9 World Chronicles: Flight of the Falcon

By Kareem Butler

Earth has toiled under the grip of an alien force for 10,000 years. But a new generation of humans, strong enough to free mankind has emerged. A small group has begun to identify them, using advanced technology to enhance their super human talents.
But Earth is not alone in its war. Two ancient civilizations stand by its side. The lines have been drawn and the battle for the end begins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kareem Butler
• Release date: Feb 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626203600

Kareem Butler

Kareem Butler

Book preview

9 World Chronicles

Kareem Butler

Copyright Kareem Butler 20103

Published by Inebria Entertainment

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Smashwords

Let me put blood together and make bones too. Let me make a primeval savage, And call him Lulu, man. Let him bear the drudgery of the gods. So that they can relax at their leisure. - Marduk, Sumerian Lord of the Gods

Chapter 1

Demon Rising

There are, in the deep regions of space, pathways to dimensional pockets, hidden to all but those who know the great highways of existence. These are the gateways between worlds connecting the vast unyielding cosmos. In this specific pocket, in this particular quadrant, at this precise moment, there comes a quiver. It is the tiniest quake that suddenly ripples, and then slowly burst open, depositing into this space and time, Dez Daityäas, Imperial Assassin of the Ruling House of Daemos. The journey from her homeland has been a blur to her keen eyes, a twisting, turning rollercoaster that plays havoc on her stomach. She can see endless, rich blackness and golden hued pathways, like some great comic expressway. And through the haze, Dez, who possesses a profoundly curious mind, never has time to process what she is seeing as she comes to a stop with a harsh, bone jarring thud. She curses in her ancient language.

Her razor sharp teeth glint in the cold night as she grunts and struggles to make use of the cold, thin air. The ground beneath her feels cold and wet, something the Daemon had not experienced in her home world of hot sulfur and jagged edged stone. She extends her talon, digging her claws deep in the native soil, extracting a small quantity for inspection. The pale, lunar light reveals her prize as a clump of grass. A distinctly musky-scented clump of strange vegetation and soil dangles in her hands. She probes it with her rough reptilian tongue, tasting cooper, iron, and sodium. Earth, men called it. She had arrived.

Dez gathers her senses quickly; she is a stranger in this world after all, an enemy combatant. She’s been dropped into hostile territory on a fool’s errand. She sighs, resigned to her fate, and proceeds to business. Her sharp, birdlike eyes respond well to the low light of the late November night. She pauses and inspects herself for injury. She feels scratches and bruises, but not broken bones or serious wounds. Her quick hands find the Star Locator that she had been given by her superiors. She holds it to the alien sky and the device hums to life, its screen casting a soft, pale blue hue. It scans the strange stars above, whirling through millions of star maps until it locates Dez’s location to the inch in this world; planet Earth. The safe house was not far, her party was even closer. That was good.

Dez scans the surrounding area for his travel companions. She finds Hazi, her field commander, in miserable condition in a clearing to her north. His neck was broken and twisted in an awkward position. Inter-dimensional travel did have its hazards. His eyes were missing as was one of his horns. Dez sighs to herself; she had come to respect Hazi, he was smart and tough. It would fall to her to dispose of his body.

She lifts her keen nose to the air, inhaling deeply and quickly regretting her action as the frigid air careens through her nostrils and into her lungs. It mixes harshly with the remains of the sulfur-filled air of her homeland. However, she does manage to catch the scent of her second travel companion, Alvi, just east of her position. He’s still breathing when Dez finds him; his strong, muscular body impaled on a large native tree. He smiles weakly as she approaches.

I can’t feel my legs Dez. I can’t feel them. His deep, baritone voice is weak and failing.

Dez can see the lower half of his body twisted painfully in the wrong direction.

I didn’t want to die here; not in this place, Dez. I didn’t want to come here at all. Of all of the dirty, little planets, not this one, not here.

Alvi is angry; his deep voice is dripping with it. He was a young man by the standards of his people. He was good looking with rich green and red scales and a strong frame.

His statement resonates with Dez; she had made the same statement in her own head.

Where is Hazi? he asks.

Dez’ flicks her eyes in the direction of Hazi's broken body.

He is lost. she replies flatly.

Not such good mates to leave you to this task by yourself. He tries to laugh.

Look in my field pack.. I have something for you, Alvi directs her with a strong sense of urgency.

She finds Alvi’s field pack. Ignoring the thick, black blood and gore soaking it, she slips her hand inside, finding the hilt of the long, black knife; Alvi’s favorite blade. He had forged it himself as a young Guji student. It was a good knife with a wickedly sharpened blade and expertly crafted handle. A dull, orange gem was nestled in the base of the blade, sparkling in the soft moon glow.

This is an excellent blade, Alvi. You made this yourself, right? She already knew the answer.

Alvi’s listless eyes shift to the ebony-bladed weapon and find their focus.

Yes, when I completed my training as a Guji student when I got my first assignment.

Dez tosses the blade gently into the night air. It dances for them, turning a gentle somersault before landing perfectly in the predator’s hands.

