C20 Chapter Twenty

The Lord of Eden moved through the tunnels at a brisk pace, his thoughts on the newcomers. He’d been observing them for the last several hours and it was clear by their actions and lack of familiarity with the complex that they were strangers. Which meant that some other outside group had taken an interest in the activity here. That, in itself, was interesting. Outsiders wouldn’t understand what his captors had tried to do, wouldn’t know why the various wards and barriers had been erected. Without that knowledge, he reasoned, they would be more likely to help him escape the confines of the complex, might even unintentionally break the bonds that held him without knowing what they were doing.

That would be fortunate indeed.

But if he was not so lucky, there were other ways to persuade them to help. For all he knew, they might even listen to reason.

And if they chose to oppose him, he would deal with them in an appropriate manner just as he had with the others before them. He had been locked in the darkness for too long to allow anything, least of all a group of weakling humans, to prevent him from regaining his rightful heritage.

He would do what needed to be done, just as he always had.

And the Creator be damned if he didn’t like it.

An odd sensation washed over him like a sudden dousing of ice-cold water, the walls around him wavering like a mirage on the hot desert plains that he had haunted so long ago, and the feeling was so unexpected that it stopped him in mid-stride.

He was intimately familiar with the sensation; it wasn’t its unusual nature that brought him to sudden halt but the simple fact that someone other than he was capable of producing that particular effect.

It shouldn’t have been possible.

But there was no mistaking it.

Elsewhere in the complex, someone had just opened a window into the Beyond.

The face of the battle-scarred leader he’d observed in the tram tunnel came instantly to mind and the Lord of Eden intuitively knew that he was the one. Somehow he had penetrated the Veil, had tunneled through the barriers between worlds and had peered into the other realm. What he was looking for the Lord of Eden did not know, but he instantly recognized that having that particular human at his side would be an advantage in his fight to escape this place.

Just like that his decision was made.

He would try to speak to this group of newcomers, try to convince them of the righteousness of his task and see if they would help him accomplish his aims without resorting to other, more violent, measures.

And if they chose not to help, he would eliminate them just as he had those who had returned him to the light.

He would not be denied.