Dance of Life
The Belief Chronicles: Book One
Tatiana Beller
Gaia’s Flame Publications
Asheville, NC
Copyright 2020
Gaia’s Flame Publications
Asheville, NC 28804
This book is an original publication of Gaia’s Flame Publications.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Tatiana Beller
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic
form without permission.
I would like to thank my mother for putting up with my writing and always being the first one to read each new book, and to my son for being so supportive of his mother’s career as a filmmaker and writer.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Chapter 1
EB26392
Journal 1
The dark street stretched out endlessly ahead of her. This was personal. It was unjust and cruel, everything she had despised. How did someone like her end up here? Living in a hole in this city, trying to forget something that she could not ignore. Self-loathing filled every inch of her soul. Basically homeless, hiding in plain sight, she worked hard to forget who she had become: a criminal and a murderer.
Los Angeles. The city of dreams. And nightmares. Her old military jacket kept out the chill, but could not erase the darkness filling her. She pushed her hand against the brick wall, feeling the skin peeling from her knuckles. The pain felt good. She briefly wondered if she was leaving a trail of blood. She was marking this city with her DNA. One more stain amid starvation and excess, the two unlikely bedfellows were inhabiting the marshlands between the Angeles National Forest and the ocean.
She had to separate her hand from the wall to avoid another homeless man sleeping on the street. Once upon a time, she had loved this city. It was the place where she believed she could become everything she desired. Her art had a place in the midst of movement and excitement. She dreamt of the galleries on Melrose and even worked at a couple. Dressed in her perfect dress, with her perfect heels, she had stood welcoming the elite dreaming that one day they would be buying her creations.
It was then she met him. He was handsome, gentle, and kind. Dating was out of the question. She had kept away from men for many years. The tragedy was a part of her youth. She had fallen in love once, and it had gone so terribly, she decided to stay away from relationships. Then he walked into her life. There was no lighting, no love at first sight, no instant passion. She would have known to run away if that was the case.
He became her friend. He wanted more, and she knew she had to keep him away. He became more. It was so slow, so gradual, she was emotionally entangled before she could run. She wanted him. She desperately needed to be normal. Then came the fateful night.
She wore the cutest red dress. They promised to meet at a bar. She wasn’t a fan of bars, but it was the place to be. At the time, it mattered to her. The dress had cost her half a month’s wages. It mattered too. Her shoes were uncomfortable, but her mother always said beauty was pain. It was part of being a woman. She was gorgeous, and she knew it.
When she walked into the bar, every face turned in her direction. It made her feel important somehow. She saw him sitting at the bar waiting for her. When he turned towards her and saw her, the look he gave her made her want to run. It was love. Maybe if she had run at the moment, things would have been different. It was too late for both of them.
“Emily,” he said as he stood up.
"Hey," she replied, feeling suddenly shy.
He led her toward the bar. They talked about everything and nothing: work, art, movies, music. It was the type of conversation two people have when they have been together long enough that the conversation doesn’t matter.
At some point, he had said, “Please dance with me.”
She thought about stopping him. Emily convinced herself she was not cursed. She talked herself into believing her own normalcy and danced. She felt him near her and was happier than she could remember. Her life was perfect. She had a great job, a great boyfriend, a great apartment, and really great clothes. As if that even mattered. Maybe it was how superficial it all was, it helped her forget who she was. She was Los Angeles. Beautiful, perfect, shiny, shallow, and hiding a darkness that she denied as a matter of survival.
Tom was his name. She felt she should say it aloud several times a day, so she would never forget. Tom Jasper. Simple name. She even let herself dream. Emily Brown could become Emily Jasper. Mrs. Jasper. A house, a family. Babies, anniversaries. Graduations, weddings. All of them were fantasies.
When he walked into her apartment several hours later, she did not slam the door in his face. She thought about it, but she believed the fantasy. When he had kissed her, she only thought of his perfect lips. When he began to undress her, she did not think beyond the perfection of his hands. When his hand began to wander, she stopped him. It was the only sensible moment that night.
He was a gentleman. He had stopped.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said.
“It is not that I don’t want to, but what if it happens again?” Emily asked.
“It was a freak accident,” he answered.
“What if it wasn’t? What if I am cursed?” She asked again.
He gently kissed her. He held her in his arms. He was the best friend she needed. And at that moment, she stopped trusting herself. She handed him her own judgment. She wanted the fantasy that came with his beautiful blue eyes. She needed to believe his fantasy.
"I know you are scared. I promise you it will be fine. Curses don't exist, and magic doesn't exist. No science proves you to be who you think you are. I promise you will be fine." He said with such determination, with such self-assurance that Emily believed him.
