They exited the car behind Karas and stood before a long, tubular vehicle with fixed wings. It was one of the birds they"d seen fly overhead. Two large mouths were attached to the body, and from these mouths came a high-pitched whine that made Silvie step back.
"Ever dreamed of flying?" Karas asked, beaming.
The idea startled Silvie. "In the sky?"
"Yes, in the sky. Like a bird."
"In that thing?"
"In that thing."
Johnis"s eyes were round. "Is it a Chevy?"
"No, it"s a Citation 20. And it"s faster than a Chevy."
"Fantastic," Johnis said.
FLYING OVER EARTH AT TWENTY THOUSAND FEET WAS AN experience that made Silvie forget all the disadvantages the Histories had presented up to this point. Neither she nor Johnis seemed to be able to hide their grins, peering out through the round windows.
"One of these contraptions would end the war with the Horde," Johnis said.
"How so?"
"You could fly over them and drop boulders without any fear of being cut down."
"Trust me, Johnis, you could drop more than rocks to end the war with the Horde," Karas said. "But you wouldn"t want to kill so many others like me."
She still has a soft spot in her heart for the Scabs, Silvie thought, returning her attention to the clouds beneath the airplane.
They talked about the short past they"d shared, beginning with the details of Karas"s rescue from the Horde City. She wanted to rehea.r.s.e every detail from her memory, just to be sure she"d remembered it all as it really had happened.
Then she quickly told them about her journey through the desert with Darsal. Meeting Alucard in the Black Forest. Their escape into the cover of this world, a virtual reality that could be accessed by touching any of the seven books with blooda"which is what Billos had done when he"d gone renegade on them.
"I"ve done it a dozen times since," Karas said. "It"s like walking into a simulation of this reality. Paradise, every time. The point is, Paradise, Colorado, is real. I"ve been there."
"And?"
"Nothing."
"But that was before we arrived with our two books," Johnis said. "Until our books entered this reality, there were only two books here: yours and Darsal"s."
Which begged the question Silvie voiced. "No sign of Darsal at all?"
Karas stared out at the blue sky. "I"ve searched, trust me. When all of my efforts felled, I followed this path." She motioned to the jet, meaning her life as a manager. "If I couldn"t find you two or Darsal, I wanted to make sure you could find me. So I"ve used what skills I have to make myself highly visible. As it turned out, you managed more visibility in one day than I have in five years."
An exaggeration, but point well made.
"Darsal"s never contacted me. Which means she"s either dead a"
"Or hasn"t come through yet," Johnis finished. "For all we know, she may not come through for another ten years."
"Correct. As is the case with Alucard."
"So a if Darsal hasn"t come through yet, only our three books have come through thus far. The other three books hidden here may not even be visible yet?"
"Possibly," Karas said. "If Darsal did come through, she"s clearly run into trouble, or she would have contacted me. Whoever has her book might know about me. If so, they"re probably waiting for you two to surface before they expose themselves and go for all of our books at once."
The soft rush of air from the engines outside filled the cabin.
"No sign of that beast?" Silvie asked. "Alucard?"
"Signs?" Karas frowned. "Everywhere you look. What is Alucard but raw wickedness in the form of Shataiki? It"s everywhere. But no, I haven"t seen any Shataiki floating through the night sky."
"Then let"s keep our fingers crossed," Johnis said. "With any luck, we find the seven books before he comes through."
"We have to a.s.sume he"s through as well, biding his time, waiting for you two to show up," Karas said. "And we might be wise to a.s.sume the worst."
Johnis frowned. "That he has Darsal"s book. That he"s killed her and is biding his time."
It seemed rather pessimistic to Silvie, and she made as much clear.
"Maybe," Karas said. "But I"ve run through every possible scenario a thousand times over the years, and I a.s.sure you, we"d better be prepared for the worst, because I have a nasty feeling your little stunt on the Net set into motion much more than you bargained for."
Karas"s speculation put a bit of a damper on the flight, but it was quickly overcome by the jet"s sudden descent and frightening maneuvering over a sprawling compound of white buildings and small bodies of blue water she called "swimming pools."
