Xander vol.1 Transmutation (11 page)

“
What if he’s
dead
?” she went
on.

Jared’s face paled at the
possibility.

“
What if that weird girl
took him away and murdered him or something? You saw her on the
news, right? Whatever the heck she was doing to that dragon thing.
What if she –“

“
Shut up, Liz,” Jared
groaned.

“
But what if she
did
?” Liz urged, leaning
closer to Jared, whose conscious was now eating away at him.
“Neither of them have been here since that dragon thing happened.
And it escaped!” she shouted in a whisper. “What if she like
summoned it, and she fed Maverick to it?”

Jared turned away from
her, not wanting to listen to anymore of the absurd, but jarring
possibilities. Liz pulled on the edge of his apron, egging him
on.

“
What if there are pieces
of his body out in the woods somewhere and they just haven’t found
him yet?”

Jared groaned in
annoyance, swatting her hand away, almost in
desperation.

“
Will you shut up?” he
nearly shouted. And to his surprise, she fell silent.

He closed his eyes, hoping
for the silence to last. And when it did, he sighed with relief,
slowly opening his eyes again. He stared up at the ceiling, as if
to look through it to a God above, sending his silent prayers of
denial. His shoulders slumped as he slowly turned back around to
thank Liz, who was now staring ahead into the shop with somewhat
wide eyes and parted lips.

Jared’s brows furrowed as
he studied her expression, his words trailing off as he suddenly
noticed the deathly silent atmosphere of the café. His head whipped
around to look in the same direction with sudden paranoia, and his
breath caught in his chest upon what he saw.

Waltzing into the store,
on all fours, was Loni. The people of the silence-stricken café
remained deathly still as the lioness made her way inside. She was
quiet, her head lowered close to the ground and her nostrils
flaring out. She was searching. But to the people of the café, she
was hunting.

When Loni had gone a
decent distance past the people towards the front of the store,
they jumped from their seats and ran out of the cafe, hurrying as
fast as they could to get as far away as they could.

Loni paid them no mind as
she continued to roam around the café, more and more people
scurrying from the building as she continued. In contrast, there
were also people gathered around the entrance and front windows of
the café with their phones and other devices out, recording the
whole thing. And then of course, some had the sense to call the
police and animal control.

Reaching for Liz’s arm
with as little movement as the action would allow, he glanced down
at her and her petrified posture.

“
Panic … Panic button,” he
urged, nudging her wrist.

Liz’s eyes snapped from
the intimidating figure of the lioness, over to the counter in
which she stood in front of. Her hand leapt for the underside of
the counter, her fingers desperately feeling around for the shape
of the little red button.

Chapter 10

“I don’t know how he did
it, but I swear. I had him, and then out of nowhere, I feel this
voltage surging through me. And then the next thing I know, I’m
waking up in the mall and they’re gone,” Richard explained, hoping
that by some miracle he would be believed.

He stood in front of a
large oak desk, which acted as separation between him and the
doctor, who was facing away from him. He was sitting in a leather
swivel chair, which was large enough to accommodate the most
intimidating mafia lord.

One could argue that it
was done on purpose, to make him seem more intimidating than he
really was. And for whatever reason, it was working. Big bad
Richard was standing a safe distance away from the desk, silent
after having spilled his information on why Nora was able to get
away.

“
Electrocuted, you say,”
came the grave voice of Dr. Lupin.

He refused to face him, as
he was trying to keep his composure. This was the first of his
Chimera that chose to rebel that was able to escape and make it
into town. And that fact was seeping under his skin –
fast.

He didn’t exactly know how
to handle the situation, seeing as though it had never been a
problem, and that he had never prepared for it. He didn’t think
he’d have so much of a problem with rebellion with his
subjects.

His project hadn’t fully
come to its full potential yet, and having things constantly going
south was slowly getting to him. But that didn’t mean he was
anywhere near throwing in the theatrical towel. Every experiment
had its back lashes, and his was no different.

“
I swear,” Richard
nodded.

“
With what?”

“
I –“ Richard huffed,
reaching his hand back to scratch the back of his head nervously.
“I don’t know. It’s like it came from his body. And I know how full
of shit that sounds, but –“

“
His body …” Lupin
murmured to himself, before succumbing to one of the many memories
of Saphora.

Particularly the day they
had all ventured up to the woods to view the fallen tree. He
remembered that wave of energy that came off of Saphora’s body when
he reached out to her. Could there be another? If there was, it was
imperative he knew for his research.

“
Did another Chimera
escape? Maybe it’s one of the rebels trying to help her,” Richard
wondered aloud.

That’s when Lupin turned
around. With an expression just shy of livid. It was one thing to
have Nora run off. But Lupin knew the reason behind it – the
running off, anyway. Sarah. The loss had become personal. But would
that be enough to drive Nora to try freeing the others? Launch a
full-fledged rebellion? And with that man helping her …

“
Pull the humans from the
sites. I want trained Chimera taking their place,” Lupin
ordered.

“
The sites? You think that
guy is going to show up at the sites?”

“
Not by himself,” Lupin
grunted as he stood from his chair and turned to look out one of
the wall-scaled windows.

“
With Nora? Wait –
So
is
he a
Chimera? Cause if he is, I think we’ve got the right to
–“

“
He’s not a Chimera,”
Lupin asserted. “I want those Chimera switched in immediately,” he
continued, staying on subject. “Halyn and the twins. I want them
posted within the hour,” he ordered.

