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Showtime
By: ChocolateEclar
To Nathan Murray: I believe“rip-off” is too strong a term considering I’ve never even heard of Heinlein before now. I did do a bit of a search for him though just a few moments ago, and it seems he’s a sci-fi writer. I am far more comfortable in the fantasy genre, so don’t expect any similarities, if there will be any, to be very large. The story mostly takes place in the future so that I could switch back and forth between my reality and the 1700s. Aside from a few gadgets I would expect to be created by then, I will be strictly sticking to the fantasy genre and what goes with it – magic, angels, demons, immortality, et cetera. In any case, thanks for reviewing so quickly. I’ve never had that happen before to be honest.
Chapter One: Collision
June 12, 2633
Angeni Mordecai stared out the window of the dull blue transport pod she was riding. “It was only a dream,” she muttered. “No guy that hot is going to even look at you!”
The pod was in the shape of a pill and slid through a clear tube in the underground tunnels below the city. Her History teacher had compared the pods to the trains of hundreds of years ago. Angeni had to admit she would rather have the slow old vehicles any day, rather then the little fast-moving prisons. They made her more nauseated than when she was looking down from her college campus window. Why did she always end up on some really high floor with her desk by the window?
The pod came to an abrupt stop at the landing bay – part of a refurbished subway tunnel – and straightened itself, so that Angeni was standing upright. She grimaced and climbed from the padded seat of the pod, mumbling, “Why do I dream about guys more than I’ve ever dated them! Urgh!” It was no wonder the transport assistant waiting to help her by the dock eyed her as if not quite sure she was in her right mind.
Angeni bustled past the man, flashing her transport identification card and by thousands of other pod landing bays. Now through an opening between two columns and out in the sunlight, she waved at the young man waiting for her under a cloned cherry blossom tree. Red hair similar to hers framed a handsome face with twin pairs of freckles on his cheeks and blue eyes. He was about eight inches taller than Angeni with broad shoulders and a ratty, old black trench coat.
“Urgh! Get rid of that coat!” teased Angeni as a greeting.
“Not a chance, Gen,” retorted the man cheerfully. “You’re going to either have to go back to college or go to lunch with me looking like this.”
Rolling her eyes, Angeni replied, “Well, then I get to choose the spot, bro.”
“Not again,” groaned her older brother. “Let me guess…”
“I hate you,” mouthed Remy to Angeni. His younger sister simply smirked in reply. When Annabella had flirted enough for the moment and taken their orders, Remy accused, “You love torturing me.”
“Of course. I am your little sis,” Angeni claimed. “Besides, this is the only flirting you ever get... and from your ex at that.”
A kick was aimed at her under the table. “Aren’t you a little old for that?” whispered Angeni. Another kick was her response, making her grin.
When Annabella returned, Remy whispered something in her ear. Angeni cocked one eyebrow in question. Remy simply smiled and said, “You’ll see.” Two minutes later when Annabella placed a strawberry birthday cake on their table and began singing Happy Birthday with the other waiters, Angeni sunk in her chair. “We’re even,” she hissed at a satisfied Remy.
Remy had to admit that most people would find his sister rather neurotic. Knowing what old Mördekai had told him of Angeni’s past lives though, he did not blame her for being wary.
The man was staring at her in just as much horror, if not more. He grimaced even more when a pretty, buxom blonde girl appeared at his elbow though. She startled Angeni with her sudden emergence, while the man grabbed the woman’s elbow and insisted, “C’mon, Calli.”
“Is that…?” gasped the blonde, peeping over her shoulder at Angeni.
Talk about weird eyes! thought the still responding part of Angeni’s mind. Hers are gold!
“Callidora,” hissed the man.
“It is!” shrieked Callidora. “Oh, Seb, what were you doing with her?”
Seb? Angeni processed. He’s not Seb… He’s Bast –
Angeni froze before shaking her head. I don’t know these weirdoes, she persuaded herself.
She hurried in the opposite direction that Seb was leading Callidora until she was halfway back to the pod station. She collapsed on a bench and massaged her forehead with her palms.
These are just nerves, she reassured herself. You’re just nervous about the exams tomorrow. It was a pity she did not even believe herself though.
Angelique Mordecai forced the disgust off her face as she returned to her mother’s side after her ordeal with Kenneth Landon. Soleil Blanche Mordecai – a beauty in youth and now in middle age – was chatting amiably with the hostess, Kenneth’s mother.
“Excuse me, Lady Landon, Mother,” Angelique interrupted, turning to each older woman in turn.
“Oh, hello, darling,” greeted Soleil. “One moment, if you will, Lady Landon.”
“Of course, duchess,” responded Viscountess Maria Landon prudishly.
“Is anything wrong, Angelique?” queried Soleil as soon as they were away by the windows and out of earshot. Soleil, like Angelique, had shockingly auburn curls, but, unlike Angelique, her eyes were a rich chocolate brown.
“No, no, Mother,” Angelique claimed. “I just wanted to ask if I could spend the rest of the evening on the balcony.”
“Must you?” sighed Soleil. “Has Kenneth Landon been pestering you again? I’ll have your father talk with – ”
“No! It’s fine. Really. I just need some fresh air,” insisted Angelique. “You know how I am with crowds crammed in such minute spaces, Mother.”
