“Two thousand six hundred and forty feet,” she stated mechanically, her vision coloring red for a moment and her nose filling with the smell of metal. “Twenty miles an hour will get you there in approximately one minute, forty-eight seconds.”
Go.
Jin, you can’t escape.
Jin ignored AJ’s voice, again, still angry at her, and still confident that her plan would work.
You can’t outrun your problems!
You said that when I faced Shen and he killed me!
Jin dug her feet in, the water holding as if it were solid, and took off, racing across the surface, gunning for the red gate. The scenery blurred as she ran, sound vanished and her vision focused on what was in front of her. She was close, she could feel the red of the gate calling to her, reaching out, lighting her on fire.
Something hard hit her across her face and sent her flying away from it. She skid across the surface of the water, skipping like a rock thrown across a pond until she came to a stop and fell into the water.
“How,” she thought in blind shock as she kicked for the surface. She was close to the surface, close to inhaling her next gulp of air when the woman reached into the water, wrapped a hand around her hair and hauled her up. Jin drew her foot back to kick her. Her foot paused mid-air as the woman came in to focus, her face molded into something other than swirls.
Her heart pounded so hard that her entire chest felt like it was cracking. “Chae?”
It was Chaerin.
Chaerin swung her hard, and her hair pulled tight, pain shooting across her scalp. Jin collided with the hard surface of the water. Groaning, she tried to pick herself up, but Chaerin kicked her across her midsection, the force of the leather boot enough to almost make her vomit.
“You’re going to lose this way.”
She rolled away from Chae and ignore Eshu’s floating form. She tried, desperately, as she dodged a litany of Chaerin’s kicks and punches, her golden bracers deflecting some of the damage, to call on AJ for help. Nothing. Silence.
“She can’t help you. She tried and you turned her away.”
“Not right now,” Jin croaked when Chaerin’s kick barely missed her, causing a gigantic slash in the water. “Call her off!”
“No,” Eshu stated calmly. “Do you know what will call her off?”
Jin grunted when she was finally able to score a hit on Chaerin’s shoulder, throwing the shade off. Jin followed her, trying to bombard her with punches, but she took them as if Jin were slapping her across the face with a feather.
“Barriers work. Not to call her off, but you seem to not be handling this well and barriers can, you know, stop that. Give you a moment to,” he waved his hand as if he was confused by Jin’s entire game plan, “get it together.”
“Barriers,” she thought. “I don’t know any…”
Eshu tilted his head. “Yes, you do, ọmọ. You shared your soul with Aria and Aria shared her soul with you. You know how to use your powers, you know the incantations, you know the words. Oti move lage lage!”
Chaerin kicked Jin so hard in the chest that she collapsed. Chaerin took a step back. “Die.”
Jin closed her hand and concentrated. She called for AJ again but the fragment of Aria’s soul remained silent. So she listened to the voices of inherent memory in her head. Her bracelets sparked, her tattoos tingled.
“Shamain Path, 1st disciple” Jin croaked. “I command you.” A golden tinted barrier bloomed between her and Chaerin, great, wide and humming with energy. Jin laid down on the water’s surface. Her chest ached and her breathing was ragged and uneven.
“Good job, ọmọ! You use your brain well. Not a very good fighter but you’re smart.”
Jin fought to catch her breath but she was pretty sure she had a broken rib, or eight, and it hurt. “Please,” she begged. “How do I beat her?”
Eshu giggled. “You can’t.”
“Why is she here?” Jin screamed, trying not to look at Chaerin’s face. It was twisted in anger, her hands beating against the barrier and her teeth bared. She looked so angry. Jin wanted her anger to go away. “Is she stuck here?” she sobbed. “Can I free her?”
“This isn’t about Chaerin. This is about you.”
“Damn me! She is one of the most important people in my life,” Jin uttered, broken. “She is my best friend.”
