Flight of Life (Essence Series #1)

by E. L. Todd

  “Hey,” Hawk said to his gang. “Let’s order from the value menu at McDonalds,” he said loudly so Calloway and Breccan could hear. “Let’s eat like poor people.”

  Calloway stopped and was about to turn around when Breccan grabbed him by the arm. “That’s enough for one day.”

  Eternal Night

  “I thought this day would never end,” Calloway said as they walked to the parking lot where they were supposed to meet Easton.

  “For the first time I’m glad I don’t have a cell phone,” Breccan said. “Now my mom can’t call me.”

  Calloway sighed. “Do you think they know?”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Ezquibel already called.” He sighed. “We’ll find out our punishment when we get home.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Calloway said. “I’ll take the blame. If I hadn’t defended Beatrice then none of this would have happened. It was a bad decision.”

  “No. It was a stupid decision,” Breccan said as they stopped on the sidewalk and looked for Easton. “But it isn’t your fault. Hawk stooped really low—even for him. We’ll tell my parents the truth—they’ll listen to us.”

  The wind blew through their hair and made them both feel the full effects of the cold winter. The sky was blanketed with clouds and made the day overcast. It looked like it would rain again. Calloway tightened his jacket around him as they searched for Easton. They didn’t know what car she drove so they hoped she would approach them.

  “Calloway,” someone called from behind them. They both turned around to see Mr. Avey, their English teacher, walking toward them. “I wanted to make sure your paper was ready for tomorrow.” Calloway stared at him for a moment, unsure what he was talking about. Mr. Avey read his look. He rolled up a piece of paper he was holding then tapped Calloway lightly on the arm. “I look forward to reading it,” he said before he walked away toward the main office on campus.

  Breccan looked at him. “You have a paper due tomorrow?”

  Calloway sighed. “I can’t catch a break, can I?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Now I obviously don’t have time and we don’t have a computer at home. Nothing is what I’ll do.”

  “Well, I hope you get a perfect score on the SAT,” Breccan said. “You are going to need it.”

  “He’s your English teacher, too, Brec,” he said. “And you didn’t do your paper either.”

  Breccan sighed. “I forgot.”

  “Now you need a high score on the SAT.”

  “Damn.”

  “Hey,” Easton said as she drove up to the curb. She was driving an old mustang with the window down. “You guys coming or what?”

  Breccan stared at the car with wide eyes. “You have a classic car?” he asked in a surprised voice. “A 1967 Mustang?”

  “That was restored,” she added. “And the paint isn’t original either. But I still love it.” She smiled. “That’s enough with the small talk. Let’s hit the road.” She opened the door and pulled up her front seat, allowing Calloway to fit in the back. Calloway let his cousin occupy the front seat since he was obsessed with muscle cars—anything that was expensive.

  “Your parents bought you this?” Breccan asked as they drove out of the parking lot and onto the main street. “Are they rich?”

  “Brec,” Calloway said. He was trying to remind him of social decorum. The question was inappropriate.

  “I don’t care,” he said to Calloway in the backseat. He turned back to Easton. “So are they?”

  “Well, my father is rich in godly jewels and angels, but my mother is middle-class,” she said as she turned left at the street light.

  Breccan stared at her for a moment, unsure of the meaning in her words. “What?”

  Calloway rolled his eyes. His cousin could be really dense sometimes. “Her father passed away,” he said.

  Breccan looked back at him. “How did you know that?”

  “She just said it.”

  Breccan looked back at Easton. “What about the jewel part? What did that mean?”

  “My father is with the angels of the father,” she said. “He died a few years ago and I inherited his car.”

  “Oh,” he said awkwardly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said as she continued to drive. “But it’s okay.”

  The three of them fell silent as Easton drove them to her sister’s house by the state college. Calloway wanted to say something to Easton in acknowledgment of her loss but he decided to leave it alone. He knew what it was like to lose a parent—two actually—and he preferred not to talk about it. They drove down the main street until Easton drove in a neighborhood of old homes on Berkeley Road. A two-story white house stood in the yard with a long driveway. It was elegant and beautiful. Calloway wondered how old her sister was.

  She parked the car and they emerged from their seats. Easton walked up the driveway and passed the front door of the house. Breccan and Calloway both glanced at each other, unsure where she was going. They followed her until a small one-story house came into view.

  “Where are we going?” Calloway asked.

  “To my sister’s,” she said. “Like I already said.”

  “Doesn’t she live in the house?” Breccan asked.

  “Well, not that mansion over there,” she said. “She lives in this guest house. The rent is dirt cheap. She’s in college and she can only afford so much.”

  “Is she home?” Calloway asked.

  “We’ll find out,” she said as she took the key from her necklace and inserted it into the lock. The door opened and they walked inside. Easton turned on the lights and they looked inside. There was a small kitchen that connected to a dining room with a small coffee table. The living room and bedroom were one tiny room.

  “And where are we going to do all of this?” Breccan asked sarcastically. “There’s no privacy.”

  “You seem to think I’m stupid when I’m not,” she said to Breccan.

