Chasing Orion

My eyes shot open and I sat up letting out a loud quick roar. I could not see anything but blackness. My head was throbbing in pain immensely. I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus my senses sniffing the air and a familiar scent hit me.

“Cambrian,” I mumbled trying to stand to my feet.

My vision slowly started to return and I could vaguely make out the figure standing in front of me.

“Well, it’s about time you came back to life,” Cambrian said wrapping her arms around me.

I squeezed on to her thankful to know she was still here.

“How long was I out?” My vision cleared enough to notice we were back in the Pharaoh’s tomb.

“A couple of days,” she said helping me sit back down and kneeling next to me.

“A couple of days?” I asked surprised and confused.

“Yea, when that Orionak brought you here, you we’re pretty much a goner. They helped to get some blood in to you, but we weren’t sure if you were going to be able to heal.”

“What Orionak?” I asked her even more confused.

“I don’t know who they were. It wasn’t one of the gods but they had the armor. I was waiting just inside the doorway to the pyramid debating on going out in to the sunlight to try to help you because I could hear everything going on,” she handed me a golden chalice filled with blood. “Drink this.”

I could smell the blood and snatched it out of her hand drinking it down quickly as if I was starving.

“Ok, take it easy,” she laughed.

As I finished the last of the blood, the series of events that took place up on the platform flooded back in to my mind.

“Someone else showed up to fight the Orionak just as I blacked out,” I rubbed my temples trying to remember. “They came in and knocked Horus off the top, forcing Hathor to jump off after him. Then Isis and Osiris transported away scared.”

It was all so confusing. I sat back down holding my face in my hands rubbing my eyes and grunted in frustration. Cambrian put her hand on my knee in comfort.

“It’s ok. You’re ok. Just relax Tal,” she said with a concerned tone.

“Ra picked up my swords and went to the middle of the platform and said, ‘Kill her,’ to the others. Then a voice said, ‘I think those swords belong to me,’ which would mean…”

I paused processing that last part.

“Mara!” I shouted quickly standing up knocking Cambrian over on to her back.

I ran as hard as I could out of the tomb to the giant stone door slamming into it and nearly launching it off the pyramid.

“Tal, wait!” Cambrian yelled chasing after me.

I went outside and scaled the side of the pyramid up to the top, quickly followed by Cambrian. It was night out and the moon was hiding eerily behind some clouds low on the horizon.

Frantically I looked around toward the platform trying to see anything. Cambrian joined my side and grabbed my arm.

“Stop a minute,” she pleaded.

I jerked my arm away from her extending my fangs and leapt from the pyramid to the platform.

“Wait!” I heard Cambrians voice trail off, as she did not follow me.

I landed on the platform uncontrolled and tumbled a few times before catching myself. The platform looked like a small battlefield, with bodies of both Sah and human guards spread out across it.

Cambrian landed a few seconds later and calmly walked over to me as I stood looking at the destruction. I walked over to the place I fell and knelt looking at the pool of my own blood that was undisturbed. With a quick thought, the blood disintegrated into a black powder.

Human, Sah and Orionak blood completely covered the platform. Cambrian was silent now somewhat in shock as I was to what we were looking at. She stopped at one of the larger splashes of blue colored blood.

“It’s Anubis’s blood,” I said drawing a line through it with my finger.

Behind me I heard someone else landing on the platform. Cambrian quickly jerked her head up toward the noise and her eyes got big in surprise. I slowly stood up sniffing the air.

Cambrian took a step backwards cautiously glancing to me,

“I think it’s for you,” she said quietly.

I started to shake ever so slightly as the scent processed through my mind.

“Mara,” I whispered to myself slowly turning around.

I collapsed on to my knees with tears of blood streaming down my face. It was Mara, standing like a statue with her battle armor tightly wrapped around her. Her hair was blowing slightly across her face from the gentle breeze the night usually brought.

“Mara?” I asked curiously not accepting the reality of what I was seeing.

She changed her armor to her lavish robes and flickered over to me slamming in to me wrapping her arms around me tightly.

“Mara?” I asked again latching on to her pulling her against me.

“I’m here,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

“I thought I lost you.” I kissed the side of her neck.

“For a moment you did,” she said digging her nails in to me as she usually did when I kissed her neck.

I pulled back away from her looking in to her eyes.

“It’s really you.”

She stared back at me and cracked a smile melting my heart again. I pulled her back against me wrapping my arms around her.

“I’ll never let go of you again,” I whispered to her.

“I’m sorry, so sorry, that I ran off. That was foolish of me run off by myself,” she said burying her face into me.

“No, my love, it’s not your fault, it’s mine. I should have followed you.”

“I’ll never leave your side again, I promise.”

“Aww you guys,” Cambrian interjected now crying herself.

“I love you,” Mara said looking up at me.

“I love you more,” I replied kissing her slowly.

We sat there for a few minutes kissing and hugging before getting back to our feet. She laced her fingers through mine and held on to my hand as I looked around the platform.

“Did you do this?” I asked Mara turning and kissing the side of her head.

She giggled quietly looking around at the carnage.

“Well, they were killing you, and I was kind of angry for them killing me too,” she replied sheepishly.

It was at that time that I noticed just how quiet it was. I walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down. There were more bodies of guards down below, but otherwise the streets appeared desolated.

I looked over to where the flagship should be, but it was gone. Scanning the sky, I noticed that there was none of the Orionak fighters patrolling around either.

“They’re gone,” Mara said looking to the sky as well.

“What do you mean they’re gone?”

That concept was almost as unbelievable as Mara was being alive.

“Well, after I ripped off Ra’s arms I kicked him off the platform down into the street,” Mara started to explain.

“Wait, you did what?” I interrupted her.

“He kept trying to hit me with my own swords, so I removed his arms, and kicked him off the platform, and got my swords back. Then Anubis and I dueled for a few minutes, which he is a way better a fighter than Ra was.

Then Hathor came back up to the platform with all these guards, so I cut and stabbed Anubis and he teleported away. The guards I took out pretty quickly, but Hathor, is incredibly fast, and almost hit me, but I stabbed her too.”

Cambrian and I stood there shocked at the story she was telling, at not only how amazing it was, but also how innocently she was telling it, as a child would. She continued,

“So then after I stabbed Hathor, Isis came back. I liked Isis so I didn’t attack her. She didn’t attack me either, just helped Hathor to teleport away. Then said they were leaving, and then she teleported away.”

A few minutes later all the guards disappeared and the big ship left along with all the fighters. They haven’t been back since,” she concluded kicking one of the Sah guards off the platform.

“I sensed another person like me, and that’s when I found your sister hiding in the tomb, and brought you there to her,” Mara said kicking off another body. “We talked and got acquainted waiting for sunset. Then I took her hunting and we brought you back some temple girls and fed you their blood.”

“After all of that, people are afraid to come out of their houses. The palace is sealed shut with all the guards inside with Khafre,” Cambrian added peeking off over the platform. “I think we scared them.”

“I woke up in the grave you made me and managed to claw my way to the surface. I snatched one of the Sah guards that was running by during your commotion and stole his armor,” Mara said leaning against me. “Snacked on a pair of humans, and then came up here to you, but I was too late.”

“You’re still amazing,” I said playfully.

Mara giggled walking over to one of the Sah guards removing his belt and necklace and tossing them to Cambrian. She removed her basic set replacing them with the guards, engaging up her own armor and mask like ours, and then collapsing it back to her priestess garments.

I thought about what that could mean not having the Orionak here anymore. All the advances that they had given our people with knowledge and technology, but in the end, humanity is better off without them.

They wanted to turn humans into creatures like me, and given enough time, there would not be any humans left at all with that concept. It does beg the question; what happens to us?

Life on this planet will go on and evolve as nature will allow it to, and we will have to blend in and live alongside the humans. The problem will come from our need of blood.

To be like us, will have to accept that people will die, and at present with the three of us, that will take four or five people a week to sustain us. For the moment, I suppose it is just something that the people will have to accept.

