King Killer: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 7) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  End Notes

  A Parnormal Space Opera Adventure

  Michael-Scott Earle

  Chapter 1

  When I woke up, it seemed as if I was crawling out of a grave. Every time I reached out to clear away the darkness I just scooped dirt into my open mouth. I choked on it, and tried to scream, but then I realized that I couldn’t breathe. Panic pushed against my chest heavier than the weight of the dirt piled on top of me. Finally, my hands managed to push through the black, and my head emerged from the darkness of my bed.

  I was confused though, because I wasn’t in my bed, or in a grave, I was pouring out of a dark cylinder, and what I thought was dirt and darkness was endless liters of blood.

  I coughed with disgust and felt my stomach heave. Vomit poured out of my mouth and carried whatever blood I had swallowed onto the black tile at my feet. I was covered with the ichor, and my nose was filled with the stench of copper.

  What the fuck?

  The last thing I could remember was making love to Zea and Eve. I’d been a bit exhausted, but I’d still had enough energy to keep up with them for an hour or so. Then we fell asleep in one contented knot of limbs on our bed. Had something happened? Was this a dream? The thoughts angered me, and I glanced around my surroundings for my lovers.

  I was in one of the dark super powered asshole overlord, or SAVO as Zea liked to say, temples, and I turned back to the cylinder that had been my prison. It looked just like the one I saw on Uraniel, and I wondered why I came out of it.

  I glanced down at my hands and then attempted to wipe some of the blood from my arms. My skin was a pale white underneath the layer of blood as if I was one of the fuckers we were trying to kill. The sight was more than unsettling, and I got to my feet while I tried to wipe the rest of the red liquid off my skin. It felt as if it was made out of oil, and it wasn’t coming off as easily as I wanted.

  “Ooaaa gahhh,” A voice spoke from behind me, and I spun around to see a dark woman standing beside the stone cylinder I had just emerged from. Her features were beautiful, and they reminded me of Eve. Her hair was black like obsidian, flowed down to her lower back, and was styled in the same way as my lover’s. She wore a tight black bodysuit that looked similar to the ones we wore on Persephone, and her confident stance reminded me of my friend. Her face was pale, and her eyes were red, but that was where the resemblance between Eve and her ended. My lover’s face was almost always about ready to break into a gentle smile, and her red eyes possessed a calming quality. This woman’s features were sharp, and she glared at me with unmistaken malice.

  “Oohh gahh?” she hissed what sounded like a question. One of her pale hands rested on the side of the cylinder, and her nails looked almost like claws.

  “Where the fuck are my friends?” I demanded, and my fingers twitched to grab guns that weren’t holstered on my hips.

  “Gahhh. Ohh gahh,” the woman took her hand off the cylinder and then stepped toward me. We were only a meter or so apart, so I shifted my legs into my accustomed fighting stance. I didn’t feel the beast in my stomach, in my chest, or in my mind, and I wondered if she had done something to prevent me from shifting.

  She stepped closer to me, and I raised my fists to attack her, the SAVO woman didn’t engage me though. Instead, she moved to the side of me and then walked past. I turned to her and was about to knock her head off with my elbow, but then she motioned for me to follow her.

  “Gahhh?” she growled a guttural question as she turned to look over her shoulder at me. When I didn’t move to follow her, she beckoned with a long pointer finger and then gestured in the direction that she had been walking. There was a large double doorway at the end of the temple, and I saw a starry night sky outside.

  “My friends are out there?” I asked, and the woman nodded before she turned to walk away from me.

  She moved about three meters before I followed her. As I walked, I kept my eyes on the various columns lining the sides of the temple. The pulsing red lights from the ceiling actually did little to penetrate the darkness beyond the columns, and I expected all kinds of fuckers to jump out and ambush me at any minute.

  The woman in the suit seemed to be ignoring me, and she didn’t turn back to look at me until she had stepped out of the temple. I was still quite a bit behind her, and her eyes narrowed a little.

