The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set Read online

  The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set

  The Complete Series

  Elle Leigh Clarke

  Michael Anderle

  The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set One (this book) is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 Michael Anderle & Ell Leigh Clarke

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, August 2019

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2019 by Michael T. Anderle.

  Contents

  The Dark Messiah

  The Darkest Night

  Darkest Before The Dawn

  Dawn Arrives

  The Dark Messiah

  The Second Dark Ages Book 1

  Chapter One

  The Etheric Dimension

  The numbness was ever present. The darkness a cocoon of protection for Michael against the pain of remembering.

  The guilt building up over the days, weeks, months, years and decades of selfishly resting in the knowledge that pleasured his soul. The time his consciousness flared to life, but his physical body was not yet complete.

  She was out there.

  Michael’s connection to her feeding the emotional craving that his heart needed to be filled.

  Until the pain.

  The pain he felt through the connection within the womb of Etheric energy his body was using to repair itself.

  His eyes snapped open to see nothing clearly. Then, the grayness, a void, as he turned his head first left, then right, as his eyes adjusted and focused. Finally, he looked down at this body. He frowned, he was naked as the day he was born.

  Worse, he was hairless.

  He stood slowly, feeling the little crystals that had been clinging to his back evaporate. He was, he admitted as he turned looking in all directions, clueless.

  The shock of pain that had jolted him from his mental stupor was receding into the grayness itself.

  Was the pain real, or had he imagined it? Michael stood in the mist and waved his hand through it. Like a fog on the New England coastline, it swirled in the light. Neither transparent nor solid, it merely created eddies of diffusion. Candy to his eyes.

  He frowned. Like the calories from candy, they didn’t help him one damned bit.

  He turned around and considered what he remembered from the dreams, from the nightmares.

  His eyebrows drew together into a mask of concentration. Piecing together the remnants of a time before his sleep, his eyes flashed once, twice, then three times red and the third time they stayed red.

  Now, the fog in front of Michael swirled, the glow from his eyes merging with the space around him, pushing the new color into the gray.

  He turned his head, his mind seeking back to the time, the time when life wasn’t strictly Honor, Responsibility, and Loneliness.

  The time of when his life changed because of the woman. The woman he still felt in his soul, the connection he shared with her strong here in this… He looked around, this Etheric Dimension. He had been here before.

  With her.

  She had… has, he corrected, black hair and a sharp tongue.

  He smiled, the first time in how long he couldn’t know. Her name would come back to him. He did remember her sarcastic, and occasionally caustic, verbal skills.

  She was a fighter! She was the one... the one who had made him desire to live again, and now a second time she brought him back from being a dead man.

  Michael started walking, taking determined steps unerringly towards where he needed to get out of this dimension and return to Earth.

  He had a promise to keep. While he might not remember the details, he was sure he wasn’t going to fulfill his promise in this place.

  No, he needed to step out into the world of the humans again and find her.

  His sense of honor demanded it.

  Michael slowed his walk, feeling the rightness of the location he had come upon as being the entrance he had used so long ago to escape the pain. Now, he needed to figure out how to leave this dimension.

  His eyes flashed brightly a fourth time, glee written in the shadows that fell on his face.

  Her name was Bethany Anne.

  South of Douglas Mountain, Old Colorado (United States Post-Apoc)

  Jeremiah kicked the horse. “Ktch ktch, let’s go, Black,” he said as the horse left the shallow stream and climbed up out of its bed to the rise above.

  It was just twelve feet up.

  It hadn’t been much cover, but it had been enough to hide Jeremiah as he and Black walked down the streambed, so it had been enough for him. Better to be proactive than dodging gunfire from those here in the Fallen Lands.

  Five minutes later, he pulled on the reins and put a hand on the horse’s shoulder. “Still, stay still.” He had finally caught on to why Black had been nervous for the last minute.

  He loosened the gun in its holster, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t a shooting discussion. “You know,” he said conversationally, throwing his voice out ahead of him. “If you want to talk, let’s talk. It’s damned hot out here.”

  He looked east and could see the eastbound dirigible rising over the remains of old Denver, heading God knows where and taking God knew who out of these Fallen Lands.

  Even a century and a half after the world went to shit, protecting yourself first was the rule of the day. Justice hadn’t made its face known again, at least not out here.

  Five seconds later, two horses and their riders broke from cover about a hundred feet ahead of him on the trail.

  One of the guys, black hair and a scar across his nose, spit to the side as he and his partner rode towards Jeremiah.

  “Plenty close,” Jeremiah commented, and the two pulled up ten yards away. “Can I help you?” he asked, eyeing each of them.

