I screamed for my parents, for the light.
I screamed for Dalejem.
No one came.
Gray metal struts overhead, the sound of the cars on the overpass, their flickering shadows echoing by the heap of trash where he left me. I smell human piss, vomit and fetid breath on my face. Someone is touching me. Insects bite my skin.
Jon was there. He yelled at me, blamed me.
They all left me. Sooner or later, they all left.
Kali wanted to take Lily from me again.
They wanted to take my baby.
I let out a choked sob. That one was closer to a scream.
Revik hit me again, harder. I felt pain on him and I gasped, fighting him, fighting his hands and his light. I felt his light twist out of control. I felt him there, alone, and for the briefest instant, my shield fell. I felt him trying to reach me, fighting to get to me through that dark.
Somewhere in that, that heated, hard rock in my chest broke open.
Blackness filled me. Liquid heat swam out in flames through my chest, blinding me as much as the darkness. For a long moment time stopped, I wasn’t in the room at all.
When I came back, I was crying into Revik’s lap.
I cried until I was exhausted, until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
I cried until I was gasping, fighting to speak.
I felt that thing break more. Heat pooled out of me again as it broke, liquid light. I remembered everything again, even the things I’d forgotten so intensely, I didn’t realize there was anything to remember. That sick feeling in my belly worsened.
I’d seen Revik aligned with all of them against me: with Kali, with Dalejem and Terian, even with Cass. They wanted to take my child from me. They wanted to do to her what had been done to me.
I couldn’t let it happen again. Not to her. I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Revik’s light coiled deeper into mine. Heat blanked my mind, like a living furnace––like liquid fire, enveloping me in his presence.
I felt fierceness there, a protectiveness and love so intense I couldn’t feel anything else. I’d never felt anything like it before, not on anyone. Somewhere in that, he yanked me off his lap. I moved with his hands, and he rolled over with me, laying me on my back.
That hurt, too, but I didn’t care anymore.
I yanked at the towel around his waist, jerking it off him as he pinned my other arm to the mattress. I got most of it off––then he was inside me. His light flooded mine all over again, wrapping so deep into me, I lost touch with the room.
Everything went away––everything but his skin and breath and eyes.
I saw him crying, even as he called my name, and that harder feeling in my chest broke more. His fingers clenched in my hair and around my back, holding me against him as he angled into me deeper, trying to break me open in a different way.
That feeling in his light strengthened, frightening in its intensity.
Somewhere in that, I remembered him.
I remembered myself, but I also remembered him.
Everything from the past year seemed to break over us. I felt the wanting in him, the near-longing to smash through those walls, to smash whatever it was that stood between us, to crack it open, even if it killed us in the process.
I remembered that feeling.
I remembered feeling that way with him while we were in the first tank. I remember feeling it even after, when I was in Beijing, and could scarcely feel him at all.
Pain wafted off him, a memory of things I’d said to him while he’d been hitting me, and I felt him in that, too, even as the heat in his light burned hotter. I kissed his face as he pressed his against mine, gasping through tears as I felt that thing in me break, leaving nothing but dust.
I felt his heart open in relief as the last shreds of it burned away inside my light.
In those same few seconds, I felt anger in him.
Not at me, but at pretty much everyone else.
At Cass. At Terian. At Jaden. At Jon and Wreg. At Angeline. At Dalejem.
At Ditrini.
At himself. Maybe especially himself.
I felt a part of him that hated Kali, and Dalejem… and Uye… even as his light promised mine, in a heated vow that took my breath, that he’d never let any of them, any of them, even himself, ever hurt me again.
I knew he meant it, in those few seconds.
I knew how badly he meant it.
I also, maybe for the first time, understood just how impossible such a vow truly was.
Without that harder thing choking off my heart and light, the truth didn’t sadden me, or make me feel hopeless, like before.
It just felt like truth.
38
PROPHET
TERIAN FELT THE person approach from behind him, well before he heard him. Even so, his eyes remained fixed out the window in front of him.
Something in the sand pulled at his mind.
It swirled his light in concentric eddies.
The wind twisted the sand into longer cyclones across the long dunes. It happened too far away for him to see it with his eyes, but he watched it anyway, in the darkest reaches of his mind, following the patterns as if mesmerized. Sand twisted and jerked in those violent gusts of wind, creating looping symmetries, patterns of tinted glass––colors he could fall into, that he could almost smell under the heat of the sun on steel, on water, on skin.
Behind him, that person cleared their throat.
“Brother,” the seer said, patient.
Terian turned his head, still clasping his hands at the base of his spine.
His mind clicked forward in that pause––some of it, at least.
He left some of it to play in the sand storm, dancing in the wind and light, casting shadows across dunes as heat created mirages of mirrored lakes inside dimpled strips of desert.
The seer looking at him exhaled, his eyes and voice still patient.
“Are you still trying, brother?” he said gently. “As we discussed?”
