Invaders

The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

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Copyright ©2008 by Gregory L. Norris

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The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

CONTENTS The Invaders About the Author ****

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The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

Published by Phaze Books ****

**** This is an explicit and erotic book intended for the enjoyment of adult readers. Please keep out of the hands of children. www.Phaze.com

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The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

The Invaders a novella of homoerotic romance by GREGORY NORRIS [Back to Table of Contents]

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The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

The Invaders © 2007-8 by Gregory Norris All rights reserved under the International and PanAmerican Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. ****

**** A Phaze Production 6

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Phaze Books 6470A Glenway Avenue, #109 Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222 Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC. To order additional copies of this book, contact: [email protected] www.Phaze.com Cover art © 2008 Edited by Jade Falconer eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-880-9 eBook ISBN-10: 1-59426-880-0 First Edition—May, 2008 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 7

The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. [Back to Table of Contents]

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The Invaders by Gregory L. Norris

When the lights went out in Verdance, they usually stayed out. That was one of those facts of life you just accepted living in the shadows of Wolf Hill. Not much ever happened in the little town. The summers were hot, the winters cold, and in between the two extremes as the weather shifted, you could expect some pretty nasty storms to knock out the power. And when the lights went dark, it wasn't uncommon for them to stay dark. The storm that Phillip McKinley would always remember as having started it all had swept in on a sticky Saturday night at the end of summer, right before the start of school. He'd planned on hanging out with a bunch of his boys and had told Patti he didn't feel well to get out of their date, which was as much the truth as it was a lie. The storm rolled in with towering thunderheads and a violent cannonade soundtrack to match. His dad and Vivienne—Phillip couldn't bring himself to think of Viv as 'mom' or even 'step mom' as she wasn't ten years older than he was—were over at some friend's party, sipping cocktails with trendy names and bright colors the human digestive system hadn't been designed to process. Because of the weather, Tommy Toscano, who would most likely back him up as quarterback on their last season of football together at Verdance High, was the only guy who made it to the McKinley house. And he didn't come empty handed. Phillip knocked back one of the beers in the six-pack and exhaled his frustration. "This sucks," he sighed. 9

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Tommy checked his cell for the fourth time since entering the dark house. "No signal." "No duh, shithead," Phillip absently responded. "No power, no movies, no video games, and no TV." "Please stop trying to cheer me up," Tommy grumbled, draining his bottle. "I'm so bored right now, it's tragic." Phillip finished his beer. He considered reaching for another, but stopped himself. Alcoholism had taken his mother, and the disease ran in his genes. More so, he feared a second one might loosen him up, and when Phillip got loose, he started to talk. By the third, he'd be revealing his deepest, darkest secrets to his sometimes best friend, who would probably be revealing his own by that point. No, the risk wasn't worth it. Phillip folded his arms. "Dude, I'm gonna call it an early night. No use waiting for the juice to come back on, and I'm seriously pissed off enough as it is." "You for real?" Tommy huffed. "I'm sorry, man. I just need to hit the rack early. Let's hang tomorrow." Tommy gathered up the last of the beer and trudged to the front door. "Whatever." "I'll call you," Phillip said, noting the irony as Tommy again checked his cell phone on the way out. He considered lighting a candle. Viv had dozens of them scattered around the place. Unfortunately, none were simple, pleasant scents, like blueberry or peppermint or vanilla. No, hers had mystical, winsome names like Heart's Desire, 10

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Summer Sorbet, and Ocean Foam, though they all smelled to Phillip like dish soap. Defeated, Phillip trudged up the stairs to his bedroom at the back of the split-entry house, navigating the way on memory. The air in the room was hot and musty, owing to a pile of dirty clothes in one corner and the sealed windows, done so out of respect for the house's central air conditioning. Phillip plodded to the nearest window, which looked out across the side yard and at the dark windows of the Miller house next door. He lifted it and a wave of hot, moist air billowed into the room. Phillip instantly started to sweat. The second window faced the old Hindenwood place near the pinestudded summit of Wolf Hill. Phillip pushed the other energy efficient pane up. More wet air surged in, infused with the exotic summer smells of mowed lawn, flowers, and a trace of the chemicals from the Miller's in-ground pool. Phillip used to hop the fence and swim there late at night, until Harold Miller installed a sensor light and he'd gotten caught, which had led to no small amount of embarrassment along with plenty of grief from Vivienne, the social zealot. Phillip peeled off his damp t-shirt and wagged it under his arms, stirring the piney scent of sweat and the dregs of the deodorant he'd slapped on during a day that already felt lifetimes in his past. Losing the lights, the power, and the gadgets instantly crippled modern human society, devolving it back to the cave, he thought, a sour smirk twisting the corners of his prickly, unshaved mouth. If the lights stayed out long enough, men would be making fires by rubbing sticks 11

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together and then clubbing one another over the head with them. Phillip sighed out a swear and unhooked his shorts, letting them drop to his hairy ankles. He absently scratched at the meaty fullness of his balls, accessing them through the elastic leg band of his boxer briefs. He decided to do what most bored males throughout all of human history have done when confronted with too much time and not enough distraction: masturbate. And he didn't plan to think about Patti Collings, his trophy girlfriend, while he did. No, thanks to the one beer and the musky warmth in the air, the smell of his own maleness surrounding him, Phillip embraced his deepest of personal secrets. For months now, he'd come to accept the strange, dark desires teasing him in his dreams and tempting him when he was around his friends, dating back for as long as he could remember. They weren't the automatic sentence to eternal damnation that a lot of supposed authorities on the subject of morality would have him believe. One overcast morning the previous June, he'd simply rolled over with the usual morning wood and had rubbed one out into a dirty sock. In the accompanying fantasy, he'd envisioned what it would be like to mount the ass of his fellow man, while reaching around and stroking the fuckee in this too-sweet-to-believe vision. He rode the sock to a climax equally as magnificent as the one he mentally blasted between said fuckee's ass cheeks. Just like that. There had been no great revelation, no brush with mortality that shook him to his core, no message delivered by signs and portents. But there had been 12

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undeniable magic in accepting the truth that Phillip desired what he desired, and he could live with it, defend it if he must. Even if he wasn't about to shout out the truth to the world while bent in a huddle on the football field, Phillip was now feeling more comfortable in his own skin than he could ever recall. He was gay. Unlike the rest of his teammates who loved to brag, Phillip was also a virgin. Not counting all the tall tales and fables of sexual conquest he'd concocted in the locker room over the past few years to keep his friends' imaginations satisfied. Phillip's imagination drifted back into the delicious territory that had kept his cock stiff nonstop, all summer. Dropping to his knees, he licked a finger, let it wander between his naked legs, along that patch of sensitive skin between his balls and asshole, and eventually dipped it into his most private place. His flesh there was hot and moist with sweat. After a few gentle circles, he withdrew it, licked it. This was what the asshole he'd some day fuck would taste like. His cock leaked. Phillip ran the same pointer finger and its thumb along the straining head, over the gummed-up slit. Wetness coated his touch. And that was what he would feel when he thrust in, forcing the other young man's cock to fuck his grip. Phillip tasted himself. He liked what he liked, and he liked it way too much. Certain tight-assed hypocrites on the tube, in the locker room, and worse—in his own living room— had bullied him over the years with their jokes and their dogma into believing it was evil, aberrant behavior. That any man who felt the way he did was marked as one of the living damned; that he was really only here among the chosen 13

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people to burn oxygen en route to an eternity of burning in hellfire deep beneath the surface of the earth. "Fuck that," Phillip grumbled. Anything that felt so right could not be wrong. He tossed back his head and opened himself up to the possibilities. Could he suck another dude's cock? Why not? He'd certainly imagined his erect length vanishing down enough unshaved throats in recent weeks. Oh, but the idea of mounting, of fucking ... and not just with his cock, but his tongue, his fingers. Hell, what about using his big toe? A new fantasy for Phillip to jerk his dick to materialized in the shadows. He would fuck an asshole with his big toes. The concept was too sweet to deny, so simple and yet more complex than even Newton's Law of Gravity and Einstein's Theory of Relativity combined. The equation's power doubled, tripled, quadrupled toward infinity when you added the notion of love into that mixture of wild, passionate sex. For while Phillip's dick ached for release, more than anything, his heart ached to be captured. That was his biggest secret of all. He wanted sex and romance, in equal parts. He wanted... The dark room shifted out of alignment with the normal world. Phillip tensed; his naked flesh, glistening under a sheen of fresh sweat, tingled with pins and needles in anticipation of what would soon engulf him. The orgasm, aimed at the floor and something he'd pulled from the clothes pile (a t-shirt or boxer briefs—thankfully, Phillip did his own laundry), started among the trigger of nerves that lined the underside of his cock. But as had happened so often that 14

