03 Reckoning - Guardian

by Laury Falter

  This man was my entire life. He gave me strength, rejuvenated me when I needed it, guided me to safety even as I fought him on it. He made me feel invincible.

  As I lay there beside him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest I knew one thing with absolute clarity…I couldn’t imagine a life without him.

  But that was just what I felt threatened by. Somehow, that nagging feeling had returned telling me to be prepared. In fact, it lingered there, just below the surface like a shark circling its prey, all the way through to morning.

  When Eran woke, I still hadn’t shaken the feeling and, of course, he noticed it instantly.

  “You’re worried,” he said, point blank.

  “Yes.” Why deny it? It would be no use.

  “Don’t be,” he said, rolling over to kiss me, briefly but with an intensity that pressed our lips together fully.

  Then he was up and moving around the room. He stopped midway through dressing and pivoted towards me.

  “You didn’t get any sleep at all, did you?” he asked astounded, already knowing the answer.

  I gave him a wavering smile.

  Sighing, he approached me, kneeling so that he was at my eye level. “I’m going in quietly, surrounded by the best men I’ve ever had the fortune to work with. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

  I scoffed. “You know that’s not possible.”

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed softly. “You’ll know exactly when I leave and exactly when I return, won’t you?”

  “Down to the second.”

  His lips lifted in his signature smirk then. “It’s actually somewhat nice to have such a devoted admirer.”

  “Admirer?” I gasped.

  He chuckled, knowing his tease had gotten to me. “Wife…I meant devoted wife…”

  “That’s better.”

  “Good,” he said, heaving himself to standing position. “Now up. You’ll need breakfast if you’re going to have enough energy for your chores today.”

  “Chores?” I inquired, dropping my feet to the floor, the chill of it jolting me awake.

  “You’re going to manage the final phase of our defenses today,” Eran announced.

  As it turned out, Eran did most of the finalizing, which was just fine with me. He knew where each weapon was best suited and how to position them so they worked most efficiently. By the end of the day, the fortress was firmly secure and Eran was ready for his night mission.

  He and the group he’d selected, which was limited to just five Alterums, gathered in the courtyard at dusk. They had followed Eran’s advice and now appeared rested, wide-eyed and energetic. Eran blended in effortlessly with them, a part of their pack but with the authority and respect of a leader, something that always captivated me.

  I had to forcibly stop myself from running to him and throwing my arms around his neck, begging him to stay. He wouldn’t and it would only put the others ill at ease. I wanted them, needed them just as they were…confidently equipped to handle whatever they might encounter.

  Not wanting to distinguish this night from the others, he made no more acknowledgement towards me than he regularly did at the start of the night missions, other than a casual wink just before he sprang in to flight.

  I quickly learned that while the night before had been the fastest of my existence, this night was the slowest, dragging on so much that seconds felt like hours.

  Worse, that nagging feeling grew steadily worse with each tick of the clock.

  I spent the entire night in the empty dining hall with Felix, Rufus, and Ezra, our voices echoing off the walls.

  Their efforts to comfort me were welcomed but unsuccessful. Even when Felix set a tray of banana splits in front of us – without any mysterious, unknown, or unappetizing trimmings included – I still couldn’t bring myself to smile.

  I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I wanted to settle back, kick up my feet, and feel as if this were just another ordinary evening back in New Orleans. But that nagging feeling just wouldn’t allow it.

  Then the feeling ended. Just like that. As if someone had snapped their fingers. And for a brief moment I felt absolute calm, a brief reprieve before what came next.

  Just as Felix finished his last spoonful of ice cream, theatrically smacking his lips in appreciation, I felt it.

  The awareness of it caused a violent inhale.

  And I knew, somehow, that at that very same moment, as I drew in that breath Eran was exhaling his last.

  Then every muscle in my body froze.

  And my eyes refused to move, to blink, to see what I was looking at.

  My heart beat harder, faster until it pounded in my head.

  Suddenly, my legs straightened and I was standing, the chair I had been sitting in tossed backwards with such force it rolled against the table behind me.

  “No,” I snapped at no one in particular. “NO!”

  Only vaguely I registered that my housemates were watching me, mouths ajar, stunned and partially terrified.

  I drew in another breath and this one released with such fury it made them stand too. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  The next thing I knew, my knees hit the ground, a loud thump resounding through my body but void of any pain.

  Then my head was bowed and I was sobbing.

  “Give her room,” Ezra warned, her voice a wallow in my ears.

  “Room?” Rufus roared. “She needs a shot.”

  “Quiet your voice,” she demanded, perturbed. “Felix, some water, please.”

  A cup of water was forced in my hands but I felt it tilt, having no control over my limbs, and spill to the floor, my tears falling in, mixing with, the puddle it created.

  Then I heard a growl of frustration. “Stand back,” came the demand just as I felt myself go airborne, lifted by powerful hands that I processed as Rufus’s.

  The wind was then on my face, cold, bitter, unwelcoming, and Rufus’s voice was thundering in my ear.

  “Snap outta it!”

  “This ain’t helpin’!”

