by Lila Felix
Torrent seemed out of sorts. I knew he and I would have to work together to get all of this done in the shortest time possible, but he didn’t have to be such an ass about it. You know, more than he usually was.
“It’s going to take time, Theo. There are thousands. And every time you bring two souls, one replaces it.”
I sloughed off his unwelcome comment. “I don’t care. Every time I bring one to where they belong, it gets easier. I’ll go until it almost kills me.”
He rolled his eyes, but I ignored the silent jab. “Well, okay, Eidolon. At least no one will accuse you of not having a solid work ethic.”
My shoulders slumped as I confessed to the enemy, “It’s hurting her! Not just me being gone. Something happened last night. She can hear them now.”
“The souls are speaking to her?”
“Yeah. It started this morning. I can take the burden on myself…”
“Let’s get going then before she drags her whiny ass down here and talks you out of it. I’m going to need help getting there the first time. After that, we can split up and get this shit done. I’ll take the nasties and you take the angels. Deal?”
I grabbed the hands of my brother and closed my eyes, wishing my wife and mate patience and comfort. But mostly I hoped she didn’t hate me by the time I returned.
That bastard. The damned rat bastard. Those were the kindest of the words I had for Theodore Ramsey that morning.
On the other hand, I knew him by heart and didn’t expect him to do anything less.
That’s why the Almighty had chosen him. Because in so many ways, Theo was selfless.
“Oh! Come on. At least pull the sheet up around yourself!” The blow to my ego hadn’t been softened in the slightest knowing that Theo had asked Ari to come in and do—whatever Ari did.
“Shut up. I’m going to get in the shower. Avert your eyes if you don’t want to see this.”
I hurried up, shut the bathroom door behind me, and turned the water up to full force before allowing myself to collapse in the pain. The voices—it was so much more than the voices. It was the souls—like the knives that were clutched in their chests were now twisting in mine.
I was bearing their pain—an extension of Theo.
But that pain had gone and had quickly been replaced with a new one—a pain that I had tasted, but now was being spoon-fed a buffet of.
I wasn’t ready for the onslaught.
Never did I think it would be this soon.
I knew this tough life was the one I’d chosen when I sealed myself to the Eidolon, but I’d fooled myself into thinking that this time around, history wouldn’t repeat itself—that I would be different—that this life with him wouldn’t be all heartache and sorrow.
I was wrong.
This would be my life. I’d have to rely on others just to get through the time he was gone. They would have to coddle me and even if I were lucky enough to be relieved of this pain, the Synod would likely call me in for some friendly torture sessions.
The Eidolon was the leader of our people but his mate was the sacrifice.
I knocked the back of my head against the wall and smiled despite the anger. It was worth it. It was all worth it for a piece of a life with him.
“I’m coming in. I don’t care if you’re naked or not.”
I hadn’t locked the damn door. I knew Ari would come in to save me. She opened the door, grabbed a towel from the shelf, and wrapped it tightly around me just as I’d fully come undone.
“It’s my fault. It’s my damned fault.” I managed to get out through the sobs.
“How in the hell is this your fault?” she asked, rocking me back and forth.
I let the tides of tears come and go while I called on my voice to work again. “I heard them this morning. It felt like a thousand drills in my brain. They wouldn’t stop even for one second. I somehow took them on—when we were sealed or later—I don’t know.”
She gasped and then stilled. “You could hear the souls? Like he does?”
Ari never got spooked or freaked out. Sure, she screamed and hid her face at all things gory, but she was never really scared. Seeing the color trickle from her face as she pulled back to wager my truth was truly frightening.
“I don’t know how he lives with it.”
“You know why he’s going, right? You know the last thing he wanted to do was leave you—especially so soon after…”
“I know. It doesn’t make it suck any less though, does it? He has to leave me to save me. Welcome to my life.”
She squeezed me a little tighter. “That boy would give his own life for yours. I’ve never seen anything like it. Anyway, we know he loves you—we have proof.”
She looked down at me, seeing that I didn’t know what she referred to. “You know because anyone who willingly goes anywhere with Torrent has to be dumbstruck in love.”
Ari convinced me to stumble in to the hot shower and allow my tears to be overwrought by the water pummeling down on me. She stayed with me with her pajamas on, letting the water soak her and wash away this morning’s tears, hers and mine.
I looked to the ceiling and pictured Theo’s face in my head—remembered all the words he’d spoken to me the night before.
He wasn’t gone—not all the way, like he was last time.
A piece of him still clung to my arteries—still flowed with the pumping of my blood through my veins. And I clung to that piece like it was my lungs—giving me the very breath to live on.
I went to the bedroom, determined not to look at the bed, and threw on a teal maxi dress that he’d bought for me.
I couldn’t even remember when.
It didn’t matter. Time didn’t matter anymore.
As I descended the stairs, I braced myself for the onslaught of questions and stares. Our parents and Pema were gone, so the only ones I was left with were the only ones that I really wanted around. Theo’s parents would’ve coddled me while my mother tried to go shopping.
I didn’t need any of that.
