Forever

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “But in a way, aren’t you really the immortal ones? If I understand this correctly, you are the exact same soul, if not the exact same physical rendition, of the pharaoh Menes. Isn’t that immortality at its plainest?”

  “In simplified terms, I suppose it is. But with every generation, our souls are touched by the soul of another, Marissa. There is nothing to compare it to, I know, but learning someone … knowing them that completely changes us until, by the time we part from each other, it is as though all of what Jackson is will have been included into my soul and he too will have immortality through that means.” He put a sandwich in front of her and came around the bar so he was standing close to her. He reached to touch her chin, tipping her head back so she was looking into the sea green of his eyes. “Think of it like finding a soul mate. Like loving someone on such a visceral level that it becomes almost impossible to think of living without them. To know that they are etched in your heart and your soul for all time, that is how deep an impression they have left. That is how it should be. And everyone should know what that feels like, though I’m sad to say that I know they won’t. I think in that way we are truly blessed, we Bodywalkers. Sometimes I look at a human being such as you and I think, how do you do it? How do you move through this world knowing you are so alone in everything that you do? And then Jackson remembers what it was like and that it wasn’t so bad. It eases my worry.”

  That was when Marissa realized she was talking to Menes more than she was Jackson in that moment. Someone else might have found that reference to himself in the third person obnoxious, like some kind of star or something, thinking he was so glorious that he must be referred to as something outside of an individual. But she realized she was coming to understand the fluctuation between the disparate personalities living inside of Jackson. And it was funny, but she could see physical differences as well. Not in form or features, of course, but in mannerisms. The way he held his posture, the deep confidence in his body language. Jackson was a confident man of course, but there was something more to the way Menes projected himself. She realized then it was because he was a being who had lived and died in some of the most turbulent times in history. The relative cushy lifestyles that humans had now must be amusingly simple to him.

  It was a little unnerving to her, to know she was sitting in front of a great Egyptian pharaoh … and that he had been there when Jackson had touched her and kissed her.

  She blushed without knowing why. She wasn’t exactly known for her lack of confidence. She might feel moments of insecurity from time to time, mostly when trying to find a way to fit in with the rest of her coworkers around him and huggedan better on a social level; but the nature of her job and the role she played made it very difficult. Sometimes she was convinced they thought the only thing worse than her was Internal Affairs. That made it very hard to cultivate relationships. They couldn’t separate who she was as a human being from the threat they perceived her to be professionally.

  “Now what’s that expression for?” he asked her gently. “That looked like a very troubling thought.”

  “I was just wondering … I thought you told me that you’re Blending with Jackson and becoming one in essence. But I can very easily tell who I am talking to from one topic to the next.”

  He made a small contemplative sound. “I find it intriguing that you do. But we are newly Blended, and over time you will not see any distinctions. Nor will we feel the need to use plural pronouns when referring to ourselves.”

  He smiled then, all gentle magnetic charm as he touched his thumb to the corner of her lips. It seemed to be a favorite caress of his, she thought as warm frissons of indefinable emotion swam through her. It wasn’t arousal or desire, though she did acknowledge that both were also present at that moment. It was …

  It was enough to make her shy away from him, turning abruptly out of his tender touch. She reached for her sandwich, stuffing it into her mouth before she got some crazy notion in her head like wanting him to kiss her.

  Menes watched her shift away from him, drank in the pretty flustered color on her cheeks. She was perfect. In every way he could possibly hope for. Jackson’s desire for her was a volatile, virulent thing, and Menes didn’t blame him in the least. She was beautiful, intelligent, capable of deep emotions and equally capable of hiding them. That was important when one was in a position of authority. Like, say, a queen. Oh, he could see there were flaws, that she had control issues, and had very little ability to trust. However, he would never discover any of these things nor other more crucial answers if Jackson didn’t stop locking down his needs and emotions where Marissa was concerned. All of the recent progress he had made up to date had been as a direct result of Menes’s internal influence. Jackson was completely unaware of that fact, of course. Menes was a far more powerful soul than Jackson was, which allowed him to have his secrets in spite of the Blending. He wasn’t subjugating Jackson in the least, merely … encouraging him to follow his natural instincts where she was concerned.

  She was a beautiful creature, but she was in desperate need of a complex sort of wooing. An aggressive sort of wooing. She was too powerful a personality and had extremely strong walls for defense shored up against … well, that part was still a puzzle. Was it just Jackson or was it men in general? Or was it people that she mistrusted altogether?

  “I imagine that, as a psychiatrist and as one that tends to the needs of police officers, you see and hear a great many terrible things,” he said, watching her carefully to see how she reacted to his change in topic. It would throw her off, keep her off balance a little, which he suddenly realized was what he had been doing to her all along. He was keeping her from finding her footing, so she couldn’t try to ward him off.

  She frowned a little just before letting a professional mask slip over her features.