  “Eran’d be sick seein’ ya like this!”

  I heard him but I didn’t understand him. Nothing registered with me. I was in a hollow, impenetrable shell.

  Then he was spinning and my limbs flapped like straw in the wind.

  He ducked downward and soon something was splashing against my face, cutting through the wind like tacks against my skin. Below us in the darkness, something crashed and writhed and my eyes, in their hazy state, found we had made it to the shore and that it was ocean spray catching on my skin.

  Still, it didn’t help. Nothing did.

  Sometime later, it ended and I was laid gently against a mattress as a cover was pulled over me.

  There were whispers and footsteps and then silence. A period of time later, I couldn’t be certain how long, snoring began from the vicinity of the chair by the window.

  I lay there neither awake nor asleep as time passed until warmth began to spread across my face. I realized, ironically, that on any other day, in another lifetime, it would have been comforting. For me, it was just a sensation.

  Not long after, whisperings began again, though this time I heard and understood them.

  “She’ll want to hear this…” Felix said.

  “I’m not sure she’s ready,” replied Ezra.

  “Then you kin deal with ‘er wrath when she finds out the only survivor wanted to speak to ‘er n’ we didn’t get ‘er up.”

  As they bickered about whether to interrupt me, I sat up and put my feet on the floor. Then I was standing and heading for the door.

  They had grown quiet when they noticed and now only their footsteps behind me told me they were following.

  In the courtyard, two men were crouched, one lying against the other’s arms, being held up because he didn’t have the strength himself.

  It was Christianson and he looked like I felt…Dead.

  I knelt beside him, taking the edge of my shirt sleeve and wiping the caked b
lood from his eyes. He blinked then and I pulled away, noticing the bite marks across his body.

  “Tomorrow…” his voice gurgled. “They’re…coming.”

  “Of course they are,” I whispered void of emotion. I sensed no fear, no rage, nothing at all.

  For once, the Fallen Ones had no leverage over me.

  As Christianson’s last words faded away so did his life. He was already leaving his body when I took the dagger of the man holding him and shoved it through Christianson’s heart.

  There were no gasps of surprise, no words of explanation. They weren’t needed. The bite marks told Christianson’s story. An Elsic had been unleashed on him for one simple reason: It was the only way to ensure eternal death.

  I had stopped Christianson but I couldn’t stop Eran. The injustice sickened me.

  It was how the rest had been killed, Eran included. I knew this with unquestionable certainty.

  “Alert the others,” I said barely above a murmur, sensing that these were Eran’s words. He should be the one here speaking them, not me.

  Despite who said them, the scuffing of feet told me that the message was being spread, announcing to the Alterums that their most dire threat was heading their way.

  While fear, uncertainty clamored through the stronghold, I found my way back to my bedroom, my housemates again following quietly behind.

  No sooner had I laid down when Ms. Barrett burst through the door.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded and even with my eyes closing I knew the question was directed at me. “They. Are. Coming! Up! Get up!”

  Maybe it was her choice of words or the ornery tone in her voice but a small battle began at the entrance before I sat up again.

  “Let her in,” I said and my housemates reluctantly stepped aside.

  Ms. Barrett straightened the vest she wore and marched up to me. But only then did she actually see me.

  I didn’t think it was possible but some of that intense devotion she held for the Alterums was momentarily passed to me. Her eyes softened and her frown disappeared.

  “What-What happened to you?”

  “She lost the only man she ever loved,” barked Felix, seething, ready to lunge at Ms. Barrett until Ezra and Rufus held him back.

  I held up a limp hand, having no motivation to do more.

  “They’re in your hands now,” I said to Ms. Barrett. “The Alterums are in your care.”

  Her jaw dropped in opposition. “But…But I can’t. What…if I fail them?”

  “You haven’t yet.”

  “But we need you,” she exhaled, lost.

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “But you can’t count on me. My focus won’t be on coordinating the defense.”

  Her face twitched in confusion. “What will be your focus?”

  As I lay back against the pillow, allowing my body to succumb to exhaustion, I released the one word raging through my mind with a tapering whisper…

  “Revenge.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY: ERAN

  I awoke in the Hall of Records with slightly more energy, but only because I anticipated what I was about to do.

  Wasting no time, my wings sprouted and I lifted myself up through the warm breeze, heading for the P’s.

  Once again, I found myself standing before the pocket that held the scroll of Paris deaths. There, it sat undisturbed, as if it hadn’t been touched since I had held it last, as if it were waiting for me.

  Pulling it from the pocket, I didn’t allow it to unravel entirely before I spoke. I had suddenly grown impatient.

  “Eran Talor.”

  Instantly, the scroll slid through my fingers, settling on his name.

  I reviewed the list even though a sharp pain ran through my stomach when I saw the most recent entry and its accompanying statement…eternal death.

  My jaw clenched against the anger until I allowed it to settle. Focus, I told myself. Focus.

  I gazed at that last entry a bit longer, knowing it was the reason I’d come. It would lead me to discover exactly what had happened to Eran.

