Totem of Aries Read online

  “I traded for an innocent soul. You knew for sure when you came back to the hunting camp and killed the devil, your soul would no longer be innocent.”

  Madeline looked the woman in the eye. “You didn’t ask for an innocent soul. If you had, I would never have traded. I know I’m not innocent. But what does this have to do with my husband?”

  “Ciaran is your soulmate. Before he met you, he encountered a soul trader who marked him. Because his spirit was too strong for it to take over, it gave up—but it always wanted him. I recently made a deal with it, without knowing its background with Ciaran. I traded your soul as an innocent, and it called me out as a cheater. The house of the underworld gods has ruled that I have to compensate by giving it your associated soul—and that is Ciaran’s.”

  “What kind of hideous rule is that?”

  “It is not for me to say. The soul trading business has operated for thousands of years, regardless of whether I agree with their rules. That soul trader knew all along that I had a faulty trade and it could get to Ciaran by pretending to bid high for your innocent soul. It was cheating. It tricked me. But I don’t have proof.”

  “And what is it? Does it have a name or a form?”

  “No. And that’s why I’m here. I want another trade. You don’t want to lose your husband, and I don’t want to lose to that cheap trader.”

  “How do you think I can help?”

  “I believe you can time travel.”

  “I can’t. But the technology here can help. I presume I’m not to let Ciaran know because he isn’t allowed to come back to fix his own fate.”

  “Correct.”

  “What exactly do you want me to do when I travel to the past?”

  “Kill the soul trader at a time before it marked Ciaran. It’s dangerous to do so, but it’s the only solution for both of us.”

  She nodded. “When exactly in the past?”

  “Approximately seven days before Ciaran met you. I don’t know where…or how.”

  “I’ll talk to Tadgh, his brother. He’ll figure out the precise time, and he can help me handle the technology here.”

  “One more thing…”

  “What?”

  “I think that soul trader has something to do with vampires.”

  Chapter 3

  Tadgh gazed out the wide window of his capsule and saw that the glowing globe marking the new day had risen high in the sky. It was indeed a new day. No matter whether it was on Earth or Eudaiz, a new day brought hope, and he should be grateful he was standing here in the most advanced capsule designed for Sciphils.

  Capsules in Eudaiz were the equivalent of the spaceships he’d grown up watching in science fiction movies on Earth. Sciphil stood for Scientist Philosopher and referred to the nine council positions, each one in charge of one of the nine towers that governed Eudaiz, a universe of six hundred billion citizens, far away from Earth.

  The most ironic joke that fate had played on him was that even though he’d grown up avoiding the LeBlanc family business, he had ended up as Sciphil Seven and was now governing a district of a multibillion Eudaizian citizens.

  Not long ago, he had been on an adventure in the African jungle. He wouldn’t have come back to London if it hadn’t been for Ciaran. Not that Ciaran had called him home—it was his mother who had asked him to keep an eye on Ciaran.

  His family rarely asked anything of him. But when they did, it was always due to a life-changing event of some kind. And for one of those events, he was now standing here in the control station of a capsule in Eudaiz.

  “Stop circling! You’re making me dizzy, Tadgh,” Ciaran said, his eyes still fixed on the navigation panel on the dashboard.

  Tadgh didn’t realize he was pacing the control room. He glanced at his wife, Jo, who had anticipated his look. She winked at him.

  Isn’t she worried at all? he wondered. Apparently not. She was always cool-headed. She was a Sciphil now, not the computer game designer she had once been when he met her. And Madeline trusted her for very good reasons.

  “Anything yet, Jo? Why can’t I get any signal from the navigation system?” Ciaran asked.

  Jo shook her head. “We’re close…I’m sure of it. The rescue signal Madeline sent was weak, but it was a short frequency. That means we’re close to her and the children.”

  “What sort of creature would ambush a woman and her children?” Tadgh asked.

  “They’re not just an ordinary mother and children, Tadgh. You know better than that,” Jo said.

