by Aral Bereux
Julianna’s eyes parted. She heard his words bounce inside her mind. Her father, yes, what a lovely thought.
I think I might just take that walk and visit Daddy in the park now...
Epilogue
2ND MAY, 2018, 1900 HOURS.
CAMP 2.2.1.
Taris punched the bag swinging on its chains in the gym hall. It swung back; he hit it again, and again, and again. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Another punch, another swing back. His mania lifted him to a new level of anger. Another punch! The bag swung back one more time, daring his grasp only to be ripped hard from its chains and thrown across the hall. It slid down the wall, leaving a trail of splintered wood and dust, landing vertical before slapping against the floor in its final bow.
He looked at the broken chains swinging above him. The thick, solid links at the end bent open and their contorted bodies mocked him more. He reached his hands out and steadied their motions.
‘And may I ask what it is the punching bag has done to you?’
He hung on the chains, focusing on their patterns as the voice came closer. He grasped down on them until they stopped their final rocking, holding his weight comfortably. On another day, he would have smiled at the sarcasm, but the joke swept past and he curled his nose.
‘No more than J Rae,’ the name knotted his face. ‘Which is why it’s now in pieces over there. I’m practicing.’
‘The Senate discusses alternatives. It seems my daughter has eluded your capture again, even though you managed to rest her on the door of death itself.’
Taris turned to the voice now standing beside him. Her auburn hair curled around her shoulders and her dark green eyes sparkled under her half-smile, half-pout.
‘I hate your daughter, Elizbeth,’ he said quietly, and returned his lean to the chains. ‘She has me at a loss.’ He shook his head. ‘I would have her now if the Senate let me do things my way.’
Her arms curled around his neck. ‘My darling. It’s not like you to pout so much over one little girl.’
‘I pout over the lead they choke me with.’ He let the chains go; they swung with vigor from the force. He paced slowly around them, rubbing his chin and thinking deeply.
‘Well.’ She sighed, turning on her one spot to follow him. ‘You do have something. Doug is gone. Play it smart, you could have the Senate as your own, eating from your palm with what little seeds you throw to them.’
He touched the splintered wall where the bag had fractured the wooden lining. He nodded. He agreed.
‘…With the right thoughts and movements, have it by the year’s end.’
Taris listened to the redhead talking seductively, calmly. She glided to him, wrapping her arms around his neck again, stretching her fingers down to his chest to trace the sweat on his bare skin.
‘What do you suggest, Beth?’ he asked quietly. His hand dropped from the wall to push her outstretched fingers flat. They stopped their playful circling of his skin and he drew her closer.
‘I suggest nothing,’ she whispered. ‘But I am merely your prisoner who knows no better than to advise a man as powerful as yourself.’ Her hands moved from his grasp and he turned into her petite frame to have a closer look.
‘You are not my prisoner, Elizbeth.’ He smiled. ‘I take care of you.’ He cupped her cheek and tucked a loose wave of hair behind her ear tenderly. ‘You take care of me in turn.’ He studied her face as she leaned her cheek into his touch. ‘But you are right as always. I need to be patient. The balance has swayed; now I need to wait.’
‘Vengeance will be yours.’ She smiled.
‘Yes, it will, and with it, the power the Madison name, and the Senate.’
She took his hand in hers and lowered it. ‘And the Seer.’
‘Your daughter.’ His lips parted and he returned her smile. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly and coaxed her body to the broken wall beside them. He rested his weight against her back. ‘Yes, I will own Julianna,’ he said quietly. ‘And once we have her, we own this war.’
He edged his hands around her flat stomach, barely a bump yet, pushing against her more. She groaned under his weight as he worked his hands to undress her waist and to free himself.
‘Tarisos, you are hurting me,’ she said.
He smiled at the use of his real name. He liked it. His name from birth; Taz was such a bastardization of it. Julianna had given him Taz. Along with so many other things.
