The Return of the Lifebringer (Children of the Sun Book 3)

The moment the woman walked into the bar, Kara knew there was going to be trouble. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about her, but Kara had developed a sort of a sixth sense for this kind of thing. The only thing she couldn’t figure out, unfortunately, was if she was an Eternal or not.

Finishing her gin and tonic, Kara got up and walked outside, hoping that that might minimize casualties if a fight was about to break out. Which it most likely was.

Unsurprisingly, the woman followed her. And very, very obviously. Clearly, she has not been trained in stealth. Or common sense.

Kara took a moment to breathe in the slightly chilly, fresh, night air and slowly made her way deeper into a dark, dingy alley that was right next to the bar. It was quite narrow, but it would be enough for a fight. It was at times like this she was glad she was a rather small person.

Reaching a moderately tall fence separating the alley from another one, Kara pulled her othrin dagger out of her leather jacket and turned around, making sure the woman saw the weapon. That seemed to have no effect on her, though.

“What do you want?” Kara asked when the woman continued to silently watch her, her face hidden in shadows. Despite this, Kara could tell she smiled.

“My boss wants me to bring you to him.”

“Relioth is over and done with as far as I’m concerned,” Kara snapped, glaring. She was so tired of running. She hadn’t even really tried being inconspicuous, which was most likely how she’d been found. Dammit.

“Relioth?” She laughed. “Yes, I agree. Thankfully.” Thankfully? Did no one like Relioth? That actually sounded about right. “But I was talking about Enor.”

“Enor?” Kara repeated, frowning. “But Enor is dead.”

“He was,” the woman replied, and a chill went down Kara’s back. Enor… was back? After all, she’d heard about him, she knew that was definitely a very bad thing. “And he chose you to be one of the few to receive his gift of immortality. I hope you know what an honor that is.”

Kara glared once more. “He wants to turn me into an Eternal?”

“Essentially.”

“Why?” Kara glared harder.

“I wasn’t told. I was simply asked to bring you to him.”

“Well, you’re not bringing me,” Kara said firmly, gripping the handle of her dagger even more tightly, and backing away a little until her back touched the fence.

“I am going to, one way or the other,” the woman said, pulling out her own weapon—a sword. Kara sighed quietly. She hadn’t wanted to resort to this, but it seemed she would have to. In a split second, Kara dropped her dagger and pulled out her gun, shooting the woman in the forehead.

As expected, she was dead almost instantly, her eyes dimly glowing before they slid shut.

Kara picked up her dagger and groaned to herself. Great, now she needed to disappear before the police showed up. Or worse. She couldn’t even stop to retrieve the bullet. As disgusting as it was, othrin was very hard to come by, and she couldn’t afford to waste it like this.

She quickly hid both her weapons and was about to step over the woman’s corpse. Unfortunately, someone seemed to have heard the gunshot and was now coming towards her. Kara quickly draped her Umbra hood over her head and turned around, running the small distance back to the fence and jumping over it.

Falling onto her hands and knees, she quietly groaned, angry with herself. She really should have continued working on her physical abilities during the past month, no matter how depressing and aimless it had seemed.

Picking herself up, she continued running away through the alley until she wound up on an almost empty street. There were only a couple of people walking around, not paying any attention to her. Not that it was surprising given that most of them were either stumbling or saying slurred words.

Kara really needed a drink. Even though she’d had one just a few minutes ago.

Pulling the hood off her head once again, she quietly walked down the street, looking for a parking lot. She would have to steal a new car again, and she really didn’t like that. But she had no choice. If she wanted to avoid Enor’s Eternals—because there was no doubt he wouldn’t send more—she just had to. And even if she hadn’t been found through her car before, she was sure she would be now if she tried to leave in it.

She supposed that was the silver lining here. Due to being forced to shoot the Eternal, she’d had time to think about this. Otherwise she’d have just grabbed her original car immediately and driven off before she could have really thought it through.

Kara shook her head. Just as she thought she was done running, Enor of all people had to come after her. Why her? She wasn’t that special. Sure, she knew how to fight and was smart, but there were people much smarter than her. And weren’t all Eternals roughly the same strength-wise? It just made no sense to her.

But that wasn’t what she should be worrying about right now. She had to go warn Kaleth and the others about Enor.

If they didn’t know it yet…. Kara sincerely hoped they didn’t because if Enor wanted something with her, he would most likely want something with them as well.

Unable to find an old car, Kara sighed. This was going to be much more difficult if she had to steal a new one. The security measures were much more difficult to deal with, but Kara would manage. It would just take more time. At least it was around one in the morning, so there would be no witnesses, hopefully.

Quickly checking for cameras and not finding any, Kara decided she had no time to waste and went to work, scanning the parking lot until she found a Velox. Kara was the most familiar with their security systems.

After a moment, she noticed a black Velox in the back. And one of their budget models—V5. Good, that would make things easier. There was basically only a fingerprint scanner, and Kara knew how to fool those.

Taking out her dagger, she carefully pried the metal plate covering the door handle open. She wished she could do it faster, but she couldn’t risk triggering the alarm. Once she managed to get the plate off, she put it on the roof of the car and scowled at the various wires that had been uncovered.

She took a small flashlight out of her pocket, switched it on and put it between her teeth. While she still carried her phone on her for emergencies, it usually wasn’t worth the risk of leaving it on, so she’d had to resort to this. Shining any kind of a light right now was less than ideal, but she wasn’t that far away from a lamppost, so she supposed it didn’t really matter that much.

As quickly as she could, she connected the right wires, and the door unlocked with a click. Pocketing the flashlight and dagger and getting in, Kara quickly put the metal plate back in its place and got in, slamming the door shut.

Thankfully due to the cheapness of the car the system started up automatically as soon as she sat down and didn’t ask for a password, so Kara just shrugged and picked the destination.

Aleara, capital of Irithara.

But she never even made it past the state border. Soon enough, three cars started tailing her, and they didn’t seem to bother with trying to be inconspicuous either. This wasn’t a lack of skill or not caring, Kara decided. This was all to show that she couldn’t run from them.

But she sure as hell would try her best.

Except…. In that moment she remembered she was in a self-driving car. That had no manual options. She put her head in her hands, dread settling in her heart, followed by defeat. She couldn’t get away, not with this car. And the people following her were no doubt Eternals. Any second one of them could transform, rip the roof off and grab her and she wouldn’t be able to fight them at all.

Suddenly her car came to a halt, and Kara gasped in surprise as she was thrown against the car’s computer. In front of her, one of the three cars was hovering. She checked the others, which have assumed a position behind her, one a little above, the other slightly underneath, which meant that there was nowhere for her car to go without crashing, which it couldn’t.

The words calculating were permanently stuck on the computer screen.

Surrender, and we won’t hurt you, a voice in her head said. Kara blinked. She’d had yet to be involved in telepathy. It felt strangely normal. Kara thought about her options.

She could probably force the car to get a few scratches to get out of this, but what would be the point? They could fly much faster than her. Eventually, they would catch up, and then they would bring her to Enor.

Kara wasn’t one for giving up—not until recently, at least—but even she could see this was pointless. She just wished she had a way to let the others know what was happening. But she also doubted that Enor would stay in the background for long, so they would most likely find out soon enough.

Hanging her head, she sighed and raised her hands in the air.