  “It’s part of the job, yes. The men and women on the force are very complex certainly ag. people, but for the most part, in spite of their strength and dominant personality traits, they became cops in order to do something good. For the most part they have very powerful moral compasses. Do some get lost along the way? Absolutely.” Again a brief frown turned down the corners of her mouth. He would have missed it entirely if he hadn’t been on high alert for it. “For people with such a powerful sense of right and wrong and a need for justice, it can be very psychologically damaging for them to see such terrible things. And to see those terrible things go unpunished makes it even worse.”

  “Yes. Believe me I know.” Menes knew this not only from the parts of Jackson that were now a part of him, but he knew this from lifetimes of watching injustices occur right before his eyes. It was the essence of the war between the Politic and the Templars. He saw the horror of the crimes Odjit and her brethren committed and it made him righteously sick to his soul. He refused to leave the world open to her victimization. The only reason why it had been so easy for him to let go when Hatshepsut had been taken from him in their last incarnation was because Odjit was already dead herself. Had she not been killed he would have forced himself to remain. But he was a shell of himself without Hatshepsut. He was half the man he was capable of being when he was without her.

  Of course Jackson knew nothing of this. He didn’t understand at present the powerful depth of finding and craving a soul mate. But Menes believed he was beginning to. Jackson was far more attached to this pretty redhead than he realized … or was willing to admit to in any event. That was good. Important even. And he couldn’t have chosen much better himself.

  Menes reached out, unable to help himself as he envisioned Hatshepsut’s soul within this beauty, and brushed back her hair from the side of her face. She startled, her skin flushing as she ducked to avoid the caress.

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “Why not?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Don’t you like to be touched?”

  “Of course I do, but … we’re not … it’s just not …”

  “Not what? Ethical? I’m not your
patient any longer, Marissa. Nor do I work with you anymore.”

  “The situation of the present doesn’t erase what was. I am bound by ethics to not—”

  “Not enjoy yourself? Not live? Just because we had the misfortune of crossing paths in an official capacity we should deny what I feel is a most incredible attraction? I see no logic in that. I see no logic to a lot of the laws and boundaries that are now in my mind because of Jackson.”

  “God, it’s weird hearing you refer to yourself like that. And just because you don’t like the rules doesn’t mean we can break them.”

  “I disagree with you wholeheartedly, Marissa. Rules are a guide to seeing things done rightly. If I see that they interfere with what is right, then I change the rules.”

  “You can’t just do that,” she scoffed at him. “Jackson, being the boy scout he is … you are … I mean … well, he doesn’t work that way.”

  “But he is not just the sum of himself anymore. And he is more inclined to the way I think than you realize. So,” he reached to brush back her ha moral compass. iir once more, taking no small pleasure in the fact that she didn’t move away this time, “this idea that we must deny the attraction we feel is simply not an acceptable rule. I will summarily discard it and I will do everything in my power to see that you do as well.”

  She swallowed visibly and he saw the ghost of the fear she was feeling and trying so hard to hide behind a mask of coolness and control. Oh Marissa, he thought, what has happened to you to make you thus?

  “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the impetus behind what he said to me three weeks ago.”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  “Oh don’t pretend like you don’t know,” she bit off. “I hate games. If you think I’m going to play you’re sorely mistaken.”

  “Marissa, I am not playing a game. I honestly do not know what you are referring to. Three weeks ago I was extremely weak, having been harshly pulled from the Ether and expending energy I ought not to have done so immediately afterward. It numbed and paralyzed me from my connection with Jackson. It was part of the reason why this Blending has taken such a long time. If Jackson said something to you, I assure you it was not of my doing.” Menes was genuinely curious now, especially since Jackson’s memory conveniently shut down on the topic. More of the infamous Waverly recalcitrance. Honestly, if Menes didn’t respect his strength of will so much it would be extremely irritating. “Tell me what he said to you.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said, beating a hasty retreat, sliding back off the barstool in such a way as to take herself out of his reach, rather than move forward and risk brushing up against him.

  “But I think it does,” he said, standing up and reaching for her wrist, preventing her from turning her back on him and their conversation. “Tell me what he said to you.”

  She was flushing that pretty fuchsia pink again. It was charming on her in spite of the fact that she was stubbornly shaking her head.

  “Did he proposition you, Marissa?” he asked, taking a stab at it and watching it hit her like a ton of bricks, the entirety of her neck and shoulders blushing into that glorious color. “Ah, I see he did.”

  “Not … not a proposition as much as … a-an announcement of intentions.”

  Well, well. So Jackson had made bold with her all on his own. Menes wondered how Jackson had managed to keep that secret from him. Menes was supposed to be the stronger soul, considering the amount of time he had spent on this earth alone, never mind in the Ether. It took great strength of will to remain lucid while in the disembodied state of the Ether. It was so easy to get lost in the mists of forgetting, or rather the mists of wanting to forget. Wanting to forget the violence of emotion attached to their last death, and all the ones before it. Wanting to forget the loss of all those mortals left behind who would not be there when they returned once more.

  Just the thought alone had the power to bring him to his knees. So many. So many I have loved and lost over the centuries.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, reaching to wrap her hand over the rise of his shoulder, the strength of her touch anchoring him and telling him just how visibly he’d been reacting to his to make me feel …s danger thoughts.