  “Ohh gahhh,” she said as she pointed off in the distance. I stepped into the doorway of the temple so that I was as far away from her as I could get, and then I looked to where the SAVO woman pointed.

  It was dark outside since the only light came from the stars. My improved eyes worked fine in the lower light, and I could see a grassy slope leading down from the door of the temple. At the bottom of the slope was what looked like an endless throng of people. They knelt before us with their arms raised over their heads as if they were giving praise.

  There were too many people to count, and the even lines where they kneeled seemed to stretch to infinity in all directions. At the front lines, I saw Eve, Zea, Paula, Kasta, Madalena, and Juliette kneeling, but their eyes weren’t fixed on me. They were just staring straight ahead as if they were in a daze.

  “Eye yah!” I heard a shout sound above me, and I looked up to the top of the temple. There was a winged woman perched on the tallest spire, and my mind spun from the familiarity of her silver-gold hair, black wings, and beautiful face.

  “Eye yahhhh!” she shouted again as she gestured to the dark woman standing beside me.

  “Arrrg gahhh,” the SAVO woman’s hand was suddenly wrapped around my bicep, and her nails dug into my skin. She was still looking up at the dark-winged angel on top of the temple, and it felt like she was trying to pull me toward the throng of people.

  “Eye yah!” the winged woman shouted again, and then I realized who she was.

  “Persephone!” I shouted.

  “Ohh gahh,” the woman tugging on my arm growled, and I turned to meet her eyes. She was obviously angry, but her anger seemed directed at the winged woman.

  “Fuck you,” I spat at her half a moment before my left fist smashed into her face.

  The SAVO woman’s claws tore a chunk out of my bicep as she stumbled away from me. She hadn’t expected me to punch her, and so my fist broke her nose with a crisp snapping sound. She fell to the grass, rolled backward, and then sprung up to her feet with a graceful pounce.

  “Gahhhh!” she snarled as she wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her hand. She hunched over into more of a fighting stance, and her eyes began to glow with an evil light.

  “Eye yah!” Persephone said, and then I heard her wings flap. I didn’t have time to look at where she was going because the vampire woman snarled and darted toward me.

  Her left hand arched out in a sweeping movement, and I stepped out of the way. She was fast, and her nails looked long and sharp, but I’d expected her attack, so she missed me by a few centimeters.

  I hopped toward her once her claws missed and punched downward with my right hand. My fist hit her in the left cheek, and she spun aw
ay. I had thought that the attack would have knocked her unconscious, or laid her out, but she used the momentum of my hit to spin around and slice at me with the claws of her right hand. I managed to get my arms up in time to block, but her nails ripped across my forearms as if they were razor blades, and I gasped as blood sprung from the wounds.

  She followed up her spinning strike with another cut from her left hand, but I was quick enough to get out of the way of this one. I kicked out with my left leg as soon as she’d missed her slash, and my foot caught her in the knee. Unlike her face, her knee felt like it was made out of stone.

  But it still crumbled beneath my foot, and she screamed in agony as her leg broke.

  I stepped forward to close the bit of distance between us and tried to elbow her in the face. She raised her arm in time though, and then her claws tore into my flesh at the elbow. A scream escaped my mouth, and I brought my left arm around to punch her low on the body.

  The vampire woman grunted when I hit her in the stomach, but my knuckles broke against her abs. My fist healed almost instantly, but her body felt like it wasn’t flesh anymore, so I wrapped my hands around her wrists so she couldn’t sink her claws into me.

  She was strong, and it took all of my strength to hold onto her while she tried to twist her arms away from me. After she had made two more aborted attempts, she pushed into me, and then tried to bite me on the arm. I was ready for the move, however, and I let go of the arm so that she fell forward a bit farther than she had expected. Next, I brought my elbow down on the back of her skull, drove her head into the grass at our feet, and then dropped a knee into the small part of her back.

