by Jayde Brooks
Kifo smiled and guided the slut’s face down to where he wanted her the most. “I love you too.”
* * *
So much of his own life had been disrupted by the return of Sakarabru. Kifo’s favorite dry cleaner and tailor had shut down shop, and now he had nowhere to get his suits cleaned. His favorite Creole restaurant was gone, and the jazz club he’d frequented at least once a week was gone now, too. He roamed through the empty streets of New Orleans, unseen, disgusted by what his beloved city had become.
Kifo stood looking through the window of the place where he used to buy his ties. A woman’s reflection appeared behind him. Naturally, she couldn’t see him, or …
She smiled at him. The woman wore a bright yellow hat with a wide brim, dark cat-eye sunglasses, reminiscent of the kind that women wore in the fifties, and a white dress covered in small yellow flowers, belted at the waist and flaring out at her knees. A small white purse looped over her dainty arm, her delicate hands covered by a pair of white gloves. On her feet she wore a white pair of pointed-toe stilettos.
“You finally understand,” she said kindly to him, nodding her head approvingly.
“Understand?” he asked, still amazed by the fact that she could actually see him.
The woman reached out and touched his hand lightly with her fingertips. “My heart breaks for what he did to you,” she said, her voice cracking.
Kifo carefully pulled his hand away and studied her suspiciously. “Andromeda?”
Andromeda was a legend, a myth. Even if she were real, Andromeda was not this woman. She couldn’t have been. This woman was pretty and sensible. She wasn’t the blubbering mess he’d heard that Andromeda was, cursed by too many visions conflicting and crashing into each other.
“You do something to me.” She shrugged and chuckled. “I can’t explain it, Kifo, but it is such a lovely feeling. You calm my storm, and for that I am grateful.”
Was she really the Seer of the Ages? She could see him in his invisible form; not even Ancients could see the Djinn when he didn’t want to be seen.
“What do you want?” he asked, still not convinced that she was who she said she was.
“To see the prophecy fulfilled,” she admitted simply. “What do you want?”
He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she did something to him, too—calmed his storm, maybe. But there was something about her that he found comfortable and comforting.
“To no longer be a slave to the Demon,” he admitted out loud, and the sound of saying it shocked him.
She nodded approvingly. “That I do understand,” she said warmly.
It was said that Andromeda could be in more than one place at a time. And that at any given moment, she could be living in the past, present, or future. “May fifth, 2014.” He said the day’s date out loud. “That’s today, Andromeda. That’s where I am today. Where are you?”
She shrugged. “Here.”
“When are you here?”
She thought about it before answering. “Now.”
“Now as in May fifth, 2014?”
Andromeda stared blankly at him. “Does it matter?”
It didn’t, but …
Andromeda started walking. Without hesitating, he walked with her.
“Your friend dies horribly,” she said dismally.
“My friend?”
“Your lover. The succubus, Lilith.”
Lilith was a succubus? Of course. He should’ve known it.
“Not by his hand of course, but by yours.”
He was stunned. “I don’t think that I could ever hurt her.”
She looked at him and smiled. “Love can make one do amazing things. Betrayal can make one absolutely terrifying. Not many can resist her. I applaud you for your resilience.”
“But I didn’t resist,” he said disappointedly. “I’ve been under her spell for too long, Andromeda.”
“Yes, but you broke free from it, Djinn. And you should be pleased.”
“But I can’t let her know,” he said. “She’ll tell Sakarabru that I’m not blind anymore to what he did to me. And as you probably know, he doesn’t take well to failures.”
“Ah, but you haven’t failed, Kifo.” She stopped and looked at him. “The terrible thing about being me is that I know what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen.” She frowned. “The great thing about being me is the same thing.” She smiled. “The Demon needed to come back. The Redeemer needed to be reborn, and unfortunately for you my friend, you needed to be the one who resurrected Sakarabru.”
Kifo looked around the two of them, at the chaos and destruction that was a result of all of these things happening, and he was angry. “Did we need to do this, Andromeda? Did we really need to destroy these people and what has been our home since Theia fell?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said sadly.
Kifo wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t going to accept that the Ancients had the right to play these types of games at the expense of others like this. “I disagree, Seer.” This once-vibrant and historic neighborhood was nothing more than a ghost town now. And Kifo was as much to blame, if not more, than any of them. He had brought Sakarabru back. He had built up his army. Societies were ruined because of him, and in his heart, he knew that he’d never forgive himself for the part he’d played in this.
“This is what you see, Kifo, and it’s all you see. Of course your heart is broken, as it should be. But trust me when I say that this is only a small part of a bigger picture. A painful part, but a necessary one. I created the Omens out of desperation and rage. But I underestimated the power of the ages. The Omens are necessary if we ever have any chance of defeating Sakarabru, but in my haste, I neglected to think of what they could ultimately do to her and to this universe.”
“Mkombozi nearly destroyed the universe,” said Kifo.
“If Khale hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve.”
“So are you saying that this reborn is going to suffer the same fate as Mkombozi? That she’s going to lose control to the Omens as well, and that Khale will have to use the same spell against her? And then what, Andromeda? Does it start over, and do we relive this nightmare?”
