by Elle Cross
Creed nodded. “I know, I agree with you. The elders, though, were convinced that if you knew, even a stray thought would have attracted Reapers.” He made me look at him, pressing strength and faith from his metallic eyes into mine. "You have to understand, Soleil. You were the heart of two shifter packs. I know you don't understand what that means, any of it, but it was a tumultuous time for shifters and they made their decision to hide you out of fear and out of seeing their loved ones be killed or experimented on. They wanted a different path for you. They did not make their decision lightly." He held my hand again. “You were loved. The decision that was made for you was done from love.”
“But why? I’m nothing special. Yet you make it sound like I’m some kind of hope or something. Look at me. No talents or gifts. I’m just me.”
He looked me over like I was trying to sell him something and I couldn't be believed. Not really.
"You are special just by existing. You need to believe that."
Sure. I'd believe it. Simply because I was too tired to argue otherwise.
Out of the shadows, Vin and Remy appeared again, followed by one I hadn't met. He sort of materialized next to them as if he'd dropped out of the sky.
The stranger’s thick, rich black hair tumbled over his shoulders, held back by a leather cord. A tattoo that looked like tribal marks curved gracefully up his left cheekbone. He wore tight black jeans that hugged his muscled thighs, his black shirt buttoned as if in after-thought, framing a defined torso.
He tilted his head to the side, looking at me like I was a curiosity. "You don't remember me, do you?"
There was that slight sheen in his eyes, the yellow ring and dilated pupils reminded me of a hawk’s eye. "Were you that bird at my window?"
Suppressed laughter from Creed turned into a cough as this newcomer came closer.
His decadent lips twisted into a roguish smirk. "They call me Osiris, and no. The bird at your window is Hugh. The raven." He spoke with a lush accent that curled around his words.
As if on cue, the huge black bird plummeted from the sky to drop onto his shoulder. He looked normal-sized there, even though he had practically filled my window and had a hard time finding footing when he had visited me.
"Creed and I were agreed that you would benefit from borrowed memories. Since we,” he indicated Creed and himself, “are unable to share because of our restriction, we propose for you to link up with your dad. He was under no proscription against speaking; only his vow to keep you safe kept his secret."
“You both thought this, huh?” I said drily. I didn’t like the idea of decisions being made without me.
“It’s still your choice, ramina. It was merely a proposal. You'd get the view from a source you trust rather than strangers hoping you would magically believe them."
He was oddly specific and knew the way to squeeze every last bit of daughter guilt from my heart. Reggie and Lena Bishop might not have been my biological parents, but they loved me and protected me just as fiercely, maybe more so.
It was good to be reminded of that.
I nodded up to him then. "So, Hugh's got something to do with this, too?"
Osiris swiveled those eyes at me. They looked so familiar somehow. The memory of it was like something scratching against my skull.
"Yes, and he would like to say that he thanks you for using his name and not calling him 'that bird.'"
A marked chill entered the air, alerting me to the sun was dipping lower into the sky. I rose to my feet and nodded back into the church. "Let's go and get this done."
The parishioners didn’t look twice at the random strangers around me. I was actually pretty surprised that no one was saying anything to them when they all greeted me. And then I thought about it and sought confirmation. "Wait. You're not visible to them, are you? None of you are."
Creed said nothing but there was something to the sound he made in the back of his throat that told me that he agreed. How long had they been invisible? And was Hugh able to do some kind of mind tricks—
"Are you back so soon, Sols?" Kirby greeted me as I descended the steps to the basement.
"Yup. I just needed air, is all. I’m good now."
Kirby seemed relieved, but like the others, he didn’t acknowledge the two men pressed around us, one of whom had a raven on his shoulder. "Cool. Ma thought that you'd be mad forever."
I smiled at his boyish features, unmarred by the apocalypse around him. "Forever is a long time out here and I don't got any time for that. None of us do."
Kirby nodded like I'd said something profound and moved on. Since Kirby didn’t make a comment about my company, I had to assume they were still invisible, too. Instead of providing an explanation, Osiris shrugged.
My dad was lying on an old table that had once been used for the classroom. He was comfortable enough on it. In the basement, at least it stayed cool.
“Tell me what you need me to do,” I whispered, like I didn’t want to disturb him.
"You don't have to do anything, Soleil." Osiris gestured to Hugh, who hopped off his shoulder and landed at my dad's side. For some reason, Hugh seemed bigger next to my dad.
Osiris moved to the bedside, standing next to my dad’s feet, and I followed him, sitting down by my dad’s shoulder. Creed lingered at the threshold.
"If it is all right with you,” Osiris said, “I will touch your dad's shoulder, and then you may lay your hand on mine. Touch seems to be the easiest conductor."
I shrugged, willing to go along with whatever. "Sure, whatever would help. I’m game at this point."
Osiris nodded and then a kind of hush seemed to fall into the room.
Osiris
Hugh was being an asshole. I was used to it. But it was nothing compared to the shit storm that was raging inside of Creed.
He carried too much uncertainty and the questions that plagued him would do him no good here, or with Soleil.