  Tadgh shook his head. “Yes, she’s Eudaizian. And yes, she’s first Sciphil. And the children are the best beings in the multiverse because they were conceived in the Red stage of the Daimon Gate test. But Madeline only brought the kids with her to travel within the safe zone between Eudaiz and the Daimon Gate. If we weren’t on the same route to visit Mother today, we would have gotten her rescue signal. Only Xiilok creatures would do this sort of thing.”

  Ciaran was dead silent. Tadgh knew that no matter how capable Ciaran was as a warrior and king of this universe, when it came to his family, he was vulnerable.

  “Here they are. They’re surrounded, and I don’t recognize these spaceships,” Ciaran said softly.

  Outside their window now was a vast stream of green beams coming from strangely shaped vehicles. In the middle of the light beams was the capsule that held Madeline and the twin toddlers, Caedmon and Lyla.

  “Madeline and the kids are surrounded. Do you want to engage communication, Ciaran?” Jo asked.

  “No, it’s too risky. We don’t know the creatures in these vehicles or what they want. We don’t know the properties of the beams surrounding the capsule.”

  “I can dematerialize and go in to talk to Madeline,” Tadgh offered. “They can’t see us now, so they wouldn’t see me going in.”

  “No, Tadgh. We don’t know enough about those beams. You’re not going anywhere near them in your dematerialized form. If they were something familiar, Madeline would have used her psychic abilities to communicate to me by now.”

  “So what’s your plan then?” Tadgh waved his arms. “Should we call in the troops?”

  “I’m afraid they’d be dead before the troops got here,” Ciaran muttered. “I’ll have to get them out.”

  “How? And don’t even think about going in there yourself,” Tadgh growled.

  “Do you have a solution, Tadgh?”

  “Yes, I do. I dematerialize, go in, and talk to Madeline.”

  “And then what?” Jo asked. “Ciaran is right, Tadgh. If they wanted to communicate with Madeline or negotiate for a ransom, we would have known by now. I think they’re waiting for orders.”

  “From whom?” Tadgh asked.

  “I’m going in,” Ciaran said decisively and placed his palm on the control panel. “Engage satellite capsule.”

  “You’re king of Eudaiz, Ciaran. You have a responsibility to your citizens,” Tadgh said.

  “I’m not suicidal. I’ll turn off my eudqi. Please just stay put and call the commanders if things go pear-shaped and I need back up.”

  Tadgh had been waiting for that very moment. As king Sciphil, Ciaran’s eudqi, his special energy, was not only strong but also a wicked protector. If he turned it on, it would give him super power. But if he was attacked at his critical point, it would be fatal. If he turned his eudqi off, he would no longer have super power, but his energy would still heal any injury he had, provided he wasn’t dead.

  If Ciaran left his eudqi on, Tadgh had zero chance to execute his plan.

  After Ciaran had confirmed with the machine that he would be traveling without his eudqi, Tadgh pulled out his tranq gun. He could never be as fast and strong as Ciaran was, so Tadgh had his Sciphil eudqi on to increase his chances.

  But Tadgh underestimated his brother.

  As fast as lightning, Ciaran grabbed his gun hand, causing the tranq dart to fire into to the ceiling of the capsule.

  “What are you doing, Tadgh?”


  Tadgh cringed but then was delighted to see a tranq dart hit Ciaran’s shoulder.

  Ciaran turned to see Jo with a tranq gun in her hands.

  Ciaran’s legs buckled.

  Tadgh grabbed for his brother, but Ciaran pushed him away and fell to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Ciaran. It’s my new simulation game on vision,” Jo said and punched a button on the control panel. The screen in front of their capsule dissolved. Madeline and the children rushed in.

  Caedmon and Lyla, mere toddlers, held their father’s hands. Caedmon cried, but Lyla didn’t shed a single tear.

  Madeline brushed a stray hair from Ciaran’s forehead. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Ciaran. I know you’ll be angry with me, but I didn’t have time to explain. And you wouldn’t approve of my solution anyway. I’ll talk to you once I sort this out.”

  Ciaran said nothing. He closed his eyes. And with that, he went into a drug- induced sleep.

