“So you believe in fear and fear has approached you. How do you combat fear?”
Stand your ground. He will chase you forever, even in death. Stand your ground. The thought was crazy. She was crazy! She had nothing to fight with, no weapon, and a power she couldn’t control. How was she supposed to fight?
Have courage. Fight, Jin.
Jin came to a stop.
I will help you, guide you. I need you to trust me. You can do this.
Can I?
You can do anything.
I can.
How do you combat fear?
Her fist clenched. Her eyes dilated to let in more light. “You face it.”
Backtracking, she moved across the floor silently, back towards the stairs. Jin listened for the sound of any movement before she stepped into the stairwell. The last thing she wanted was to give away her advantage and let Shen know where she was. She felt him follow her into the construction site so she knew he was there.
Feeling the coast was clear, she stepped out. Stars flashed behind her eyes as a fist connected with her jaw. Stumbling back she looked up through the pain to see Shen drawing his hand back for another punch. Something instinctive told her the second punch would be stronger so she ducked hard, Shen’s fist narrowly missing her. She didn’t stay around to see if she would be lucky with a third.
She hit the pavement hard, racing up the steps. Jin looked up and a number popped in her head. Six flights.
There was a growl behind her and she felt Shen grab at her ankle. She shook his weak hold loose and continued, her shoes slapping against each step.
Speed up. Speed up. Speed up.
“I’m going to kill you!”
Not if I have anything to say about it.
Up ahead was the door to the roof. Good, good. Change the playing field. Give yourself enough space to fight. Jin charged for it, her hand outstretched for the handle when a heard the pop of a gun. A fire speared her thigh, exploding through tendons and flesh. Jin screamed as the pain burned through her. She slapped a hand around the wound, watching her pants stain with blood.
I know it hurts but keeps going! You have to get on the roof!
Jin clenched her teeth and turned the handle just as Shen was coming up the final steps. She hobbled through, dragging her injured leg until she could slam the door shut. She reached for the lock and groaned when she realized there was no lock to lock. The door was smooth and cool with bolted paneling where the mechanism should be. Panicking, she looked for something to keep the door closed. She found a metal rod leaning against the wall and it would have to do. She jammed it under the paneling and pressed herself against the door.
“Open the door, Jinni!”
Jin. Jin! Listen to me! Ignore him. Ignore your panic, ignore you desire to give into your pain and listen to me! You can control this power. Concentrate. It feels like a song in your head, the thumping of your heart. If should feel like heat at the tip of your tongue.
Jin whimpered, her hand shaking, and tried to concentrate. A forceful thump was felt from the other side of the door.
You’ll have to heal yourself.
“How am I supposed to do that?” she shrieked.
By invoking a path just like you did in Kowloon. Close your eyes. I’ll teach you the words so that you can use it.
Aria’s voice whispered words in her head she didn’t know…but she felt them. Felt them as if she’d known them all her life. The words were hot like fire blazing across her mind and she felt the tips of her fingers warm up.
Say them, Jin. You don’t have long.
“Machen Path,” she whispered as her hand, now burning up, clenched around her leg. “1st disciple. I command you.”
The fire turned warm and just like she’d seen Key do with Aiden, just like she’d seen Aria do with her on the bridge, the tips of her fingers began to glow until her entire hand was engulfed in the light. Just like that the pain was gone. She looked down at her leg and the blood had stopped and the skin that looked like it was mending itself.
You’re going to feel a bit dizzy but I’m going to offset that.
Jin swayed on her feet but the same warmth she’d felt from her fingertips emanated out of her body and her head cleared.
Are you ready to fight now?
There was another hard push from the door and the pole holding it close shook. Jin kicked it away. She was ready.
She took a few steps from the door and the next time Shen tried to force his way through her blockade, the door flew open. He spilled out of the stairwell and almost lost his balance but caught it at the last minute. He was breathing hard from exerting himself. Jin smirked. Shen wasn’t all that in great shape, he never was. Most of his physique came from good genes, a high metabolism and not eating like total shit. Still, the gym wasn’t his favorite place to be.