Terian felt something twist into a different shape around his living light, a broken, snaking current like a hose shooting water, with no hands to hold at the squirting end.
Perhaps that part of him was thirsty. Perhaps it needed a drink.
His mouth and face bent into the expected positions.
“Of course, father,” he said, smiling, nodding his head. “Of course.”
The tall, skeletally-thin seer watched Terian’s face without changing expression.
Terian felt the scrutiny though, the skepticism. He flinched where it touched him, his light flickering around that of the other male as he made his demeanor as submissive as he possibly could. He would be easy. Pliable. Squishy and soft to make shapes for the pleasure of the father. He would do whatever the father wanted.
He would do anything, really and truly.
Waggy tail, happy dog…
He smiled wider at the seer with his skull-like face, and long, iron-gray hair.
Waggy, smiley dog. Doggy will do anything, anything, anything, master. Doggy will lick your cock and fetch your slippers and wag his tail and bark when you say bark, as long as you don’t smash him. As long as you don’t set him on fire…
Menlim let out a patient-sounding sigh.
“Do you have everything you need here, brother?” the old seer asked.
Terian looked around where he stood, confused by the question.
He looked at his leather couches, his sunken living room, the fireplace that needed air conditioning to balance its heat, the original paintings and glass sculptures. He knew servants waited for only the touch of a button––servants he knew he could call in here to suck his cock, or beat one another to death, if the mood struck him.
There was a jacuzzi bathtub with lots of bubbles.
A modified guest bedroom in the suite served as his walk-in closet––now filled with racks of designer garments and shoes.
Looking at the solid
gold wall-hanging of the sword and sun over his bookshelf of original books, with leather spines and real paper pages, Terian smiled, gesturing fluidly with one hand across the expanse of the high-rise apartment.
“What is there to need, father?”
“Do not humor me, brother,” Menlim warned, gauging Terian’s amber-colored eyes. “This is too important.” He paused, his voice growing more meaningful. “I will deny you nothing, my brother, as long as you retain your loyalty to me.”
Terian smiled wider.
Smiley, waggy dog…
“You wish them back, do you not?” Menlim said, his words breaking into Terian’s light. “Your sister, War. Your daughter, little Kami.” Menlim paused, studying him with those lifeless, yellow eyes. “…Your brother, the Sword. You want him back perhaps most of all, yes?”
Terian flinched, lowering his eyes.
“Of course, father,” he said, chastened.
“Then you must try harder, my son.” Menlim folded long white hands. “You know I would do this for you myself, but I cannot. Very, very few can do what comes to you like breathing, my precious brother. You were given a gift. A very rare and beautiful gift… one you cannot squander due to conflicted loyalties about your family, not when they have made their own loyalties so demonstrably clear.”
Terian nodded, wincing. Sharp whispers of silver light coiled around him, looking for his secrets, pulling on him from the dark––
The father wanted his secrets.
He wanted to chew on him, gobble him up.
“We need you, brother Prophet,” Menlim said, softer. “You know this. They have one like you now. One who does not have our interests at heart.”
An image flickered past Terian’s face.
Green eyes, darker than those of the Bridge. Black hair. Full lips. Slender but curved body, similar to the one her daughter was growing into now. Terian remembered her. He remembered her from Saigon. He remembered the way Revi’ panted after her. The way he wanted to stick his dick in her, even then.
Terian hated her there, in Saigon. He hated her in Brazil.
He hated her still.
She was the reason he lost his brother. That bitch-whore-cunt of a mother stole his brother Revi’ from him. She hunted him like a snake, confused him, toyed with his mind.
“Kali,” he muttered, feeling a harder vibration invade his light.
“She will tell them things,” Menlim said, softer. “Things that could harm us. Things that could harm you, my brother. They will believe anything she says––your brother the Sword will believe anything she says, too. You know this. You know of his weakness with her.”
Terian did know that. He knew that cunt, all too well.
He owed her things. Promises were made. Vows unfulfilled.
After so many long years, those vows were past due for collection. Punishments must be exacted. Fees must be levied.
“You remember what I told you, brother?” Menlim said, gentle.
“You said you would give her to me,” Terian said, feeling that heat spread through his limbs. “You said I could have her, when this was done. To do with as I wish.”
“I did,” Menlim said, inclining his head. “I vowed it, brother. I vow it still. With every element in my light, I vow it. With the light of my own son, I vow it.”
Revi’. He meant Revi’.
Thinking about this, about Revi’, about that bitch who took him away, who brainwashed him, made him promises––
He thought about justice. He thought about finally making things right.
Pain coursed through his light.
“Bring them to Dubai, beloved brother,” Menlim said. “There is still some chance they will turn away from this thing. Do not let them. Do whatever you have to do to bring them to Dubai. Once they are here, you will bring them to me.”
Terian nodded, feeling that pain worsen, heating knots in his belly.
It had been so long. So long since he’d seen his brother, since he’d laughed with him, been with him in any way. So many things had happened since then. So many changes––
So many things had been broken and lost.
