Superluminary Read online

  Powered Destinies: Superluminary

  Powered Destinies Book 1

  Olivia Rising

  Powered Destinies: Superluminary

  Powered Destinies Book 1

  Previously published as ‘Transition’ and ‘Escalation’, books 1 and 2 of the Anathema series

  Copyright © 2014 Olivia Rising / Chrysalis. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Damon Za

  https://damonza.com/

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  http://polgarusstudio.com/

  To hear about new book releases by Olivia Rising, visit her website at http://oliviarising.com/list

  Table of Contents

  1.0 Prologue

  1.1 Mascot

  1.2 Mascot

  1.3 Mascot

  1.4 Mascot

  1.5 Mascot

  2.1 Dancer

  2.2 Dancer

  2.3 Dancer

  2.4 Dancer

  2.5 Dancer

  2.6 Dancer

  2.7 Interlude (Mrs. Clarence)

  3.1 Radiant

  3.2 Radiant

  3.3 Radiant

  3.4 Radiant

  3.5 Radiant

  3.6 Interlude (DJ)

  4.1 Investigation

  4.2 Investigation

  4.3 Investigation

  4.4 Investigation

  4.5 Investigation

  4.6 Investigation

  4.7 Investigation

  5.1 Escalation

  5.2 Escalation

  5.3 Escalation

  5.4 Escalation

  5.5 Escalation

  5.6 Escalation

  5.7 Escalation

  5.8 Interlude (Samael)

  6.1 Emergence

  6.2 Emergence

  6.3 Emergence

  6.4 Emergence

  6.5 Emergence

  6.6 Emergence

  6.7 Emergence

  6.8 Emergence

  6.9 Interlude (Kid)

  7.1 Beacon

  7.2 Beacon

  7.3 Beacon

  7.4 Beacon

  7.5 Beacon

  7.6 Beacon

  7.7 Beacon

  7.8 Beacon

  1.0 Prologue

  Kavali in Andhra Pradesh, India

  Thursday, the 3rd of May, 2012

  6:15 a.m.

  The day that changed everything

  A thousand voices called out to the world’s only Healer in a rhythmic chant. The Buddhist temple’s ancient wooden doors muffled the words, but Shanti recognized the hymn’s cadence. A bhajan, a song intended for the divine.

  But I’m human, she thought, padding to the temple’s entrance with bare feet. Don’t they know I’m as mortal as they are?

  All of the commotion made her feel self-conscious. In some ways she longed for the early days after her transition, back when most people still recognized her as the young singer who had just begun to blaze her path in Bollywood. Back before international leaders had declared her powers an unprecedented phenomenon. Back before mass media became a part of her everyday life, reporting everything she did to millions of followers worldwide. Whether she liked it or not, she was now the focus of a prophecy that she had never even heard about. Not until the press knocked on her door.

  The chants grew louder, amplifying the dull ache in her head which had hounded her ever since she opened her eyes that morning. She leaned against one of the temple’s stone walls, feverish and dizzy. She could tell that something was wrong. The growing pressure in her head was unlike any of her past headaches. She hadn’t felt anything like it since….

  “Shanti! Shanti!” The voices of the destitute and dying interrupted her thoughts.

  The people out there needed her. Unlike many of them, she could still stand on her own two feet. She could still put one foot in front of the other. So she did.

  The jingling of the silver bells around her ankles alerted the orange-robed monks stationed at the temple entrance. As they bowed their heads at her approach, she joined her hands together in greeting. They returned the gesture before scurrying to open the temple doors for her.

  Ignoring the pounding in her head, she adjusted the drape of her sari and prepared to face the people who had traveled all this way to put their last few ounces of faith in her.

  A ripple went through the crowd as the massive wooden doors creaked open. Shanti suppressed a gasp as she stepped out into the warm morning air. Today’s crowd was larger than ever before, expanding ahead of her as a sea of faces, hands, and bodies reached well beyond the main courtyard. She should have been used to so much sickness and injury by now, but the sight of them all still made her heart ache. They came from all over the world to beseech her for a cure. And the more she cured, the more they came.

  The sea of petitioners began at the base of the temple steps, where the most desperate cases lay on handspun blankets or, more often, the dusty ground. There were cripples and invalids, malnourished children with cleft palates, and elderly beggars with twisted limbs. Some had been carried there by desperate loved ones, but many others had made the grueling journey alone. Near the back of the crowd were those who, mercifully, still had the strength to stand. Blind men, barren women, orphans who were ravaged by parasites. A sea of humanity in an endless wave of suffering.

  “Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!”

  Those who were able raised their hands in a gesture of unity and praise. There wasn't any pushing or roughness because they knew the Healer would save them all in turn.

  As Shanti descended the stone steps, her vision blurred and the chants morphed into a deafening buzz. Dizziness overcame her like a tidal wave, but the sickening feeling gifted her with a new kind of vision. She was overwhelmed with an awareness of all the life around her—people, flowers, insects—they all sparkled like a myriad of stars in her mind’s eye, each as pristine and bright as the last, dazzling and pulsing with life.

