The Lost War (Hectic Series: Book One)

Chapter 1

The demons came through the hole in the sky and everybody watched.
No one knew why they had come, no one knew how. But they knew that they were trouble, because anything that came from a big black hole in the sky over the ocean couldn't be good.
So far they had stayed on their strange metal ships below the strange black hole, doing whatever strange things it was that these demons did, while Kim Lyland and the rest of the Alliance explored their curiosities from a safe distance.
The Empress had blocked off the Eastern part of Sarrin, forbidding anyone from exiting or entering from that port.
The demons, everyone thought, didn't seem to know they were there, or if they did Kim and her people weren't worth much more than maggots to them.
It had been at a standstill for months, with the Alliance ogling in a petrified state and the demons giving them the cold shoulder.
It was when the demon soldier came that the standstill broke and set everything in motion.
The Empress sat in her office, more specifically in her chair in her office in the palace in the city of Carrain, the capital of Tamera, one of the four kingdoms of the Alliance, when a knock sounded at the door.
"Come in."
The heavy oak door swung open silently, and in the doorway stood a tall, thin old man with a cane. His shoulder-length white hair, which was perpetually messy and streaked with gray, framed his face. He wore gray pants and a shirt made of heavy fabric and his blue eyes were bright.
"Hello Kim," he greeted as he limped forward.
She stood, her dark hair falling nearly to her waist in loose curls. Black, feathery wings, nearly as long as she was tall, fanned out behind her.
"Long time no see, Oliver."
He reached out to hug her, tottering a bit on his bad leg, and Kim wrapped her arms around him before he lost his balance and fell. "Sit down! Did you walk all the way here from your house?"
"Not that far," he grumbled, amusingly cranky as ever, "only a few miles."
Kim sat down, curling her wings behind her chair, as Oliver took a seat on the chair in front of her desk. He tapped out a rhythm with his cane on the marble floor.
"What brings you here?" Kim asked, folding her hands.
Oliver's blue eyes glowed a bit as he pointed at a tray of cookies on her desk. One of the cookies levitated in the air and flew into his hand. He took a bite, swallowed and said,
"can't an old man want to see his dear friend from time to time?"
"No," She said, "You certainly can't. Not with your bad leg. Walking here! I swear you've gone senile sometimes."
He grinned and leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking. "I would have sent Dex, but he was busy plucking the feathers off of his latest meal."
Dex, the pet dog Kim had given to Oliver as a birthday present six years prior, would come and get her if Oliver couldn't be bothered to walk to the Palace. He also liked to hunt birds. Not just hunt them, though; disembowel. Mangle. Eviscerate. When he was done there was nothing left of little tweety besides a slimy pile of guts.
"So, Miss Empress," Oliver continued with his usual cut-and-dry bluntness, "what do you plan to do about that big old hole in the sky and the creatures that came out of it?"
Tap tap tap went his cane.
"Actually," Kim said, "I received a letter from their President."
"President?" Oliver cocked his head to the side.
"The equivalent of their King, I suppose." Kim shrugged. "He's the leader of whatever is going on with the sky hole, but he's not the leader of the entire demon race. He's coming to meet with me in a few days. Strange, though, because I only received the letter about a week ago. How they can get here that fast is beyond me."
"And you're okay with this? You're just going to shake hands with this...this...alien? He could kill you!" Oliver jumped to his feet with surprising nimbleness and began to pace around his chair in circles. "I better be here when the meeting happens. I could go get Dex and just stay here until then.
You'll need protection. Goodness, Kim, what is going on here?"
She smiled. "I'm sure all will be fine. It's not like I'm entirely helpless myself."
"No," Oliver muttered "but still..."
"It will be fine, I promise."
"Oh, gee, do I feel assured. The Empress has uttered the magical words "I promise" and now all will be well." He scowled and pointed a bony finger at her. "I don't like it."
"Neither do I," She admitted softly, "but what else are we to do? And even if he does try something I could always blast him through the wall."
A mischievous smile spreads across the old man's face. "Heh, I've no doubt about that. Zap zap zap." He pointed his hand about the room, mimicking the way lightning would shoot out of his fingers if he were a Hectic. But he was an Aerrs, and so he just looked like he was doing a deranged version of the Disco.
"Come on," she stood, "let's go get Dex."
Oliver swept an arm out. "After you, m'dear."
