The Space Beyond (The Book of Phoenix) (4 page)

Chapter 4

Our shift with Kel and Mat couldn’t have been more disastrous. Jeric grew even moodier, and I became even more anxious. Maybe we’d needed to hear their words—the only ones with guts enough to say them—but we still didn’t know what to do to change things. We spent a lot of time in our room the next few weeks, only coming out for combat training and Gate duty, admittedly avoiding more confrontation now that we knew what everyone truly felt. Unfortunately, the guy in the Gate never reached out for us again, and no significant memories had returned.

“The music from the last eight years sucks major duck dicks,” Jeric said as he threw down his headphones on the bed.

I shrugged. “There were some good songs. Wait. Ducks have dicks?”

“I think I’ve heard them all already. And yes. They’re fucking disgusting.”

I shook my head, at the fact that he actually knew what duck’s penises looked like and at the theory that he’d listened to every song made since he’d lost his hearing. I could almost believe it, because he’d been listening to music every chance he had, making up for lost time. After the first couple of weeks, I enjoyed it because he’d learned the words and sang along. Lately, though, he only scowled. Maybe because he found that most of it sucked, as he’d just put it, or, just as likely, because he’d been in a bad mood and nothing was bringing him out of it. Not even music.

“Of course, maybe if you danced for me, it would sound a lot better,” he said as he trailed his fingers over my hip.

I laughed. “Even when you’re pissy you’re horny?”

He smiled and moved his fingers to my chin. “Leni. Whenever I’m with you, I’m horny. Hell, I don’t even have to be with you. I just have to think about you. You make my mind live in the gutter, imagining all the dirty things I want to do to you.” He leaned in closer and brushed his lips against mine. As if I didn’t already have goose bumps crawling all over my skin. “But I like to watch you move. Your body does this thing that’s …
mesmerizing
. Takes the rest of the world away. And that makes me less
pissy,
as you say.”

Heat rose into my cheeks as my gaze dropped to the bed and the Book between us. While he’d been listening to music, I’d been trying to find answers this Book was supposed to provide us. I’d been thinking about what Melinda and the others had said about Guardians trying to leave clues for reincarnated selves, and I wondered if the Book held such clues. If so, I hadn’t discovered them yet. I’d let my mind wander, hoping to remember any little thing from our past lives, and when I did, I sketched it in the Book. Except, I wasn’t the artist in this dyad pair, and my sketches were lacking. As in lacking anything recognizable. When Jeric’s hand reached out and turned the journal at a different angle, I realized he was studying my drawings. I snatched the Book away and shut it.

“How about that dance?” I suggested.

He looked at the Book and back at me, the Book, me, and he grinned. “Okay.”

I knew I wasn’t off the hook. He’d ask me about the pictures a four-year-old could have drawn better later. If we projected, though, I could simply share my snatches of memories with him, and he wouldn’t have to look at my pathetic artwork. Even better, I could get him to remember along with me, and besides smell, sounds were known memory triggers—like music.

“I have an idea,” I said, and I grabbed the iPod. Although my account had been closed when the rest of my life disappeared from the world, the Guardians set us up with new ones. I scrolled through the music genres until I found what I was looking for, and then docked the iPod on the speaker.

I stepped away from the bed, and when the music started playing, I began doing the jitterbug. Within a minute, Jeric was off the bed and swing dancing with me as if we were old pros. He picked me up, swung me upside down, around his back, and back to my feet, then pulled me up against his hard chest. When I looked up at him and his eyes locked on mine, our world disappeared.

We no longer stood in our hotel room at the manor, but on a makeshift dance floor in a dark and smoky room, with ragtime music playing as other couples danced and laughed. Jeric and I continued dancing as if nothing had changed. When the music stopped, I spun into his arms. I noticed for the first time how the beaded fringe of my black dress flew out as I turned, and how Jeric wore a white suit jacket. And although I knew it was him, his hair was dark and so were his eyes.

I know this.
The memory returned full blast. Mick. That had been Jeremicah’s name then. We were in a speakeasy in Seattle in the 1920s, our last cycle on Earth until Jacey and Micah. One of our last life cycles anywhere as two souls.

“Elle,” Jeric—er, Mick said to me, “let’s get a drink and find Nat and Betsy.” Elle. Right. That had been my name, and I’d had a black bob, china-doll skin, and blue eyes that never looked quite right for the makeup trends of the era. We’d been Mick and Elle. “If they don’t have any news, we’ll go another set. I promise.”

I’d loved to dance then, too.

Mick handed me a drink at the same time a man’s hand clamped onto his shoulder.

“You were right, my man. They’re going by Ana and Erick, and they’re holed up at a joint right up the street.” This man was Nat, I immediately knew. Nat and Betsy were … Nathayden and Rebethannah. This was a memory with them in it! “They’ve Bonded, and the Lakari surround them.”

“Sorry, doll,” Mick said to me, “looks like our fun must wait.”