We cannot change the nature of what we are, and we are still a very real threat to this world, but through control, restraint, and rules we can make sure that we are not the ones responsible for the downfall of humanity.

“So, does this mean we’re in charge now?” Cambrian asked breaking my train of thought.

“No. We need to let the humans live out their own lives without our interference. They have already had enough outside intervention. From here they are on their own,” I replied in a more serious tone than normal.

“But, we still get to eat them, right?” She asked nervously.

“Yes, but not here. We need to leave Egypt. These people know too much already.”

“But this is our home, I don’t want to leave,” Cambrian pleaded.

“It’s for the best, that we leave them alone. They are already so terrified they don’t even come out of their houses anymore,” Mara said looking out over the city.

“We will come back, Cam, when things have changed and they’ve forgotten about us,” I gently rubbed her back. “We will leave in the morning, so the people can see us leaving.”

I took a step off the platform dropping down to the ground. Mara followed quickly behind me hooking her arm through mine as I started to walk toward the pyramid. Cambrian landed a few feet ahead of us and jumped back up doing a flip on to the roof of a building ahead of us.

“Should we do something with all the bodies?” Mara asked stopping and looking back.

It was not a bad idea I thought to myself. This was our mess to clean up really, and if the humans learned how to use the Sah armor and weapons, it could cause more harm than good.

“You’re right. Let’s gather them up and put it up on the platform. Then we will burn everything,” I said turning to Cambrian. “Cam?”

She sighed and jumped off the roof.

“Take off all their armor and weapons and pile them up on the lower ramp flat.”

Within a couple minutes, we had all the guards’ bodies piled up on the top of the platform. I smashed a few large jars of torch oil I stole from down below on the pile and drew my sword.

I quickly slashed at the platform sending up a wave of sparks, which quickly set the pile ablaze. The flames alternated colors between the normal orange, and a lighter purple from the Sah.

“Cam, how strong are you?” I asked her curiously.

“Stronger than you,” she boasted.

“Do you think you can lift one of the pyramid blocks?”

She thought about it for a second then leapt off the platform backwards toward the pile of blocks doing a slow flip in the air. She landed next to one of them and smashed her claws into it to grip with and starting lifting.

The block did not budge and I heard her start to grunt, as she pulled harder on it trying to get it to move. She tried again and sunk into the sand. Mara and I turned to each other and laughed, then jumped off the top toward the stones.

When we landed, she let go shaking her hands and cracking her knuckles before grabbing ahold again.

“I got it, I got it,” she said trying to lift it again.

“It’s ok Cam, it’s a fifty-ton stone, I didn’t expect it to move even with our strength,” I said walking around it to her side. “Let’s get one of these smaller ones.”

The three of us managed to lift one of the smaller blocks that was only about ten tons and carried it up to the lower flat of the ramp, letting it drop down on the pile of Sah weapons and armor devices a few times crushing them.

We went back up to the top of the platform making sure the fire did its job and sat on the edge of the platform. Cambrian had a pair of torches that she was twirling around making shapes in the air with the fire.

Mara crawled into my lap and curled up leaning against me watching Cambrian. I wrapped my arms around her holding her tightly. We sat up there for another few hours until the fire had reduced everything to ash.

Mara and Cambrian changed up their armor as the sun started to rise, and a very small amount of the human guards and a few people were out on the street moving around. They took notice to our cleanup of the streets and the smoldering cinders on the platform.

Without my armor and looking as normal as I could I assumed that it was causing a smaller amount of fear easing some of the tension from the townsfolk. By the time the sun was fully up a decent amount of the workers had reported in for the days’ work.

Without the Sah or the Orionak here, some of them seemed lost in what they should be doing. The Sah had usually controlled what people had to do with coordination with the construction supervisors.

From the palace, Khafre was approaching with the entirety of his personal guard and a dozen of the high priests.

“I want you two to stay up here,” I said changing my clothes to garments that were more formal.

The small sea of people parted the way as Khafre came into the main square looking up to us on the platform. I stepped off the edge dropping down to the ground and approached him slowly. His guards quickly started to make a formation around him in defense.

Cambrian charged down the ramp slamming into the massive stone block pushing it off the edge sending it hurtling down to the sand below landing with a loud thud. She perched herself on corner of the flat in a crouch barely on the edge.

The guards and Khafre jumped back startled from the impact of the stone and became nervous fidgeting with their weapons.

Mara jumped from the top of the platform down next to Cambrian and crossed her arms posing statuesque with her cape blowing gently in the wind.

“Your gods are gone Pharaoh,” I said stopping a safe distance from him.

He looked up to Mara and Cambrian then to the pyramid and back to me with a confused look on his face.

“They’re gone,” I repeated changing up my armor and mask.

He gasped and took a few steps backwards now recognizing who I was. I lowered my mask and took a step towards him.

“They aren’t coming back,” I assured him holding out the amulet that Ra always wore that I picked up off the platform. The people called it the ‘Eye of Ra,’ and believed it held all his power.

He hesitated but slowly outstretched his hand and took it from me.

“You’re the god now.”

He frowned while examining the amulet, then clasped it tightly in his hand. I turned from him looking up to the girls who jumped down joining me. Quickly we ran out of town to the north leaving a trail of sand in our wake.

We stopped at the edge of the water leading into the Mediterranean.

“Where are we going to go?” Cambrian asked me, dipping her toe into the water as if the temperature mattered anymore.

“To the Minoans on Crete,” I said changing down my armor. “Once we get down in the water, you can lower your armor; the sunlight won’t hurt you anymore.”

Mara giggled levitating herself off the ground and rocketing high up in to the air over the water twirling and spinning around. Cambrian scoffed flicking her hands up and down to mimic wings.

I walked out into the water and dove down swimming out a bit and surfacing looking back to shore. Cambrian was pretending to stretch raising her arms up and out to her side.

I noticed her shadow on the ground change again into something else. A pair of massive wings erupted from her back that stretched outward following her arms then nestled back against her.

“Let’s go Cam,” I yelled back to her.

She took a few steps backward then leapt out over the water with her arms held out posing into a flying cross. At the last minute, she pushed her arms forward into a point and gracefully slid into the water making very little splash.

I sunk under the water and started to swim off to the north. Cambrian changed her armor into a dark blue form-fitting suit that changed colors with the light refractions from the surface of the water. A moment later, Mara torpedoed into the water, spinning downward and creating a vortex of bubbles behind her.

She quickly ascended shifting down her armor to wearing just enough to cover herself for Cambrian’s sake and slid up on to my back wrapping herself around me. I could not help but become distracted by feeling her body pressed up against mine again.

Even though we were technically dead and our skin was substantially cold, when she was touching me, her skin felt warm and had a very slight pulsation to it. I reached back with my hands running them down the back of her thigh and calf.

An ear-piercing scream shot through the water startling both of us. I noticed that I was no longer swimming and just drifting vertically in the water. I turned to see Cambrian release another scream about three hundred feet away, much louder that vibrated my chest when the sound hit us.

She raised her hands up in confusion and motioned for us to get moving again. Mara laid her head back down on my shoulder squeezing tighter as I started to swim. Cambrian rolled her eyes, making a face in response to Mara’s show of affection, and swam off.

As we went along, I could not help but notice that Cambrian took to swimming as if she was born to do it. Mara had no issue with the water, but Cambrian swam with an animalistic motion, serpentining her body through the water. Instead of kicking her legs up and down and pulling at the water with her hands, her feet locked in place and her whole body moved in a wave motion effortlessly propelling her through the water like a dolphin.

She did have the same appetite for tormenting fishermen as Mara did, and took several opportunities to capsize boats or tear through nets. She would not feed on any of them though, just drag them down to the bottom and let them drown. It was a cruelty that I never expected to see in her, but it also did not bother me to watch her do it.

Mara would join in every now and then holding them an inch from the surface giving them a very small shred of hope, then ripping out their heart the moment before it stops beating and drinking the blood out of it like a plucked piece of fruit.

