by Amy Marie
The two cursed men combat in ways that would leave mortal men half-dead. Gaining the upper hand, Darcy throws Talbot’s body against the trunk of a tree. The splintering crack on impact is enough to make me flinch, but the immortal man stands right back up, like it was nothing.
I move to stand by Darcy’s side as he repositions himself to again block the way between Talbot and Char.
Darcy’s face flashes in anger reacting to me, but his attention is kept on Talbot as he pushes me behind his body.
“Get out of here,” he growls back to me, all the while keeping his eyes on the destructor.
“I can help you,” I say placing my hand on his back, willing my presence to give him some sort of support. “We can do this together.”
A small current of warm energy passes between us.
Did my hand just glow?
“You are fools,” Talbot says, interrupting my thoughts. “Neither of you remember, or understand. You cannot destroy a destructor, and I will never stop until everything is obliterated.”
With the last word barely out of his mouth, Talbot again lunges at Darcy and I’m thrown back, dropping my club-like branch into the fire. They wrestle and knock each other around, mutilating one another until they should be bleeding senseless, but any wounds the two men receive heal instantly.
A quick glance at Char shows her second hand free, and Rafe helps her up to escape.
“C’mon!” they both scream for me follow as they duck around the tree, but I hesitate and wave them on.
Talbot notices his captive is free and after a quick leg sweep to bring Darcy to the ground, he charges in Char’s direction. Without hesitation, I dive onto Talbot’s back to try to tackle him.
Bad choice.
Talbot grabs my arms from around his shoulders and flips me with inhuman strength over the top of him, and pounding down to the ground in front of him. In the flip, my arm twists at a bad angle and when I’m slammed down, a wave of nauseous pain ripples through my stomach.
“Nora!” Char screams.
“Rafe, get her out of here!” I yell through the clenching pain.
Talbot bends over me. “Your sacrifice means nothing.” He twists my arm to a new level of searing pain. My screams are so chilling, it doesn’t even sound like my voice. In reaction, Darcy crashes into the destructor knocking him off my body.
Clutching my injured arm, I turn over back onto my feet, ready to follow Char and Rafe.
Making sure he’s going to be okay, I glance back at Darcy just in time to see him flung into the fire, just feet away from me. Talbot takes a burning branch and holds it against Darcy’s face. He screams in anguish as the flesh burns, heals, and re-burns.
Seeing his pain causes some animalistic instinct to snap inside of me, and I can’t leave him. I get angry, unlike any anger I’ve ever felt before. In sudden inspiration and lack of a better weapon, I grab my own fiery branch from the flames and I hold it up close to the side of Talbot’s face.
He turns his head in my direction, not understanding what I’m trying to do. In what seems like slow motion, I grab the pepper spray from my pocket with my injured arm and with every ounce of strength left, I spray it through the flames towards his empty eyes.
The aerosol can lights up a raging combustion, creating a fireball of power aimed right at Talbot’s face. In an instant, he’s on the ground, immobilized in burning pain.
Darcy comes to his senses after his face has healed. He cradles my injured arm to get me to lower my impromptu weapon, and we make a run for it. We leave Talbot screaming in agony in the middle of the clearing.
I expect him to recover from his healed wounds and pursue us, but there’s no sound of being followed behind us. As we get to the road, Char and Rafe already have a car running as we jump inside and take off at top speed.
We head straight for the sanctuary.
In her hysteria, Char fills the car with question after unanswered question in the aftershock of her kidnapping. Rafe tries to calm her, telling her we will explain everything once we’re safe.
Darcy broods in absolute silence, occasionally giving me his darkest of looks.
I do my best to ignore him as I try to go over in my head what could have happened to Talbot when I sprayed him through the fire. His skin had turned to burnt flesh, and even after Darcy got me to stop spraying, Talbot’s wounds didn’t seem to heal the way that Darcy’s did before we ran away from the clearing.
