Absolute Power: A Portal Harem Fantasy, page 2
I sprinted for my car, frantically pressing the button on my keychain to unlock it. Four more steps and I’d be safe. Then three. Then two. Finally, I raised my foot to take my last step and grab at the door handle when my entire body was yanked backwards. Air whooshed into my face and every muscle in me tensed as though it was being jolted by electricity. I closed my eyes and braced myself to land on the concrete floor of the garage, but the impact never came. When I opened my eyes, I sucked in my breath as panic rose in my throat. I was suspended in mid-air, one foot forward, just inches from my car.
I tried to turn my head but couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything except fear and the keychain in my hand I was holding so tightly I was sure I would shatter it. Then a tingle ran through every cell in me. It grew stronger. The only thing I could move were my eyes, and all I could see was that I was alone. Nobody was around me and as much as I wanted to scream, I wasn’t able to. The tingling grew into stabbing pain as though I was being poked by a million needles all at the same time.
I screamed in my own head as my vision began to turn white. The white brightened to the point I had to close my eyes. The pain kept rising. My confusion added to the torture. Suddenly, a pressure squeezed my entire body as though I’d been placed in one of those car-crusher machines. I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t open my eyes, but the whiteness still blinded me through my eyelids. An instant before I was sure my skull would crack, the pressure let up, the pain disappeared, and I felt a huge blow to my head.
My last thought before losing consciousness was that I must’ve gone crazy just like everyone else and how I wished I hadn’t rushed my mother off the phone earlier.
2
When I felt my eyelids move, I was certain I’d see some sort of heavenly figures mulling around me. I hadn’t spent much time in my life thinking about the hereafter, but when I had, I’d pictured white clouds, golden gates, pretty much all the typical movie-type stuff. When I regained my sight, however, heaven didn’t look anything like what I expected.
It looked like heavy steel bars surrounding me.
I shook my head and blinked, trying to grasp that I was still alive while simultaneously also wondering how I was still alive after the crushing feeling my body went through. Add to that the sense that I wasn’t sitting in the parking garage I’d just been in, and my brain was as confused as an angel who’d accidentally walked through the gates of hell.
After checking to make sure my limbs worked, I looked around me. There were bars on all sides and a metal roof overhead. I stretched my legs out under me and stood up in what quickly became apparent was some sort of cage. It was barely tall enough to stand at my full height of six-foot-two-inches and wasn’t wide enough for me to stretch my arms out to the sides without having to slide them through the spaces between the bars.
My mind immediately brought my roommate, Lance, to mind. He was known to be a practical joker. Was this a very elaborate prank? It seemed a little much, even for him. I wrapped my fingers around two bars in front of me. The metal was warm. I gave the bars a tug, and it became immediately clear that the cage was much too solid to be a prank. Whoever put me in there didn’t want me getting out.
That is when the fear hit. I’d been kidnapped. I’d been suspended in mid-air in the parking garage of a building full of crazy people, knocked out, kidnapped, and brought there where I was locked in a cage.
Nothing about the story in my mind made sense, especially when I finally looked beyond the bars of the cage. The cage was set upon a stone slab that was elevated high enough in the air to make my view both complete in all directions, and also breathtaking.
The mound of rocks I was perched atop gave way to a grassy, shrubbery-filled clearing that stretched out for one-hundred yards. The further out I looked, the more dense the shrubbery was. The bushes and grasses were varying shades of green and had flashes of color dancing around their branches and blades. At first, I thought the colors were flowers, but after squinting to get a better look, I saw colored lights darting around. The lights were structured in flower-like patterns, but hopped and flashed around without ceasing movement.
Two-hundred yards out, the shrubbery turned into a forest. Trees rose out of the ground in a perfect, straight row that stretched the length of three football fields to either side of us. Then, oddly enough, the treeline just ended. It was as though the trees had a border they couldn’t grow beyond. Outside the treeline on either side was tall grass, swaying in an undetectable breeze, and various rock formations sporting different vegetation.
The trees themselves were jaw-droppingly majestic. The bark on their enormous trunks swirled and twisted in smooth patterns all the way up into the canopy. There were several different types of leaves, ranging from broad with scalloped edges to thin and wispy. What stood out to me most, however, was that regardless of the massive thickness of the canopy the trees created, light still filtered through to the forest floor.
“You stole my shoes,” a gruff voice shouted out from behind me unexpectedly. “Give me my shoes back!”
I spun around and was face-to-face with a thin, well-groomed man, sneering through the bars at me. He wore strange clothing, seemingly made from many sewn-together strips of fabric, but I could tell the fabric was high quality and very well laundered. Aside from the fact he wasn’t what I’d expected to see after hearing the husky roughness in his voice, his mere presence sent my heart racing.
“I said, give me back my shoes,” he shouted again.
All I could bring myself to do was back to the opposite side of my cage and stare at the man. The difference between his appearance and his voice was fascinating. I would’ve bet money on the fact that the man speaking would’ve been homeless, or some sort of vagrant, not a well-dressed gentleman.