There wasn’t a lot of light on the roof, save a fluorescent light on top of the roof access building that fluttered, buzzed and hummed in inefficiency. In the dark, Shen’s eyes glowed, eerily, sparks of malice and anger. “I remember back in the day when you were a good girl and didn’t cause any shit. That when I told you to stay put, you did it.”
Jin exhaled, letting the degradation roll off of her like water over oil. “What can I say, Shen? I’m not the woman you used to know.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re pretty stupid these days,” he bit out. “Everything you do amazes me because you are the stupidest smart woman I’ve ever met.”
“Does that make you feel better? To say that? To call me stupid? Whatever. Call me what you want but I’m not going to let you call me afraid.”
“Jesus, do you hear yourself? Is that some lame shit Aiden taught you?” Shen laughed. “I’m not afraid,” he mocked. “That’s the thing, Jinni. I never, ever thought you were. You were perfect to me. But that was then and this is now. So if you’re scared, just say you’re scared.” He chuckled. “You’re trying to convince yourself. Not me.”
“You’re talking a lot of shit for someone who had to stalk me halfway across the world because he got his feelings hurt.”
Shen’s laughter ceased and a darkness washed over his face “You know. I wanted to put a bullet through that pretty head of yours but something deep down in me wants to wrap my hands around your neck and squeeze until the blood vessels in your eyes pop, watch while you fight and gasp for air. I wanted to see the life slowly leave you like you left me.”
He’s trying to get into your head. Inhale deeply and look at him, really look at him. What color is his aura? What is its vibrancy?
Jin tried, peering at him as he fumed. She noticed it. She noticed it. “I see black…red…yellow! Yellow is the strongest.”
Shen frowned. “What?”
What does it smell like?
Jin inhaled. “Fear. A loss of control.”
That’s because you’ve taken the control away from him. When he attacks, aim for the parts of him that pulse with yellow. His heart, his neck, his stomach, parts he wants to naturally protect.
Shen looked at her, tilted his head and scoffed when Jin dug deep into a defensive stance. “You want to fight?”
Jin answered by putting her fists up.
“I was right. You are stupider now.” Shen reached for his belt and before Jin could react to what he was doing, he unloaded four shots into her. The shock of pain was so much worse than her leg. It was unthinkable how much it hurt. She crumpled to her knees and began to fall back, the world blurring from her tears.
Before her back hit the ground, Shen was there, cradling her, lowering her to the pebble-covered roof floor with a care that seemed illogical.
She looked at him, her eyes wide as she struggled to get air into her lungs. Blood bubbled at her lips and her entire body shook. He brushed the hair off her sweaty forehead before kissing it.
“It didn’t have to be like this, Jinni,” he whispered, his tone so loving that it threw her already shocked brain into a spiral. “We could have been happy. W
e were happy. You told me you loved me.”
“Ma–mach–” Jin tried. She could heal herself. She could. She just had to say the words. “Ma…”
“Shhh, baby. Shhh. Don’t talk. You’ll only delay it. Go to sleep. Dream. We can be together in our dreams.”
Her eyes fluttered and she fought to keep them open. She could feel her body beginning to shut down. AJ was silent. The wind sounded like a faint breeze.
“I’m going to enjoy Aiden seeing you like this. I’m going to place your cold, dead body in his arms. Then I’m going to strangle him to death,” he whispered as he stood.
“Mach– ” she gurgled.
He raised the gun and aimed for her head.
“Ma…ma–”
He pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
“It’s done.”
Ahn stared up at the holographic image of Penume who was working in her Santum–a Caustum like chamber that she used to do her spiritual work. Ahn probably should be able to detail what exactly Penume did in her Santum but…he had absolutely no idea how she worked. She and her spiritual, magical, mystical…whatever.
