Into another world, p.1
Into Another World, page 1
Into Another World
The Elusive Child Book 1
N. D. Shack
Copyright © 2022 by Naomi Shack
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of quotations in a book review.
“Into Another World” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover illustration and design by Adrian Smith
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
About Author
Chapter 1
Jonas’ arms hurt. Although he had always taken a short break during the twenty minutes in which he had stirred the cream and then used the other arm, his muscles were cramping more and more. Sweat ran in small droplets over his forehead, and he blinked hard to banish the sweaty tears from his eyes. This insane work was not comparable to the training hours in the gym. The money he had saved for the set of various kitchen appliances, including a blender, had been squandered by his life partner Alexandra behind his back. Jonas watched her out of the corner of his eye. She was eating the pickled ham with sauerkraut that he had cooked earlier. Burps escaped her mouth as she gulped down the food.
He hadn’t eaten yet and just arrived home from work when Alex asked for dinner. Jonas had gotten up earlier than usual to have the meat and vegetable cooking in a pot over a low flame before work. During the lunch break, he had stopped by briefly to put the potatoes to a boil and had only required her to take the potatoes off the stove in time to peel them. Naturally, she had not done so, and the potatoes had turned into an unappetizing mush. Alexandra had again come up with excuses for why she had neglected to take care of the potatoes. He didn’t care and had put on a new batch of potatoes. To save himself time and trouble, he had decided to postpone his meal until later and had started to prepare dessert.
Suddenly, as if by magic, the molecular structure of the white mass changed. It became firmer, and the resistance increased rapidly. Jonas stopped stirring. The cream was whipped. Finally. After half an hour of hard work. He would have to spare his arm muscles tomorrow when he visited the gym. He would just concentrate on the leg muscles.
Jonas went to the basement to get one of the big buckets of ice cream from the freezer. Today, Alexandra wanted vanilla. He emptied half of the bucket into one of the cleaned large salad bowls. He smiled disdainfully as he remembered that his girlfriend almost never ate salad and avoided vegetables like the plague. She pretended to be a nutrition expert to her friends.
He didn’t feel like making the ice cream pretty—he was dead-tired and just wanted to get it all over with. He stirred the ice cream roughly and poured the whipped cream on top, missing some of it. Likewise, he caught a few drops with his finger and tasted it. It was delicious.
However, when Alexandra tasted it, she twisted her mouth. “You didn’t put any sugar in the cream!” Jonas reared up in front of her. “As a self-proclaimed culinary expert, you should know that the neutral taste of cream goes better with sweet ice cream. There is an unwritten rule to keep the balance between the different flavors.” He tried to keep his flaring anger under control. She smiled at him with confidence and said, “There are no rules, my dear. It’s all a matter of taste.” To which he countered, “It’s funny that you don’t have that attitude when someone does something you don’t like. At the drugstore, you even tell your girlfriends what color nail polish they’re allowed to buy.” Jonas clenched his jaw. “How would you know that? And besides, I would never tell anyone anything!” said Alexandra in the voice of an innocent lamb. He shrugged his shoulders and started washing the dishes from which she had eaten the pork earlier.
How he hated her kind. This know-it-all attitude and the smug smile. She couldn’t admit any mistakes, and always found a way to have the last word and get her way. When she realized, she was going to lose a debate, she always changed the subject. He should have run for the hills when she bragged to him about how she could manipulate the conversations with her then therapist so that she, as the patient, ended up asking the questions. “The psychological reversal game” she had called it at that time and smiled disgustingly arrogant. He had been so stupid as to get involved with her. He had done it out of fear of loneliness—and because he had been a virgin at the time and had no idea about relationships with women. In those years with Alexandra, he had witnessed a lot. The many episodic text messages saying that she had been diagnosed with cancer, only to tell him later that it had been a false alarm. Broken bones that seemed to have no visible impact on her daily life. Many, many hospitalizations for all sorts of ailments that turned out to be nothing. When he had confronted her about it, she had confessed to him in a sad voice that she was semi-autistic and had a split personality. Autism was a spectrum you could be on, he had replied at the time, and she made it seem as if autism was an ethnicity or race to which you could belong in whole or in part. She had then immediately changed the subject. Jonas had considered ending the relationship at the time but had turned tail for fear of the agonizing loneliness and emptiness in his life. Besides, she owed him money. Too much money. He wanted it back.
He turned to Alexandra and looked at her big head from the side. She often boasted about her high IQ, which was supposed to be the reason for her massive skull. Lately, he imagined himself making that skull unrecognizable, like a pumpkin on Halloween. In other daydreams, he chased it through the nearby forest with a chainsaw. He grinned as he thought of the 1974 movie “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” In contrast to the blonde who survived at the end of the movie, Alexandra always died a gruesome death. A death he enjoyed to the fullest. Guilt always gripped him after one of those episodes.