  They placed him in an exclusive chamber and closed the door. The computer flashed a red signal.

  “The Still procedure requires three Sciphil palm prints simultaneously. Only one attempt allowed.”

  “Are you sure, Madeline?” Jo asked.

  Madeline nodded. “Thank you for your help. Both of you.”

  At the same time, they placed their palms on the three rectangular light boxes.

  “Still procedure confirmed. The procedure will be performed on Ciaran LeBlanc—Sciphil Three, King Sciphil.”

  Still procedure was a mechanism that locked the profile of the subject in the still mode. In lay terms, it froze the individual until the procedure was stopped by the same people who triggered it.

  They couldn’t just simply put Ciaran to sleep. They had to temporarily stop his existence to buy time for Madeline to return to the past to fix the soul trading problem. They didn’t know much about the soul trading business, but there was one thing they were sure of—no creature of any kind in any world could access the Still chamber.

  Tadgh picked Caedmon and Lyla up, holding them in his arms. “I’ll take the children to the Daimon Gate. My parents are expecting them, so there shouldn’t be more delay, or they’ll be alarmed.”

  “Thank you,” Madeline said.

  Tadgh exited the room and headed toward his private capsule. Then Lyla started crying. He stopped and put the toddlers on the ground. These kids were too smart for him to say anything silly or untrue to calm them. They knew what was going on. Caedmon had been crying, which was good. He was an emotional and affectionate boy.

  Lyla always worried Tadgh. She was so much like her father, never showing emotion, even when she was an infant.

  “You’re going to say Father will be fine, aren’t you, Uncle Tadgh?” Lyla said. “But he won’t be. I can see it on Mother’s face.”

  Caedmon wiped his tears with his little hands. “I know what the Still chamber is. I know what it does, Uncle Tadgh. Please tell us the truth. What’s going on? We won’t tell our grandparents.”

  Tadgh nodded. “A very bad creature from the magical world will kill your father if your mother doesn’t go back and fix something in the past. We don’t know what form the creature will take or how it will attack. We can’t talk to your father because if he attempts to manipulate his own fate, things could get a lot more complicated than they are already.”

  The twins nodded.

  “So Mother just needs time and your help?” Caedmon asked.

  Tadgh nodded. “Aunty Jo and I will help her. We’ll handle this. Your father will be fine.”

  “But you can’t promise that,” Lyla said.

  “Nothing can be said with certainty in the multiverse. But you know what your father would say.”

  Lyla nodded with determination. “Goodness will win. We’ll destroy evil at all costs.” She wiped away the single tear on her face. “Please take us to the Daimon Gate, Uncle Tadgh. We’ll stay with our grandparents and won’t say anything.”

  “Good girl.” He kissed Lyla’s forehead and promised himself that when he had his own children, he’d resign from the council and live a normal life so they wouldn’t have to deal with things like this.

  Chapter 4

  “What?” Madeline asked, looking at Jo, who was staring at her with striking green eyes.

  “Tadgh and the children are gone. Ciaran has now settled in for a bit. If you want, you can cry now.”

  Madeline shook her head. “Are you sure we can get Ciaran back safely?”

  “Only if the three of us stop the Still. In theory, it will work. But I think it’ll be best if you give me a bit of a background. Something more than just a soul trader bitch met us in the woods years ago and now lost a bet to another soul trader bitch who will claim Ciaran’s life.” Jo panted a bit, out of breath after spitting out the long sentence without a break.

  “I’m not sure about the gender of the one that wants Ciaran’s soul,” said Madeline. “But what you just said sums up about all I know.”

  Jo arched one beautiful eyebrow. “But that means you know next to nothing!”

  “Well, all you and Tadgh have to do is get me back to the time before I met Ciaran and before the other soul trader marked him. Then I’ll kill it and return. It’s as simple as that.”

  Jo nodded. “All right then.”

  “So,” Madeline continued, “please engage with the vampire city. We talked about this.”

  “Now that’s the part I’m unsure about. Surely we have someone on staff in Eudaiz who could help with this. What about the were-fox commanders, Roy and Mori? What about Lorcan and Orla? You can’t possibly ask for more than a computer geek shapeshifter and a sorceress!”