I look down at the pepper spray, still gripped in my hand.
What did I do?
Chapter 32
When we arrive back at the sanctuary, Char looks around in befuddlement as Uncle Mike welcomes us with tears of joy at our safe arrival. He looks at me sternly in admonishment for my escape, before he gives in and gives me a hug in obvious relief.
Darcy’s not so easy.
In the few times he’s looked at me, he seems to be holding back a temper so dark, he looks away before I even get a chance to fully comprehend it.
For the time being, I let Darcy’s mood go. I finally get to see my sister after what seems like a lifetime has passed. Has it only been just over a week? I’m so relieved to have her here, safe and sound.
Giving Char the biggest hug I can manage with my injured arm, my eyes mist over. We laugh in our embrace and twirl as we check each other over to make sure neither of us is seriously harmed. I’ve been longing to tell her everything that’s been happening, but I realize I don’t even know where to begin on how to explain everything to her.
Seeing my struggles, Uncle Mike takes pity on me. “Leave it for later, my dear. You both look like you need to take it easy,” he whispers. “Raphael,” he says louder, “Why don’t you show Charity where she can get some rest?”
Rafe leads Char to the spare bedroom to recover after the distress from her kidnapping and attempted murder.
Uncle Mike turns back to me, “You too, my dear. Go lie down and relax. I’ll bring in some things to tend to that arm shortly.”
I nod and retreat slowly to the room, half hoping that Darcy will offer his assistance, or at least kiss the hand of my uninjured arm. To my utter disappointment, he doesn’t even look at me.
Once I’m in bed, I’m tossing and turning in pain, unable to relax enough to go to sleep. My mind is occupied trying to figure out how I could have immobilized Talbot.
Soon, there’s a small knock on my door.
Sitting up in anticipation, I call for entry. But I’m crestfallen when Darcy doesn’t walk through the door.
“You’ll have to give him time to calm down, my dear,” Uncle Mike says, knowing all too well who I was hoping to see. He hands me a glass of water and some pain medication. When I gulp that down, he helps set my arm in an adjustable sling.
“He doesn’t have to be so upset. He’s the one who locked me in here. And besides, everything turned out okay,” I argue as if Darcy was in the room listening.
Uncle Mike peers at me over the rim of his glasses. He doesn’t even need to say a word – his look is more than enough.
“Yeah, I know,” I relent, hanging my head.
“I’m told you nearly were drowned,” he says, too quiet.
I can’t stand his disappointment. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have gone. And I know I put myself in danger. But–”
Uncle Mike cuts me off. “Is there really anything you can add to that? If anything had happened to you, all of the progress we’ve made… useless. And knowing the feeling of loss in your own life, you can only imagine how the rest of us would’ve felt losing you. And what about Darcy? He’s waited hundreds of years after the death of his Eleanor, only to watch you die as well? The man has an awful temper, but in this instance, he has every right to be angry.”
A small tear runs down my cheek, displaying my shame.
“But,” Uncle Mike lifts my chin to meet his eyes. “Your courage is admirable. Darcy tells me you stood by him, risking your life to fight by his side. You even were somehow able to im
mobilize Talbot?”
I wipe the moisture from my eyes and shrug. “I’m not sure how. It was only pepper spray. And the fire must’ve helped, I guess…” I trail off. My breathing comes to a halt, and I’m almost dizzy from my thoughts crashing together at once.
“What is it, my dear?” Uncle Mike jumps to alert. “You’ve turned white as a ghost! Are you feeling well?”
“No. Yes, sorry. It’s just… well I hate to sound so corny, but I think a light just went off in my head.” I jump out of bed and snatch the canister of pepper spray from my jacket pocket. I hold up the small cylinder. “Active ingredient: capsaicinoids,” I read out loud.
“Capsaicin if I’m not mistaken, isn’t it?” Uncle Mike asks.
