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Chapter One of The
Shield of Soren by D.M. Cain
THE LONG CORRIDORS of the Meraxan research laboratory were cold and sterile. Sickly
yellow lights flickered and cast a jaundiced glow across the grey walls. It was
quiet tonight with only the occasional guard patrolling the silent passageways.
Nobody entered the laboratory. There was little reason to, so why would they?
Nobody even knew it existed; the classification of the building as a top-secret
location ensured that. Vincent Wilder strode through the corridors with an
uncomfortable heaviness hanging over his heart. It should have been an exciting
prospect, being called to a top-secret laboratory in the middle of the night
with the promise of something game-changing awaiting him.
But Vincent had learnt long ago to treat
“ground-breaking” advances in science with scepticism. His last few projects
had either fallen flat and produced only minimal results or failed completely.
What made this one any different? It didn’t help that the state-of-the-art
technology and highly expensive research materials were almost entirely under
the control of a psychotic scientist by the name of Reign. An unhinged human at
loose in a laboratory would have been dangerous enough, but giving that level
of control to a Rhygun was insane. Vincent himself would never have allowed a
half-human-half-demon access to something so important to their cause, but it
hadn’t been up to him. No matter how much he liked to think he was in control,
Vincent knew who pulled the strings.
Vincent sighed. It was a mess. His whole
operation was a mess at the moment. Though he hated to admit it, the Children
of Light were stronger than his army. If things continued this way, this war of
centuries would finally be over, and not with a pleasing result. For one
hundred and eleven years, he had been fighting this damn war against Callista
and her people. He never aged, never withered and died, but without growing old
he felt like there was no progress. He almost regretted the fact that he and
his people had gotten a hold of the Children of Light’s elixir at all.
Sometimes all he wanted was to grow old naturally and die an old man. Alas, it
would never happen. So he was forced to continue fighting a war he wasn’t sure
he could survive.
It seemed that at every turn the Children of
Light were winning. Merely seven years ago, Callista’s army had attacked a
crucial schooling encampment and destroyed an entire academy of learning,
killing many innocents in the process. Not to mention what Callista herself had
recently done to his most-beloved child.
Vincent clenched his fists as fury threatened
to engulf him. Trying to convince himself that the memories were just that,
memories, he tried to calm down. He needed to keep his head, at least until
Reign told him what had excited him so much in the middle of the night.
Vincent shook his head to clear his mind and
straightened his black collar. The suit jacket usually fit him perfectly, but
for some reason this evening it felt snug and restrictive. It was no surprise
to him really. He had pushed his body harder than ever over the past few weeks.
Since that incident, he had thrown himself into
sparring with every fibre of his being. Maybe he had bulked up a bit, which
could only be a good thing. Every ounce of muscle was an extra ounce that could
be used against Callista and her damn people. Vincent smirked at the thought
and undid the buttons on his jet-black shirt, so the sleeves didn’t dig so much
into his muscular forearms.
Maybe whatever Reign brought for him today
would be worth something after all. It wasn’t as if everything Reign did was a
failure. There was always Caleb Maddox. That young man looked to be an
interesting addition to their army, if he grew up to fulfil his potential.
Vincent was empowered by the thought that
maybe, just maybe, something would start to go their way. By the time he
approached the laboratory at the centre of the complex, he was feeling a little
more positive.
He waited outside the door and took a deep
breath to ready himself for Reign’s overbearing presence. No sooner had he set
foot inside the room than Reign was directly in front of him, grinning insanely
with manic, blazing eyes.
“This is it, Vincent! Oh yes, this is it! You
won’t believe the beauty I’ve got for you!” Reign was literally hopping from
one foot to the other. Vincent screwed his nose up in annoyance.
“Can you at least let me enter the room?”
Vincent mumbled, as he pulled the door closed behind him. There was a peculiar
smell in the room, like the faint aroma of burning sulphur or a match that had
been lit then extinguished. The human part of Reign ruled over his appearance.
At first glance, it was unlikely anybody would notice anything amiss about the
kindly-looking middle-aged man. But step too close to him, and nobody could
avoid the lingering stench of Hell, the almost tangible wafts of brimstone and
ash that clung to him.
Looking away to avoid the smell, Vincent gave
a half-hearted smile. “Show me what you’ve got that was so important at this
unreasonable hour.”
Reign grinned. “Oh, you won’t be disappointed.
The boss wasn’t.” He waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the far corner
of the lab. It was only upon closer inspection that Vincent saw the twisting,
tumultuous shadow of the Bavelize, lurking in the darkness.
