Seeming to ignore my situation he inquires to himself, “I wonder how much helium is present in this atmosphere. That element silently suffocates living organisms you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that little fucking morsel of knowledge, Ezra.”
What if the helium levels are too high! That could be causing this! I match Ezra’s stride, more out of frustration with his doing nothing to alleviate my growing fear. He glances at me then says, “The helium levels are fine. I’m confident.”
“Oh! You are, are you?”
I throw my hands up. “How the fuck do you know for sure!”
Ezra stops and looks down. Kneeling he touches the earth, then mumbles. “Maybe you’re just letting the illusions of this place get the better of you.”
“What?“
He looks up at me as he stands. “You know, you’re just like Jesca with all your sarcastic comments.”
Why is he changing the subject? “I’m not letting any fucking illusions get the better of me!”
I feel another spasm rise in my windpipe, tightening around my esophagus like a vice. I’m sure he sees my anxiety as I stare at him wide eyed and try to clear my throat. He’s already walking away when my airway reopens, allowing me to gasp for air while I can. “You feeling like you can’t breathe, the little boy. All illusions meant to wear us down.”
I catch up to him again, a wheezing sound now occupying my once clear passage. I clear my throat again, but it does nothing to help this time. Shit. I call to Ezra just ahead of me. “You really think we are being manipulated?”
Ezra stops, looks to his right, then moves in that direction. “I know we are. The only other time I have seen a human’s face distort like that child’s is when Jesca and I were investigating the abductions in Florida.”
Ezra’s stares down at the ground as he walks quickly and thinks aloud. “The features, the eyes, everything is the same, which could mean that these beings were stalking us in our own world through those abducted vessels implanted with Sondian-based Copulas. It makes complete sense, yes?”
I shake my head to myself. “No, nothing makes sense right now. I need water!”
Seeming to pass over my request, Ezra continues, “They had been there in our world the whole time, watching us through the vessels they were given, telling us they were coming. Son of a bitch.”
His babbling makes my blood turn cold. I am learning that Ezra is scary brilliant and he is usually right about his theories, but he’s also ignoring the fact that my throat is seizing and it can’t just be in my head. I know my body and this isn’t normal fear. Suddenly, the burning in my throat surges and the spasm grips me, cutting off all air and setting me off balance. I stumble to the ground as I try to call to Ezra.
CHAPTER 8: SIGHT FOR SORE EYES
Jesca
As soon as Isabel heard Corinna say her name, Isabel had her arms wrapped around her. She kept repeating to us, “It’s her, it’s her,” in between tears and sobs. Corinna tried to wrap her arms around Isabel, but all the tubing from her IV kept her from doing so. Corinna didn’t fight it; she draped her free arm over her sister’s back, while making a rubbing motion. I studied every movement she made—just in case. The more I watched her interact though, my hope that this just might be “our” Corinna became more permanent.
Monica steps out into the hall and calls for the staff and as they file in, Xander and I step out into the hall. I notice Luke striding down the hall toward us. “Is she okay?”
“She’s awake, they’re working on her right now.”
“Not Corinna, Isabel,” he says as he goes into the room. His focus is on Isabel and as soon as she sees him, she rushes into his arms. He guides her into a corner of the room, out of the way of the staff taking vitals on Corinna. She doesn’t resist as he pulls her back into a corner of the room and out of the way. As I look at Luke and Isabel, I wonder if their shared ability of Latrosis is the only bond forming. For a moment, I think of Nate, then quickly dismiss it and watch Corinna lying back in the bed as the staff and Monica work. She meets my gaze, just before one of the staff steps in front of me to close the door.
“We should tell the others,” Xander says as he moves to the window.
“Yeah.” I move to the other side of him and watch the staff work. Isabel watches them as Luke holds her to him. I’m worried about Xander though. He’s standing next to me stoic, seeming to be unmoved by what happened in the projection. “What are you thinking?”
He barely glances at me, “What, you aren’t going to creep into my head?”
I look back at the staff, refusing to give into the fight he’s trying to start. “No. This is something you need to talk to me about. Not something I want to siphon out of you. What happened in there was—”
I pause to take in all the thoughts that fill my head––my feeling Corinna’s emotions for Sam, Sam not appearing to be the man I thought he was, Michael pulling his strings. Has Michael been doing all of this? Set Sam up to be some kind of assassin for him?”
Xander’s voice is low, but I can hear the frustration in it. “He murdered Anna and my parents in cold blood Jesca. What happened in there was an illusion, Corinna’s perception of him. And you’re falling for it.”
He won’t look at me, but I can see the disgust and judgment brewing in his eyes as he pretends to watch the staff work on Corinna.
“I’m not falling for anything. I know what I saw and felt in there. It wasn’t some perception Corinna held. It was beyond that. Somehow I connected—”
“Bullshit! You didn’t connect with anything!”
Facing me now, he points to the center of my forehead and cringes. “She fucking got to you so easily. Too easily!”
He balls up his fists and thins his lips as he backs away from me. Wildly he stares at me as he continues to put distance between us. “I can’t believe you feel sorry for that piece of shit!”
