I hold my breath, careful not to let my own feelings overflow and nod quickly. I turn away from him before the mixture of my own emotions slips from me. Ahead of me, through the passage, I see Luke and Ms. Olivia waiting, their lanterns raised, giving light to their surroundings.
Slowly, I cross the invisible threshold between the tunnel and the passage to the kiva, walking toward them. Ms. Olivia walks around the two cylinder legs of a ladder cresting an opening in the rock below our feet. Standing next to the opening now, I watch as Ms. Olivia holds the lantern in one hand and takes hold of the wooden legs with the other as she lowers herself step by step into the hatch.
“I will follow,” says Luke as he reaches for my lantern, takes it from my hand, and lowers it to the ground. He continues, “I will be right behind you.”
I look at him wearily as I come around the ladder and place my hands on the two legs of the ladder and step down. As I lower myself into the kiva, I angle my eyes to the passage opening hoping Ira has found Nate and Xander.
I run through the main vein of the passage, just in time to see Nate topple over two of the lit lanterns before turning left down another passage.
“Nate!”
He doesn’t even flinch, just keeps running.
Running hard and staying close behind him I call to him, “Nate, I know you can hear me in there!”
He picks up speed and pulls away from me, just as my footing begins to slip. Damn it, I’m sliding! As the ground beneath me shakes pulling the gravel out from under me, I fall into the stone wall, hitting my shoulder against a jagged edged boulder. The pain shoots straight through my arm and into my neck. I breathe through it, get my footing and stumble along the passage. Another aftershock knocks me against the wall, hitting the same shoulder again and sending another wave of nauseating pain into the core of my arm, numbing my hand. With my breathing coming faster because of the spike in pain, I feel the dizziness set in. I look down at my arm handing limply from my body. Dislocated, great! I lean my back against the tunnel wall and with my eyes I follow the sporadic lighting from the lanterns ahead.
One, two, three, four outlets from the main vein. I notice two lanterns have been knocked over. Hell, he could be down any of them! The earth behind me begins to tremble just as Ira appears at my side. His eyes are targeting all of the passages. “Which one?”
I grunt through the pain, “He disappeared ahead of me. I don’t know. Wait, why are you here? You should be with Jesca!”
Ira looks down at me, taking inventory of my pain. His eyes hone in on my shoulder and he steps toward me.
I tense at his approach and ask, “What are you doing?”
Ira’s golden eyes rest on mine. “Healing you.”
He places one of his hands on the back of my shoulder, then rests his other on top of my collar bone.
“I didn’t know that Rephaim had the ability to heal,” I tell him as I close my eyes and wait for the warmth of healing.
Suddenly, the contortion of my shoulder is raised and popped back into its place in one swift motion. The pain follows, bending me in half. “Ahhh! Damn it, Ira!”
As I rise back up, I notice Ira has disappeared.
“Ira?”
Crap, where is he going?
With the pain beginning to subside, I roar, “Ira!”
Ira is at my side again growling, “He isn’t in these passages.”
With the feeling coming back to my hand, I flex it to get the blood pumping through it again. “He was here. This place is like a labyrinth! I need to get into his head just long enough to track him.”
I close my eyes and let go of the block fastened and fixed on my mind.
Silence.
Ira groans, “What are you doing?”
Agitated with his interruption, I open my eyes and glare at him. “Trying to find him. If even the smallest part of Nate shows itself while under the hybrid’s control, I will be able to find him.”
I close my eyes again and open my mind and think, “C’mon Nate. Fight it cousin.”
Silence.
C’mon!
Silence.
“I won’t let it take her, Xander. If it means my death, so be it.” Nate’s thought comes to me so strong, I expect to open my eyes and see him standing right in front of me.
In front of me.
Locked onto his presence now, I open my eyes and walk straight ahead passed the first two outlet passages.
I look back at Ira standing hunched over in the passage waiting for me to give him direction. “This way.”
