Endeca (The Escapism Series)

© Copyright 2012 Maria Dee.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Endeca is a work of fiction and does not reflect the lives of actual people.

Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO):

Registration Number: 1092919

Date of Registration: January 26, 2012

Cover image provided by vita khorzhevska.

The Escapism Series

Escapism, #1

Endeca, #2

A special thanks to my friend and writer Christina.

Table of Contents

Prologue

She stared idly while a cold vicious breeze struck, whipping her long blond curls across her seemingly docile face. Corlissa’s patience dwindled, evident by the escalating howls and vibrations from the earth beneath us. Her big black crescent shaped eyes flared colossally, emitting electrical grey sparks of fury.

“Xenia, Xenia, Xenia. I’ve grown restless,” she sighed, deeply. Her child-like embodiment eerily shifted, as if adjusting to its form. “It’s time.”

I edged backward unsteadily, grazing my fingers across the cool red brick wall for guidance. “Time for what exactly?”

She edged closer and within a split second, her crescent eyes transformed into a swirl of gray and black once again.

“What are you?” I stuttered, troubled by her very existence. It definitely was the year of strangeness, though I thought the quota had been met.

“You and I…we’re one of a kind, sister,” she whispered, pleased.

“I highly doubt that,” I retorted, nervously looking past her as a diversion. While she looked over her shoulder, I hurried down the alley. My racing heart struggled to keep up with my reckless body midway before I was halted by the wave of Corlissa’s small, yet powerful hand.

  I gasped, frozen in place as she appeared beside me in a flash.

“I’m here to enlighten you. Relax,” she demanded, releasing a soft chuckle. “See? Look for yourself,” she said, offering her tiny, horrid hand.

As soon as our hands met, floods of images illuminated through the darkness between us. I saw disjointed visions of a life foreign to me. Even visions of my infancy, resting in my mother’s quivering embrace—the look in
her
eyes was distinctly fear.

  I released her hand, unsettled.

“How can you do that?” I sighed, rubbing my tingling hand.

“It’s a gift,” she replied, cheekily. “Xenia, you and I’ve both suffered a great loss but great sacrifices don’t come empty handed. Why not reap in the rewards? Our pasts have brought us all together for this very purpose.”

“I wasn’t sacrificed…my mother never sacrificed me,” I hissed, guardedly. “She protected me, shielded me from the E-SOM.” That was the first time I uttered the words ‘s
he protected me.’
Although a big part of me, deep down to my core felt abandoned.  I wasn’t about to shed light on my bruised psyche to her.

“Never said it was your mother,” she hissed back, raising her brow. “Let’s face it, Xenia. We were both sacrificed, each for different reasons. They can temporarily change our path, but they can’t change our destiny.”

If it wasn’t my mother…my Father? That couldn’t be. Marlon wouldn’t harm me but was he even my biological father? Would it even matter at this point if he weren’t? I loved both my parents...the one’s that raised me, tricked me? Maybe even kept things from me? Oh God. Anxiety reared its ugly head and the tachycardia trumped my state of consciousness, fetching me back to the present. My pupils dilated, preparing for yet another attempted skedaddle, but my rational mind warned against it. Corlissa’s unfathomable power reined me back, immobilized and alert.

“You’ve no idea how much power is in the air, I can smell it,” she said, elated. She wrapped her tiny arms around her doll, completely enthralled in the moment. “
Find the window to her fragment and you’ll see what I mean,”
she hummed. I could only imagine what her ghastly eyes were envisioning. Just thinking about it gave me the heebie-jeebies.

I noticed the surge of energy, however thought nothing of it. I attributed it to the full, wacky moon. Corlissa froze in place, sensing something I initially couldn’t. I got the feeling we were no longer alone.

His presence preceded him, but by far more vigor than usual. Nicholas appeared, followed by Orion, Kiran and six other strangers—all of whom appeared disoriented.

  I bit my lower lip nervously, nearly drawing blood.  I uttered, “What the—”

“Hell? No, it’s only
Endeca
Xenia. You see, you’re the missing member that we’ve all been waiting for. The one who’ll bring forth the new age.”

“Me?” I croaked.

“Yes,” said a tall, broad stunning man. He stood bare and bronzed with ash-blond hair and a striking resemblance to someone in particular.