The girls were violent, vicious, and in complete control of their actions. It no longer bothered me that we killed these people needlessly, and it did not seem to be bothering them either. The previous struggle that Mara seemed to have with being what she is was non-existent now. They enjoyed being what they were and enjoyed the torture of humans for amusement and food.

Within a few hours, we crossed into the waters of the Minoan territory. There was not a great deal of information we had about the Minoans. They were a civilized society without any enemies to my knowledge. Primarily dealing in overseas trading, the Minoans were merchants and fishermen.

Compared to the Egyptians, they were barely entering the bronze age of construction and technology, and just starting to learn the carpentry and masonry involved in building structures out of stone and metals.

We got to shore on the southeastern edge of the Island in an area dense in foliage and void of any cities or people, providing a great place to hide until nightfall. The girls changed their armor to blend in to the foliage and explored westerly along the beach.

I worked my way up deeper in to the island climbing around in the volcanic rocks and mountain area that was near the water. Crete had a somewhat active Volcano system on it that was still erupting lightly sending lava off on the eastern side of the island. People would avoid the area due to the extreme temperatures and noxious fumes coming from the ground.

I knew that if I searched long enough I would be able to find one of the older lava tubes, or cave formation in the rocks, which would give a superb place for us to live and for the girls to able to avoid the sunlight.

Just after mid-day, I came across the perfect lava tube. It went back into the mountain winding and twisting around emptying out into a large cavern that had a cliff that dropped down into the depths of the planet to where I could not even see the bottom.

There was only a few more hours of daylight left by the time I got back to the beach. The girls had a fire going and were cooking fish and crab that they caught while waiting. We did not need to ingest food anymore, but it was still oddly pleasing to eat food since we had a heightened sense of taste.

As I rounded the corner of the makeshift hut, to my surprise Mara was out of her armor and lying relaxed against a bed of palm fronds.

“Mara, the sunlight doesn’t hurt you anymore?” I asked her curiously and somewhat upset.

“I told you,” Cambrian snickered to her.

Mara sat up and crawled over to the edge of the wall where the sunlight separated from the shade, and she slowly stuck her hand out into the direct sunlight. It began to smoke and smolder instantly and she jerked it away holding it up to me. The burnt skin flaked off as she regenerated quickly.

“Only the direct sunlight damages us, that’s why were ok under the water,” she said relaxing back against the wall.

Cambrian changed down her armor to a minimalist form of her priestess robes and went back to cooking. I crawled over next to Mara who scooted over snuggling against me as I relaxed against the wall.

“I found a place for us to live up the side of the volcano,” I said putting my arm around Mara underneath her. “It’s a giant lava tube that leads to a giant cavern. It’s well protected from the sunlight and no one will ever venture there.”

“So now we get to live in a cave?” Cambrian asked sarcastically.

“It’s only a cave now; you can do whatever you want with it. We’re strong enough to reshape the rocks. You can turn it into a castle if you want.

Mara and Cambrian both looked at each other with excitement as they thought about that concept.

“In fact, I will leave the entire design up to the two of you,” I said kissing Mara on the side of her head.

Cambrian picked up a crab off her custom-made grill and tossed it to Mara while quickly rambling off a list of ideas for decorating and layout of their new project. They bounced ideas off each other for the next few hours as we ate forgetting about the harsh reality that we had just left behind us.

I did not forget as easily as I sat there holding on to Mara. An entire lifetime worth of problems and discoveries had passed by in the span of a few weeks changing everything I knew about the world and myself. The Orionak, Ut’ari, The Greys, life and death, it was all still so vivid in my mind I could not think about anything else.

The Orionak had been here for centuries helping to evolve my people and as quickly as I learned about them, they were gone. I still had so many questions that I wanted to ask them. Things I wanted to know about the universe and other places. In a way, I was glad they were gone because of their motivations, but I also missed them.

I knew there was more to who and what they were than just their experimentation and want of an army of monsters like me. They had lived for so long, and seen so many things, been to so many places, so much knowledge and experiences that we would never know about.

My people would be fine as they only knew them as gods, but I knew there was so much more out there to know. Part of me wanted to go back to Atlantis and try to talk to the Greys, as they were the only connection left to the Orionak.

“Wake up!” Mara shouted.

She was straddling me and shaking my shoulders. Cambrian was knelt next to us staring at me intently. It was dark outside now, and I realized that my thoughts had me lost in my own head for several hours.

“Where were you?” Mara asked relaxing slightly.

“What do you mean?”

“You were like the Orionak, just lying there like a statue, except your eyes were moving around, but you wouldn’t respond to anything.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked around the area before looking back up at Mara.

“I don’t know. I was just thinking about everything that happened the last few weeks and spaced out.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Cambrian scoffed standing up and walking out to the beach.

“I’m sorry,” I said rubbing Mara’s sides.

“You looked like you were dead,” she said lying down on my chest.

I rubbed her back, thinking about losing the last few hours of time.

“Ok, so can we go now? You two can do that later. I want to make a rock castle,” Cambrian said throwing a handful of sand at us.

Mara looked up and we both laughed, and then kissed quickly. I stood up holding on to her gently letting her drop down on her feet. I took them up to the entrance of the lava tube and held my hand out gesturing for them to go inside.

Cambrian darted down the tube ahead of us, while we meandered our way down toward the cavern taking our time. Cambrian was already standing in the middle of the cavern holding her hands up to different areas as if she was measuring it for construction. Mara extended her claws and slashed at the wall leading into the cavern easily slicing through the rock and removing a chunk of the wall. She smiled and walked over to Cambrian who started rambling off ideas rapidly to Mara.

“I’m going to go scout around the city that’s a few miles west of here,” I said changing up my armor.

Both stopped what they were talking about and slowly looked back at me with confusion on their faces.

“I need to know what we’re dealing with before I let you two near them,” I slowly started to back out of the cavern.

“Love you,” Mara said in her soft delicate voice.

“I love you more,” I smiled “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Ok, we’ll be here,” Cambrian said mockingly.

I made my way back through the tube and could hear the girls smashing away at the rocks echoing down the tunnel. I sprinted off toward the west where I knew one of the major port cities of the Minoans should be, running along the tops of the trees allowing me to survey the area.

Within a few dozen miles, the tree line started to recede from farmland and the torchlight glow of the city lights peaked over one of the hills. I stopped at the top of the next hill allowing me to see the entirety of the city and the port.

The city was about a third of the size of Giza and far less advanced in its structures. Many of the buildings comprised of wood and canvas, with some of the larger ones having stone bricks as foundations. Several dozen boats lined the port of various size and design where men were loading barrels and jars onto some of the ships, undoubtedly for trading.

My armor changed to match traditional garments that the overseas traders from Egypt would wear and made my way in to the city. I passed by a pair of men herding a small tribe of goats that greeted me briefly as I went past them, clearly noticing that I was a visitor.

I could not speak Minoan, but in trading with them, I knew that some of the merchants could probably understand limited Egyptian. I was also aware that much of the Minoan written language was very like our hieroglyphs and most likely evolved from the same language, which would make some things at least partially readable.

There were no walls or guards around the outskirts of the city making getting inside the city remarkably easy. Not having any enemies made the security level from outsiders practically non-existent, and several merchants and townsfolk greeted me as I walked through the streets.

It felt a little strange seeing an active city during the night. Back home most people were indoors shortly after sundown and did not come back out until the start of the workday. I assumed that most of that was due to the Sah and Orionak presence, which was non-existent here.

I stopped at one of the larger merchants that was selling various larger types of wooden furniture and struck up a conversation with the man I guessed was in charge. Turned out he spoke Egyptian well, and he helped to answer some questions for me about the island and the city.

This city was just a smaller trade port called Agia Triadha governed from the capital city of Phaistos about a mile more northeast of town. Most of the islands population had moved to this side recently due to the Volcano on the western side of the island being unstable and having several eruptions in the last few decades.

This region of the island sat in between the two large Volcanos of the island and had the most stability. It also made it easy in the transportation of goods to the city due to not having to try to drag them up the mountainous terrain that existed on the flanks of the region.