Because as the sadness of the morning faded, sinister plans moved into their place.
I needed co-conspirators.
“What’s for breakfast?” I said and my stomach agreed, rumbling.
“I made eggs,” Collin commented, purposefully not looking at me. Usually Collin made eye contact whenever he spoke to me or anyone. It was one of the reasons I’d grown to know I could trust him.
Weasels never looked you in the eye.
Ari and I shared a look of confusion.
“Why aren’t you looking at me, Collin? Are you—oh…”
Ari laughed. Poor Collin, Ari was going to milk this moment for all it was worth. He would’ve been better off saying something crude, beating my best friend at her own game. “He’s totally embarrassed. You know—because you…” She sidled up to Collin and whispered something in his ear that made him bat her cupped hand away.
He jerked away from her. “Do not speak such things to me. You are referring to the Eidolon and his mate.”
She waved him off and I knew from the gleam in her eye that this would be just the beginning of a day full of innuendos. Ari could always get on the crass train.
“Come on, o mighty Colby. You know you need to fuel up after last night.”
Collin had gone to the living room and snapped his newspaper. He’d gotten as far away from Ari as he could in those few seconds.
“Stop it, Ari. Talking like that makes him miss Pema.”
Collin shot me daggers over the top of a bent corner of the paper before snapping it a second time.
Ari barely let me eat in peace before she started rapping her fingernails on the marble countertops and wiping down the already spotless surfaces.
“What’s an Eidolon’s mate to do while she’s waiting for him to return?”
Though Collin pretended not to notice, his once shaking leg stilled at her pointed question.
“There are several options, actually. I could start a journal
and make a mess of myself pining over him every second…or… I could do what I was doing when I was still just plain old Colby.”
Collin grunted from his chair. Something about there never being a plain old Colby to begin with.
“Which was?” Ari jabbed.
“Get back to killing the Synod. That way, when Theo gets back, they can’t try to get to Paraiso. Because they won’t exist anymore.”
Ari swallowed disgust. “Can we make it not bloody? I’ll throw up. You know I will.”
We discussed the options at length. I would be the first to admit, the whole thing seemed so artificial and shallow. Two girls who’d led pampered, pristine lives were now planning to assassinate people on the small rope of revenge.
Collin had had enough. He broke his silence with a boom that made Ari and I both jump. “You’ve allowed Sanctum to poison your thoughts. The Almighty reached down Himself and deemed you worthy of our leader, yet there you sit conspiring to commit a sin against His creation. You are the sacred mate of the Eidolon. Get a grip on yourself, female.”
I shook with dissent. “She took the Prophetess from us.”
“So take something from her—something that’s not her life.” Collin got up and I knew from his gait and the large steps he took toward me that what he was about to say was going to fork my path. “You’ve been blessed and cursed as the Eidolon’s mate. If the Almighty gave you Theodore’s curse, don’t you think He would also bless you with his gifts? Reach into the histories. You know them by heart.”
The weight of Collin’s truth weighed down on me while my breakfast rose.
I screamed, “Ari? Ari!”
She slapped her hand down on the counter. “I’m right in front of you. What?”
I processed the whole thing in my mind, never taking my eyes off Collin. He knew. All this time he knew and was patiently biding his time. As what I could now do dawned on me fully, my smile mimicked Collin’s. I never knew the Viking could smile like that.
“Ari, you have to find Sway. You have to find Sway!” My words were frantic.
She answered over her coffee cup before tossing it in the sink. “What? Why in the hell am I finding her? Oh… oh shit! I’ll call her now.”
Collin and I continued to stare.
“Collin why didn’t you tell me before? I’ve been stalking the Synod for weeks with Torrent.”
He finally broke our contact and looked to the floor.
“Colby, you should stop calling him by his human name. He is no longer the earthly brother of Theodore. He is Sanctum. He is not good—there is nothing good beneath the surface of dark water. If I could’ve told you, don’t you think I would’ve? I would do anything to protect you and our leader.”
I added up what he was saying and could only come to one answer.
“He stopped you from telling me? How?”
His sad eyes projected his disappointment in himself. “He bound me. I don’t know how and I don’t know what powers he possesses. But he wouldn’t allow it. He was the one who thrust the Eidolon into the Fray before his time. He wanted the Eidolon gone.”
“And now he’s with Theo—alone.”
“How do you get them to Paraiso?”
Torrent was full of questions. For someone who claimed to know the answers, he was more curious than a new puppy.
I shrugged and tried not to show him. “Same way we flash.”
The place wasn’t as frantic as it was before. There was no reaching for me—no hanging by my shoulders or trying to tear my skin from my skeleton. There was calm and above anything else, it was disturbing.
“Where are they?”
Torrent asked the question, but I already knew the answer as it worked its way to me. It was Torrent. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He didn’t belong in the place where the good and the bad were on level playing fields.
Yet, at the same time, I needed him here. It killed me to admit how much I needed him—how my job couldn’t be handled without his assistance. The usual sorrow that came in waves had now subsided. All of them were disarmed in the presence of my opposite.