  “No, I just know how weird you are.”

  She shook her head and walked to the corner of the living room. There was a string on the ground and she pulled it up to reveal a staircase down to the underground basement. “We’ll have plenty of privacy,” she said.

  Breccan inched forward and looked down the stairwell. “It’s dark.”

  “There are lights down there,” she said. “Are you scared?”

  “No,” he said quickly.

  Calloway walked to the opening and placed his feet on the ladder. “I’ll go first,” he said. He climbed down the dark stairs, and when he felt his foot reach the cement floor, he pulled his glowing orb from his pocket and squeezed it gently. It illuminated the room until he found the light in the center of the room. He pulled the string and it lit the basement. Calloway extinguished the ball and returned it to his pocket before Easton climbed into the room.

  There was one long table in the center and a few random chairs surrounded it. Some were reclining chairs while others were wooden and old. The only window in the room was obscured by the grass growing in the yard above the basement. An old sofa was pushed against the wall with a pile of blankets stacked on top, like someone had just slept on the couch, and there were a few cabinets that contained old bags of chips and bottled water.

  “Is this a natural disaster room?” Breccan asked as he looked around.

  “No,” Easton said as she pulled the door closed form the inside, giving them privacy from the living room and the rest of the house. “This is where my sister has her parties. That way the property owners can’t complain about the loud music.”

  “How old is your sister?” Calloway asked.

  She’s a freshman in college,” she said. “I think she’s nineteen.”

  “You think?” Breccan asked.

  “You are annoying,” Easton said as she sat at the table in the middle of the room.

  “And you’re weird,” he argued.

  Call
oway rolled his eyes. These two never got along and he was tired of listening to the bickering. He was always the mediator but he didn’t feel like interfering now. He was exhausted from the horrific day he had.

  “I would rather be weird than annoying,” she snapped. “And you should be nice to the person who is helping you.”

  “You’re helping Calloway,” Breccan said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  “You two are giving me a headache,” Calloway said as he sat across from Easton. “If you are that irritated with each other, don’t speak to one another. Got it?”

  “That’s more than acceptable to me,” she said.

  “Who talks like that?” Breccan asked. “Just say okay.”

  Calloway stared at him. “What did I just say?”

  “Fine,” he said as he leaned back.

  Easton sighed before she looked at Calloway. “Show it to me.”

  Calloway opened his backpack and pulled out the dusty book, which was still covered in a thin layer of dust. Who knows how long it had been hidden in that room. Years? Centuries? Easton stared at the cover of the book for a long moment, admiring the texture of the surface with her hand. There was a webbing of cloth on the front of the book which was dull and gray, a different color than it had been when it was created. Calloway felt his skin prickle as he watched her appraise the book. He was certain the volume was genuine but watching her study it in such detail confirmed his thought. It was one of the Kirin Books.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  Breccan opened his mouth to speak but he closed his mouth abruptly, knowing he wasn’t supposed to argue with Easton. Calloway knew what his cousin was thinking; how could something that detailed the Hara-Kirs be beautiful? It was such an odd thing to say.

  Easton opened the book and read the first page, which had two ancient symbols written on the old parchment paper. The thinness of the pages revealed the age of the book. The simple touch of an oily finger was enough to destroy the integrity of the paper, dissolving it into grains of sand. “The Tale of Life,” she said.

  Calloway looked at her. “What?”

  “That’s what the book is called. The Kiri Book: The Tale of Life.”

  “And what does that mean?” Breccan asked.

  “I suppose it details the essence and the void, as well as the history of the Hara-Kirs and their purpose.”

  “Who wrote it?” Calloway asked.

  She shrugged. “I suppose we’ll never know,” she said as she turned the page. “This is the real thing—I know it is.”

  Calloway nodded. “I’m glad I risked my life for something worthwhile.”

  “Do you know anything about the Hara-Kirs?” she asked both of them.

  “I know to stay away from them,” Breccan said.

  “That they seek to destroy the world—all of us—everything,” Calloway answered.

  “Well, that’s incorrect,” she said. “But how did you come across them? How do you even know what they are?”

  Calloway and Breccan were both quiet for a moment. Calloway thought about the message his father left for him, stowed inside his trunk in the study. The chest was locked at all times but he inherited the key when his father died. Inside was a letter that warned him of the Hara-Kirs. He thought his father had gone mad. “I was informed by someone else,” Calloway said quietly. He hated discussing his late father in any context. Even though he’d been dead for ten years his absence was still painful.

  She stared at him for a moment. “You trust me enough to bring me this book but not to tell me how we got to this point?” she asked. “That is most interesting. We’re going to need to confide in each other if we wish to accomplish anything.”

  “And what are we trying to accomplish?” Breccan asked. “I thought we were just trying to survive.”

  “But how long can we do that for?” Easton said.

  Calloway nodded. “My father left me a note that explained the existence of the Hara-Kirs. He didn’t give me many details, other than the location of the book and a few gifts, but that was it. And most of his notes didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t until after I confided in my cousin that we discovered the truth.”

