Evan

  Evan turned right down a side street. Crap. Crap. Crap. He had to find a way around the Sov in his way and make it to the garden. The town was surrounded by a moat with dense foliage to give the illusion of a town surrounded by a forest. That could work. The trees and shrubs on the other side of the moat! If he could cross the moat without being seen, he could sneak through the forest behind the Sov watching the path. The forest blurred into the garden and he would be free. The forest was dense enough to sneak through, if he could just get over the moat.

  Evan wandered through the back streets of Arcilla before finding a stretch of moat out of the view of the Sov. The moat’s rocky embankment at the edge of town meant Evan would have to drop half a body length down into the water which didn’t look that deep. He would be fine, but he’d be covered in mud and stand out as he climbed out on the marshy side of the moat into the forest. But if he could just make it into the foliage, no one would see him after that, and it wouldn’t matter.

  Sitting on the embankment, he glanced both ways to confirm no one was around. Trying to get his nerve up to drop he heard voices coming his way. Time for doubt was gone. With a quick spin he plunged into the chilly water. The water was deeper than he thought it would be, but the current was lazy, and he was good swimmer. Hopefully the splash wasn’t too big. Pushing up close to the embankment, keeping his head barely above the water, in hopes of going unnoticed. He waited close to the edge for the voices to pass and hopefully not see him.

  After a short conversation in Spanglish about all the jaguars in town and the lack of buzz birds, the two voices passed by. Whew.

  With a few strokes, Evan crossed the canal. He climbed through the muddy marsh and into the coverage of the bushes along the shore. He breathed a sigh of relief and waited a few minutes before proceeding back towards the path and the Sov. Through the foliage he could see the Sov still leaning against a tree focused on the people going in and out of town and not in Evan’s direction. Evan slowly pushed his way through the dense forest, taking his time to ensure not to disturb the bushes around him.

  More people started to move down the path out of town. Probably Sovs, but he couldn’t get a good view without risking being seen. Better to just wait where he was until the area cleared. He couldn’t see them so they wouldn’t see him. He laid down silently in the bush and held still. He’d be fine. He just needed to wait.

  Without a watch or powered smartphone, he had no idea how much time had passed. The traffic continued for quite some time, mostly leaving town, from he could tell. But that was okay. He’d just wait.

  Eventually things quieted down. Traffic had stopped. But it was more than that. There was no noise around him. It was too quiet. Why was it so quiet? The buzz birds had left. He peered back the way he had come, and they dashed around like before. In front of him near the path they also zipped around. They were everywhere except near Evan. Why?

  Unease slowly swallowed his insides. He absorbed their food, the magic, out of the air around him. He was buzz bird repellant. The longer he stood in one spot the more he sucked it out of the surrounding area. Crap. No, it probably didn’t matter. But someone could notice this. Maybe. The Sovs knew all about Evan and might be looking for something like this. He should go.

  He stood quietly and started to move. Ten steps and he could turn away from town and disappear into the depths of the garden. But footsteps came his way. Lots of footsteps. Jogging footsteps. No.

  Evan took off in a mad run.

  Voices called out. “We know you’re in there, Evan Harper”

  He hit the turn off to the garden and sprinted as fast as he could until he ran into three Sovs, tasers in hand.

  Evan turned to run back the way he had come. A baseball bat of electric hurt slammed into his side. His body jerked involuntarily. Cramps covered his body. He tried to fight it, but the pain was too much. He fell to the ground still shaking. For an eternity the confused world of agony went on.

  Abruptly it stopped. All pain gone except for two pin pricks in his side. His arm awkwardly pulled the wires from his side. Still weak and the world fuzzy, hands grasped his arms. They pulled him up. Evan’s captors yanked his hands back wrapping his wrists in plastic zip ties.

  “Hey, let go!” Evan fought to free himself, but someone had him from behind.

  A blonde-haired Sov in a dark grey jacket and slacks stepped in front of him. Fake robotic hands poked out through the ends of his jacket sleeves. No. Why did it have to be this asshole? Zarg had torn an arm off and Kae had melted his other. He held the flat side of a knife against Evan’s throat. “Please try to escape. Just give me a reason to cut you up.”