  She coughed out a scream against the grass and tried to wiggle free of me, but my fists were already smashing into the back of her head. She stopped thrashing when my third punch broke open her skull, but I didn’t stop punching her until her brains coated my fists like lumpy spaghetti sauce.

  I stood from her body and looked to Persephone. She landed a meter or so from me and gave me the kind of smile that reminded me I was naked. The dark angel was wearing a black lace bodysuit with a lower skirt part that looked to only be attached to the upper suit in a few places. I opened my arms for her, and our lips devoured each other’s as if we hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  It was as if I was in heaven. She wrapped around me like a second skin, and I could feel her endless warmth lull me into a place of contentment. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but here, connected to her.

  “Eye yahhhh,” she moaned when we parted and looked toward the endless crowd of people.

  “Ahh shit,” I cursed as I pulled my arms from around Persephone. I had forgotten about my friends for a few moments, and I ran down the hill toward them. They were still kneeling, and I felt dread fill my stomach as the distance between us grew smaller.

  They weren’t even looking at me run toward them.

  “Hey! I’m here!” I shouted ten or so meters before I made it to them. They still didn’t move, though, and my eyes swept across the line of people. My heart jumped in my throat when I saw who was kneeling next to Madalena.

  My sister and mother.

  “Sis! Mom!” I shouted as I sprinted to them. They were both wearing the simple white outfits the endless crowd wore, and their faces were staring into space as if they were in a daze.

  “I’m here! Hey, what’s wrong with you?” I grabbed my sister’s shoulder and started to shake her. Her body flopped around as if she had no strength, and she fell down on the grass when I let go of her.

  Then I saw the holes on her neck. They dripped blood down onto the collar of her white shirt, and I pulled her back onto her knees. I hadn’t remembered her skin as being so white, but it was almost the color of her shirt, and her mouth was now open.

  Then she started screaming.

  So did Mom.

  So did my friends.

  The sound struck me as an avalanche of terror-filled noise, and I pushed my palms up to my ears to try to mute the shrieks. It didn’t help. If anything, it felt as if the sounds of their screaming were coming from inside of my skull.

  I fell to my knees and pushed my face into the long grass. I realized I was screaming along with the horde of people, and it felt as though I couldn’t stop.

  The grass where I had pushed my face was wet and warm. I smelled and tasted the copper blood, and I raised my face from the ground with a gasp.

  They are all dead.

  Their throats were slit open with violent looking gashes, and my entire vision was filled with the sight of tens of thousands of dead people. The blood poured from them and dyed their white clothes a dark red. I turned away from the bodies of my sister and mother and looked to Madalena, Juliette, Kasta, Paula, Zea, and Eve. They are all dead, and even Kasta had red blood flowing from her throat.

  Their dead eyes stared at me, and I could see their horror.

  “Ohhh gahhh.”

  I turned to look up the hill and saw that the SAVO woman was standing. She held Persephone against her, and the black-winged woman screamed as she tried to escape the other woman’s grasp.

  “No!” I shouted as I sprinted back up the hill.

  “Eye yah!” Persephone screamed, and the other woman began laughing. It was a dark, guttural sound that filled my chest with dread.

  I glanced up as I ran and saw the SAVO woman staring down at me. Her eyes glowed an evil red, and she let out one last cackle.

  Then she bit into Persephone’s perfect neck and tore a hand-sized chunk of flesh out.

  “No!” I screamed as the winged woman reached up to her throat. The blood gushed out of it like a hose, and she let out a surprised gurgle. The SAVO bitch pushed her away, and Persephone fell to the ground in a heap of twitching black wings.

  “You fucking bi--” I shouted as I slammed into the obsidian-haired woman. My hands tore at her face, and I willed myself to change into my tiger-man form.

  But I couldn’t change.

  I was one of them.