His hand continued to touch her body before he set it around her neck to take a clump of her thick hair. His eyes darkened and his voice cooled.
‘I will have your daughter again Elizbeth, but not before I have you first...and when our little one arrives, we’ll all have our day in the light again. Our new little Seer will see to that one. The next time I have Julianna, I’ll destroy her where she stands.’
END OF BOOK ONE
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THE JULIANNA RAE
CHRONICLES
CHRONICLE #2
THE UPRISING
ARAL BEREUX
Prologue
2ND MAY 2018, CAMP 2.2.1.
To be mistaken as a fool was not his style.
Taris sat behind his desk with his feet up, watching the smoke curl above his head from the cigarette hanging loosely between his lips. The events from the night before still lingered.
His bruised eye throbbed from the car accident, but it served his temper. He poked at the fresh swelling, studying his reflection in the comms screen. His eye was slowly closing over.
Pulling away from the sting of his pressing fingers, a hiss escaped his parted lips. No healing himself tonight, he thought. Though his sight blurred a little, he leaned back from his reflection again, to consider if blurry vision was the wisest choice for the evening.
Elizbeth’s caress had dulled the pain, for the time she was with him. While they rested in his bed, she had tried to heal his face until he swatted her away. Instead, they listened to the radio, propped between them as they lay naked, waiting and hoping for his men to announce the location of their missing target.
‘We need to find her,’ she said.
‘We’ll find her,’ he replied.
‘They killed Doug Cathan?’ she had asked again.
He’d nodded as he stared at the ceiling.
Bang! One bullet hole to the head. They’d saved him the trouble, and for that alone he wanted to thank Caden personally.
In time, he thought.
‘The Senate swings in your favor now that he’s dead,’ she said.
The thought made his smile turn sour under the sting of his eye. Then, he turned his attention to the radio, ignoring the soft caress from Julianna’s mother, for its empty static.
Now he listened to it again in his office.
The radio traffic turned low. He monitored his men tracking his escapee, waiting patiently for his soldiers to announce her Identification Marker location.
It was a long shot. Her company was cautious. They were clever, cunning, always one step ahead. Knowing this, he knew they’d rip the IDM from her side the moment she let her guard down. They wouldn’t risk capture, not after their rough night. They’d be relentless with her.
The comms bleeped from the platform that held it. He slid his finger lazily along the bottom of the rectangular, glass screen, to answer the incoming call. The desk behind it disappeared, the General’s image inside the plate, stared at him with dark watcher’s eyes and a furrowed brow.
Taris leaned into his chair, waiting for the face to commence its tirade of abuse. The General continued his seething stare, but not aimed at the Commander, or his men. Catching the Seer, who continually out-ran the entire Militia, was becoming a very, personal issue.
Taris reached for the glass beside the comms. The ice rattled against its sides as he lifted it to his lips. The scotch rolled down into the back of his throat, with a brisk gr
ab. He waited for the blast. Nothing came.
‘They tell me Cathan is dead. True?’
Taris nodded.
‘Good. Never cared for the man.’ The General’s eyes darted over the room behind Taris. ‘And the girl?’
‘We’re searching for her. She’s joined at the hip with the Councilor, and his brother. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Caden Madison is Julianna’s watcher.’
‘You say it as though it were a joke, Tarisos. The intelligence that we have suggests a new Council is establishing itself underground. A new faction is rumored, and I’m none too impressed, if it’s true. I want them brought in, Commander. All of them.’
Taris swirled the ice-cubes around in the glass, watching the amber liquid flow roughly over them. They clinked at the glass sides as he took another mouthful. If only it were so simple. The thought annoyed him, as much as his black eye. He’d gotten away from Caden and Daniel with sheer luck. His soldiers weren’t so lucky, and Cathan – well the hole in his head ended that long life.
He smiled, not a forced one like most days, this one was real. Julianna was badly injured; the General didn’t have that informative piece. He’d left that one from his final report.