He immediately dropped to one knee and lowered
his head. “Oh Great One, forgive my insolence. I did not realise you were here
and would not have acted in such a way had I known.”
The room was silent, but an eerie echo of
breathing reverberated against Vincent’s eardrums, as if the noise came from
nowhere and everywhere at once. “Stand, Vincent.”
Vincent slowly rose to his feet and met the
Bavelize face-to-face, if one could call what the shadowy creature had a face.
A swirling mass of writhing smoke, there were no features to speak of, but more
an ever-changing, undulating mask of darkness.
The voice of the Bavelize echoed through
Vincent’s head again. “Listen to what the Rhygun has to say. It could change
everything.”
Vincent was still sceptical, but he could not
argue with the deity that watched over the Brotherhood of Shadow’s every move.
Giving a low, courteous bow, he turned to Reign and indicated that he was ready
to hear whatever the scientist had to say.
Reign’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm once more.
He waved Vincent over to another door and Vincent followed him into a second
room. There, in a line, standing strictly to attention, were at least twenty
young people from Vincent’s kingdom of Meraxor. He frowned. Many of them were
his own children, and he looked down the line with a growing sense of
uncertainty.
But Reign waved him right by the line of
people to a huge glass tube in the centre of the room. An immense cylinder,
there was a heavily bolted sliding door at the front, but the rest was
completely enclosed. It didn’t take Vincent long to realise it was a prison
cell.
He pressed his face up to the glass and
inside, cowering on the floor of the cell, he saw a young girl, surely no more
than ten years old, with flowing silver hair and ragged clothing.
Reign sidled up beside him and placed his chin
on Vincent’s shoulder, making him jerk back in surprise and a fair amount of
annoyance. Reign chuckled and then pressed both hands up against the glass and
peered in.
“Look at this beauty, Vincent. We found the
specimen a few days ago, out on the edges of the Meraxan rainforest and brought
it here.” He licked his lips as he looked at her, and it made Vincent feel
somewhat queasy.
“She’s just a kid. Why did you bring her here?
Go and release her.”
Reign laughed again and shook his head slowly
from side to side. “I think you’ll find she holds great potential for our
military interests.”
Vincent sighed with impatience and began to
walk from the room, but a hiss penetrated his hearing suddenly, forcing him to
cover his ears to save his eardrums from being perforated.
“You will stay,” the Bavelize snarled from the
corner, the sounds echoing through the laboratory.
Vincent spun on his heels and tentatively
removed his hands. He rejoined Reign and tried to keep his mouth shut as the
Rhygun scientist resumed hopping from one foot to the other.
Reign began to unfasten the heavy door of the
glass cage, flicking back catches and sliding back weighty iron bolts. With a
loud clang of metal slamming into metal, the final bolt was undone. Reign
slowly pulled the door open, and Vincent found his breath catching in his
throat.
High-pitched whimpering came from the tiny
bundle of rags cowering at the back of the cage. Her long silver hair parted
for a moment and Vincent could see her wide, silver eyes, terrified and
innocent. Vincent’s skin prickled with discomfort. He hoped that Reign had a
damned good reason for capturing a small child like this.
Beside the glass cage were two oil lamps, both
resting unlit. Reign reached up and took one down. Then, in a single savage
moment, he slammed the lamp onto the floor of her cage. The girl screamed in
terror and covered her head with her hands, but he hadn’t been aiming for her.
The shattered glass gave way to a stream of
oil that spread out in a pool across the floor. This seemed to scare the girl
even more, and she began to cry quietly, sobbing into her clenched hands.
Reign looked back at Vincent. Excitement
flashed in his eyes as he drew a match from a box in his pocket. A small flare
of light, a flicker of sulphur and a small flame danced on top of the match.
With another laugh, Reign tossed the match into the glass cage.
Vincent gasped as the oil ignited in a rush of
intense heat. The entire floor of the cage burst into flames. Vincent tried to
rush forwards to save the girl from a fiery death, but the heat was too
intense. A hand tapped incessantly at his shoulder, and he tried to brush it
away, but Reign grabbed hold of his hand.
“Look! Look!” Reign shouted excitedly,
pointing at the cage.
When his eyes fell upon the cage, Vincent
froze to the spot, his eyes nearly popping from their sockets. “But…how?”
The girl, who Vincent had assumed would be
burning in agony, was somehow floating above the flames, hovering at the top of
her cage. From her back sprouted two enormous wings of the purest white
feathers Vincent had ever seen. The two beautiful white fans could only just
fit within the confines of the cage, and as she beat them to stay afloat they
fanned the flames beneath her.