Triadha, as he called it, was the most active city on the island as it received traffic from all the other area due to its major port and trade district. It was also common to see various other races and cultures coming here to trade their goods, so strange faces were not something that caused much of an alarm. It sounded like a good fit for the girls and me.

The Minoans had their own form of monetary currency in the form of small copper disks, and many people still used the barter system trading goods and services for gold, gems, and other commodities not from the island.

Arguments and minor scuffles were not unheard of due to the vast assortment of cultures, but otherwise the city was very void of any kind of crime. The Minoans themselves did not have any enemies, nor did they try to seek out any. Crete was their home and the only place they tried to spread their influence.

In terms of gods and worship, the Minoans leaned towards a matriarchal-based belief system having a series of goddesses that were in control of their fate. To his knowledge, these goddesses had never had a physical presence on the island and existed in their own state, but had adverse interactions with their priests and worshipers, which meant that there was no sign of any interference or appearance from the Orionak here.

We struck up a decent relationship from our conversation and he invited me back to his home for a late-night meal, which I politely declined.

I wandered around the city for another hour or so but did not find anything that would raise alarm to anything out of the ordinary to what I would expect to find. Generally speaking, apart from having the three of us at their doorstep, this Island was safe. Having so many people coming and going, feeding would also be far less problematic compared to Giza where everyone knew everyone else, making disappearances rare and noticeable.

I casually made my way out of the city down the beach in case anyone decided to follow me or was watching and worked my way back up to the cave. As I got closer, I could feel and hear the construction occurring inside. When I got to the cavern, I was completely surprised by what they had accomplished.

The cavern now opened and rounded out leading up to the chasm and the ceiling rose to about forty feet. On the far facing wall to the chasm, they made a flat outcropping and begun to sculpt out the wall into an intricate palace style entrance using accents and designs from some other species in the galaxy.

A large scarab, the symbol of our people, formed the main entrance into the interior that Mara was rapidly excavating, launching the rocks out the archway that were falling into the chasm. The large chasm functioned well as both a means of protection from any new lava flows that could appear, or any human that stumbled into the cave.

I jumped the thirty-foot gap of the chasm and went inside where the girls were discussing alterations to the build.

“This looks amazing you two,” I said looking around the inside.

Mara beamed and darted over nearly knocking me down as she hugged me.

“It’s rather fun,” Cambrian said wiping some rock dust off her arm.

“Missed you,” Mara rose on the tips of her toes and kissed me.

I gently bit the bottom of her lip as she pulled back and she made a little whimper, “Me too.”

“So, what of the town,” Cambrian said going back to pondering her next design.

I sat down on a large chair that they had carved out of the rock as Mara leapt up to the second floor and continued carving a design into a railing.

“It’s a seaport for trading. There’s hundreds of vendors and artisans selling anything you could think of from all over the world. The city doesn’t really sleep either, and there are always new faces in town trading. Perfect for us.”

“Should make feeding easy, since people won’t be looking for anyone coming or going,” Cambrian growled while slashing away a chunk of the stone.

“My thoughts exactly,” I stretched slouching in the chair relaxed.

“So, we can go eat?” Mara yelled jumping up and down clapping her hands excitedly.

“Ok, calm down Bubbles,” Cambrian laughed looking up at her.

I laughed as well at her reaction. Mara stopped jumping and paused frowning at Cambrian.

“Did you just call me Bubbles?”

Cambrian and I both laughed again as I stood up and leapt up to Mara.

“Tomorrow my love.” I wrapped my arms around her again pulling her towards me.

“But, I’m hungry now,” she whined.

“I have something very important that I need you to do, that only you can do.”

Her face quickly changed from a pout to intrigue as she thought about what I could want.

“I need you to fly to bottom of the chasm and see what’s down there.” I said brushing the hair from her face.

“By myself?” she looked at me confused.

“Trust me I’d rather not send you, but you can fly faster than we can climb it, and we can’t just fall without knowing what’s at the bottom.”

“Alright,” she said jumping down to the bottom level.

Cambrian was already outside peaking over the edge into the abyss having overheard my request.

“If you see anything you are concerned about, come straight back up here,” I pleaded kissing her forehead.

Cambrian dropped a small stone watching it fall into the blackness then looked up to Mara shrugging with a facial expression. Mara looked over the edge and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. She slowly lifted off the ground and glided across the gap stopping in the middle hovering while looking down.

“Be careful little one,” Cambrian whispered as Mara dropped into the void.

I can say that was the longest twenty minutes of my life waiting, not knowing what was ahead of her. I paced back and forth along the edge listening and concentrating on feeling her, which was the only solace I had in knowing she was ok.

After twenty minutes Mara’s high-pitched scream echoed up from the darkness bouncing off all the walls. Without even thinking, I dove off the edge in to the chasm. I yelled her name repeatedly as I fell with no response. Within a few minutes in freefall, I could see the bottom of the chasm or what I thought was the bottom.

The shaft started to slowly curve inward like a bending tunnel. I held out my hand as the wall got closer to me helping me to slow down enough landing on the curve of the tunnel. I dashed down the side, which eventually leveled out, to a straight path. At the far end, I could see a faint orange glow illuminating the tunnel a few miles away.

I could hear Mara crying and felt fear wash over her. I cried out her name again and sprinted off as explosive as I could toward the glow. As I got closer, I could see the tunnel open into another massive chamber with a pool of churning magma sputtering and flaring into the air.

The temperature also started to become uncomfortable and the rock underneath my feet would sizzle briefly as I ran. A rim of rock no wider than a man went around the edge of the chamber and I almost ran off the edge in to the magma when I exited the tunnel.

The intense heat of the magma was peeling and burning off my skin, which was rapidly regenerating sending me into extreme agony from the pain. I dropped down to my knee concentrating on pushing out the pain. Mara’s whimper pierced through my concentration and I looked up to see her around the rim halfway across the chamber curled up against the wall.

Her legs were heavily charred and the right side of her body was blistering. She was not regenerating nearly as fast as I was, and within a few more minutes, she would be ashes. I engaged up my armor and took a step back preparing to jump the distance to her.

My armor collapsed back down and would not respond to my commands anymore in defense of itself to not allow the heat to damage it. The Orionak technology was good, but the smaller personal armor was not capable of withstanding temperatures of that magnitude.

Mara cried out again in pain and I growled changing my form to the Ut’ari, tightening all my muscles leaping out over the churning molten rock. I roared in pain as the heat set me on fire. I slammed in to the wall on the other side in an uncontrolled landing and dropped down next to Mara.

I swatted out the fires as my skin started to heal as best as it could and knelt scooping up Mara. She screamed and cried out in pain from me touching her, but I thrust her against me turning my back to the magma hoping to shield her from the heat.

Carefully and quickly, I started to skirt back around the rim of the chamber toward the tunnel. Mara held on as tight as she could, shaking heavily trying to stay conscious.

“I’ve got you love, just hold on,” I reassured her fighting through the pain on my back.

Halfway back around a large rock broke loose from the chambers ceiling dropping into the pool sending magma flying and splashing against the walls. A small splatter of it struck in to my leg and shoulder grazing Mara.

I dropped down to a knee trying not to fall over and let Mara drop back against the wall. She shrieked from the pain extending her fangs and flickered to the Ut’ari then faded and retracted her teeth as she went unconscious.

I slammed my hand in the rock wall ripping out a piece and scraping it on my shoulder removing a large part of my arm that the magma was boring a hole in. I turned around to scrape it off my calf, but my leg was already gone, disintegrated from the magma.

I could feel my energy rapidly dissipating and started to get concerned about whether we could make it through this. I draped myself over Mara trying to shield her again as best as I could and pressed my forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry. I am sorry I made you do this. Never again,” I whispered to her not sure if she could even hear me. “Never, never, never, never,” I kept repeating forcing myself to stand up.

