Sable Book 1 of Chaos Time (Chaos Time Series) (8 page)

“What?”

“Don’t get all scientifical again.”

He crossed his heart. “Boy scout’s honor.” Hunter sat on grass that was thick as a plush woolen rug. “We fought together, you and I, what seems like a million lifetimes ago.”

It was still shocking to hear. She was Sable Ray, a seventeen-year-old misfit, tucked away in a mental institution, told that up was up and down was down and like a trained monkey she believed. Then here comes Hunter dishing out chaos and telling her things that were frightening and bizarre and she wouldn’t believe him at all—except she’d shifted into a freaking bird of all things, and could kill people with her voice and parts of the country were vanishing—and how couldn’t she believe?

This was an existential nightmare and how the hell did she suddenly know big words like that or what they meant?

There was something foreign inside her—a duality becoming more and more invasive. One part of her felt like a typical teenager, with typical dreams and the other saw stars and galaxies, birth and death and rebirth. And that part was growing more aware with every passing second. Ancient intelligence that saw and knew impossible things, it was hard to doubt the validity of his claims when a part of her already knew. Though every fiber of her teenage being was desperate to deny it.

“You and me and Syn and Slayde. All three of you were amazing fighters. You especially.”

“It’s so weird hearing you say this stuff.”

A corner of his mouth pulled up. “Sable, I wish I had the time to tell you everything in every single little detail, but we don’t have that kind of time.”

“But I thought you were the master Jedi time hopper,” she said and frowned when she realized that she’d actually teased him. It was too easy to do that with him. She wasn’t like this. She hadn’t spoken so much in years and now suddenly here she was with a perfect stranger feeling like she wanted to laugh or cry or do both at the same time.

She clenched her molars until they ached.

He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s funny.”

“I try,” she said sarcastically.

“No. I can hop time, but so can he.”

She opened her mouth to ask just who
he
was, but he held up his hand, effectively shushing her.

“I know what you’re gonna ask.
He
is Dragden.”

Her spine stiffened as she suddenly remembered her dream.

Obviously observant, his eyes narrowed. “You know that name already, don’t you?”

Sick with a sudden overwhelming need to vomit, she nodded. But just as quickly as the fear had assailed it began to dissipate. Like the tree knew her emotions and gave her comfort when she needed it most. “I’ve dreamed of him. He’s a terrible, vicious monster. He’s real?”

He plucked a stem of grass and played with the blade. “I’m not surprised to hear that. Though you’ve died in my lifetime, a phoenix is a being of complex tales and riddles. Your looks change from one incarnation to another, but intrinsically you’re always the same. Timeless. Ancient. Very powerful. You can’t die. Not really. Always reborn in one fashion or another, and from what you told me before, you share her visions in each lifetime. You’re basically eternal.”

“So how many phoenixes’ are there?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“You’re it,” he said with a tight curve of his lip.

“This is so weird.” She frowned, was she immortal? The though sent a chill down her spine. This was almost too much. First time travel. Then the Earth devouring itself. And now eternal life. She hadn’t signed up for this shit. “So how old am I?” she couldn’t help but ask.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. How old are you?” His blue eyes gleamed.

“You know what I mean.”

“Are you immortal like me? No. Not in the same way.”

“Wait. You’re immortal?”

A hazy purple veil cocooned the forest as the moon crested the starlit sky. But even in the dark, she saw everything. The shades were different, slightly darker and richer in hue. But she had no problem seeing any of it. Which was amazing to her, she’d always stubbed her toe on the corner of her metal frame in Fairfield when her light bulbs would die. Her night vision had been garbage. But not anymore.

He didn’t seem happy when he said, “yeah.”

She had a past, so did he. Wasn’t her place to pry. So she switched subjects. “So Dragden?”

“Right.” He shook himself, as if snapping out of a trance. “Last time we fought him, we failed.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, obviously still agitated by it.

“So what makes you think we can get it right this time?”

His jaw set with grim determination and his look brooked no argument when he said, “because we don’t have a choice. You saw what he did, the end result of his unchecked madness. Everyone’s gone. I can’t have that.”

