“Oh my God.” She stumbled back. “This isn’t a dream?”
The stone lizard let out a long-suffering sigh. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
“Not a dream…but where…? How…?”
“Stop asking the wrong questions.”
“Okay…” She blinked at the talking creature. “Not a dream. The right questions. Which is… W-what do I do now?”
“What do we do?” Israel corrected.
Alyx caught his gaze. He smiled at her and hoped it came across as reassuring. She bit her lip and turned back to the Elder. “Why is he here?”
“It’s not like I planned it,” muttered Israel.
“No offense,” Alyx said to him, “but I don’t even know you.”
“Yes, you do,” the Elder said. “Or at least, you did.”
“What?” Alyx and Israel both said together.
“I’ve never met him before today,” Alyx said.
The Elder’s eyes were serene as he stared first at Alyx, then Israel. “Before the two of you were the two of you, you were…the two of you.”
Israel shook his head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“In a past life, the two of you meant something very special to each other. You were bonded then. As you are bonded now.”
“Are you talking about…reincarnation?” Alyx said, her voice betraying her incredulity.
“I don’t believe in reincarnation,” Israel said.
“Don’t be silly,” the Elder said. “There’s no such thing as reincarnation.”
“Then what was it?”
“Magic,” the Elder whispered.
A chill went down Israel’s spine. Magic. But he didn’t believe in magic. Or fate. Or labyrinths inside a person’s mind.
And yet…here he was.
He glanced over to Alyx just as she looked at him, and their gazes locked. A strange kind of electricity hummed through him. The Elder said they had been bonded then…bonded now. Could it be…that they knew each other in a past life? Was that why he felt this…connection with her, a stranger? And yet… on some soul-deep level he felt that Alyx wasn’t a stranger.
“Now.” The Elder smacked his foot down on the ground like a gavel and broke the spell. “No more questions. You’ve got a long road ahead of you. But first we need to get you prepared. And this is where I come in. Are you both ready?”
Without thinking Israel reached over to grab Alyx’s hand, warm and soft like a small dove in his palm. Her eyes widened at him but she didn’t pull away. Then her fingers curled into his.
“We’re ready,” she said.
“Follow me.” The Elder began to scuttle across the room on his hind legs. It looked quite awkward. Israel tilted his head at Alyx as if to say, shall we?
She dropped his hand but remained at his side as they followed the Elder, falling into step together. He kept glancing over to her profile, to study the thickness of her lashes, the elegant slope of her neck, and the way her top teeth dug into her bottom lip. She leaned into him and his stomach did a flip at her proximity and the feeling of her sweet breath against his cheek.
“Don’t lizards walk on all fours?” she whispered.
“I heard that,” snapped the Elder. “I’m not going to walk on all fours like some kind of animal.” His backside and tail swayed like a penguin as he waddled to the head of the vault.
“How do you even know where to go?” Israel asked.
“It’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with someone in a coma. Although,” he turned his head and gave Israel a meaningful stare, “some of us have more…imaginative minds than others.”
Israel frowned. He sensed there was some kind of double meaning to what the Elder had just said, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what.
They stopped before a wall with an engraving that Israel recognized as Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The Elder pressed the door of the cathedral, the tiny opposing angels recognizable from here, and it sank back into the stone. There was a dull thud, then the ground began to rumble as a stone slab swung aside to reveal a dark doorway, a cloud of dust billowing out from the dank-smelling entrance.
The Elder sneezed. When he shook himself, dust scattered off him. He looked down at himself, his stony face shifting into a frown as pieces of his arm and shoulder crumbled off him.
Alyx gasped. “Elder, are you crumbling away?”
Over his shoulder the Elder pinned her with a serious stare that answered all her questions. “Let’s move. I don’t have a lot of time.”
The tunnel was only wide enough for them to walk one by one. Alyx followed the Elder into the dark tunnel, Israel behind her. It was so dark she couldn’t see anything and had to feel with her fingers against the moist, grimy walls to keep her moving in the right direction, picking up her feet carefully so as not to trip. She could feel Israel’s presence heating up her back like a bonfire. Her entire body seemed to snap into a sharp awareness when he was around. No one had ever commanded her senses like this before. Ever.
Not Daniel. Not any of the boyfriends she’d had before him.
And when he touched her—when he had pushed her out of the way and fallen on top of her, when he grabbed her hand—her body burst to life with some kind of wild, savage feeling. It felt like soaring above the Earth, wind in her hair, fire in her blood.
This feeling was dangerous. What the hell did this mean anyway? Why was she reacting to Israel like this? She barely knew him. How did she make it stop? Nothing good would come out of feeling so damn much.
By the time she stepped out into a larger, tomb-like space, she was tense and annoyed, her nerves pulled tight. This room had a ceiling so high she had to crane her neck to look up as she walked across it, held up by several towering pillars so wide she wouldn’t be able to get her arms all the way around. It was lit with by several monstrous black iron chandeliers that hung more than halfway down towards the smooth stone floor. In a corner of the ceiling, tree roots as thick as grown men had broken through and were clawing their way down the wall. That confirmed it. They were underground. There were still no windows, but a dark doorway stood in the far wall.
