The image in her hand was almost too poetic. A butterfly-shaped locket. Nothing but tears inside.
The girl ran away from him before he could see her face. It was enough, though. Nerilis gradually pulled back from the Void and returned to his shell, which could take anywhere between a minute and an hour.
When he opened his eyes and breathed in the last of the hedpah, he saw his chief assistant sitting at his computer, poring through the files he had compiled since first coming to Earth twenty years ago.
“I found one,” he announced. “Take down this information.”
Syrfila clicked an old-fashioned Earth pen against an equally primitive notepad. “Go on.”
He told her what he saw. While she wrote, Nerilis glanced at the digital files opened on his large screen. The faces of Marlow’s two reincarnated mercenaries looked back at him.
He met their cautious gazes. Like he did every time, he memorized the fine details that went into their reborn faces. It was the least he owed them before killing them yet again.
“Yeah, so…” Syrfila put her pen down. “I’ve got everything I need to know about them.” She looked expectantly at her boss. Nerilis inhaled a deep breath, the first one without any hedpah to play with his mind or stir his soul. “You want me to take care of them or the Relic first?”
“It would be more efficient to take care of them first. The Relic is in the hands of their mutual acquaintance.”
“Got it. Two dead mercenaries, coming right up.”
Nerilis did not relish what he did. He did not enjoy the looks of terror or the cries of mercy. He detested the blasphemy his old friend committed when he shoved two unwitting souls into the Process a thousand years ago. Not because they got in his way and simply delayed the inevitable, but because Nerilis punished himself enough already. He didn’t need this constant reminder that he was the most reprehensible man in the universe.
He closed his eyes and let the last of his tethered soul linger in the Void. A part of him held onto the hope that he would see her, the High Priestess, the woman who lived in the afterlife and was the first to discover how endangered it was.
The woman he loved desperately enough to help the moment he heard that forlorn cry.
The woman he mourned before he killed.
The woman whose body he continued to bring into the worlds he inhabited, because he had promised the poor new soul that he would. Because he wanted to give her a chance to break free from the Process.
Even though it would be so easy to sacrifice her and be done with it all.
FIFTEEN
“Shit, you wanna go where?”
Devon adjusted himself in the passenger seat of Clyde’s rusting red compact before snapping his worn-out seatbelt into place. “It’s a couple of miles from here. Will only take five minutes. I’ll be in and out, I promise.”
Clyde shot him a disbelieving look, his hand poised over the stick shift as the car spouted out exhaust behind them. “Okay, if you say so. Just five minutes, though. We have to be at The Roost by two to take inventory on their sound system.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you where to go.” Devon waited for his friend to start the car. Although Devon slept another couple of hours that morning, he was unable to concentrate on anything beyond his dream. He had to sort a few things out before going on with his day. That required stopping off at Danielle’s apartment.
Clyde drove for fifteen minutes, the Saturday downtown traffic a mess that kept them from hopping a couple of neighborhoods over in a timely manner. Clyde honked the horn multiple times at pedestrians who did not hurry across the street.
“So do I even know this chick?” Clyde asked. “I mean, if you’re gonna cheat on Alicia, I might as well know her.”
“I’m not cheating on Alicia.”
“God knows you’re not getting any ass otherwise, and I say this as a bassist. You know bassists get no love.”
Devon winced as the sun shot a huge glare off the window. “You bassists are total babe magnets and you know it.”
“No, no, because I only have four strings, and you have six. Women don’t want to admit it, but it really is about the quantity to them.”
Clyde finally turned onto the boulevard that ran by Danielle’s apartment building. “Turn right at the next spot.”
Clyde swung his junker around a small black coup, missing its bumper by a small breath. This was the sort of thing that did not make Devon anticipate his driving test coming up next week. “Where the hell do I park? Do I need a permit for this shit?”
Once Clyde found a parking spot, he followed Devon out of the car.
“You’re coming with me?” Devon asked.
“Shit, yes. I want to see this chick. You never told me if I knew her or not.”
Devon smashed his thumb into the elevator button. “I think you saw her once, back on campus. She was that recruiter you got into a pissing match with during finals.”
Clyde’s eyes widened. “Dude! A military woman? You’re doing a military chick?”
“I’m not ‘doing her,’ you ass! She’s a… friend.”
The elevator doors opened. Devon reached for the number to Danielle’s floor. “Okay, but does Alicia know you’re here? Does Alicia know this woman that’s probably about ten years older than the both of us?”
“No. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Riiiight. You might as well be fucking her.”
“I’m not fucking her!”
“Just sayin’.”
The elevator lurched to life. “Alicia and I are fine,” Devon mumbled.
Clyde rolled his eyes. “If you like celibacy. Not that I can fault you, really. You’re the rebound dude.”
The elevator dinged open. “Like I said,” Devon grumbled, “this will only take a couple of seconds.”
He led his friend past a potted plant and to Danielle’s white door. He raised his hand and rang the buzzer. A few seconds of total silence passed before something clunked on the other side of the door.