The vast expanse of the Palace never failed to amaze Kim, despite having lived there all of her life, first with her father-a tall, intimidating Hectic, and the royal advisor to the Emperor at that time-and then again as the Empress.
The immense marble-whiteness of the Palace left her feeling small and insignificant, rather ironic considering the position of authority she was in.
Her shoes echoed off of the floor with a soft whisper, while the familiar click-clack of Oliver's cane bounced around the walls.
Servants scurried this way and that down the halls, but all managed to stay well out of her way. They looked down as she walked past, doing their best to avert her gaze.
Long ago this submissive behavior would have bothered Kim, but now she paid it little attention.
Being a Hectic, not to mention Empress, the leader of the Hectics, demanded a special sort of resilience.
It was a strange sort of paradox. People trusted the Hectics to rule but feared them for their eyes, their power. To be a Hectic was to wear a mask, to hide any and all emotion because the stronger the feelings the stronger the lightning, and of course people didn't understand it and they feared what they didn't understand.
It took a little over an hour to reach Oliver's house. Kim would have opted for flight, but Oliver insisted that they walk.
"You never did tell me why you came," she said to him. "I highly doubt you were just looking for a status update."
Oliver shrugged. "Dex had a bird, you know how he is, wouldn't even give me a second glance. And you hadn't been around in a few days. I was lonely."
Since Kim's father had passed all those years ago, Oliver no longer came around to the Palace as much. They were like brothers, him and her father, and she'd known Oliver since she was young. That was part of the reason Kim had given him Dex; with his wife long gone and then her father, poor Oliver didn't have anyone else besides her, and she knew she couldn't be around all the time.
Oliver's house was just outside of the main square, where it was really busy all the time. His house was situated on a small hill in the woods, a tiny little cobblestone cabin in a world away from her's. Here it was quiet and peaceful and free. Back at the Palace it was strict and tiring and lonesome.
Whenever she came to Oliver's it was a breath of fresh air.
"Dex!" He called when he opened the door, and the big black dog scrabbled up from where it was lying in front of the unlit fireplace and raced over. There was a feather stuck to his lip.
"Hello, Dex, have your dinner?" Oliver scratched him behind the ear and Kim plucked the feather from his lip.
The dog turned then and launched forward, burying his head in her stomach and wagging his tail so hard his bottom rocked from side to side.
"What'd you get this time?" She asked as she wrestled with the dog's head. He was doing his very best to knock her over. "Did you get a chicken? Quail? A ducky?"
Dex barked once, raced around to the fireplace, and shoved his nose into a pile of entrails on the rug.
"Aw, Dex," Oliver grimaced, "you're not suppose to gut your victims in the house." He pointed a finger and the rope of intestines and who-knew-what-else floated through the air and out the open window. "Come on," he said, tapping his cane on the ground.
Dex, an everlasting ball of chaotic energy, barreled out the door and down the hill, where he stopped to roll in the grass.
"He's getting to be too much for me," Oliver said as they slowly made their way down the hill, "as I get frailer he gets crazier."
As if to prove his point, Dex came over and shoved his nose in Kim's crotch.
"Dex," Oliver admonished, smacking him with his cane.
Kim slapped her hip and the dog fell into step next to her, tail wagging and tongue lolling.
"He listens to you," Oliver said accusingly.
"He likes me."
"Likes you," Oliver huffed, "I give him food and shelter! I raised him from a pup!"
"He eats bird entrails and roams around Carrain as he pleases. You could die in your house and I bet he would eat you."
"Lovely thought, thanks," He grumbled.
They got back to the Palace just as the sun was beginning to set. Oliver and Kim went up to her office to have a quiet dinner and Dex bounded up and down the halls, barking and running into servants.
Just as Kim and Oliver were sitting down to eat Dex skidded in, claws scrabbling, rammed his ass into her desk, and smashed a glass paperweight before bolting out the door again.
Oliver shook his head and sighed as he used his blue-eyed power to clean up the mess.
"He's fine," Kim reassured him, "he loves the cooks and the cooks love him."
"I wish they'd love him a little less. He's got plenty of birds to eat."
Kim pointed at the food on his plate. "So do you."
It was a peaceful night. Oliver made himself at home in a guest room and Dex made himself at home in Kim's bed, much to the dismay of the cleaning staff, she knew.
In fact the next few days were peaceful. The sun rose and set without any major shifts in universal balance.
But just six days later the demon came, the calm broke, and the storm kicked up.
And that was how their war started.