I picked Mara up again hobbling on one foot and holding on to her with my good arm. I looked over to my right to the tunnel that was about thirty yards away and clenched my teeth together in anger. I extended my claws and jammed them in to the rock pulling myself along the wall.

When I reached the tunnel, I jumped as hard as I could down away from the magma chamber rolling over on my back and sliding along the rock ground squeezing Mara as tight as I could. I could feel my blood seeping from my back that I no doubt just shredded off and blacked out from the exhaustion and pain.

When I came back to, Mara was curling up in to a ball snuggled tightly against my side with my arm pulled over top of her. I sat up shaking my head trying to clear it and examined my body. My skin had healed back to normal and my leg had started to regenerate. Mara also sat up with me trying to force her eyes to stay open.

She threw herself across me hugging me, laying her head down over my heart. I rubbed the top of her head and stood up picking her up with me. She held me up to help me walk, and we started to head back toward the shaft of the chasm. I noticed at that time that I was also completely naked.

I tried to engage my clothes but the belt was not responding, sparking and twitching when I tried.

“It’s broken,” said Mara, pointing down to the spot on it that the magma damaged. “You can have mine.”

“No!” Quickly I grabbed her hand from removing it. “You need it for the sunlight, I can get clothes.”

I ripped off my broken belt and necklace tossing it backwards and in to the magma.

“I never should have sent you down here alone Mara, I’m sorry.”

“Will you stop apologizing to me?” She replied displeased. “I am capable of making my own decisions and deciding whether something is safe. I’m the one that flew over the magma.”

“I lost you once, I won’t lose you again.”

“Talrin, stop!” She sighed. “You’re not going to lose me again, and you can’t baby me. If we’re really going to live forever than we’re going to get into trouble a lot. There will always be danger because of what we are.”

She was right, and I knew it. Danger does not have a choice but to follow us wherever we go, our nature is to attack and kill humans. That has an inherent danger to it, and when people learn what we are, and our role in the murder of their people, they will come for us.

“That isn’t going to stop me from trying to keep you safe.”

“Look, until you came in to my life, I was nothing. My family was poor, and I was still a child and inexperienced. Now I’m something wondrous, powerful, and mysterious, and I am going to explore just what that means. I need to find out who I am, and who I’m going to be for the rest of my life.”

“You’re right,” I kissed the side of her face and we continued toward the upslope of the tunnel.

We both paused at the sound of flapping wings coming down the tunnel. Mara let go of me setting me down against the wall and changed her appearance to the Ut’ari extending her claws. She posed defensively in front of me preparing for whatever was coming.

At the far end of the tunnel where it started to curve upwards, a large winged creature landed crawling down the wall to the floor. I could only make out the outline of it, but it was walking on all fours and had a giant pair of wings tucked up on its back resembling a fin.

It focused its attention on us and started to walk towards us with red glowing eyes. Mara roared going in to a crouch and crawled sideways going up on the ceiling. The creature stopped and stood up on its hind legs. At that time, I recognized exactly what it was from its outline.

“Cam!” I shouted hobbling to my feet.

The wings disappeared and the form of the creature turned into a woman. Mara dropped down from the ceiling relaxing her appearance and retracting her claws.

“What happened?” Cambrian asked darting down the tunnel towards us.

“I flew to close to the magma and caught on fire and almost died, and then he came and got me and then caught on fire and got hit with magma and his foot fell off and he almost died. No big deal,” Mara said cheerfully and shrugged.

Cambrian stared at her as if she was crazy and looked over to me. I shrugged at her too, not really knowing how to follow something like that. Cambrian shook her head in disappointment and lowered her head rubbing her temples with her fingers.

“So, uh, what’s with the wings Cam?” I asked her nervously.

“Well, I think you gave me wings as my gift. There’s times when I’m doing things and I just have a wild impulse to do it differently and I can just transform my body.” She held her arm up and her skin transformed to resemble the scales of a crocodile, then it changed back. “I was only able to physically change right before we left home in the water.”

She held out her arms and giant bat wings sprung from her back. She flapped them stretching them out while her skin changed to a black leathery texture like when we let the Ut’ari take over. A long tail with a sharp spike at the end of it slowly extended from her lower back and twitched slightly as it reached the ground.

She turned around as the rest of her transformation reached her head and changed her face to resemble that of a bat as well. Her ears elongated coming to a point as her forehead scrunched together making her look extremely angry. Her eyes turned bright red, and her teeth sharpened becoming much narrower and pronounced.

She let out a baying roar toward the top of the chasm and looked back to me.

“Ok, I want to do that,” Mara said jealously.

Cambrian picked me up and shot up into the air flying up the chasm. Mara followed closely behind pacing along with Cambrian. After a few minutes, we reached the top of the chasm and Cambrian landed gracefully on the ledge in front of our palace. Mara landed alongside and took ahold of me helping me to go inside and sit down.

Cambrian stood up contorting and twisting herself around changing back to normal. She came over kneeling down looking at my leg.

“Thanks Cam,” I said sheepishly.

“Looks like it hurt,” she said picking up my leg to look at it closer.

“I wasn’t really paying attention, I was worried about Mara.”

Mara beamed at me, then looked down at the ground frustrated. Cambrian stood back up and went back to working on one of the wall designs.

“What’s wrong Mara?” I asked her as she sat down next to me.

“It’s my fault you got hurt,” her voice was quiet and remorseful. She laid her head down on my shoulder sighing deeply.

“No. If I can’t blame myself for sending you down there, then you can’t blame yourself for me getting hurt.” I laced my fingers through hers and kissed the back of her hand.

“Well at least it wasn’t all for nothing,” she pulled a bright green emerald from her belt pouch about the size of an orange. “About half a mile down there is a small tunnel that leads off into a smaller cavern that is covered top to bottom in emeralds.”

I took the gem from her and studied it carefully. Cambrian quickly sprinted over having heard our conversation.

“There are more of these?” Cambrian asked taking the gem from my hand and looking over it, spinning it in her hands.

“Lots more,” Mara said proudly.

“Show me,” Cambrian grabbed Mara by the hand snatching her away from me pulling her toward the chasm.

Mara grabbed Cambrian around the waist and lifted off the ground descending back down in to the chasm. I sat up resting my elbows on my knees rubbing my face and letting out a disgruntled sigh. Thirty seconds later Mara and Cambrian popped up peaking over the ledge of the chasm.

“Oh, we’ll be right back in a minute,” Mara said excitedly, changing back to the little girl inside her.

They descended again as I turned to look at them, then popped back up again peaking over the edge.

“Is that ok?” Mara asked biting the bottom of her lip.

I just nodded slowly and slouched back in the chair putting my hands up behind my head. The more I waited the more my injuries started to become apparent. I could feel the fatigue starting to set in from expending so much energy in the magma chamber, and despite what I told the girls earlier, I knew that we needed to feed tonight.

I did not want to cause any disturbances just yet in the port given how new we were to the area. We might be able to blend in unnoticed, but it was not worth the risk if we were to make a home here. The only truly safe option was to go back out into the sea and feed on one of the incoming boats.

Both the bodies and evidence were easy to hide underwater, and no one would ever know that someone went missing. The thought of being able to drink blood made me salivate and distracted me from thinking about the pain in my leg and back.

I would also need to acquire some clothing now that my armor was gone. If Mara really did find a major vein of emeralds, we could easily use those in town to buy items we might require.

About an hour passed by before the girls came back up from the chasm. Cambrian was carrying a large chunk of emerald about two feet in diameter.

“Take a look at this,” she said gently lowering it down onto one of her rock tables. “There are hundreds of rocks this big down there.

“Good, we can use these to trade for things in town,” I said hobbling over to look at the massive gem.

Cambrian flicked her nail at the gem, knocking off a dozen smaller pieces.

“I’m going to get more!” Mara said excitedly and dashed toward the chasm diving off inside.

“Mara! Stop!” I yelled.

A few seconds later, she peaked back up over the ledge nervously.

“Come here, we need to go feed. I have an idea,” I laughed.

The word feed immediately got her attention and she came flying back in next to us in a blur.

