Florence swept up the massive steps. The rise of the treads was so low the stairs felt more like a gentle slope than true steps.
The sparkling flakes of charcoal that clung to the thick white granite reminded her that the sun still shone brightly, though their version of autumn would soon be here.
A shadow fell over Florence, and she twisted to look at the sky, her foot on the top step, her hand on the solid brass door handle that opened to the birthing center.
A swarm of butterflies, so thick it blocked the cerulean of the sky, dropped false night all around her as they flew through the rectangular vents that fed the ventilation system in warmer months.
The ports were a deliberate architectural feature that allowed entry to the only creature in their world that could identify a Reflective
So many.
Florence stood in stunned wonder. She had witnessed butterflies come to mark the birth of a Reflective, but never in such a great number.
Their importance was such that her world was named in their honor: Papilio, Sector Ten.
Their path created a rainbow of iridescent color, which poured like water through the narrow vents that had been carved in the solid stone of the birthing center.
All who lived in their world were born in similar structures.
However, Florence was one of few birthing center workers who had seen the highest incidence of Reflective births. She had requested placement to this one. After a five-year waiting period, she’d been assigned to the most prestigious.
She snapped out of her reverie as the last of the mingling kaleidoscope of insects funneled through the slits underneath the eaves of a copper roof, now aged a deep verdigris.
Florence tore open the heavy door.
She didn't hear it clank behind her as she ran the length of the corridor to the floor that housed laboring mothers.
*
Florence burst through the swinging doors as a man and a woman stood over a cradle.
Confused, Florence skidded to a stop.
What is this?
This... appeared to be the parents in front of a babe so new that some of the vernix still coated the wee one, her arms swinging as she howled.
Two nurses, one at the end of her shift and one in training, hung back.
Oh, for the love of all that is good. She stalked over to the newborn.
Florence halted as the sight overtook them all.
Their breath.
Their thoughts.
Everything but the scene itself melted away for those who witnessed the post-birth spectacle.
The butterflies descended, floating in a lazy spiral as the opalescent sunlight washed over their multicolored wings.
The chubby arms of the baby girl swirled and pumped, slowing as the butterflies drew nearer, and her echoing screams gradually grew quiet.
The insects lighted on the rails of the basinet in a portentous group, their wings moving in a steady sweep to maintain balance.
Their appearance froze the parents’ breath in their throats.
The moment swelled and grew in the stillness of the nursery, where rows upon rows of cradles pressed against the other. The parents watched the butterflies flutter precariously on the polished sides of the newborn's bed, landing only on hers and no other.
Their appearance was beautiful… final.
Florence strained to hear the mother's voice.
“She is Reflective,” she said in a sorrowful tone.
Her mate squeezed her hand so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Yes,” he replied, just as gravely.
Their gaze met in perfect understanding of what the future held for their daughter: a life as mercenary, hunter and hunted.
This was an honor and privilege among their people.
Florence closed her eyes in sympathy. A female Reflective—every parents dream… and nightmare.
*
five years later
Beth shot the plain glass marble across the stretch of earth, watching the glass orb tumble and spin as it met the others she’d shot in a smack of hardened glass. It swerved at the last moment, ricocheting off a shooter, and came to stand where she'd intended.
All the other children her age could play with any marble they chose, but she possessed no mercury-coated marbles.
Beth Jasper was a solitary girl.
But not one who lacked intelligence. Beth had felt the sadness from Papa and Mama and knew she would soon leave for the building that had a big shining silver papilio above the entrance.
Mama and Papa had taken her there the previous week to meet with a man who had a nose like the water birds that gathered near her family's pond.
His nose made it very difficult for her not to giggle. Beth sometimes had a problem with laughing when she shouldn’t.
Beth had observed and stood watch over her new surroundings, remembering what her adoptive parents had told her.
Beth, you must let us do the talking. Under no circumstances should you volunteer to train for a combative role. There are alternative roles for female Reflectives.
Beth crinkled her face at the memory. She understood all of what they wanted of her, and she would not shuffle papers and sit behind a desk, looking like the dolls she had given up playing with.
All Reflectives were far more mature than their human counterparts from the other twelve sectors.
Beth spoke like a teen, though she was five cycles. She puzzled through things that confounded adults.
She was faster, stronger, and brighter.
Beth was female.
When Commander Rachett of the Reflective Militia, who operated under The Cause leaned forward and delved deep, he tried to pierce young Beth's very soul. She met him halfway.
Her small body leaned boldly toward his, unafraid.
In their people's ancient language of Latin, he posed the question: What role will you fill within The Cause, young Beth?
Beth narrowed her eyes, and Rachett's eyebrows raised slowly.
He had studied her, no doubt because she was a half-breed, and female besides. She had met his stare with an unwavering gaze.
“A combative role, of course,” Beth said in her childlike voice, though the meaning was very adult, because she understood and communicated like one.
“No! Beth…” her mama said.