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summer, it cycled outward in concentric waves, inviting parts of his body to join in he hadn't dreamed capable of such arousal. His nipples, his asshole, his throat, ears, and toes all responded, seeming to climax with his erection. He stifled his moans, only to have his clamped lips merge with the other gleeful participants in what promised to be a hell of an orgasm. Tingles rippled over his face. The nape of his neck followed, along with the sensitive pits beneath his sportstoughened guns and the hairless undersides of his wrists. His entire body was consumed by pleasure as his balls pulled up tightly around the base of his shaft, and his cock unloaded. The room's landmarks gradually re-solidified among the shadows. Phillip's erection went from white-hot and itchy to slightly sore in his stroke-hand. Reluctantly, he released it. The eruption, and the knowledge that there would likely be another, had helped to lighten his mood. Phillip felt himself smiling in the darkness. The secret about the true nature of his sexuality quickly retreated, however, as another took its place. Through narrowed eyes, Phillip caught sight of a single light, golden and radiant, burning through the brooding darkness of the forest at Wolf Hill's summit. It was a light where none should exist. Hindenwood House had sat vacant since the McKinley family moved to Verdance and, so far as Phillip knew, for years before that. Sometimes, kids went there to hook up and party because, through the generations, the brooding Victorian manor had become legendary, the local haunted house. The perfect place to feel 15

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up your hotty and tap her. Tommy had done so to his, or so he claimed. Tommy was a stud, and Phillip believed him. He'd checked out his equipment enough times in the locker room after football and on sleepovers to know Tommy had the goods to back up the bragging. Was it kids up there, the glare of a headlight, a glow stick or a flashlight? A shiver rippled through Phillip's insides. Mimicking his climax, it started at his ears and didn't stop until its concentric waves reached his toes, causing them to curl into the carpet's pile. That light was glorious. It couldn't be kids messing around, bored out of their skulls and looking to get into trouble during a blackout. The light was pure, and all too brief, vanishing seconds after appearing. Phillip hunched down at the window sill, aware of the full, throbbing weight of his reawakened erection. He waited and watched the darkness, hoping to see if the light would return. It didn't, but for most of the night and as long as he managed to stay awake, he occasionally heard noises, as though somebody was up there, moving things around at Hindenwood House. **** Phillip didn't remember crawling into bed, but that's where he was when Vivienne's voice jolted him awake. "Phillip!" He sprang up and realized he was atop the covers, clad only in the underwear that had somehow found its way onto his thighs during the night. 16

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"What's wrong with you? You left the windows open!" Phillip scrambled to cover himself. The rest, at first, was a blur. As Viv strutted over to the windows, the muted clip-clop of her heels digging across the carpeted floor told him that she and his dad must have just gotten in from their party, another all-nighter with their corporate friends. The remainder of the intel registered rapid-fire: light on bed stand burning brightly, windows still open, cool draft rippling in from the hallway. "We're not paying to air-condition the outside!" "I'm sorry," Phillip grumbled. "And what's with that mess you left downstairs?" "Mess?" Phillip shrugged. Then an invisible fist punched him in the guts. The empty soldiers ... the beer bottles. "Lighten up, Viv. I only had the one." "Yeah, like I believe that," Vivienne spat. As she rounded the bed, a trace of the alcohol leaching out of her pores wafted over him. Fuckin' hypocrite, Phillip thought. She exited his room, slamming the door in her wake. Phillip settled back on the bed. Untimed minutes later, Phillip wasn't sure how long, because the alarm clock's pale green face flashed bars, not numbers, his cell phone bleated a riff of rock and roll ring tone. He checked the I.D., sighed, and let it go to voicemail. Patti called back almost immediately. This time, Phillip answered. "Yeah." "How are you feeling?" 17

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Phillip's most recent encounter with Vivienne spared him from lying. "Shitty. 'Sup?" "You'll never believe it. Some freaks moved into that Hindenwood House of Horrors last night." She delivered the revelation with a bitchy titter. "Some old troll and this complete dog of a girl. Probably his granddaughter. Shit, I hope she's not going to Verdance tomorrow. Seriously, we aren't running a kennel. Woof!" Patti began to bark. Phillip didn't find it funny and tossed the cell onto the bed. After a while, he heard her call, "Philly, you there? Hello?" Reluctantly, he picked up the phone. "You know I hate it when you call me 'Philly.' Makes me sound like a female horse." "Or a big, beefy cheesesteak. Come on, everybody knows you're a stallion." Patti's voice shifted into that seductive tone that always intensified his anxiety. Phillip was the football team's star quarterback. In the spring, he'd likely win the baseball team's captain's 'C' on his uniform shirt. Patti was the head of the cheerleading squad. They were supposed to be a couple, and they were, but only in outward appearance. There was nothing about her that Phillip found attractive. Not body, and especially not soul. "So somebody moved into the place? There was a light up there." "Yup, Christine and I saw the whole thing from her house. Their deck looks right up at the stone lions." Those two stone lions that guard the long driveway leading to Hindenwood House, Phillip thought. "What did you see?" 18

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"Big wooden crates, furniture, and this old Q-tip and bowwow. There were these weird lights. The trees up there are so thick, I bet no one else could see them. It's only because Christine's dad went all Amazon slash-and-burn last spring that we saw the freak show. It's sort of creepy. I mean, who moves into a house in the dead of night? The Addams Family?" Phillip considered her words. Who indeed? But then he remembered that amazing sense of peace he'd experienced at seeing the golden light on the hill, how his dick had jumped to attention because of it, and couldn't bring himself to believe it was anything sinister in origin. "I gotta go," he said. "Late..." Before Patti could say another word, Phillip hung up the phone and switched off its ringer. **** Phillip brushed his teeth, showered, and was out of the house before his dad or Vivienne could pin him down for further interrogation. Dressed in jogging shorts, a clean tshirt, sneakers, no socks, sunglasses, and his favorite baseball cap, Phillip jogged down the driveway and onto Bayberry Circle. The morning air was crisp and dry, a taste of the shift in seasons now that the storm had blown the last of summer's humidity out to sea. He held his breath while jogging past Patti's house. By the time he reached the road leading up Wolf Hill, Phillip had worked up a decent sweat. 19

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The pavement beneath his expensive cross trainers went from new and shiny to faded, divot-riddled old road. This was where the new development ended, and the only sign of civilization for a decent stretch of the hill was somewhere up ahead through the dense stands of trees, a pair of ancient stone lions. Phillip wasn't entirely sure why he'd decided to jog the old road to Hindenwood House. He'd been to the decaying estate enough times before that to know the place held little interest. Once last spring, he'd taken Patti up there, at her insistence, and had suffered all the way to second base before calling it a night. Phillip was almost to the stone lions when he noticed the crows. Crows, in and of themselves, were hardly a rarity in a rural town like Verdance. This many, and so close together, was. A dozen had staked out a length of power line running along the road. Farther up, Phillip began to catch their silhouettes stationed in the trees, as though their large, dark bodies were standing guard. Every so often as Phillip passed by, one of the crows in the branches would cry out, and then, in sequence, others would repeat the signal, leading all the way up in the direction of the house. Despite the good sweat he'd worked up, Phillip felt the tease of a shiver in the short hairs at the nape of his athlete's haircut. But it didn't trip down his spine until he reached the stone lions. Phillip stopped jogging and froze in place. Something about them was different. They were still the same time-worn stone statues that had guarded the drive leading to Hindenwood House for as long as anyone in the new development could remember; weathered by the 20

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elements and pitted in spots, somebody had spray-painted a blue streak of expletives along the flank of one guardian, in blue paint, no less. Shards of glass, the remains of broken beer bottles, littered the ground around their bases. Last spring, even Tommy Toscano had contributed to their defiling by whipping out his dick and hosing down one lion with a copious stream of recycled suds. Phillip had laughed, but had felt guilty afterwards for doing so. Now, the lions scared him. They were different. With their vacant eyes and mouths opened to reveal bad granite bridgework, Phillip couldn't shake the fear that the lions were watching him. Worse, that they were ready to pounce and tear into his flesh the instant he turned his back. With his heart in his chest, Phillip soldiered awkwardly between the stone guardians. He didn't realize he'd stopped breathing until the last shallow gasp he'd taken began to boil in his lungs. The house loomed ahead of him, its gabled roof and circle tower visible through the weave of the branches. There were more crows. No, ravens, Phillip thought, as well as other birds perched in the tall pines, on the rooftop, and circling overhead. "What the fuck?" he gasped. Phillip knew the landscape well enough to know that the long drive would wind around an outcrop of large boulders, then circle to the main house. Beer cans, more broken glass, and fast food wrappers littered both sides of the pavement. But the house... 21

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Hindenwood House, that sagging, spooky old wreck of a place that the locals in town had declared to be haunted, stood fresh and straight against the morning sky. Its windows sparkled. Its façade seemed to shimmer. There was even a cheery garden of golden and purple chrysanthemums along the path leading up to the front door. Impossible, Phillip thought. All this in one day? But, that same voice reminded, it had been less than one day. If Patti and Christine Haylitch were to be trusted, the new occupants had only moved in the previous night, during the storm. No, it couldn't be. Phillip reasoned that the new owners had probably been renovating the place throughout the summer months. The endless drone of Vivienne's precious air conditioning, running behind thick, energy efficient windows, had masked the swing of hammers and the buzzing of saws. But wait ... hadn't Tommy said something about taking Christine up to Wolf Hill just this past July, little over a month ago? Could a house this big, this old, be restored so completely in that short an amount of time? His thoughts about the house got shelved when Phillip glanced up to the circle tower, two stories above where he stood. The tower was ringed by tall window panes, and showcased within one of them was the most glorious sight he had ever seen. The youth was considerably shorter than Phillip's impressive height of six-foot-two. But if he had to guess, he would have pegged them at identical ages. This vision was lean, elegant, and almost more beautiful than handsome, with a mop of shaggy blond hair, plump, bee-stung lips, and eyes 22