Nicholas nudged Kiran, who unwillingly tossed his jacket over to the naked man.

  He heaved a sigh, exaggeratedly. “
Here
, something to cover that—I mean your business because it’s in the open...
wide
open.”

The stark-naked man held the jacket close to his pelvis after realizing what the fuss was about.

“Keep it—no biggie. It’s only a designer leather jacket, not that anyone here cares,” he scoffed in annoyance. It took Kiran a moment to register his environment and all the others around him once—what I liked to call—the travel fog subsided.
I still had difficulty acclimating to the muddled effect from traveling between worlds. Maybe I’d never get used to it.

“Corlissa?” he whispered, walking toward her in disbelief.

She raised a hand, initiating a halt in Kiran’s path. He stood, frozen and perplexed by her eerie presence. “Not now, brother. We have more important matters at hand,” she snarled, impassively.

Kiran’s eyes reddened and his defeated body followed suit, bowling over ever so slightly.
Without a doubt, the doings of Corlissa’s unwavering, magical hand—at least I wasn’t the only one subjected to her wrath.

The sublime man held the jacket loosely to his body, while intently staring in my direction. “It’s because of you that I am here. You’ve brought me back,” he said heatedly, while black vines branched all throughout his skin, starting with his hands then his forearms. He kneeled before me, slowly lowering his head in what appeared to be a moment of reverence before he craned his neck, displeased.

  In mere seconds, he stirred the air around us sending my conciliated body back into an alarmed state. The rest of the lot unnervingly stood still, gripped by the turn of events.

“Hello,
brother,
” he vehemently hissed. His vine engrossed hand anchored Orion’s neck to the crumbling wall. “It’s been too long…hope you kept out of trouble.”

The Eleven

His godly hand held Orion suspended two feet from the ground before smashing him violently back against the wall. The alarming sound of cracking emanated throughout the alley. A part of me often wondered what it’d be like to break Orion’s neck but, in actuality, it stirred my stomach into a rising molten of acid.

“Edric
please
…release me,” he muffled, catching his breath.

“Release you? I should end you this very instant,” he growled, as Orion squirmed for air.

“Relax, he wouldn’t dare kill you. After all, he needs our bond to be here,” Corlissa explained, likely jogging Edric’s wayward memory.

Edric softened his grip, freeing Orion.

“Wait a minute. You mean to tell me, I…
we
… resurrected
him
?” I said, beguiled.

“
Edric
,” he introduced, formally.

“Isn’t it great? We were able to bring back one of our own. This is just the beginning.”

“
He
isn’t my brother. He’s a poor excuse of fragments pieced back together haphazardly—quite poorly if you ask me,” he sneered, fixing his collar.

Edric growled, offended, “No one asked you.”

“Now boys, save the hostility for a more suited time,” Corlissa said, suddenly distracted. She gasped, before vanishing eerily.

I whispered to Orion, “So much for brotherly love. What else have you lied about?”

“Like I said,
he
isn’t my brother. He can’t be,” he muttered studying Edric—a fuming, stone cold statue of a man in limbo.

“How do you know he isn’t?”

“He doesn’t seem right. Something about him is off,” he whispered, well aware of his brothers burning gaze.

“Give him time. Maybe it’s just how people risen from the dead initially react,” I clarified, surprising myself.

“I suppose,” Orion smirked, raising a brow. He was impressed by my calm and collected behavior in this otherwise reoccurring debacle that was now becoming my life.

Corlissa reappeared, with an energy field surrounding her. I had felt this before—we were being summoned to Styx.

We all transitioned and before I knew it, we stood before queen Nyxta of the middle world. Her long, black wavy hair flowed just above her elbows.  Her enigmatic and all seeing eyes were far more fervent this time around. Her sharp smile edged across her cold, celestial face.

The familiar sweet and dense air nearly swept me off my feet. Fortunately, Nicholas was there to steady me.

“Why are we here?” I asked, dizzily.

“The Queen will anoint us. It’ll serve to bring unity to Endeca but—” he said, straining to finish.

“Nicholas, what is it?”  I asked, sensing his impending doom as though it were my own.

“She won’t be able to anoint us all because one of us isn’t immorta,” Orion whispered, coolly. The corners of his lips twitched.

“B-but that would mean I’d be…
dead
? I don’t think I’m cut out for this group…sorority or whatever it is, I ain’t pledging.”