He turns away from me completely and walks down the hall. I stalk after him, not giving him the option of walking away from this. Once I’m by his side, I unleash, “Don’t you think I’ve considered the same thing! Or do you think I just feel sorry for enslaved assassins that kill people I love?”
He doesn’t look at me as he scoffs condescendingly, “Enslaved? Yeah, sure. The only thing that has ever enslaved Sam is his ego and you are giving some kind of validity to these feelings, these sentiments that should repulse you. You should be fighting it, not accepting that Sam could have been a victim!”
Call it intuition or a gut feeling, but something about his words make me question what’s directing his frustration. “When you followed me in, what did you feel?”
He looks at me suspiciously, then returns his gaze straight ahead, “Feel? I didn’t feel shit. Don’t try to pin this on me. I’m not the one that got lost in there, wrapped up in Sam’s seduction.”
“No, I wasn’t fucking wrapped up! You don’t know what I felt in there. And you saying you didn’t feel anything is a fucking lie!”
Abruptly, he turns on me, takes hold of my shoulders and pushes me up against the wall. His face is inches from mine and his eyes have turned the darkest blue I’ve ever seen them. “Yes, I’m fucking lying, because I shouldn’t feel anything for that bastard! Nothing but hate! But I do and it’s tearing me up!”
His voice cracks suddenly as he breathes faster through his nose. He looks down at his hands gripping my arms. Noticing how he’s holding me, he loosens his hold, but doesn’t back away. The pure rage he was in seconds ago has me stunned. I’ve never seen him like this, never want to see him like this, but it stems from what he felt and saw in there. Something he’s damning himself for believing. Carefully, I ask him, “What did you see Xander?”
Still hesitant to speak to me, he croaks, “All of it. Everything.”
My mind goes straight to the sensations and desires I felt beca
use of Sam’s and Corinna’s apparent link.
“I don’t give a shit about that. I know that wasn’t you. That was all Corinna working through you. But what you saw and felt through Sam, the idea that he could somehow have been—”
He can’t say the word I chose to describe his possible fate, enslaved for Michael’s bidding, but he continues, “—made to do murder by some means of torture or possession.”
He shakes his head quickly and growls, “I want to hate him so fucking much right now but I doubt everything. That fucking vision makes me doubt what Sam is!”
His breath comes faster, the slightest moan of emotion releases as his eyes redden and begin to tear. “Why can’t I just fucking hate him right now Jes? Why do I feel sorrow for his damned soul! He killed them!”
As Xander slowly breaks in front of me, I slowly shake my head from side to side, feeling every ounce of pain as I give words to what I’m coming to believe. “He was forced to. Somehow he was controlled by Michael.”
My words carry him over the edge as he releases a painful breath. He lowers his head, somehow defeated by what I’ve said and I can’t resist comforting him, from showing him that what he’s feeling is a shared emotion, one I wish I could fight too. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him close, hoping he will accept what I have said not as my own feelings, but what has been revealed. I know he has every right to hate me for finding sympathy for Sam. I whisper into his hair, my own voice thick with emotion. “Don’t be mad at me.”
His strong arms encircle my waist and pull me close, as his labored breath warms my neck. His breath pauses as his lips gently touch down on the base of my neck. “I’m not mad at you.” The thick whisper of words against my neck transforms the sorrow and pain I feel for him to the purest desire as he kisses the tender spot along my jaw before capturing my lips with his.
Suddenly, all the sorrow and pain and need for forgiveness, disappears and becomes a desire that I know too well with Xander. The way his hands are gripping my hips, pinning me to the wall as his body pushes against mine, I know he needs my touch as much as I need his right now, and I want so much more than his touch with the way he’s pressing against me. His lips move feverishly with mine as the tip of his tongue grazes my lips––the trigger to deepen our kiss.
Footsteps and the sound of someone clearing their throat has Xander backing away and pacing as he holds his lips while I can barely stand on my own without the support of the wall.
I try not to look at Sebastian or Balthazar directly, embarrassed from how they’ve caught Xander and me. “Um, we thought we’d come see if everything was okay,” Sebastian says, looking down at the ground in front of him. Shit, he’s embarrassed too, which makes me feel even more embarrassed.
I hear more footsteps. Nick and Jake round the corner. I’m thankful they hadn’t come when Sebastian and Balthazar did––Nick would never let Xander and me live it down.
“She’s awake,” Xander says.
“Is it her, or the—”
Jake’s question receives an elbow from Nick, “Dude, if it wasn’t her do you think Jes and Xander would be standing here right now? They would be totally shredded.”
“Thanks,” I say sarcastically, then firm my words as I look at the four of them. “It’s her.”
“I don’t understand. What happened?” Sebastian asks, bewildered. “What made her come to?”
Xander and I exchange a quick glance as I speak up, “Xander and I initiated a lucid dream to bring her back.”
“YOU WHAT?”
Balthazar’s and Sebastian’s joined voices make me cringe.
“Oh, shit!” Nick comments so eloquently as he laughs excitedly, “Dude that is sick!”
His laughter quickly dies and he clears his throat as Balthazar glares at him before returning his heated stare to Xander and me. “Briefing room. Now.”