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that were blue enough to be identified by color from where Phillip stood just inside the perimeter of the boulders. Those distant sapphires bewitched him. Suddenly, Phillip found himself struggling to breathe. He took a heavy swallow, only to nearly choke on the ball of dry heat that had desiccated his throat. The vision smiled, waved. The sweep of his slender fingers launched Phillip's dick to full mast. He tried waving back, only to realize the head of his erection was pinned uncomfortably in the noose of his underwear's elastic waistband. He started to adjust it, then stopped. Nothing made sense, especially, not this. "Hi," Phillip said. He managed something like a wave, flexing his fingers. The youth was dressed in an open white cotton shirt that hung loosely off his slight shoulders and a matching pair of drawstring slacks. The sensation of viewing this magnificent image was similar to what he'd experienced the night before when he'd seen that spark of light, only far more powerful. Perhaps, an inner voice told him, the young man in the tower was the source of the light. Phillip broke the trance, adjusted his cock out of its exquisite agony between his legs, and gestured for the boy in the tower to come down. The boy smiled and moved out of sight, presumably to meet him at Hindenwood House's imposing front door. Phillip started up the walk but only got a few steps when an ominous shadow appeared at the corner of his eye. He turned to face it and, for a split second, saw what appeared to 23

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be one of the ravens, the largest, strongest winged creature he'd ever laid eyes upon. The vision was fleeting, gone in the time it took to blink. In its place stood an older man with silver hair, dressed in black jeans, high-top sneakers, a tshirt, and, of all things, a frilly purple apron. A thunderbolt zigzagged down the apron's front, cutting through the words: "Kiss the Kitchen Wizard." Phillip might have found the image laughable had the man not rushed toward him with superhuman speed. Without warning, Phillip felt the jab of something cold and sharp against his neck. He glanced down, expecting to see the long blade of a knife, but to Phillip's surprise, the thing sticking him in the neck was a twisted length of purple crystal. His first thought was that it was some kind of magic wand. His next was that, barring a miracle and for whatever reason, this man in the frilly apron was going to impale him, right through the jugular. "Whoa, dude!" Phillip protested, holding up both hands to signal his surrender. His eyes darted toward the man's gray gaze, then back to the amethyst wand. The wand was gone; now, the man held a barbecue fork to his throat. "Who are you?" the kitchen wizard demanded. "Phillip McKinley. I live down the street." "What are you doing here?" "Uh, welcoming you to the neighborhood." It was the first thing that came to Phillip's mind, and the explanation rolled off his tongue before he could stop it. To his credit, the excuse worked. 24

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The silver-haired man stepped back gracefully and lowered the barbecue fork that had been a wand of purple gemstone only seconds earlier. His moves reminded Phillip of the students in Ms. Dunbar's fencing class. "Well, that's very kind of you, Phillip McKinley. You'll forgive me for being cautious, but we understand that this house is prone to welcoming visitors of a different sort. You've seen all the broken glass and rubbish they've left as their calling card?" The man's gray eyes drilled into him, and Phillip felt a jolt of guilt at knowing he'd probably left a calling card or two of his own over the years. "I have to tell you, you've done a hell of a job with the old place." Phillip folded his arms and tipped his chin at Hindenwood House. Once so shabby, it had become the joke of the neighborhood; yet now it was so stately, it put every house in Verdance to shame. As he did this, the imposing slab of the front door opened. Standing in the open space was the youth he'd seen at the tower room's window. Phillip's jaw wanted to drop, but he held it. "Hello," the young man said. Phillip's eyes registered everything they could in those scant seconds he was given: the youth's golden shag, glowing in the morning light, his naked, hairless chest, visible between the V of the open shirt. And, dear God, the boy was barefoot, his feet visible beneath the cuffs of his flowing white pants. The image of those slender pink toes set off a supernova of imaginary explosions inside Phillip's rigid body. 25

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What he wouldn't give to suckle them, to masturbate his cock between their arches, to... The youth had made it halfway out the door when the silver-haired man said, "Julian, please return to your studies." "But..." the youth protested. "Now. You've so much left to learn. Please hurry." Defeated, the youth slinked back into the great house, closing the door behind him. Unaware of the dopey smile presently playing across his face, Phillip turned toward the man. "Give the kid a break, dude. School doesn't start 'til tomorrow." "For Julian, school is already in session." "What year is he?" Phillip asked. "Maybe I could, you know, show him around Verdance High. He play any sports? I'm in tight with the coach." The man offered a weak smile. Phillip no longer felt any threat from him, and the gesture seemed genuine. "Julian won't be attending Verdance High School. He's being homeschooled." Phillip shrugged as he absorbed the information. "Even so, if he's looking to make friends in the neighborhood, I know everybody. I can tell him who's cool, who's a loser, and who to steer clear of." The man placed a hand on Phillip's shoulder, one that was half the size of his own enormous paws, but strong enough to coax him back toward the driveway and in the direction of the stone lions. If he'd resisted, Phillip sensed, this man was more than capable of decking him into the next county. 26

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"A very generous offer, Phillip McKinley, and you do seem like a nice young man. Exactly the sort of friend we want Julian to make. But now is not a good time. Perhaps at a later date." "Okay," Phillip said. "See you around." He shuffled a few feet forward. The man's hand, which felt both as strong as granite and as light as a feather at the same time, slipped free of his shoulder. Phillip tipped a look behind him and was shocked to see that the man had vanished from view. A flurry of motion drew his gaze to the sky directly above Hindenwood House, where an enormous raven was just gliding down to roost upon the circle tower's roof. A minute or so later, Phillip was again confronted by the mysterious. One of the stone lions had vanished. Phillip heard the cracking of a branch from somewhere in the nearby woods. He beat feet away from the summit of Wolf Hill, and didn't so much jog home as run. **** For the next four days, Phillip's thoughts continuously returned to the image of the youth in the tower. He spent plenty of time pondering the man in the apron, the missing stone lion, and the other strange details of that morning, but those things occupied less of his concentration as he settled back into the familiar routine of life at Verdance High. He was a senior now, a legal adult, a Big Man on Campus. There was football, and a façade to maintain. Still, the image of the shaggy-haired youth haunted him. 27

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Phillip was in one of his fantasies about Julian when he got sacked. He hit the ground hard enough to see stars. The football bounced out of his clutches. Coach Callison's whistle brought him back to reality. "McKinley!" barked the tattooed giant, the only body on the football field bigger than Phillip. "You play like that next weekend against Amherst and I'll rip off your balls and hang them on my rearview like fuzzy dice!" One of the guys wearing shirts, the same dude who'd reached him through all those naked chests, extended a hand. Phillip took the gesture and hopped back to his feet. Sweat poured down his forehead and stung at his eyes. Along with his own perspiration, he smelled the piney, musty haze emanating from the rest of his guys in this practice drill of shirts versus skins as they returned to formation at the line of scrimmage. It wasn't easy to concentrate, but he'd have to try. "Blue seven!" Phillip bellowed. "Blue four!" He called out the remaining signals, sending the wall of bodies on his side of the line into a collision with their friendly opponents on the other. Phillip dropped back, found his open man, and let the ball sail. The butterfingers ten yards down the field dropped it, but Phillip barely cared. His mind wandered back to the light, to the youth in the tower room at Hindenwood House. He was barely conscious of anything else. Not the cheerleading squad practicing on the grass nearby, the guy who broke through the line, or the coach's whistle and the angry tirade that followed. "Take five," Coach Callison declared. 28

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Phillip had been tackled again, pulled down to the sunwarmed grass. There, he secretly wondered what it would be like to roll in the grass with the young man from the tower room, to tickle his bare toes with his tongue, to remove those cotton slacks. "Julian," Phillip whispered. His cock twitched behind a thin barrier of Lycra, Lycra already made partially transparent by his sweat. And Phillip wasn't wearing a jersey, whose tails would have hidden his arousal. He needed to concentrate. As he picked himself up, the tangle of shirts and glistening, naked torsos parted. Patti waltzed through the human Red Sea, holding a baton in a very suggestive pose. She sidled toward him, and Phillip was more than aware that a number of his teammates were checking her out. Their eyes were aimed at her skirt, desperate to capture that micro-second of time when the wind caught in its pleats, exposing the mysteries hidden beneath. "Having a bad day, loverboy?" she said. She leaned toward him and tapped his chest with the head of her baton. "You're so sweaty." "Yeah, I know." "Looks like you're having trouble focusing." She re-aimed the head of the baton between the twin peaks of her cotton sweater. Phillip strutted over to the bench and grabbed a squeeze bottle of water. After a few deep sips, he sprayed a squirt across his face. Patti, he discovered, had followed him. 29