Andromeda shook her head. “You are thinking ahead of yourself, Kifo. Too much thinking can overwhelm you. Trust me. I know.”
Andromeda was a sweet and kind woman, but she was dismissing his perception of the gravity of this situation, and it was pissing him off.
“For now, you only have to worry about one thing,” she said to him.
“What, Andromeda?”
She walked over to him and looped her arm into the crook of his elbow. “Taking me back to your Demon.”
THE REAL ME ON THE SHELF
Eden had no idea where Prophet had taken her, but her blood was burning. She felt the soft grass underneath her feet when he lowered her to the ground, but then she smelled it as it singed.
“My blood is boiling,” she said desperately, stepping away from him. Her skin felt as if it were on fire, and Eden couldn’t stop shaking. She looked at him and she loved him, but she knew that she could hurt him, too. God! She didn’t want to hurt him.
“You have to leave me here,” she demanded.
He took a step toward her. “No.”
He had to leave. “Go!” she shouted, hurling Prophet through the air with her thoughts as if he were a piece of paper.
It was too much. Too much—inside her. Eden fell to her knees at the weight of it, and she had no choice but to release it. Raw power, blasting from her in every direction. It was too much. And she wasn’t strong enough to … to stop it. To control it. All rage, pure and chaotic rage, exploding from her and destroying everything around her.
In her mind she prayed, Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay.
She would die if he did.
“Calm the sister,” she said to herself, “subdue her rage.”
In her mind she stood in front of her fire—her fire, not the Demon’s. He stood
to challenge Eden, to claim what had once been his, but it wasn’t his anymore.
“I need it,” she told Sakarabru.
“I don’t care. It doesn’t belong to you. It’s mine.”
The fire began to rise with their argument. It burned hotter and out of control.
He jumped through it and over the cauldron to get to Eden. His form changed from that of a male on two legs to that of a bull on four.
“Take the fire. Kill the bull. Calm the sister,” Eden said.
Eden stopped the bull a second before he would impale her with his horns. She dug into the ground with her heels, bent her knees, and held him back.
“It … belongs … to … me,” she said, gritting her teeth.
The bull was powerful, but Eden was determined. Control of the fire would give her control over the sister Omen’s rage. She could calm the sister, but only if the Demon relinquished his flame to her.
Eden took a step, pushing the bull back and away from her. She took another step and another, forcing him to retreat. The two Omens played off of each other. The first Omen was made stronger by the rage of the second. The second would be made docile by the influence of the first.
He was angered by her strength. Surprised by it. But eventually, the bull grew too tired to fight her.
“You can’t win,” she told him.
Defeat and, eventually, submission shone in his eyes. The bull slowly changed back into the form of the Demon and fell on the floor exhausted.
She looked back at the fire—her fire—and saw that it had calmed.
* * *
Eden opened her eyes and stared out of the window at the blue sky. Prophet lay behind her, still sleeping, with his arm draped across her. Ever the Guardian, he woke up as soon as she moved this time.
“What? What’s … what’s up?” he asked, still half asleep.
Eden had no idea what was up. One minute she was caught up in the vortex of darkness, and the next, she was lying in bed next to him as if nothing had ever happened.
“You okay?” he asked cautiously.
She thought long and hard before answering. “I don’t know. Am I?”
Now it was his turn to think about it. “Probably.”
“I thought I hurt you,” she said, avoiding the word “killed” on purpose.
He rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, well…”
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
“I don’t need your apologies. You’re here and I’m cool.”
“What did I do?” she asked reluctantly. “Did I hurt anyone?”
“Just a monster of a Brood who had it coming.” He shrugged. “And you may have rearranged some of the landscaping a bit around here.”
“What do you mean?”
They got up out of bed and he led her outside and showed her what he meant. Eden and Prophet stood at the edge of a crater the length of about ten football fields and as wide as a small canyon.
“I did this?”
He pulled her closer and kissed the side of her face. “The Omens in you did this,” he corrected her.
To actually see with her own eyes what she was capable of was overpowering. What was she becoming? Or rather, what had she become? Her body was toxic now with the essence and the rage of Sakarabru. There wasn’t much of her left anymore. The notion to duck and cover or to run was nothing more than a faint memory now, as Eden quietly and surprisingly embraced whatever it was that she was becoming. “Insecure” had been her middle name. Eden had suffered through an identity crisis her whole life. The sense of acceptance she felt now should have alarmed her, but it didn’t.
“Was it like this for Mkombozi?” she eventually asked, reflectively.
“It was tough,” was all he’d say.
“When did you realize you’d lost her, Prophet?”
He got very quiet. “Not until Khale took her away from me.”
Either he was lying or he was just being kind. But Eden suspected that he had known long before then that Mkombozi was lost to the power and influence of the Omens.
Eden could feel herself slipping away from him, and she knew that it was only a matter of time before the impact of the Guardian on her life and in her heart would be ineffective.
“How long can we stay here?” she asked.