“Was,” Eshu said patiently. “Inana, ina, inana,” he sang. “She was important to you. She was your best friend. She was alive. That, what you see there, isn’t just Chaerin. It is all of the malevolent emotions you carry with you that make you smaller, ọmọ. Your healing, your power, your life. Your eyes are small because of your anger. You carry your guilt for her murder like a death sentence. You jump in front of bullets and swords, sabotage your health and your progress because you feel guilty.” Eshu made a noise of disgust. “It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever seen.”
Jin ran to the barrier she erected. “Chaerin. It’s me,” she pleaded to the angry shade on the other side. “It’s me.” She put her hand up to the glass. “Remember you said we were connected because our hands were the same size? And that we had the same life line? Remember? Don’t you remember?”
“Why do you think Chaerin’s death was your fault?” Eshu asked.
“It was!” she yelled, turning on her heel to face Eshu, her rage causing her power to fluctuate, her hair moving in the updraft like pale smoke. “She would not be dead if not for me! He murdered her because of me!” she cried, beating her chest.
“DIE!” Chaerin growled.
“Suit yourself,” Eshu said. “But you will not go home until you figure this out. You can’t go home. You’ll destroy yourself.”
He disappeared in a whiff of black smoke.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Jin had watched the sun rise three times and fall three times since she made a vow to herself to figure it out. It–how to save Chaerin. She hadn’t moved much, other than absently scratching her knee once. She was more focused on staring at Chaerin from the other side of her barrier. It was funny watching her. The outright animosity had been shelved, but the anger had not left. It contorted her face in ways Jin had never seen. She’d seen Chaerin angry before. She’d seen her sad and happy and disappointed and in love. In brief moments, she would see those emotions flash across Chaerin’s face.
She then remembered Eshu’s words. This–this being in front of her–was a collection of malevolent emotions, her malevolent emotions. Had Jin felt negativity in the climax of Chaerin’s happiness? Anger at her success? Joy in her sadness? Had she?
“Do you hate me?”
Chaerin’s face contorted once more in rage. “Die. Death,” she snarled.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jin mumbled. “I wish you didn’t.”
“Death,” Chaerin hissed.
“Yeah. Got that part.” She moved again, shifting a leg under her.
“You don’t get it,” the shade growled and it was the first time Jin had heard words other than “death” or “die” and it had her rushing to her feet.
“What don’t I get?”
“Anything. Everything.” Chaerin’s eyes flashed red and a high pitch hum echoed in the back of Jin’s head. “I’ll help you understand.”
Jin winced and placed a finger in her ear, hoping to drown it out. The sound only got louder, crawling to a piercing pitch, a squeal, sharp and pointed. Pain followed it, enough pain to drive her to her knees. Images of Chaerin’s death followed in quick succession, images that she’d imagined in a rose-colored vision, images that haunted her dreams.
Her imagination failed her, her nightmares coddled her. The truth was so much worse.
“Stop,” Jin gasped.
More images came. Jin covered her ears and her head fell between her knees.
“Stop! Please!”
“No. Death. Die,” Chaerin snarled.
Jin started to shiver as the images coalesced like a movie, showing Shen slowly torturing Chaeri
n, her mouth parted in silent screams as Shen used a knife against her skin like it was a paintbrush.
“Chaerin, please!” In a desperate move, she waved the shield away and scrambled over the water to Chaerin, clutching at her ankles. Chaerin’s battle ax dropped next to her and Jin started at the deadly sharp edge of it, just inches from her head.
You can’t beat her.
Is she my guilt manifested?
Maybe she couldn’t go home. Maybe this was purgatory and she had to be cleansed before she went to heaven. Maybe she died, honest to God died, in her apartment in New York and everything afterward had been a hallucination of her journey to heaven. Maybe the home Eshu referred to wasn’t with her family or with Aiden.
She needed to repent. She needed to pay. If she did that then this would all be over.
