Nemesis: Book Six (23 page)

She walked across the room almost in a daze; her mind tried to grasp the decision she needed to make here. She knew what she told her mother, knew what her mother told her as well, but her mother was gone and Morena still here with a few minutes to make a decision.

"Don't, Morena," Briten said as she reached him.

Morena's aura went to work cutting through the tapes and rope binding her husband to the chair. She knelt as it did, sitting on the floor before him.

"I've never told you what to do. I've never asked you anything on my behalf, not when it comes to your rule. I'm asking now, though. Don't do what you're considering."

She looked up at him, his red eyes staring back at her, viewing her from a body that he was never meant to inhabit.

"Why? Why do I give it to him? Is he a Var? He is not even female."

"You sound like my father," he said, smiling. "Why not have it all, even now? Even after The Makers have given you their directive. Morena, I love you with everything I have, but your ambition outstrips your grasp. What do you think will happen if you kill him in there? Do you think The Makers will stand by and let you continue on? Do you think you can defeat even them?"

Morena laid her head on his lap. "And what would you have me do? With my children? Myself, when you leave me? I can't save you, Briten. I'll be alone, with no planet, and nowhere to go."

Briten pulled her head up.

"Take me to the end, Morena. Walk me into the afterlife. Then trust The Makers as you have your whole life; your species will continue, and not the one's out there. Your children yes, but Bynimian's?"

"I can't do that," she said, understanding what he meant.

"They'll follow you anywhere, Morena."

* * *

W
ren didn't move
from the wall even as Morena walked across the foyer and into the living room. He stared at the being on the floor, the one who couldn't stop staring at itself. He heard Morena's words, heard her call him
Michael
and speak about it being
their
son.

Even Bryan’s words didn't turn his eyes, though.

He stepped away from the wall and moved toward the creature on the floor. It looked up at him and for the first time Wren saw its eyes. They were different than the other aliens he'd seen so far, not like the green one or the one inside Michael's body. Both of those two had eyes full of color, nothing resembling humans at all. This creature, though; the eyes were his son's. Brown, and with a kindness to them. Wren saw that kindness in Michael's eyes as early as two years old. They always seemed to say that they might not understand what you're going through right now, but they could if you would only give them a chance.

"Michael?" he said, not believing the word even as he spoke it.

The creature didn't rise from the floor, only remained sitting, staring up at him, as if unable to fathom anything happening around him—the same as Wren.

"No …," he said, stepping forward again, moving across the foyer from where Morena slammed him against the wall to where this thing lay on the floor. He stood above it, able to see into its soul, looking straight through those brown eyes and into the same person he had known for so long, but perhaps hadn't truly seen in the past decade. One couldn't see into another's soul when looking through a liquor bottle.

Wren looked at his son.

Michael rose, but not like he had so many other times before in life. He didn't use his hands or legs to get to his feet, but rather the swirling colors around him, as they pushed him up from the floor. Wren looked up, having to tilt his chin to keep looking in those eyes, because this creature—his son—towered above him. Long, beautiful arms draped along each side of him, and his legs rippled with perfect musculature. Wren saw those out of his peripheral vision, though, because he couldn't take his eyes from his son's.

"It's not you. It can't be."

Beautiful in a way that Wren never thought of Morena—fear and hatred filled him too much to allow him to admire that other creature. But this one, staring back with those brown eyes Wren helped create, looked like God himself shone glory down upon him. The colors swirled, mixing with each other like old lovers, knowing the curves and smiles of one another, feeling completely comfortable with each movement. His body showed no distress, like some epic athlete, completely comfortable in its own flesh.

The boy that once held those eyes was gone, somehow, and replaced with something not of man, but of perfection.

"Dad," Michael said.

* * *

T
he world
around Michael was less than half of what he focused his mind on. It took much less concentration than it had even a few days ago; the colors surrounding him seemed to take care of what reality sent toward him, including his father's words. Michael heard them with his ears, but with each passing second, he found himself relying on the colors (my
aura
) to translate what the world gave to him. The aura seemed to take the words his father spoke and analyze them instantaneously, applying context, tone, and any number of other attributes to bring a much richer meaning to the short sentences.