Beth swung her legs back and forth underneath the chair. Her eyes drifted to the candy dish poised at the edge of the desk before returning to the commander's.
Beth's stare matched Rachett's.
Rachett had to know what she was: a warrior. The attribute was either present, or it wasn’t.
Her papa stood.
“We can't have her fight. She is female… and not big for her gender.” Her father's face pleaded with Rachett to see reason.
Commander Rachett wasn't known as a reasonable man.
Rachett steepled his fingers underneath his chin, looking at Beth’s adoptive parents. Good people, common folk who were loyal to The Cause, believers in the Principle.
Rachett's gaze shifted to Beth. He scrutinized her face: eyes like crushed brown velvet; hair like a raven's wing; and skin like polished marble, pale but not pasty.
She is too beautiful to fight, he must have thought with regret.
Beth saw that future remorse on his face.
Then he looked at her hands, long-fingered and limber.
His eyes shifted back to hers.
“Beth?” he asked softly.
“Yes, Commander Rachett?” Her small fingers held something.
He frowned, obviously distracted from his planned comment.
“What do you have in your hand?”
She opened her palm, revealing a large reflective marble—a shooter coated with hard-laced mercury.
Rachett sucked in his breath.
“That's a locator.”
Her parents looked at each other.
“Where did you get that, Beth?” her papa asked carefully.
Bet
h's eyes touched on the worry that each face held, and she felt her face scrunch.
“They hand them out at the front entrance…” Rachett said thoughtfully before Beth could answer.
Beth nodded carefully. The nice lady had given it to her to entertain herself with.
“Do you know what those are for?” Rachett asked her.
She nodded again.
Beth knew. She liked the feeling of the smooth glossy surface. Her fingers worked over the cylindrical perfection delicately, with reverence.
“It is for those Reflectives who need to find their sector,” Rachett explained neutrally.
He smiled down at her.
Beth was certain he understood she wasn't a regular five cycle.
Then his smile faded as he no doubt recalled her gender. Beth was weary of being thought of as lesser because she was a girl.
She'd heard the whispers of the bullying that was so commonplace within the ranks of the Reflectives.
Though, of course, everyone had heard the story of the swarm that had descended on her day of birth.
Papiliones did not lie.
Rachett shook his head, obviously having made his decision. It was safer—for everyone.
Beth narrowed her eyes on the vision of his soft thoughts of her future role.
Rachett stood. As did Beth and the parents who were not of her blood.
“I'm sorry. Beth will be placed in… inter-dimensional communication training. An excellent program and critical calling for the female Reflective,” Rachett stated, lacing his hands together, effectively closing the meeting.
“Thank Principle,” Beth's mother murmured. She shot Beth a look that let her know she had been naughty for sharing her crazy intentions after being instructed to remain silent.
Heat began to build in Beth's chest. She recognized it immediately: anger.
It began at the core of her body and swam out like molten lava, lashing through her circulatory system in defiance of being contained.
Beth did not want to be a weak female.
She was not.
Then Beth did what all children do—she threw a tantrum.
Beth threw the marble at Commander Rachett.
“No!” she shouted in a clear, bell-like voice that stung the ears and raised the hair on the back of his neck.
Beth's body reacted to her emotions and the spinning ball of glass coated by the forbidden mercury.
It spun, and Beth tracked it automatically, as if it were as natural as taking her next breath. It was part and parcel of being Reflective.
The heat inside her body coalesced, bursting painfully and beautifully, and she gasped as the ball moved toward her, then slammed into her in midair.
Her small body morphed into the narrow strip of shimmering ribbon that all Reflectives become when they jump.
Beth allowed all of it to happen in an instinctual slide of circumstance and raw emotion. Her new form lashed like a shining whip, absorbing into the shell of the spinning glass as it sailed in the air for its two seconds of flight.
Coolness washed away the heat, and she spun with the ball… and went somewhere else, in a falling stream of fire bathed by ice.
Rachett stilled, dazed, as the ball that Beth Jasper had used for transport shattered at his feet.
He and Beth’s parents stood stock-still, their bearings gone.
Commander Rachett picked up a shard, and one of his eyes caught in the mirror-like image. He didn't like what he saw there—fear.
His own, and that of Beth Jasper's future within The Cause.
CHAPTER ONE
Jeb Merrick
present day
Jeb strolled dead center into the group of Reflectives who’d come to attend the finals of the new class of Reflective trainees.
The entire coliseum was packed nut to butt, and the ground beside the ring was standing room only.
It was the female, Jeb determined easily—she was the draw for the day. If he were honest with himself, he would have admitted the same. After all, the last female combative had been killed in action over a decade ago. Jeb had heard of it, but it had been before his time.
This one was different.
For one, she bore the scars of their calling. Her elegant limbs were littered with pockmarking and wounds in various stages of healing. Even with the advanced recuperative powers of a Reflective, Jasper was a mess.