It didn’t matter that Ahn didn’t know how Penume got things done, it was the fact that Penume got things done.
Such as this. “How long?”
Penume raised her hand to look at the watch on her wrist. Her hands were smoking. Ahn could question that but again, he didn’t care why her hands were smoking. “By this afternoon at the latest.”
“That soon?”
“What can I say? I work fast. Get ready, my friend. Things are about to change.”
Ahn nodded. “Good. Maybe we can keep everything in one piece this time.”
“You talking souls?”
“No,” Ahn said, his fingers steepled under his chin. “I’m talking everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The first sound Aria heard was the cracking of stone which was miraculous to her. Not the stone, she didn’t understand the stone. She understood that she was hearing something, that it wasn’t a collection of notes that she’d hear in some dreamlike state. That she, with actual ears, was hearing something.
It first hit her as unusual because after centuries of not being, not hearing or tasting or breathing, of not existing, she would remember what it was like to hear something.
The first sound she’d ever remembered was a lullaby called Hine e Hine. Her mother, Selene Okoro, sang it to her when she was just a child. It was strange. The voice she heard in her dreams when she recalled hearing Hine e Hine was different than her mother’s but she knew her mother had sung it to her. They’d told her so. At first, Aria didn’t know what the words meant. The language was different.
When she asked her mother, her mother said she’d heard it somewhere but wouldn’t name the place. It wasn’t until she asked her friend IB, whose father was Maori, what the lyrics meant, did she find out in detail. The lyrics spoke of love and protection. On nights when she felt alone, she would hum the lyrics.
You are crying, little girl, little girl. You are tired, little girl, little girl, Do not fear, for there is love, in the father's heart for you, little girl, little girl.
The last sound she remembered, before falling into this state of being nothing rather than an actual tangible thing, was the sound of her mate’s screams.
Choe Yeong was a reserved man. He didn’t speak a lot but his face, his hands, his eyes, they spoke volumes. They said more things in complete silence than he ever did with words. When she heard his screams, she should have chastised him for losing control of who he was. But she couldn’t. She was dying.
The last thing she ever wanted to hear was him broken like that. She wanted him to sing to her, maybe an old Goryeoan folk song, the one he sang the night they were mated. The screaming, the despair, the hopelessness in his voice was something she couldn’t bear. It broke her heart.
For the longest of times, there was nothing but silence, the empty hollow of The Nothingness. The void was dark. She would sing out to it and nothing would sing back. She would reach out to touch it, touch something, and the inky blackness would slip through her fingers. But the darkness kept her warm, cradled her, protected her, soothed her when she was scared, calmed her when the loneliness would drive her to the edge of insanity. She began to get used to it.
Then she became aware that she wasn’t alone. That awareness came under the duress of fear. Not her own. Another’s fear. She was thrown into madness right along with that person. She felt what they felt.
Then there wasn’t darkness but a red haze. The black that once felt like warm arms around her became razor blades at her throat. Blood stained her fingers and her teeth. There was a hole in her chest, her heart exposed, her forehead hot with fever, her breath short. She heard a voice she’d never heard before. A name, strange and unfamiliar, echoed all around her.
Jin. The name was Jin.
It was Ahn who pulled her from the madness and surrounded her in blue. He made her feel safe. As her consciousness began to form into something other than a maddening void, Ahn cared for her. She lived off of his nephesh, sometimes coming close to draining him dry, her hunger insatiable as her spirit recuperated.
One day the blue receded and shifted to gold…and white and browns and greens and purples and pinks. A world she recognized as something, the opposite of nothing.
She owed Ahn her life. And because of that, she would submit to his soft urgings, the ones that spoke of a woman, the whispers of war, a blood prophecy and reincarnation. She followed his plans, fell in line despite the desire to do anything but. The urge to fight, to lead, was behind her…the day she fell on the bridge.
“This is a second chance, Aria.”