  Madeline shook her head. “The soul trader said our adversary has something to do with vampires. That makes this a totally different game for us. We know nothing about the soul trading business. Now, having Alex, we can reduce one factor of uncertainty. He’s a vampire, but he’s a good guy. Plus he owes Ciaran one.”

  Jo sighed. “Time isn’t on our side right now. I guess we’ll have to go with your plan.” She engaged the communication channel.

  Alex’s face appeared on the screen. He hadn’t changed much. Still as lethally handsome as most vampires described in fantasy novels. He looked to be in his thirties, but Madeline knew he was a few hundred years old.

  “Madeline, as beautiful as always.” Alex smiled. “And who might the beautiful lady standing next to you be?”

  “Jo,” said Jo. “I design the game lock for your city gate.”

  “Oh wow, a beauty with a brain. I’m impressed.”

  Madeline cut in. “We’ve discussed this, Alex. We need to go now.”

  “I’d hardly call it a discussion. Yes, I owe Ciaran a favor, and I’ll certainly jump when he calls. But this isn’t his call. I have a city to take care of. I need more information before I can drop everything to go with you.”

  “Ciaran is in trouble. That’s all you need to know,” Jo said.

  “If Ciaran LeBlanc is in trouble, I don’t think we can fix it.”

  Madeline shook her head. “It’s because of me that he’s in trouble. Ciaran is the main advocate for the protection of your city in the Eudaizian council. Imagine if Xiilok knew the trouble we’re in. Do you think they’d leave your vampire city alone?”

  Alex shifted his stance. “What exactly is the trouble? And why can’t we talk about it now?”

  “Someone might be listening to us. I mean, from your end,” Jo said. “There’s a lot at stake. Madeline needs to talk to you in person.”

  Alex shrugged. “All right. Where?”

  Jo entered a string of commands into the computer and spoke as she typed. “Go to the cross-zone in Antarctica and wait there. I’ll arrange a pick-up for you. Then I’ll transport you to the time traveling chamber. There, you’ll find out where you’re going.”

  Alex snorted. “You’re certainly not asking for a lot.”

  “If you do this with Madeline, I have to ensure it’s absolutely
safe—”

  “Sure, like I have nothing to worry about,” Alex cut in. “It’s not like I have the whole city relying on me or anything!”

  Jo raised her eyebrows. “Eudaiz has more than six hundred billion citizens. And I haven’t even mentioned the chaos the multiverse will be in and the possible casualties there will be when they figure this out. Would you like to take a head count?”

  “Enough you two,” Madeline said. “If you agree to help me, you have to go all in, Alex.”

  “It doesn’t look like I have a choice,” he muttered. “All right, I’ll go to the cross-zone now.” Then he logged off.

  Madeline packed her Sciphil sword to take with her.

  “If you’re prepared to take a sword that size, then use this thing instead.” Jo handed Madeline a gigantic sword with a steel blade that shone in a shade of crimson. “It’s a duplicate version of the Sciphil sword. If the rumor is true, it has silver properties and can decapitate a vampire.”

  “And you just happen to have this sword handy?”

  Jo shook her head. “I made it for the game I just developed.”

  “It’s a toy?”

  “No, it’s a real as can be. It doesn’t have the Sciphil sword power, but if vampires are what you have to kill, then you’ll need this to stand a chance.”

  Madeline nodded. “Understood. Unlike other creatures, vampires are special types that we don’t quite understand yet. And our technology hasn’t helped much.”

  “You know this sword could kill Alex, too, right?”

  Madeline nodded again. “I’ll be careful. How precisely can you manage the time travel?”

  “I can’t be sure until you land. I’ll take you to Earth just before you met him. The ideal scenario is that you kill the vampire soul trader and return here. I’ll arrange the portal for you as soon as you complete the task.”

  “Thanks. And I know about the time travel paradox. I’ll try not to allow myself or Alex to run into Ciaran. We’ll get in, kill the soul trader, then get out.”