It swung open to reveal Danielle standing in blue jeans and a white undershirt, hair messy from neglect and face morphing from downright annoyed to worried.
“Hey.” Devon averted his eyes. Who knew confronting the woman he remembered would be so embarrassing?
“What?” Danielle sprawled her arms across the doorway. The only person coming in or going out would be her.
“I need to talk to you about something. It’s about… you know.”
Danielle glanced over her shoulder. “Get in here.”
Devon had to jab Clyde in the side to keep him from crashing into Danielle’s couch, where a nonplussed Troy sat.
“Chill with this other guy for a moment while I talk to Devon in the other room.” Danielle hauled him toward the bedroom. Before they disappeared behind the privacy of the door, a look of sheer disbelief claimed Troy’s face.
Danielle quickly dropped Devon’s wrist the moment her door closed behind them.
“This had better be good,” she said. “I had a nice, relaxing day planned for myself. Movies I’ve been wanting to see for ages. Cocktails.”
“And I’d rather be jamming or playing a game. Listen, I really, really need to ask you about something.” He looked her in the hazel eyes. Yup. That was the woman he had dreamed about the night before. “I had a dream last night. I think it was me channeling a memory from our ‘real’ lives.”
Danielle’s face softened. “Go on.”
“Well, first… do you remember anything about being a mercenary?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“No. I don’t remember anything. The only reason I play along with this is because I’ve had the magic thrown into my face. What else am I supposed to do?”
“So you don’t remember what it was like?”
“Like to what?”
“To be… her. To be Sulim. Because I think my original soul is trying to communicate with me.”
“That’s stupid.”
Danielle sat at the edge of her bed. “I’m just me. There’s no one else living inside of me.”
“There wouldn’t be, though. Because you are her, and she is you, right?”
Danielle sighed again. “Look, I haven’t had any memories, okay? I don’t know anything about being Sulim aside from what Marlow has told us. I don’t really care. Sulim is dead. I’m Danielle. I’m alive. Well, for now.”
“I remember things sometimes. I think.” Devon’s brows furrowed. “I remember our guild having a chief, you know? I think her name was Karen. No, wait.” That didn’t sound right. It was a name somewhat like Karen. Maybe. Perhaps? Now that Devon forced himself to remember, it was like everything was at the edge of a toxic fog rolling through his brain. What was her damned name? he thought. Death. Think death. Death. Dying. Graves.
Cairn.
“Her name was Cairn.” Saying it out loud was as natural as acknowledging a life from a thousand years ago. “No. Not like cairns. Like… karn.” There was a story behind that name. He couldn’t remember, though. Not the woman’s original name – lost to the annals of history – and not why she chose a name ripped from Earth, a planet she had always found fascinating. A place she wanted to run away to. With the love of her life. “I remember stuff like that.”
Danielle shook her head. “I want to get this over with, so tell me more about what you found so we can get on with these lives. I don’t remember anything about a woman named Ca…”
Danielle choked on the name. She choked so hard it was like a cherry bomb about to go off in her throat. Devon leaned down and grabbed Danielle’s shoulders as she tried to catch her breath again. “Are you okay?” he asked, exasperation mounting. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, hands latching on to Devon’s arms. She couldn’t speak. Her tongue remained lost on the name of a woman she couldn’t remember.
The more a woman like her trapped in the Process thought about that name, the more her head hurt, and the more her chest heaved until she fell back into her bed, a voice screaming inside her mind.
Just ride it out, she told herself. It’s just like when you were little. Just ride it out and it will be over soon. She had never been so lost for breath before.
“I promise,” a voice in her mind said. “I promise to stay safe. This will only take me a few weeks, tops. I’ll be back soon.” Her voice. No. Sulim’s voice.
Sulim. Maybe she did slumber inside her conscience. Maybe the woman’s soul traveled from body to body, as if she owned them, when really another soul was there, born to slavery in this other soul.
She tried to scream at the usually dormant soul to leave her the fuck alone.
“I’ll be back. Take the ring. Keep it safe.”
“What about Sonall?” Another voice. Deeper. Stabbing her in the heart.
“We work well together. You know you can trust him.”
“Can I? Watch out for him – he wants something from you.”
Danielle’s body came back into her possession. Devon stood back from the bed. “Ah, fuck,” she spat, forcing herself up so she could breathe better. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
“What the hell happened?”
Danielle stretched her neck. “Blacked out for a moment. It happens.”
“But what happened?”
“I think I had a flash back of some kind.”
“Did I trigger it?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it happens.”
Someone knocked on the door. “Everything okay in there?” Troy knocked again. “Yo, Danielle, you’ve got someone else at your door. You planning on having more guests over?”
“More?” Danielle exited her bedroom. “Who the fuck is it now?”
She peered through her peephole before opening the door. Nobody was there.
Her phone rang.
“Hello?” she answered, eyes scanning the empty hallway.
Silence. Then, “Consider this your last rites. See you next life, honey.”
“Danielle!”