  Scar-nose rested both hands on his pommel as he looked around, the sun beating down. He turned back to Jeremiah. “We’ve been told to deliver a message from the boss, so we’re here delivering it.”

  Jeremiah nodded for him to continue. He watched the talking man’s partner, a thin and wiry guy, eyes darting about the area. He was the one who would possibly fly off the handle and just start shooting.

  “The boss is tired of Sarah Jennifer telling him to take a hike,” Scar-nose said. “So tell her she’s got one week to reconsider either selling or bedding. Each day she continues to be obstinate?” He shrugged and spit again. “Well, the price goes down, and the pleasure is decreased. At some point, even gentlemen don’t give a rat’s ass anymore, and the boss will stop trying to be civil in this godforsaken uncivilized land.”

  Jeremiah understood.

  The two turned, with Scar-nose looking over his shoulder to give a parting shot, “You might mention to the other guys she’s got helping her on her land, those that don’t fire on us? We won’t fire on them.”

  This time, it was Jeremiah’s turn to make a face of disgust and spit into the weeds.

&nbsp
; Sarah Jennifer had fourteen hands helping her with the land. There were only three others—including himself—he was positive would be willing to shoot back in her defense.

  Jack “the Boss” Childers had thirty-two.

  Even with Sarah Jennifer’s mercenary skills and weapons from her time before, that still left them outgunned at least two to one, and that was the best case.

  “Ktch Ktch,” he called to Black, pulling on the reins to go to their right. “Let’s get home, I’ve got to report back to the lady.”

  The two started moving off into the brush.

  He ducked under a tree limb. “Cause shit just got too damned real,” he murmured.

  The Etheric Dimension

  Stumped.

  Michael was frustrated, his lips compressed into a tiny line cutting across the horizontal plane of a face irritated with itself.

  “How does she do this?” he mumbled for the hundredth time, if he had mumbled it once.

  Michael had been standing there for what seemed like forever. He knew he merely needed to take a step and he should be on the other side. He should be… He took another testing step, and dropped out of the grayness into nighttime on the side of a hill, falling through limbs, as he slipped and tumbled twice ass over head.

  “Gott Verdammt!” he cursed before his legs hit a low-hanging branch that twisted him around sadistically, turning him over to land hard. His breath exploded out of his mouth, his eyes wide in surprise and pain.

  He was now on the ground, lying on his back, looking up into the branches of a tree above him. Silvery moonlight caressed its branches.

  “Oooouuuch,” he moaned, lying there a moment to collect his thoughts.

  Michael reached towards his back and rolled to his left. His right hand grabbed a small rock and yanked it out from underneath him. He pulled it up in front of him and looked at it in the moonlight. He opened his mouth to say something, but then shook his head and tossed the rock away to land in the bushes.

  He listened for a second, not hearing or feeling anything dangerous. Twenty feet above him, something silvery and translucent seemed to close slowly.

  The silver expanse, he would later swear, snickered at him when it closed, and the tree limbs behind it were all he now saw.

  He was losing it. He rolled forward and stood up, brushing pine needles and other dirt and detritus from his body.

  He looked around, snatches of memory of a run coming back. He had a bag, a package. NO! He had a bomb. He had been running to return it to someone who had attacked the…

  Michael turned, looking up the mountain. He had been running away from the base.

  Michael took his first step in the moonlight, up towards the location where there should be a base.

  A base… and answers.

  South of Douglas Mountain, Old Colorado (United States Post-Apoc)

  Jeremiah rode into the main yard about two hours before sunset. He pulled off the saddle and rubbed down his horse. He put Black in a stall and stuffed some oats into the feedbag, then dug around in a sand filled tub to find a carrot.

  He nodded towards Jake, one of the men who, in his opinion, was a question mark, and headed towards the back of the house.

  Towards the office.

  Sarah Jennifer wasn’t some old woman willing to take in just anyone. No, she was an ex-tactical member of the FDG—the Force de Guerre. Still young, she had suffered some neurological damage during a mission, and they couldn’t get her back to prime reaction speed again. She wasn’t willing to be dead weight on the tactical teams and refused to take an office job.

  It reminded her too much of what she couldn’t do anymore.

  Jeremiah arrived at the back and pulled the string that rang a bell inside her office. Soon enough, her voice came out of a tube next to the door. “You got my attention, who is this and what do you need?”

  He was pretty sure she knew exactly who was standing there, but her ability to keep secrets was legendary. For example, none of them knew how many weapons she kept as an ex-merc. To keep that a secret this long? Pretty damned impressive.

  He grinned for anyone who might see him talking. “It’s Jeremiah, SJ.” He lowered his voice. “I got a message from TB’s goons to relay to you.”

