THE VROL TRILOGY (51 page)

Draagh thought for a moment, and in
retrospect really wished he had paid Max a bit more attention,
especially on the days approaching the planned nuptials. He would
have never told Jennie the truth, which was that on the day Max
disappeared he was in Krynos' sub-dimensional office playing video
games with the lycan king (they were both Tetris fans), and he had
left his staff in his chambers, which Max then used with disastrous
results.

Distracting himself from thinking about his
grave error in judgment, Draagh looked at little Liliana with a
gleam in his eye, as well as great pride. He had determined that
she did indeed have mage genetics, thanks to her maternal
biological great-grandfather, and the child was absorbing her
lessons like the proverbial sponge. He knew without a doubt that
one day she would be able to perform great feats of skill. She
would never be as powerful as Max, who's biological father was the
Taxiarch, but what skills she did have she would utilize with
purest of intentions, even though she had a tendency to electrocute
the castle cats on occasion.

But her mother was a different story entirely
- Jennie needed a change of pace, and the particular date was not
helping her in any way. He then brought up something that he had
been considering for quite a while. It was not in the plan, but he
was never one to follow plans anyway, preferring to make little
adjustments and let it all play out.

After watching Liliana consume massive
quantities of protein, as was the lycan way, he looked over at
Jennie and asked her how her death form sapience training was
coming along.

"So, my daughter. Donus has informed me that
you are managing quite well during the full moon. How do you feel
you are doing?"

"Oh, fairly well. At least I'm not trying to
kill anyone anymore. I can read while in phase 3, but it's a pain
trying to learn the spoken language. I'll get it one of these days.
Lili is soaking it up, though. She tries to help me with
pronunciation, but usually ends up in hysterical laughter."

The bright-eyed lycan girl looked up from her
plate and mumbled, "Yup."

Draagh smiled at his great-granddaughter, and
then continued, "Jennie, I have been considering something, and I
believe that you may be able to help me.

The stunning, dark-skinned lycan woman gave
him her full attention with her overly large, doe-like eyes.

"What would that be?" she asked, then taking
another bite of meat and not bothering to be so dainty with her
eating utensils, as was usually the case when she was distracted by
something.

"There is someone who needs our help, and I
believe that the time has come to assist."

"Who's that, and what are we gonna do?"

"I want you to accompany me to Azul so we may
rescue Luigi Bagatelle."

"What? He's been kidnapped? What happened?
When did this happen?" she interrupted quietly, so as not to alarm
her daughter.

"No, my dear girl, not kidnapped. He is under
house arrest, and has been so for a number of months. Apparently,
the father of the headless Ryder Johnson twisted the data I
provided, which proved that the Vrol attacked Earth. He made it
appear as if Luigi had falsified the information. Councilman
Johnson is quite a piece of work, I must say. Just like his son, he
carries the recessive vampire gene, and thus is capable of actions
most vile. Yes, certainly most vile."

"But why didn't you say anything before about
this?" she responded, while remembering how she had liquefied Lt.
Ryder Johnson's skull in the Battle of the Blood, just under a year
before.

"Well, my dear, I had been simply hoping that
things would turn out for the best, but as I said before,
Councilman Johnson is quite a piece of work. It was because of men
like him that we decided to take away Man's ability to touch nature
and manipulate magical energies."

Jennie felt a rush course through her body,
unlike anything she had felt since she first started searching for
Max. It was the perfect distraction for a distracted wife and
mother, who also happened to be a formidable warrior, as well as a
werewolf.

"So when do we go?" asked the lovely lycan
female.

"We leave tomorrow, early. I have already
arranged for Liliana's care during our absence. We will not be gone
long anyway - just a slip in and a slip out."

She looked pensive for a minute, and then
said, "No. I want Lili to come with us. She needs some new scenery
too. Plus, it would be great for her to see my home world, even if
only for a short while."

Draagh smiled, agreeing with her, and said,
"Very well. We shall leave in the morning."

Chapter 2 -
The Lost Angel

Old-Earth's Viking Age provided mankind with
a unique legend. Thor, the Norse god of thunder, had a hammer named
Mjölnir. Whenever Thor threw the hammer it would return to his grip
without fail. He could also command its presence when he saw fit.
Some say the legend was simply that - fiction created by tribal
leaders over the years.

Now contrary to modern belief, Thor did
indeed walk the earth, and he had a hammer that would return to his
hand whenever he desired. However, he was not who everyone thought
he was - he was one of the
archangels
- and Mjölnir was merely a vessel; a
container for something much greater.

The hammer's faithful return was facilitated
by the non-sentient ghanlo residing inside - an immortal, soul-like
life form that was permanently bound to its master. The two
couldn't be separated, except by the owner being banished from the
universe by another of his kind. This would then result in the
ghanlo residing in an object of historical significance until a new
Primulus (or archangel) found and claimed it.

Aside from banishment, they were inseparable
for all eternity, and Draagh's ghanlo was no exception to this
rule.

Max Gunnarsson tried to leave his particular
location in space/time with a ghanlo that belonged to a different
master - the one that resided in his grandfather's wooden staff.
This backfired and blew him out to an alternate timeline. The
ghanlo had its reasons for doing so; the mathematical complexities
of the universe commanded it to. But no one gave Max a post-it note
(or a personal console message) with instructions.

When he had just lifted his face out of a
cesspool of sludge and waste underneath the broken pavement of
Sunset Boulevard, and was looking up at small fire that emitted
smoke near the broken Hollywood sign on the hill to his north, six
standard months had already passed in the Rhönen Dominion, with him
being none the wiser. He had erred seriously and was unaware of his
place in the universe.