His gaze wandered over her hair, which lay tightly against her enormous cranium. An insatiable lust for murder seized him. He grimaced, grabbed the wooden spoon with which he had just whipped the cream, and now slammed it full force against Alexandra’s head. “Ouch, watch it!” she screamed, but didn’t turn around. As abruptly as the anger had come, he calmed down and muttered “Sorry,” glad that she didn’t seem to notice that he had done it on purpose. She rubbed her head. “Oh man. That’s going to bruise. Looks like I’ll have to call in sick tomorrow” she said without a trace of regret in her voice. It was Friday again anyway. She almost always called in sick on Fridays. You could place bets on that. She had dropped out of school many years ago and started two apprenticeships, but she had dropped out of those, too. She then had the idea of catching up on her high school diploma and studying medicine, but nothing would come of it if she constantly took a long weekend. He shook his head and turned to clean the rest of the cutlery. He was not hungry.
Chapter 2
Elgalion preferred to be naked when he was sent on one of his missions. The elf was a lunatic among lunatics. He was swallowing the blood of one of his dead victims, and it flowed from his mouth. The red liquid dripped onto the floor and collected in a puddle that spread toward the entrance of the chamber. The floor had to be slightly crooked, he thought. He ignored the woman standing behind him for another ten minutes as he went to work on the girl’s liver. How he loved that sweetish taste. When he finally turned to the other woman, he smiled at her.
It was Erwyn with her copper-colored hair and angry sparkling eyes that were the color of the sky on a rainy afternoon. There were so many freckles covering her pale skin that it looked tanned. She had once been beautiful, but the bitterness that came with her profession had hardened her features. Furthermore, she reminded him so much of his mother, who had done unspeakable things to Him. In her face, he saw the countless centuries that had passed her by. He did not understand her disgust for her profession. She should love it as much as he did. She had once been his lover, back in the early days of their work in the syndicate. She had left him after learning of his repulsive sexual proclivities. The cannibalism and desecration of corpses was the pinnacle of his perversion. She shook her head in disgust.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked him, looking at him fervently. He chuckled. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Don’t you have an ounce of imagination? How can you not have fun with what we’re doing? That’s just the way I am…” He brushed back a strand of his dark blond hair. A trickle of blood ran down between his eyes. It contrasted with the rich, dark green of his eyes.
Elgalion had not heard the language of his people for months. His mission had taken him through the fortresses of many influential human families. Every person in the castle he was currently in was dead. His initial mission had failed, and he had been forced to kill them all. All the guards, men, women, and children were dead. Some he had killed with his blade, while others he had drained of life energy so that they simply fell over dead. This robbery of life energy ensured that his skin was free of wrinkles. Especially at the age of almost eight hundred years. His beauty had never faded. The girl he was eating from had been one of the chamber maids. He placed a hand on her cooling chest and squeezed it. Erwyn spat on the floor in front of him.
“Our master wants to see you. Stand up,” she said, not trying to keep the contempt out of her voice. He looked at her and for the first time anger flared up inside him. She couldn’t just give him orders like that. He thought of killing her, but they were equal in battle with the blade. He had eaten so much that it reduced his chance of victory. His eyes darted to the two daggers hanging from her belt. Carrying two weapons was her style. Elgalion turned away from his mark and walked past her to the nearest portal.
***
What kind of monster are you? Was that supposed to be a rhetorical question? His master’s voice bored into his head like a hot needle.
Elgalion stood in the study of his master Rulliobh. He was not entirely of this world. Not quite an elf. Strange demonic blood flowed through his veins. He was one of the half-breeds torn between worlds. The salmon-colored hair and eyes with slit pupils immediately gave this away. Rulliobh was the master over his group of assassins. Elven families of wealth, counts and countesses, referred to as the syndicate, owed allegiance to him, for he protected them from outside threats. Apparently, he had sent Erwyn and other agents to keep an eye on Elgalion. His behavior had caused too much of a stir.
Elgalion threw himself on the ground, and his head and bare skin trembled as they touched the cold stone floor. “My Master, my Master… These murders are an art to me. Only in this way can I calm the restlessness that rages in my soul. Death, as the others bring it, is extraordinarily expressionless, stale, and boring. I do not understand why they do not feel joy in their self-chosen vocation. Please forgive me, for I have angered you.”
Rulliobh made a fleeting hand gesture that brought Elgalion back to his feet.
“I have waited for this day for all these centuries. All these years I have struggled with myself, but now I am confident. You are the one the prophecy spoke of. The naked assassin. The one whose black heart is ruled by madness. Your sick mind allows you to tread paths where others would immediately return. You have killed more than anyone here, you defy death, and you show the greatest passion for your missions. Sometimes in excess.”
The master underlined the last sentence with a laugh.
“I want you to travel to one of the other worlds. A world where the buildings are angular, misshapen, and carved out of stone and glass. It is a deeply corrupt world. The poisonous ether there will wither your beauty. You cannot spend weeks and months there as you usually do on your missions. You must find this woman.
