The Light-Field (22 page)

‘Will it hurt?' He was keen but still circumspect.

‘Quite the opposite, I expect.' Taren's grin grew, as the chance to fulfil a long time fantasy of hers suddenly presented itself. ‘Trust me?'

‘I do.' Despite everything, he sounded quite sure about that.

As Taren's thoughts turned to Oceane, she hugged Lucian and whispered. ‘Prepare to get wet.'

Lucian had only time to smile before the tingling sensation of teleportation, and the accompanying explosion of white light, engulfed them completely.

 

The intense light faded into a steamy, moist atmosphere, and as warm rain began teeming down upon him, Lucian realised he was knee deep in water.
Not the kind of wet I was hoping for.

He shielded his eyes from the falling water and opening them, the professor was startled to see that he was standing amid tall shoots of vegetation that dwarfed him in size. The foliage reached up into clouds that were alive with colourful electrical activity and the scene invoked a feeling of déjà vu. ‘Whoa!'

Through the steamy mist he spotted Taren close by, wading about thigh deep in water, her white dress rendered see through as she revelled in the teaming rain.

‘Where are we?' Lucian asked, mesmerised by the sight of her, and when she turned to him, Taren was a vision from a dream.

‘On a planet that you'll discover in about nine years from now,' she replied as she neared.

‘I've been here before,' he told her, realising that he had dreamt of this moment the morning after he'd met Taren.

‘Actually, you haven't ever been here on the surface of Oceane before.' Taren was puzzled as she slid her hands around the back of his neck.

‘In my dreams, I have seen this moment before,' Lucian clarified, feeling now that his heart had not been steering him wrong.

‘Then you'll know what happens next,' she whispered and, as her lips engaged his, an energy rush surged through Lucian and sent his consciousness soaring into the depths of his super-conscious memory.

 

Too excited to sleep, Taren drank cup after cup of tea as she waited for Lucian to awaken from his fitful slumber. She was delighting in the novelty of having him in her bed — just being able to sit and stare at him was an utter delight.

It was dawn when the professor did finally stir. He was understandably disorientated, but spying Taren seated on the bed in a bathrobe smiling at him, he returned the gesture. ‘Are we at your place?'

‘Yes we are,' she was happy to inform him, but he appeared not so thrilled, as he peeked beneath the covers and he realised he'd been stripped to his underwear.

‘And did we …?' The large frown on his forehead seemed to indicate that he did not recall the event.

Taren shook her head, still grinning. ‘One kiss … your being went into overload and you went out like a light.' She clicked her fingers to emphasise how quick.

Lucian appeared unsure if he was pleased about that or not.

‘I'm sure you'll build up a tolerance to me sooner or later.' Taren ventured to kiss his cheek and slid off the bed. ‘Tea?' She was only teasing; she had a piece of Juju stone for him that would fix their little problem.

‘But we've been together before and this never happened,' he said surely, which halted Taren in her tracks.

‘How do you know that?' She grinned expectantly, and Lucian's expression turned to utter wonder.

‘Because … I remember.' The statement nearly brought him to tears, as he sorted through the new memories in his mind. He looked at Taren in awe, as he concluded with pride and admiration: ‘You did it. You got us away from Maladaan and the MSS!'

The welling tears trickled from Taren's eyes as she returned and sunk onto the bed beside him, nodding and finding solace in his claim. ‘I did.'

‘Oceane, Maladaan and Kila are all safe!' He was so relieved, as he wiped the tears from her cheeks.

‘For the moment,' she confirmed, ‘but we had a close call with Khalid this week.'

‘We certainly did.' He realised now just how hard Taren had been working for him and the project. ‘You've done the right thing, waking me up now.' He was clearly excited. ‘I'll have ten more years in your company! And ten more years to deal with Khalid's trail of destruction.'

‘We'll have help.' Taren was beaming with happiness to have her partner back; she'd had no idea that she could ever have Lucian back with all his memory intact! With the event, her greatest fear — that of having to try to explain their history, with very little proof of it — dissolved away forever.

‘Where are they all now,' Lucian wondered aloud, ‘our super crew?'

