Portals of Infinity: Book Two: The God Game Page 18

  Joseph laughed so hard he almost choked on his beer. “Damn it! Warn a guy first before you say something like that!”

  We drank another few rounds and discussed a few other odds and ends before we finally called it a night and said our goodbyes.

  “Well, until we meet again I guess,” Joseph said giving us each a hug. “Have to say, I do like the inn you have here, Will. There is something to be said for a place to just sit back and relax and only worry about the more mundane things in life.”

  Dezba nodded and gave me a hug as well. “Steph was right, you really do have quite the setup here. Probably why Feliogustus likes you so much, Aryanna once told me he’s into taverns as well.”

  I stopped and thought about that, it had never occurred to me.

  “Well, it was nice to see you both again,” I told them. “Until we meet again.”

  “Until then,” they both agreed. Then as I watched, they both gated out of the private room we’d spent the day talking in.

  “So have fun visiting with ye friends, hon?” Darlene asked later that night as we cuddled in bed.

  “Yes, it was nice to see them again, if only briefly.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t spend the night after traveling here to see ye.”

  “They have places they need to return to, where they’re needed.”

  Darlene nodded and snuggled a little closer. “They be powerful people, aren’t they?”

  I gave her a kiss, “What makes you say that?”

  “Because ye are powerful, that’s why,” she said giggling.

  “And what makes you think that I’m powerful?” I asked curious.

  “Because the goddess looks after ye and she also looks after me because I’m ye wife.”

  I smiled in the darkness my Darlene was so perceptive. “I love you, Darlene.”

  “And I love ye too, Will, and I understand that ye can’t always be here, but the simple fact that ye are here whenever ye can be is enough to make me happy.”

  “Thanks for understanding, love.”

  “I just want to know what I did to deserve someone as wonderful as ye are, hon,” she whispered and I just held her in my arms until she fell asleep wondering the very same thing. How had I managed to end up with Darlene? Rachel? A ton of money, an inn, children, and working as a champion to a god? It had all happened so fast, but here I was, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I couldn’t believe that all of this had happened to me in the last three years since I’d left home.

  Then on top of all of that there was the ‘Infinite’ that the gods talked about; I now had the ability to jump through the gateways between the worlds, to see a million different realities, all of them different, possibly anything I could image existed out there, somewhere, for me to find. And as a champion, I could live as long as it took to go see as much of it as I wanted to see, I could work my way across the ‘Infinite’ like a man working his way across the country.

  It boggled the mind. There was just so much out there to see, and I had to admit that I wanted to see it all.

  End Book 2

  As an author, I would ask that if you liked this book, please take the time to rate it. Ratings are an important part of success as an ebook author, and four or five star ratings are of course the ones that help us the most. So while I feel a little embarrassed about asking for ratings and reviews, the reality of this business is that without those reviews my work will not rise in rankings and will not be seen by others. So please, if you liked the story I would greatly appreciate your taking the time to write a short review and rate the book.

  Thank you,

  John Van Stry

  www.vanstry.net

  (vanstry@gmail.com - mailing list signup is at my blog: http://jvanstry.blogspot.com/)

  If you liked this book, you might like my other stories:

  Urban Fantasy:

  Portals of Infinity, Book One: Champion for Hire

  William is just your typical engineer fresh out of college with a stressful job, a boring life, and not a lot of prospects of anything better in the future.

  Until one weekend while hiking in the woods he stumbles across a portal to another time, or perhaps another place. The more he investigates this new world the more he realizes that it may just be able to offer him a lot more than the one he's been living in.

  However, there are forces at work beyond anything that Will has ever come across before and the local Goddess seems to have taken a liking to him. Will may soon find himself getting an offer he cannot afford to refuse.

  The Hammer Commission

  Mark's job seems pretty dull, working as an investigator into crimes committed against Church property, theft of holy objects, vandalism; nothing terribly exciting but he does get to travel the world.

  That's just the window dressing. Mark does work for the Church, but as an elite member of a thousand year old secret society that hunts down devils, demons, and other evils. His job is not just to find them, but to remove, dispel, or kill them: he's on the front lines of the secret ongoing war between Heaven and Hell. However as wars go, it has been a fairly easy one for the last few decades, with nothing seriously evil having been summoned since the last world war.

  But all of that is about to change, and the question for Mark may not be can he survive, but can he survive long enough.

  Science Fiction:

  Children of Steel

  Raj is just your average everyday genetically modeled and artificially created anthropomorphic worker for one of the many corporations of the future. Extensively trained and conditioned from birth he's now indentured for the next fifty years of his life; assuming he doesn't die first, or somehow manage to pay off his creation and training debts.

  Created by the corporations to deal with the harsh labor shortages of the twenty second century when humans will no longer take on the dangerous jobs Raj finds himself now in the harsh world of space exploration, trading, corporate maneuverings, and sometimes the even more dangerous fanatics that hate Raj and his fellows. No longer in safe confines of the training academies he must learn how to live and deal with both his fellow workers and the humans he encounters and not get saddled with extra bills or fines because he's screwed up or worse yet, get 'put down' because he's lost his temper one time too many.

  After all, it's not like he's human ...

  Danger Money

  Jotun was born and bred to be a corporate assassin, back in the days of the Corporate Wars. Confined these days to life in a gilded cage, Jotun welcomes any opportunity to get out and lately he's been getting out a lot. But as a genetically designed and Laboratory bred animorph by a company that isn't quite sure if it trusts him anymore his choices are few: do the jobs that eventually will kill him, or refuse, which will also kill him.

  Of course it isn't like he doesn't enjoy the work, but when everybody wants you dead you start to wonder if there isn't more to life.

  When an unexpected betrayal kills the few friends he has and nearly him as well, Jotun realizes he has bigger problems than his lifestyle, namely finding out who betrayed him and paying them back, no matter what the cost.

  Danger Money is a Science Fiction story that takes place in my Children of Steel universe, a future where genetically created animorphs serve as second class citizens and handle all of the dirty and dangerous jobs that are part of humanity's extension to the stars.

  Dialene

  Dialene's Captain decided to play pirate, and one well placed nuclear torpedo later she finds herself prisoner of the Corporation whose ship they were attempting to raid; her friends and lover all dead. With no corporation to ransom her back she finds herself in the unenviable position of having to work off the debt assigned to her for her part in her Captain's actions. With concerns as to where her loyalties lie she has but two choices: Work in the mines on an airless rock where a small fem like her would not last long, or work in the company bar entertaining those very same miners.

  At least working in the bar
beats the alternatives, until one day an interesting character inserts himself into her life.

  A Novella from my Children of Steel universe, Dialene is a foxmorph who until her capture was a highly rated shuttle pilot working a deep space trader for one of the more notorious corporations. Like most of her kind she had no choices in her employer who considered her nothing more than a disposable asset.

  Shorts: The Furry Years

  A collection of short stories that I wrote years ago for several of different anthropomorphic fanzines. Includes the following short stories:

  Changes: The hero of the story wakes up in the morning to find his world has changed, rather drastically for him, hardly at all for others.

  Old Business: This is from my ‘Children of Steel’ universe, it’s about the beginning of it all, the very first of the sentient animen (or animorph) ever to be created.

  New Beginnings: Jack is the new bartender at a small pub, a nice quiet pub in the business district. The patrons tend to find his opinions humorous, as what does a bartender know after all? (More of a slice of life type story).

  Fox Hunt: A joke that I just could not resist.

  Easy Money: What happens to spies who come in from the cold? Especially ones who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks? Nothing good I’m sure...

  Available in eBook format at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and wherever eBooks are sold, available in print from CreateSpace or Amazon.