“All right then. Just do not get into trouble, darling,” Soleil said.
Angelique nodded and left her mother by sneaking out through the curtains hiding the balcony. There was already someone there; he was leaning against the railing with a sly grin.
“Well, well, the Mordecai heiress, I see…” he purred.
Angelique took a step back. “Who are you, sir?”
The man’s smirk widened into something frighteningly feral. “My name is Sebastian Kuragari, but I’m more widely known among my fellows as Blade,” he answered.
“Kuragari?” repeated Angelique with dread. She edged back towards the door with her hand out-stretched behind her. Where is that bloody doorknob? “What is it you want with me?”
“If you’re trying to escape, I bolted that door from the inside,” claimed Bastian.
Angelique did not doubt it. She tried not to grimace, but by the man’s chuckle, she knew she had failed. Would her reputation be ruined here? Would her family be dishonored by her inability to stop her family’s enemy? After all, the Mordecais and Kuragaris had feuded for centuries.
Squaring her shoulders, Angelique hissed, “I shan’t be done in be you, demon.”
“Sebastian!” called Duchess Lareina Kuragari.
Bastian ignored his mother and strode through the nearly empty banquet room and beyond the high table where his family sat. In the old days, hundreds of guests would have been seated in other tables around the room, but that era was no more. Callidora, his cousin, was already seated in her usual grace. She was striking among the mostly dark figures with her flaxen tresses and blood red gown. The gown reminded Bastian of Angelique. He sank one fang into his lip to keep from shouting. It was nearly a thousand years since that fancy dress had gone out of style and yet she still wore it with a regal air.
“Sebastian, don’t walk away,” hissed Duke Darius. “Your mother and I wish your audience before us.”
Bastian tasted blood as his fang sank in deeper. He saw no need for the formalities any longer. He was still dressed in black and white with one difference. Black feathered wings tinted with amethyst had sprouted from his back and now brushed the dark marble floor of the hall of the old manor.
“Sebastian,” warned Darius.
Bastian disregarded the smirk on one of his older brothers’ faces. Gideon was seated on their mother’s right all in a modern navy blue suit. He had slicked-back blonde hair like their mother and cousin with vibrant red eyes.
“My rendezvous with the human world has left me sickened, Father,” lied Bastian. “I am not up for dinner.” He waited for a response, while avoiding his sister Cassara’s eyes. She was a soothsayer of many abilities and it was never certain to him where her loyalties lied. She was an enigma that had the same purple eyes as him with so much less emotion.
“Get out of our sight then, Sebastian,” Darius finally barked.
Bastian let out his breath slowly to keep them from the knowledge that he had been holding it. He did not allow himself to do anything but nod in response before stalking out through the high stone archway.
Angeni stared blankly at the book sitting in her lap. She could not read the words this time around. She had reread it countless times, but this time, she could not bear it. The diary of Angelique Mordecai had been passed down through the generations of her family for centuries. In fact, it had been so since two years after the young woman’s death. On the tenth of June in the year 1708, just two days before her eighteenth birthday, Angelique had died.
Tears, actual shining tears, were filling Angeni’s eyes. Angelique had been murdered in cold blood by her love’s father. When she had first read the little faded gold bond book at the age of twelve, it had felt too romantic and tragic and overwhelming and just plain supernatural to be real. Her father, Richard Mordecai, had rapped her on the head and teased, “Don’t be such a nonbeliever. There is at least some truth in all tales.”
Now, she felt like that child again. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked the Golden Retriever puppy, an early birthday present from her parents, sitting on the other end of the sofa. “For one thing,” she said, answering her own question, “I talk to myself and puppies.” A slight smile flickered at the edges of her mouth. The puppy just wagged his flaxen tail at his master in response. “Good boy, Caleb,” sighed Angeni.
She felt her eyes drawn back to the book as Caleb yawned and laid his head down. A name popped out at Angeni among the messy cursive script, and it frightened her more than she could understand.
“He answered my query with, a wolfish smirk and, ‘My name is Sebastian Kuragari, but I’m more widely known among my fellows as Blade.’ I hated to admit it, but I feared him. He was everything I so obviously was not. I was short where he was tall, gawky where he was sturdy, and plain where he was deadly handsome. The most obvious difference though was I was human and he most certainly was not.”
Angeni stuffed the book back on her bookshelf so that a thick dictionary hid it. “Sebastian Kuragari,” she mumbled experimentally to herself. The name was too much of a mouthful on her tongue. “Blade” did not sound right either. She shook her head and sighed.
Sitting next to Caleb, Angeni stroked the canine’s fur. “You know what, Caleb?” she grumbled. “Your master’s insane, that’s what. She is scared by silly little made-up family legends, she is afraid of countless other things, and chats with one little puppy and herself.”
She stood up and switched off the light. “And she pleads insanity,” she whispered sorrowfully.
This time, she slept with dreams of haunting amethyst eyes watching her and jet-black feathered wings brushing against her arms. When Angeni awoke, a comforting little golden ball of fur had snuggled himself against Angeni’s neck. The twenty-year-old smiled, momentarily forgetting Angelique and her “deadly handsome” love. Some part of her knew the peace would not last long though.
She was about to go back to sleep when something dark caught her eye. Sitting on the white carpeting under her open bedroom window was a black feather the span of her hand from fingertip to wrist.