Does it have a name? Dez knew that the Guji Clan was quite fond of naming their personal weapons, something her Clan never embraced.

Yes, her name is Shadow Strike; she’s a great close quarter’s weapon.

The gem, it’s a Nirriti. Dez is quite surprised; the Nirriti stone is the rarest in the Daemon World. They are coveted for their beauty but more so for their ability to amplify Nil energy. She twirls the 45 cm blade with remarkable ease; the heavy blade and fist-sized gemstone perfectly balanced.

Alvi smiles with pride, his cruel lips curling around his 4cm long fangs.

The blade is Pyromite; she’ll cut through nearly anything.

He attempts to speak but a large bubble of his black blood catches in his throat before spilling onto his armored chest.

Be still now, save your strength. Dez speaks without passion. Why did he have to save his strength? He was going to die right here and now. He was a casualty of a war he did not understand.

You take her Dez; she’s perfect for the dark places and tight corners where you like to fight. Alvi takes a deep ragged breath.

You’ll have to finish me Dez. I learned about this place. They have creatures like Dugars Hounds, scavengers. Finish me now so the humans don’t find me. They’ll cut me open; dirty fucking primates. Don’t let me become some experiment.

Dez nods solemnly. It had been her intention to end his life and dispose of the two broken bodies. This is standard operating procedure for inter-dimensional travel to hostile worlds. This is a covert mission they are on, sent to scurry and hide. It is not the credo of a warrior line such as hers, but these were different times. And in the end, she is just another field grunt. She will follow her orders despite what her opinion is of them.

Hazi's eyes begin to lose their focus, staring off into the distant sky. He is looking for home, yearning for the heat and the sulfur.

Dez ignites a tiny flame on her first finger tracing an ancient symbol in the air above her fallen comrade. Dez had no particular love for Alvi; he was from a rival clan after all. But he was a member of the Imperial Guard, and that alone made him her brethren. He deserved a clean death. He deserved better than what his masters had given him, a shitty mission on an underdeveloped lump of rock.

She flicks Shadow Strike, amazed at how comfortable the blade feels in her slender hand. The ebony blade slices cleanly through Alvi’s neck, taking a sizable nick out the chest plate of his armor. She cleans the blood from the blade before sliding it into her own belt.

Dez moves quickly now, stripping her two dead companions of their field packs and weapons and piling the two broken bodies in a pile. It was a gruesome task collecting the various pieces that had been torn and twisted from the core. She gives a silent salute to Alvi, who had earned a measure of respect; her respect. She closes her eyes and focuses her brain, manipulating a specific range of the Electromagnetic spectrum. Tendrils of gold and red Hellfire erupt from her extended hand. Dez expertly directs the raw energy and ignites the two fallen warriors.

It feels good to release the unrest that had built up in her. Her anger fuels the Hellfire and she allows the blaze to rage higher than her training and caution would suggest she should. The thick scales and horns would break down first, and even the armor begins to bend to her angry will. The massive heat scorches the soil, and within minutes the two bodies are reduced to a thick sulfur- scented brown sludge.

With that task done, Dez Daityäas, third child of Minister Gazji Daityäas, spreads her strong black wings, coils her lean, powerful legs and launches herself high into the foreign sky. Her mission is somewhat compromised. Yes, she had lost her leader and their muscle, but she is a formidable creature in her own right. She will find the safe house and she will complete her mission. She has humans to kill.

Her sleek, powerful form glides silently in the frigid Idam air. Her keen red eyes make out the human city beneath her; its filthy inhabitants scurrying about their mundane business, ignorant to her presence. She hated this place already. The foul stench of humans churned her stomach. This was not a mission she had chosen, not this place.

As Dez climbs higher and higher into the sky, the Locator hums and whirls at a frantic pace, locating her prey in the winding, twisting labyrinth that was New York. It was Ğäwåżaii technology and she didn’t like it one bit. Dez was Azi Dahaka, an elite warrior class descended from a line of legendary predators and hunters. She was bred for assassination. She had spent the 1,000 years of her life training for it, mastering the Nil energy to an impressive degree of effectiveness. She would have preferred to use her highly trained nose to scent her prey.

But she has to admit that the strange Ğäwåżaii device could be amazingly useful. It may have taken her days to find her first target in a city this size, but this device had located the girl within minutes of her arrival. She is close, and she is angry. Angry for being sent here, angry at the partnership with the hated Ğäwåżaii, angry at her ruler the self proclaimed Emperor of the Daemos Empire, her uncle. Her muscles tense in anticipation; she will unleash her wrath on this human. She gazes almost lustfully at the blue-tinged image the locator displays on its screen. She is only a girl by human standards. At 13 years old, she is an infant to the thousand year old Demon Assassin.

Abigail Winifred Capers knows nothing of the war that is being fought around her. She has no clue that this very night a Daemon from the Hell World is stalking her. But ignorance will not save her. She will be a casualty in a conflict that she can not begin to comprehend. She will die never understanding why.