“We can use the fishermen again. They are far enough off shore that we can easily dispose of the evidence.”

Cambrian raised her eyebrows with a look of surprise on her face and acknowledging the idea. Mara licked her lips and let her fangs drop down, undoubtedly thinking of the blood.

“No playing with your food either,” I glanced at Mara out of the corner of my eye. “Quick and clean, let’s get what we need and be done with it. These people don’t need tormented or terrified. Agreed?”

Cambrian nodded and darted off over the chasm toward the main entrance. Mara frowned and sighed to herself looking down at the ground, then picked me up and flew out after Cambrian who was waiting at the mouth of the lava tube.

With a strong leap, Cambrian lunged herself out toward the ocean bounding off the trees twice before launching herself high up into the air over the water. Mara quickly followed behind her with ease.

It astounded me by what it felt like to fly. I had jumped and soared far, but how Mara could literally float on the air was truly spectacular. Cambrian splashed down in to the water a few hundred yards from shore, piercing the water like a bullet leaving a long trail of bubbles behind her. She surfaced and quickly began to swim out into the sea.

Mara and I paced along above her about two thousand feet above weaving in and out of the low-lying clouds that had formed over the water. After a few minutes of flying, we came upon a medium sized vessel that was carrying supplies and trade goods with six men on deck.

Cambrian crept out of the water, crawling along the hull of the boat in parallel to one of the men pacing on the deck. Mara spun in the air doing a loop and diving straight down at the boat. She aimed toward the bow of the boat where three men were tending to a fire, and at the last moment flared her body back up gliding down on to her feet behind them letting go of me.

In perfect unison, the three of us attacked before they could realize we were there. Cambrian had one of the men pinned up against the forward mast holding another up off the ground by the neck that she snapped with a quick flick of her wrist.

Mara had knocked one of the men unconscious in her lunge toward the other and was loudly and voraciously drinking another, grunting and moaning as she devoured him. As I finished the last drop of blood from the one I tackled, I heard a splash in the water from the last man trying to swim away.

Mara tossed the lifeless corpse of her first victim over the side and lunged at the unconscious man tearing at his throat ripping it open with her teeth and plunging her face into the gaping wound. Cambrian slowly walked to the edge of the boat while wiping the blood from her chin, licking her fingers clean. She jumped up on to the railing crouching down looking out at the person frantically trying to swim away.

“It’s a woman,” she said turning back to me with an evil grin on her face.

I gave her a nod and she leapt out over the water doing a flip in the air and growling loudly landing in the water in front of the woman. The woman screamed and started to swim away from her.

“Stop trying to get away,” Cambrian said grabbing her foot and jerking her back toward her.

The woman flailed and splashed in a futile attempt to escape her grasp. Mara crawled up on the side of the boat to the roof of the shelter on deck and crouched like an animal looking out toward Cambrian. She let out a quick guttural giggle that sounded almost like a hyena but much deeper and snapping her teeth together.

I stood at the railing watching Cambrian do exactly as I instructed her not to, but it felt natural for her to be doing it and part of me wanted to cheer to her on. Repeatedly she would let the woman go and then pull her back in just as she thought she might get away.

Within a split second, the woman was hurtling toward me from Cambrian throwing her. I snatched her out of the air and pulled her down by the throat so just the tips of her toes were on the deck.

She looked up at me with pure terror, which sent waves of pleasure through my body smelling the fear seeping out of her, and her trembling in my hand. I flashed my blood-covered teeth at her while growling under my breath.

Mara had managed to crawl around unnoticed and was now scaling down the rear mast, hanging just above the woman’s head. I let her go and she took a few steps backward toward the mast. Mara growled at her, startling her and she moved toward the railing of the ship away from her.

She backed up bumping into Cambrian who had also snuck up behind her. She growled snapping her teeth at the woman that cowered and started to cry stumbling backward knowing monsters surrounded her.

“Please let me live,” the woman mumbled in Egyptian, recognizing our origin, crossing her arms and dropping down to her knees.

Mara scurried down the mast on to the deck moving up close to the back of the woman. She took a long sniff up the back of the woman’s neck, making a quite chittering sound, forcing the woman to cower away from her. Mara inhaled sharply through her teeth making a hissing noise and running her nails across the woman’s back.

I knew in the back of my mind that this was wrong, and we were going completely against what I said we would do, but the drive to do it, to cause fear, was almost as overwhelming as the drive for the blood itself.

My senses focused in on the woman and I could feel her emotions pouring out of her as if she was irradiating heat. Each individual emotion was a separate feeling that I could recognize. They were like small bubbles that I could manipulate when I concentrated on them. Focusing on her fear would make her cower more, sadness and she would cry harder.

I held out my hand to her and concentrated on the very small part of her that was calm. A moment later, she began to relax and calm down. She got to her feet and took a step towards me extending her hand out to mine. Mara and Cambrian both got a look of confusion on their faces as the woman’s fear slipped away, replaced with trust.

I took ahold of her hand and gently guided her in close to me. I kissed the back of her hand and turned her around to face the girls, wrapping one hand around her stomach and pulling her against me. I pulled her hair away from her neck with my other hand and softly kissed the side of her neck extending my fangs.

Delicately, I pierced my teeth into her neck and began to drink. She gasped in shock but remained still and relaxed. After I had my fill, I pushed her forward towards the girls and let her go. She swayed back and forth, light headed from the blood loss. Mara and Cambrian both clenched their teeth together growling and hissing tightening up their muscles like a spooling engine, then lunged at her, finishing her off.

“Dismember the bodies and toss them over the side, then dismantle the boat. Leave nothing behind,” I commanded while letting the energy surge through my limbs.

I took a set of the fisherman’s clothes that was in a storage chest at the back of the boat and dove in to the water. Cambrian quickly tore apart the bodies throwing them a great distance away from the boat out into the water. Mara broke off the main mast of the ship and shot high up in to the air with it.

Cambrian dove off the boat joining alongside me, suspecting what Mara was going to do. Mara stopped about thousand feet up and raised the mast above her, positioning it long ways, running perpendicular to herself. With a loud roar, she threw it as hard as she could down at the boat. Upon impact, the boat exploded sending chunks of wood and debris across the area.

She giggled and flew down towards us, gracefully sliding into the water next to me.

“Can we do that again?” she asked wrapping herself around me.

Cambrian sighed, rolling her eyes and started to head for shore. I gave her a short smiling laugh, grabbing hold of her hand and started to follow Cambrian. Our trip back to land was much slower as if we were taking our time, relaxing and enjoying the water.

My regeneration was in full force now, and by the time we got back to shallow water my foot completely regenerated itself, with only some of the top layer muscle and skin remaining to regenerate, but I could walk on it with no issues. Mara and Cambrian were in deep conversation about the next phases of their master construction project and quickly went back to work when we got back to the cave.

I relaxed in one of the chairs they had made and let my memories wander back to the last few days. I could not help but think about the Orionak and why they would abandon everything they had built with such a small fight. Granted there were three of us now, but that was hardly anything to stand up to the full power and complexity of their army.

The threat from the Greys could have played a major factor in their decision knowing they would now have a battle on two sides, but the Greys also had the three of us as a target, which is something that the Orionak would know about and be able to exploit in another major conflict.

However, why leave? The more I thought about that question the more I started to speculate that their hidden agenda was not their real motivation. Something else sat underneath, waiting for the opportune moment to execute.

Mara interrupted my train of thought by punching the side of my shoulder, and I snapped out of my daydreaming.

“Ow!” I said looking over at my shoulder.

“What is wrong with you?” Mara frowned holding up her hands.

I could tell that a good deal of time had passed since I sat down, the air was colder and the sounds from outside had changed into midafternoon.

“You have been a statue for most of the day,” she said crossing her arms and taking a step back.

I quickly glanced down to my leg, which appeared completely regenerated, and my eyes flickered to Cambrian whom was eyeing me curiously but continued to shape a stone.