Again she was shocked and pleased. ‘No need to worry, I know where to find them, just like I knew where to find you … and there are more of them than we originally thought. Still, it will be five years before we'll need to start recruiting most of them to the project, so …'

Lucian was grinning like a kid on his birthday. ‘I just knew you'd be like this.'

Taren laughed. ‘Hard work?'

Lucian shook his head. ‘From the moment I first saw you walk into our presentation venue, I knew you were going to change my
life …' This amused the professor in retrospect. ‘What I didn't realise was that you already
had
changed my life.' He hugged her close, as if trying to compensate for the time and space that had kept them apart, but then he began to tremble. ‘
Damn
,' he muttered, flopping backward onto the bed to distance himself from the giddy euphoria of Taren's touch.

‘Whoops.' Taren winced, as he closed his eyes. ‘Stay with me, Lucian.' She slapped him about the cheeks.

‘I'm here.' He forced his eyes open.

‘I have a gift for you.' She flashed the stone of undulating colour before his eyes and they opened wide, as he took it in hand. ‘It's a piece of rock from Oceane that carries the essence and protection of Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi.' She was not surprised that Lucian suddenly found the energy to sit upright.

‘The Grigori,' he gasped, remembering the helpful minions of the gaseous being that he'd once been able to summon and converse with.

‘They gave me one too.' Taren allowed her armband to be seen against her bare arm; she had the advantage of being able to use her PK to hide her Juju, so she didn't have to wear sleeves all the time.

‘That's very clever,' he commented, amazed and elated by the stone he was handling.

‘I'll explain more about how I came upon them later, but right now all you really need to know is this —' Taren kissed Lucian with all her pent-up passion and after a long engagement, when he was still responsive, Taren pulled back. ‘Do you see?'

‘That
is very
interesting.' With a large smile on his face, Lucian gripped the stone firmly in his hand. He grabbed hold of Taren, who squealed with delight as he laid her back onto the bed and, lying down beside her, he pulled her closer than he'd ever dared to in this time line.

Lost in a kiss, her body writhing with the pleasure of being pinned beneath him, Lucian suddenly withdrew to kneeling and Taren was left panting in anticipation.

‘You are the daughter and heiress of the Queen of Phemoria!' He appeared as alarmed by the fact as he had the first time he had discovered it.

‘Oh that!' She waved off his concern, and sat up. ‘You are the one who discovered the means to lift my mother's curse, remember? And so she is bound to adore you!' Taren concluded. ‘And father already adores you!'

Lucian was shocked. ‘He knows about us?'

Taren grinned broadly, nodding to confirm this. ‘He's known, since before I got involved with the project that, sooner or later, you would be joining the family.' She laid back onto the covers, hoping he'd be enticed to resume their heated encounter.

Lucian's smile returned, as he moved to lie close to her again. ‘I thought I was crazy, falling in love with you —'

Taren giggled. ‘Welcome back to my world,' she whispered. He was so close. ‘Now you really do know everything.'

‘Infinitely pleased to be here,' he assured her, as their lips sought and found fulfilment in a kiss that was familiar yet exhilarating.

The joy of having Lucian close and in her confidence was overwhelming for Taren; she'd been striving for this moment since she'd parted ways with him on Kila — a little planet in a universe parallel to theirs. ‘I never thought we'd get here,' she uttered between kisses and silent tears of relief.

Lucian paused from his amusement to look at her. ‘You promised me something, if we ever made it this far.' He smiled broadly in the knowledge that he could now claim that prize. ‘Do you remember?'

It was a long, long time — if ever — since Taren had felt sheer happiness; she'd wanted to marry Lucian since before they'd met — in any time line! ‘I do remember,' she said, ‘and I am most eager to honour that promise.' Her kiss conveyed how strong her conviction was, even though it seemed an eon ago that Lucian asked her to marry him. Still, here they were, past those insurmountable odds and back on the same page and team. Being touched by the man she loved was not the only
reason the future was looking a whole lot brighter; for now that they were working together their chances of bringing AMIE through the next ten years unscathed, and avoiding the Maladaan/Oceane disaster had doubled, if not tripled!