Max was cautious as he climbed out of the
sewage pipe in which he found himself, at the same time sniffing
the air and attempting to detect any nearby life forms. Noting that
the nearest being was something with a very disagreeable scent at
half a kilometer to the south, he crept out and stayed low. Quickly
pulling off his backpack, he dropped it on the broken ground and
opened it up, pulling out all of his belongings - his stinger, his
comm, his personal console and half a kilo of dried venison strips.
He reached backwards; making sure his katana was secured to the
straps on his shoulders. Satisfied he had not lost anything (aside
from Draagh's staff), he set out and away from anything he could
smell.

During his months in the Rhönen
Dominion of the 43
^rd
century
Max had studied the art of war - specifically recon and espionage.
He was very adept at sneaking around and gathering intel. He was
also extremely proficient in the use of his sword, and of course,
his stinger, which he had trained on before ever having left his
home planet. But, of course, Max's biological father was the
Taxiarch; the most powerful of archangels, giving the young man
some very specific magical abilities - if he was in the right
environment.

As he bounded over the rubble that
littered the street, something suddenly dawned on him - he was
seeing and smelling like a lycan. The inactive parts of his
mother's genome had given Max a completely different range of
skills - enhanced strength, senses, and the ability to transform
himself at-will into a hyper-strong battle-ready beast. But these
abilities were not available on Earth of Max's century - only
before the 6
^th
and after the
33
^rd
centuries.

It was apparent he was on Earth of the past,
and if what Draagh had told him about Old-Earth was true, he
shouldn't have even been able to detect a pile of crap from a
distance of more than two meters. But this wasn't the case - he
smelled everything, including distant scat from hominids with which
he was unfamiliar.

Thinking quickly, he kneeled down out of
sight underneath the torn awning of a burnt-out storefront. Pulling
out one of his throwing knives that he kept in fasteners on the
sides of his boots, he nicked himself on his inner right arm with
the sharp blade, watching blood seep from the small wound; it then
healed within seconds.

Salubots are working in full order

He looked around and sniffed the air, making
sure that nothing was close by, and holding out his hand, executed
a grav-push cantus on some large pieces of pavement that had long
before been upended in the street. A boulder about the size of a
small car flew into the air and landed with a loud, dense thud.
This caused a Vrol flyer drifting in the sky to go in his
direction, but it peeled off once it got near and didn't see
anything on the wide boulevard. He also concentrated and saw his
semi-transparent, organic HUD in the upper-left corner of his field
of vision, with it also appearing on the inner part of his left arm
on-demand.

Got my skills

The next thing he did was critical. He had
refused to listen before slipping out of Draagh's office, but he
attempted to call Socrates. To his dismay the sentient mage
intelligence access portal didn't appear. When that didn't work he
tried to 3D slip to the end of the street. He didn't even move a
centimeter.

Dammit.
Guess
not everything works like it should. Why didn't I listen to the
face?

So, not knowing where to go or what to do, he
started walking westbound on Sunset Boulevard while taking care to
stay in the shadows. Focusing on what he needed to do, he would
find his way home, but first he had to find a mage, if one even
existed on his strange, new world.

Max walked westbound for a short while,
scanning the sky ad the ground for anything dangerous, when he
detected the scent of a lycan. Alarmed at first, as he was in a
different world and he had no idea what he would encounter, he
flanked the scent, and came around from its south.

As he approached the scent and it became
stronger, he was surprised to see a young woman sitting on the
remnants of what was a retaining wall running along a drainage
canal. She was whistling and swinging her legs side-to-side along
with her little tune. He calmly approached her out in the open, not
wanting to alarm her, and was about to make his presence known when
he heard her say, "Heya. Smelled you waaaaaaay back there."

"So, you have a great nose too," he stated
plainly.

"Sure, why wouldn't I?"

"Ok, I guess you got me there. Is this
location safe?"

"Pretty much. I have a hidey-hole I jump into
when a demon flies overhead."

So they call the Vrol
demons
, he thought to himself. Wanting to get a
feel for this world that was apparently not from his timeline, he
decided to try to gather intel from the presumably innocent woman
who continued to whistle.

"Um, can I sit down with you? I'm harmless,"
he said with a bit of hesitation.

"Sure. Why not? But harmless? I don't think
so."

"What do you mean I'm not harmless?"

"Well, let's see. You have a weird-looking
gun strapped to your leg, and you have a big-ass sword on your
back. Looks like you're hunting something, and it's not
rabbit."

"Is there enough room in your hiding place if
another… demon flies over?"

"Yup, pretty sure. If not I'll just push you
out."

"Nice. So, what's your name?" he looked at
her with a curious expression. She was average height, and cute -
extremely cute. Not like his wife, who was smoking-hot, in
vernacular terms, but very cute. She had brown hair that was cut
short, and oddly - she was without shoes. He couldn't imagine being
without shoes.

The girl stared straight ahead as if he
weren't at her side, answering , "Jessica. I'm called Jessica…
Oops, a demon. Duck!"

Jessica slipped off the retaining wall and
silently dashed down to a large pipe that fed into the canal,
quickly slipping in. Max followed her rapidly, and fortunately both
fit inside.

"So, what's your name, ninja puppy?"

"Max. Max Gunnarsson."

"You have two names? How weird. What do they
mean?"

"Well, Max is my given name - my first name,
and Gunnarsson is the name of my family," he said.

"You have a family? Like a mother and a
father? That's nice."

"Well, yes and no. I have a mother, but I
never met my father."

"Same here. But I have one name. Jessica.
That's all."

"Well it's nice to meet you Jessica. I'm… uh…
kinda lost."

"Duh!" The girl started laughing, and then
peeked up out of the pipe, looking around and sniffing the air.
"Demon's gone. Fresh air time!" she said as she bounded up out of
the drainage pipe and popped back up onto her wall.