My Familiar Stranger
Read My Familiar Stranger Online
Authors: Victoria Danann
| My Familiar Stranger |
| Order of the Black Swan [1] |
| Victoria Danann |
| 7th House (2012) |
Minutes ahead of inevitable assassination, Elora Laiken is forceably transported
to an alternate dimension similar, but not identical, to her own. She is
stranded. Alone. Far from home. A stranger in a "strangish" land.
Of
course a girl could suffer worse problems than having gorgeous suitors. Perhaps
more importantly, in the midst of an epidemic of vampire related abductions, can
she stay alive long enough to choose between an honor debt, true love, or the
breathlessness of single-minded passion?
My Familiar Stranger is a full
length, stand alone, Paranormal Romance novel that also sets up the foundation
for the Black Swan series. It is loved by fans of paranormal romance, fantasy
romance, and urban fantasy.
Victoria Danann
Copyright 2012 Victoria Danann
Published by 7th House at Smashwords
Read more about this author and upcoming works at
VictoriaDanann.com
Smashwords License
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***
“
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” the Mad Hatter, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, by Lewis Carroll
He was talking fast, but her brain just couldn't process. On some level she may have known she was in shock. She'd just witnessed the murder of her family and that alone would be enough to disorient anybody. But now there was also this swirling vortex that had just opened up in the wall.
Catalonius Monq, tutor to the royal children, had opened a safe and produced a device that looked like a common remote control. When he pointed it at the blank wall, there appeared a cylindrical tunnel of violet blue light that seemed to stretch to infinity.
Slowly it began to rotate like a tumbler. As it gained speed, turning faster, the optical illusion of spirals going round and round became hypnotic so that it was hard to look away.
Elora Laiken tried to focus on what Monq was saying. As he hurried around the lab, his waist long, white hair swayed in time with his agitated movements. “I’m sending you off world where you’ll be safe.”
In a moment of clarity she shook her head and whispered, “Off world? No,” just on the improbable chance that such a thing was possible.
If Monq heard the barely audible protest, he didn't acknowledge it. “Your destination has been calibrated to find the nearest life pattern matching my own.” His gaze swept over her frozen pose and glazed eyes, but there was no time for sympathy. He embraced her with the affection of a father. “Look for someone very like me. When you find him…” He removed the locket he always wore around his neck. “… give him this and tell him to retrieve the data within.”
He ripped and pulled the heavy costume away leaving her in street clothes. Luckily, her black pants had a watch pocket. He stuffed the locket and chain inside.
Normally Monq would have no chance of overpowering Elora. She was young, strong, at her athletic peak while he was an old scientist and sometime sorcerer who spent his days puttering back and forth between lab and study. Two things were on his side: the element of surprise and the absolute trust of his favorite student. Using that advantage, he summoned what strength he could gather and pushed her through the opening.
“Be happy!”
In less than a second she had disappeared from view. He turned the device off and the portal resumed its disguise as a plain, stone and mortar wall. Hearing pounding at the door, he rushed to put the handheld control in the blender he used to make smoothies and turned it on, thereby destroying any chance of assassins following her escape. There was just enough time to get to the other side of the room and wipe the hard drive before the ramming post broke through the door. He faced the intruders with a smile knowing that his life’s work and prize pupil were far, far away.
***
The room known as the Chamber was stark, masculine and suggested medieval fortress. Cement block walls formed a perfect square. Gas lit torches were spaced at regular intervals and their flames reflected on smooth gray flagstone floors. It was anachronistic, but served as symbol and reminder that The Order of the Black Swan had a long, long history.
The three remaining members of B Team were there recounting the circumstances of their teammate's death to their supervisor, Sovereign Sol Nemamiah.
Sol was no longer field active, but he'd paid his dues and collected honors when he was younger and was now well-respected by everyone in the organization. His signature buzz cut was out of date, but fashion was probably last on his list of priorities. A little gray was showing around the temples and ears as were deep lines around the eyes. They might have been laugh lines on somebody else, but his were squint or scowl lines. He wasn’t known for being gregarious.
It was impossible to tell if he was forties or fifties, largely because he stuck to a punishing daily workout and had a muscle to fat ratio that would have been the envy of a twenty-something athlete.
The mood was somber as Sir Landsdowne had been far more than a coworker. How do you describe how you feel about a guy who watches your back in live or die situations? Family maybe. Brothers.
The three survivors were aware that they were being observed and evaluated by the unit’s psychiatrist. He sat a few feet away on one of the bench seats pretending to be invisible, but fooling no one.
They were near the end of the grim formality when there was a sudden, upward shift in temperature, like a hot, sirocco wind blasting a door open. That was followed by a flash of light and a pop as something the size of a person rolled into the fetal position materialized above the floor at waist height. It did not hover, but fell instantly to the stone floor, making a sickening, plopping noise on impact. It appeared to be a bloody, quivering mass of scored meat partially covered by shreds of fabric that were either black or blackened by blood.
The five men stared at the thing. Even in their line of work, being accustomed to highly unusual phenomena, this was astonishing. There they were. The scientist, the administrator, and three battle hardened knights of The Order of the Black Swan, members of the elite B Team, frozen in indecision, a development that is foreign to men whose lives depend on quick thinking.
Being in charge and presumably wisest, Sovereign Sol was first to speak. “What the fuck?”
“What is that?” Ram asked with an Irish lilt. To punctuate his revulsion, his face was screwed up the way it might be if something smelled very, very bad. He shook his gorgeous head of hair and leaned forward just a little for a closer look with laser sharp blue eyes. Rammel Hawking was the smallest member of B Team, or Bad Company as their peers like to call them, at just about six feet one. He had a thick head of multi-hued, blond hair that was at once a mess and a miracle. It waved, curled, stuck out in random places, and hung to just short of his shoulders.
Kay cocked his head then glanced toward Storm. “Shaped like a human.”
Sol sniffed and took a step to his right as if he could learn more from a different angle and answered for Storm. “Not much of a recommendation. So are lots of things that aren’t.”
While the five continued to speculate, the blob on the floor began to move and moan softly.
Ram was slammed with an acute case of gut instinct. His solar plexus was throbbing, sending off signals he couldn’t begin to interpret. He didn’t know whether to feel alarmed or intrigued. Moreover, he was disturbed by getting an autoerotic hard-on which was, at the very least disgusting, and, at the very worst, perverted. In a completely out of character moment, he went contrary to his usual impulsive, risk-taking behavior deciding to err on the side of caution. “I have a bad feelin’. I think we should kill it. Kill it now.”
The man standing closest to the thing, Engel Storm, looked down at its face, into thin slits of eyes - greenish blue maybe - recessed behind gruesome, protrusions of swelling that could make the most calloused warrior a little squeamish. It was then that the thing seemed to reach out to him. He hesitated for a heartbeat then knelt down, almost compulsively, trying to sort out the best way to gather it into a shape that he could lift and carry.
Sol stepped in. “Don’t touch it! We don’t know what it is. It could be anything… a disguised machine or a suicide mission carrying explosives or toxic chemicals or a spell.”
Storm ignored Sol’s comments not even bothering with the courtesy of a glance in his direction and continued rearranging the mess as gently as possible. Whatever it was, it was hurt. Badly. It groaned and whimpered in pain with every touch or movement, opening and closing its mouth in agony. It needed help. It had asked for help when it reached out to him and it was neither Storm’s style nor job description to stand around debating precautions and policy when someone, or some
thing
, was in desperate need of assistance.