Fighting Midnight: Ankarrah Chronicles Book Two: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy
Page 7
“Yes,” I answer her out loud.
I turn my attention to Drake, the man making a mockery of my loss and pain. His stilted and harsh Spectrum lighting up like a jack-o-lantern on Halloween. An eerie haze engulfs the stalactite shards of his energy field.
“Finley, you must draw your adira back into your body. If you do not, you could hurt your men,” Keziry pleads with me.
Her words of reason bounce off the rage bubbling up in my body. Drake will pay for his words.
With the tiniest tug on the adira, I have another thread of delicate killing power ready in my hand. Drake’s Spectrum spikes excitement in cerulean and indigos. A blue, energy-washed hand lifts in my direction, a spike of cornflower blue spearing from his palm, ready for him to aim.
“Drake, I will not tell you again. Calm your adira,” Keziry’s husky voice claws through the thick air.
Once again, he ignores her. Just as Keziry moves towards Drake, his gentle blue shard arrows for my heart. Out of time to move, I shape my adira into a wall. My eyes widen as Drake’s spear slides through my shield like a hot knife through butter.
“I’m sorry. I love all of you.” The words barely leave my mouth before I’m falling, the spike of Drake’s adira shard blistering through my Spectrum.
“Anixia bids you ado,” Drake says, causing the room around me to erupt in curses and shouts.
As my eyes close for the last time, I see the smiling faces of my mom and dad. They’re holding out their arms to me, just like when I was a kid.
Jumping into their welcoming embrace, I feel my hold on myself weaken, before disintegrating totally.
08
“Get out of my way.”
“Hold him down!”
“Don’t let him get away!”
“You are not allowed to–”
“I’m allowed to do anything I want. You’re the intruders here. You could have stopped him. You could have saved her. You’re just as much as fault for this as he is.”
Voices drift through my mind like dust bunnies in an air draft.
“Why did he attack her like that? I thought he was supposed to help you help her?”
“We have no idea. But we have ways of finding out.”
“NO! You can’t. That’s forbidden.”
“You should have stopped when I told you the first time. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
A burning starts low in my chest. It begins warming me in the icy lake that has encased my body.
“Stop. Please. I beg of you. You must stop.”
“Don’t stop. He killed her. He deserves everything he gets.”
“I want to know why!”
“I want to know what the hell happened!”
“Each of you will get your turn, but we need you to stop talking so we can concentrate. This is a delicate process. We could tear his mind apart before we find the answers we need.”
Silence.
A scream of pain shreds through my awareness.
The sound cuts off abruptly, the silence heavy in its absence.
“There, Drake’s dead. We need to save Finley.”
The pain drips like a leaky faucet, splashing into the basin of my mind. I can feel each rip and tear as if someone is rifling in file cabinet.
“She moved!”
“She has no pulse.”
“I saw her twitch.”
“She’s gone, Josh. She’s gone.”
“I saw her move, Hunter. She’s not gone. Do CPR or something.”
A rhythmic pumping against my chest, air forced down my throat. The pain and the heat converge, burning my insides.
Pump, pump, pump, pump.
Air, air, air.
I can feel my body around me, my limbs like lead. Light penetrates my tomb, illuminating the path to my adira. A single translucent fiber anchors my adira to my body.
“Hunter, you must help her. Help her hold on.”
“I’m trying. For the love of God, I’m trying.”
“Find her on the Psy-Matrix. For it is there that she waits.”
“I don’t know how to get there from here!”
“Follow me.”
“I can’t find either of you.”
“Send me. She’s saved me. I can go.”
“You can’t. She didn’t share her adira with you.”
“Hunter, get your ass to wherever she is, and hold on to her. Or so help me God, I will kill you with my bare hands.”
In my mind, I watch that delicate fiber, the flickering glow slowly winking in and out of existence. If I let go, I’ll get to my mom and dad again.
“NO! Finley Marie Tindol, you will stay here with me!”
“Who is that?”
“Baby, it’s me: Hunter.”
“Where are we?”
“Psy-Matrix. We’ve got to quit meeting like this.” His arms wrap around my body.
“Careful, you’ll break it,” I whisper to him.
“It?” He doesn’t make a move.
“My fiber. I feel like I should keep it. It’s the only one I have left.” I point to it.
“Baby, I can’t see anything. What are you looking at?” His warm hand flows down the length of my arm before cradling my hand where it’s wrapped around that sputtering flare of life. “Oh, God. Please. Please. Please.” He’s barely breathing, his chest hardly rising or falling against my tired body.
“Keziry! Hurry up. She’s down to one fiber! I don’t know what to do.”
“Of course, you do. You have always known what to do in order to save your patients. Treat her as you would any patient.”
“I don’t do medicine on Ankarrah. I’m a surgeon on Earth.”
“Quit whining and do as I tell you. You already have the answers you need.”
“Damn you.”
Hunter’s shuddering body begins to calm, his chest moving more easily, the hitching smoothing out. I feel the pressure of his lips against my head. Their silken texture a treasured sensation.
A familiar heat moves through my body, the oppressive weight being replaced by butterflies and feathers. That spluttering fiber steadies, the glow becoming a steady constant.