They were flying over her house, A small town by all measures, nestled in the hills above the city of angels: Los Angeles. They would set down on a private airstrip, freshen up, and change into clothing more suitable than the prison smocks they currently wore.
All this according to Karas, who gave them a running commentary. Silvie wasn"t entirely sure what it all meant, but she took it in wearing the same look of dumb wonder that was plastered on Johnis"s face. Though she suspected by the comments he kept making that he was under the illusion he understood perfectly.
They landed, exited the airplane, and took a car to the main house. More accurately, the mansion. Towering white columns supported a huge ceiling that arched over the main atrium. Several servants greeted them, one at the front door, one in the kitchen, another near the pool area that overlooked the city below.
It was all a bit much for Silvie, but Karas glided around on her bare feet as naturally as a sparrow who"d come home to her nest.
They would eat at seven, she informed the cooka"after the concert. Lobster and aged Kobe beef for the guests tonight; lets show them what the Histories have to offer.
She effortlessly ran through a stack of notes handed to her by a secretary wearing jeans and named Rick c.u.mberland, directing the man on a number of urgent issues, as though doing so were as natural as eating a meal.
The butler showed Sylvie and Johnis to two bedrooms where he"d laid out several outfits of new clothing as instructed by Karas. They reconvened on the patioa"Johnis dressed in loose-fitting jeans with a black T-shirt, and Silvie in a black skirt with a white, sleeveless top. Johnis opted for boots. Silvie, sandals.
Karas looked them over and nodded her approval. "Not bad. You"ll fit right in."
"Fit right in where?"
"I"m introducing one of my singers, Tony Montana, at a concert in the Rose Bowl, Something I foolishly agreed to do when a client wins in their respective categories at all major awards shows, which Tony did at the 12th annual VH2 Awards last week. We"ll leave for the Rose Bowl by helicopter in an hour."
"A bowl?"
"A little larger than a bowl, actually," Karas laughed.
hey sat around a round table, staring out at the city, with a light breeze in their hair, the orange sun dipping to their sides, and delicacies at their fingertips. Karas, known here as Kara Longford, told them her story, and hearing it all, Silvie couldn"t stop shaking her head in wonder.
She"d arrived in Nevada, as they hada"why Nevada, she didn"t know. A ten-year-old girl, she was lost and terrified on a highway that led to the big city of lights. She tried to be brave those first few days but couldn"t stop crying.
There was no shortage of people willing to help a little girl who needed food and money, but none of them had any answers for her, and they all looked at her as if she"d lost her mind when she asked about the Horde or the Shataiki.
She took up with an old man who lived under a bridge after a week of wandering. "Scotty," he called himself, after a character from an old show called Star Trek. Unlike others, Scotty"s eye lit up when she talked about the Horde and the Books of History. And thank Elyon, because if not for Scotty, she would have undoubtedly been committed to the fruit farm, a colloquial expression for a mental hospital.
Outside of Scotty"s protective oversight, she became known as the little girl who would take your head off at the drop of a hat. A mental case, to be sure.
It wasn"t until she went through therapy years later that she figured out what was wrong those first few months. Her emotions had been affected by the transition between the future and the Histories.
"Really?" Johnis shot Silvie a look of understanding.
"You"ve noticed?" Karas asked.
"I think it"s what got us into trouble with the Chevy," Silvie said. "Johnis practically went berserk."
Johnis grinned sheepishly. "It did bring a few of our feelings to the surface."
Karas lifted an eyebrow, looking from one to the other. "Don"t worry; it pa.s.ses."
"We"re not looking for it to pa.s.s," Silvie said. "Ever."
"I"m not talking about the love you"ve vowed for each other on the Net. I"m talking about the raw emotions caused by the transition between worlds. And your thinking feels a bit sluggish, right?"
"Careless. A little stupid, maybe. We"re stuck with this?"
"No. The fact is, your mind isn"t sluggish. Just the opposite. Your intelligence is well advanced over the average person here, so far advanced that it"s struggling to compensate for the surge of emotional responses filtering through your mind. At least that"s my best guess after the countless rounds of psychological testing I subjected myself to in an attempt to understand."
"But you"re saying our minds will compensate soon enough?"
Karas nodded. "Have you noticed anything else?"
"Speed," Johnis said.