“Yes, think of it like a sorority. Granted, it’s a little unorthodox but our fraternity is exceptionally exclusive and quite frankly, permanent. You don’t get to choose…you get inducted.”

“He’s right, Xenia,” Nicholas strangely agreed. “Once you’re chosen…”

“And you don’t just become anointed without working for it. A blood sacrifice is needed first,” Orion peered over my shoulder, lingering.

“Oh,” I whispered, somberly.

The queen looked around, feeding her predatory eyes with our energy. She scanned every one of us, drawing on some unknown power from our communal presence. “Xenia, I’m delighted. You’ve returned…and with presents. You’re living up to the prophesy quite well.”

“I think you have an upstanding group of ten Diplos. A nice even number, so maybe I can mosey along. Eleven is a crowd, right? Who here hates crowds?” I sighed, anxiously raising my trembling hand. Everyone stood stagnant, awaiting the Queens response. “Just me, huh?”

Nyxta cracked an ominous smile, unanticipated by all. “Do you really think the life you’ve grown accustom to is the life you were destined to live? Is that what you want? That isn’t what’s in store for you. This is,” she professed, summoning me. “Stand before me,
now
.”

I edged toward her, shaking like a leaf. My life flashed before me and I realized my life was full of love and support.  Visions of my dearest friends Marla and Calliope, my parents and Nicholas filled my source with an invisible warm fluid that emitted a fuzzy tingly sensation throughout my body.
Is this what it all boiled down to right before death? A quick flash back of loved ones and pain suppressing hormones? Then the unthinkable—I fought the sudden urge to laugh.
I never thought in a million years that in my first year of college, I would lose my humanity of all things—something unfathomable. Reality resurfaced after my hysterical bout of laughter, what some might refer to as a mental breakdown. There was no laughable matter before me only my imminent, mortal demise. I pressed my eyelids together and paused cathartically in front of Nyxta, my soon to be maker.

“No!” Nicholas shouted, however frozen in place by the unyielding hand of Nyxta. “Please, my queen. Don’t. She isn’t ready.”

Orion stood unaffected by the situation before us. If not overcome by delirium, I could have sworn he was annoyed by the interruption.
He wanted me to die after I stood up for him. That bastard!

What did Nicholas mean by ‘she isn’t ready’? Nyxta was about to immortalize me even though I wasn’t lacking a fragment. Would I ever be ready to be part dead, or in this case, dead dead?

“My dear Nicholas. You know I have a soft spot when it comes to you and yours. You use it wisely,” she smiled, eerily slithering to her golden throne. “I’ll grant you time—something I’m likely to regret. Xenia, everyone and I mean everyone will suffer the consequences of resurrection. All of which could be avoided should you change your mind. Leave.
Now
.”

“What kind of consequences?”

“You’ll see,” she smiled, sinisterly.

“I’m not knocking the whole immortality-thing, but I want to take a crack at the living-but-still-growing thing first.”

“As you wish.”

With a flash, we returned to the darkened alley. The fiery gaze of a tall, statuesque woman with black hair and orangey-blue eyes cornered me. Her penetrating eyes recoiled once Corlissa and the others reappeared.

“Thank God…I’m still alive,” I nervously confessed.

Cat eyes gawked at me, panting heatedly. “You stupid, stupid girl.  Do you have any idea what’ll happen with an open portal?”

“No, but I’m not ready to die for something I clearly don’t understand.”

“Come on Xenia, let’s get out of here,” Nicholas growled, chastising the others with a callous sideways glance.  It looked as though they were all communicating telepathically.

Corlissa hissed, while seven other grim faces strained with worry, except for freaky cat eyed woman. Her resounding eyes told another story.

“Call me,” Orion bellowed with his back turned.  He waved his noble hand facetiously in the air. I shut my eyes and replayed the sound of his neck breaking in light of his annoying behavior.
Nope. Still nauseating.

When I opened my eyes, Orion gawked at me as though he knew what swept through my rampant mind. My lips twitched into a small grin before I left with Nicholas.

The long, quiet drive home felt relaxing and unsettling at the same time.

Nicholas spoke, breaking the trance like state that had become me.

“Excited to go home?”

“Sure am, but I think I’ll patrol for a while—maybe see what’s lurking about.”

“Want some company?”