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"Want to see something hilarious?" She had that look of mischief in her eyes that always signaled trouble, usually for unpopular kids and stray pets unlucky enough to cross paths with her. Sometimes even for Phillip. Phillip hesitated. "What?" "Up there, in the bleachers. Been watching you the entire time." Phillip narrowed his gaze. Across the field, ten rows up, sat an awkward looking, gangly girl dressed in a blue pantsuit and white canvas sneakers. Glasses covered the girl's eyes. She clutched a book against what appeared to be a nonexistent bosom. "It's Wednesday Addams," Patti snickered. "Huh?" "Remember the freaks that moved into Hindenwood House? That's the girl I told you about. Did I say girl?" Patti huffed out a laugh. "Dog is more like it. Her name's Julia. Christine has her in Latin class. She told her she was in the wrong room, and that pig latin was down the hall." This cruel joke cracked Patti up again. Her knees buckled and she clapped a hand against Phillip's chest. Disgusted, Phillip backed away from her. "Julia?" he asked. "Yeah, why?" "I met her brother, Julian." "Was he as ugly as that set of walking mosquito bites?" Patti snorted another laugh. "Shut up," Phillip said with a forcefulness he hadn't anticipated. 30

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Neither had Patti, who did a double-take. The smug grin on her face tightened into a scowl. "What did you say to me?" Phillip grabbed his jersey off the bench and pulled it on as he started across the field toward the bleachers. "Don't you walk away from me!" Patti shrieked, loud enough to draw the attention of both the football team and her fellow cheerleaders. But Phillip was beyond hearing her. Julia, he thought. I wonder if they're twins... Phillip's brisk march hastened into a trot. Patti, Coach Callison, and the split-squad game no longer existed. There was only the girl, his link to Julian. "Hey, Julia," he called. The girl adjusted her glasses, clutched at her school book and stood, frightened into retreating. "No, wait, please!" Julia hurried across the sections and down the stairs. She was, he noted, an awkward creature, very unlike her magnificent sibling. Once she got going, though, the girl was quick. Phillip cut across the patch of grass just as she turned toward the field house at the rear of the high school. He lost her after that. But the next day, between Periods Five and Six, Phillip finally caught up with Julian's sister, Julia. **** A crowd had gathered near the stairwell between the Math and English wings, vultures eager to feast upon the humiliation du jour. At first, Phillip didn't realize Julia was the 31

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subject of Patti and Christine Haylitch's cruel taunts, but because of his height, he was able to look across heads and shoulders in time to see Christine yank down on a handful of Julia's hair, dropping the girl to her knees. Phillip, who had spent most of the previous night gazing out the bedroom window toward the summit of Wolf Hill, drunk on the scent of late summer and with a dreamy smile on his face, charged into action. "No," he shouted, shocking away the harpies at the outer orbit of the crowd. Patti knocked Julia's books out of her hands and sent them flying across the hall. Part of the crowd disbanded, but only to avoid the hail of rectangular missiles. Phillip plowed through the rest after dropping his own books in a fit of anger. Maddening seconds after setting out, he reached the center of the circle. "Stop it," Phillip bellowed, pulling Christine's hand free of Julia's hair. The other girl, Patti's chief lieutenant in the Verdance High Girl's Hierarchy, squealed that he was hurting her. Patti froze. "Phillip?" "What the fuck's wrong with you?" he demanded, shooting her a threat-filled look, one so powerful and full of rage that she actually stepped back, right into the inner orbit of the rapidly-thinning crowd. Phillip turned toward Julia, who was still on her knees, struggling to fix her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. Her books formed a debris field across the gritty floor. Phillip knelt down and retrieved them and, as he did, their eyes connected. A glimmer of the emotions he'd experienced 32

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standing beneath the tower room reignited in his core. Suddenly, he couldn't breathe. Some of Julia's features were so like her brother's. Her sapphire eyes. Those lips. Though dowdy, she even radiated a measure of Julian's hypnotic golden glow. "Hi," Phillip said. He forced his eyes away from the girl, aware that all the moisture had evaporated from his mouth and that the skin of his face was blushing. "I'm one of your brother's buddies." "I know," Julia said, offering a smile that was pure hero worship. Even her voice sounded familiar, close kin to the paltry few words Julian had spoken from the open door, words that had been ricocheting through Phillip's memory and jerk-off fantasies for days. Phillip finished gathering Julia's books and then retrieved his, completely ignoring the last two members of the crowd still hanging around the battlefield. "What are you doing?" one of the enemy combatants hissed. Phillip tipped his gaze from Julia to Patti. "Breaking up with you," he answered. He turned away, giving her his back, and extended his free hand to Julia. She accepted, and Phillip gently helped her to stand. "Let me carry your books for you." "Okay," Julia agreed. As they passed Patti, Phillip's now ex-girlfriend grabbed hold of his shoulder. "Don't you dare do this to me!"

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Philip shrugged her off and continued down the corridor. "If anybody tries to give you a ration, you tell me," he said to Julia. "I'll look out for you." Julia adjusted her glasses. Her glow seemed to intensify at the notion. "Okay, but only if you allow me to protect you, too." Phillip cracked a cocky smirk. "And just who are you going to protect me from?" Julia's smile vanished and her eyes, those same gorgeous gemstones he'd seen glittering from her brother's face, darkened. "The Voron-Kali." Phillip snorted a laugh and shrugged. "Who?" "Hateful, evil invaders. Bringers of pain who will one day darken our skies." Phillip stopped in place. "What?" Julia cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. "Nothing," she said with a shrug. "Just ... something I read in a novel." Phillip resumed walking. "Okay, deal. I'll guard your back from the ass-hats at Verdance High. You protect me from the evil Voron-Kali. But I still think you get the easier end of the bargain." He flashed a smile that he hoped would charm her. It seemed to. "Hey, would you deliver a message to your brother for me?" "To Julian?" Julia asked. "Yeah. Your dad, your uncle, whoever the dude in the apron is..." 34

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"He's our Mentor." "He didn't seem to want me and your bro hanging out together." "He's very protective of me. Of us." "So you'll do it?" Julia nodded. "Sure." Phillip balanced their books on his knee, the same way he'd balanced basketballs and soccer balls and footballs by their points when he'd autographed them following a particularly righteous win. He shuffled his notebook to the top of the stack, tore out a sheet, and wrote a simple request across several lines. Meet me tonight—6:00 at the stone lions. Phillip He handed the sheet to Julia, who folded it in half before tucking it into her pocket. "This is my class," she said, indicating the door at their right. "Do you think he'll do it?" Phillip asked. "Will Julian meet me there?" "I'll do my best," Julia said. She retrieved her books from the stack in Phillip's arms. Just as his mouth opened to question her further, she clarified her statement. "I'll do my best to make sure Julian's there. Six o'clock, at the stone lions." Then she kissed Phillip's cheek. "Thank you," she said. "For everything." 35

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Phillip smiled as a swarm of butterflies took flight in his stomach. It wasn't until later while he was sitting in Modern American History that it hit home fully. He'd broken up with Patti, he'd connected with Julia, and he would, if the planets aligned and the universe was merciful, formally meet with her brother. And all of it felt great. **** Phillip suffered through football practice. "McKinley, you late for a quilting bee?" Coach Callison roared, after Phillip checked his watch for what felt like the thousandth time that afternoon. "Get your eyes off the clock and your head out of your ass before I forget you're my star QB and shove my foot up there instead!" At one point in the scrimmage, Phillip dropped back to toss a pass and noticed a large black bird was circling the football field. All the strange things about Hindenwood House that he'd pushed aside to focus on those many wonderful things were suddenly back at the forefront of his thoughts. The hours until six o'clock dragged by at a crawl. Phillip showered after practice and changed into his extra set of clothes: camouflage cut-offs, a clean t-shirt, athletic socks, and one of his favorite baseball caps. He slapped on fresh deodorant and considered adding a splash of the expensive cologne Patti had given him for his eighteenth birthday, then decided against it. A scent that conjured images of her was the last thing he wanted tonight. He closed his locker and left 36

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the bottle on the bench, hoping one of the guys would claim it. She'd called his cell half a dozen times. The first three were weepy declarations of undying love. The second set grew steadily sharper in tone as they were delivered. "You're a fucking asshole, and you don't deserve fineness like me! So I hope you're happy with that hideous, hairy piece of garbage, you dickless faggot," the last one blasted in his ear. "Nice, Patti," Phillip grumbled, deleting the message. "You're a real lady." Phillip tossed his backpack into the car and sniffed his pits to make sure he smelled clean before driving away from Verdance High. It was quarter to six, more than enough time to make his rendezvous with Julian. If, his inner voice nagged, Julian even planned to meet him. **** Phillip's heart galloped on the drive up Wolf Hill. As had happened so often that afternoon, time seemed to slip out of focus, minutes plodding by with the weight of hours. He slowly navigated his way up the road through the cathedral of tall, dark trees. The sun was setting earlier now, and dusk had cast its cape across the neighborhood. On the final leg of the drive, Phillip's cell warbled. He almost didn't answer it, but saw that it was Tommy Toscano calling, not Patti as he'd expected. "Yeah," he said. "Dude, what the hell's going on with you?" 37