“I’m sorry,” I said slowly standing to my feet. “It’s like when I go deep into my thoughts, the time around me just speeds passed. A few moments go by in several hours.”

I composed myself, slowly taking a deep breath.

“Well, I am glad I have you to take care of me,” I said smiling at her.

She fought to hold her scolding composure, but eventually broke and cracked a smile in return. I looked around the cavern and to my amazement; a massive stone castle was in front of me. Mara flickered over to my side turning to face the structure. She pushed her finger up against my chin closing my jaw, which had dropped in awe of their creation.

Five giant pillars connecting to archways presented the front entrance. Towering above the archway, an emerald adorned wall rose forty or so feet up with various walkways and openings spread about the wall that was spanning across the cavern.

I slowly walked inside the arches past Cambrian that was inscribing hieroglyphs on the pillars with her fingernails. The entrance opened into a large room with several walls separating out different areas of the ground floor.

Two staircases flanked the entrance leading to an upper level. I had imagined that the inside of the Pharaohs palace appeared this way with dozens of rooms and lavish pillars adorned with gems supporting everything.

Running along the perimeter of the interior were carved statues of the gods. I slowly walked up to the statue of Osiris and laced my fingers behind my back staring up at it. My mind drifted back to the last time I saw the Orionak on the platform.

“Oh! I didn’t even…” Cambrians’ voice snapped me back to reality, and she walked up next to me. “I wasn’t even thinking when I made these statues of the gods. I’m sorry, I will remove them”

“No, it’s ok. We must remember the past and learn from it. They were part of who we are, leave them.”

I continued to explore around the mansion, amazed at all the different rooms and designs they had made from the rock. At the top of the third floor, the stairway led to a single hallway that went deeper back into the mountain about fifty feet from the rest of the house. It opened into a large circular room with a large round platform in the center of it.

Mara walked up behind me leaning against the doorway as I walked inside the room looking around.

“This is our room,” she said shyly, pulling her hair around to one side of her face nearly obstructing it from my view.

“Why is it so far from the rest of the castle?” I glanced over to her.

She grinned sheepishly biting at her lower lip, then glanced up to me.

“Oh.” I said finally understanding her meaning.

“Yea, I made her put this far away from where I will be sleeping so I don’t have to hear you two,” Cambrian interrupted coming down the hallway. “It even comes with the standard three-foot solid stone door,” she said pointing to the indentation in the wall.

Mara joined at my side putting her arm around me and leaning against me.

“It’s perfect. We can get furnishings in town. I will leave that up to you two, while I try to find out some more about the area,” I kissed Mara on the side of her head.

It was nearly sunrise now and as we approached the mouth of the cave, the girls engaged up their armor.

“I don’t think that appearance would be a very good thing for the people in town to see,” I said turning to look at them.

“Why not?” Cambrian exclaimed looking herself over.

“We are trying to blend in, not make them afraid of us. I don’t think they want to do business with a monster.”

Cambrian sighed and they both cycled through different versions of their armor before settling on normal priestess robes and a form fitting transparent mask with a hood to help partially hide their faces.

We quickly darted out of the cave and through the trees to one of the entrances to town slowing down at the last second before coming into view of the guards who paid us no mind as we passed by them.

“The merchant’s quarter is up that side of town,” I pointed toward the north. “I am going to search around and see if I can find out anything more.”

Cambrian nodded and pulled out a large chunk of emerald she had stowed away in her waist pouch. She tossed it in the air catching it back in her hand and grinning.

“Stay out of trouble, and be careful,” I said glaring at Cambrian.

She smiled and turned heading up the street. Mara hesitated and ran up throwing her arms around me squeezing me very tightly.

“You’ll be ok, just stay near Cam, and if you get into trouble, just run. Don’t try to fight or expose yourself, just run back to the cave,” I said squeezing her back.

She whispered, “I love you” through her mask, and I said the same back to her silently. She let go of me dangerously darting away from me joining Cambrian. I sighed to myself before turning to head down the other pathway.

I walked around for about an hour gathering general information about the town and the area from the locals and some of the guards that were willing to talk to me. I had concluded that I needed to head inland further to the capital if I wanted to learn anything of significance.

On the other side of things, I did not really need to learn anything more, since it really had no meaning. No one could possibly be a threat to us. Only reason to know more would be out of curiosity, which would really be up to the girls, if they even wanted anything more.

Cambrian, I knew would want more as she was always restless and needing to know everything about everyone. Knowing that the rest of the world was at her fingertips would eventually push her to explore.

I worked my way through town to what I assumed was the barracks for the guards and whomever oversaw this town, and with risk of exposing myself I scaled the wall of the barracks to the roof to get a better look out over the city and the compound the guards were in.

To my surprise, there were very few guards. My senses only picked up a couple of them inside, and not much of anything else. It looked as though this was set up for something much grander that never came to fruition.

I jumped back down to the street level and walked back out toward the docks. A few moments later, I heard several of the townsfolk screaming followed by the sound of a building collapsing. A small squad of guards came running past me heading toward the trade district and I knew that the girls had something to do with the commotion.

I jumped back up to the rooftops and started to make my way in their direction. A deafening wail pierced through the air and I immediately knew it was Mara screaming out in pain. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, bounding up into the air clearing the rest of the buildings.

I could see the girls out on the street pinned against a wall, with a dozen of the guards surrounding them with spears pointed up at them. Cambrian was shielding Mara who had one of the spears sticking out from her chest. They had replaced their armor with normal clothes that still shielded their skin from the sunlight but made them vulnerable to attacks now.

To my surprise, the girls had not turned to defend themselves, and the screaming was coming from the townsfolk shocked to see all the blood coming from Mara. Some of the guards were trying to stab at Cambrian who was cleverly deflecting their thrusts.

My jump reached its peak and as I started to descend one of the guards landed a thrust into Cambrian, piercing through her thigh and stabbing into Mara behind her. They both cried out again in pain. The guards drew their swords and made a lunge at them.

I could see the smoke starting to rise from their skin through the holes in their clothes that was now letting the sunlight through. The smoke made the guards hesitate just long enough, and I landed in the street just in front of them making a large crater in the dirt and kicking up a cloud of sand and rubble.

Everyone reacted to my landing as I expected and started to move away from us, as I slowly straightened myself out.

“What issue do you have with these women,” I said firmly to the guard I assumed was in charge given his colored armor compared to the others.

The guard hesitated and looked at me confused clearly not being able to understand what I was saying to him. One of the merchants I talked to the other day came forward from the crowd and began to translate for me to the guards. They exchanged words back and forth rapidly for a few seconds and the merchant turned back to face me.

“He says that they are thieves. They stole the green gems from the palace, and they resisted arrest,” he told me pointing to the emeralds that were lying on a table in one of the merchant booths.

“I assure you that they never stole anything. We brought those gems with us from the Pharaoh,” I replied taking a few steps back toward the girls.

The man started to talk to the guards again, and I knelt next to Mara who quickly grabbed on to me.

“Are you ok?” I asked her, looking over her wounds.

“They attacked us, and we didn’t expose what we are just as you told us,” she replied with her voice cracking from the pain.

“We should have killed every one of them,” Cambrian snarled pulling the spear out of her leg.

The guards were too busy listening to the merchant plea our case to notice the wounds from the spear heal back over.

“Mara, I need to remove this from your chest. It’s going to hurt. A lot. I’m sorry my love,” I said grabbing hold of the spear firmly. “Cam, can you hold her down?”

Cambrian grabbed ahold of her shoulders, holding her firmly in place, and I yanked out the spear as fast as I could and quickly thrust my hand against the hole, that I could feel start to immediately heal.

Mara let out a very inhuman scream that echoed off the buildings and nearby mountains. The spear impaled into the wall behind the guards imbedding itself only leaving a few inches sticking out. Curiosity and fear crossed over the face of nearly everybody that was now looking at Mara intently.

Everyone started gossiping among themselves, and the merchant started arguing with the guard captain. I helped Mara get to her feet and commanded them both to engage back up their armor.