I turned to him, not understanding. “They’re frightened of you. They don’t understand. Go find the evil ones. I will deal with mine.”
Torrent fidgeted with his jacket, a long leather trench that was out of place here and anywhere on Earth that wasn’t inhabited by Shaft. Finally, he said, “Wait. I mean… I want to see you transport someone before I try to. Just as an example.”
I turned a determined eye on him. “First go find the one they are scared of more than you. Then I will show you. Until then, I can get a ton of people out of here. This isn’t a learning experience, Torrent. This is do or die.”
He cackled and I could hear shatters in the otherwise stillness. “So serious, o mighty one. That’s fine. I’ll go seek the nasty ones. Then you will show me.”
In an instant, I regretted bringing Sanctum here. He was no longer my brother. He was Sanctum here. The souls, young and old, recognized him by his true name—not the sibling of my youth.
He was my opposite in every way and every voice in my ears warned me to think of him as such. All of them waited with baited breath, pausing after he left before they would approach me. I had to beg them to come forth so I could bring them to where they belonged. They were terrified of his presence in the place where they’d floated in nothingness for so long.
“What’s your name, child?” I asked. The soul, a child no older than the first time I saw Colby, answered me in a language I’d never heard, but I understood his answer clearly. His name was Matteo and he’d been lost between Uruguay and South Africa, in the arms of his mother as they fled their home. When she began to flash, her abusive husband grabbed her before she fully flashed and Matteo had been stuck in the Fray.
For souls like these, I was born.
“I’ll take you to her—to the Almighty—where you can all live in peace.”
At that, the longing in his heart inflated into hope. This was what I was made for, giving our people hope.
***
Within what I’d thought was just a few hours, I’d flashed thousands to Paraiso with not another whisper from Sanctum. Contrary to his words, he must’ve figured everything out. There’d also been no word or sound from the ones who sought to stop me.
“Now. Now you will show me.”
I shrugged him off, taking the hand of a teenager. I’d managed to take all the smaller children to where they belonged. After that, I’d offered to take the elderly souls, but they declined. They were desperate for children, who they didn’t even know in life, to be set free and go home where they were destined to spend eternity.
I seethed at my brother, “I have work to do, Sanctum. You share some of my powers. Figure it out. It’s just like flashing. Picture it and go.”
“But I can’t go there. You have to take me.”
That was the point where my stomach churned in knowing. He didn’t want me to show him. He wanted me to take him right to the Almighty.
“I’ll take you after you get some of those demons out of here. Come on. Aren’t you the older brother? Grow a pair.”
Ari would’ve lost it if she heard me tell him to ‘grow a pair.’
He growled at me but did what I told him. I could feel a fraction of the evil leave the place where souls went unrested.
The girl who held my hand was Amelie. She’d been lost playing around with her powers on her sixteenth birthday.
“Come on Amelie, someone is waiting for you.”
It took three days for Sway to fly to Portugal since she no longer had powers. Ari and her smartass mouth required two days just to convince Sway to come at all. I guessed I could’ve flashed over there and brought her myself, but I didn’t want her to freak out.
“Colby?” Her voice had lost some of its greatness. My dear friend had lost some of her joy.
“Sway.” She ran and hugged me like she knew what I was about to do for her.
And wh
at I was about to restore to her scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
At least, what I thought I could do. Worst case scenario I couldn’t do a damn thing and I would’ve brought Sway here just to bring her up the mountain of hope and then break her heart at the peak.
“Ari is aggravating as hell. Some things never change.” She didn’t let go as she whispered in my ear.
I laughed and grabbed her forearms. “I know. I made her not tell you exactly why I needed you.”
She put her one bag down and took my hands. “She didn’t have to. I am a little pissed I wasn’t at the sealing. But, I understand. I have to fly old school. But still, you could’ve called.”
Her words couldn’t have been more poignant.
“Maybe that could change.”
“What could change?” She smiled and looked back and forth between Ari and me.
I tried to pour some calm into my words. “The flying old school.”
I didn’t have to say any more than that as the hidden meaning took fruition in her expression. I knew I should’ve asked her to sit down when her eyes began to roll back in her head. Sway’s head almost hit the floor before Collin cushioned it with his hand, and I realized that was probably the first time I’d ever made someone else faint.
But it may not be the last.
In fact, it may be the first of many.
We allowed Sway to rest a bit and get her head screwed on straight before bombarding her with the opportunity we were all facing—and how that made her a bit of a lab rat. But she was only rested for an hour before she emerged, hungry to know what I meant.
She bubbled with energy but her face told me the story of her frustration. “Only Theo can restore me.” Those were her first words as she stepped down from the bottom stair.
“No, Sway, he’s not the only one. Such a beautiful name.”
Every head turned to Collin who hadn’t given a woman a sincere compliment outside of temporarily hitting on me when we first met. His cheeks turned a fervent shade of red and Ari’s eyebrows shot up a foot.
“Thank you.” Blushing, Sway sat on the couch beside me. I could see the effects of her stolen gift written all over her body. She’d gained weight. She had a listlessness about her. Frown lines appeared years before their time.