His father was terrified.

And yet, so much more went through Michael's mind than what his father said.

He didn't download anything like some sort of computer.

More like, when he arrived in this body, he found himself in a fantastic jungle, filled with plants and animals that didn't exist on Earth. The jungle appeared endless, and nothing inside it would harm him, but he needed to explore it, to understand his new surroundings.

The jungle was full of history, intelligence that no one on Earth could comprehend. Indeed, twenty minutes prior and Michael wouldn't have recognized a single thing he now saw in this jungle. In this body, though, the formulas and historical lessons flowed through him as naturally as water through fish gills.

"No," his father said again, unable to truly face what stood before him.

Michael turned his head to the living room, feeling the confusion moving out from it. He saw Morena on her knees looking up at his old body, her lover.

His aura told him what she struggled with, having remembered the words spoken between the two of them in a way that his brain never could before. She wanted to kill him, despite everything that happened. She wanted to continue building her world out here, on Earth.

The creature that lived in this body before, Morena's mother, was dead. Helos. Yet her memories lived in the jungle the same as the rest of Bynimian's history. He saw what she saw, the huge dark globe, yet still filled with circling white. He saw Morena traveling from world to world, populating. He saw Helos' mission. When she died, she thought that mission was completed. That her daughter would pass the torch she held to this body; Helos had no other options, but only to hope that Michael would see the world as she had. Forgiving his father wasn't the key as she said inside Bryan’s mind, but it could show what Michael was capable of. Indeed, Michael inside this body was a hail mary pass from a creature that couldn't kill her own daughter, but was sent to end Morena's reign.

She could kill Michael now, if she wanted. Not forever, though. Soon, his power would surpass hers, though he didn't fully understand why yet. The mixture of that void and every other aura he contacted was creating something greater than Morena.

That time was in the future, though. If she turned around and launched at him, he would die.

More than that, he felt the creatures outside, her children, moving toward him. Climbing the steps and walking across the porch, making their way inside the house. Morena might understand what he was, but did they? His aura made him think not, that somehow the creature they thought they killed had been reborn.

They wouldn't attack, though.

Not until their mother gave them approval. Then Michael would die.

"Morena," he said, calling across the room. The alien who started this all turned from her lover and looked at him.

* * *

S
he stood
, releasing her hold on Briten. He didn't try to keep her, didn't even stand to follow. Morena knew he had said all that he would, and the choice rested with her.

She took in the creature.

The alien?

Perhaps, because he wasn't a Bynum. Not fully. No Bynum to ever exist looked like him, his aura one but also three .

Soon she wouldn't be able to attack him. Soon, perhaps her and the army flowing into the house might not even be able to hurt him. She didn't know how long, but certainly not days. Perhaps not even hours. Maybe in thirty minutes the thing she saw right now would be able to wipe them all out with a simple sweep of his aura.

Morena had thirty minutes, though.

* * *

K
enneth Marks woke
. He didn't move, nothing besides his eyes as he glanced around the room. A new creature was to his right, and he saw Morena ahead of him, in the living room with her husband.

Good.

He started recalling the moments leading up to his black out, his mind replaying them like a recording.

She knew she didn’t need him. Not good. But that didn't mean he had no other cards to play; and already his mind raced to find the next best choice.

He watched for a few more seconds, letting his brain do its work, and then he had it. He understood what would make her change him. It had always been so simple. A smile came across his bruised face as he realized how silly he had been to miss the solution for so long. She wouldn’t be able to say no. Not to this.

Kenneth Marks put his hands underneath him and slowly pushed himself up, the smile not fading one bit. He had reached the apex of this life, and his next one would be much better, because ascension was moments away.

He reached his feet and started walking forward, not glancing at Rigley lying dead next to him or Knox or the new creature. None of them mattered. Only the beautiful, green bitch in front of him.

She must have heard him, because she turned, too, first looking past him—at something behind him—and then focusing on his eyes. Which was the way it should be. Perhaps she thought something important lay behind him, but she saw now that he was all that mattered.