I walk straight ahead as I send Nate my thoughts. “Nate, you don’t need to runaway. Ira is here with me. We won’t let the hybrid Dweller take Jesca or you.”
I feel his presence stronger to my right just as I come up on the third outlet. I run quickly through the passage, Ira striding just behind me.
I hear Nate think, “I can’t let it take her.”
Is he not hearing me? I think, “Nate! It won’t take her! None of us will let it take her! I won’t let it take either of you! I promised! I won’t break that promise, cousin!”
I feel Nate’s presence getting stronger as he thinks, “I won’t either.”
Instantly, his presence lifts, shrouded once again in silence.
I stop walking and hiss, “Damn it!”
“What happened?” asks Ira.
“I lost him,” I say as I kick the dirt under me, sending a rock tumbling along the passage. Watching it roll, it ricochets from two fallen lanterns.
Two fallen lanterns.
The main tunnel entrance.
I move toward the lanterns as I think over what I said to Nate. “It won’t take her. None of us will let it take her,” and what he said in return, “I won’t either.”
The flash of lightning and roar of thunder pouring through the tunnel opening in the distance has me fixated as I remember when I had seen this very tunnel before, in a vision.
Walking through the tunnel.
The princess in the kiva.
As I let the images set in I turn around to face Ira, tell him what I have seen, when I spy Sebastian leaning against the wall of one of the outlets, head tilted back against the stone wall.
Feeling my legs weakening from where my thoughts are taking me, I stumble toward him and ask harshly, “Sebastian, where is Jesca?”
The words don’t sound like my own. They are tearing, breaking, falling apart, like me right now.
Sebastian lulls his head toward me and his expression becomes panicked.
He pushes his body from the rock wall as I grab his shirt and meet him eye to eye, “Where is Jesca?”
He points down the main passage into a opening at the other end and says feebly, “In the kiva.”
I let go of his shirt as it sinks in.
“Nate is going after her,” I whisper breathlessly.
Temporarily suspended in a state of shock, I shuffle a few feet down the tunnel. The passage seems to stretch forever before my eyes, the other end so far away. I tell myself to run, but my legs feel like they are weighted down with lead as I continue to sludge down the passage.
“No, Xander! The ritual has already begun.” Sebastian’s words pull me from my stupor. I run as hard as my body will carry me through the passage to get to Jesca and Nate.
The heavy lethargic curtain the hybrid Dweller has thrown over me is fading suddenly. I didn’t want to run from her, but I had to before it attacked. I felt its temperament stirring inside, about to blow and I needed to get out of there. I ran as fast as I could away from all of them for their own safety.
Through the clearing fog in my head, I hear Xander’s voice like a beacon of light. “C’mon, Nate. Fight it, cousin.”
The hybrid Dweller’s hold on my mind loosens suddenly allowing my thoughts to break free. What has happened to make it weaken? Not wanting to think too long on it and chance it’s return with vengeance, I tell Xander my thoughts. “I won’t let it take her, Xander. If it means my death, so be
it.”
I mean every word. If I have to hold this hybrid Dweller in me to keep her safe, I will die with it before I let it loose into this world again. Suddenly, I feel the strength of Xander’s presence expand as he sends me another thought. “Nate, you don’t need to runaway. Ira is here with me. We won’t let the hybrid Dweller take Jes or you.”
He is too close, I can feel him right on me. I get up from the cavity I am hunkered down in and dart across the main passage into another side cavity. Still free of the hybrid Dweller I think, “I can’t let it take her.”
Xander’s forceful energy comes at me through his thoughts loud and clear.
“Nate! It won’t take her! None of us will let it take her! I won’t let it take either of you! I promised! I won’t break that promise, cousin!”
Suddenly, a series of images saturate my mind; Jesca stepping down into an opening in the earth, holding onto a ladder. As she steps away from the ladder, a fire pit rises in the middle of the room. I remember this room, this kiva from Sebastian, Xander, and Jesca talking about their visions.