  A fierce anger roiled within. He had tried to kill Zarg and Kae. “Zarg misses you.” Evan spat in the man’s face as he twisted away from the knife breaking free of his captor’s grip. He kicked Blondie in the nuts and watched as he fell to his knees, grunting in pain. Evan dashed for the thickest foliage he could find but pitched forward as his foot hit a hidden root and smacked his head against the ground. Fuzzy darkness came in from around the edges of his vision and everything faded.

  Evan awoke to a bright world wrapped in wax paper and a crushing headache. Slowly, his vision cleared to find he was strapped to a bed in a tiny room with beige walls and intense lights that bumped about. A woman to his left held a cold compress to his head. To his right a small wall of cabinets held boxes, small glass jars of medicine, and bandages. He wasn’t in a bed but on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance.

  The woman wore white scrubs, like a nurse or a doctor, that contrasted against her black skin. She had her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her expression held genuine concern, even with her faint grey eyes. A clean-shaven man in a dark suit with short black hair talked to her. Their words slurred together in an unintelligible drawn-out noise.

  “Finally. He’s awake,” the man in the suit said with a hint of delight in his voice. His dark eyes almost sparkled when Evan was finally able to focus on them. The man clasped Evan’s left hand and shook it. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Evan. I know so much about you that I feel like you’re family. I’m Addy’s brother, Harold.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Evan’s body shrank back in an involuntary shudder. The head of the Sov snake himself. The horrible person responsible for so much fear, so much pain, and for turning his mom into that brainwashed monster.

  Harold released his hand. “I know, you probably don’t have a very high opinion of me. I don’t blame you. We have never met and the only thing you know about me is what you have heard from others. I promise you; I am not evil. Have I done some bad things? Sure, who hasn’t. But I am not a bad person trying to do bad things to you, your mom, or my brother. I swear. But this is all talk now, isn’t it? Soon though. You’ll realize who I truly am.” Harold clapped his hands together softly. “Everyone will.”

  Evan’s headache turned his thoughts into shrimp salad. But he had to so say something to this shit stain of a person. “You…threatened to kill me, no…you made my mom threaten to kill me and Kae. You almost killed Zarg.”

  Harold’s voice dripped condescension as he patted Evan. “Evan, my boy. You don’t understand the big picture. Imagine a world with no violence. No need. No hate. If you could see what I see, you would understand. Regardless, I must thank you. Because you are going to make that big picture possible.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m not going helping you.”

  Harold wiggled his finger in the air knowingly. “Technically, you are correct. You are not going to help me. You already have.”

  Harold leaned over Evan and ripped duct tape off the back of his right hand. It had been taped to a familiar concrete sphere. What was that? He had seen it before. It’s…the chamber that housed the Root. No! Evan tried to reach for it, but the stretcher straps held him firm.

  Harold opened the metal door and pulled out the Root. The small room took on a purple hue as he held the fist-sized purple crystal under the light. He stared at it with a burning intensity, his voice faint. “Evan, you don’t know how long I have been waiting for this moment. He squeezed the Root in his hand. Black night spread through the inside of the ambulance squelching all light. Harold grabbed Evan’s leg.

  “Wow,” Harold said as he released him and the room returned to its original bright radiance. “Nothing works on you. Even with the Root in my hand. It all just goes right into you. So fascinating. But a question for another day.”

  The ambulance halted and the back doors opened to reveal Blondie’s sneering mug. He handed Harold a scepter capped with a sparkly white crystal. The white crystal and the Root started glowing. Harold pressed the Root into the white crystal which morphed around the base of the Root. The glow faded as Harold stepped out the back of the ambulance admiring his handiwork.

  Blondie pulled the stretcher out of the back of the ambulance still sneering with ill intent. They were in a larger city and instead of a turquoise dome simulating the sky, metal support structures formed a grid above, like an old Victorian dome holding up the ceiling. In front, a stepped fort made from large grey stones towered over the city. Behind, screams and chaos had taken the city. Evan swiveled his head to catch glimpses of Jaguar Warriors fighting each other. Cutting down civilians with their swords as they ran for their lives. Sovs sprayed black death rays that crumbled homes and businesses. Bodies, streaming pools of blood from gruesome wounds, littered the streets.

  Harold waved the scepter casually at the destruction. “Turn him around so he can see this.”

  Evan’s stretcher rotated, giving him a front row seat to the carnage.

  Harold raised the scepter as it glowed a deep black. “It was that American fellow…Abraham Lincoln, I think, who said, ‘if you want to test a man’s character, give him power’. Now, Evan Harper, you are about to witness my true character.”