“Something’s happening! Angel-baby, come back. Come back to me.”
“I’m trying. And why are you shouting in my ear? Rude.”
The sound of his sob wrenches at something deep inside me.
Once again, his head rests against mine, his lips pressing butterfly kisses against my face. A sigh leaves my chest, as I sink more fully into his sheltering embrace. That relentless light encasing my single fiber grows. The colors becoming more jewel-toned than the ghostly white of mere moments ago.
“I love you. Your boys love you. You can’t go, not yet. Your mom and dad would want you to stay. To stay and have a happy and long life.”
My heart pinches. “I lost them too soon. They were ripped away from me. Stolen.”
“I know, angle-baby, I know. But your life is here. All they ever wanted was for you to be happy and loved. That’s what you have, from all of us. In different ways, and for different reasons, we need you to stay. To stay and love us in return. There is no way we will survive without you.” A hitch makes his chest jump against me.
“Your parents will understand. Your mom even told me that she was happy I was going to be the one to capture your heart forever. It’s mine, your mom said so. You can’t take it back. That would be the height of rudeness.” His breathy chuckle whispers through the baby-fine hair along my hairline.
My tear-soaked laugh trembles through my body. A second and third fiber join the first, a chain of love, strength, and power.
“Yes! Keep coming back to me. Come back to all of us…although I’m the only one who gets to keep you. Those other idiots you call best friends are buffoons. But they’re my buffoons now, too. They kept you whole, happy, and healthy for me. I’ll owe them for the rest of my life. You have to come back and tell them that. I’m not sure they’ll see it my way.”
He
clears his throat. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but they’re kind of stubborn. In the hospital, before you woke up, you once asked me what the guys walked in on me saying to you. Well, I told them that I had dreamt about you. We got married, and had babies, and loss, and happiness. Whatever we did, we did it together.”
“I told you that I was honorable, faithful, and trustworthy. You were the missing part, the one I didn’t even know I needed to feel whole.” A splash of wetness falls to my cheek.
“Finley, can you hear me?” Keziry’s voice interrupts our private moment.
“Yes, I can hear you.”
“Good. I need you to find your adira.”
“I have it. It’s only a couple of threads thick. But that’s better than the single thread it was earlier.”
I imagine her shaking her head, her blonde curls bouncing across her shoulders. “That’s okay, I have a feeling you will be able to rebuild it. It will be even stronger than it was. Drake’s attack should have scattered your essence to the multi-verse.” Hunter’s snarl bleeds through my mind. “He was unsuccessful, Hunter. Finley is so much stronger than any of us predicted.”
“See? Told you: Superwoman,” Hunter whispers.
“She is, indeed, a super woman,” Keziry agrees.
Hunter and I both chuckle. “We’ll explain when I’m not scattered, Kez.”
“No need, I fully understand for I am not a simpleton.” She sounds a little peeved.
“Of course.”
“Finley, I need you to let go of your physical body.”
Wait. What?
“Finley?”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, but I think something didn’t come through correctly. I thought I heard you tell me to let go of my physical body. Which is silly, because I can’t just put it on and take it off like a set of clothes.”
“That is precisely what I want you to do. Imagine your physical body is made of energy that you can simply put on and take off. You will be fine, I can guarantee it.”
“Are you sure it won’t hurt her? She’s barely hanging on as it is,” Hunter asks, fear a living thing in his voice.
“I am helping Finley. I need her to quickly drop her physical form, so I can inspect her adira for any lingering problems caused by Drake’s betrayal.”
“Uh huh. And how do I go about doing that?”
“Just like I explained. You imagine your body as simply a vessel for your energy field. Remove your body like you would clothing, and your energy field will be exposed.” She makes it sound like I’m an idiot of the highest order.
“Right.” I mentally roll my eyes at her.
Gathering my concentration, I bring up my mental picture of what my body looks like. With all of the healing I’ve done on myself over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at imagining my body. Never like an energy sleeve, but hey, why not?
Keeping the image of my body in my mind, I begin to pull on it like it is simply clothing. My legs come off pretty easily, leaving me… at least energy-wise… buck naked.
“Oh, holy crap on a cracker.” Hunter’s reverent tone slides over my energy field like so much silken velvet.
“I can feel you inside me…everywhere.” I whisper shakily.
“Same here. It feels amazing!” His arms squeeze around my still solid upper body.
Trying to take off my upper body is going to be a bit tricky. I know a lot of ways to take shirts off, none of them easy or fluid.
“Hey, Keziry?”
“Yes, are you ready?”
“Not quite. Can Hunter take my top off?”
“Excuse me?” I imagine her blinking a couple of times. “I do not understand.”
“Can Hunter take off my body like it’s a t-shirt, or do I need to do it?”
“I guess he could attempt it. Is there a particular reason why you are unable to complete the task?”
“I’m not sure how to do it. You made it sound like I needed to do it quickly, and I don’t know that I could manage that. Hunter can just pull it off. It’s more complicated for me to grasp an energy shirt to pull off.”
“Fine. Hunter please remove Finley’s upper body.”
“That’s something I never want to hear again. Ever.”