********

“And for the record,”
Xander spoke up. “I don’t see anything wrong with having a respect
for nature.”

Nora, having been toying
with her vines, her facial expression shifting from disappointment,
to disgust, to shame, and all over again, looked up at Xander, who
had just taken his seat on the sofa behind her. Not quite
following, Nora’s brows furrowed as her neck craned.

“
What?” she finally
uttered after some moments of confused silence.

Xander gestured towards
her vines, which had slowly began retreating back into the
underside of her wrist.

“
Your mutation,” he
explained. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. In fact, I think
you’re very lucky to have such a connection with such an important
part of every world.” Xander nodded with a bit of a chuckle. “You
and Avani would make great friends.”

“
Avani?” Nora’s head
tilted to the side.

“
Hm,” Xander hummed with a
nod. “Mistress of Earth, daughter of Mother Nature.”

“
Daughter?” Nora scoffed
softly. “Of
Mother
Nature
.”

“
Yes … Why do you
laugh?”

“
Well … Because she isn’t
a person. She’s a phrase.
It’s
a phrase. Mother Nature.”

“
Maybe here – to you,”
Xander argued. “But on Athena, she is very much real. She is one of
the three supreme beings.”

“
Supreme being?” Nora
questioned.

Xander paused, trying to
recall his human terminology.

“
What’s the term …” he
though aloud. Nora pondered as well, her curiosity having been
drawn in.

“
Gods?” she
guessed.

“
Yes!” he exclaimed, his
finger shooting forward. “She is what you would call a God, yes. Or
rather, Goddess.”

Nora’s face flattened
somewhat as she searched his eyes for the joke that she felt was
obviously being played.

“
A God,” she repeated
skeptically. This time is was Xander’s face that
flattened.

“
Why do you keep repeating
me like that? You think I’m lying to you? What reason would I have
to lie?”

“
Because … You have a
God?
Gods
? That
like … walk and talk?”

“
We call them supreme
beings,” Xander corrected.

“
But like – they’re
living,” Nora reiterated. Again, Xander nodded, slowly this time,
sending Nora further into the deep end. “And you – like, what, pray
to them?”

“
What? They do not grant
wishes. We are not fairy tales.”

“
I mean like, worship
them,” Nora rephrased.

“
No,” Xander scoffed. “We
acknowledge them for their greatness. Their power and existence.
But they are not beings that require our
worship
.”

“
So, what do they – what
are the other two?”

“
Who,” Xander corrected.
“They are Mother Nature, Father Time, and Necrovidere.”

“
What do they
do?”

Xander chuckled, amused
with the simple, yet vast questions.

“
Their jobs cannot be so
simply defined, Nora.”

“
But like, Mother Nature …
She’s like, in charge of nature isn’t she? The trees, the animals
…”

“
Mm,” Xander nodded,
rocking his head gently from side to side. “Something along those
lines.”

“
And Father Time? Isn’t
that like … The Sand Man?”

Xander shuddered at the
mention of, what was on Athena, a horrid species.

“
Be grateful he is not
here to hear you speak so poorly of him. Sandmen are
awful
beings. And Father
Time is not among them.”

“
So then what
–“

“
Nora,” Xander
interjected, raising his hand to stop her, and resisting the urge
to laugh at her profound interest. He wondered if this was how he
sounded to his mother and father in his youth. “Even Father Time
himself could not determine the amount of time it would take to
thoroughly explain each being and their existence.”

Nora’s shoulders slumped
at the, however subtle, rejection of information. She sighed, her
bottom lip beginning to curl in what would have been a
pout.

“
But … Do you talk to
them? Can you like –“

Xander laughed outright,
unable to help himself.

“
One does not
simply
talk
to a
supreme being when one wishes. You cannot just call them over for
dinner. Don’t be absurd.”

“
But … Have you
ever
spoken to
one?”

“
I can’t say that I
have.”

“
Well do you know where
they are?”

“
I do not.”

Nora scoffed, throwing her
hands up and letting them fall back into her lap.

“
Then how do you know
they’re
real
?”

“
Because I have met their
sons and daughters,” Xander supported. “And I will,” he pressed.
“Learn their whereabouts, as have my parents, when I am
king.”

“
So … no one else
knows?”

“
They know
of
them. But their
locations are limited knowledge. Only to be passed between
royalties.”

“
Why?”

“
It is for the supremes’
protection. If their whereabouts were to be discovered by the wrong
people, they could become endangered.” Before Nora had the chance
to call out a possible contradiction, Xander raised his index
finger. “They are immortal, not indestructible.”

“
So why does royalty get
to know?”

“
So that we may call on
them in a time of crisis. And only of crisis. They are never to be
summoned otherwise.”

Nora nodded, staring in
awe at the crash course of the beings. Her shoulders slumped again,
for another reason entirely.

“
Cool …” she
exhaled.

Xander chuckled,
nodding.

“
Yeah, I suppose it
is.”

Nora looked down at the
palms of her hands, slowly twisting them as she stared at them, and
the vines within them with new appreciation.

“
Avani,” she mumbled to
herself, coming back to the comforting thought that there were
others out there like her. And that one of them was in fact
God-like. She looked up from her hands to meet the patient eyes of
Xander, smiling as she took his silence to mean that she was
allowed to continue her prying.