Darkest Before The Dawn Read online

  “You will have to do it without your teams. It seems they met with a deadly case of sword infection.”

  William sniffed in annoyance. “I will find more. Mercs are a dime a dozen.” He walked to his escape door and put a hand on it, then turned toward the speaker. “Look for me, Akio. When you least expect me, I’ll be there.”

  William yanked on the door, and his eyes opened in shock and pain when both his kneecaps were blown off. His body collapsed to the floor, his mind screaming as he dragged himself back from the opening.

  Akio walked in, his face impassive. He waved a tablet in William’s direction before placing it on a shelf. Akio smiled. “When you least expect me, William, I’ll be there.”

  Akio pulled the trigger twice more, taking William’s hands off at the wrists.

  “You dare to hurt me,” William spit the blood out of his mouth. “I was centuries old before you were even born.”

  “And I,” another voice was heard in the room, William turned to see a man in a long coat and black leather cowboy hat, “deem you but a sniveling child I failed to punish correctly the first time.”

  “ArchAngel.” Akio bowed.

  “Dear friend.” Michael bowed slightly lower than Akio. “I owe all of you my life.” Michael walked over to William. His stumps had stopped bleeding. Michael took off his hat and reached down to run a finger through some of the blood on the floor. “I made a promise, William,” Michael said conversationally. “That I would baptize this hat in your blood to commemorate your death. It honors a father, and the mother and daughter whose lives you destroyed.”

  “Who?” William spat. “Some cattle? Some plebeian humans who aren’t—” William stopped talking when Michael put up his hand. A solid ball of white energy had started to form in it. William brought his handless arm up to block the light from blinding him.

  “The problem with using the power of the cosmos, William,” Michael looked down at him, “is that the cosmos can teach new tricks.”

  William screamed when Michael dropped the ball of energy on his chest. It started melting his body, consuming it and causing it to disappear as the energy globe shrunk.

  Michael stood, and the two of them watched. The body stopped disappearing when the only things left were his legs from the knees down.

  Michael looked at Akio. “I owe you all an apology.” He put up a hand to forestall anything Akio might say. “I am arrogant, I know that. However, in my arrogance, I figured I was more than enough for one such as William. I was wrong, and without your support and the others’, I would have failed in my task of honor to return to Bethany Anne.”

  Akio nodded his understanding.

  The two of them walked toward the door that led to the surface. Michael turned and opened his palm, a red ball of energy shot out, consuming the remains of the legs in the fiery explosion.

  Not that Michael or Akio knew that though, as they had closed the door quickly to protect from themselves any backsplash.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Sabine’s eyes opened, and she looked up into a face she recognized. “Yuko?”

  “Yes, little one.”

  “I’m not dead?” she asked and looked around.

  “No, unless I’m dead with you, and I do not think that I am.”

  “But,” Sabine stopped and lifted her left arm. “Now, I know this was broken.”

  “Yes, it was.” Yuko agreed.

  Sabine’s eyes narrowed and she looked back up at Yuko, who was making sure Sabine’s head was comfortable. “Am I a Vampire?”

  Yuko started laughing and shook her head. “No!”

  “Then how?” Sabine asked.

  “Consider it a gift from us, to you.” Yuko pursed her lips. “You have had a special dose of Bethany Anne’s nanocytes.”

  “Michael’s Bethany Anne?” Yuko nodded. “Does that mean I can fly?”

  “No,” Yuko told her. “It just means you will be more than you were, before.” She put a hand on Sabine’s head, “Now sleep, the nanocytes aren’t done helping you, yet.”

  “But I’m not,” Sabine started, but never finished her comment.

  Five minutes later, Eve joined her. Yuko had heard the android’s footsteps walking through the broken glass, then across the street and into the park area where Yuko and Sabine were.

  “It’s an amazing amount of technology,” Eve commented. “Michael’s own energy was fueling it. Which is why the scientists couldn’t make it stop, even with Akio threatening to run them through with a sword.”

  Yuko shook her head. “I don’t believe scientists think best with the end of a sword pointed at them.”

  “Well, to his credit, I understand he wasn’t using it to point at them, and it was sheathed. But since he was bloody…” Eve let her sentence die off and changed the subject. “Mark and Jacqueline are at the hospital. Dr. Goto checked in their patient.”

  “He is a good man,” Yuko looked to her left. Eve followed her glance and saw Michael and Akio coming down the street, about a half mile away. Yuko adjusted Sabine’s head. “Speaking of men.”

  “Not good men?” Eve asked.

  Yuko snorted, “Jacqueline was ready to come all the way here and kick Michael’s ass, or at least try she was so mad at how close he came to dying.”

  “Yet, she fails to see the truth of how close she and Mark came.” Eve pointed out.

  “The young do not care to have the hypocrisy of their actions pointed out to them.” She nodded down the street, “Or the prideful.”

  “You would think he would learn.”

  “Or the stubborn.”

  “How stubborn can a human be?”

  “Let’s just leave it at men.” Yuko finished. “Their heads are as hard as granite, and yet just as brittle as sandstone. Should you give them their vaulted logic, their world view can explode.”