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"Can't talk. Late." He shut off the phone completely and pulled up to the stone lions. There were two of them again. In the waning light, Phillip saw that they'd been scrubbed clean of graffiti. All of the broken glass was gone, and though he couldn't be sure of this observation, the lions looked bigger, more polished, and more menacing than before. "No, you're just imagining this shit," Phillip mumbled. Still, it took what felt like a very long minute to kill the radio and switch off the ignition, to grip the door handle and actually exit the car. The sweet, musky scent of the woods swept up to greet him. Phillip drew in a deep breath, held it, and then just as deeply let it out. He checked his watch yet one more time. A minute to spare. Phillip started to pace the length of the car's hood, an eye darting toward the lions. With darkness falling, his fear that those stone horrors would spring his way at any moment was stronger than ever. "Julian," Phillip whispered. He popped a breath strip on his tongue, paced some more, checked his watch. 6:00. What if he wasn't coming? What if... The soft scuffle of a footstep tore Phillip out of the maelstrom of his spinning thoughts. He glanced up. A figure stood beside one of the stone lions, lovingly stroking its mane as though the damn thing were alive. To his surprise, it wasn't Julian, but his sister, Julia. "Uh, hi," Phillip said, his voice an octave higher than its normal deep baritone. "Where's Julian? Did you give him the note? Is he coming?" 38

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Julia didn't answer. She stepped away from the lion, and at the corner of his eye, Phillip swore he saw the thing's head move, as though it were tracking the girl's course. "Is he?" Phillip repeated, begged. Julia smiled. "I'm here, Phillip," she said, her voice altering mid-stream to become wholly, undeniably his. "What?" And then Julia, dressed in an ill-fitting blouse and baggy pants, removed her glasses and let them fall. She shook out her hair, and like the illusion of the lion, Phillip swore that her locks actually retreated and thickened to form the shag he recalled seeing on Julian during their brief meeting. She pulled the blouse over her head and straightened. As she did, the awkward, gangly girl's frame solidified into the lean, perfect proportions of the young man's body. Even the tiny mosquito bite tits that Patti had insulted without mercy tightened into firm, hairless hard-points. Though his jaw was hanging open in shock, some internal register in Phillip's mind lusted after those nipples. He wanted to kiss them, to nibble gently upon their firmness, to suckle them en route to other passion-filled destinations on the young man's body. His length swelled. He was aware of it at the periphery, itchy-hot, so hard it grew painful. Phillip knew that if he somehow managed to break their bottled gaze, to tip his eyes down, he'd see the embarrassing telltale of a wet spot on his Cammies, proof of his excitement. "Julian?" he gasped. Julian nodded. An aura of radiant golden energy rippled around the youth's body. Julian was the source of the 39

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effulgence Phillip had seen the night of the blackout. Julian was the light! Phillip's legs gave out beneath him. Just before the world went dark, he saw Julian sprint over to catch him. The young man's beautiful face greeted Phillip's return to consciousness. Julian's golden glow burned through the shadows before his dazed eyes, like a newly-formed star casting its light through a region of desolate space. "Are you all right?" Julian asked. Phillip lifted to his elbows and found himself sprawled across an antique sofa upholstered in rich purple velvet. "I think so." A smile curled on his lips. Boldly, he reached up and stroked the back of his hand across Julian's cheek. A gentle current of energy breezed through Phillip's insides. "Yeah, now that you're here, I'm fine." The bright-burning star shed more light on their surroundings. Phillip glanced up and saw that they were no longer outside the house near the stone lions. The room Phillip found himself transported to was as breathtakingly unexpected as his reaction to learning Julia was really Julian in disguise. Bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling around the tall room, filling nearly every space except where there were windows. A large globe dominated the heart of the room, but though Phillip recognized the general shape of the two Americas facing toward him, the land masses weren't precisely the way they should have looked. Also, there were no delineations of borders. The words United Earth stretched from Canada down to Argentina, with little red stars pinpointing New York, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. 40

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Phillip pulled his eyes away from the globe and continued to study the room, noting the curvature of its walls. The Circle Tower, he thought. He was inside Hindenwood House, in a room filled with books, a globe that was impossibly wrong, surrounded by knowledge and power. "This place..." he stammered. Julian touched a hand to Phillip's cheek. Electric pins and needles pricked across every inch of his flesh. Phillip found himself lost in the youth's sapphire eyes when the room again stabilized. "It contains all the knowledge known to man," Julian serenaded in his musical voice. "No way," Phillip said. Julian nodded. "That globe..." Phillip aimed a pointer finger at the Earth unlike any Earth ever known. "It's all wrong." "It's the Earth. The Earth that will be in the years to come. The last Earth of the human race, before..." "Before the Voron-Kali Invasion," bellowed a deep voice from behind them. Phillip kicked his legs over the sofa's edge and turned to see that the silver-haired man was standing at the tower room's door. The man was dressed in black; a lightning bolt similar to the one on the frilly apron zigzagged down the front of his t-shirt. The man Julia, Julian, had referred to as the Mentor again held the length of purple gemstone in his right hand.

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"Voron-Kali?" Philip repeated. Something I read in a novel he remembered Julia saying in the corridor, right after the altercation. "Julian, would you mind leaving Phillip and I alone so that he and I might talk?" "But..." Julian started to protest. "Please, not for long, I assure you." Phillip saw the expression on the older man's face and recognized its warmth as genuine, but also the resoluteness of its authority. Julian nodded and departed the room with a gracefulness that tugged at Phillip's heart. He had never before encountered someone so completely beautiful, in every way that mattered. Alone now with Julian's Mentor, Phillip sat frozen on the sofa, eyes wide and unblinking. His mind processed what it was able to in the tense seconds it took for the man to join him. "First, an apology." Phillip shrugged. "For what?" "I was wrong about you the other day. Very wrong indeed. Your offer to look out for Julian, to introduce him to your social circle, was truly gracious. I hope you understand how protective I am of him. I have to be." Phillip forced his eyes up to the man's intense gray gaze. "Then why would you make him dress like a girl in that Halloween get-up?" "The disguise? I've already told you. We need to protect him. In his natural state, Julian has a tendency to draw ... 42

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attention. Adoration from others. It's unavoidable. Look at how he's affected you." More information to process. "So why would you send him to school at all, if he's gonna get his ass kicked?" "Why send him to school, to be surrounded by his peers?" the man asked rhetorically. "To show Julian what he's fighting for." Phillip rose from the sofa and threw his hands into the air as he struggled with information overload. He approached the globe and gave it a spin. The Eastern Hemisphere rolled into view. Like the Western half, the outline of Europe wasn't correct, and a massive bite had been taken out of the center of Asia. More red stars dotted Canberra, Paris, Beirut, and the dead-center of Africa. United Earth stretched across all of the continents. "What the hell is going on here? Who the fuck are you people?" The man stood and joined Phillip at the globe. He placed his left hand on Eastern Europe and gave the planet another twirl. "Perhaps it's better that I show you." Julian's Mentor raised the amethyst wand and waved it. Suddenly, Phillip wasn't in the room anymore. He wasn't in Verdance, or America, or anywhere else on the Earth. He was floating above the planet, watching helplessly as the human race was wiped out of existence. **** The world vanished beneath his feet. Phillip screamed. 43

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A hand reached out of the darkness and steadied him. The sensation of falling, of spiraling through space, subsided. "They will come in a time of great unity and prosperity. A time when humans are just striking out into the surrounding systems of Orion's Arm..." A lava-colored vortex took shape above the planet. From inside the distortion, a massive construct covered in razorsharp spines emerged. The vessel reminded Phillip of the sea urchins he'd studied in Sophomore Biology. Adding to that analogy, the sinister spaceship even seemed to be constructed of a technology that had been grown rather than manufactured. Half a dozen identical craft followed it out of the vortex, each taking up orbital stations around the Earth. As Phillip watched, the planet-facing spines of the vessels erupted with flashes of dirty red weapons fire. The world beneath suffered. "A powerful territorial race, threatened by our reaching out into the galaxy. The Voron-Kali..." The image altered. Phillip now found himself staring at the planet from an angle that clearly showed the massive fires burning across its surface. Through the smoke rose an armada of streamlined silver spacecraft. The fleet formed a perimeter around the Earth. "The United Earth Government fought back..." Now, hundreds of vortexes formed, each similar to the one that had heralded the first wave strike. From within each of the hellish coils, contingents of spine ships emerged. "...but they were no match for the Invaders." 44

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The slaughter that followed left Phillip shaking and with tears in his eyes. He glanced away and covered his face with his hands. The man pulled them open, and Phillip was relieved to see the stacks of the circle tower's library. "Our technology, as advanced as it had become, could not save us. But all was not lost. The Voron-Kali, we discovered, had one weakness, but it could only be exploited by the arcane forces. By magic. We on the Council of Mentors learned of the weakness, and using all of our powers, all that was known and ever was known, we worked to create this countermeasure." "A magical weapon?" Phillip asked, wiping his eyes on the back of a bare arm. "Yes." "What kind of weapon? What did you create that's powerful enough to stop those monsters?" "Haven't you figured that part out yet?" the man asked. "Why, the weapon is Julian..." Phillip stood with arms folded, mouth agape. "The Voron-Kali are a powerful warrior-race, in many ways, evolved far beyond us. But during one crucial advance in their physical evolution, the Invaders lost the ability to love. Love is not only the most basic of emotions, it is also the most complex. Love embodies kindness, acceptance, understanding, and mercy. Love is what makes us treat one another with gentle regard. Love..." The man smiled. "Love is the most powerful magic of all." "So your plan is to ... what? Kill the Voron-Kali with kindness?" 45