“Do it,” she commanded, her voice barely above a whisper. There was silence and Jin looked up. The sun shone behind Chaerin’s face, casting it in a shadow but she could still see her eyes. She could still see the anger in them.
It was enough. She would free them both.
“It’s my fault you died. We know that, everyone knows that. I should pay for that, right?” She banged her fist against Chaerin’s battle ax, feeling the thick metal vibrate. It would be painless and she wasn’t sure she deserved that, but she was too far gone to demand anything but an end to this.
“Kill me.”
“Die.” The words left Chaerin’s lips quieter, slower. “Death?”
“Yes,” Jin laughed through the tears starting to collect along her bottom lash. “Die. Death,” she repeated. “Yes, Chaerin, just that.”
She bent forward before her friend until her forehead was resting against the water. She felt it was a perfect place for prayer but Jin had never been good at praying. Mumbling through thanks maybe and sometimes clumsily asking for help but never the devout prayer her parents taught her as a child. She simply hoped that this was the answer–to everything.
Jin pushed her silvery white hair away from her neck, giving Chaerin a perfect striking point. “I’ll see you on the other side, Chae? Think of it like luxury first class tickets to our favorite vacation spot. Not Cancun. The water made you sick? It was explosive,” she mimicked, laughing when she remembered how Chaerin explained post bathroom sprint. “We’ll get seats right next to each other. You can lean on my shoulder when you get sleepy. I can tell you about Aiden. You would have liked him. He thought you were cute…”
She saw the ax being lifted, the shadow reaching across the water like an omen. “I’m so, so sorry, Chae. For everything,” she murmured. She squeezed her eyes shut. This felt right. She felt light. She felt such a heaviness in her for so long…and now it was gone. She felt free.
The ax dropped back down to the water’s surface, splashing water across her face. It toppled to its side.
“I…don’t want you to die, Jin.”
Jin’s eyes flew up to Chaerin. Her face was no longer a vision of anger. She was…frowning.
“That’s not how I expected this to go!” a voiced rumbled, anger making his voice go high. “You were supposed to get over your guilt, yes, but not by sacrificing yourself to die! What is wrong with you, child? Why is your head built like bricks?”
Eshu floated upside down above them, his arms and legs crossed, vapors of red still settling around him. When he righted himself up, he looked royally pissed. “I don’t appreciate being tricked!” he shrieked. “If you were going to kill yourself, I could have come up with another game!”
Jin’s mouth parted open in confusion. Her eyes were filled with tears and she tried to blink them away because she thought she was seeing things. Wait, he was talking. What? “Game?”
Eshu rolled his eyes. “Chaerin, you’re free to go,” he commanded, snapping his fingers. Chaerin blinked, looked over at Jin before she disappeared in the same black vapors Eshu had used.
“Wait. No! No!” Jin cried as she reached out of the space where Chaerin used to be.
“Oh, shut up,” Eshu snapped. “She’s waiting for you back in Nuh.” He sighed irritably. “Well, you did it. I don’t like how you did it, but you did it.”
“Did…what?” she gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Won! To me it seems you’ve shown that you’ll continue to live with your guilt and let it dictate your decisions, but to Orunmila, the orisha of wisdom,” he said, his tone dripping with disdain as he glanced towards the Madyans' apartments, “it seems you are also willing to do what you think is right to correct your perceived wrongs. Healing is never instantaneous; it is life-long and hard so…I’ve been overruled.”
“What?” Jin squawked.
“And just for your information, you think yourself entirely too important! Shen killed Chaerin because he is a psychopath. You were just an excuse. Her defiance was his real reason. She had no idea where you were, remember?” Eshu gnashed his teeth. “He knew that.”
Jin didn’t react but the information processed as if she already knew what Eshu was saying was true.
Eshu made a noise like it physically hurt him to say his next words. “Your second token has been earned. You may begin your journey home.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE
The moment Eshu whisked her away in a puff of inky black smoke and she touched land again in a cloud of red, she looked for Chaerin. She wanted to take a moment to kiss the ground but thought against it out of fear of looking batshit crazy. Eshu hovered behind her, his face scrunched up in annoyance that she’d broken some rule that he’d never bothered bringing up, his fist tucked under his chin.