But Dez Daityäas, Imperial Assassin of the great House of the Daemon realm, feels no sympathy for her. She will murder her because she hates her world and this campaign. She hated the strange orders that she does not understand but is compelled through blood ties to complete. This human will be the first of many to bear the brunt of this bubbling discontent.

22.7 kilometers away, Abigail Winifred Capers sits vulnerable and weak in the peach and teal painted bedroom of her parents four bedroom, 3 bathroom colonial home on Havenrest Circle. She had been born autistic, but her father, a math teacher, and mother, a biology teacher, had seen brilliance in her. Under their persistent tutelage Abigail had found her voice in the language of mathematics and numerology.

She is a quite pretty girl despite the acne that ravages her pubescent face. Her thick brown hair bounces softly on her shoulders. She has her mother’s eyes; earthy brown with flecks of shimmering green.

She sits, as she most commonly does, at the familiar oak desk that her grandmother, Winfred Dickens, had given her. It is a beautifully crafted piece of furniture that had belonged to her great grandfather, Harvey Lloyd Dickens, who had made his fortune on Wall Street in the 1940’s. The weathered and nicked desk is piled high with thick voluminous text books and handwritten notepads. Maggie and Thaddeus Capers spared no expense in feeding their daughters’ machine-like brain.

Abigail could never really fathom the depth of her gifts. Her brain had developed unconventional connections and pathways, limiting her ability to communicate verbally, but accelerating her brains’ capacity to perform complex equations. It is a slanted perspective of reality, an understanding of the nature of things that makes her so different. It is a small class in which she had been unknowingly placed. Hers is a rare view point shared by some of the greatest minds to have graced the planet.

Abigail, it’s time for bed. She vaguely hears her mothers’ voice calling from the first floor. But, she can not be bothered at this moment with bedtimes and the feety pajamas that her mother insists on dressing her. She is in the grip of a beautiful equation, interpreting abstract symbols in the twirling model of the universe that existed in her advanced brain.

If fate would give her the time, she will unlock shocking secrets about the nature of reality. With her discoveries, she will help lead mankind into a new phase of growth. It is for these reasons that she has made an infamous list, one written by the King of the Gods, passed on to the Lord of the Devils and assigned to a dealer of death.

It is this singular moment in history, when existence came to be that holds her in thrall. Why there suddenly became something from the vast and endless nothing. She has spent much of her young life contemplating and analyzing the scenario that had led to creation. She is a creature of math and so she turned to her language to decipher the grand puzzle. It is rare that one so young would find her life’s work. She will sacrifice a different life, one of friends and proms and loved ones for a life dedicated to this special event.

She will give each moment of her life to it. At this decidedly inopportune moment, her perfectly flawed brain spins and whirls and calculates so intently on the numbers before her that she does not notice the sleek, ebony figure that perches expertly on the branches of the White Mountain Oak tree outside her bedroom window. She never sees Dez extend her razor-edged talons or flex and coil her powerful tail.

Elegant, powerful muscles tense beneath her coal black skin and Dez burst through the window in a blur of darkness, terrible claws and ill will. The terrified child shrieks in horror as the Daemon spreads her leathery wings and extends her wicked fangs.

Daddy help! she cries out at the top of her voice. It is a hoarse, desperate wail, escaping from a larynx weak from sparse use. The subtle vibrations of sound will never reach her father’s ears; it is instead the force of her powerful brain that screams to him. The urgency of her pleas shake him to his core, driving his muscles as he runs at Godspeed to his beloved daughter’s side.

When Thaddeus Capers, Math Department Head at West Windsor Community College, burst unfortunately into the room, Dez Daityäas, Imperial Assassin for the Daemon Ruling House, stands in full terror; her nimble brain filling the room with light- defying Nil particles. She bellows a vile curse in her harsh, ancient language and sneers as she watches Thaddeus lose his bowels.

Dez lashes out with her tail in a flick of motion, the incredible force smashing him against the wall. She pulls Shadow Strike from her belt and, before the man can recover, the razor-edged blade strikes, cutting through bone and muscle with inspiring ease. He falls, quivering in a messy heap. He will die here, fouling the Berber carpet with his life-blood.

Dez turns to the terrified child, frozen in her oversized chair at her worn and over-burdened desk. The rose colored cheeks are now pale with fear. Her earth and green-flecked eyes go wide in the terror grip of the Daemon. The deadly claws flash in the fading light and Abigail Winifred Capers feels searing, horrible pain as talon and Hellfire tear through her soft flesh and tender bone. Her wonderfully miswired brain frantically attempts to calculate the sudden subtraction of her lower half and the meaning of the nightmare that stands drenched in her blood and bodily fluids.

It is the first time in many years that her mind is not focused in at least at some level on The Equation. It had been with her at every moment; her unconscious mind contemplating it as she slept, shaping her dreams into complex expressions of her interpretation of its secret. She had always assumed that she would complete the puzzle in time. It was with great consternation that she accepts that her quest would go unfulfilled. A short life spent on a frantic search to understand the one spectacular moment of all existence would end