  Is this how the gods see the world? she wondered, caught in the magic of the moment.

  The dizziness passed as suddenly as it had come. As Shanti’s vision shifted back to normal, she found herself standing in the middle of the temple steps. The stone felt colder than usual against her bare feet, meaningless and dead. Whatever revelation had momentarily passed through her was gone. An intense awareness told her all eyes were on her. Had they seen what she had seen? Experienced what she’d felt? No, they couldn’t have. The looks on their faces hadn’t changed while they waited for their touch of divinity. Waited for her.

  The children needed her the most, following her with wide eyes and brave smiles. For them, Shanti pushed her headache aside and assembled a smile of her own. She descended the last few steps with cautious deliberateness, shrugging off her nausea as she went. Hands reached out to her, brushing the hem of her sari, while others held out fruit and flowers as offerings. It still baffled her, but she would do her best not to disappoint them.

  Her attention fell on a boy without any legs, sitting on a blanket while his useless hands were coiled in front of his meager chest like disfigured talons. His face lit up when he noticed her gazing at him. The crowd fell silent, eager to hear her words and witness her miracles.

  “What’s your name?” she asked him.

  “Devaj Jayaraman,” he replied, her attention causing a look of pride to wash across his face.

  “Namaste, Devaj,” she said. “Did you travel far to come see me today?”

  The boy nodded with enthusiasm. “My father carried me on his back for three days. He wants to s
ee if you can give me new hands, so that I can feed myself and help the family.”

  Shanti looked at the man who knelt beside Devaj. He weighed little more than his son, and looked close to death himself.

  Shanti awakened her power to examine the pair. Her senses opened to the steady beating of their hearts, the flow of blood through their veins, and whatever life was left pulsing through them. Her senses discovered that the father’s lungs were suffocated with toxins.

  A coal miner, she deduced. She had seen many others like him, and suspected many more would come.

  Devaj and his father looked like they hadn’t eaten well lately. The boy’s atrophied hands and missing legs were defects from birth, though the scars and scabs that covered his stumps were a result from trying to pull himself across the ground without help.

  Please let me heal this boy and his father, Shanti prayed. She had delivered such healing hundreds of times before, but each time was a new miracle. She refused to take them for granted.

  She channeled her power to ease the father’s cough and heal the scabs hidden beneath the boy’s robe. After that, she focused all of her effort on releasing the boy’s fingers from their paralysis and giving strength to his useless hands, but, as the boy’s fingers unfurled, the feeling which had captured her before washed over her senses again. The pulsing of the Earth beneath her feet became deafening. Sensing every quiver of butterfly wing, every flutter of banyan leaf in the breeze, every single breath of life, she wondered if this was part of her power or something else.

  Devaj’s hands grew strong while his feeble chest filled out with flesh, and new legs appeared in place of his stumps as his skin took on a healthy glow. Any trace of weakness vanished from his father as the toxins left his lungs. The result was more than a healing. It was as if reality itself had been reshaped, recasting father and son in a perfect mold. Unlike ever before, Shanti’s power spread and expanded without her active involvement. The reshaping of their bodies happened faster than she was able to comprehend with full effect. It was as if she was at the center of a tornado, in the eye of an invisible storm, descending across the courtyard, touching and changing everything alive.

  Perfection.

  A gasp of awe went through the crowd as the boy and his father went through their miraculous transformations. Onlookers took up their chanting again, their fervent recitative echoing off the temple’s stone walls.

  Shanti didn’t hear any of it because her mind was filled with more awareness than she could hope to process while her power expanded. Life stirred, surged, and reshaped itself within the immense aura of her power. Every living thing in the village spoke to her, sung to her, and celebrated the beauty of life with her. Dormant seeds came into full bloom while withered trees were restored to perfect condition. Farmers in their fields and merchants in their shops were cured of blemishes and diseases.

  So beautiful, was her last thought before the ground gave way beneath her.

  When she came to, she was on her knees while surrounded by thousands of cheering petitioners who were each a picture of perfect health. Flowers and vines now cascaded down the courtyard’s walls as the wind carried a heavy scent of fruit and flowers from the fields surrounding the village. Distant voices called out in awe and surprise.

  Devaj was next to her, kneeling with his new strong legs beneath him, while his father uttered the names of various divine beings. Soon everyone around him joined in the prayer and praise, celebrating the Healer with religious fervor.

  Please, stop, she wanted to tell them, but she was too horrified to speak. Something had happened today, something so enormous and significant she didn’t even want to consider how the mass media would portray this … this event. The energy force she had felt had more power than any human being should ever possess.

  Shanti was afraid for the world.

  1.1 Mascot

  Averton, Washington, USA

  Saturday, the 26th of May, 2012

  7:26 p.m.

  It was one of those evenings that started out pleasant. None of the Chungs had an inkling about how it was going to end. It was Helen’s homecoming day, an occasion worth celebrating, and everyone had gathered around the dinner table to give her the spotlight.