The Elder stood in the center of the room. “Come now, we don’t have all day.”
Israel jogged past Alyx. With a snort of annoyance, she sprinted past him, her arms pumping in time with her legs. He sped up. So did she.
Alyx skidded to a halt before the Elder, her breath heavy from the exertion. But she won, just. She sent a smug look over to him. “Guess you’re not as fast as me.”
He grinned back at her, his breath also a little short. He shrugged. Shrugged¸ as if to indicate that he had let her win.
“Alyx,” the Elder said. She turned to face him, pushing her annoyance down. In the Elder’s hand, looking incredibly oversized, were two swords in their sheaths, simple handles, the blades about the length of her arm. He handed one to her and the other to Israel. “Buckle the sheaths on your hips and draw your sword.”
“Swords?” scoffed Israel. “Who are we going up against? The Knights of the Round Table?”
“The journey you will take will be filled with Shadows,” said the Elder, “manifestations of your subconscious. If you fear them, they will come for you.”
“I’m not scared of anything,” Israel said.
The Elder turned to him with a scowl on his face. “Everybody fears something.”
Alyx buckled the leather belt around her waist, the simple sheath hanging from her left side, then drew the sword with her right hand. She turned it over and fingered the blade. “Um, Elder…these feel real.”
“They are.”
“They feel sharp.”
He raised an eyebrow. “They are.”
“And we’re going to have to fight off these…Shadows with these?” Impossible. Alyx swallowed down a gulp.
Israel spoke up. “Not to be a party pooper here, Elder. But what exactly happens to us in here if we, um…die. In here, I mean.”
/> The Elder paused before he spoke. “Remember that this is Alyx’s subconscious. So if you died in this dream, Israel, I think you’d just wake up in your body in the real world.”
“You think?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?” Israel’s voice rose.
“And if I die in here?” Alyx asked.
The Elder met her eyes and she knew the answer wasn’t one that she wanted to hear. “We don’t have any more time to waste,” he said softly. “Let’s begin your preparations.”
With his sheath fastened, Israel drew his sword, then stared at it with disdain. “Elder, give me a gun, not a useless stick of metal.”
“Only an idiot would called swords useless,” Alyx said. “Swords just happen to be the most beautiful, most refined weapon known to man. Only tasteless brutes resort to guns.”
Israel raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? Have you ever even held a real sword?”
“Yes. All the time. The ancient khopesh of Egypt, the Seven-Branched Sword of Korea, a Masonic-made Knights Templar sword. I’ve had my hands on some of the most exquisite pieces of weaponry in all the world.”
“Do you work in a museum or something?”
“Well, actually…the Saint Joseph Museum.”
Israel managed to look impressed for all of two seconds before the smug look was back on his face. “So you know something about swords. But have you ever fought with one?”
She shuffled uncomfortably. “Not exactly.”
“Give me a gun and you can keep your sword. You’d be dead before you could take one step towards me. I can shoot a bullseye on the move from a hundred yards.” He turned to the Elder and waved his sword about. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
Alyx rolled her eyes and muttered, “You could start by shoving that up your—”
“Alyx!” the Elder snapped.
“Elder,” Alyx turned to him, “with all due respect. It can take months for people to even learn the basics of sword fighting.”
“You two don’t need to learn anything. You just need to remember.”
Well, that didn’t make any sense. “Remember what?”
Before the Elder could answer the room shuddered as a tremor went through the earth. Almost as soon as it started, it stopped, the falling speckles of stone and the swaying of the chandeliers the only remaining signs.
“What was that?” Israel asked.
“Enough questions.” The Elder stomped his stony foot with a crack and a piece of his toe crumbled away. “We’re running out of time. Show me your stance.”
Alyx moved into what she thought might be a fighting stance. As did Israel. She tried not to look over to him and compare their positions.
The Elder walked around them adjusting them by tapping parts of their bodies with his tail until he was happy. He pulled Alyx’s arm down closer to hip height with her sword tip point at an upward angle. She felt the immediate relief in her arm. “As I said,” the Elder walked back and forth as he spoke, “neither of you need any training. Fighting is in your past. It’s in your bones, in your DNA, it’s embedded in your soul. Deep down you know all this and more. So…fight.”
“Each other?” Alyx said.
“This is ridiculous,” Israel said. “I’m not going to hit a girl.”
“Hey!” Fury flared through Alyx. “Just ’cause I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass.”
“I never said that. I’m just saying, I’m not going to hit you.”
The Elder, standing to one side, lifted up an eyebrow at Alyx. “Are you really going to take that from him?”
Her muscles tensed just as Israel turned to say something to the Elder. She lashed out with her sword. Whack. She hit him in the thigh with the flat side. Hmm…she had been aiming for his side.
“Hey,” yelled Israel as he stumbled back. “What are you doing?”
Alyx hid a grin. That was kinda fun. She swung again. This time Israel ducked. Damn. She missed.
He darted out of her reach. “Come on, Alyx, stop it.”
“Stop being such a wuss and fight me.”