Rulliobh flicked his finger and a small and perfectly square piece of parchment slid across the floor toward Elgalion. He picked it up and rubbed his thumb over the mirror-smooth surface. On the parchment was one of the most lifelike paintings he had ever seen. “Wow,” he whispered, wondering what artist was capable of such a thing. The painting showed a fat, blonde human woman who was still very young. Her head was massive, much too large for her body. The master called her name, and it sounded so hideously foreign to his ears that Elgalion had to make an obvious effort to remember it.
“It is not a painting”, his master said. “These people possess a strange form of magic to accomplish such a thing. Anyway, you must kill her and all the people she is close to. Any of her friends. You’ll find a way. You’re smart. I will open a portal in seven days. Prepare yourself and I will summon you when the time is right. You can go now.”
Elgalion stood up and bowed deeply before hurrying away.
The week passed quickly, and soon Elgalion was given clothes to wear during his mission. They were very soft and of an unusually good material. He liked them despite their completely foreign design. Each garment, trousers, shirt, jacket, and even the shoes were adorned with three thick white stripes. He wondered if there was some religious meaning behind it. In any case, Rulliobh thought he would not attract attention in the other world.
Soon his master appeared before him.
“You must not take off these clothes if you want to blur in with the crowd, as far as your beauty permits. You will not speak to anyone. Here is the map. Follow the red line. Once inside the building, kill them instantly. After that, you must find her relatives and friends and hunt them down. Take this stone. You have two days to complete the mission, once the time is up my portal will automatically open and bring you back here.”
His master gave Elgalion a warning look and lifted his chin with a clawed finger. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Elgalion remembered the nights they had spent together all those centuries ago. His master’s lips curled into a smile as he read his thoughts. Mischief shone in his eyes.
“Soon… Now go. Don’t disappoint me.”
The bright colors of a portal swirled around Elgalion, and before he knew it, his feet landed on hard ground. The surface he stood on was almost black and seemed to be made of stone. The texture, however, was too smooth and regular to be of natural origin. He looked up into the dark sky and cold, heavy rain splashed down on him. A metal carriage approached him. No horse was harnessed to it, and it rushed towards him in a frantic place. He dodged it, jumped back with a somersault, and landed smoothly on the sidewalk. A loud noise, similar to that of a trumpet, escaped the carriage and a man inside yelled “What the hell, man?!” before it disappeared into the distance. All that remained of the carriage’s presence was a vile stench. Elgalion watched the carriage for a moment before looking at his master’s map. He could not read the characters of the street names, but he memorized the shapes and soon found the corresponding streets. When he set out, the sky was already pitch black. Not a single star was in sight. Rulliobh was right. This world was spoiled. Back home in his world, the day had just begun, the sun was rising above the horizon and the birds were chirping. Every morning he watched the brilliance of the morning star. Elgalion pulled the hood of his strange jacket over his face and hurried along the street.
Soon he reached the house, an ugly block surrounded by trimmed bushes. He didn’t even have to use his art of breaking in because the front door was already open. A man’s very loud voice seemed to come from the middle of the house. He knew that some people were unruly, but this was clearly going too far. The voice swallowed every other sound, which was in his favor. Ducking, he crept down the hall and entered the room from which the voice came. No one was there. Instead, a luminous rectangle, resembling a window, rose above the sofas of some kind of salon. It showed the image of a man, and it moved. It was the man’s voice that he had perceived. The man paid no attention to him and just kept talking. Elgalion approached the rectangle and touched it with a finger. An electric charge dove from the surface into his finger, and the pain made him flinch. He turned away from the strange thing and began searching the rest of the house. He had to be able to find the human here; after all, she had left the front door open.
***
“Die!” Jonas didn’t stop screaming those words as he jammed the kitchen knife into her over and over again. He would never get used to that ghastly sound; the wet crunch of metal against flesh. “I thought we were in love,” Alexandra whispered. A gurgle escaped her throat and her eyes rolled back. Blood pooled in her lungs and trachea. He stopped for a moment and stared at her. Her previously irregular and frantic breaths now went in a mechanical rhythm. That was just her brain stem doing its work. He sighed, lost his balance, fell to the side and came to rest at the side of his dying girlfriend. His hand still clung around the handle of his knife. The blade was still buried deep in her flesh. Her once blue T-shirt was now stained purple by all the blood. A red puddle gathered in the lawn of the garden. He heard footsteps approaching, but he just didn’t care. It was only a matter of time before he was caught. He did not know how it had begun, but now he was here, drenched in his lover’s blood and filled with guilt. He turned his head to see if it were one of the cursed nosy neighbors. Instead, there stood a man he had never seen before. He looked handsome, albeit strange. The features were unusually arched, though even. “That was my prey,” the man said in a foreign accent. Jonas caught sight of the pointed ears peeking out from between the dark blond hair. Halloween, he thought, and lost consciousness.