  “I …” His professions of being just fine seemed to stick in his craw, held there tightly by the things left unfinished and unlamented. His comfort, his only comfort in all this turbulence of life and death, was his beloved queen. The longer she stayed trapped away from him in the Ether, the harder it became for him to push aside the darkness of his thoughts and centuries worth of memories. Of children lost, of friends gone to dust. “There is so much loss, when you live lifetimes the way we do,” he said, surprising himself with his honesty. “Some moments leave their mark on my thoughts and heart more than others. In my previous lifetime humans were at war just as the Templars and the Politic were. I was in the new world … America … and a great many young people were going off to die or find glory in battle. I have long since evolved past the foolish idea that with war comes glory. With war comes death and nothing more. No matter who is in the wrong, no matter whose cause is more just, to war means to reap death.” He felt the weight of his words like an oppression, as though an elephant had taken up residence upon his heart. “It is bad enough that as Bodywalkers we triple, sometime quadruple, the life span of the host that carries us, cultivating the opportunity for those we grow fond of to turn to dust and leave us longing for them, trying to fill the hole their passing has left inside of us. Not just some … all.” He looked into the concerned warmth of her eyes. “All whom we touch in our new lives will leave us. It is not unheard of for a Bodywalker to take his own life when the grief of living without his most beloved friends and family becomes far too difficult to manage.”

  She was listening to him very intently, as if what he was saying was very important to her. He supposed that was because it was her job to make others feel that way. But the embittered thought didn’t stand. He had come to see the tenderness in her heart. She was genuinely focused on him, and empathizing as best she could with her limited mortal experiences. It was making his feelings all that much harder to keep control of. He wanted to fully disclose everything to her, but he did not want to have her thinking that being a Bodywalker was a hateful experience.

  “Grief. So much of it,” she said softly. “You actually have to watch those you love age and pass on, knowing you will be left behind … forever. You can’t even tell yourself what so many human beings do—that you will meet all your loved ones again someday in the afterlife. You are denied that comfort because of the nature of who and what you are. I can’t even imagine how much pain that causes you.”

  “It is … it is not an easy choice to come back from the Ether. It takes great fortitude of spirit to encourage ourselves to leave the relative safety of it. But that would be like shutting yourself off from the beauty of loving relationships because there is the painful possibility it will fall apart. Right now my queen is struggling with this very problem. In spite of her devotion to our people, her commitment to seeing an end to this infinite war, she did not want us to be reborn because it would mean one of us would eventually have to watch the other die. When you love as deeply as we do, with every corner of the soul … the loss is incomprehensible. And even a hundred years in the Ether is not able to erase the agony of it.”

  “Y-your … queen?”

  Menes looked at her in surprise, suddenly realizing how much he had c to make me feel …s dangeronfided in her. He had not wanted to mention Hatshepsut to her just yet, to lead her to believe that Jackson was unattainable because he was destined for another. It was bad enough that Jackson was struggling with his conscience on that one.

  But perhaps it would be for the better, he mused thoughtfully.

  “Yes. My queen. She is in the Ether, awaiting rebirth. She and I … there is nothing to compa26; and

  CHAPTER TEN

  , wouldn’t you say?m“If you

  S
he was pissed. Really, really pissed. Probably because her whole body was burning with the embarrassment of having been made a fool of. It was bad enough that Jackson had been yanking her out of her comfort zone and rubbing her raw against her grating ethics, but to know that he knew there was no future between them and had manhandled her anyway?

  Oh yes. She was furious. Her whole face and body burned with it, her heart sinking with shame for being so foolish even as her back rose into defensive hackles. Her fingers curled, as if they wanted to grab him around the neck and choke the life out of him. It was no wonder, because the impulse was not all that far off in that moment. And he was smiling at her still! That cocky, smug little smile that felt to her like he was thinking dirty, dirty thoughts about her.

  The pig.

  “It figures you would be proud of yourself for that! Quite the accomplishment, getting your hands on my ass. Wow. I see why you’re the ruler of your people,” she said, venom in every single word she spat at him. “With deception skills like that you are perfect for politics!”

  “If you equate me with the politicians of your society you are mistaken,” he said with serious intellectual contemplation in his tone. “They are renowned for their treachery and deceit. I, however, have never lied to you.”

  “Oh sure, you just decided to omit a few key details,” she said bitterly.

  He stepped closer to her then, invading her personal space and forcing her to look up. She tried to yank her wrist free of him and backpedal, but to her dismay the wall was at her back and his grip was not easy to break. After all, he was a titan. What chance did she have against such a powerful being?

  Well, she might be outmatched physically, but in the matter of wits and, apparently, ethics, she had him in her dust.

  “That’s just as bad as lying,” she railed at him, but awkwardly realizing it was very uncomfortable to argue and make a stand when being bathed by the overwhelming heat of a powerfully potent male. “It makes you even more of a pig because you can justify yourself in such a self-serving way. No wonder your people have been at war for eons!”