It was enough to revive her fighting spirit. Enough to want to live.
She would live. She would fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Temple of Tambour, Temple Annex
Elysian Territory, Caelian Realm
Aria emerged from the stone pillar of salt with a blinking curiosity. She glanced down at her naked body, one devoid of the scars she’d gained in battle, the skin smooth and supple and remarkably flawless. She stepped forward onto the ground, now littered with purple annals, shaking the last bit of stone away. I’m in the Temple Annex of the Temple of Tambour. It looked the same. She knew it had been centuries since she’d died but nothing about the Temple had changed at all.
A crow appeared by her foot and stared up at her, like it was waiting for something. Soon others joined their little black friend. That wasn’t new. She seemed to attract birds. Lots of them. One or two were lovely and their songs were so pretty, even if a crow’s caw was an acquired taste. Hundreds of them
sounded like a nightmare.
“Shoo, birds! Shoo! Go away!” They just looked at her with the same look of anticipation as the crow by her foot.
There was a guard just a few feet away from her who was staring at her like she’d seen a ghost. To be fair to the young chit, Aria had been dead for a very long time.
“Uh, hello!” she tried, giving the guard a lopsided smile.
Aria went to take a step forward when her legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground. Strange. She knew how to walk. Frowning, she tapped one, amazed but confused when the taps hardly registered anything more than pricks and tingles.
“Command? Command!” the guard yelled into her wrist communicator, panicked. “This is Eowyn, Division Bear, Center Guard. Um…I think someone should come to the Temple Annex?”
“And tell them to be quick about it!” Aria yelled from the ground.
Aria tried to stand but her legs would not cooperate. So instead she opted for rolling on her side. “Like real quick! I don’t plan on spending my entire first day back alive day sitting on my ass! Err, side?”
The guard, startled by her yelling, tittered on the back of her heel for a moment before landing on her rear. She looked up, her eyes wide and her mouth open.
“Ar
-ar-ar-ar-are you–are you…”
Aria grinned, her smile a touch wolfish. She propped her elbow on the ground and then plopped her chin onto her fist. “Yep! In the flesh!” She poked her arm.” Oh! Introductions, right? Manners and such.” She paused and held her hand up. “I’m Aria Yollor’eve’astavah Jinni of Kokabiel, clan Eliyah, The Lioness, Sekhmet reborn and a rah, rah, rah. Please just call me Aria. Please. I come in peace. Take me to your leader,” she finished with a snort. She glanced down at her legs. “Or a healer. Either one. Although a leader-healer would be awesome. Or a healer-leader.”
The guard recovered a lot smoother than Aria expected, standing to her feet and executing a smooth Caelian salute with her arms locked behind her back and her feet wide. “Yes, ma’am! Right away, ma’am!” She took off in a dead sprint out of the Temple Annex and out of sight.
“Wait! I said take me to your leader! Like on your back or something!” she hollered at the space where the guard once stood. She looked down at her naked body again. “And get me some clothes while you’re at it!”
Aria glanced through the open columns of the Temple Annex building, staring out over Caeli, a sight for sore eyes.
She inhaled, held it in, and as she exhaled, she eased back, staring at the ceiling, her hands behind her head, her nudity well forgotten.
“I’m home, everyone,” she whispered to herself. “Time to start some shit!”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Tower Barracks, Cobra Caustum Chamber
Elysian Territory, Caelian Realm
“Are you ever going to talk to me?”
Jerome’s fingers squeezed around the handle of his coffee mug but other than that he didn’t react. He continued to swipe through the archives looking a clue. There was one clue that a Hawk analyst had suggested but they were waiting for him to arrive. Until then they would keep looking. Since they were on a time crunch, distractions were not all that welcomed. They were never welcomed, really, especially within Cobra. It’s primarily why Cobra chose the basement level of the Tower Barracks, or why Hugo kept his files separate from the other Luminary Generals. Distractions hindered progress.
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 21