  “Ohhh gaww,” the woman growled as our arms grabbed each other. I leaned to my left as we grappled and I tried to force her down to the grass where I could pummel her again.

  I had never wanted to kill someone so much.

  “Ohh gahhh,” she hissed, and Persephone’s blood dribbled out of her mouth.

  “Fuck you! You killed them. I’ll kill you!” I had felt strong against her before, but I wasn’t able to force her down to the ground anymore. It seemed like I was trying to tackle a mountain.

  “No, Adammmm,” she hissed as she smiled. “Youuuu kiiiilled theemmm.”

  My heart skipped a beat, and my body went numb. I was frozen with shock, and the woman used the opportunity to capture me with a bear hug. She looked too small to fit her arms around my chest, but she somehow did, and I could feel her start to squeeze the air out of my lungs.

  “Your bitchesss dieddd tooo sssavve yoooouuu,” she growled through smiling teeth. “But now you are mine.”

  Then the dark woman kissed my neck, and I could feel her teeth pierce my flesh with a mixture of agony and pleasure.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” I screamed as I jumped out of her arms.

  But her arms were really the sheets of my bed, and I was alone in my room.

  “Fuck,” I sighed as I fought against the fear cascading down my spine.

  I was covered in sweat, and the terror was causing my body to shiver as if I was back on Nordar - 13 - a.

  I untangled myself from my sheets and let out a long sigh. That nightmare felt more than real, and the details of it were clear in my mind. I knew I often had dreams, but they became harder to remember once I woke up, so I did my best to try to commit the details of this one to my memory while I untangled myself from my sheets.

  “Eye yahhh,” I heard a whisper in my ear as soon as the bed sheets were off my body, and I stopped my movement. I felt her breath in my ear, but I couldn’t smell anything besides the scent of Zea’s, Eve’s, and my passion.

  “Persephone?�
�� I asked without turning my head around to look behind me.

  “Eye yah,” she whispered again, and I felt hands slide under my arms and circle my bare chest. Her touch caused the terror to leave my body, and my muscles instantly relaxed. I actually did slump backward, and her body pressed against the skin of my back.

  I risked a look down to my chest and saw her arms around me. Her sleeves were made of the black lace material I recalled from the dream, and her smooth, creamy skin seemed to glow in the empty spaces of the fabric. Her fingers rested against my pectoral muscles, and I reached up with my own hands so I could cup hers. I expected her to disappear as soon as I touched her, and I let out a short exhale of surprise when I felt her skin beneath my palms.

  “It was a nightmare,” I said since I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Eye yah,” she said, but I couldn’t tell if that was her agreeing or disagreeing with me.

  “It wasn’t that crazy bitch trying to send me a message, was it?” I asked.

  I felt Persephone’s head lean against the back part of my neck, and she sighed.

  “How do they know about me?” I asked, but Persephone just squeezed me tighter.

  “How do they--” I turned to my bed to ask her, but her hands disappeared from under mine, and the feeling of her head against my neck was instantly gone. I didn’t see anyone behind me in my bed, nor did I see any pressure on the mattress where she would have kneeled to hold me.

  “It would be a lot easier if you weren’t so bashful,” I snickered as I got up from my bed and walked to my bathroom. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but I was in desperate need of a shower, and it only took half a moment to get the water to the exact temperature I wanted.

  I replayed the dream in my head a half dozen times as I tried to puzzle through its meaning. Finally, I made a note to talk to Eve about it. She would probably be able to decipher a meaning from it. Even if she couldn’t see the beautiful woman Eve would probably know how to relieve my fears. The words the SAVO said bothered me, but that could have just been my own subconscious mind trying to warn me.

  Instead, I thought of Zea and Eve. The memories of our last bout of lovemaking pushed my nightmare to the back of my mind, and I spent the remainder of my time in the shower recalling all the pleasure we had given each other. I was beyond grateful to see them again, and I ensured they each knew of that fact six or so times.