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"Not kill them," the Mentor said. "Give them back what was lost to evolution. The ability to love. To understand that Earth is no threat. That there is room in Orion's Arm for both races to peacefully coexist, side by side, not as enemies, but as friends." "You're going to sprinkle them with a love potion?" Silence as deafening as a thunderclap settled over the room. Eventually, Julian's Mentor placed a hand upon Phillip's shoulder. Phillip flinched, unaware until that moment that he'd become so tense. "Julian embodies love, and our plan is that he will reawaken their cold and merciless hearts. The future of our entire planet rests with him." Phillip pulled away. "That's a lot to dump on a kid. There are days when shit like mowing the lawn and pop quizzes can bust your balls." "Julian's no 'kid,'" the Mentor said. Phillip shot the man a look. "What do you mean? He's my age." "Julian's over a thousand years old." Phillip's eyes widened. "Huh?" "We, the Mentors ... we will have been working on this solution for generations in readiness for when the attack comes. Look forward in time, and the human race is wiped out during a devastating attack by the Invaders. So we, utilizing the greatest and strongest of our powers, traveled into the past, to your time. And here, we have hidden him, protected him, and cultivated him in preparation for the world's darkest hour. "Julian's development is nearly 46

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complete, and when he is ready, we will take him back, into the heart of that pivotal battle. Genetically, he possesses all that is known to us. He is able to utilize areas of the human mind no person has ever accessed before. His powers have grown to awesome capacities. But the final missing component to Julian fulfilling his destiny has only recently been discovered." "What element is that?" The Mentor's gray eyes bore into him. "How can our champion teach the Invaders about love when he has yet to experience it for himself? You were the missing element, Phillip. And I'm so very glad that you are here." Phillip and Julian walked slowly, hand in hand, along the gallery at the top of the soaring staircase. Phillip swore that all of the eyes of the antique oil portraits on the walls were tracking their steps. "We've traveled from place to place, never staying anywhere too long," Julian said. "What about your parents?" Phillip asked. "I don't have any. I was 'donated' by the most powerful Mentors on the Council. Those Mentors and the last of their studentry held out at the remains of the citadel to the very end. We don't know what happened to them after that. But we worry..." Julian's voice trailed to a sigh. "About what?" Phillip pressed. "There was an instant—only a matter of seconds, really— when the Voron-Kali detected the rift in time and scanned our operation. A very strong component of the Mentors' powers 47

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was their technology. Earth magic, yes, but magic balanced by Earth science. So it's possible that the Invaders gleaned what we were doing and could be trying to reverse-engineer the technological dynamics of our time fracture." They reached a spiral staircase constructed of exquisite decorated wrought iron. Julian led Phillip onto the steps and up around its looping curves. A loft-style sitting area greeted them at the top. The nearly full moon was visible through an inset of stained glass above a simple white door. Julian opened the door, and crisp night air swept into the loft. The door led out onto a widow's walk on Hindenwood House's roof. Julian guided Phillip along the length of wrought iron safety railing. The air was hypnotically sweet, and the view, bewitching. The entire town of Verdance spread beneath them, glittering in the early night like a giant chandelier. But not even that view could compare with Julian's beauty. Still tethered to the youth's hand, Phillip pulled him into his arms. Julian tensed. And then, so did Phillip as something enormous crashed through the trees, forcing its way between the tall pines as if they were curtains. The thunder-crack of a snapping trunk drew Phillip's gaze into the shadowy expanse of Wolf Hill's woods. The menace, covered with what looked like a thousand snapping tentacles, loomed up, dwarfing the great house. Phillip instinctively shuffled Julian behind the protective wall of his body, putting himself between the horror and the 48

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youth. But Julian stepped back to the edge of the widow's walk, into what seemed certain danger. "Alone, please," he stated in a calm voice. The monstrosity skulked back into the trees, its menacing growls powering down to whimpers as it retreated. "What the fuck was that?" Phillip gasped. "The Hydra? She's harmless. A bit overprotective, but harmless. Mostly." "Hydra? Isn't that some evil monster from Greek mythology?" "Not evil, just misunderstood." Phillip scanned the dark woods. A multitude of pale green eyes stared back. Then, the beating of large wings drew his focus up to the sky. Something he first mistook for a cloud had moved in front of the moon. Phillip soon realized it wasn't; the moon's opaque light glowed through membranous tissue interlaced with a network of pink blood vessels. "I asked to be alone," Julian repeated, this time forcefully. The green eyes winked out. The gigantic winged cloudthing in the sky fluttered down to the horizon, and out of sight. "You've got a hell of a posse watching your back, dude," Phillip sputtered. "Every living creature on the planet has a stake in our victory over the Invaders, even the creatures most people think of only as myths. Without people to believe in them, the myths will become extinct, too." Julian moved closer, and this time he hugged Phillip without reservation. 49

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"But there is only one protector I need to keep me safe." Phillip's cock stirred. He hugged back, resting his unshaved chin on Julian's shaggy mop of sweet-smelling hair. His erection made it difficult enough to think, but with all he'd learned, Phillip's mind raced. "So, what does a Voron-Kali look like?" "They're tall. About ten feet, on average. Exoskeletal. Multi-limbed. Very large eyes. Voron-Kal, their home world, orbits multiple suns. One is a luminous blue-variable, circling a red giant. Their system looks like this..." Julian took a single step away and twirled the fingers of his right hand through the air. The space at his fingertips ignited with a ball of dark red light. A smaller, pulsating blue dot also sparkled to life. As Phillip watched, mesmerized, the lesser star settled into orbit around the larger. "That's their world, there." Julian indicated the fifth of seven planets clinging to the warmth of the twin stars. The world was an expanse of extinct volcanoes, time-eroded peaks, and sprawling industry-covered valleys. The planet swung in close for a single orbit past Phillip's face. Julian snapped his fingers, and the twin stars winked out, swallowing their brood in a silent supernova. "And the Voron-Kali? Have you ever seen one?" "Yes, just as we were fleeing the Proscenium Building at the citadel." Julian turned away. He aimed his pointer finger at the empty air and swirled. Golden light trailed each sweeping motion. The effulgence was hypnotic. Phillip's eyelids grew heavy, and the throbbing fullness between his legs now 50

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seemed to extend beyond the rock-hard eight inches he'd once measured with a ruler while doing his math homework. His entire body was one pulsating, erect cock, gorged with intense happiness. But that euphoria proved to be short-lived. The golden lines solidified into a ten-foot horror from another planet. Its skin shimmered purple-red in the moonlight, and its eyes, as Julian had promised, were indeed quite large, all four of them. Its head was shaped more like a ram's than a human's, and its four limbs seemed more metal than muscle. Phillip shouted a blue streak of swears and staggered back, right to the edge of the roof. "No, wait!" Julian said, reaching for him. "It's only a hologram. It isn't real!" Phillip tripped over his own huge feet. Julian grabbed hold of him, lightning-quick and with the barest of effort. It wasn't until they slipped over the gables that Phillip realized they were flying. **** Bodies locked together in a tight embrace, they levitated higher above Wolf Hill. "How...?" Phillip asked. "Earth magic. Earth science," Julian said, slipping one of his tiny, slender hands along the small of Phillip's back. "The harnessing of light and gravity and wind." The youth's touch sent tingles up and down Phillip's body. As if picking up on his thoughts, Julian's fingers eased lower, 51

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over the firm, square muscles of Phillip's butt. Phillip's cock reacted by throwing itself upon Julian's which, though smaller, was equally aroused. They rose even higher, the ragged tops of the tallest pines falling beneath their feet. Phillip drew in a deep breath and stared across Wolf Hill and the rest of the little town in disbelief. The giant silver balloon of the moon hovered in front of them, seemingly at eye level, close enough to touch. Phillip shifted. Julian's free hand worked its way between them, brushing against his cock. "Yes," Phillip groaned. Julian pulled down Phillip's zipper and fished his erection out of his underwear. The whole encounter was difficult enough to believe, but that it was Julian, beautiful Julian, stroking his mighty cock from its hairy root up the curve of its shaft to the straining helmet of its dripping head... Phillip briefly shot a look up at the stars and thanked whatever celestial deity had blessed him with this gift. The moonlit landscape drifting a few hundred feet below went out of focus as shudders rippled over every inch of Phillip's flesh. This couldn't be happening! Julian wasn't lowering toward his cock, gently tugging on his balls, fuck, how Phillip loved the sensation of pulling on them with his free hand when he pleasured himself, but that couldn't compare to the joy of having Julian do it for him. There was no way, floating above Wolf Hill, carried there by a mix of arcane power and future science, that Julian could be wrapping his lips around Phillip's cock, taking the head and 52