Khalid's attempt to imprison Zelimir Ronan had backfired rather dismally on him, for not only had he lost his prisoner, but he'd inadvertently brought two of his greatest adversaries back together again.

‘What do you mean, he disappeared?' Khalid Mansur was not happy when he received the news that the ex-chief of the Maladaan Secret Service had escaped custody.

‘I have viewed the footage from the security camera in Ronan's cell,' Norward said, in a cool, rational manner, ‘and shortly before we entered to collect the prisoner, he was visited by two Valoureans. He spoke with them casually, as if he knew them.'

‘Valoureans?' Khalid frowned, finding that hard to believe.

Norward confirmed with a nod. ‘The intruders also appeared and disappeared on camera. Thus, I conclude that they spirited Ronan away once our party was clear of the psychic containment cell.'

Khalid had outwardly calmed. ‘Bloody good evaluation,' he admitted, liking that his new 2IC did not attempt to make excuses for the blunder. ‘But your regular Valourean cannot teleport, that is a talent that runs —'

‘— in the Phemorian royal family, yes, sir.' Norward knew this. ‘But there is no one on our database with such a talent, so unfortunately I find myself at a dead end. I have, however, put out an apprehension order on Ronan in all four systems of the US secret service.'

Khalid was quietly fuming, but he was not going to take out his frustration on Norward, who had the efficiency and fear of a robot. ‘Dismissed.' Khalid took a seat behind his new desk.

‘May I say,' Norward deferred his departure, ‘that I am stunned that Ronan tested positive for the Powers, Chief. I thought I knew him well, but clearly, I did not.'

‘We have all been deceived,' Khalid agreed. ‘Ronan's deceit has no reflection on you, Norward.'

‘Thank you, sir.' Satisfied, Norward left the office.

‘What the fuck?' Khalid appealed to the heavens; he'd not come across another with his talent in a long time, and now two ordinary Valoureans had telekinesis? He wasn't buying it. Spyridon was still out there somewhere; he'd not given the shamed and broken Duke of Vidor a second thought in twenty years; but he was the only other known individual that could have pulled this off. Anselm's new little upstart had obviously had some kind of psychic talent, but thanks to his recent death by midair explosion, he was no longer a concern. ‘Cocky little prick deserved it.'

Khalid decided to retire to his own private quarters — he had the psychic means to track down his missing hostage and Spyridon, and once he'd taken leave of his office, he intended to do exactly that.

In retrospect, he had to give Chief Ronan credit; not even Khalid himself would have suspected him of having the Powers, or of having any friends psychically in-the-know enough to shield the ex-chief from being found. If Ronan wasn't hiding vital information about someone, then he wouldn't have been worth retrieving. Khalid's intel had recorded Anselm's young upstart talking to his partner about
the boss,
and whoever this
boss
was, even Anselm aspired to befriend him! Someone was quietly acquiring power and influence without his knowledge, and that made Khalid nervous. He thought perhaps he should have questioned Anselm's young hotshot before having him terminated, but his partner was still out there somewhere. The intel from Khalid's secret agents in the field had failed to turn up so much
as one picture of the man known as Mythric Zeon. Even the security cameras at the facility where he worked had failed to capture one single image of him! A feat like that required psychokinesis — that's how Khalid kept his private space surveillance free — and if this fellow had PK he was likely to have TK as well, making him another candidate who could have pulled off Ronan's escape. Who was Mythric Zeon? Now that Khalid had charge of the MSS and its database, he would find out. All he needed was one image of the man to telekinetically locate him.

For the first time in many decades, there was a challenge and mystery afoot, and that appealed greatly to Khalid's appetite for sedition.

 

On the top floor of the MSS building in Maladaan, Khalid found privacy in his surveillance-free penthouse. He wasted no time in conjuring up a mask for his face, and an image of Chief Ronan in his mind. With the intention of joining Zelimir Ronan, Khalid prepared to confront his escapee and was exceedingly more furious the longer he remained where he was.