~She longs to get this over with.~ Hugh said.
And didn’t I know it. Soleil looked at me with those eyes of hers that blazed with both hidden pride and desire to prove herself. But mostly, she was pissed, a banked anger inside of her the fires of which pulsed around her; I wondered if she was even aware of it. Likely not as she’d been raised with manners, and anger wasn’t really proper. "You will have to touch my hand, it's easier that way."
~I didn't realize that it was so necessary,~ Hugh squawked.
~Shut up, you know it is.~
Hugh made a non-committal sound like he could believe it or not as he chose. I was about to power through and make a connection work regardless, when Soleil slipped that lovely hand of hers onto mine.
"Let's get this done." She said it plainly, with a forthrightness that made me want to live up to her expectations.
Instead of answering, I opened my mind up. With Hugh’s help, the surge of memories that came up from the preacher rushed up into my mind. I opened up the gates that separated my mind from hers. I didn't push, but the tides of memories flowed into her all the same.
Her delicate gasp was her only response.
And then her eyes filled with stars and I knew that she was as trapped in the moment as if she were living the memories herself.
~Hugh, will she be all right?~ I asked.
~She is the rama, of course she will be all right. Just stand guard.~
~We are already out here.~ Creed, Vin, and Remy prowled the corridor in that way they had. All unseen. For them, it was a simple trickery, mercurial shifts in appearance so it was like they wore someone else's skin.
For me, it was a mind game. I slipped in and out of memory like the wind.
~She has accepted what she is seeing.~ Hugh's observation drew me back into the moment.
I laid her hand inside of the preacher's unresponsive one and stood guard over her.
Hugh did the equivalent of a harrumph in my mind. ~So much for needing to touch her for this connection to work properly.~
I just shook my head. What was being done was
done and I didn't need to explain myself to anyone, least of all Hugh.
He was just a little envious of those of us who could touch her. He was surly, but if the situation were reversed and I were trapped inside just one form, I would be a right nasty fucker every damn day.
The fact that Hugh wasn't tearing out eyeballs on the regular made him practically Zen in my book, snarky mouth and all.
~Good of you to notice. Now do what I can't and lead her out of the memory.~
Soleil
This was despair. I didn't know how else to describe it. Blinding white lights and heat and intense discomfort.
And none of it was mine.
I could tell. I knew these weren’t my memories.
"It's all right," a voice called out through the fog. "Just follow my voice and it'll all be all right.
I didn't know why I trusted that voice but it calmed me to hear it. I let go of the pain that wasn't mine and realized that I was in some place that looked painfully white. And I was strapped down to something.
I couldn’t move.
The light overhead was blinding.
"No, ramina,” the voice said. “You're still not out all the way, okay? Just keep going. Don't stop here."
I nodded my head, even though it was hard to do with the head strap in place. There is no head strap in place, Soli. Remember that.
So I did. I exhaled out of my restraints and the scene changed around me. It was like flashes of memories with every exhale.
Running out in the woods.
Feeling something breathing down my neck.
The house in the distance. I yearned for it.
It was as if I were living the memory, but at the same time viewing it all as an observer.
My dad ran and nearly got to the house, but whoever chased him was too close and they wouldn’t be affected by the wards. Quickly, he threw scriptures over his book, tearing a piece of paper from its pages before hiding it for me to find.
Then a blackness fell, as if in one blink he had been in the woods and then in the other blink, he was in a chasm.
Wait, that was wrong. He was in a cave. I could feel the humidity.
Then there was a military-looking compound, almost like a base. It was sterile as if it hadn’t been in use for a long time.
A very long time.
Dad pushed different codes into the keypad as his memories took me on a tour from ground level to an elevator to a control station. Then his memories jumped as he appeared in front of another set of doors that opened to a jungle safari. Odd. He was in a facility that was in the heart of a mountain, and yet there was a room that opened to bright blue skies and green grasses.
There was something I didn't trust about this scenic view, but in my dad's memories, he knew this area was safe and secured. He was waiting for a ride that drove up to him.
A jeep roved over the terrain, carrying a group of men. They wore safari clothes and looked to be prepared to camp for a time.
"You better have news," one of the men said. He had a medium build and height, a compact body, and lips sneering in distaste at my dad.
"You know I wouldn't be here if I didn't," my dad replied.
This didn’t sound like my dad. It sounded like he was one of them.
“Here,” Dad said. “Your sample.”
And then the scene shifted into something else. There was fire in the sky, like a gathering storm. In my mind, the words “The Reckoning” bloomed.
A desperate voice whispered in my ear.
"Something followed you! Go! Run!"
The last thing I remembered were snapping jaws and the hot breath of something at my neck.
I woke up to a weird chiming sound and realized that I was actually waking up in a church. I gasped into myself and looked into a pair of pretty green eyes. Eyes as green as the grasses that were in my memory.
"Osiris?" I blinked, and slowly he and the room came into focus. Belatedly, I felt hands move away from my shoulders. Osiris was in front of me, helping me out of my trance. He had been talking to me and I didn't really remember the words that he spoke, but I felt clear.