Oh no! She is about to perform the ritual! My panic is suddenly quelled by a constricting haze settling back over me. Son of a bitch! The hybrid used me to see where she was. I can’t let him take back over! If he does, he will attack her through me! I think of Sam, fighting for control of his body and soul beyond the veil. I remember him having Jesca in a strangle hold, a dagger against her throat. He stopped it. He surfaced the heavy fog of Michael’s evil soul and he stopped the control. I can surface it too. I send my thought to Xander, “I won’t either.”
My feet touch down on the hard ground in the kiva. With the lanterns our only light, the sacred room is cold, dim, and damp. I hear the wind howling above me and the rolling thunder sounds oddly closer.
The warm smell orange glow of kindling wood animates the murals on the kiva’s walls. Luke is stoking the beginnings of fire in the middle of the kiva as Ms. Olivia lays a thick woven blanket down on the ground in front of the fire pit. I notice one has already been placed on the other side. I walk over to the vacant blanket and sit down, facing the fire.
“You can hear the outside world in here because of the ventilation hatch,” says Ms. Olivia as she sits on her own blanket. She continues explaining, “It is above the opening into the kiva.”
“What is it for?” I ask.
Ms. Olivia takes hold of a tightly wrapped bundle of hay-like leaves and branches and places the tip over the growing fire in the pit. “For the spirit to rise,” she says.
Luke rises from the center of the kiva and walks back into the shadows.
I hear Ms. Olivia soft whispers as she hits the bundle of branches. She opens her eyes and begins waving the smoking bunch of branches into the air. She walks around the now blossomed fire to me. She begins waving the tightly woven grass and leaves in front of my face. “Rub your hands in the smoke,” she says placing the sage and cedar under my hands, letting the smoke rise into them as I rub them together.
Olivia whispers, “Sage and Cedar. Both burned together will keep evil spirits from entering this sacred place and allow purification of your soul.”
As I breathe in the fume, I feel my body lighten and my mind become heavy. Ms. Olivia turns and leaves me, going back to her side of the fiery pit, and sits on her blanket.
Her face glows beyond the flicking flames of the fire, her whispering ritual becoming a voluminous chant now. I don’t understand the chants; they are spoken in her native language. Even though the meaning of the words is lost with me, their mystical dominance in this room takes precedence over me quickly. Seemingly hypnotized, I stare beyond the fire at Ms. Olivia. Her features suddenly transform into the amber eyed shaman from my vision.
* * *
The shaman’s lips move as the voice of Ms. Olivia escapes them. Bit, by bit, the voice deepens until it is only the shaman’s tone leading the ritual. This isn’t real. I’m in the kiva. I tell myself to rise, but I’m motionless, in a vision. I see an open palm moving toward me out of the corner of my eye. It is the copper medal the shaman passed to Onawah’s mother in my last vision. I look up into the woman’s eyes as my hand extends to collect the medal. She tries to holding back the tears rimming her eyes as she places the medal in my palm. As it touches my skin, it instantly warms my hand, the tendrils of heat ribboning through the veins of my arm, my chest, my core follows quickly. All of a sudden, the medal begins to glow brightly, reflecting native symbols along the native symbols along the rim.
The growing fieriness running along my skin seems to rise in one spot; just above my chest, I look down and see the Copula resting just below my neck gleams with an afterglow that warms me in unison with the growing warmth of the ancient native medal in my hand. Feeling overcome by the building heat stirring within me, my eyes close.
* * *
When I open them, the glowing medal in my palm is gone. I look up in the direction I had seen Onawah’s mother and she is gone.
I look beyond the quivering blaze and see the warm golden glow the flame casts in Ms. Olivia’s eyes. Her voice rises forming a singsong chant and her eyes remain fixed on me in heavy concentration.
The heated Copula suddenly cools to a soothing warmth and a tingling vibration just below my skin. Just like the sensation of the medal in Onawah’s hand, I feel tendrils of tinkling heat fissure and diffuse into my arms, under my chin, onto my face, spreading into my abdomen and along my folded legs.