‘That's fucking impossible!' He flew into a tantrum. ‘No one can shield themselves from me!' Only the Queen of Phemoria, who was psychically protected by the Phemoray, could deflect his will.
Could she be protecting Ronan?

It made no sense that Valoureans would rescue the chief of the MSS for anything other than his torture! Although lately the chief had softened his stance on psychics, which might have inspired Phemorian sympathies, the Phemorians rarely cared about anything outside of their home planet. What could Ronan have that would be worth such a political risk for Phemoria? Khalid's gut feeling was that some other, as yet unknown, player in the intergalactic psychic war was framing Phemoria with the chief's disappearance. He had a psychic nemesis somewhere; he could sense it.

‘Right then.' He calmed himself from the disappointment of not finding the chief and turned his thoughts to Spyridon.

Six months after Khalid raped and gutted his own half-sister Satomi and murdered her bastard prince by the Duke of Vidor, Khalid had quietly checked in on Spyridon. He'd drunk himself into a hole on Maladaan that Khalid expected the broken duke would die in. Nothing had been heard of Spyridon since and, if the defeated duke was going to pose a problem, Khalid's father would have foreseen it.

Khalid's intention to teleport himself to Spyridon failed to get him anywhere, but, as frustrating as it was, he had to consider that his target could well be dead.

‘As much as I would like to
fuck
today
right
off,' he seethed, ‘it seems a word with Father is in order.' Khalid's expression glazed over like a millpond in the calm before a storm. ‘I best not arrive empty-handed.'

 

It was late night at Dead Man Downs, but that was when the party really started here — even the ghosts of Sermetica preferred to socialise in the cool night hours.

True, no living soul besides Khalid ever came here by choice — the deep crevasse of the remote canyon in the desert wastelands of Sermetica was near impossible to reach. Once you got here, all to be seen were the ancient wreckage of spacecraft, filled with skeletal remains. The remote site was a sad reminder to all the Sermetic people of their hatred of Phemoria, for using psychic means to seize control of the planet from their menfolk and cast them into exile on Sermetica. Sermetica had thrived, however, and so had an intergalactic fear of anyone with the Powers. Every man on board these ill-stocked vessels perished; at least that's how the legends told it. The site had been deemed cursed, as everyone who had ever set out to gain access to the wrecked craft had never been seen again.

Still, despite one thousand years in disrepair, the executive lounge of the mother ship was dimly lit and air-conditioned in anticipation of Khalid's arrival. The embittered thought forms of Dead Man Downs
looked forward to visits from their one begotten son, for he always brought them alms — soul food to feed their hunger for the fear, anger, pain and suffering of women.

Khalid materialised before his father's favourite table with a stunned, stumbling prostitute in each hand, and he let loose both the women to let them regain their own equilibrium upon arrival. ‘Hello, Father, I'm home.'

‘Where the fuck are we, freak?' hissed one of the horrified women.

‘The last place you'll ever be,' Khalid replied, removing the mask from his face, whereupon the woman gasped, recognising him.

The other woman noticed a pile a skeletons and started to scream.

‘What's with the whores?' hissed a malign voice from the shadows of an unlit private booth in front of where they had landed — both women shut up and backed up. ‘We need innocents, not sluts!'

‘Blood is blood, your kinky preferences are not my concern!' Khalid replied coolly. ‘Now, have the boys scare the shit out of these bitches so you can feed, and
we
can get down to
business
.'

‘Fear is a quick fix! Purity is more sustaining, you know that!' The shadowed figure thumped a fist down on his table, and the girls fled for their lives.

‘Well, if you want me to keep you around …' Khalid looked to the fleeing women and with a thought lifted them both off the ground. The resulting screams were deafening and so he struck them mute as well. ‘You'd best start proving useful!' He hauled the women back to float nearby in silence, although their squirming and facial expressions were anything but subdued.

‘Your hatred, your merciless thirst for power, is an immense vindication.' His father was proud.

‘
Someone stole
Ronan from my custody and is
somehow
shielding him from being found by me.' Khalid was not going to be distracted by flattery. ‘So, you
stupid old sorcerer
, I want to know
who
that someone is, or I shall shatter what little remains of your human form and you'll be confined to mere spiritual pleasures.'