“I can’t live without you,” she said quietly. “I am scared.”
“Trust me,” he said.
The next hour was burned into her with the same force as a branded tattoo. She trusted. The worst mistake she could have possibly made.
She pressed her hand harder into the brick wall. She could feel the pain, but the sensations of that night overpowered the pain. Two years had gone by since that night, but the feelings overwhelmed her. The perfection of each kiss. The feel of his skin against her. Then the fire, the intensity, the glorious burning in every part of her soul. She felt she touched the universe itself. She could feel everything that she was and everything she had been. A thousand faces filled her vision, but one face overpowered all others. It was the demon. Beautiful and dangerous. Tom was forgotten. Everything was forgotten. The only thing left was darkness surrounding the flames consuming her.
She was pushed out of the moment by Tom’s screams. It was those screams tha
t kept her awake at night for two years. She was burning, and he was burning with her. The skin melted away, the bone burnt into ashes, and then he was gone. Only ash remained where he had been. Tom was gone. She was untouched, undamaged, perfect.
She sat a long time on that couch covered in soot. Her red dress burnt beyond recognition. Eventually, she stood up, stumbling out of the room. She found some of Tom's clothes. An old pair of sweatpants. A shirt. And the jacket. A military jacket. Why he owned it, she didn't know. She felt betrayed. Betrayed by her body. She felt only hatred, loathing, and repulsion at herself. She could smell him on the clothes, and she hated even more.
She returned to her apartment that night, grabbed what she could, and disappeared. Everything she was, died that night with Tom.
She hadn't left the city, just her life. Her designer clothes were replaced with the second hand from a local charity and then spent several months in a homeless shelter under an assumed name. She gave up trying to work. She gave up trying to live. Some days she would sleep on the hard concrete on a sidewalk. Oddly enough, she felt safe. Emily knew she was a murderer. She knew she was more dangerous than any other person walking the streets, and kept a knife with her in case someone misbehaved, but she was always aware. She protected them from her, and not the other way around.
Eventually, she had found her little corner in the abandoned warehouse, only a few blocks from that bar. In that place, hidden from the world, forgotten by the lost souls surrounding her, she found some solace. She would find bits of paper, pencils, colors. In the darkness of the warehouse, she returned to the thousand faces she saw the night Tom died. The demon was a part of everything. He called out to her, and he hated him. He represented everything she despised about herself.
Between begging and selling a few drawings of people, she survived.
TJ56823
Journal 1
Two years passed since his brother's death. Tristan had been in an elegant apartment downtown Los Angeles practicing his favorite sport, seduction when he got the phone call. He loved seducing women in such a way they consented to his very dark soul. That night was no different. He couldn't even remember the name of the girl. She must have been in her early twenties. There was money in her family, and her parents had bought the apartment. He liked money almost as much as he loved the power in the seduction. He finished what he wanted to do and left. He knew she would never talk. They never did. The shame of agreeing to his little fetishes kept them quiet. The women would have never approached him if they didn't have their own darkness. As he closed the door, he heard the soft sobbing. It made him feel powerful. He had gotten carried away a bit, but how was he supposed to react to the phone call. His parents should have never interrupted.
When Tristan arrived at his brother's apartment, his mother was in hysterics. His father had arrived at the scene with his newest fling. Tristan looked the woman over as if she was a specimen in a petri dish. His father met his gaze with a threatening expression. Tristan smiled. As he stepped into the living room, Tristan smelled the burnt flesh. He knew the smell, but would never admit it to anyone. He took particular joy in pain, usually not his own. When he saw the crime scene, he immediately knew a woman was responsible.
The dress lay in the middle of the floor. Tom's clothes were burnt beyond recognition. There was nothing left of Tom, but the ashes spread across the couch. Rage filled him. It filled every sense and took over his every thought. He knew he needed to destroy whoever had done this to Tom. His mother cried. His father dug himself in his drink and his ladies. Tom was the good one. If there was any justice in the world, Tom should live. Not that Tristan felt he should die. It would be ridiculous. Still, the rage surprised Tristan. It almost felt like love. Maybe that was it. Tom was the one person Tristan respected. He was definitely his only friend. Tristan knew he would never rest until he found the woman responsible.
The police did their thing and concluded that a short had caused the fire. They assumed two people died. There was DNA from two different people. One was Tom's, and the other was the mystery woman. Tom mentioned he was seeing someone, but he was smart enough never to introduce her to either their parents or Tristan. They collected as much of the ashes as they could and buried them. Tristan thought it was the stupidest idea anyone could possibly have.