“Yes! That could be it! C’mon!” With my good arm, I pull Uncle Mike into the great room. Darcy and Rafe look up from their huddled conversation.
One look at Darcy, and I lose my nerve. He’s still furious.
“Darcy, I’m sorry,” I start. He looks like he’s about to reply, but I hold up my hand to stop him. “But as sorry as I am, I think I may have come across something pretty important.”
They exchange glances. “What’s up?” asks Rafe.
“I think I know what immobilized Talbot, and I think I know how we can do it again,” I announce.
A look of surprise flickers across Darcy’s face. He sits back and folds his arms, but nods for me to go on.
“It’s the pepper spray! Well, it’s the mixture of the ingredients. There’s a combination here that I overlooked. I didn’t even think about it until I started thinking about how I sprayed it through the fire.”
“You’re kind of all over the place. What exactly do you mean?” asks Rafe.
I hold up the tiny canister. “The spray. It’s active ingredient. Capsaicin. A plant, right Uncle Mike?”
“Yes, completely organic,” he nods and I can see the wheels turning in his head.
“Okay, so an aerosol weapon like this takes a liquid form, and with the help of a solvent, it then works to evaporate the ingredients into the air in the form of a gaseous spray, pushed out with a propellant.” I’ve never sounded more scientific.
“So how does this science lesson teach us to fight Talbot?” asks Darcy.
Uncle Mike steps in, clearly excited. “Do the ingredients contain water, or oil?” he asks.
“This can’s water based,” I smile. Uncle Mike is catching on.
“My word. Don’t you see?” he turns to the guys. “Let’s picture for a moment, the contents of the spray: It’s water based. There is a mixture of an organic fruit of the earth in the capsaicin, which is what causes the burning sensation in the spray. So, we have water, capsaicin, and a solvent that then works to evaporate the ingredients into the air in the form of a gaseous spray. When you combine that with the fire from her torch lighting the propellant, I would say she found a way to combine each of the elements in a weapon to incapacitate the destructor!”
Rafe’s eyes widen. He jumps up to grab the canister form my hands, reading the label himself as if he can’t believe it.
Darcy looks from wall to wall in thought. “The elements, as a weapon?” he asks rhetorically. His words almost give me a chill, like I’m missing something important.
Rafe interrupts my train of thought.
“Do you suppose we can harness weapons against Talbot if we can find a way to combine the elements like that? How do we know it wasn’t a fluke?” he asks.
“We’ll have to test it,” I say with conviction, believing in our temporary solution.
“Well none of us would dream of sending you out on your own with nothing but a can of pepper spray and fire to test your theory out again, now would we?” Darcy say, humiliating me.
I’m mortified, and the excitement of the discovery dies out instantly. “I’m sorry for leaving,” I say, deflated. “I did leave a note.”
At the mention of the note, Darcy’s eyes darken as he begins to pace. After a moment, he pulls me aside in anger, away from the other two. “Do you have any idea what he nearly did to you? If we had arrived seconds later, you would have been gone into the river!” He’s more than angry. He’s speaking with a false calm in his voice, but I can tell his temperature is near boiling.
“Of course I know what he nearly did. My head was under the water, not yours!” I say in rising exasperation. “You should have included me in your plans, I could’ve helped. By trying to demand me to stay, you only made me want to leave more. Not to mention I was scared for my sister’s life!”
Darcy throws his hands up in the air in disgust. “You will never listen!” he shouts.
“Neither will you!” I shout back. “If we are a balanced team, then start acting like it! Darkness cannot overcome the emptiness alone. It has to work together with the light.”
He looks at me sideways. “You are an expert on the Statera now? We have had the book back for one day!”
“And it’s opening up my mind more quickly than ever! Even Talbot said my light is brighter than the others. He knows I can make a difference. We can do it this time, together!”
Darcy stiffens and gives me a look that could almost be hopeful.
“He said that, my dear?” Uncle Mike asks, listening to our exchange.