Not that she didn’t care. Because obviously she was involved in that everyone category but... “Why me? What could I do for you?”

Shadow crossed his face and he glanced down at his feet. “Your memories.”

But there was more, he’d looked down, but not quick enough, because she’d read the truth in his eyes. He’d shoved up a wall, threw closed a gate and padlocked it for safe measure. There was a secret just out of reach, something he was being careful to keep hidden from her.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He bit his lip. “I play a very dangerous game, Sable. Time hopping is no joke. With one wrong word, one wrong move I can literally change everything. Undo it all. I can’t run that risk. I can only tell you so much and hope, pray,” his look searched hers pleadingly, “that you will trust me. That you will help us.”

“Help us what?”

“Overthrow Dragden.”

“How?” Her impatience flared. She’d never liked feeling clueless and this conversation wasn’t helping matters. She knew he wanted to move things along, but really who could blame her reluctance? Life was supposed to follow a certain set of rules. You’re born, you live, and then you die. End of story. This...this wasn’t part of the plan.

“There’re hot spots in time. Places where power runs deeper than any ocean trench. Places where if tapped can increase your power to exponential levels. God like, even. Those places must be destroyed.”

“If you know all that, shouldn’t it be a simple matter for you to get in, take care of it and walk out? I mean you’ve got mad ninja skills. Use ‘em.”

“You’ve been locked up in a ward for how long?” He chuckled. “How is your modern slang so good?”

Shrugging with a bitter twist to her lips, she said, “The institute doped us up with pills until we became zombies then parked our asses in front of the TV. There wasn’t much else to do there other than watch too much crappy reality TV. But,” she waved her hand because she didn’t want to talk about Fairfield anymore, that was in her past and that’s where it would remain, “why aren’t you using that time jumping thing to just take them out?”

His sigh was bitter with regret. “I wish I could. But these places are guarded by Lord’s.”

She lifted a brow, waiting for further explaination.

“Zealot’s, Dragden worshippers and fanatics. Corrupt creations that have powers beyond one man’s abilities. We’d all need to fight as one to bring them down and then once we do, we’d have to locate the power source, which from what I’ve learned are not easy to destroy.”

She sat with her back against the tree, needing the contact and rubbed her brow. “So why didn’t we win the first time? It doesn’t sound all that complicated.”

He tipped his head up, studying the canopy of sky. “I didn’t know about the sources then. We tried to fight Dragden head on, obviously a mistake.”

“How did you find out about the sources?”

He looked at her, his mouth set in a straight line. “You. You told me, right before you died.”

Again she had the nagging feeling that he was keeping stuff from her. What was he hiding? She squeezed her eyes shut, pointless to ask him she knew, he wouldn’t tell her.

“Don’t you think he’ll know what we’re doing? He’ll come for us. If he’s as powerful as you say it’s probably gonna go down the same way.”

Taking a deep breath, he scrubbed a hand down his face. Utter exhaustion draped him like a cloak. “That’s why I need to do this as quickly as possible. There’re seven sources of power, you told me that as long as we were able to destroy half of them he’d be unable to succeed. My hope is we destroy at least two of them before he’s tipped off.”

“That sounds a lot like poking a sleeping dragon.”

His nostrils flared, and when he squeezed his hands into fists, she could have sworn she heard the knuckles crack. “I don’t have a choice!” he snapped, anger vibrated off him like a tuning rod.

Hunter, who up until this point had appeared like an easy going guy, was now snarling. His face stretched into a terrifying visage of madness and cruel intentions. And was that fangs she’d just seen? His was sucking in air like a bellow and maybe it was her fear distorting reality, but he seemed to be expanding, growing, right before her eyes.

Sable leaned as far into her tree as possible. He looked at her and must have noticed her large as saucer eyes, because he glanced off to the right and wouldn’t look at her again until his ragged breathing was under control.

When he did, he appeared as nothing other than a sexy, tall and nicely muscled guy, but she now knew it to be a mirage. There was a beast that lived inside him too.