It made his mother happy. She talked to the stone and brought flowers to the gravesite. Tristan was present at the funeral feeling repulsed by his family. He looked at the writing on the headstone, Tom Jasper. It felt a little too close to his own name. He never went back. The rage pestered and affected every aspect of his life. His fetishes became more destructive. Every woman represented the destruction of his brother. Every intimate moment was an opportunity to replay his brother's last moments, and know without a doubt, he would not end up with the same fate.
It was soon after when he got his first phone call from a possible client. The meeting was odd. The man sent Tristan a location and a list of things he needed. The place was in the middle of nowhere, but the cash deposited into his account was very real. The client's name was Geoffrey Eddington Smythe. It was a ridiculous name. When he met the man in the desert, he fulfilled Tristan's expectations. He was odd. The man was formal, uncommunicative, and totally uninterested in Tristan.
The relationship suited Tristan. Every few weeks, he got a text with a list or a package in the mail. He delivered to Geoffrey in the desert, and money appeared in his account. It made Tristan's tastes possible. Geoffrey never complained and never stopped using his services. The last text was extreme, even for Geoffrey. Tristan delivered chickens, solar panels, some food items, and some clothes.
Tristan looked at his phone, and he saw a photo.
The text below said, “Bring her to me.”
Tristan wanted to refuse. Not as a moral attitude, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself. A woman who disappeared was a problem. The women in his life were chosen because they would never speak, but this was different. The first text was followed by a second text, defining the was the amount. Tristan didn't think about it again. He knew how to seduce women and get them to do what he wanted. This would be no different. When it was time, she would go with him voluntarily. First, he had to find her.
Chapter 2
TJ56823
Journal 1
It took Tristan a few weeks to finally spot her. The information given to him was minimal. He knew her name. Emily Brown. Not much of a name, but at least it was a place to start. The research didn’t get him anywhere. She did not have an address. There was an address, but it was three years old. No one at the address had seen her or heard of her. She studied art and graduated from UCLA ten years before, and he was a little younger than Tristan. Tristan had just turned thirty-five. She was not a Los Angeles native. The school records found came from a small town in the middle of nowhere.
She didn’t seem like she was in any way remarkable to Tristan. Who was he to judge? Every man had his own taste. After all, his tastes ran weird. He couldn’t imagine that a nut-like Geoffrey would have typical tastes in that area. He hadn’t found a photo, which made the search even more complicated.
The first big break came from a homeless shelter. The shelter had an Emily Johnson registered about the same time as Emily Brown left the apartment. He guessed it was the same woman. Both utterly dull names. It was as if she was trying to disappear. This time he asked for a description. A beautiful woman with some somewhat quirky interests gave Tristan a copy of the whole file. He finally had a photo of her.
He looked at the photo for a long time, and Emily was typical. Her blond hair curled around her face. She was cute, but nothing particularly original. In a city like Los Angeles, where half the women looked like supermodels, Emily Brown looked plain. She was homeless. Tristan wondered what happened to put her on the streets. It was that kind of city. Tristan was resourceful. He knew how to survive under difficult circumstances. Maybe Emily did not have the same type of resources. The file said no
thing about her parents. Most people in a desperate situation would return to Mom and Dad. She didn’t do that. Emily decided to face the streets.
Tristan walked the town asking homeless people if they knew Emily. It took another week to finally find her. A man downtown knew her as someone who slept in an abandoned warehouse. He began staking the warehouse. Within a day, he spotted her walking out in the evening. She was exactly what he expected her to be. She was wearing an old army jacket and torn shorts. Her hair was longer. He followed her from a distance to see where she went.
She arrived at a bar and stood outside for a long time. She turned around and returned back to the warehouse. The next day she got on the metro and headed towards the beach. She sold a few pieces of art at the beach, bought some food and returned to the warehouse. At night, she did the same thing. She stepped out and walked over to the bar. She stood across the street, looking at people walking in and out. Then Emily turned around and went home.
There was only one thing that Tristan could do. He went to talk to the doorman at the bar. For a hundred dollars, the man became Tristan’s friend. His name was Chris, and he was a recent arrival from Europe. He watched Emily arrive across the street every evening, think about entering, and then leave again. Chris wondered if she would ever try to come inside since it looked like she was casing the joint. For a bit more money, Chris agreed to call him when he saw Emily again. Even more important, Chris decided to gently coax Emily into the bar with the promise of free food.
Dance of Life: The Belief Chronicles: Book One (Chronicles of a Planet's End) Page 1