She pivoted at the sound of Devon’s voice as a nimble woman swung down from the top of the doorframe and slammed her feet into Danielle’s side.
“What the shit!”
Devon yanked Danielle out of the way before she could hit the floor – all it did was take them both down at the same time. The female attacker, bedecked in black with a mask pulled over her face, brandished a firearm. Clyde and Troy dove behind the couch, but the woman only had eyes for the couple bundled on the floor.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” she said. The gun was aimed right at Devon.
Ah, hell nah.
When traveling between lives, it’s impossible for even the cosmos to dictate what becomes instinct and what is left from a time long past. In Devon’s case, however, it was safe to say that the orders kicking into his mind were the remnants of Sonall’s training. He knew how to get them out of this situation. He knew how to kick some fucking ass using nothing but his (weaker and more useless than ever before) body. He was the one with the incredible instinct to protect his partner on pain of his own life and conscience.
Devon didn’t even think about it. He didn’t care if it injured his unprepared shell. If his past life told him to slide his leg out and trip their attacker, ensuring that her bullet went into the ceiling instead of into his head, then he’d do it!
Danielle leaped up onto her shaky feet. Behind the couch, Troy threw himself over Clyde, because even though neither of them was reincarnated, one of them had been in the military for a while and had his instincts.
“Grab them! We’re doing this!” Danielle slammed her hand onto her tattoo. Devon understood right away, especially when Danielle elbowed their attacker in the face and sent the black-clad assailant onto her ass. “Jesus! She’s made of rocks!” Danielle had one second to motion to her closed bedroom door before kicking the gun out of the woman’s hand. By then, Devon was already hauling Troy and Clyde toward the door.
If this didn’t work…
Danielle had two seconds to leap from the woman recollecting her bearings and dive through her bedroom door – hoping that Marlow’s shoddy magic pulled through at the last minute.
SIXTEEN
Devon and Danielle lay on top of the cold, wooden floors of Marlow’s catwalk. The ticking of the pendulum swinging nearby eased their nerves, but made everyone else scream in terror.
“Oh… oh my God.” Clyde was the first to speak. “What the fuck! What the fuck!”
“That’s what I said the first time, too,” Devon murmured.
“So, uh,” Troy said to Danielle, staring at the large swinging pendulum. “I take it this is what you were… talking… about.”
“Yup.”
“Sorry I, uh… doubted you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Danielle extended her hand. Both Troy and Devon helped themselves to her aid. Clyde continued to sit on the floor, breath contracting inside his chest with the force of a thousand pistons. He mumbled incoherent things as Devon bent over and yanked him to his feet.
They said nothing – aside from Clyde, who babbled non-stop, demanding to know what was happening and why he wasn’t waking up from this strange dream. Danielle went ahead down the catwalk and into the entrance of Marlow’s interdimensional office. “Old Man!” she called. “We’ve got a problem!”
He met them in the hallway. “What prob… oh.” He stood up straight, one hand bracing against the wall while the other rested on his hip. Without his cane, this sort of surprise was too much for his aging body to handle. “I see you brought some extra guests this time, Sulim.”
“First, my name is Danielle.” She held up a finger to reiterate her point as Marlow closed the distance between them. “Second, one of the bad guy’s goons busted into my home and tried to shoot us! The fuck did you want us to do?”
Marlow noticed the pallor expression on Clyde’s aching face. “Dear Void, get that boy some water. He’s about to pass out.”
“Sit down.” Devon gestured toward a bench. “We’ll tell you what’s going on.”
“I would like a refresher,” Troy interjected. “I mean, I was only half listening last time, because quite frankly, I thought you had lost your mind. Again.”
Danielle sighed. “You know what, I’m not going to tell you again. I’m going to sit down and pet the dog, because God knows my nerves are shot after having a gun pointed at me.”
“Nice reflexes, by the way,” Devon said.
“Yours weren’t so bad, either.” Danielle finally caught some of her breath. “Hit the gym more often and you could’ve knocked her out.” She turned toward Marlow. “You tell them what’s going on. I want some water, too.”
Because nothing amused an old and once-mighty sorcerer like telling two nobodies what he had been up to for the past thousand years. But once they were in his office, what other choice did he have?
The least he could do was give a quick – if not utterly fantastical – rundown.
Once the tale was complete, Clyde keeled over on the bench. Troy edged away from him. “For the record,” he said to Danielle, who now sat with her cup of water, “thanks for telling me this shit ahead of time. But this is insane, you know that, right?”
“What bothers me now,” Marlow ignored what Danielle’s companion said, “is that Nerilis not only made a violent move toward you two, but his hired gun showed up on your doorstep. That tells me he learned your identity first. Lucky you.”
“Oh, yeah, super lucky. Why am I so lucky?”
Marlow sat at his desk and opened a panel of blue and green touch screens. “Someone you’ve encountered recently ratted you out. Perhaps they are working for him.”
Danielle’s eyes widened. “Like who?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to try and find out right now.”
“How?”
“I have my methods of searching through your planet’s people.”
Rebirth (Cross Book 1) Page 18