Revi’ needed him. They needed each other.
“They will come,” Terian said.
He looked at the aged seer, his voice holding a harder certainty.
“They will come, father. I will make them come. I will make the pain so bad, they will come just to end it. They will come because they cannot help themselves.”
Menlim nodded, his expression unmoving.
Terian felt the approval there, but wariness, too. Not quite skepticism, like before––it was more that the old seer wanted something concrete.
He wanted certainty.
Absolute certainty, without a doubt certainty, that Revi’ would come.
No waggy, smiley dogs. No pretend nicenesses. No speeches with swelling music and pounding cannons. No emotional catharsis and tearing eyes.
He wanted science. Mathematical probabilities.
Perceptual shifts based on hard data and reliable equations.
“How do you plan to do that?” Menlim said, even as Terian thought these things. “What do you intend, my brother? Do you know?”
Terian did know.
He knew exactly what he would do.
He knew Revi’. He knew what Revi’ cared about, what motivated him. Even that prescient bitch with her lying words and whispers wouldn’t get in Revi’s way, not if Terian went after what his old friend really cared about.
Terian knew something else, something he wouldn’t tell the Father.
He knew what the little bird would do.
He knew she would do it soon, and when she did it, it would give him the opening he needed. He wished his sister, Alyson, no harm––he loved her very, very much––almost as much as Revi’. She was his Bridge. She was the precious Bridge. That bitch cunt had hurt her too, maybe more than she’d hurt Terian. He loved Alyson––
A colder anger whispered off the old seer’s light.
Feeling it, Terian suppressed his thoughts, burying them in piles of black sand.
Daddy didn’t like sister Alyson. He didn’t like her one bit.
“You know she cannot be allowed to survive?” Menlim said, cold. “We are clear on that, Terian? Because we have discussed this before, too.”
Terian frowned, but he nodded.
That pain in his chest worsened, but he nodded again.
He did know. He knew.
He knew lots of things.
“You mustn’t let yourself get confused, my wise brother,” Menlim said. “I understand that your light feeds you more information than most. I understand what family means to you. It is important to me, as well… more than you can possibly know. But you mustn’t let these things confuse you, beloved Prophet. Betrayals cannot be tolerated. Disloyalty, a selfish refusal to do one’s duty, a total disregard for what is sacred, for the past––these things are the rot that eats civilization from its roots.”
Terian nodded. He understood. He knew what the Father cared about, too.
He could see his sister and brother in that other place.
They were struggling again, together and separately. Power and love, light and truth, fear and courage, despair and hope. They looked for that truth inside their own minds, inside each other’s bodies, inside each other’s lights. They looked for it in Lily, in their friends, in their love for their families, their people.
They felt responsible.
For protecting all of them––for creating a future for Lily.
Pain whispered through Terian’s light. He was alone. All alone.
It wouldn’t be long now, though. He knew what she would do. Sister Alyson. Bridge. Light between worlds. Destroyer of the way things are, the way things had been. Bringer of truth.
Half-awakened prophet.
It wouldn’t be long now.
Terian smiled, thinking this, sitting among those swirling dunes of sand. Alyson would hand him t
he keys to the kingdom––the magic keys. The keys to Revi’s light.
It would happen soon.
Very soon.
Very, very soon.
39
TELLING THE TRUTH
WHEN I WOKE up next, my wrist was chained to the wall.
I looked at it, surprised, but too tired to care that much, really.
I noted Revik was no longer there, in the room with me. It didn’t feel like he’d been gone long. I knew he’d have to be back before the clock ran down on him again, but some part of me hurt as I felt for him with my light and couldn’t find him.
I wondered where he was, who he might be with.
Thankfully, my wondering didn’t last long.
After tugging on my arm a few times to test the chain, I closed my eyes, briefly thankful I didn’t have to go to the bathroom. I noted the next time I blinked that Revik left me water in a container on the table by the bed, along with a note I didn’t bother to read, since I knew he’d be back and that I didn’t need to know where he was until then.
Anyway, I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t want to find out later it had been a lie.
Pushing everything from my mind, I snuggled deeper into the covers Revik must have pulled around me at some point, since we’d lain on top of the comforter the last time I’d been conscious enough to know where I was.
The last thing I did was sigh. I felt myself breathe, my heart beat.
Somewhere in that, I slid back into unconsciousness.
THE NEXT TIME I opened my eyes, Revik was unlocking my wrist from the wall.
I felt what might have been a flicker of discomfort on him.
More than that, I felt determination, maybe even defiance.
Whatever it was I felt, he didn’t meet my gaze as he opened the organic metal band. Once he had it undone, he reconfigured the wall to get the chain to retract. It occurred to me only then, in watching his face, that he hadn’t locked me up as some kind of erotic thing, not that time.
He’d actually done it so I wouldn’t leave.
I was still looking up at him, when something else crossed my mind.
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