Part 7 (2/2)
Concentrating, the things around her seemed to amplify. The cold, hard stone floor now seemed to have a distinctly musty order. She'd smelled something similar as a child. The lagoons near the edge of the red sea were known to emit odd odors dependent upon the way the winds blew. Stegian's castle wasn't near the lagoons.
What was going on?
Opening her eyes, Lorelei found herself surrounded by overgrown foliage in shades of red, green and yellow. The red leaves, so long as they weren't attached to a tree with a sage green trunk were safe. If they were and she was somehow nestled in a patch of poisonous ollenna trees then she wasn't much better off than she'd been in Stegian's dungeon. It was still a mystery how she'd even ended up outside to begin with. Could her own, inborn powers have kicked in and removed her from harm's way or had it been the baby?
Concern for the safety of the child she now carried kicked in and Lorelei struggled to sit up. Pain rippled through her upper leg, causing her to cry out. The slightest ruffling in the bushes behind her told her she wasn't alone. ”Who's there?”
”Me,” Jacquelyn said, appearing next to her quickly. The young girl put her hand out and covered the wound on Lorelei's leg. ”This is deep and it's infected.”
”I'll heal.”
Jacquelyn's penetrating gaze suggested otherwise. ”I'm picking up traces of ollenna poison. You might have cut yourself on one of their razor sharp thorns when struggling or...”
”Or they could have deliberately put it in my wound.” Lorelei bit back tears as she held her cry of pain in as well.
”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Jacquelyn, I've not the strength to heal myself of something that major right now and I can't possibly walk back to the compound.”
Jacquelyn nodded. ”I know. I've been trying to reach Sevan and the rest of them but Stegian is going out of his way to jam technology. He knew we'd come looking and he knew they'd need my help.”
”Yeah, but did he know I'd end up out here instead of locked in a torture chamber with Samson?”
”Did he hurt you again?”
Lorelei snorted. ”No, but a hag came into the room with the intent of draining the baby's life force.”
”How did you end up here?” Jacquelyn asked. ”You just appeared out of nowhere and my sensors instantly picked you up.”
”That, I don't know.”
”What do you mean she simply vanished?” Stegian asked, his jaw tight and his gaze hard. The urge to kill something was great. All that stood before him was one of the hags and Samson.
Samson shook his head, still appearing shocked by the entire affair. ”Master, she simply closed her eyes and vanished.”
”She came into her full powers,” the hag said, looking back at him with milky-white eyes.
To his knowledge, the hags were all blind but somehow, they managed to see. The one before him smiled, revealing a mouth full of missing teeth. ”It is the third eye, master.”
”And did this third eye prove useful when the prisoner was escaping?”
Her already pale, light green skin seemed to lighten even more. Stegian couldn't help but pride himself on the fear he could instill in others. ”I await an answer.”
”N-o,” she said, shakily.
”I see.” Stegian took a step forward. ”Would you please enlighten me as to why I should keep you around? Samson fights on the front lines, killing Shamenians and Tegmen. What is it you and your sisters provide?”
The hag tossed her head back and shrieked as Stegian thrust his power out and through her ragged body. Her skin began to sink in on itself as he drained her body of its power.
The cell door blew open and the other two hags appeared. Stegian smiled, licking a fang as he did. They stopped instantly. ”Master, we have located the Janelle woman. She lies near the lagoons. An energy force is with her. We believe it to be both natural and unnatural.”
”Meaning?” He released his hold on the hag for a moment to hear the others out.
”It means that the woman is somehow emitting extremely high levels of energy and that something else, we do not understand what, is aiding her.”
”The prophecy,” Samson whispered. ”It's coming true.”
There was a time when Stegian dismissed theories containing ancient prophecies. That was until he held the scrolls in which they were written and had a vision so clear that it did the unthinkable-it terrified him.
”I shall go to the lagoons, Master,” Samson said.
”Take several others with you.” Stegian stared at the converted Shamenian. ”Do not think yourself better than an offworlder.”
Chapter Nine
”Jordan, do you read?” Sevan repeated into his headset. ”d.a.m.n thing isn't working.”
”It's not your equipment, it's the others. They can jam electronics. That's why Jacquelyn could only reach so far to find Lorelei. They make it almost impossible for her signal to come through. Every now and then she gets the best of them, but it doesn't happen too often,” Nina said, her back to him.
”Can I ask you something?”
”You want to know who the others are,” Nina said, stopping on the worn path. ”You don't seem to believe what Christian and I have already told you.”
”Yeah.”
”We spoke the truth, Captain. The others are your world's nightmare creatures. The ones you gathered up and s.h.i.+pped away. We are not lying when we say that they are a result of Project Exorcism.”
Sevan thought back and his eyes bulged as he thought back to all he knew about Project Exorcism. It had been called that due to the nature of the cargo being gathered and s.h.i.+pped out-vampires, werewolves, witches, anything that wasn't human was either forced into hiding, killed, or placed on containment s.h.i.+ps.
The deal had been struck with the paranormal leaders, allowing them to pick the planet they would relocate to.
They were given the choice of five, but only allowed to choose one. Five s.h.i.+ps were loaded to capacity, only one arrived at the destination. The other s.h.i.+ps were thought to have perished in the meteorite shower that occurred shortly after take off. No one had heard from them since they'd departed all those years ago, each carrying nearly a hundred military personnel, several top-notch scientists and doctors, along with several thousand supernatural creatures.
”How many of them survived?”
Nina laughed. ”I couldn't honestly tell you. It was our grandparents who were directly involved in the great coming.” She took a deep breath before continuing. ”From the stories and the records, the crash happened at dusk.
From all accounts, the human crew had come under attack from a select number of supernaturals who were not pleased with the idea of being cargo sent out into s.p.a.ce. I know that many lost their lives directly after the crash, but some were spared by the intervention of the natives that were here along with the aid of those supernaturals not believing death should come to all humans.”
She slowed her pace a bit and glanced back at him. ”Christian's family was the head family, similar to a royal family. The head of the supernatural rebellion overthrew them almost immediately. That was no small feat. The people, my people, the Shamenians, who have lived on this planet since the dawn of time are not as normal as the humans who'd come here with the s.h.i.+p. We have abilities that supersede your kind. I believe, as do many of our scientists, that we were all one once, long ago, but that we separated somehow, spreading out over six different galaxies. I also believe that the environments we inhabited pre-determined our evolution from there. This would explain why by all outward appearances we are the same as the humans.
”I believe in many ways we are similar to,” she seemed to search for the right words, ”the magical ones. I'm sorry I do not know your history as well as I should. Lorelei is better at this than I am. We were all educated in your ways and customs growing up. There are still a select few pure humans here, but almost all are forced to live within the safety of the compound walls for fear of being slaughtered by the others.”
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