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several inches of straining shaft into his mouth, and sucking Phillip to the most intense climax of his young life. But he was. It was real. Phillip shuddered, overwhelmed by a conflagration of imaginary fire, sure he was going to lose consciousness and fall to his death as it consumed him. His first instinct was to clamp down on the roar tearing up his throat, as he did every time he shot a load while in his bedroom or the shower, his silence protecting him from being discovered, but also in some ways betraying him for not proudly shouting out the truth about his sexuality. Then he sensed it would be okay to proclaim his happiness to the universe, so he did. The echo of his voice carried over Wolf Hill, across shining Verdance, higher and far beyond the little town, seemingly to the moon and the stars themselves. Julian slinked up, silencing Phillip's baritone by crushing their mouths together. Phillip kissed back, tasting himself on Julian's sweet, probing tongue. Lips locked, Julian continued to stroke his cock, and before long, Phillip was erect and ready for more. "Please make love to me," Julian whispered around their hungry pecks. Phillip eased a hand into the youth's loose cotton slacks and touched glorious flesh. He'd masturbated at the thought of it countless times since their first encounter the morning after the storm. He cupped each soft, firm cheek, worked two fingers down the valley between them, massaging Julian's crack. Finally, his middle finger found the prize. Julian tensed against him, but moaned a breathy invitation to continue. 53

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Phillip gently teased Julian's asshole. The youth's cock stabbed against Phillip's thigh. "Fuck me," Julian gasped. Phillip took a heavy swallow, only to nearly gag on the dryness that had gathered at the back of his throat. "I want to, but I didn't bring, you know, a cock-sock." Julian's twin sapphires drew him into their pull. "A condom," Phillip continued. "I don't have a rubber." Julian smiled. "There's no need to worry. I'm immune." "Immune to what?" "To everything." Phillip unintentionally humped his cock between Julian's fingers. "Awesome. And it's not like we should worry, I'm a..." He caught himself before he could say the V-word. Embarrassment launched an avalanche of unpleasant warmth down his spine. Phillip grunted. He broke contact with Julian's eyes, reluctantly released his ass, and then seized the other boy's face in both hands. "What I am," Phillip said, "is in love with you." He briefly showered Julian's mouth with firm, wet kisses, then turned the youth around and worked his loose cotton pants off slender hips. Only mildly aware that they were still suspended above the old house and ancient trees, Phillip kissed his way down Julian's throat. He lifted the cotton shirt and suckled on a hard nipple before continuing his exploration, lower, toward the wonderland of naked flesh he'd bared from those pants. His kisses turned to nibbles at the top of Julian's butt; nibbles became slow, hungry licks from there on down. 54

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Cock aching for attention, Phillip tested Julian's taut, hairless asshole with the tip of his tongue. Julian mewled in appreciation. Phillip stabbed in deeper, forcing his way past the knot of muscles. Julian resisted a moment longer, before accepting Phillip's probing tongue. The musky, earthy taste of another male ignited across his taste buds. Phillip feasted, like a starving man suddenly offered a banquet, and all he could eat. Phillip straightened and entered Julian while suspended a hundred feet above the circle tower of Hindenwood House. The divine pressure on his cock quickly overwhelmed him, but he managed to hold on, to thrust forward while also pulling Julian's hips back toward him. Julian's moans threatened to make their first go at making love short. Phillip held on, thrust in harder, and assumed the pose he'd ejaculated over so often in his thoughts, releasing Julian's hips to masturbate the youth from behind. They came together. Then, after drifting back down to the roof, they even tested that other fantasy of Phillip's, the one in which he substituted his big toe for his dick. They made love three more times that night and fell asleep on the widow's walk, atop a pile of discarded clothes. Despite the brisk temperature, the ambience of Julian's aura warmed Phillip. It was dawn when Phillip woke and realized he'd spent the entire night away from his dad and Vivienne's house. Viv's going to have a nutty, he thought. Dad, too, but only because she'll have worked him into a frenzy. 55

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Phillip tipped his gaze toward the body nestled against his, protected in the small of his muscular arm. He leaned down and kissed Julian's sleeping face. He didn't care what they thought; Phillip was happier than he'd ever been before, and his life now felt complete. It was a whole new world, and though it was a world whose future was fraught with danger, this was where he belonged. Julian stirred beside him, mewling a happy sigh. The youth's eyelids opened, revealing those magnificent twin sapphires. "Good morning," Phillip growled. Julian nuzzled against Phillip's chest, tickling his armpit in the process. Phillip chuckled. "Hey, now!" The playfulness led to kissing, the kissing to another round of sex. Later, as they dressed in the shadows, Phillip gave his watch a glance. If he was lucky, he'd avoid his father and forgo the inquisition back at the house. And luck, magic, whatever you called it—love—certainly seemed to be on his side. As they descended the spiral staircase, the cadence of a clock ticking somewhere in the darkness of the grand manor again restored the truth of their predicament. Julian was a soldier, after a fashion, a weapon to be deployed in a devastating interplanetary war. Suddenly, Phillip felt the crushing weight of depression press down upon him. They never remained in one place for long, Julian had told him. Julian would return to the future, where he would enter the 56

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crucial battle and hopefully change its outcome. But there was no guarantee the Voron-Kali could be stopped. It was selfish of him and he knew it, but all Phillip could think about now was holding onto Julian, keeping him safe from danger, like the Hydra, the stone lions, the Mentor. After last night, how could he ever let Julian go? Phillip pulled the youth aside before reaching the gallery. "Have you thought about how you're going to kick the Voron-Kali's ass?" Julian shook his head. "I won't..." "I know, I know. I meant, when you use your powers, when you attempt to give them back the ability to love. Have you run through your strategy?" Julian's beautiful face darkened, and Phillip mentally kicked himself for causing distress. On instinct, he cupped Julian's cheek, brushing his thumb over the boy's plump, delicious lips. "Whatever happens, you won't face the Invaders alone. I'm going with you." "Phillip," Julian whispered, melting into his embrace. Looking around, Phillip realized the room was aglow with a golden effulgence, but not one single light was lit. **** The magic wasn't on his side when Phillip sneaked into the house on Bayberry Circle. Both Viv and his dad were waiting at the top of the stairs, side by side, his own private set of angry stone lions. 57

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"Where the hell have you been?" Vivienne snapped, her sharp voice slicing through Phillip's happiness and slaying the smile on his face. "Yes, Phillip, where?" his father grumbled. "We've called your phone a dozen times." His dad's normally handsome, healthy presence seemed haggard around the edges: bags under the eyes, a few stray hairs jutting out of place on his athlete's haircut. Judging by the sour stink in the air, Phillip guessed he'd been drinking instead of sleeping, probably nagged almost to the point of a nervous breakdown by Viv's hen-peckery. That last call from Tommy seemed years behind him, part of a different life. "Sorry, I turned it off." "You ever think to check messages? Christ, Phillip, you've been out all night!" "Yeah, with a friend. What's wrong?" Phillip asked. "What's wrong is that you've been sneaking around, drinking, lying," Vivienne admonished. "No I haven't," Phillip countered. "Patti's dad called here tonight. She's a mess. When were you planning to tell us that the two of you broke up?" Phillip shot a look at his dad, the brooding lion on the right side . "I don't have to tell you everything. My private life..." "Patrick Collings works with your father," Vivienne interjected. "You better believe you owe us an explanation." "Then if you must know, I have a new girlfriend. Her name is Julia." "That weirdo who moved up to Hindenwood House? At least it's a female. Patti seems to think there's something else 58

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at work here. She had this funny idea that you're really a homo," his father said, adding a humorless snort. Phillip gaped, more from the contempt in his father's voice than any worry about his secrets being exhumed. "And if I was?" he boldly countered. The full weight of Phillip's challenge didn't register with his father, at least not straight away. "Yeah, a son of mine, some flag-waving cock-smooch..." Phillip glanced away and shook his head. The house fell silent. In the face of what he knew and had seen, none of the modern world Phillip had lived in prior to meeting Julian seemed very relevant anymore. Not cell phones, football, central air conditioning, the stupid social circles of high school, not even his father's ignorance. In less than a week, Phillip had taken his own quantum leap in evolution, and now all of those other things seemed ridiculous. "I got news for you," Phillip said, tossing up his hands in disgust, defeat. "There's going to come a day when one of those flag-wavers is going to save all of us." Phillip pulled his keys out of his pockets and headed back toward the door. Tromping down the stairs, he heard his father bellow, "Get your ass back up here!" They wouldn't understand that powerful invaders were out there, lurking in the shadows of Orion's Arm, invaders who could be, even at that very instant, reverse-engineering the time travel methods from the ruins of the Council of Mentors enclave on a devastated future Earth. How could they, if they 59

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refused to understand and accept what he felt for Julian, whom he loved with all of his heart? It didn't matter if they understood, because Phillip did. **** Phillip barely remembered driving up to the stone lions, right after sunrise. He hadn't planned to fall asleep behind the wheel of his car, and jolted awake to the sound of a set of knuckles gently wrapping on the half-open window. The caress of soft fingers on his cheek calmed him. Phillip's vision swam into focus. It was Julian, dressed and altered again to look like Julia. "Good morning," Julia said. She glowed. Phillip opened the door and got out. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it. "Your chariot to Verdance High awaits..." Phillip pulled into the lot and parked next to Tommy Toscano's sports car. Tommy and a few of the guys from the team, John Samberg, Bryce Eaton, and Rick Catalano, were tossing around a football and talking loudly. Phillip's heart began to hammer. Ignoring his rising anxiety, he hopped out of the car and opened the door for Julia. Saying nothing to his buddies, who didn't feel like Phillip's boys anymore, he took Julia's hand and proudly marched toward the school's bus port. Tommy galloped up to them. "Hey dude, slow down." Phillip dug in his heels and revolved to face his former, sometimes best friend. 60