The flames suddenly rise, causing me to blink.
* * *
The shaman is sitting across from me again chanting faster. The brothers, the gentlemen, the men Onawah loves flash in my mind along with the shaman pulling me toward the mounds, the kiva. My mind releases the images as I feel my body lighten like it had in the vision before. Onawah looks down suddenly. Is she feeling the same sensation I do?
I am still sitting on the floor, unmoved, but the lightening feeling continues. I notice Onawah’s mother backing away from me, covering her mouth with her hands. She is frightened. What does she see?
The shaman’s crooning intensifies, filling each syllable with his passion as a messenger for Onawah. The drumbeat echoes through the sacred room as I feel myself continue to disconnect from the ground.
Unexpectedly, I feel the same sensation of myself peeling away from Onawah’s body. I leave the ground and rise up, levitating above the entire kiva, looking down at the scene of the sacred ritual taking place. I look at Onawah’s sitting form, her head tilted up and the amber glow of the medal in her palm beams rays of light in every direction, covering the entire kiva in light. Onawah’s mother falls to her knees and stares wide eyed and mouth gaping in fright.
The sound of commotion and yelling comes from the opening above us. I look through the opening and see his face, the dark haired brother struggling to descend the kiva’s ladder.
I look back down at Onawah, her olive eyes are fixed upward fastened on something beyond our world. Onawah does not flinch as the dark haired soldier yells her name, but her mother does. She rises quickly and looks up into the gape. She waves her hands and shakes her head as she hisses her native words at him. I watch her turn and pace along the far end of the kiva’s walls tears streaming down her face and holding her shaking hands to her trembling lips. Abruptly, someone drops from the recess above. I see the familiar uniform of the soldiers in the vision, but I don’t see anything else because two native guards drop down on him and hold him down to the ground. Watching this soldier struggle to break free, I feel my own heart break sensing that it is has to be one of the brothers attempting to save Onawah from the legacy.
Rapidly the wildfire from the pit beneath me rises high, blinding my view of the soldier struggling to break free from the natives. Instinctively I shield my eyes from the heated assault as the brother’s yell swells, “Onawah!”
* * *
“Jesca!”
Hearing the call of my name sends a spike of adrenaline through me and I’m snatched
from the mystical trance I am under. I look around me and see that I am still above the flames of the fiery pit just as I was in the vision. Instead of looking down at Onawah, I’m looking at myself kneeling in front of the fire, my eyes wide and fixed upward into the heavens. I see the struggle to my left. Nate! He is trying to break free from Luke’s hold. In an instant, my hovering spirit is siphoned back into my body.
He can’t do this! It is my purpose, my choice! Hearing Nate and Luke’s struggle, I force my eyes open to see Nate strike Luke across the face. Luke goes down instantly knocked unconscious by the blow. My eyes feel so heavy and my body feels weak. I try to keep my sight on Nate, but everything goes dark as my eyes shut me out from the world, from Nate.
It is Nate’s electrifying touch on my shoulder that gives me some strength to open my eyes again.
“Nate, no,” I mumble lazily. My words come out muffled as I try to pull farther from the spellbound coma I’m under, but I can only pull so far. The disconnect, it is already happening.
Ms. Olivia’s urgent chanting battles to overpower Nate’s panicked, quick words.
“Jesca. I don’t have much time! The hybrid Dweller!” He groans loudly like he is struggling with the being within him now.
I try to formulate more words, but they come out slurred. “Let me go, Nate. This is my…”
I feel both of Nate’s hand take hold of my shoulders. He pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me. His hold sends a familiar spike of warmth and healing course through me.
His words are breathless as he tells me, “The moment I met you, I knew I had to protect you, love you.”
“You have,” I whisper raggedly.
I feel my body slowly waking and I lift my arms from my side to try and push him away. “I have to do this. It is my choice,” I say with more force.
Nate breathes in shakily as he rests his lips next to my ear. “What if it has never been your choice, Jesca?”
Transcending the Legacy Page 28