"How long was I out?" I asked. My voice even felt far away.
Though I asked the room generally, Creed answered. "Not long, only a few minutes."
The way he said it, though, made it feel like I needed to catch up to something. Like he was hiding something and I probably wouldn't like it.
I looked at him, and though I didn’t know him well, he wasn’t used to concealing his thoughts or lying. Concern and annoyance were written plainly on his face. "Something is happening and you don't want to tell me what it is."
Creed swiveled his gaze at me first, glancing up at Osiris for a second before meeting my gaze again. I just laughed at him. “I’m not psychic, but you’re pretty easy to read.”
He cleared his throat. “That mayor. Gabriel. He’s about to do something. I can feel it.”
My gaze touched on my dad. “I won’t let them take him. Children or not, there’s no guarantees that those AEGIS people will live up to their end of the bargain. And, my dad is the only one who can help these folks, once he wakes up. Likely why they asked for him.”
Something from my dad’s memories flickered in my mind: a familiar passageway. It contained the scent of something that came from here in the basement. Old books, damp air, and must.
Kirby hinted that Dad came here often. In the memories, Dad seemed to be running errands for the compact guy. A lot.
Maybe…there was a reason my dad often visited the church basement. Maybe there was a way that he had either communicated or traveled to that other place that looked like a military installation.
And maybe there was another way into the town. A way that would explain the Long Walks, disappearances, and the recent “attack” when the town’s walls were heavily shielded and warded.
“I found it.” Vin’s voice boomed from a far corner. I followed his voice until I stood with him at a wall, staring at the slab concrete block.
“And what exactly did you find?” I didn’t want to disappoint him, but there didn’t seem to be anything here.
“Watch.” He pushed a block that blended in perfectly and a pneumatic hiss released air around a sealed chamber.
“What. The. Hell.” I bit out. What was something like this doing in a church basement?
Vin nodded, satisfied. “This looks to be something mighty special, right, Boss?”
Instead of answering, Creed opened the door. The long stretch of hallway seemed innocuous enough, albeit extremely white.
The scent…it hit me in the gut. It wasn’t from a memory I’d experienced myself but one I’d borrowed from my dad. This was where I needed to go, what I needed to do. This hallway was a bridge to…somewhere.
I shook my head as if that could keep my thoughts ordered.
Creed walked inside, placing his hand on the wall. It responded to his touch, rippling harmonic frequencies that glowed a prismatic rainbow down the once-white hall. Memories of my old myths, about rainbow bridges between mortal and godly realms tickled my memories.
Creed sniffed at the air and turned toward me again. “Seems safe enough. For now. Are you sure you want to go?”
I shrugged, imitating Kirby. “It’s the apocalypse. What else do we have to do other than save the world?”
We came out of the hallway and entered into a huge bunker. It looked like we were in a giant cave, except this cave was lined with steel girders and housed a stadium-sized parking garage.
Row after row of cars were parked here. And in the distance, there were freight trucks and even a few Humvees. Where did this place get the gas to power any of these old vehicles?
I stayed close to Osiris. He would be able to make me part of his mind tricks if we encountered anyone here. This was only supposed to be a recon mission, but damn did I want to find the smug bastard from my dad’s memories and punch him.
Osiris touched my arm, drawing my attention. He couldn’t
speak into my mind, but his look said it all. We don’t have the resources to wage war and win now.
I nodded grudgingly. Of course I believed him.
If we could remain invisible long enough to find where they kept prisoners, it would be ideal. Worst-case scenario would be to break the door so that passageway would no longer connect to the church, but I wanted to avoid that if at all possible. I had to make sure that the abduction wasn’t a bluff or a bait. I didn’t want to be the person who knowingly abandoned children to monstrous people.
I walked the paths of my dad’s memories and they led me to a special elevator. This elevator would take me to the control tower. That seemed the place to go. Maybe there would be computers there or some kind of database to look up information.
I felt my mind expand and make room for the knowledge that I gained from my dad. Passcodes for one. I pressed numbers into a keypad and the cage door for the elevator opened. We squeezed inside and I repeated that passcode again for the keypad inside the elevator.
It moved up.
So far, this was easier than expected and I was glad for it. I hoped that we wouldn’t see anyone at all.
No such luck.
The elevator doors opened, revealing the man from my dad’s memories. Behind him stood men in armor, guns drawn.
He smiled, a cold expression that didn’t touch his eyes. From the depths of my borrowed memories a barrage of information came forward, triggered just by that smile. Including his name. Dr. Guerin.
“Hello, Soleil. I have been waiting for you.”
Just the way he said it made my skin crawl. Before I could even blink, electricity surged inside the elevator, coursing over my body. My muscles seized and I lurched forward and slammed heavily to the ground.
Soleil
The creaking metal of the hinge above me pierced into my subconscious. I was in a suspended cage, dangling in darkness. Growling sounds echoed around me so that I didn’t know where any of it was coming from. I didn’t know where Dr. Guerin had taken the others, but it couldn’t have been any place good.