It was such a shame; she was a beautiful female, if not the Papilio ideal. She’d refused to become the he-she that many assumed she would and had retained her femininity, despite the brutal calling of the Reflective. He supposed her gender could be to some advantage in a mission to one of the other sectors.
Jeb found a corner and put his back to it, watching the small group of inductees warm their bodies inside the practice area before the final sparring.
Jeb liked to possess a vantage point that allowed him to see everyone coming through the portals, windows, and otherwise. His height put Jeb at further advantage. With his six-feet-four frame, he skimmed most of the heads in his line of sight.
The ones he couldn't see over were of his kind, Reflective warriors of The Cause.
His eyes instinctively scanned the vast interior of the coliseum. He took in the stands filled with the government of his world. English was not their first language, but it was used in more than three quarters of the worlds they policed. Latin was the primary and native language of Papilio.
All Reflectives were fluent in the primary languages of the thirteen sectors they held as their responsibility. Latin was spoken exclusively by Papiliones.
Jeb stood up straighter, gaining another couple inches of precious visual real estate and caught sight of his own team. At age twenty-three, they were three years past their own graduations.
His team began taking up the remaining corners of the main floor surrounding the ring, while the civilian population moved upward in soaring floor-to-ceiling tiers with marble benches.
The thousands of people who’d sat there before this crowd had worn broad divots in the soft cream-and-peach-veined marble. Centuries worth of observers had witnessed the annual ceremony.
All welcomed the newest recruits. The civilians did not want to know how they were protected. They wanted to know only that they were.
Jeb felt a smirk form.
Sometimes he wondered why he jumped.
He grew solemn as he waited, and then he saw her—Beth Jasper.
He'd seen her about in the Barringer Quadrant, shopping for sundries and such things—but he’d never been so close. A different woman seemed to have inhabited her body today.
Gone was her softness he’d seen in his earlier observances. Instead, he saw a woman with nothing but hard angles and planes. An indifferent and cool stare met those of her team and those that she would fight.
Not a one had softness for her.
Beth stood alone.
Jeb looked at the five others—all male—and a slight furrow tied his brows together.
She was sorely outmatched physically, though the recruits were all equal in years. Recruits graduated each year in small groups, all at twenty cycles of age, as was tradition.
Jeb studied Jasper, assessing her as all Reflectives could. She stood at five feet two, and curves she couldn't mask, even beneath the bland Reflective uniform, stood in stark relief. Her tight black braid stopped at her waist. An unusual length for a woman of his people, it was an unheard of length for a Reflective.
Perhaps it was a bid for femininity in a role that was exclusively male?
Jeb reluctantly moved his gaze to the other five in turn, searching for his new partner. Jeb found babysitting loathsome but necessary. Otherwise, they would have a troupe of Reflectives bouncing from one world to the next, where they shouldn't land.
Jeb felt his lips twitch. He had been the same when he was twenty cycles: an ignorant hot head. His former mentor had seen fit to beat him into understanding. The Cause did not tolerate ignorance
It
was Jeb's turn to mentor a new recruit since his three-year first partnering was at an end.
The interior lights of the coliseum switched on, spreading the solar-powered illumination to every corner. It washed the faces of the Reflective inductees in an eerie mockery of false illness, casting a sickly yellow over their flesh.
Reflective Kennet stood in the far corner, exactly opposite of Jeb's position, and lifted his chin in greeting then received one in return. Kennet was wearing his dress uniform. He was on duty. That meant his ass could be snatched to one of the other twelve sectors at any time.
Yet, he was here.
Jeb allowed his eyes to run over his compatriots dress uniform, noting the deep navy, which looked black from a distance. The Reflective crest was the only striking addition.
The butterfly rode high against his left breast, standing vigil over his heart. The iridescent rendering had been executed with real gold and silver, and microscopic jewels were used in the multicolored threading. Only a small shift of movement was necessary for the crest to alert passersby that the uniformed people were Reflective.
They were the slaves of protection for Papilio.
Jeb's musing was cut short as the chime donged six times for the six candidates.
All would fight and be judged in various degrees of worthiness. The illegal betting had been deep and vicious.
Beth Jasper was the underdog.
Humanity had come to see the female fall.
There were only two rules: no blades and no death.
He studied the graceful Jasper as she warmed up. Had he been a betting man, he would have bet on her.
Jeb Merrick understood much could be accomplished without death as an end result. He was profoundly happy that he was not standing in that ring, preparing to beat a female into the mat. Jeb wasn't sure he could have done it.
He understood it for the weakness it was.
Jeb's eyes fell on the favored male in the class, Lance Ryan.
Lance could do it.
Jeb took in the young man’s predatory eyes, which were trained on Jasper, tensed without being aware. The idea had seemed fine when he'd entertained attending the ritualistic Reflective ceremony. It was a bloodthirsty hold-over from centuries past. Yet, like many traditions that were no longer necessary, it had flourished.
Between Death (#6.5): Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance Page 13