She attacked again and was surprised to see that her muscles seemed to be warming up. She was faster this time, catching Israel on the side of his knee. He stumbled and began to fall. She swung her sword again to get him while he was down and to win this round. He rolled out of the way just in time and sprang to his feet in one swift, graceful move.
Alyx froze, her mouth partway open. “How the hell did you do that?”
Israel faced her this time instead of moving out of the way, the tip of his sword hovering inches from hers. “I was a trained police officer. One thing they do very well is teach you how to fall.”
He was a police officer?
Israel slapped his sword at Alyx’s and knocked it easily out of the way. He could have struck out while she was defenseless but he didn’t. “How ’bout,” he began, “we assign points to hits. Whoever has the most points, wins.” He ducked aside easily as her sword came for him. “Winner gets bragging rights and to be crowned ultimate champion.”
“That seems juvenile.”
He spun aside from her sword again, his body feeling lighter and lighter as he moved. Her glare, on the other hand, was just getting deeper and deeper.
“Come on. It’ll be fun. I’ll even let you have double points for every one of your hits, ’cause, you know, you’re a girl and all.”
Her nostrils flared and he had to bite back a laugh. He didn’t really think that about her. But she seemed to have such a chip on her shoulder about it that he couldn’t help but want to tease her.
“Just because I’m a girl does not mean I’m any less good than you at anything.”
He ducked another one of her clumsy swings. “Prove it then. One hit to one point.”
“I didn’t say yes.”
“Chicken.”
“I am not chicken.”
“Buck, buck, buck…”
She let out an adorable growl of exasperation. “Fine. But you’re going down.” She lunged at him. But he could see her next move a mile away. She was too tense. Her anger was making her movements too transparent.
He spun aside and tapped the left side of her ass with the flat of his sword.
A cry left her mouth and she spun, grabbing her perfect round butt with her hand. “You…you…”
“Wonderful swordsman?”
“…smelly heap of insect turds.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
She lunged again. He spun out of her way like he was dancing, letting his body take over. He lashed out with his sword, smacking her other butt cheek. They were both perfect. He couldn’t let the other one go without equal attention.
She let out another cry and turned towards him, her face in rage. If she were a dragon, fire would be coming out of her nose right about now.
She swiped at his legs trying to take him out. Israel leaped into the air, kicking off the side of a pillar and flipping over her and out of her way. For the few seconds he was in the air, he felt like he was flying. A familiar feeling surged through him and he felt as light as air. He landed, twirling his sword at the ready for her next onslaught.
She was just standing there, her mouth open. “How the hell did you…?”
“Well done, Israel,” called the Elder, his hands clapping together sounding like rocks trying to make a spark.
Shock rattled through his body. How the hell had he done that? It had just come to him. He had just moved. It felt as natural as breathing to him. “I don’t know. I just did it.”
“You remembered,” the Elder said, beaming.
Alyx frowned. “Let’s go again.”
They faced each other once more.
“Come on, Alyx. You can get this.” He let her swipe at him without even trying to hit back. Evading her attacks was easy now, her sword barely coming near him. He felt as limber as a cat, as light as a bird and his body moved fluidly like water.
It was an incredible feeling. And one he wanted Alyx to experience too. “Just let your body take over.”
“If you spout one more stupid half-veiled cheer, I will come over there and chop your tongue out.”
“At the rate you’re going you couldn’t chop a tree trunk if it stood in front of you,” he teased.
She growled, gripping her sword handle so that her knuckles went white. “Come over here and say that again.”
“Fighting’s in your blood,” the Elder cried out. “It’s in your soul memory.”
“The Elder’s right,” Israel said. “You just need to relax.”
“Just relax,” Alyx muttered. “As if it were that damn easy.”
Just let go, Alyx. A whisper sounded in her mind.
She saw Israel’s sword coming for her and she spun. A rush of feeling rose up in her. She felt her body being taken over as if from deep inside her. Time seemed to slow, she saw the sword tip passing across her inches from her chest.
Just
let
go. It was a lost but familiar voice that had whispered in her mind.
Symon.
Who was Symon?
He had been someone precious to her. Before this life. But she had lost him. She had lost him. And he was gone.
Just like her parents were gone.
The feeling dropped out of her body and she was back struggling for control. She stumbled over her own feet. Israel’s sword clipped her shoulder, leaving a stinging mark. Her own sword went flying as she held out her hands to keep from falling on her face. Pain jarred up her forearms as she landed on her hands and knees.
“Alyx,” Israel ran over to her, his own sword tossed aside. He fell to her side, his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. She shrugged his hand off her and pushed herself up to standing. His touch scorched her and she hated that she wanted more of it.
“You almost had it,” the Elder said as he waddled over. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Are my good looks too disarming for you?” Israel grinned.
That’s it. She’d chop his tongue out. Or maybe she’d aim lower. She turned on Israel, swordless, and lunged at him with her fists. Israel knocked her arm out of the way. “Come on, Alyx, loosen up. You’re too uptight.” She struck again, wildly; he grabbed her wrist and spun her around so that her back was against his front. His other arm went around her stomach and she was locked against his warm, hard body.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 258