Main Cast List
Amelia (daughter of Erik and Abby Novalik – vampire)
Eva (daughter of Azazel and Tamara – druid/lamia/vampire)
Herakles (creation of Ta’Zan – Faulty)
Raphael (creation of Ta’Zan – Perfect)
Riza (daughter of Horatio and Aisha Drizan– jinni)
Taeral (son of Sherus and Nuriya – fae-jinni)
Varga (son of Ashbik and Ruby Goode – vampire-sentry)
Family tree
If you’d like to check out the Novaks’ family tree, visit: www.forrestbooks.com/tree
Varga
A year had passed since the Blackout.
That’s what we called the mass memory wiper pulse that deleted the memories of tens of thousands of Perfects and about a thousand Arch-Perfects on Strava. A year since we’d brought Ta’Zan’s reign of terror to an abrupt end. For a while, a few of us thought we might not make it.
Ta’Zan wasn’t some run-of-the-mill overlord. He was intelligent, more so than most. He was ruthless and determined. Heartless and bitter, spiteful and proud. That pride was his downfall, in the end. Ta’Zan couldn’t accept that there were people out there who would stand up to him and his nearly invincible soldiers. That we’d stop at nothing to bring him down and secure the freedom of our own worlds, when all he wanted to do was wipe us all out and replace us with his so-called Perfects.
In the end, Ta’Zan was just another guy with way too much power on his hands. Even we’d believed him to be invincible, until we found cracks in his armor—Faulties he’d abandoned who turned against him, and Perfects who saw past his delusion of an ideal society. We all had a right to live, no matter what our genes were made of, and we fought hard for that right. We won.
Now, Strava was nearly unrecognizable. Three species inhabited this planet, peacefully and in complete harmony, because they accepted one another as living beings. We’d built a GASP base here, too, right on top of what had once been Ta’Zan’s home. It was our way of giving him the middle finger, even beyond death.
The GASP founders were, of course, back with their families and loved ones. None of them considered taking another vacation anytime soon—their last one hadn’t turned out so well.
I frequently visited Strava, mostly to help with GASP affairs. We had loads of Perfect and Faulty recruits, and sometimes, additional trainers were needed to prep them for field missions. They were all bright and willing to learn, humble, yet determined. I liked that about them. It felt as though I had a bunch of clean canvases to paint on—to shape and color as I wished. Needless to say, most of the recruits I worked with were fast-tracked into agent positions. I found the pride stemming from that to be quite addictive.
We were due to begin our first GASP annual council meeting. We had a smaller one every month, but the yearly one was key. It highlighted successes and failures, with some of the founders present to help us do better in the future. Like Derek always said, to every problem, there was a solution. It was only a matter of analyzing the facts and designing the right course of action. Fortunately, our GASP performance so far had been stellar. I liked to think it had something to do with the epic scare that was the entire Ta’Zan episode. It made us all stronger and wiser. Better at making the right choice, no matter how difficult it could be.
Our Stravian GASP base was led by Raphael, Douma, Dmitri, and Herakles, with assistance from several senior agents from The Shade, myself included. Each of the three nations were represented: Douma, for the Perfects and Arch-Perfects, Rakkhan, for the Draenir, and Amal and Amane, for the Faulties. At this yearly council meeting, the nation leaders were present, too. We had a lot to go over, and most of it was good.
The trauma that Ta’Zan had left behind was going to take longer to heal, as far as the Faulties and the Draenir were concerned. They remembered everything, unlike the Perfects and the Arch-Perfects, whose memories had vanished in the Blackout. In fact, the only Perfect left standing after that was Raphael. For some reason, he, too, could still remember it all. Everyone else had to be retrained and reeducated, minus Ta’Zan’s indoctrination videos, of course.
Strava had developed beautifully. Diamond was still the main resource used in construction, so all the cities shone in the sunlight. Towers that reached for the sky twinkled in the distance. Hundreds of cities rose on the larger islands, while modest towns and villages occupied the small archipelagos. Nothing was too much or in any way invasive for the environment. They all respected nature and built their settlements accordingly.
Strava’s serium deposits had become a valuable commodity, and we’d established some intergalactic trade routes to send some to Eritopia, Neraka, and The Shade, as well. The beauty of serium was its ability to store natural energy from thunderstorms. The mineral could easily replace electrical systems completely, and harnessing serium power was environmentally friendly.
And being environmentally friendly had become a priority for The Shade and Earth, given the past century’s developments. More and more supernaturals were coming to Earth, and that required additional resources on our part. We couldn’t just send everyone back, not after all the hard work that had gone into establishing peaceful relations between the other-dimensional species and the humans. So, serium minerals were the perfect way to satisfy the need for energy in our world.
“Long time no see!” Herakles’s voice rammed through my train of thought, followed by a heavy, albeit friendly, slap on the back.
Suddenly, I was back in this wonderful present, standing in the middle of the hallway. Ahead, past the diamond walls, was the meeting room. With my True Sight, I could see who had already arrived for the council meeting. Raphael, Derek and Sofia, Douma and Dmitri, Rakkhan, and Wallah, who would soon take his place. His pipsqueak figure was quite recognizable.
Herakles was beaming at me. I was fond of the dude, too, particularly since he’d let his hair grow a little. Granted, he looked a lot fiercer with a bald head, but I, for one, appreciated the short black buzzcut better—and a lot of the ladies did, too.
“I’ve been here for a week,” I shot back. “We literally saw each other yesterday.”
“Meh! My notion of time is different from yours,” Herakles replied with a smirk.
“You and dogs,” I muttered, making my way toward the council room.
Herakles joined me, remarkably jovial.
“So, big meeting, huh?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure whether the question was rhetorical or not.
“The first of many, I hope. The yearly ones are the most important, in my book,” I said, then looked at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
He stopped, his eyes wide. “What do you mean?”
“You seem like you swallowed a bunch of serium crystals. What’s up with all the energy?”
He was buzzing, more so than usual.
“Oh. I think it’s the coffee,” Herakles replied, wearing a sheepish smile. “Dmitri brought some from The Shade. I had no idea it would taste so amazing.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Coffee was one of the things we’d repeatedly forgotten to introduce to Strava, over the past few months, though we’d often joked about how it would amp up the GASP recruits. It did explain a lot about Herakles’s sudden behavioral changes, for sure.
“How much did you have?” I asked.
Herakles blanked out for a moment. I had a feeling he was counting. “Twenty mugs, this morning. It’s friggin’ delicious.”