‘You wouldn't want to lose the protection of your fathers right now, would you
son
? Every soul here willingly gave their life to sustain this body long enough to bring you into being!'

‘And I have spent
my
lifetime supplying you with victims to keep you all
being
, and I'm am starting to wonder why!' Khalid challenged.

His father gave a knowing laugh. ‘You'd miss our little get togethers …'

The silenced women dangling in the air were violently stripped of their clothes by the unseen force of dead men that Khalid called father, whilst the body that the angry thought form still employed in the physical world, emerged from the shadows of the booth. As the body of what had once been the captain of this ill-fated voyage appeared to be little more than a walking pile of rotting flesh and bones, the silent screams of the women he approached intensified, as did their squirming.

‘… I know how you love blood sports,' the creature concluded, as he looked over the next injection of life force for his body.

The females of Phemoria had assumed that they were the only ones dabbling in supernatural magic, but the man who came to captain this legendary flight of male refugees was none other than the outcast Prince of Phemoria — Chironjivi, whose name meant ‘long lived' and who the queen could not bring herself to kill. He had been spying on the sorcerous ways of his mother. He'd witnessed her and her female minions make a blood sacrifice of his father and his best men, then forge the crown of Phemoria from the jewellery of murdered and disgraced women cast into the pit of the obstinate. This rite had created the force now known as the Phemoray — who guarded and guided the ruling Queen of Phemoria with supernatural power. Well, Chironjivi had created his own force of lost souls, and every man here gladly contributed to the cause of revenge on Phemoria.

‘Let's summon some fear, shall we?' Chironjivi grinned at Khalid.

‘Make it snappy.' Khalid was only mildly enthused. ‘I have other more pressing kills on my agenda.'

 

For the first time since Taren and Lucian had arrived on Frujia there was a rainstorm in Kotan Bathaar. As the torrential downpour lasted all morning and it was not a work day, it seemed the perfect excuse to stay in bed.

As the storm rained itself out, they were laying about discussing the reality of getting married and how much they hated the idea of a big hullabaloo.

‘Let's just do it this afternoon,' Lucian proposed, ‘before it turns into a fiasco, or some other creation threatening catastrophe crops up to prevent it.'

‘Are you serious?' Taren was rather delighted by the idea.

‘Never more so.' He crawled out of bed to find his communicator. ‘I'll just call Swithin —'

‘Sweetheart,' Taren called for his attention.

Lucian ceased his search when she manifested the item in question in her hand, and waved it about to entice him back to bed.

‘I'll just call Swithin …' He returned to his spot beside her and claimed his phone with a kiss. ‘… He can be our witness. As we have temporary citizenship, we can wed as simply as the locals. I know, because I looked it up.'

‘When?' Taren wondered, as he hadn't really been out of her sight all day.

‘Weeks ago.' He flashed a cheeky smile, as he put a call through to his brother.

‘That's before we even moved the project offices here.' Taren's heart swelled with sentiment.

‘I knew it was only a matter of time,' he said, without sounding cocky, and Taren just had to kiss him.

‘
Hello
.' A female answered Lucian's audio-only call to his brother, as neither of them were presentable at present.

Their kiss ended abruptly, and they were puzzled. ‘Is Swithin about?' Lucian queried.

‘
Lucian, it's Amie
.'

With the news an amused look passed between Lucian and Taren. ‘Is Swithin indisposed right now?' Lucian tried not to sound presumptuous.

‘
You could say that …
' Amie sounded a little flustered. ‘…
is Taren at her unit right now, do you know?
'

‘As it happens we are both here,' Lucian advised, ‘we have a lunch meeting to discuss a merger.'

Taren was amused and held her hand out, expecting that Amie wanted to talk to her.

‘
I'm at Swithin's, I'll be right over
.'

‘Can you —' The call was terminated and Lucian looked to Taren, realising they had about 30 seconds before Amie was on the doorstep, and then sprang into action.

Taren looked about at the state of the bedroom and did what she did every morning — envisaged it spotless and tidy, herself dressed and in this instance, Lucian dressed as well.