  “What gifts did he leave you?”

  Calloway and Breccan shared a look before Calloway decided to reveal his possessions. He dug in his pocket until he retrieved the glowing orb and the picking knife and placed them on the table. Easton stared at the objects without touching them. They looked like ordinary tools.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  Calloway nodded.

  “May I?” she asked as she reached out her hand.

  “Yes.”

  Easton grabbed the glowing orb from the table and held it in her hand. She rotated the object in her fingers and appraised the ball. The surface of the orb was translucent and gray, like the inside was completely hollow, but it couldn’t be distinguished clearly. Several minutes passed as Easton stared at the ball. She never made a comment as she observed its dimensions. “Is it a golf ball?” she finally asked.

  Breccan laughed and it was the first time Easton had elicited a comical expression from him—ever. Calloway smiled at her words. “No,” he said.

  “Well, it looks like it.”

  “Squeeze it,” Calloway commanded her.

  She stared at him for a moment. Calloway nodded at her and she followed his instruction. Nothing happened. She dropped it on the table and watched it for a moment, waiting for something to happen.

  Calloway grabbed it and squeezed it. The light shined bright. He squeezed it again and returned it to the table. Easton grabbed it and stared at it. There was no switch or place to put a battery. In fact, there was nothing inside of it to conduct any form of electricity.

  “What else does it do?” she asked.

  Calloway shrugged. “That’s it,” he said. “It’s just a light.”

  She nodded then looked at the pocket knife on the table. “And what does this do?”

  “It can pick any lock and lock any door,” Calloway answered. “At least that’s why my guess is.”

  “Have you tried it?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “And it works.”

  Easton leaned back in her chair and thought for a moment. “All these gifts are not from here.”

  Breccan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “They aren’t from this world we live in. That would mean someone traveled to the Anti-Life, took these items, and then brought them back.”

  Calloway and Breccan looked at each other in confusion. Calloway turned back to Easton. “We don’t understand what you’re saying. What are you talking about?”

  Easton sighed. “Anything unworldly that functions in this world is not from this world. It was brought back from the Anti-Life—where the Hara-Kirs and worship the Anti-Life. In order for your father to have this in his possession he would have either taken it from someone on this plane, or he himself traveled to the Anti-Life and returned with these items.” She picked up the ball again and looked at it. “How did your father die?”

  Calloway lowered his gaze. “He was mugged one night after dark. After the thief stole his belongings, he killed my father.”

  She nodded. “Was his funeral an open casket?”

  Calloway stared at her. “No,” he said. “Why?”

  “I was just wondering,” she said. “And what did your father do for a living?”

  “He was a historian.”

  Easton nodded again.

  “Why are you asking him these questions?” Breccan asked.

  “He was the one who gave him these Anti-Life gifts,” she said. “I think it’s logical to inquire further knowledge about the person.” She turned back to Calloway. “Did he say why he wanted you to have these?”

  “No,” he answered. “It wasn’t clear in his note. In fact, he may not have wanted me to have them at all. I inherited everything since I was his only son.”

  Easton turned back to the book and
turned the page. “And that’s why you took the Kirin Book,” she said. “You father detailed its whereabouts in a note?”

  Calloway nodded. “It seemed important.”

  “Since the Hara-Kirs pursued you, I would assume it’s important as well. I just don’t know why.”

  “Well, we’ll have to read it,” Breccan said. “Or you will, actually.”

  She turned the page. “Are you guys ready to listen?” she asked.

  Calloway nodded. “Go ahead.”

  She cleared her throat and focused her eyes on the page. “What once was Life was Anti-life; a primordial balance of two segregated powers that forever battle for dominance. Life is the world that is affected directly by the natural powers of the universe, whereas the Anti-Life defies the rules of nature by seeking to destroy it, for only with the absence of life will the full of effect of the Anti-Life come into play. Life has no purpose or fulfillment to seek; it is a waste of cosmic energy and power, and Life needs to be doused with blackness. While life continues to evolve and change, becoming different with the passage of time, in truth, it is useless and invalid; it needs to be stopped.” Easton paused as she turned the page. “The Hara-Kirs are the symbol of life-ending of the embrace of death and shadow. They accept their fate as endless and pointless; they seek to douse the life that hides the essence and seek to claim it as their own. The power of the essence is a virus, a plague that fluctuates the purpose of life, when, in fact, it has no purpose. Death in unavoidable and should be embraced. There is nothing past this nor should there be.” Easton turned the page. “That’s the end of the section.”

  Calloway leaned back in his chair and Breccan rested his head on his hand, clearly confused by the words they just heard. Easton stared at the two boys, waiting for them to speak.

  “I have no idea what you just said,” Breccan said. “Seeking to destroy?” he asked incredulously. “The absence of Life will affect the Anti-Life?”

  Calloway nodded. “I think it’s saying that life has no purpose. We make that purpose when none shall be had. Rather than waste our time evolving, growing, reproducing and changing, we should just give up and accept the Anti-Life—the real life.”