  “You act as if females are any different, except insert emotions instead of logic.”

  “Eve,” Yuko turned back to look at her friend. “I love you, but you can be such a logical bitch sometimes.”

  Eve chuckled, “Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the old and aged.”

  Yuko sighed. “Let me change that to logical bitch frequently.”

  The two friends stayed in a peaceable quiet while the two men walked down the street. Yuko enjoyed the look of one, a man from the East, his clothes those of her country, his sheathed sword the physical manifestation of an exclamation point for anything he said.

  The other a man from the West, his coat one of the most technically advanced clothes on this world, his hat the product of human hands, yet the manufacturing techniques from centuries before the World's Worst Day Ever.

  East and West, calm and fiery. Yet, she admitted, both a bit arrogant in the belief of their abilities.

  —

  Eve spoke first as they walked under the tree, Michael checking out Sabine. “The scientists are still below, but they cannot start up the LHC anymore.”

  “Why is that?” Michael asked, half of his attention on Sabine.

  “I shut down their systems, and put a crypto-lock they have to bypass to get it up and running again.”

  Michael stood up, “Thank you.” He spoke a bit louder as he looked from person to person, “I need to thank you all. Without you, I would not be standing here and William would have accomplished tearing me apart.” He smiled, “Normally, my stubbornness, nurtured in the millennia plus I’ve been alive, has been enough in these trials. This time, it was enough that I trusted you four to get me out, I just had to stay together and wait.”

  “Didn’t it hurt?” Eve asked.

  Michael turned to the short android, “It hurt like a Gott Verdammt sonofabitch.”

  Akio spoke up, “William believed you would come out of the effort mentally unhinged.”

  “I never know why people presume I’m hinged in the first place,” Michael admitted. “I’m so damned old all of my give up, got up and left my body already. I move forward because of
honor, of love,” he smirked when Yuko grinned like a young school girl, “and the knowledge that I had the best people working to get me out of the cocked-up place I got myself in. Whatever the pain I was feeling,” Michael grunted, “and it was a lot.” He looked over to Akio, “Didn’t hold a candle to being ripped apart and burned in a nuclear explosion where you slowly mend for a hundred and fifty years.”

  He exhaled heavily, “So,” he reached up with his right hand and pulled off his hat, pulling it down to hold it with both hands as he stood there. “I am promising to do my best to let my team in on my plans. To let each of you shoulder the responsibilities and to perhaps learn how to effectively lead, not just tell you what I expect, but rather to seek your advice in the process.” He looked to Yuko, “Not that I expect to always do what you logically suggest, but that I’ll consider it and reflect rather than dismiss it out of hand.”

  He ignored her blush as she realized he had heard her and Eve talking earlier.

  Michael held his hat in his left hand, reaching out with his right to Akio, “Thank you Akio, I’m proud to call you my friend.”

  Michael watched as Akio fought to bow in service and smiled when he held out his hand, and the two men shook. “Forever will you be my brother.”

  “Hai, mine as well, Michael.”

  Michael released his handshake with Akio and turned to Eve and stepped forward, then he took a knee, his head and hers almost equal height. “Eve, without you I would not be here. Your intelligence and abilities are beyond mine in ways I cannot fathom. You are my daughter, for whom I will give up my life to protect.”

  Eve’s face dropped, her body losing emotions for a minute. Michael turned to Yuko, “What’s happening?”

  Yuko reached up and wiped a tear, “You have overwhelmed her ability to comprehend this reality. She will be back.”

  Michael turned back, waiting for Yuko’s pronouncement to come true. After about two minutes of silence, Eve came back around. The little human body stepped forward and reached around Michael’s neck to hug him. The little head turned and set its ear against his chest. “Father.”

  Michael reached around and hugged the little android back. “You may call me Michael, or Father. Whatever works best for you.” Eve nodded her understanding and stepped back.

  Michael stood up and walked over to Yuko, turning around and sitting next to her and Sabine. “Yuko, I personally owe you for all of your service. For protecting and saving Sabine. I cannot possibly repay you, but I would offer you whatever I can. You have but to ask.”

  Yuko stared at Michael, wondering what she might ask of this man. “Michael, since I was drafted by ADAM almost two centuries ago, I’ve never had an Uncle.”

  Michael chuckled, reached around and grabbed Yuko around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “I’d be honored to call you my family, Yuko. Just know that it comes with a negative or two.”

  Her voice was muffled as she spoke into his coat, “Like what?”

  “Like I’ll be checking out your boyfriends, to make sure they are worthy of you.”

  Akio, Eve and Michael chuckled as she swore into his chest. She reached up and wiped her eyes and they all heard a muffled, “I accept.” from her.

  “And Sabine?” Eve asked.

  All eyes turned to the young woman sleeping on Yuko’s lap.

  “She will see the stars; her name will be spread to galaxies in stories for generations to come.”

  “I heard that,” Sabine said, sleepily.

  “On my honor,” Michael told her and put his hand on her head. “We will get up there one day.”

  “Just not today,” Sabine told him. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight little one,” Michael told her. He reached up and started to wipe his head off to put his hat back on, then stopped.

  His mouth was open, his face in shock.