“I’m sorry you saw that.” He was nervous, shifty. His eyes moving randomly around, out at the trees, then back at her, again and again. “I swear to you, Sable. I won’t fail this time. But I can’t do this without you.”

She licked her lips and for the first time she felt a true kinship with him. He grappled with demons too, who was she to cast a stone? “What about the others?”

Relief washed him and he smiled. “Does that mean you’ll come with me?”

“If my dreams are realities of time’s approaching, then it’s a future I don’t want. Do I completely believe? No,” she shook her head, “honestly this is almost too much for me. But if what you say is true. Then we have to stop him. But what about the others? Don’t we need them too?”

His eyes closed for a brief pause and when he opened them they shone with hope. Faint, but sure. “We’ll find them. Get rest now. I’ll return for you in the morning.” He stood.

“You’re leaving?” She got up, dusting off her damp pants.

“I don’t do trees.” He looked up at the fire oak. “My body prefers a thick mattress. But I’ll come back.”

She looked over her shoulder. Much as she loved her tree, she really had no desire to crawl up on a branch to catch some sleep. “Shouldn’t I come with you?”

“I forget sometimes that this is all new to you. Turn into your bird, call the fire to you and the rest will take care of itself.”

She rocked back on her heels. Suddenly anxious and nerve riddled. “How? Are you gonna stab me again?” She shook her head as she tried to backpedal, but of course she couldn’t because of the giant tree in the way.

“The shift is instinct guided now, Sable. That was the catalyst to release your spirit. All you have to do is will it.”

She stared at her tree long after he’d left. He’d said that instinct would guide her. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to find her calm center. At first, it was nothing but chaos. A thought on top of a thought, chasing one after the other like a dog chasing its tail.

A wave of calm reached out to her. There was warmth and peace. It surrounded her, filled her. Like a ripple in a placid pool she saw a golden dot of light open up in her mind’s eye, until she was bathed in it.

Heat crawled over her. Slow at first, then moved in a quick burn down her veins, through her blood, until it escaped her pores and she erupted in flame. She stared at her arms. The fire was amber on top, sparking and spitting, but along her arms it was the deep blue of intense heat. She laughed. Flames shot out her mouth. Her hair crackled and snapped around her face like medusa’s snakes.

It didn’t hurt this time, and with that thought came a wave of relief.

Her tree shivered, becoming shrouded in a dense heat wave. It rippled off the bark like asphalt under a hot desert sun. The leaves exploded, snapping with crimson sparks and fire burned. With a cry of joy, Sable jumped into the air and right before her feet touched ground she shifted, powerful wings flapping and finding a current to ride. She shot up, a graceful dancer surveying her land and then with a glass shattering call, dived in a tight spiral into the heart of fire.

The phoenix had returned.

Chapter 8: Betrayal in the dreaming

Eyes scanning, scenting the air and smelling no others about, the phoenix dropped to the rocky cliff’s ledge and shifted back to her alter form. She was several miles above ground, surveying an endless expanse of hot jungle below. The earthy richness mingled with the fire smoke burning in the distance. Though it was well past midnight the people’s steady chanting continued. A superstitious lot. The sight of the blood moon had immediately demanded worship and sacrifice. A god was about.

She snorted. He’d like to think so anyway. But a god wouldn’t hide in a cave like a coward. He was here. After all these years, finally, finally she tasted victory.

She ignored the nagging suspicion that it had been too easy. All the near misses and battles and this was how it would end?

She turned and entered the impossibly dark and yawning stony mouth. She hugged the rock as she walked along, tiptoeing, making no noise. She was a predator in any form. Killing was what she did and she did it well.

A constant drip of water echoed like a hammer striking a nail. The acoustics were amazing in this place. She couldn’t smell him. Couldn’t see any light, but she heard the scratchy skip of a record player dragging along vinyl. The almost diabolical energy of Beethoven’s symphony pulsed with low frequency waves even she couldn’t hear, but could feel rush electric along her skin. Pebbles skipped and bounced in tandem.

She took a breath every five steps, keeping to her pace. Not rushing herself, knowing one wrong move and he’d vanish.