“She’s on the other side of those doors with Onyu. You’ll have one minute, tops. After that, I have to send her back.”
Jin didn’t hesitate. She rushed to the large green rusted gate that was being pulled open by the guards. On the other side, wading in the knee height water, her gold and white dress floating over its surface, was
Chaerin Williams.
A sob tore from Jin’s throat as she bolted through the gates and waded through the water, splashing it everywhere. When she reached her best friend, she threw her hands around her. The embrace was returned, if not tighter. Jin picked her up and twirled her around.
When she placed her back down, Chaerin’s smile was beaming at her. They both rushed to speak at the same time.
“Oh, my god, did I hurt you?’ Chaerin said as she clutched Jin’s face.
“No! I mean…yeah, you kicked my ass! But I’m okay! Are you okay? Why are you here?”
“That’s a long story that I can’t even begin to tell you! This place is so weird!”
“Tell me about it! They’ve got some kind of bird warriors! They squawked. Like squawked, Chae!”
“Luckily, you didn’t encounter the Madyans! They have gills.”
“That’s because I’m a nice person,” Eshu said silkily from behind them. “You two should be grateful that I–”
“Shut up, Eshu,” they both said in unison.
Eshu answering smile was tight and unfriendly. “Just for that, I’m shortening her time by ten seconds!”
Onyu rolled her eyes, before pushing him out of the way. “You can see her again. She’s more or less confined to Kowloon Ghyun. She’s training to become a Morg’ah’nee,” Onyu said, her voice filled with pride.
“Technically, I was helping whoever ‘them’ is up above, long before I knew it. I protected you because it was my purpose to protect you. So instead of dying, dying, you know heaven and all, boom! I end up here with all these weirdos. They sweetened the deal, too! Discord allows me to see you. Like...you can always come here to see me.”
“Shut up,” Jin said, her mouth dropping open.
“Anyone who’s ever been to able to escape Discord can always return, therefore, if you escape, you can always return here. Chaerin can explain how she got here–the same way you did, the reason is just different. Hers was in sacrifice in service to Caeli. Ahn handled it.”
Chaerin hugged Ji
n around the neck. “Yep! That’s why I allowed Eshu to “hire” me to do that whole game of his. I knew if I did, I could see you.”
“You almost killed me, you dumbass,” Jin deadpanned.
“I wasn’t in control! And you almost let me, stupid!” Chaerin rejoined.
“Ah, ah!” Eshu waved a finger before the two of them could continue. “Time’s up. Chaerin needs to get back home.”
Jin frowned. “I have so much to tell you…”
“Then survive, Jin. Win whatever battle you need to fight. I’ve been watching you for so long. You don’t need to shoulder my death any longer. It is not your guilt to bear! And know that I’m okay! Survive,” Chaerin stressed.
Jin nodded. “I can do that.”
Chaerin grabbed her face and softly kissed her on the lips. When Jin raised a brow, she shrugged. “I’m a Morg’ah’nee in training. I can get away with doing that shit now.”
Jin laughed as Chaerin took a step back and stood by Eshu’s side. “I’ll miss you too, old man.”
Eshu made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat, but the truth shone in his eyes–he was pleased. He turned and looked at Chaerin. “Come, ọmọ. Today, Rhony and She’meerah are going to teach you how not to be such a sappy baby and ruin a certain prankster’s game.”
“Ha, ha,” Chaerin grumbled, rolling her eyes. And in a puff of black, they were gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO
Faux Prasedium
Kowloon Nuh, Discord Realm
This time when Jin sat at the edge of the bridge, she felt braver. She leaned over and looked down the chasm, watching as some of the rocks displaced by her foot tumbled down the side and disappeared into the fog below.
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 41