It wasn’t just her wings that dazzled Vincent
with their purity. Her whole body had adopted an ethereal, almost ghostly,
silver aura, her hair shimmering with radiance. She didn’t seem too frightened
any more, but there was a definite hint of sadness in her gentle eyes.
Vincent studied her carefully, struggling to
catch his breath, which he hadn’t realised he had been holding. “What is she?”
he managed to croak.
Reign grinned and draped an arm across
Vincent’s shoulder. “She, my friend, is an angel.” He paused to allow Vincent a
chance to absorb the surprising revelation before continuing. “I could sense
something in the air when we first picked her up, a kind of sour smell, a
tingling on the tip of my tongue—the reek of an angel. The demon in me is
repulsed by and attracted to her at the same time. Our species have been at war
since the dawn of time, so the temptation to rip her to shreds is rather
overwhelming.” He chuckled again, sending shivers down Vincent’s spine. “But,
of course, my duty is to you, the Bavelize, and my mission in your realm, so I
think we should utilise her skills instead.”
Vincent nodded, his eyes still locked onto the
bewildering sight of the angel, rhythmically flapping her wings to float above
the dwindling fire. The flames were beginning to die down now that the fuel was
running low, but thick, black smoke swirled at the top of the cage and the
angel was beginning to cough and choke on the oppressive fumes.
Reign grabbed a bucket of water that he had
presumably prepared, ready for this occasion, and hurled it into the cage. The
freezing liquid hit the flames and extinguished them immediately.
The angel collapsed to the floor, wet and
gasping for breath, her energy seemingly sapped. Her grand, beautiful wings
slowly folded back into her shoulder blades and her eerie glow faded until she
was nothing more than a cowering, terrified child again.
“I don’t understand,” Vincent said, frowning.
“I’ve heard of angels before. The legends of the first age are full of them.
The stories claim that angels possess incredible strength and speed and that
they can heal themselves. This one should be able to break free of this cage
and kill me easily. Maybe not you with your demon genes, but definitely me. Why
doesn’t she at least defend herself?” He stepped in closer and examined the
cuts on her body, where whip lashes and knives had sliced her skin.
“It looks like you’ve been taking chunks out
of her already.” Vincent turned and glared at Reign, who grinned back at him.
“Why doesn’t she heal? I thought all angels healed.”
Reign tapped absently at the glass, eyeing her
as one would an interesting museum exhibit. “Yes, usually they do. We think
that this one may be damaged. I don’t know, but she seems…incomplete, somehow.
She is strong and fast, or at least she was when we first captured her. She
tried to escape a number of times. When she gets her wings out, we have to be
careful because she can fly quickly. But her power or energy or something seems
to be dwindling and she’s getting weaker and weaker, so she isn’t as much of a
threat anymore. Besides, we’ve found a few ways to deter her from attempting
escape. She responds well to drugs, electric shocks and, as you’ve seen, fire.
With those at our disposal, we’ve managed to suppress her and keep her under
control.”
Fascination had replaced Vincent’s concern for
the girl. Now that he knew she wasn’t human, his mind was racing with
possibilities.
“Could we train her up as a weapon? If we
could use her in battle to fight for us, we’d have a huge advantage.” All the
recent defeats he’d suffered echoed in Vincent’s memory, and he relished the
idea of a weapon to neutralise the Children of Light.
Reign grimaced. “Yes, and no. She has all the
power and skills, but not the constitution. She’s far too meek and gentle to be
any use in battle, and her power seems to be weakening with every test we do
anyway. I think we need to take the best of her and put it into somebody else.”
Vincent stared at him for a moment as the
words sunk in. His eyes flickered to the twisting, turning cloud of shadow in
the corner. The dark plumes formed into the shape of a human long enough for
the Bavelize to nod his head in encouragement, and then it dispersed into a
tumultuous cloud of ever-shifting smoke again.
Vincent knew he couldn’t argue with the
Bavelize, and he had to admit the prospect of utilising her power was exciting
to him. “OK. How do we do that?”
Reign sniggered. “We need to find a suitable
body to host the angel’s DNA. If we give it to one of our young soldiers, we
may be able to replicate her traits, but without her irritating calmness. What
we need is a ruthless killer, a powerful weapon who will benefit from her
strength and use it to his or her advantage.”
