Veli could hear her mother's despair even over the
shared mental link.
"Oh no." Momentarily, he closed his eyes. Healers.
This child with him was Charma and she was from
a family of healers. How did you raise a healer? They were
fragile and easily overwhelmed by life's atrocities.
You have my son Leonardo.
It was the voice of Nathaniel Gregan. They were
powerful and mysterious. His father's power was defensive,
that much they knew, and his mother was a spell caster.
That meant it was possible that the boy had both offensive
and defensive powers. Looking down, Veli saw that
Leonardo was the lighter of the two babies. He looked like
his father. Veli's own powers were purely offensive. How
did you teach defensive powers?
Where were the third child's parents? Had they been
killed already?
Veli.
His name was stated simply, but he would know
that voice anywhere. Holis Oberan. A sense of dread filled
him up. He had the Oberan heir. There was no love lost
between Veli and Holis. It might be fair to say they hated
one another. If this boy had one ounce of his father's
arrogance and pride, then Veli was in deep trouble. It was
also fair to say that, other than himself, Holis was probably
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the most talented warrior ever born to the Outsiders. His
mother had unusual powers as well. Some claimed she
could take and send powers at will. Their families had been
huge competitors, and eventually enemies.
Veli, I trust that you are not going to let our
personal problems affect how you are going to treat my
son. Obviously, if I had known what Abraxas planned we
would have found another way to keep Kalmari safe.
Kalmari. That's his name? Veli answered quietly,
trying to keep all emotion from his thoughts.
It is. His mother calls him Kal. Veli, I will have your
word as a warrior that you will not hold our
past…difficulties, against my son, or so help me, Veli, I will
pull every ounce of power that I can through this link and I
will take him back.
Go ahead and take him back. It was a stupid
challenge and he knew it but he could never let anything
Holis said go without remark. He shook his head. His wife
had once informed him he needed to outgrow their rivalry.
Veli could feel power surging through their minds
and was somewhat surprised that Holis was actually
making good on his threat. He opened his mouth to tell
Holis to conserve his energy, he wouldn't mistreat Kal,
when a spark in front of his eyes cut off his link. Just as
quickly as it started, it stopped and all of the power that had
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been used was thrust back into the atmosphere around
them. Sparks flew through the air.
Holis?
Veli didn't need to be a mind reader or possess the
power of sight to know that the Oberans were no more.
They had been caught by the Darkness. Veli felt sick
inside. What had he been thinking letting Holis use so
much power out in the open? Had he led the Darkness to
them?
A shot of electricity, the early warning signal Veli
had used countless times to save his own life, moved
through his spine.
There was no time. Abraxas would have lent them
some shielding when he sent them through the link but that
would be gone now that Holis' link had exposed them to the
outside world. He picked each of the children off of the
floor knowing he would have to acquire supplies on the
road and improvise as he went along. He paused finally
before lifting up Kal to place him on his arm next to
Charma.
Was he going to hold Kal's father's sins against this
small, fragile, albeit fierce-eyed baby? He was enough
aware of his own character flaws to resign himself to the
fact that the answer was most likely a resounding yes.
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* * * *
New Orleans, Louisiana. Uptown.
Lying quietly in his nursery, Sebastian, as they
called him in this lifetime and in this current body, thought
again that he had chosen the right parents to give him life.
He was unquestionably rich. The sheer number of toys and
designer clothes that he had watched being purchased over
the course of the last few months had been astounding but
he had known it would be this way when he had chosen
these particular mortals.
His mother, quite beautiful with green eyes that
already knew too much pain for someone so early in her
twenties, had left him in the care of the hired help as she
had gone running off to attend whatever party was the most
pressing to her at that moment. He hardly saw the father
and when he had, the man had stunk like booze and
cigarettes. The nanny they hired was efficient if a little
lacking in hygiene herself.
This might have been a problem for some children,
the feeling of abandonment and alienation, but not for
Sebastian. It was exactly the kind of family he needed to
complete his real goals. It was time to eliminate the
Outsiders.
Psychically, even he had been surprised by how
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remarkably strong he was. He had guessed that it was going
to take him years to be able to command minions and take
possessions of souls, but it had taken just weeks really. He
was going to get stronger as time went on, but he had
already managed to command humans who had lived
across an ocean to accomplish his will. The parents were all
dead now.
He hadn't counted on Abraxas Moore being so swift
in his skills, sending the children away. This was a true
problem. They were, after all, much more talented than
their parents had been. They were his true enemies and now
they were loose somewhere on the planet. He had managed
through sheer force of will, and it had cost him a lot of
power that might take years to get back, to stop the flow
from letting all the children through. They had scattered
and were as good as lost now. He'd find them all eventually
with little effort, he was sure.
The mentally weak Veli Destrand was not going to
be able to locate them, not with three babies to take care of.
But that was of no concern to Sebastian in his current form.
Eating and sleeping were enough for a while and time
would help him take care of the rest. He would find them
and he would kill them all. He was nothing if not relentless.
There would never be any more joining of souls by the
Outsiders; the soul mate legacy spoken of in the prophecy
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would not come to be. The eighteen might have been born
but they would not live long enough to unite and destroy
his plans.
There would be only one power on earth and it
would belong all to him.
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Chapter One
Present Day
Kal stood silently on the side of the creek listening
to the fish swim below the water. His companions, friends
of his from college, thought he had amazingly good luck
catching their dinner. He dared not tell them otherwise.
Even thousands of miles away, he knew Veli would hear
him, and box his ears for potentially exposing them. Too
much to risk, he would shout and then the last ten years
would be for naught as Kal would be forced back under his
protection.
The water and the landscape called to Kal. He often
felt more a part of the earth than the people who lived on it.
