“Who the fuck do you think you are, girl?”
Beth smiled, her calculating eyes running up his body like a freight train. She brought her loose fists up beside her jaw, her knees slightly bent, her weight balanced.
“I'm the girl that will make you bleed.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Beth shifted her eyes to the woman then right back on her opponent. He was only a Sector Three male, but he might get in a lucky strike. It was in Beth's nature to be wary.
Chris seemed to have thought something through and come to a decision. He straightened, and suddenly, the short fuse of the moment burnt out.
He shook his head at Amanda and snorted.
“Wouldn't want to arm wrestle her.”
If he wanted to use humor to diffuse the situation, that was fine by her. Beth backed away, hands loose by her sides.
“Done posturing?” Merrick asked, and Beth smirked.
“Thanks for the backup, stud,” Beth said, and Merrick frowned at her phrasing.
“You didn't need my assistance.”
“Where are ya from?” Amanda asked.
“That's not important,” Merrick said.
Beth replied, “Around.”
Now that was not meant literally, Beth thought.
Chris checked them out and said, “Doesn't matter. Let’s take a look-see at the pulse thumbstrips and get the fuck outta here. We have stuff to do.”
Yes, we do.
Beth gave Merrick a meaningful glance as she opened the bag, pulling out a small strip. One side had a removable barrier.
“Just pull this end away.” Beth mimed tearing one side off. “Then”—she turned and pretended to place it on her pulse dock pad then depress it with her thumb—“voilà! You have a false pulse print.”
“Seems easy,” Chris said.
Merrick shrugged. “Should be. It's got the only set of prints you require.”
Chris's eyes slid to Merrick.
“Three infiltrations’ worth, right?” Amanda asked. She was obviously the brains of the operation.
Principle, help them.
Beth nodded.
“Okay, let's roll,” Chris said, taking an envelope out of his jacket pocket.
He handed it to Merrick, and Beth's lips tilted. The big bad male was afraid of her.
“Count it,” she said, and Merrick did.
“It's all there.”
As the couple walked away, Chris stole a glance at Beth before they disappeared from view.
“You put the fear of Principle into him.”
“God, Merrick.”
He shook his head, palming his chin.
“I can't get used to another deity. It seems wrong somehow.”
It did to Beth, too. But they were in Sector Three. When in Rome… Beth smiled at the colloquialism from this sector. It fit well with their circumstance.
“When it's just us, let's talk about things that matter to us.”
If that's the way he thinks. “Let's go to the cathedral then.”
It wasn't a good sign that she was already homesick for Papilio when it was her first official jump.
Merrick's perfect golden eyebrows arched on his sculpted face and a sigh almost escaped.
It must be nice to be the poster child for the Reflective.
Merrick stood at well over six feet of well-honed muscle. Long dark-blond hair curled slightly above his ears, as was the style in this sector. His eyes were his best feature, a pale gray surrounded by soot-colored lashes.
Beth had always thought they should match his hair. Instead, they edged those unusual eyes like black lace.
He was so handsome that it hurt to look at him.
Then he spoke, and her admiration for his fine looks wafted away like the ashes of a lost memory.
“Jasper, you and your sentiment.”
“You've heard, have you?” she said in a disgusted tone. “I'll go myself then. You can find your own entertainment.”
She felt his hand on her shoulder and wanted to tear it off.
All of Merrick’s life, everything had been given to him. He'd never known a moment's strife. He'd been raised in the Barringer Quadrant, for Principle's sake.
He turned her and searched her face.
“Jasper, I don't put you down for having sentiment, only what kind it is.”
Their guarded expressions collided.
Merrick asked, “Don't you understand that sentiment is different to the individual?”
She flung his palm off and began walking.
“Have you ever heard a sermon?” she asked.
His expression told her he hadn’t.
***
Jeb watched Jasper kneel before the deity of this sector and thought the man hanging on the cross was a gruesome depiction of violence. Jasper understood their customs, and Jeb allowed the indulgence.
She was younger than he was, and she had been through a trying time, with too many close calls too near to one another. It was time that Jeb showed a little compassion.
Except for the sculpture of the tortured man of the cross, the building had an artistic beauty that reminded him of the architecture of Papilio. Great arches of white marble with subtle pink thread rose from the ground to meet at the ceiling, where an almost upside-down fleur-de-lis shape knotted the intersections. Tall stained and leaded glass windows captured jewel tones, bearing Sector Three's saints—men without sin.
Merrick struggled to stifled his disdain.
Jasper took a seat, and he measured the time by the sun filtering through the colored glass. Oh four hundred.
His stomach was empty, and that told him it was oh time to eat.
Jeb leaned against the back wall as people filed in and sat in long wooden pews. It was not unlike the temple for Principle in his world, minus the beaten figure on the cross.
His thoughts scattered when a regal man in a white robe came out and began to speak.
Jeb stood up straighter.
The man was speaking Latin.
Jeb understood every word, sinking into the music of what came out of his mouth like taking his next breath.