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"What dude, you can't be bothered to say hi to me anymore?" "Hey," Phillip said. He flashed a game show host's phony smile and offered the rest of the jocks a tip of his chin in greeting. "Can I talk to you a sec, man?" Tommy pressed. Phillip glanced into Julia's twin sapphire eyes, but hesitated in answering. "It's okay," Julia said, her smile warm, genuine, wondrous. "I'll see you later." "Okay," Phillip grinned. He leaned down and kissed Julia fully on the lips. Their fingers unlaced, and she began to walk away. Phillip suddenly found himself standing between two worlds, his very bright, very happy new existence, and the old one, which was now colored in shades of gray. He forced his eyes to Tommy's. "'Sup?" "Yeah, that's the big question. What's up with you, man?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, dude, you're slack on the field, you don't take phone calls or want to hang with the guys any more, and you gave up a fine piece of ass like Patti Collings for ... that?" Phillip grabbed the other boy by his shirt and had him backed into the nearest parked car before Tommy could defend himself. "Watch your mouth!" Phillip roared into Tommy's face. Tommy struggled against Phillip's might. "Let me go, man!" 61

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Not far away, the football stopped being tossed, and three sets of feet began to run. Phillip leaned even closer. "I mean it. Let me make this perfectly clear to you and to everybody else." He shot the trio of football jocks a threat-filled look, stopping them where they stood. "Patti Collings is free and back on the market. Have at her, if you want. But nobody disrespects my girl. As far as you're all concerned, she's a princess. A rock star. She's the queen of the Earth, and you will respect her." Tommy shrank back. "Okay, man. Agreed. Chill." Phillip gradually relaxed. He released Tommy, and without saying another word, hurried to catch up with Julia. **** Coach Callison benched him at the next practice in favor of Tommy Toscano, and Phillip couldn't have cared less. The previous night's lovemaking session with Julian on Wolf Hill had taken place in a secret, special room at the back of the house, behind a purple door. The room's windows looked out across an alien landscape of gemstone-studded steppes and cascading waterfalls. What was leading a high school football team compared with the future wonders Julian had revealed to him? Phillip's eyes drifted up to the dense gray storm clouds that had rolled in early that afternoon, threatening another beast of a soaker. He was lost in his thoughts about Julian and the days ahead when Patti sauntered over. "Tell me," she said, a sour expression on her face. "Tell me why." 62

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Phillip blinked himself out of the trance and faced her. "Patti? Why what?" "Why you would leave me for her. Of all people. What does she have that I don't?" "I'm not going there with you," Phillip said. He grabbed his football helmet by the chinstrap and stood, intending to hot-foot it back to the showers. "Tell me what it is about her," Patti persisted, tipping her helmet of strawberry blonde hair toward the bleachers, where Julia sat watching the team practice. Phillip smiled, something not lost on Patti. "Why, Phillip?" "She's magic," Phillip sighed. "Pure magic, that's why." He started across the field. Fuck football practice. He wanted, needed to spend time with the one he loved. But halfway to the bleachers, a bird cried out at the limit of its voice. Another joined in, then another after that. Suddenly, the squawking of birds grew deafening. A darting of motion overhead drew Phillip's eyes to the sky. A raven zigzagged awkwardly, while a dozen other birds flew in unsynchronized formation, all screaming as they navigated the chop. The source of their disturbance soon became apparent. The thunderheads building over the football field rumbled with a spark of dirty red lightning. A second red-tinged coil erupted behind the veil of gray, then half a dozen spun and crackled around one another, like angry dragons fighting in the sky. The hair on Phillip's arms stood. His balls pulled up tightly, and his flesh crawled. 63

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The violent disturbance darkened, blazing inside the bank of clouds with an unhealthy red light. It was as if that patch of sky had grown infected from within. The infection quickly swelled, seeming ready to burst, to spill its poison across the clouds and earth. But then it unfolded in a swirl of lavacolored light identical to the images that Julian's Mentor had shown Phillip in the tower room at Hindenwood House. One of the screaming ravens descended. As it dropped, it altered, taking on the shape of a man. "Mentor!" Phillip heard Julia call above the cries of birds and humans. Phillip had forgotten about the football team, Coach Callison, and the cheerleaders until Tommy Toscano screamed something about terrorists attacking with a nuclear bomb. Phillip knew differently. Overhead, the swirling dirty-red vortex widened, and a Voron-Kali spine ship clawed its way out into the overcast sky. "The Invaders!" Phillip said, barely aware of the football helmet's chinstrap slipping out of his hand. Paralyzed, he could only stare at its terrible beauty; the enemy vessel was massive, magnificent in its deadly power. An errant crackle of red lightning snapped across its quill-covered, purple-black hull. Phillip forced his eyes away from the enemy spaceship and turned toward Julia. Terror registered upon her face, and those beautiful sapphires were waterlogged. The older man holding her hands in his was chanting something, though his lips weren't moving. 64

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"You are the hope, and the dream ... and we all march beside you. All of us. All of the Earth..." The membranous creature Phillip had seen illuminated by the moon's light several nights earlier reared up, blocking a section of the sky between them and the Voron-Kali vessel. Animals now darted around the football field, mirroring the same confused, protective motions as the birds. Dogs, coyotes, a bobcat, and to Phillip's surprise, even a black bear, all growling, snarling and howling, but not attacking, merely taking up a defensive line between the Invaders and Julia. Phillip assumed by the crack and crash of a falling tree somewhere behind the field house that the Hydra, too, was racing to protect the disguised youth from the enemy. As the Mentor chanted and the animals ran around in a frenzy, a storm of rain, wind and noise blasted across the landscape and, for a frightening instant, Phillip lost sight of the small, seemingly insignificant figure he'd promised to protect. What can the power of love do against such brute strength? the acid voice in Phillip's thoughts betrayed him. The field briefly cleared, and Phillip again glanced across the distance of perhaps twenty feet that separated him from humanity's only hope. His eyes met Julia's just as the shadow of the Voron-Kali juggernaut engulfed them all. "I love you," Phillip called, hurrying toward her. Julia's terrified face solidified. Unblinking, she righted, and all fear seemed to flee her. She met Phillip halfway, took his face between her hands, and kissed him. 65

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Power crackled through the air, but its source was not the Voron-Kali warship. This energy danced at the hands and the lips of the disguised youth. Julia broke their embrace, and then it happened. Her twin sapphire eyes filled with a golden glow as she swept her arms toward the sky. The disguise of an awkward young girl dropped, burned away by an effulgence of powerful white light. Julian emerged to stand naked atop the smoldering remains of Julia's clothes, pinpoints of tiny stars dancing around his body. Light poured through the youth's flesh, forming an aura around his body. A corona of sunlight ensconced his head. He was the light. Julian rose up into the sky, and Phillip was overwhelmed by the purest sense of love and happiness he had ever known. His cock instantly stiffened, before his knees gave out and he dropped to the ground, watching in awe as Julian's light reached out, expanding exponentially. In only a matter of seconds, the nimbus matched the Voron-Kali juggernaut in size. A second after that, it cracked through the clouds and stretched to fill the sky. For a brief and wondrous instant, the planet Earth was given a second sun, one that rained a fountain of light and love in every direction. Surely, Phillip thought, that climax of energy is bright enough to shine across the entire planet. Maybe this light will teach not only the Voron-Kali to love again, but the human race as well. The love that unites the Earth for that future I was shown... 66

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Shielding his eyes against the second, more powerful sun in the sky, Phillip tracked the Invaders' course. The spaceship continued to advance for another tense second before halting in place. Then, in rapid succession, the network of spines lining the vessel's superstructure—its devastating weaponry— withdrew. Every spine retracted into the orb's hull. The vast warship rolled away, back into the cyclone of lava-colored light. Then it was gone. "He did it!" Phillip gasped. The Mentor clapped a hand on Phillip's shoulder. "He did, Phillip. He did! Because of you." Their eyes met briefly. Phillip gazed skyward, where Earth's second, temporary sun was burning down into the shape of a trembling, naked young man. Julian's aura of light and energy began to fail as he descended. And though he fell the last of the way to the Earth, Phillip was there to catch him. [Back to Table of Contents]

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About the Author Gregory L. Norris grew up on a healthy dose of TV science fiction and creature double features, and was forever changed in indelible, wonderful ways by them. A full-time professional writer, Norris routinely contributes to a number of national magazines and fiction anthologies, and once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of the Paramount classic, Star Trek: Voyager. His latest book, The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Alyson Books/March 2008) pays homage to the series with a lovingly queer bent, and his novella "The Vulture" recently garnered the featured cover story slot of Forbidden Love 3, the graphic erotic romance series published by gaming company Under the Moon, who are also set to release his urban, modern retelling of the Grimm fables, Once Upon a Time, Yesterday. Norris lives with his partner and two rescue cats in a quaint writer's bungalow called Blueberry Corners, which is set on a large stretch of pine-covered land and is named after a similar home in his first novel, written when he was eighteen. "The Invaders" was mostly penned longhand by candlelight last winter, when a massive ice storm knocked out power in his small New Hampshire town for three full days.

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