If he thought about it, and he very rarely thought about it,
he would have to admit his had been mostly a lonely
existence. Even surrounded by people, he was always on
the outside. Not that any of his friends or colleagues would
guess that he felt that way.
He was well liked and well thought of amongst the
groups of his acquaintance. He had traveled the world and
seen the worst the human race had to offer. His job as a
foreign correspondent had given him the opportunity to
really see humanity at its worst and yet he still found
himself compelled to protect it. He had told Leonardo once
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that it must be in their genetic makeup, this complete
inability to tell the human race to go screw itself.
If he could, he would gladly turn himself into an
animal, a wolf most likely, and let himself live on his
nature alone. His intuition didn't seem to particularly fit
into the world that he was currently living in. It would, for
example, be illegal to knock the guy sitting next to you on
an airplane over the head with a baseball bat just because
your intuition told you he was going home to beat his wife
and child. It would also be illegal to seek him out later
while he slept and murder him in his sleep.
Kal kicked at a stone near his feet, growing
impatient with how long this was taking considering how
fast he could do it if he just took care of it himself. He
sighed, hoping no one heard.
The subject of his life problems was not something
he would solve this afternoon and yet he couldn't clear his
thoughts. He could, perhaps, devote himself entirely to the
protection of his makeshift family. Shrugging, he almost
laughed at the idea. There would be very little point to that.
Veli was all the protection any of them ever needed. It had
been Kal's lousy attempts to prove his own usefulness that
had frequently landed them in serious trouble. There was
very little in the way of an outlet for Kal's pent-up
aggression. His skills seemed to be more appropriate for
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another time and place where he could have protected a
castle for a king or defended some worthwhile cause.
Maybe he could have rescued a damsel in distress. He
could ride in on his horse and rescue his princess who
would then spend the rest of her life devoting herself to
him.
This wasn't likely to happen. Although assured in
his own taste for women, Kal found most of the potential
dates he came into contact with tolerable for short periods
of time but nothing to write novels about or attempt heroics
for.
Again, he wondered if something had been
imprinted into his genetic code. People who were
"Outsiders," and that was how his family thought of
themselves, had, Veli told them, another person who could
complete them. They would know that they had found this
person because when they kissed them they would hear the
chanting words from the Spirits above. So far none of the
women he had kissed had inspired even an inkling of song.
Kal could remember the first time he had heard the
strange music of the chanters. He had been twelve years old
and they had been living, very briefly, in Santa Barbara.
The day was beautiful, if not a little bit hot, and he and
Charma had ventured down to the pier to buy an ice cream
and watch the sailboats.
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Marina, the only other of their kind that they had
ever located and it had been more from her own abilities
than anything they had done, had insisted on taking out one
of the boats earlier that morning and Leonardo had
accompanied her on her venture.
These kinds of childhood activities were of no
interest to Veli, who had found one of Abraxas' books on
his recent jaunt back to his homeland. He had been
wrapped up in studying it for days and hadn't noticed, or
particularly cared if he had noticed, that none of his four
charges had attended school since they had moved. This
was standard for Veli who thought it was more important to
see to their safety and outer-worldly educations then
whether or not any of them could divide fractions.
The other teenagers, boys who were probably four
or five years older than he was, had immediately noticed
Charma. Most people did. It was hard for them not to. Her
very soul, and at twelve years old she had not yet learned to
shield herself, drew the attention of every person she came
into contact with, begging to help heal their emotional
wounds, both small and of the much larger variety.
Coupled with the fact that she was considered
absolutely gorgeous made it a sure thing that going out into
public was always a bit of a risk for her. Veli had ordered
Kal to be responsible for her wellbeing until he could figure
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out how to teach her to block her empathic tendencies and
not stand out in a crowd. There had been many nights Kal
had lain awake in his bed and heard Charma weep for the
constant emotional bombardment that was her life.
This had been the situation that had led to Kal
standing face-to-face with three much larger, much older
teenage boys who, given any other stimulus, might not
normally behave as badly as they were behaving at that
moment. For reasons they themselves probably didn't
understand, they were insisting that they were going to take
Charma with them. Charma had immediately indicated that
she didn't want to go with them and this had left Kal with
no choice but to keep her safe.
The first of the three would-be kidnappers reached
out to grab her. Without thought Kal had swung his hand in
front of the other guy's face and simply pushed all of the
energy that was stored inside of him outwards towards the
boys. They
had, all three of them, fallen backwards against
the wooden fence that kept anyone from jumping in the
water. Stunned looks on their faces, they had run quickly
away to lick their wounds and wonder what had just
happened to them.
Kal had been left shocked, panting on the dock,
listening to the strangest sound he had ever heard. The
voices were ethereal and they spoke in a language that he
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couldn't understand but still filled up his soul nonetheless.
It was encouraging and loving and he knew he had behaved
just the way he needed to, but more so had acted in a
responsible fashion, and fulfilled some kind of predestined
role.
He had loved it.
Intuition had been Kal's gift since he was a child.
He instantly knew when something good or evil was about
to approach him. More than once, he had saved his small
family from destruction by simply knowing that something
was coming. Like his relatives, he could manipulate his
surroundings and hear more keenly than most humans but it
was more than that for Kal. He simply knew when
something was about to happen.
All day he had been filled with that feeling. It
started at the top of his head, usually making him sweat and
he would be filled with the inability to relax, which would
inevitably make him angry. And in general it was not a
good idea to make him angry.
He turned around to watch his friend Doug attempt,
for the third time, to reel in the fish that he had been trying
to catch. He laughed silently. Doug had been the president
of their fraternity in college and now he was making his
way up the ladder in one of Chicago's top law firms. But a
fisherman he was not. His other companions, James and
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