“Yes, he did. He said that I must be doused this time because my light is brighter than the others, and he meant to drown me. And then he said I had come to know too much this time, but it is nearly too late. He says the ultimate shift is coming now that evil has been cloaked in ignorance, and has been slowly overtaking the world. When he thought he was killing me, he said next time it would be too late, and that he wanted me to remember for the next soul that there would be no hope.”
Darcy’s face transforms to a look of open-mouthed terror at my recollection of Talbot’s words.
I glance to Uncle Mike and Rafe. Their faces share a similar horrific sentiment.
I don’t think any of us realized how close our world is to reaching its destructive end. The damage will be unimaginable once the balance is destroyed.
“But my dear, there is hope! You had a breakthrough! We haven’t told them,” Uncle Mike says, reminding me of my dreams.
The elemental souls.
I’m smacked with a whole new realization.
“That’s it!” I say to Uncle Mike. “That’s our weapon! Don’t you see?” I ask.
Darcy and Rafe stare at me in confusion, but Uncle Mike’s eyes are widening in realization.
“The elements, they’re people. There are souls that carry each element just like Darcy and I carry the dark and light,” I explain. I go on to give my best description of my dreams, and the existence of the elemental souls. “I realize now that we’d misinterpreted the Statera, thinking that the elements that were created to protect the world were just the Earth’s elements in their basic form. We had no idea that there could be matching elemental souls. We’ve used the balance of elements as a protective charm and safeguard. We may have a way to use the combination of elements as weapons against destruction, and now we just need to search for the elemental souls.” When I say the words, I know deep down they’re true. “That will be our ultimate weapon. Our way to defeat the evil of the emptiness.”
“If we can find the four souls, and bring them together with the two of you, we can find a way to defeat the evil in the way the book seems to instruct. It will complete the balance,” Uncle Mike has never sounded more excited.
“But we still have to break the curse,” Darcy says, playing the part of the dark downer.
“Yes, when we find a way to break the curse, then we can restore the balance,” I say, giving him a look that dares him to not have hope. “There are four of us now, five if you count Char, and even more if you include Uncle Mike’s staff. We have resources, we have technology, we have the guardians, we have the Statera, and most importantly, we have each other. Now we just need the elements.”
“Then it seems our journey has just begun,” Dar
cy says, one corner of his mouth turning up as he considers me.
“Together?” I ask, looking into his eyes. For the first time, I search for and crave the charge as if it’s a power uniting us in our mission.
“Till the end,” he says, and the light and the dark begin to restore their balance.
END OF BOOK ONE
Coming Soon
Thank you for reading Reminiscence!
If you enjoyed the story, please stay tuned for book two in the Statera Saga:
Quintessence
The light and dark souls have been re-united. It is now up to the two of them and their team of guardians and helpers to track down the Elemental souls. Finding four people out of seven billion is an overwhelming mission. Only through translating the Statera and Reminiscing of the ancient past, will they unlock the mysteries to locating the elementals, restoring the balance, and filling the emptiness. Can they complete these daunting tasks before the destructor strikes again?
(Continue to next page for bonus content)
Quintessence (Statera Saga: Book Two)
Introduction
Quintessence is a philosophy in which one central power of the oldest components is surrounded by the four elements to aid in the protection of the remaining existence of the celestial bodies. From the beginning of our existence, the composition of our world has been built under the protection of these elements. This protection consists of the perfect balance, and is the only known force that can maintain true harmony and fill the void.
Prologue
1768 - Great Lakes Region
The tribal council stirs in distress. No one is certain of how to handle the prophecy concerning the boy, not even Chief. The elders grasp their smoking clay pipes, desperately hoping for direction to come from the rising wisps.
The women of the village line the longhouse wall, audience to the council. All have tears in their eyes, but only one weeps aloud. The weeping woman’s outstretched arms reach with an empty ache toward her son at the center of attention.