The girls shifted back up their armor forcing the guards to take a defensive stance, pointing their weapons at us once again.

“I want you to head north out of town, until you’ve reached the tree line, then go as fast as you can back to the cave,” I said to them turning back to face the guards.

The girls started slowly making their way out of the area and the guards held their position on me, allowing them to escape. The merchant and the guard captain stopped talking and approached me.

“He believes that you are not thieves, but they now suspect you are evil spirits or demons as they call them here. Very dangerous to our people,” he said carefully.

“We just wish to trade for things we need. I swear to you. We are not spirits or whatever these demons are he speaks of,” I told him reassuringly.

The merchant started to speak with the captain again, and I thought about just how much of a lie that was. This town has never seen a larger threat than us before. I could sense Mara start to move away from the town rapidly, and I relaxed my posture slightly.

The captain barked some orders at the others and they stood down their weapons and started to disperse heading back to their posts eyeing me carefully. The onlookers also started to head back about their business, and the captain told the merchant one more thing before heading off down the street waving his arms around in frustration.

The merchant nodded to the captain and turned back to face me.

“I don’t think you need me to translate what he said,” the merchant said motioning me over to the vendor booth our emeralds were in.

“No, I think I got it,” I said cracking a smile at him. “Thank you by the way. You saved a lot of lives.”

“Yeah…so are you going to tell me what the three of you are? There are just three of you right?” He asked me with concern.

I laughed slightly at his question.

“Yes, there are only three of us. As to what we are, well where we come from, we are worshipped as gods.”

I knew my response confused him, but I also saw an understanding in his eyes. He spoke our language, so I also assumed he had a minor understanding of our culture and beliefs as well, which meant he probably had heard of the gods.

“I am Secarin by the way,” the merchant said as we approached the table with the emeralds.

“Talrin,” I replied nodding to him.

The vendor approached us hesitantly and sat down at the table with the gems. I slowly sat down with Secarin at the table and slid the emeralds closer to me pushing them into a small pile.

“I am assuming that my girls had placed an order with you, and the phase of payment was initiated leading to the questionable origin of my emeralds here.” I said staring into the eyes of the vendor.

“Yes, they did. I told them it would take several weeks for me to acquire and build all of the items they requested,” he said holding up a list of items.

“That should be satisfactory,” I said sliding over the entire pile of Emeralds to the vendor.

The man looked down at the pile of gems laid out in front of him.

“I think that should more than cover any additional expenses, and compensate you for your trouble,” I said standing up much quicker than a human would have.

Secarin and the vendor both stared at me with nervousness from my display. The vendor rapidly blinked trying to process everything and nodded to me in agreement.

“We would also like to secure your services for the future, should we need anything else,” I said starting to turn to head out of the shop.

The vendor, still slightly stunned from our encounter, mumbled to himself while trying to collect up all his emeralds into his hands. With Secarin at my side, we exited the shop back out onto the street, where townsfolk gathered to get a viewing of me.

I had assumed that the word of our recent altercation had spread throughout the town, and the mysterious nature of the girls had sparked a considerable amount of curiosity amongst the people.

My people had become accustomed to seeing abnormal actions from the Sah and Orionak, and only minimal stories of the gods at Giza had spread around through the traders to other areas of the world. I could sense, that some of them suspected that my origin was Giza based on understanding at least some of my language.

To the rest however, I was just as alien as I really was. It felt somewhat empowering knowing that these people knew that I was something more. The fear of the unknown helped to fuel my own ego, and I knew that from this point on the chances of me having any issues in this town would be at a minimum.

Some of the people however, namely the guards and resident troublemakers, had ill thoughts about what I was, with desires to cause me harm, which in all honesty, I had little concern for. I know that I could avoid confrontation if I needed to, but if they tried to instigate a conflict with the girls, the chances of their survival dropped sharply.

Thinking back quickly to what had occurred; I was very impressed and proud of Mara and Cambrian, for the restraint they showed with the guards. It easily could have turned into a massacre, but they respected my wishes and instead of exposing us, they allowed the guards to hurt them.

With that thought, my mind flashed to Mara and I wanted to go to her.

“Secarin, I need to go back to the girls. Thank you for your help and support,” I said to him stopping in the middle of the street.

He smiled, “Let me know if you need anything else.” He extended his hand in departure.

I grasped his forearm locking our arms together in a traditional gesture, and parted ways. With several of the townsfolk still watching me, I leapt into the air on to the roof of the shops and flickered away off into the forest. I could hear gasps and gossip from the people as I darted away, eliminating any doubt in their minds that I was something other than human.

I knew it was both risky and hypocritical of me to expose myself in that fashion, but I wanted them to fear me, and know to avoid me. If they feared a confrontation with me, then the girls should have a much easier time being safe in town.

Additionally, with the girls still having access to their armor, they could change their appearance every day and appear as someone else, should they ever need too. I had no concern for their safety since nothing here could harm them if they chose, but with them respecting my wishes, it was possible.

Halfway back to the cave, I picked up the scent of blood in the air, and my senses locked on it, steering me towards it. As I approached, I could hear the girls giggling and chatting amongst themselves. I bound off one of the trees and came crashing to the ground next to Mara.

It startled both and they dropped into a crouch defensively extending their fangs and growling. That was the first time I had them change appearance in reaction, and I will admit that it scared me. Their faces had contorted around promoting the monster inside them, and their eyes blazed a very dominating red.

Upon recognizing me they relaxed and stood back up, returning to normal appearance.

“Brother! You almost got attacked,” said Cambrian, taking a deep breath as her adrenaline subsided.

I grinned and let out a quick chuckle from her reaction. Mara flickered over, throwing her arms around me and squeezing me tightly. I kissed the top of her head and looked around the area to where the scent was coming from.

A bloody body was lying at Cambrians feet in a heap. It was a young girl about twelve years of age. A few feet from the girl’s body was an overturned basket with blackish colored berries spilling out of it. I could see from her footprints in the forest floor that she was walking from bush to bush gathering.

Leading to where her body was, the footprints became chaotic and paced back and forth over each other. I let go of Mara and crouched down examining the footprints closer, rolling her body over to see her face.

She had a bite mark on each side of her neck and was still somewhat warm to my touch, indicating they drained her blood very slowly. They had stalked and toyed with her, then took turns feeding on her until she was gone. I drug my finger through some of her blood and then tasted it.

It was sweet and energetic, about as perfect as it could get. Her last moments flashed through my head, and I knew exactly what they had done. I looked up at Mara, who lowered her head and cowered slightly in reaction. As the young girl’s memories played in my head, I became more comfortable with what they had done to her.

Part of me wished that I had been able to join in on it. That small semblance of my remaining morality was becoming less and less with each attack, replaced by the desires of the Ut’ari.

I stood back up looking at Cambrian, who was slowly cleaning the blood off her fingers with her tongue, savoring every single drop. Mara nervously approached me and leaned into me staring down at the girl. I could sense her remorse, but also her bloodlust raging inside her, which was vastly stronger.

I knew I could not and should not punish them for doing what their instincts were telling them, but I also wanted them to show restraint against such temptations, or at least be more discrete with their feedings.

“So, what should we do with her body?” I turned asking Cambrian.

She hesitated at my question expecting me to scold her for their actions. Mara relaxed at my words and crouched down straightening out the girl’s blonde blood-soaked hair.

“We could take her to the magma chamber. It would more than take care of her body,” she said adjusting her armor, which I just noticed had not been engaged.

I turned at looked toward the sun, which was almost nonexistent from the dense canopy of trees.

“I leave that up to you two. Your mess, you clean it up,” I said angrily.

“Ok, Dad,” Cambrian mumbled sarcastically rolling her eyes.

Mara engaged back up her mask and launched back up into the trees. I could sense that she was unhappy as she flickered off toward the coastline.

“You know, all she wants is to make you happy, Tal.” Cambrian picked up the girl’s body and slung her over her shoulder. “You’re the only thing that she has left in this world,” she barked before turning and darting off toward the cave.