  “What is it?” Akio asked, concerned.

  Michael looked up to Akio, his voice incredulous…

  “I feel hair!” he told him, rubbing his hand all over his head.

  The scream could be heard for hundreds of yards in all directions.

  “I FEEL HAIR!” The voice reverberated through the buildings in the night.

  EPILOGUE

  Nagoya, Japan, Hirano Residence

  “Dear Diary,

  I am writing this down in case I should ever forget. And by “forget” I mean not in the memories fading because they were unimportant or without significance, but in case they are ever taken from me the way they were from my father and his father before him.

  This weekend the one they call the Diplomat showed up on my doorstep. And though I refer to her as the Diplomat, I have come to know her as a person. Her name is Yuko. It seems that my feelings for her weren’t unrequited or unwarranted. Alas, I fear her world and her mission has ripped her from me for good.

  It all started on Saturday morning when there was a ring at the door. I hadn’t seen her since my last entry when I helped her out at the docks…”

  Hirano continued writing far into the night, hoping that if he kept expressing his feelings, they would neither die in his chest nor consume him with longing.

  When he was finally done, he glanced out his apartment window into the night sky where he had only hours before seen Yuko’s Pod disappear to her next destination.

  He closed the large leather-bound diary and carried it over to the living room carpet. Pulling the rug up, he exposed the floor safe. He placed the diary into the safe, locking it again and quickly replacing the rug. He rearranged the coffee table and then sat for a moment staring at the spot where the diary rested.

  FINIS

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  I know that Ell Leigh Clarke’s Author Notes are next, so I don’t want to steal any of her thunder...

  But I will, anyway.

  Just not yet.

  Before I do that, I’d like to say ‘thank you!’ to Ellie for picking up the Yuko / Eve / Jacqueline / Mark side of this story. I will admit that I’ve been fighting burn-out pretty bad. Ellie offered to help one time and I had pushed her back because…

  IT WAS MICHAEL!

  He was one of my first characters, and I wasn’t comfortable letting go (empty nest syndrome…kinda?) until after I wrote another two more Bethany Anne books. When it was time to come back to Michael, I was up against a wall pushing on the business and it was very tough to get up and get myself in front of the computer to write.

  I decided to reach back out and ask her if the offer to help collaborate on the book was still open.

  A bit of a background

  When Ellie decided to write, she had two books under her belt that were unpublished. She started reading The Kurtherian Gambit (no, she isn’t finished with the series regardless whether she owns a Kindle, or not.) We had many, many story discussions for her series (The Ascension Myth - TAM) and then wrote and gave me her book.

  Ummmm…. I gently pushed it back, with comments.

  She re-wrote her first book…and gave it back.

  With much (read MUCH) trepidation, I had to push it back to her again. Wondering (worrying) that I would really hurt her professional feelings having her change stuff…again. This was an 80,000 word book, so it wasn’t pleasant.

  <>

  She did it and she was easy to work with even though I was thinking she must HATE me by this time.

  Now, I had previous experience working with her on something when the feedback wasn’t ‘YEAH!’ and I’m comfortable that if I had to push her back on her parts of this story, we could work through it. We started working on the beats for the story, and recognized that the way for us to collaborate would be to split the story into two groups.

  I would take the Michael and Akio story (remember, my baby so to speak) and Ellie took Jacqueline and Mark (she will tell you ‘less killy-killy.’) We worked out the time lines and what was going on (the beats.)

  Then, we started.

  I had a coupl
e of thousand words early, and she had nothing. Then, a few days later I finally came back and did a few thousand as well. A few days after that, I put a bunch of hours together and hit about 15k. Ellie tells me (she doesn’t remember, I don’t think) that she was at like, 16 k. Later, she realizes she was actually thousands of words short of what she remembered.

  So, I was WAAAY ahead.

  Now, she did ask about plot beats, but I seem to remember that she was working on things and finally, we needed to meet because she was finished with her stuff, and I was ‘finally’ holding her back.

  << Ellie Edit: You’re kidding me! I was just working on the next Molly book! >>

  We spoke the next day.

  During this time, she was having some CRAP experiences and pain with dentists. So, she wasn’t behind me due to me crushing it, but rather out of it due to painkillers and stuff.

  << Ellie edit: soooo not true! >>

  Eventually, I hit words complete, and so does Ellie one day later. I had already sent my work to Stephen Russel for editing, and I now had Ellie’s work to go through. I went through it, and the next day or so, I worked to move the two sets of stories together in a timeline (according to the beats) and delivered it all to Stephen, Steve and Lynne. They then worked it with the wonderful JIT team to fix the broken stuff.

  (Like, “Reputation” not “Rep”!)

  << Ellie edit: was that me? That wrote rep? Was it in dialogue? Coz if it was dialogue, you know I have a rule with my editors that it should stay… in NON-Michael books at least! >>

  FUN STUFF - IT’S ABOUT A CAT

  In the TAM series, there are always stories. Usually, stories about how Ellie and I have argued over something.

  I’m here to share a cat story (and being right…but, you know… that’s not the important part.)

  << Ellie edit: Pha! That’s the ONLY important part to MA!! >>