"Bingo a Sorry, just an expression. Our reflexes and strength are superior to the humans from the Histories. Not by much, but enough to pull out a few tricks now and then. Still, it"s nothing compared to the advantage your minds will give you."
Karas went on to retrace her history here: How she"d soon begun compensating for her heightened emotions with a superior intellect. How she"d started using that intellect when she was thirteen to win small bets involving certain mathematical problems, then graduated to more complex problems. "Sleight of mind," she called it. Soon she was headlining as a child prodigy in her own stage show.
She studied on her own during the day and began building a small fortune performing in the evening. By the time she was fifteen, she"d exhausted the requirements of primary education and enrolled in a Web-based university program, studying entertainment business management with a secondary emphasis in language and history.
All the while, she had used every possible avenue to search for them. For Darsal. For Alucard. All to no avail.
Her plan was well formed even then. She would learn everything she could about history, never relenting in her ambition to find the companion books to the black Book of History in her possession. She would learn as many languages as she thought necessary to a.s.sist her in a global search for her friends and the books. And she would launch a career using her advanced intelligence to give her the broad access and exposure needed for her search. Rather than entertain, she would manage entertainers, creating both wealth and exposure through high-profile artists.
Most importantly, she would appear with her artists onstage frequently, so that she, too, would become world renowned. If Alucard was out there, and she had to a.s.sume that he was, she had to be visible enough worldwide to attract the attention of Johnis, Silvie, and Darsal before he got to them.
"So you"ve succeeded in all of this," Silvie said, stating what seemed to be obvious. "Well enough to spring us from jail."
"That was harder than you might guess. Fortunately, I manage the girl you kidnapped, and I"m very tight with the authorities in Las Vegas. The chief of police owes me a dozen favors. At this moment I manage fifteen of the top billing acts in the world through Global Entertainment Network, GEN."
"You"d think the warriors would own the wealth, not the artists," Johnis said, looking around the lavish setting.
She laughed. "There"s plenty of money in wara"always has been, always will be. But humans will pay as much for their thrills as they will for their security. Was it any different in the forests? The first thing I noticed in Middle were the nightly celebrations."
"Like I"ve always said"a"Johnis winked at Silviea""*a poet is worth two fighters." Just ask Elyon."
"There"s more than one way to carve a poem," Silvie said, twirling her knife from a fold in her blouse. She slammed it into the table they were seated around.
"Nice," Karas said. "That is a ten-thousand-dollar slab of sandalwood from Indonesia you just defaced."
"The knife is from the future and will fetch you ten times that," Silvie responded.
"Touchy."
"So, just how much wealth have you managed to acquire in your time here?"
"Enough to own a small country if I so choose. You once told me about the game Thomas Hunter taught you to play with the Horde ball."
"It was how we were first chosen," Silvie said.
"It"s a very big game here; they call it *football." I own two teams. With your speed, you could both become huge stars here."
Johnis spit to one side. "Doesn"t interest me."
"Please, we"re not in a jungle here," Silvie chided. "Mind your manners."
"Sorry."
Karas let out a short giggle. "Brings back memories."
"Yes, sorry." He took a deep breath. "There is something I was wondering if you might help me with. a.s.suming it"s not too much trouble. I don"t want to presume upon your wealth, buta""
"Enough," Karas said. "My wealth is your wealth. What is it?"
He spoke before she"d fully finished. "A Chevy," His eyes shone like the stars. "A red Chevy."
Karas smiled. "Like the beauty you stole in Nevada? The sweet racer with the cherry paint job and souped-up engine that you tore up Las Vegas with?"
"Yes. That Chevy."
"Not a problem, my friend, I bought it as part of your get-out-of-jail package. Cost me twice what the owner had in it, but I paid every dime gladly. One day that car will go down in history. The Chevy that Johnis of Middle, world-renowned driver, first learned to drive in." She stood. "In the meantime, I have something else for you. Wait here."
Karas returned a minute later, gripping a wooden box in both hands. She set it gingerly on the table, opened it, and withdrew the black Book of History she"d harbored for all these years.
She set it next to theirs. The three books sat side by side: one brown, one green, one black.
Johnis stood and walked around the table. "We have to protect these at any cost."