ARC OF THE IMMORTALS/ Book 1

Pursuit: 19 / Showdown

Recap: Touzdae completes the first part of her mission. Jac is decapitated by an unknown assailant.

(scenes of reported and actual violence and a disparaging swear word used)

Recap continued: P-Jac died by accident before the death of Jac. Touzdae returns to the Platform in a transdimensional pocket within interdimensional space, cloaked.

Pursuer appeared on the Escape Craft in front of Bendel.

“Why did you kill him? Jac was my prey. You robbed me of my prey,” P-Jac said.

“I couldn’t wait around for you to kill him when I could do the job once and for all,” Bendel stated. And he pushed P-Jac back with three fingers.

“So how do you know he won’t come back?” Pursuer demanded.

“Something I learned from Jac’s FaMa. It was an oft-handed remark he made when he returned from the platform. He said on a recording that a kill could be final by cutting off the head of an opponent.”

“How did you manage that?” P-Jac wondered.

I tracked him. He came aboard and hid in stores for a time. I waited with a laser blade. When he came up through the hatch I cut his head off. It was easy. Do you want to see his head?”

“Later. We’re done here, right?” Bendel nodded. P-Jac continued, “I want Touzdae by my side.”

“I’d like to see that,” Bendel dared him.

“We’re bonded. In-love.”

Bendel broke out laughing.

“Laugh it up baldy, I was in his memories when she met him and she bonded with me!”

“Sure,” Bendel snarled, “So where is she?”

Harry wandered onto the bridge of the Nez Fish with an old-fashioned printed book in hand. He stared out into the grey of the hinterland. It was a gradual change of hue from gray to purple. The change didn’t register at first. When it did there was a flash of rainbow. The ground was being lifted. Harry strapped into a crash couch as he felt the gravity within the Fish shift. The iris into the platform opened and closed one time. It opened into a fixed open position. Everything dropped. The ground returned to level again with a whap. Harry was knocked out from the concussive slap back.

Make a cave, the voice rasped. Touzdae had fallen asleep shortly after arrival within the Platform. The voice came to her in a dream. It was a male’s voice with a scratchy throat. He sounded familiar but she could not place it.

She woke within the transdimensional space. Inside the box? she wondered. It looked like the box minus the Lingham Stone. In her mind’s eye, she saw its appointed placement. It was below the 600-foot sphere in the disk-shaped room on the Mu.

Make a cave with hiding caves within caves, the scratchy male voice said in her thoughts.

“Do I know how to do that?” Touzdae said with hesitance.

Yes, you do. I trust you completely, and she identified him. She stood up and went to the control booth. She spent a few minutes at the controls. The transdimensional space became a series of caves and caves within caves. As she left the booth it vanished into a cloak of a rock face.

“Sweet one, I know you’re here,” Jac said.

She ran into his arms. They kissed. She broke the kiss and slapped him hard across his cheek.

“Oww,” she said, he said (both said at the same time).

“You’re not my Jac.”

“But we bonded,” P-Jac said.

Bendel was seized by raucous laughter at the mouth of the cave. He couldn’t stop.

P-Jac grabbed his gut and keeled over.

Bendel came running into the cave yelling obscenities at Touzdae.

P-Jac stood. He was in a small close-quartered cave with glistening walls. There was an unseen light source. Jac appeared and threw a knock-out punch to his jaw. P-Jac fell to his knees and face down into the wet muck.

Jac pulled P-Jac from the muck.

“I’m not going to let you die. Do you hear me?” Jac shouted.

P-Jac started to come around.

Bendel arrived behind P-Jac’s crumpled body. Touzdae was speechless.

“What did you do to him, you bitch?” he yelled at her. And added, “This is some Emmons witch spell, isn’t it?”

“I did nothing,” Touzdae said nonplussed.

As P-Jac stood, manifesting a laser blaster in his hand. Jac blinked.

The two of them stood on either side of a peak overcome by a blizzard in sub-freezing temperatures. The laz pistol fired and melted some snow. And the mechanism froze. Jac blinked again.

Touzdae ran away from Bendel and P-Jac deeper into the cave into a side vent that led deep into the mountain. Bendel blinked and Touzdae was by his side. Touzdae blinked and she bound Bendel in grain rope. She knew he was allergic to grain rope. The rash was instantaneous.

Fire surrounded Jac and P-Jac. P-Jac fired his laz gun at Jac’s head. It went through without a mark. P-Jac threw his weapon into the churning lava below. Jac blinked. They were back in the transparent tube on the far shore of Gata beyond the 12-mile beach.

“You know I hate this place,” P-Jac yelled at Jac.

“Exactly,” Jac said. “This is where you were born, where you died at least twice. It’s where Bendel and Harry tortured you as a young one.”

“Stop! Stop it! I hate you!”

“That’s right, get it out.”

“I’m going to kill you with my bare hands,” P-Jac said and ran straight toward Jac. He wrapped his hands around Jac’s throat and clamped down. Jac blinked.

Touzdae linked the grain rope to his negative thoughts. Each time violence, rage or hatred came to mind in Bendel the rope tightened.

Jac and P-Jac floated in clear water while fire-fish lit up the water below them. The sea was heating and began to steam. Rainbow light tubes shot across the sky over their heads.

The Contents (all chapters up to this point):

Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. (If you do NOT wish to be tagged, let me know, and I’ll tag you not):

Barbara Murray | K. Pearson Bradley | René Beauchemin | Dougfrombk | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Dr. Preeti Singh | Pene Hodge | Ravyne Hawke | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | Lee David Tyrrell | DL Nemeril | David Price | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | Libby Shively McAvoy |