He had failed to deliver upon his promises so
many times that Vincent was reluctant to rely upon him again. The idea of
blindly taking some DNA from a completely strange creature and injecting it
into a human being was dangerous and idiotic. He was quite sure that there were
so many scientific inaccuracies with the theory that it wasn’t even worth
considering. However, Vincent was beginning to run out of other options. The
Brotherhood of Shadow simply had nothing that could rival the Children of Light
and their elite warriors. Maybe this could work after all, and if it didn’t,
one person would be lost, not an entire army.
Something else was nagging at Vincent though.
Reign had brought this group of young men to present before Vincent and the
Bavelize, and those he had chosen included some that Vincent was simply not
willing to sacrifice.
Reaching up to wipe a bead of nervous sweat
from his forehead, Vincent frowned. “I don’t like this. It’s too risky, and we
risk losing the lives of soldiers and of my children in the process.”
If the idea of sacrificing a child’s life
bothered Reign, he didn’t show it. An all-too-familiar manic grin crept across
his lips as he slyly looked towards the Bavelize, lurking in the shadows beside
them.
In a voice as thick and dark as smoke, the
Bavelize answered, “Then choose wisely…”
Reign cackled and rubbed his hands together,
wandering up and down the line of potential candidates. “The person you choose
will need to be strong enough to withstand the experiments, which will be harsh
and gruelling and, at times, agonising. Despite the strength, they should also
be disposable if all this fails.”
Vincent looked up and down the line of young
men to see if anybody adequately met the requirements. Who could withstand such
torrents of abuse, and who was Vincent willing to forfeit?
They stood, hands locked behind their backs,
chins raised, tall and proud. The candidates Reign had chosen varied hugely in
their value. Terralian slaves, weak and disposable, were easily the obvious
choice if somebody was to be sacrificed. However, their blood was inferior. By
nature, Vincent recoiled in the presence of a Terralian. He could never entrust
something so important to a member of a race he considered no greater than
insects.
He scoffed as he walked past the Terralian
slaves in their simple brown robes, their vibrant red hair tied back from their
pale faces, and continued down the line.
Some of Reign’s choices were downright
ludicrous. He raised his eyebrows at the Rhygun to show his dissatisfaction.
“Obviously, this is a brand-new experiment, isn’t it?” Vincent snapped. “Why
have you chosen those you already know have another fate awaiting them?
Valentine, Amadeus, Horus—their destinies are already sealed. And Caleb? Do you
not think his genes are muddled enough?”
The next two candidates in the line gave
Vincent pause. Two of his own sons, but those who had yet to impress him. Drake
Wilder, aged twenty-eight, was undoubtedly powerful, a behemoth, in fact. His
rippling muscles bulged beneath the dark T-shirt he wore. Vincent was aware
that boosting Drake even further with angel DNA could make him unstoppable.
However, there was no way Vincent would be willing to sacrifice a man with so
much potential, even if he hadn’t shown his true value and probably never
would.
The twenty-one-year-old Silas Wilder was the
last in the line. Even when asked to stand alongside his brothers and remain
still, Silas jigged from one foot to the other, a misplaced grin dancing upon
his lips. The young man had shown talent in training, but he was inconsistent
and clearly preferred entertaining himself above completing his duty. If a
trustworthy apprentice was what Vincent was looking for, Silas definitely was
not it.
Hopelessness was plaguing Vincent once again,
the all-too-familiar feeling that fate was simply conspiring against him. All
he needed was to select somebody he was willing to sacrifice. How difficult
could that be?
He threw his hands into the air with
frustration. “None of them! None of them are right. How can you expect me to
choose for my children to die?”
“Because,” Reign hissed, “through sacrificing
the lives of your children, you bring the end of hers.”
Ah, Callista Nienna, his idol and enemy all in
one. Frankly, Vincent would sacrifice every member of his family if he could be
one hundred percent sure he could either obtain or destroy her. One life, even
of his own flesh and blood, was more than worth it for the impact it would have
upon the fabled Callista and her army of light. He gritted his teeth as he
thought about her, and it was then that an idea came to him.
“Of course,” he murmured. “I know exactly who
we can use. It’s obvious.”
He wandered backwards and forwards muttering
beneath his breath. “He is weak, of course, and ill. His pathetic blood, so
useless for everything else, might just be good enough for this. He is
definitely not strong enough to withstand anything substantial, but what does
it matter if he dies? What possible use will we ever have for him?”
“Who?” asked Reign. “Who do you speak of?”
The confidence was back in Vincent’s smile as
he waved a commanding arm towards the guard stationed by the door. “Guardian.
Bring me Guardian.”
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