‘I’ve been chasing Caden Madison for a year, and I’m no closer. The Council, if the rumors are true, explain why he continues to elude our capture. He’s stronger than me, has more abilities – he has a hell of a lot of support.’ You’re a shitty General, with all due respect, asshole.
But he was careful to keep himself quiet in his thoughts; his whisper was for himself.
The General furrowed his brow. From behind his own desk, he had a look of disbelief in his lined face. His grey eyes narrowed.
Taris waited.
‘He’s also three centuries wiser than you.’
Taris smirked behind his drink. ‘If the Senate were to part with their wisdom a little more generously, maybe, just maybe, I could fulfill your request, and bring them all in. On their bended knees of course.’
‘And also us,’ the General said curtly. ‘You have more ability than most your age, Tarisos. More than what Caden and Bastiaan ever had.’
Taris remained cool at the use of his ancient name. ‘It’s not enough. The rules have changed. You want them alive; you need to give me more.’
He was playing the odds; the General’s crumpled expression suggested they were already considering the ambitious option. Taris was his predecessor, and without him, the Senate was shot to hell, along with the Old Council. There’d be no Militia, too. The moment of crisis was upon them, he had them by the proverbial balls.
‘Don’t bullshit me, General. I’m a little past that tonight.’ He poked at his eye again – damn it was hurting like a hot day in hell.
The General didn’t doubt him. ‘We’ll discuss it further at the meeting.’
‘Discuss away. They have Daniel Rae with them too…’ yeah, that got your interest. ‘That’s some heavy duty watchering going on in that there group of misfits.’ He leaned into the comms. ‘While y’all waste your time talking—’
‘All right, all right, Tarisos!’ The General’s hand clamped down over the edge of his desk. Paperwork and files scattered in front of his tired, bloodshot eyes. His four hundred-and-twenty-two years were telling his age. The grey hair was becoming more prevalent; Taris thought he could see a vein pumping in the side of his neck.
But, they were communicating now. Their page was almost on the same number. The General’s eyes flickered, and Taris humored in the stirring of the old man’s Tulpas. If he pushed hard enough, he wondered if he could induce the old man into a brain hemorrhage.
Taris tried to remember the day he had changed, when he turned from being the quiet one, to becoming a leader.
‘You’re a dark horse, Tarisos.’
His lips curled into an arrogant smile for the General. Yes indeed, he thought. He nodded.
‘Why don’t you pay old Hal a visit? Hear what he has to say about the New World Order these days, and his grandson.’
Taris drained the last remnants of his drink, and stumped out his cigarette on the spent comms, which doubled as a paperweight on his desk. Taking Hal on alone was suicide. The old man was old, but he wasn’t redundant.
He shook his head. ‘Not without the Senate’s help.’
The radio that usually hung on his belt was propped beside the comms. It spoke to him, and the General listened. Even in the small comms plate, Taris noted the curiosity written across the General’s face. He pressed in the receiver button without raising it, keeping his eyes fixed on the General, absorbing the expression his cool manners created.
‘Go for Delta.’
‘We have the location of Julianna Rae’s IDM chip traced, sir.’
Taris smiled. ‘See, General, give me something to work with and I give you results.’
‘Tarisos, I said—’
Taris raised his hand; certain it filled in the General’s own comms screen in Central Command Head Quarters. Others were watching and listening in from the corners the comms didn’t reach.
‘You talk in your meeting, General. I have a Seer to hunt down.’
He gave the General a wink, and closed down the comms with a slide of his finger.
Taris reached over the desk to press his radio receiver again. He’d just shut the General down. The peculiar rush it gave him in the center of his being, lingered.
‘Delta to base….ready the drones, and have two squads meet me at the gates.’
Ten minutes is all he would give them.
He waited for the ‘yes sir,’ and the crackle to end the private, radio frequency. For now, the Senate was where he wanted them – in the palm of his large, sweaty hand, and it was enough to satisfy his frustrations.