He shrugged. “For a while. Long enough for you to rest.”
Eden had passed that point of no return. Maybe it was in his nature to try to pad the reality of the situation with softer versions of the truth, but she knew better. This was nearly over, and she was ready for it to be, whatever that meant. If by her sacrifice she could rid this world of Sakarabru and give it a chance to repair itself, to rebuild, and to become whatever it was meant to become now, then she’d make that sacrifice. Losing him would be her only regret when the dust settled.
“Let’s go back inside,” he said, quietly. “I feel like making love to you.”
She forced a smile. “I’ll try to be gentle with you.” It was a joke, sort of.
“Please do.”
Neither one of them wanted this to end. He pressed her back against the wall in the shower and filled her body up with his. The two of them kissed slowly, stared into each other’s eyes, and stayed locked together, barely moving until the water started to run cold. This wasn’t about orgasms or even the pleasure of sex. It was about the bond between them that had lasted for more than four thousand years. It was about sealing the connection that would last as many lifetimes as either of them had or would have.
He didn’t have to say he loved her. Eden felt his love inside her.
END OF THE INNOCENCE
Jarrod had gotten word to them that the Ancients were gathering in New York. If it had been up to Prophet, he and Eden would have stayed hidden in that cabin in the South Carolina woods and left the rest of the world to its own devices. She needed time to rest, to adjust. But Eden had finally given in to her fate. She’d not only given in to it, but she was running straight for it, almost as if she couldn’t wait to get it over with.
Prophet took his time driving up the coast from South Carolina headed back to New York City. Eden’s head rested on his shoulder as she slept. The miracle of his life was that he had found her again. She had been reborn, giving him a second chance to finish loving her and to correct the mistakes he’d made with Mkombozi.
Eden’s survival of this second bond was as much a blessing as it was a curse. Twice she should have died, and twice she had miraculously survived the bonds with two of the most dangerous elements ever to come from Theia. How was it possible? And what did it mean? She was Mkombozi, reborn, but she was also human. By Ancient standards, Eden was frail, helpless, and certainly not capable of going up against Sakarabru. Khale had used dark and forbidden magic to bring Mkombozi back. He couldn’t help wondering how dark and how forbidden.
The second Omen had begun a transformation in Mkombozi that made her volatile and unpredictable. She was always angry and too eager to fight, even with him.
“Never make the mistake of believing that you are superior to me, Guardian,” she warned him once.
Tukufu humbly bowed his head. “That thought has never crossed my mind, Beloved. Not now. Not ever.”
He looked up at her and waited, hoping that she would be amused by his antics. Mkombozi’s dark eyes bore holes into him and Prophet’s knees suddenly became weak, until he could no longer stand and he dropped to the floor at her feet.
“Let me go, Beloved,” he said through gritted teeth. He had always offered his humility to her willingly. She’d never had reason to take it from him.
“My love for you is boundless, Beloved,” she responded. “But I will not suffer your teasing and taunts.”
It wasn’t her talking. She would never have spoken to him or treated him like this. It was the Omens, the essence of a Demon.
Mkombozi squatted down in front of him and used the handle of her kpinga to raise his face to hers. “She is mine now, Guardian. The Omen of war, the source o
f the Demon’s strength.”
“And are you hers?” he challenged, taking his life in his own hands.
Mkombozi surprised him and laughed. “Stand, Guardian.” She stood up and stepped back. “You really do need to work on your sense of humor Tukufu. Or maybe it’s my humor that needs work.”
There were moments where Mkombozi seemed eager to succumb to the influence of the Omens. She was almost too easily swayed by them, too ready to submit to what they wanted her to become. Prophet couldn’t help wondering how soon it would be before Eden relinquished herself to them.
* * *
Prophet pulled up and parked in front of Khale’s Lower Manhattan apartment building. Ancients of every kind crowded in front of the place waiting and watched as Eden and Prophet climbed out of the car and headed for the front door.
“Please! Redeemer, don’t do this to us again!”
“There are other solutions! Other ways!”
“This world doesn’t need you! It deserves a chance to heal from this! We all do!”
Eden marched on in front of Prophet like a determined soldier, unflinching and unwavering. Word had spread quickly that she’d survived the second bond, and now opposition to her role as Redeemer was growing. She wasn’t the heroine to the Ancients that Mkombozi had been when she was declared their Redeemer. They were afraid of Eden, terrified that she’d do to Earth what Mkombozi had ultimately done to Theia.
Isis stood at the entrance and blocked their way through the door.
“Are you so determined to see that history repeats itself, Guardian?” She looked over Eden’s head and glared at Prophet.
Other Ancients continued shouting at the two of them.
“Get out of the way, Isis,” he told her.
“Listen to them. They don’t want this. No one wants her here, Guardian,” she argued, still not acknowledging that Eden was even in the vicinity. “There are other alternatives,” Isis reasoned. “We can fight the Brood. Some of us have relationships with the humans; we’ve talked to them and they’re willing to stand alongside us in this. With their army, their air force and naval resources, we can beat them, Tukufu, and we wouldn’t have to destroy a world to do it.”