A gentle tugging begins at my center. A sudden whoosh of sensation, and I am fully a being of pure energy. I can’t see my energy form because I’m pretty sure I don’t have any eyes at the moment.
But deep inside, I see a landscape of vibrating nebulas. Radial branches of sparkles of every color imaginable outline my energy form. Sparks of energy shoot like comets across the vista. I shudder as Hunter’s solid fingers twirl and sweep through my energy waves.
Gasps tumble from both of our mouths.
“Finley, I am approaching from your right side. Do not be alarmed.”
An amorphous mass of twinkling and swirling light hovers close to my body on the right side. Still wrapped in Hunter’s arms, I can feel a low throbbing come from that mass.
“I have never seen an adira of this intricacy or breadth before.”
“Is something wrong with me?”
“Angel-baby, you’re perfect.”
“Indeed, you are. Your adira looks like you’re a Creative,” Keziry says, wonder in her voice.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are very rare. In the entire known history of Ankarrah, there have been only three Creatives ever recorded. They are the only beings able to fully create, absorb, share, and destroy adira.”
“And why is that so special?” Hunter asks her.
“Creatives are able to create and destroy whole worlds. They can fully share and absorb adira attacks. Each of the House Guard can send our adira—like an attack—but we cannot share it to heal others. We cannot absorb it as you did with Drake’s attack. You should have shattered and been reabsorbed into the multi-verse.”
“This was why Brockten and I were so surprised when you stated that you had healed both Hunter and Josh. We have specialized members of Ankarrahi society who can share their adira in order to support a person’s self-healing. Their skills are highly sought after and highly regarded.”
“If everyone can heal themselves, what kind of disease or damage would require outside help in healing?” I ask, fascinated.
“Some of our society works with rare minerals and metals. They must use specialized suits so that their bodies are not infected. Some of these suits get tears or begin to degrade.” The amorphous mass that is Keziry is still sliding along my energy field. “When this happens, our Fragmenters are able to donate part of their energy for short periods of time to assist the damaged body in its repair efforts.”
One more swirl of energy against the barriers of my own, and then the Keziry-mass scoots back. A slight buzzing sends quivers against the outer edge of my form.
“Pull your physical body back on. I’ll wait.”
“I’m almost sad that we can’t explore this form of yours more,” Hunter whispers to me.
“Ditto.” I close my metaphorical eyes and imagine my body sliding back over my energy form. It was a lot easier to put my body back on than take it off.
Another thought I don’t really want to examine too closely.
A slight itch comes with the reconstruction of my physical form over my energy field. I take a couple of deep breaths, waiting for my brain to catch up to the fact that my body is once again complete. Blinking real eyelids once more, I see the familiar starry sky of the Psy-Matrix.
“Follow me,” Keziry says. She turns and begins walking away, her footsteps illuminated on the Psy-Matrix.
Wondering how I’m supposed to stand up, I give it some serious thought. Suddenly, I’m upright, my feet firmly planted on the ground.
Thoughts apparently have a lot of control on the Psy-Matrix.
“Exactly. This is the communal space of all consciousness for the Ankarrahi people. Each of these lights you see i
s a different mind.” Keziry waves her hand across the darkened sky.
That’s a ton of people.
“Very similar to your galaxy system, yes,” Keziry answers my unspoken thoughts again.
“Okay, wait up. You’ve got to teach me how to guard my thoughts. This is driving me crazy.” I plead with her.
“Finally. I was beginning to fear that I would have to hear your thoughts all the time. Hunter’s almost as bad as you are.” She chuckles quietly.
“Hey now. I’ve been trying to keep my thoughts to myself. I just don’t know how to do it yet either,” he complains.
She stops walking and waits for us to catch up to her.
“First, you must create a housing for your mind,” she instructs.
Silence reigns again.
“Okay. How do we do that?” I ask.
She huffs out a breath. “Children. You’re like children.”
“Only in the fact that we know nothing of what you’re talking about. Maybe you should be a better teacher.” I quirk an eyebrow at her.
She stares me down.
“Good luck with that, sister. You don’t scare me,” I fling at her.
Her lips quirk. “What I mean about a housing for your mind: you need to mentally create a space that is impenetrable. Whatever you create needs to be able to withstand the harshest of punishments. The worst punishments you can think of, your mind’s box needs to be stronger than that.” She looks at us expectantly.
“Okay.” I nod my head. Considering what I just went through with Drake, that’s the worst I can think of. I’m just not sure how to go about creating something that can withstand that kind of punishment. My wall didn’t work last time.
“That’s because you just put up a barrier. You put no effort into creating the barrier: what it was made of, what it looked like, how it felt, how it can bend and flex. Just a simple barrier. Drake was a highly skilled Ankarrahi warrior. Your barrier was less than a young’s construct to him.”
I mentally build a wall. Similar to some of my mental exercises I’ve done with clients, I imagine selecting and placing each piece of my wall around every nook and cranny of my mind I can see.
What she said about bending and flexing was a good point. I readjust the barrier to be like a flexible wall, built of ever-changing nanites. I’m not sure if nanites change shape, but mine sure do. Nothing’s getting through this barrier this time.