  Two jaguars, locked in a duel, cutting and slashing their swords at each other froze as the dark energy overtook them. Within a few seconds, they put their swords down, shaking their heads. They hugged each other and went to join another jaguar fighting off a man dressed as an eagle. Before they could engage, more currents of black brainwashing wrapped around them to the same effect. Instant Sovs. Harold could just turn anyone he wanted to into a Sov without even breaking a sweat. Could he turn the whole world?

  Harold bowed to Evan. “And if I were as evil as you think me to be. Why am I stopping these people from killing each other? Why am I not just killing you right now? You are the only one who can undo my power.” He again zapped two more jaguars with sparks of black. Again, they froze and ceased fighting. “Because I will make the world a better place for everyone, you, Adelfried, and your whole family. That is my true character.”

  No. Adelfried would stop him. He had before, he could do it again. Right? Could he do it though without the Root? Had he even stopped him the first time? Or was it dumb luck? Evan had to believe. “Adelfried is going to stop you. He did before. He’ll do it again.”

  Harold moved to leave but paused. He brandished the scepter burning hot with black power inches from Evan’s face. A sickly expression crossed over Harold. “Don’t ever get between me and what I will make of this world. My generosity is not without limits.”

  With that Harold left, power trip firmly locked into his sick and twisted head.

  Blondie jerked Evan’s stretcher around abruptly and rolled it towards a large entrance of the stepped fortress. Sovs stood sentry on either side. “You’re lucky the Warlock of Stonehenge likes you or I’d be extracting my pound of flesh right about now.”

  After they had made it just inside the entrance Blondie casually looked around as if to see if anyone was watching. “But…I wouldn’t get too used to those arms if I was you. Pretty soon, he’ll be so concerned with running the world, he’s going to forget about little ole Evan Harper.” Blondie placed the edge of a long thin knife on Evan’s wrist just behind his thumb. “And when he does, I’m going to have some fun removing your arms piece by piece.” Evan’s wrist stung as the knife dug in. A streak of blood leaked from Evan’s hand. The pressure continued. Evan screamed, trying to pull his hand away but couldn’t break free.

  The nurse came up behind Blondie and smacked the knife away. “Stop it, Lamont. You know Evan is to remain unsoiled.” The nurse pressed a bandage over the wound.

  “Fucking asshole,” Evan yelled. “What? Not a good, brainwashed Sov? Can’t even follow orders?”

  Lamont smiled, exposing yellow teeth with green bits stuck between them. The aroma of rotten vegetables permeated the air. “I’m not a pitiful drone. I get to think on my own. Not like what he’s going to do to your whole family. You should see what he did to your mother. Oh, the shame. I bet she hasn’t told you any of that yet, huh?”

  The nurse said, “Lamont, if you don’t stop antagonizing him, I’m going to kick you out of here. You know how important it is to him that Addy is on his side. Cutting up his adopted son is not how you make him happy.”

  “Shut your mouth, Lisa. I know what I’m doing.” Lamont wiped the blood from his knife on Evan’s pants and put it back into his jacket pocket.

  From somewhere deep down, a smirk, and then finally a laugh came out of Evan. He wasn’t backing down from this asshole. He couldn’t touch him. “Hey Monty, has anyone ever told you your breath stinks? I guess brushing and flossing must be a bitch with those arms, huh?”

  Lisa smirked but didn’t say anything.

  Lamont returned to pushing Evan’s stretcher. “We’ll see who has the last laugh.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Evan said still drawing on this well of overconfidence and rage. “I know where Zarg buried your arm. We could you know…go dig it up if you want. I’d be happy to give you a hand.”

  Lisa snickered. “He got you there. That was a good one.”

  Lamont stopped the stretcher and came around to face Evan, his face bright red. “Keep laughing. My master’s protection didn’t extend to your flea infested, bag of a dog.”

  Dread constricted Evan’s chest making it hard to breathe. Dread constricted Evan’s chest, making it hard to breathe. Had he gone too far? What would he do to Zarg? What wouldn’t he do? He already tried to kill him once. Evan’s voice broke up as he tried to respond with a conviction he didn’t have. “No…Adelfried loves Zarg…He’s part of his family. So, I’d be careful if I was you.”

  Lamont tilted his head, leaning in close. “Accidents happen. Especially if they are on purpose.”