  She was, after all, the one Chung daughter who had been accepted into Harvard.

  Chris observed her family’s familiar interaction patterns with amusement. She more or less had ceased to exist the moment her older sister had stepped through the front door, which was nothing unusual. Helen was the sun her parents revolved around. Chris was more like a distant comet, drifting along the edges of the family universe, always trying to avoid a collision course.

  At least Barney still loves me more, she mused, glancing down at the German Shepherd who was resting his head on her sneakers.

  Over the dinner table, her mother cooed over every little word Helen said, even if she just requested for the salt shaker to be passed to her. Her father dug out all of his old cop jokes for Helen’s boyfriend, Ryan. They all looked so happy, so caught up in their discussion of Helen’s East Coast adventures that Chris felt no urge to interrupt. Ryan had been her BFF once—only a couple years ago, actually—but then he met her sister and everything changed. Chris could tell that her mother was already seeing him as a potential son-in-law.

  Good for them, she told herself, trying not to care. She would find another BFF eventually. The dog could be the fill-in in the meantime.

  “Ryan, dear, how is your mother? I’ve been meaning to drop by and see her,” Chris’s mom fussed.

  “She’s fine, Mrs. Chung,” Ryan answered in that appeasing tone he used since he and Helen had hooked up. “Thanks for asking.”

  As if right on cue the attention turned to Helen once again. “How is your research going?” Chris’s father asked, passing the corn cobs to Helen. “I heard you’re writing an article about power surges and that Shanti person in India.”

  “Professor Greene suggested the idea,” Helen replied, gracefully extending her hand to help support the platter. “The effect of transitions on world politics has been discussed everywhere, and surges are transitions of a larger scale. The total number of Evolved humans worldwide peaked at three hundred late last year. If surges are the next step up, then they’re going to have an even bigger impact on the international community than Prophet’s transition did in 2010.”

  Everyone’s talking about powers these days, Chris thought, using the distraction to slip Barney another morsel under the table. No one’s trying to solve world hunger anymore.

  “Helen, is your article getting published in one of those science magazines?” her mother asked eagerly.

  Helen daintily waved a hand, dismissing the statement. “Probably not. I’m not a scientist, Mom. I just ask questions and try to find answers for them.”

  “And you’re very good at it,” her father said. “It’s a shame I couldn’t recruit you for the police academy.”

  And now we’re back to cop jokes, Chris observed.

  Having heard all of those before, her attention wandered. She settled back in her chair, passing a glance over the decorations she had prepared for Helen’s homecoming: a garland of silk flowers along the banister leading up to the second floor, potted chrysanthemums on the small ledge above the sideboard, and, hanging on the wall behind her sister’s chair, the collage of family photos she crafted late Thursday night when she should have been doing her calculus homework. She had combed through the box of family photos, avoiding any recent images with stuffed animals, car seats, or baby bottles in the background. Her family was in a happy mood right now, and any memorabilia from Dylan’s short life would have spoiled it.

  She sighed before diverting her eyes to the oversized Chinese lantern hanging above the dining room table. It was her mother’s homage to their family’s supposed diversity, even though their Seattle-born father was as American as their fair-haired Midwestern mother.

  “…Preacher’s sect, which has gained millions of
followers since Shanti’s power surge,” Helen was saying, responding to a question Chris had missed. “The fact that Shanti’s range has increased to a mile provided a boost to his Godkin theory. More and more people are worshipping Evolved humans as divine beings.”

  “That’s a little scary, isn’t it?” Chris’s mother said. “If those ‘Godkin’ gained enough supporters, they could do so much harm to our democratic society….”

  “Fox News did a two-hour special on Preacher last Saturday,” Ryan said. “His Guides of Destiny sect is believed to be some new kind of religion. Mostly harmless.”

  “I missed the special,” Chris’s father said. “I’ve heard that Preacher is one of those nutty evangelists who prey on the uneducated. One of the cops called him a ‘pitchfork priest.’” He chuckled at the term, clearly pleased to try out some new jargon.

  “Was it Paul who said that?” Chris broke in, speaking for the first time since they had sat down to the table. “The traffic cop who dates his cousin?”

  “Christina!” her mother hissed, shooting her a disapproving look that said, Why must you always bring up unpleasant things at the dinner table? The room fell silent for a long awkward stretch of time, with only the faint scraping of Helen’s fork and the ticking of the grandfather clock filling it.

  Whoops. Chris shrank a little. She only meant to point out that Paul’s ideas and opinions were a little unconventional, but, now that her words were out, she couldn’t take them back. Ryan sent her a small half-smile across the table, apparently unoffended.

  Helen salvaged the situation by reaching for her father’s forearm and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Have you sent out the invitations for your birthday party yet?”

  The conversation picked back up, and, as usual, Chris felt like a dork in Helen’s presence. Her older sister had been gifted with a special kind of charisma which easily drew attention, and, to top it all off, she had inherited that particular mix of Caucasian and Chinese genes—almond eyes, silky black hair, long shapely legs—that weren’t just attractive, but gorgeous.