“I’m sorry, sir, you are mistaken,” I croaked, suddenly aware of how dry my throat was. “I don’t have your shoes, just my own,” I told him, putting my hand up between us as he slowly pushed at the bars.
“He doesn’t care what you have to say,” a strong, female voice whispered behind me, making me jump so high, I hit my head on the roof of the cage.
Holding my head, I turned, then lost my breath. The woman before me wasn’t exactly a woman. I’m wasn’t sure what she was. Her body looked female enough with generous curves in all the right places, but her skin was a bright, golden-green color and there was fire-red writing all over it in a language that, at first glance, I didn’t recognize. Her eyes were a flashing sapphire blue and a long, earthen-brown braid hung down over her shoulder. My mouth fell open involuntarily.
The woman didn’t seem to notice me after she spoke. She walked around my cage, never turning her back to me, while approaching the man on the other side slowly. Her clothes were made of thin vines, like the kind you’d see in a jungle movie. The leaves attached to the vines fluttered around her as she moved. When she reached the man, she gazed into his eyes for a brief moment. I swore I saw sadness on her face before she put a hand on each of his shoulders.
“Stenev, it’s me, Callie,” she whispered. “I so wish you would’ve listened to me and stayed where I put you. I’m so sorry.”
Before I had a chance to open my mouth and ask what she meant, or who she was, or where I was, Callie spun around, her back to Stenev. In the blink of an eye, large, black wings opened from her back and spread wide out to her sides. In one powerful movement, she wrapped her wings completely around Stenev, as though she was going to carry a package on her back. She closed her eyes, let out a frustrated sigh, then contracted her wings. Her face flinched with every crack of bone that sounded out. Stenev didn’t scream, he just gurgled and let out a weak groan. When he went silent, Callie opened her wings and Stenev’s lifeless body fell away from her, sliding down the rock pile.
Callie took a deep breath before turning to look at me. Her brow was furrowed as she inspected me, slowly moving around the cage and tucking her wings away. “It’s about time you woke up.”
I looked around, hoping for cameras to be hidden nearby, or for a familiar face to come running up the rocks to me, but neither was present. I looked at Callie.
“Who…? Where…? Who are you?” I was having trouble deciding exactly where to start.
Callie pushed some of the vines hanging off her hips to the side and pulled a canteen from a hidden belt. She tossed it through the bars of my cage and pointed a finger at it. “Drink that. It’ll fix your voice so I don’t have to hear you croak.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. Instinct kicked in, and I practically attacked the canteen, impatiently unscrewing the cap and downing the entire contents, the coolest, most crisp water I’d ever tasted. When I was done shaking every last drop out onto my tongue, I replaced the cap and held it out through the bars to Callie. She leaned forward to avoid having to move close to me and snapped it out of my hands.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice immediately recovered. “My name is Hudson. Hudson Parks.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied. “There was some strange card in your pocket with that name on it.”
My hands flew to my back pocket, where I normally kept my wallet. They were empty. Then I remembered my keys. I’d had my keys in my hand in the parking garage. Next, my keychain came to mind.
I whipped my eyes to Callie. “Where are my keys?”
Callie’s eyes danced as she giggled. “What good are keys going to do you here?”
“Where is here?” I asked, raising my voice in frustration. “And I don’t care about the keys.”
“Then why ask about them?” she retorted, seemingly amused by my frustration.
“They have something…” I trailed off. I’d seen enough movies to know you never revealed a sentiment to your captor.
“Go on,” Callie urged. “They have what?”
She pulled my keychain from her skirt of vines and held it in the air. As though someone else was controlling my body, I flung myself forward, reaching through the bars to get at them. “Those are mine!”
“Yes, yes they are,” she taunted. “I see they mean a great deal to you.” She turned the keychain over in her hand a couple of times. “They look kind of old.”
“The keychain is very old,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
“How old?” she demanded.
“Around eighty years old,” I answered, stretching my arm as far as it would go.
Callie eyed the keys, shrugged her shoulders, and laid them in my outstretched hand. “Strange to love keys so much.”
I snapped my hand around the keychain and yanked my arm back into the cage. “Who are you?”
“My name is Callie,” she replied.
“I’m not deaf. I heard you tell the guy you murdered what your name is,” I barked, anger rising. “Who are you?”
Sadness flashed across her face right before it turned red with anger. “I’m not a murderer.”
“So, you didn’t crush that man to death with your… wings?” I asked, feeling ridiculous, as though saying it solidified that maybe I was going crazy just like the people in my office.
“I did, but it had to be done. He would’ve killed you. You’re welcome,” she snapped.
“I’m the one locked in a cage, if you didn’t notice. How would he have killed me?” My curiosity was being pulled in too many directions at once.
“Shadows are very strong. They are much stronger than when they were human,” Callie muttered.
“When they were human? What the hell are you talking about? Where am I? Who are you? What the hell do you–?”
“Calm down!” she yelled. “You’re not going to get a single answer from me until you tell me who you are.”
Her comment stopped me. It hadn’t crossed my mind that she wouldn’t know who I was. She’d found my wallet. She’d brought me to… wherever I was. How could she not know who she’d kidnapped?