*
As he and Jasper walked out of the cathedral, Jeb found he was slightly melancholy.
“That was strange,” he commented.
“It is, but wonderful, too.”
Neither said what the other was thinking—that they would have to return. Each jump never lasted longer than twenty-four hours. And time did not move identically between sectors. Some planets could be as much as a season off.
During a very bad jump to Sector One, Jeb had lost an entire year.
Jeb had a case of wanderlust. It was always that way. Every Reflective had that special other half out there, waiting. He gave Jasper a speculative look.
A male half for her. It was an odd consideration.
“Ice cream,” Jeb said suddenly, and Jasper laughed.
He found he enjoyed her laughter very much. Jasper lacked levity.
“The stuff that slops around and melts?”
Merrick grinned. “Yes, that's the stuff,” he said, playing with the slang.
Her smile was radiant. “All right, yes.”
*
They sat across from each other, Jeb shifting his weight because the ball-strangling denims he was wearing never did anything but make him uncomfortable. Principle, how he loathed the clothing of this sector.
“Why are you wiggling around so much?” Jasper asked, taking a swipe of the bright-green ice cream she loved, and a big stripe landed on the tip of her nose.
“These damn denims… they're insufferable.”
“Jeans,” Jasper corrected absently.
Her pink tongue licked the frozen cream.
And licked again.
Without realizing it, he leaned forward and Jasper stilled, her hair falling forward like a black waterfall. Braids were not current in this sector so she'd been forced to relinquish her normal severity.
He dabbed the paper h
e'd torn from the dispenser against her nose.
“Oh,” was all she said, as high color bled across her face, staining it pink.
Jeb stood in the middle of the awkward moment, throwing the brittle yet strangely sweet edible holder in the trash.
He held the door open for Jasper and they walked out.
“We have to return.”
Her lack of enthusiasm forced a smile.
“I know you want to explore, Jasper.”
She faced him.
“And you don't?” Pure accusation creeped through her tone.
He nodded slowly as they continued toward the permanent marker. They were in the downtown part of the Kent Quadrant, walking through the region's idea of a historic district, though by Papilio standards, this region was in its infancy.
It was late nineteenth century. True antiquity was Papilio, where everything aged like a fine wine. Modern advancement had not robbed his people of their history the way it had in Sector Three.
Jasper stopped and cast her eyes to the ground, as he did. The cobblestones had been paved over with another hard substance, but chunks of missing pavement revealed bits of the original road like wounds of antiquity.
Jeb caught site of the pedestal, built like a little sanctuary in a pocket of what remained of the original structures.
Jeb took the locator out of his pocket and it hovered as soon as it was free. It floated to the marker that was an integral part of the wall, sinking into the custom niche.
“Do you know who made these markers?” Jasper asked, looking at the sphere, three meters above their heads.
Jeb shook his head. He knew only that the markers had been made many years before. Perhaps the marker they were using was a replacement. Coming after the old-growth trees in the rich valley bed they stood on had been felled.
The markers were safest where the environment was unlikely to change much.
Sounds came from down the narrow alleyway, and they tensed.
It was not the casual sounds of human traffic but those of violence. Merrick fought the urge, which he’d had before, to put Jasper behind him.
She was more than capable of fighting her own battles.
A group of young thugs chased a lone man down the alley, straight toward Jeb and Jasper.
At the same time, their eyes rose to the softly glowing sphere.
Once in the cradle of the marker, the sphere would begin to degrade. They had a window of only minutes to jump. First, it would lose its reflection, then it would disintegrate to nothing. It was a clever invention.
The Reflectives could not leave proof of their existence. This was another of the many directives that Reflectives maintained at all costs.
“What… is this?” Jasper asked.
The man running toward them was six feet tall, with hazel eyes and light-brown hair. It was highly stylized but not in a modern way. The rest of his clothing seemed out of sync with the era as well.
Jasper covered her nose just as the smell hit him.
The man smelled of rotting meat with a chaser of raw earth.
Jasper coughed.
“I do apologize,” the man said in a cultured voice, “but I'm rather pressed at present.”
Jeb's eyes narrowed on the gang as they drew closer.
Jasper backed away, slowly lowering her hand. “First third, twentieth century. Undead,” she identified quickly.
Jeb was suddenly glad he had a foreign sector historian on his hands. He turned to her.
“You mean?” he asked, indicating the polite rotting man.
She nodded. “Why do you think I hated the cemetery idea?”
The rotting man seemed insulted, even with the nefarious troupe bearing down on them.
“I don't tarry about graveyards. I am a normal citizen.”
Jeb thought that was somehow inaccurate.
“What's the deal with them?” Jasper asked, jerking her head toward the violent knot of men.
“They mean to beat me until I'm dead,” the zombie said.
“You are dead,” Jasper pointed out.
He lifted a shoulder of the wool overcoat he wore.
“A technicality.”
“Come ’ere, you fucking creeper,” the closest one said, reaching for the zombie.
