringing. He felt Lyla’s cool hand wrapped around his. “You’re beautiful being what you are, Michael. And if you accept that, the Shadow has no chance of attacking you. Promise me you’ll come back here in one piece?”
He nodded, turned and pushed the door open, and walked out.