  Still, I couldn’t bring myself to run my finger across it. I was drawn by the desire to see him again, to feel him again, one so strong I couldn’t fight back.

  Bringing my index finger to the paper, I locked on his first life in Germany and swiped it.

  Dropping into Eran’s body, I felt entirely different than I had seconds ago. His body was strong, powerful, fluid, as he walked through a field of knee-high grass. His boots squished through the spongy mud making up the countryside and his arms swung alongside his body with ease.

  He was healthy…and alive. And it was a bittersweet taunt.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I considered, suddenly wanting out. But there was no out.

  Feelings, a mixture of them, rose up, becoming a maelstrom of emotions fighting with each other over the need to leave and the need to stay.

  Then he lifted his head and swung it to the right, hearing the break of a stick in the distance. His eyes sought the source of it and then something came over him, a pause.

  Time stopped then.

  He froze in place, his breathing halting, his mind numbing, his eyes locked on the girl strolling through the field several yards away.

  She was petite with long, curly, cocoa-colored hair, which she was drying in the morning sun.

  I’d seen her before, reflected in my mirror at home.

  The girl was me.

  As he watched, a comfort washed over him, an unbreakable confidence, one that would mock anyone who tested it. Alongside this feeling was a longing, soft but powerful, and an awareness that if anything were to hurt this girl they would suffer excruciating pain.

  It was then, as I watched him notice me for the first time, I discovered that Eran had been my guardian long before he was ever given the title.

  I was whisked away then to land in his body at a later date. He was older now, feebler, less energy but still strong. His body was slightly hunched and his hands shook when they brushed the hair from my face.

  He sat over me as I lay in bed, my breathing raspy.

  Fighting against the nervous awareness that the end of my life was near, I watched him lean forward to place his mouth against my ear.

  The words came but not without a struggle. He had to forcefully swallow twice before the lump in his throat would subside.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he whispered, the lump in his throat rising again to jar the release of his sigh. He swallowed once more and said, “But it won’t be soon enough.”

  He remained there, leaning forward, unable to bear moving away as I released my final breath. Teeth clenched, his lips quivering, he fought back the tears but they spilled over and streamed down his cheeks.

  From deep inside, I felt a void begin to grow, an emptiness that sucked the vitality from him, a lost and hopeless despair that actually felt palpable, weighing him down.

  He found my hand and held it firm and gentle as he spoke.

  “I am in love with you, Magdalene. What I feel for you is timeless. And when I die, when this body releases me, I will find you and I will be your eternal protector.”

  Then I was shouting at him, my voice unheard as I had no control over his lips. Still, I yelled my warning anyways.

  “Run! Refuse my funeral! Run!”

  But it was of no use. Eran would attend my funeral and there Abaddon would kill him. It would solidify Abaddon’s fall from the afterlife, giving birth to a desire to take Eran’s life, leading him to exactly where he had ended up now. A never-ending death.

  Even as I was pulled back through the tunnel, I screamed for Eran to run, my voice given its freedom and echoing in my ears.

  It continued until I was planted back in the Hall of Records, still holding Eran’s scroll.

  Unnerved, I took a trembling step back. I was headed for a collapse but I stayed upright. My breath was tight in my throat and my mind was spinning but still I managed to brush my finger over Eran’s next
life.

  Back through the tunnel, I was transplanted in Eran’s body again. This lifetime was spent in London, a place I recognized instantly.

  He was in flight, fighting with his wings to move faster, a sense verging on panic overwhelming him. The wind whistled in his ears as his eyes frantically searched the empty streets below him.

  His wings tilted slightly and he began his plunge towards the center of the city.

  The sense of dread engulfed Eran then, causing him to strain his appendages, flapping harder with an even and concentrated focus.

  The difference was that the emotion he felt didn’t come from Eran. It came from somewhere outside his body, pulsating towards him, landing deep in his chest were it radiated like a harsh, constant light.

  As he swooped down and through the side streets of London, that radar remained steady, drawing him in, directing him with each turn until he reached the street where its source stood.

  He didn’t stop, instead bracing his body for the impact to come.

  Flashes of movement to his left and right told him that he wasn’t alone. He didn’t pause, not even when his body slammed against another as he emerged from the mouth of the alley and out to the street.

  Suddenly, his body was an amazing display of movement, techniques to gain the upper hand on the being he was now fighting. Teeth, jagged and stained, lashed out at him but he deftly moved aside. Claws gripped for him but he caught its wrists and used that force against it.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a girl. It was no surprise to him that she was there watching. He knew her and the sensation within him that had drawn him to her.

  His awareness turned to frustration then, as he caught sight of her stepping closer, engaging in the fight.

  After avoiding a fist coming at him, he drew in a breath and grunted, “Stay…back…Magdalene.”

  But she didn’t listen and his irritation grew.

  Instead, he sighed while noting that she’d torn the cloak from her shoulders and was entering the fight.

  From inside his body, I watched, an awareness dawning on me…I had known for a while that Eran could feel my emotions as I could feel him. But it wasn’t until that very moment that I understood Eran had his own type of radar, one directly tuned to me.