“First: Right the Wrong,” Jasper whispered.
“Second: Bear no Injustice,” Jeb echoed as one of the men of Sector Three cracked the zombie in the shoulder with a solid piece of hickory.
Jeb stepped forward, capturing the next swing in the palm of his hand. One of his fingers broke on impact with the smooth hardwood, which was worn from many beatings and stained rust-red with the blood of others.
Jeb grit his teeth against the pain, though he had warred with more grievous injuries than this.
“Jasper!” Jeb yelled.
“I'm on it,” she grunted, kicking one man in the gut.
“Allow me,” the zombie said. “I cannot abide violence against women.”
He snapped his fist forward into the jaw of the one who had touched Jasper, though his other arm hung at an odd angle.
The assailant fell like a box of rocks.
“Bring it!” Beth screamed, and the pursuers stampeded.
Jasper crouched low, plowing into the three men who remained as if she were a bowling ball and they, the pins.
Jeb tossed the one who flanked their group into the wall of the building.
He cracked the skull of the other while the zombie landed on the tossed assailant.
He fell after a sound punch in the face.
“Stay as you lie, vagrant,” the zombie commanded with quiet menace.
The last one had Jasper by the throat, pressed tight against the brick wall.
Jeb kicked the male between the legs from behind in a cupped strike of toes. It was an effective hook to the crotch.
His angle had been awkward but effective.
The zombie hissed his empathy from behind as the man slid down to the ground on his side in a fetal position.
Jasper slapped her hands against the building for balance. Her eyes found Jeb's.
The Reflectives’ gazes rose to the sphere.
It had lost its luster. They momentarily ignored the undead man they'd saved.
“Can you jump?” Jeb asked as Jasper struggled to draw air through her abused throat.
Jasper came away from the wall as late-afternoon sunlight streamed between the two buildings like a spear.
She stared at the locator.
Nothing reflective remained.
She shook her head.
Jeb swore under his breath. His finger was a crooked flag on his hand. Swelling as he observed the broken digit.
He glanced at Jasper. “Can you set this? It'll heal this way.”
“I can,” the zombie said.
He extended his hand.
“I am Clyde.”
Jeb stepped over one of the beaten men and took the proffered palm. He noticed the gray tinge of the skin; some of it was sloughing off like shed snake skin.
Jeb shook it with his good one, keeping his repulsion under lock and key for the moment.
“Jeb Merrick.” He indicated Jasper with his chin. “This is my associate, Beth Jasper.”
Clyde inclined his head.
“How is it you know medicine? Are you a healer?”
“Merrick,” Jasper warned.
His eyes flicked to hers.
“A doctor?” he corrected.
Clyde's lips twitched.
The interior of his mouth was black.
“No, but I did a turn or two with boxing during Prohibition times. I might understand the mechanics of fixing a break.”
Jasper put her leather reticule between Jeb's teeth as Clyde straightened the joint.
Jeb did not scream, thought the marks of his teeth remained in the soft leather.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Just let it out, Merrick,” Beth said, disgusted by his pinched white face.
M
ales.
“No,” Merrick said through clenched teeth.
“Okay—whatever.”
Clyde straightened.
“There. It is not a perfect set, but it is what I could manage because of prior breaks.” Clyde lifted an eyebrow, and a little glob of skin rolled from a decomposing tear of flesh and plopped to the ground with a dull splat.
Beth could hear the dry click of her throat as she swallowed. Disgusting.
She had always prided herself on not being squeamish. Beth had never expected to have prejudices like others held against her.
However, the zombie was another thing entirely. He was absolutely awful, and he seemed to be worsening as she watched.
Beth was well versed in all the sectors the Reflectives maintained. Sector Three was known for the teen and young adults who possessed many different paranormal skills—which the Reflectives did not have. The Reflective lifespan was unprecedented in other sectors, yet they could not read minds or shift things without touch. And the dead of Papilio stayed dead.
In Sector Three, a handful of individuals could excavate the dead, like mining for rotting jewels. Papiliones referred to these Sector Three inhabitants as animators a mortuis.
Beth thought the loose translation in English would be death animators. But that was the difficulty with the new language that had been cultivated so pervasively across the other sectors—it was splintered and difficult to translate. In this case, it was close enough.
Too close for comfort.
“Thank you,” Merrick said.
“You are most welcome. However, it is I that is in your debt.”
“Clyde!”
Merrick and Beth whipped around to the sound of a commanding female voice, which sounded relieved.
Oh no… Sector Three police.
However, the zombie—Clyde, seemed to be greatly pleased to see her.
“I'm here, dear heart.”
He smiled, and Beth retreated a step.
Principle, his teeth were awful… and the smell.
Merrick and Beth instinctively moved away, but remained flanking Clyde.
They had not just assisted him, to then hand him over to a new and unknown threat.
Beth thought the female officer appeared equal in size to her.
Of course, that meant nothing. Beth knew she could go toe-to-toe with five Sector Three males and come out the victor. Perhaps this Three female was similar?
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