“You took me from the garage. How don’t you know who you’ve kidnapped?” I asked sharply.
“I did what?” she gasped. “Are you kidding?”
I felt my face heat up. I grabbed the bars of my cage, gripping them so tightly my knuckled turned white. “Kidding? Kidding? I’m the one you locked in the damn cage, in the middle of who-knows-where, have been here for who-knows-how-long. You explain how I got here if you didn’t bring me?”
Callie’s eyes changed from a sparkling blue to a fiery red that matched the writing on her skin in an instant. “I didn’t bring–”
“Callie, it’s alright,” a voice said from behind her.
The voice was soothing and soft, and Callie’s eyes instantly turned blue again. Then a slender, silver-skinned hand appeared on her shoulder. A second later, a woman, completely silver with ringlet curls in her thick black hair, walked around from behind Callie.
“But Mary, he thinks we–”
“I heard him,” Mary said. “I’d flare up at an accusation like that too, but I want you to look at something.”
Mary pointed a finger towards my hand, and all of us looked down. My keychain had slipped, and the hairpin was showing. “Does that look familiar to you?”
Callie gazed at the keychain for several long moments before looking at Mary. “There are a lot of stones, in many worlds, that look like that.”
Mary grinned. “None of them have a yellow afterglow like trascedium, though.”
I stared at the setting on the hairpin dangling from my hand. I had to squint to see it, but it was there: a light, almost undetectable, yellow glow. I’d never seen it before and I’d been looking at that clip my entire life. I also noticed that the metal spikes, the parts that used to hold my grandmother’s hair out of her face, were blackened like old silver that had tarnished.
“What happened to it?” I asked.
Mary looked up at me. “My apologies for the accommodations. My name is Mary. We had to lock you up when you materialized. We didn’t know if you were a shadow that learned a new power, or a god from another realm that may threaten us, or… Well, we didn’t know anything about you other than your name. We see now that you are meant to be here.”
“Meant to be where?” I gasped, wondering how many times I’d have to ask.
“Slanos,” Mary answered. “You are on Slanos.”
“On? Like… on, not in?” My head was suddenly woozy again.
“I figured since you knew how to dematerialize, you would know where you’d gone,” Callie piped up.
“I did what?” I muttered, my hands sliding down the bars of the cage as I sat, my vision spinning. “What’s wrong with me?”
My eyes were open long enough for me to see Callie look at Mary, her eyes wide. “The water.”
Mary rushed to the side of the cage and put her hand on mine. “You’ll wake up in about an hour, and we’ll have a proper conversation.”
I tried to open my mouth, but it wouldn’t budge. As hard as I attempted to keep my eyelids open, they weren’t cooperating either. The last thing I saw as I passed out for the second time was the two strange women whispering to each other.
3
When I woke, I got the sense that I’d been in a dream state without remembering the dreams. My vision was fuzzy at first, but cleared quickly. I was sitting up and no longer surrounded by bars, but felt something hard against my back. Glancing around, I found I was propped up against a rock that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The forest I had seen earlier was far off in the distance.
My view was suddenly blocked by a shapely, green leg. My eyes followed it up to see Callie hovering over me, blocking the sun.
“Time to go,” she said.
I took my time standing up. I’d seen what Callie could do with those wings of hers, so I wanted to assess the best way to protect myself if she were to turn them on me. Her air was different, though. She wasn’t glaring at me, or stern in any way. She simply waited patiently for me to make it to my feet.
“Where’s Mary?” I asked, not quite trusting that Callie was all warm and fuzzy suddenly.
“I’m here,” Mary answered, appearing from the other side of the rock. “Callie is right. We need to go.”
Before I could ask another question, Mary grabbed one hand and Callie grabbed the other. They each lifted a leg in the air and then slammed it back to the ground. The air in front of me seemed to split open like water being parted. I felt the women pull on my hands and then air rushing past my face. All I could see were streaks of bright colors rushing past either side of us while my stomach seemed shoved back to my spine.
As quickly as the strangeness had begun, it ended. The wind stopped, and I was standing in a field with nothing but lush green grass as far as I could see in any direction. I opened my mouth to ask where we were, but the women pulled on me again before I could get a word out.
Three steps later, everything changed. I was no longer standing in a field, but instead in the middle of a city street. The city before me wasn’t large. What it was was shiny. The majority of the shine came from every surface that wasn’t concrete or other necessary construction material, but even most of that had a mirror finish. Just Callie, Mary, and me standing in the street made it seem like a small crowd was gathered in the place due to our reflections, and the reflections of our reflections, and so forth. It wasn’t quite as disorienting as a house of mirrors, but I could see how someone would be able to get lost pretty quickly.
“What is this place?” I whispered, in shock at the change. “Where did everything else go?”
“Most of what you saw initially is simply part of the barrier that shields this city from view,” Callie answered.
I shrugged my shoulder and nodded my head dramatically. “Sure, of course. I knew that had to be it. You know, my aunt Sally’s youngest daughter grew up in a hidden city. Hers was hidden by Central Park.”