Sequestered to the briefing room by Balthazar, Sebastian, Nick and Jake, we wait until the rest of the guardians return. When they do, I give them the step by step of why we initiated a lucid dream through astral projection with Corinna, how we got Isabel to agree to it, and what we experienced in Corinna’s head in an attempt to bring her back. I don’t exclude Sam and her connection––it’s embarrassing, but important to explaining Sam’s position in this shit storm. When I’m done retelling, everyone stays silent, except Nick. “Wow that was hot.”
Elicia elbows him in the gut and Nick rubs his side and laughs a little. “What? It is.”
He leans on the table, exchanging a glance between Xander and me across from him. “But seriously, you think Sam’s been played all this time like some kind of Stepford Wife shit? That’s a little far out, don’t you think?”
Xander and I look at each other the same time, recalling how we both felt moments after the projection. Xander looks back at him, not an ounce of anger showing on his face as he looks at Nick, “Stepford Wife shit isn’t what killed my parents or Jesca’s.”
Xander’s comment shuts Nick’s comic relief down and his smirk disappears. Xander shifts his gaze to Sebastian and Balthazar. “I want to have Sam as the scapegoat. That would be easy. But after being in Corinna’s head and hearing what Sam said about Michael––what Corinna said about Michael—”
Xander shakes his head before continuing, “If it was Sam that killed them, he was under Michael’s control.”
“Like possession?” Jake asks. “I mean, what about that whole thing with Jes seeing Michael’s face in Sam’s?”
I’m about to comment, when I feel a spasm rise in my throat. Clearing it, I notice the pitcher of water and glasses in the middle of the table.
“Yes, Michael possessing Sam to do his bidding is possible, but so is mind control––Ushering,” Sebastian says as I pour myself a glass and sit back down.
“You okay?” Xander asks as I lift the glass to my lips.
“Yeah, just thirsty,” I say as I take my first drink, and then place the glass down in front of me. “Sam said he had no intention of following Michael’s orders once he got beyond the blackhole. He said he had to make things right.”
Balthazar shifts in his seat. “Sam committed horrific crimes against humanity and now he is seeking redemption.”
His answer doesn’t suffice. Feeling a sudden itch in my throat, I take another drink before I respond. “But how? What could he do there, who could he find to gain redemption there beyond our world?”
“Those that he wronged. Wouldn’t you want to find them beyond our known universe if you sought redemption? An attempt to save your soul, gain forgiveness?”
I swallow the cold, quenching water as I think on Sebastian’s coded explanation, when a familiar voice fills the room. “Ah, but the question is where does Sam Crest think he has gone in search of his redemption?”
Whipping my head around, I see a man from my old life in Marietta standing in the doorway. A man that was a fixture in my life every Sunday––Pastor Daniel.
Clearing his throat, he walks into the room. “Beyond the veil of our universe and into another, where the physical isn’t necessary and the metaphysical dominates. Where the only separation among beings is that of the souled and the soulless. Possibly Heaven and Hell being the division?”
Overlooking his philosophical question, I remained shocked by his being here as I slowly speak to him, “Pastor Daniel, what are you—”
He raises one hand, ending my question as I rise from my chair and walk toward him slowly.
“Just Daniel. I never could get used to the Pastor part, even after I was ordained. Guardian is what I am before anything else.”
I nearly knock him over, as I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his chest. He laughs under his breath, “Am I a sight for sore eyes?”
Waves of memories from my childhood come crashing in as I find solace in his large frame. Meeting Daniel for the first t
ime; thinking he looked like a big cuddly bear, a gentle giant maybe. Watching him on the pulpit at church, listening to him speak unorthodoxly at times about God and the spirit and the universe.
I release him, remembering I have an audience.
Daniel pulls up a chair and I return to my own, as Angela finds curiosity with Daniel’s philosophy, “Adam Claiborne told us that the beings invading our world were soulless, that they were drawn to our world, us, because of our souls. If this world beyond the veil is where Xander’s parents, Jesca’s mother and every other dead person has gone.”
Daniel stops her, “Not dead person. Soul.”
She stands corrected, “Soul, then why did Claiborne tell us they were soulless? Heaven and Hell contain the souled.”
Daniel nods. “Adam is well versed in the sciences. Not so much on the spiritual side of this equation. Let me try and explain.”
He looks at each of us. “Divine intervention is something each of you has experienced. Now you may think all of it has an element of science, and most of it does. But there among it, is an element that fulfills the equation. A spirit, a soul that is not measured by science. Can’t be measured. But, it responds, connects, links—”
Daniel looks at Xander, then me. “Bonds.”
All of a sudden, I feel like Xander and I are on display in Daniel’s mind.
Daniel takes in the rest of the room of guardians as he continues, “Supernatural abilities, paranormal events, celestial entities— all of these things have become transparent to us while still being taboo to the rest of our world. But not for long, now that the intersection has come. In the forest, you encountered beings that passed through the wormhole, yes? Giant beings passed through I’m told.”
We all nod, confirming the fact and I add, “It was attacking us.”
Daniel’s brow furrows. “Are you sure it attacked you?”
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