  Her voice, confused, came back through the tube, “TB…? Oh, that jackass.” Jeremiah could almost picture her blue eyes rolling under her blond hair. “Come in, let’s discuss scuzzbucket’s latest threat.” With a clunk, the door unlocked, and Jeremiah pulled it open and walked in. The door closed, and a small bar automatically locked into place behind him.

  The hallway was only ten feet long, with a door at the end that opened into the house proper. He took two steps and turned right. Inside the room was a small round table with three chairs for meetings. Sarah Jennifer, a pencil in her right hand, was tap-tap-tapping the desk as he walked in.

  She noticed his sand and sweat covered body and got to the point. “Okay, what’s bull-shittiest-maximus want this time?”

  “Your ass, or your land, probably both,” Jeremiah told her. He grabbed one of the two chairs in front of her desk and pulled it back to sit down. “Sucks to be you!”

  She snorted. “I understand it used to be that women wanted men to appreciate them for their intellect, not their tits. Now, my intellect is third string behind my land.”

  Jeremiah kept his mouth shut.

  The tap-tap-tap of the pencil continued. “That’s not all, is it?” she asked, watching his fidgeting hands. “You got something you don’t want to say. What’s asshat got planned now?”

  Jeremiah looked up at the ceiling and then back to Sarah Jennifer. “The two heavies told me you got a little time to make a decision, one week. You either decide to marry him, or sell to him. If you go past that, then he reduces what he’s willing to pay, and the insinuation is... it won’t be a wedding bed at the end of the deal, but there will be a physical consummation.” Jeremiah looked pissed that he even had to pass on such a despicable threat.

  Sarah Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “So, sell or rape?” Jeremiah returned her gaze and nodded. “Well, at least the disgusting pig is finally showing his true colors.” She blew out a breath. “He’s got about thirty in his crew?”

  “Last I heard, it was thirty-two. But if he decides that isn’t enough he could get some cheap hands willing to pull a trigger and maybe get ten more from closer to old Denver. That is, if he decides it’s going to be a pain in the ass to root us out. But…” Jeremiah turned to look in the direction of the hands’ sleeping quarters. “I can’t promise you more than three for damned sure, and five if I’m giving a couple the benefit of the doubt.”

  Her lips pressed together and she followed his gaze where it led.

  Out toward the building where her hands slept at night.

  Chapter Two

  Outside an Old Military Base, West of Old Denver, Colorado (United States Post-Apoc)

  Confusion was his first reaction.

  Michael looked around and considered confusion to be his second, third and damn near the fourth reaction as well.

  What happened?

  He walked, bare ass naked, through a base that had seen better days. When he pulled open a door, and it dropped off of its hinges, he had to admit it had seen better years and most likely decades.

  Perhaps a better century?

  Michael walked into the old command center. It was dusty, a broken window in the front allowing the weather in. A few leaves were lodged in crevices.

  Empty.

  He moved further into the base inside the mountain, trying to understand what was going on. Each office he checked was cleared of anything relevant. He found no computer equipment and more than that, he found none of the lights to be in working order.

  It was chilly, so the time of year had to be fall, at least. It took him a while and the only thing he ran across was a small supply room. He did find clothes of a sort. They were old work clothes, a single suit. He snagged an available tan pair but mad
e a face.

  They weren’t his preferred style. But he was clothed, and that had to be worth something at the moment.

  He walked across the base, the parking lot empty, and went to where he had lived with Bethany Anne. The building was not only empty, it was boarded up. Not a type of boarding because windows were busted, no, this was boarded up to keep people from going through something important inside.

  This was professional, and it had the faintest marks that showed warnings about radioactivity. Which seemed ludicrous. His time in the Etheric enhanced his ability to discern energy, and there was no radiation that he could feel.

  Well, he hoped there wasn’t. His lack of hair was bothering him, and all he needed to do was get a fresh dose of radiation to screw any chance of his hair growing back. He could still regenerate from wounds, that he had figured out after falling out of the Etheric and using the limbs of a tree to slow his rapid descent.

  He willed himself to turn to Myst, that amorphous state that allowed him to disappear and fly, moving through gaps that only air could flow through.

  Except he was still standing right in front of the boarded up living quarters, looking stupid.

  He turned to look around, but there was nothing but the old, rundown base and a bird flying overhead about a quarter-mile to the north.

  And, he wasn’t in his Myst form at all.

  “Okay, something broke that used to work,” he muttered. “Like my hair growing.”

  He made a fist and tapped on the board where the door should be. The noise from his knock confirmed his guess, it was hollow behind there.

  He made a fast, sharp punch and the board cracked. He did this twice more and reached in with his left hand, pulling out pieces and noticing the thickness of the wood.