Tonight’s hunt was for his vanity, but they were close. He could sense her confusion, and feel her pain. He rubbed his chin, and closed his hazel eyes, reveling in Julianna’s chaos. She was close, very close. Their bind between them betrayed her. IDM or not, she would be found, and the Senate would finally have their Seer. In turn, they would finally have their war raged against the Rebellion.
His lips parted into a toothy smile, at the thought.
Elizbeth returned to his side to run her fingers along the nape of his neck.
‘You have a beautiful touch, Beth.’
She leaned in with her swollen belly, touching his arm with it gently. ‘As do you,’ she whispered. ‘General.’
His grin widened.
Yes, soon he supposed, he would be.
Chapter 1
THE CAVES OF DEVIL’S CANYON,
30 MILES WEST OF CAMP 2.2.1.
Caden smoothed water over her hot skin while she muttered in her sleep. The waterfall crashed against the rocks outside the cave, drowning her whispers, but Caden listened as she begged for her life.
Not surprising, he looked around at the others sleeping soundly. She should have died yesterday.
Julianna bolted in her delirium, upright in the bed nested for her.
Caden eased her down with a gentle hand to her shoulder, and a calm voice. He splashed more water on her skin where the blanket didn’t cover her: her neck, face, shoulders, and arms, and when he looked down into her eyes, they met his gaze with a heaviness that wouldn’t permit her to open them fully.
‘You still with me?’ he asked quietly, but his voice bounced along the rock walls. ‘Come on J Rae, talk to me, sweetheart. You need to fight this fever. You have to do this one yourself; even I can’t heal a fever away.’
‘Daddy?’
He grimaced. More water, he needed more water. The bottle he was holding was empty.
The water cascading over the cave lip, which hid them away from their enemy, was a short walk. The water fell, bouncing the moonlight, and stray beams of white light penetrated the darkness inside the damp cave.
Devo was the hero this time. Caden watched the sleeping girl in his brother’s arms. She’d wandered behind a tree for pr
ivacy, and in the midst of squatting; accidently found the caves in the area he was unfamiliar with.
Julianna’s hand grabbed his pant leg and he looked down.
‘Cade?’
He returned to her side. ‘Yeah it’s me.’ He felt her forehead. ‘I’ll be gone all of five minutes, for some more water.’
‘Please don’t leave me.’
‘Not leaving, only five short minutes. Bas, Danny, and Devo are just over there sleeping. You’re not alone, sweetheart.’
He stood again; breaking her grip from his pants gently, with a step toward the rushing water, and gave her a five minute hand signal, before turning his back to her pleading eyes.
Caden’s tall stride took him over a thin, but deep fissure, dividing the rock into two. He stepped onto a ledge that he jumped from, before trailing to the edge of the cave where the water fell. He crouched at its lip. The water slammed down in crashes, bouncing from the worn out rock where it pooled, to create a second flow into the lake below.
He glanced down to where the water struck. They were high above the lake, and under different circumstances, he fancied to visit the area again. It reminded him of his childhood so long ago, in the caves high above the French countryside. It was a lifetime ago.
He smiled to himself. It was a lifetime ago, or three, if you were a norm. But I’m not a norm. I’m a watcher, powerful at that, and his smile disappeared with the tired look he received from Julianna, over his shoulder. Not powerful enough to keep the girl safe from herself.
How the hell do you keep someone safe from themselves?
His head shook with the thought. If he hadn’t doubled back for the last check at the camp, if they’d left with everyone else at the time, instead of searching for leftover supplies from the panicked bug out. He screwed up his face.
No point wrestling with it now.
The water continued its attack on the rock ledge, into the lake below. It was a difficult climb with Julianna on his back, even with the four of them to help. They’d barely made it to the cave’s safety. Those memories wouldn’t leave in a hurry; he was stuck with his guilt, no matter how stunning the landscape in front of him was under the darkened sky.