He took my hand, and Nat took the hand of another female. As Mick tugged me toward the dark corridor that led out of the secret bar, I looked over my shoulder and staggered. I froze. I looked at Nat again, with his brown hair and eyes the color of coal, and then at his girl. Betsy. Black hair and big blue eyes that caused something deep inside me to clench like a vise. My heart contracted then swelled, overflowing with emotion for them and especially her. I couldn’t tell if I was me, Leni, or me, Elle, at the moment because I felt like I
knew
this girl, right now, as though if I saw her in a crowded room, I’d recognize her immediately even knowing she’d look completely different in my time. The connection traversed over generations and planes and worlds. The connection with Nat felt similar to what we had with Brock and Asia, but what I felt with this girl, this soul, was so much stronger.

“Your sister’s coming, don’t worry,” Mick said as he pulled me back into the past. I didn’t understand.

“My sister?”

“Betsy’s right there. Come on,” he said impatiently. “Anastasia and Broderick need us.”

Anastasia and Broderick. Ana and Erick then.

The memory began to fade out. I vaguely remembered helping Anastasia and Broderick get to the Gate so they could be Forged. My mind moved on, picking up pieces of memories of the six of us enjoying the party of the roaring twenties while serving our duties as Guardians. We’d had a lot of fun then, many good times … but then a dark moment.

Lakari surrounding a soul, trying to take it. Mick and I led the charge with Nat and Betsy and Ana and Erick right behind us. We shattered the Lakari’s darkness, but they were numerous and strong. Instead of disappearing into mist or tiny birds or anything else, the pieces melded back together and hovered over the soul they wanted so badly, like vultures waiting for a dying animal to take its last breath. As we formed to charge again, a group of Lakari flew at us. Mick and I were in the front and would be the first ones hit. We braced for it. But Nat and Betsy flipped over our heads. Protected us.

“Help the soul,” Nat yelled, but Mick and I were already headed for the body the Lakari had surrounded. We were in our own physical bodies, not projected, so I couldn’t actually see the soul, but I could feel it as it tried to float away from its corporeal self. I could feel the Darkness that already permeated it. Little Light remained. It must have been Darkening over several lifetimes and was now almost consumed by it. This was our last chance to save it, and if we didn’t hurry, this soul would be lost forever to Enyxa.

We weren’t even halfway to the guy when a young woman’s scream spun me around. Hundreds of Lakari had appeared from nowhere and dove at Betsy.

“NO!” Nat yelled as he jumped in front of her. But he was too late. There were too many. Betsy collapsed under the pressure. Nat went down almost immediately after. Mick and I hadn’t even taken three more steps before their physical bodies died. We had to rush them to the Gate for their souls to reach the Space Between before the Lakari took them.

“My
sister
,” I’d sobbed, and the memory faded to black, followed quickly by others.

The six of us again, but on another world, though it was similar to Earth. Like fanning through a stack of snapshots, we jumped from memory to memory, lifetime to lifetime, and world to world. The majority of our lives had been spent on Earth, and most other worlds we’d been on were fairly similar to Earth with water and land, trees and sky, animals and beings that were much like humans. The colors and the shapes differed, but not too drastically. Sometimes our skin had more of a green or purple tint to it because of the color of the water; sometimes it was practically clear because we lived underground and had never seen sun. In some places, sandy desert stretched out for as far as the eye could see, and in others, water covered nearly the entire planet. The biggest difference, however, was when the six of us became three.

We spent only two very short lifetimes as one soul, on two different worlds in the second-to-highest echelon. I remembered the last one—the one before we’d been split and returned to Earth—even before Jeric and I had been Forged. For some reason, my memory insisted on dwelling there, on focusing on that world with its pink trees and glass spires that tickled the teal sky. I hated this memory. Not the bliss of being One, of course, or of the peace that pervaded the world. Enyxa’s Darkness had invaded and destroyed everything. Even in our higher state of light and love, we couldn’t fight off the millions of Lakari she’d sent. Not when Enyxa herself came through and Darkened everything. Weakened our souls. Tore us in two so we were once again Jeremicah and Jacquelena but never quite the same after living as One. My soul still felt the excruciating pain of being ripped apart, severed, left to die as only a half.

But this time as we relived the memory, I saw more clearly beyond Jeremicah and me. I saw what Enyxa did to the other souls who were closest to us. I watched as she yanked the soul out of a body and tore it in half, tossing the two pieces away as if they were garbage—the soul that became Broderick and Anastasia once again.

“We have to get to the Gate and the Space Between,” Broderick’s soul said. “We have to hurry!”

Jeremicah’s soul, its edges raw where it should be connected to mine, tugged at me. As I followed, I couldn’t help but watch the scene we were escaping. Horror filled me as I watched Enyxa attack the other soul nearby. I gagged as she pushed her Darkness into the body, a black hand that emerged with a bright light clasped in it. The light of the soul twisted and turned, and I swore I could hear its shrieks as it fought for freedom. Enyxa, nothing more than blackness in a near humanoid shape, growled like a beast, angered at this one’s fight. With a ferociousness no one should ever witness, let alone feel, she tore that soul in half. My mind screamed as I watched one piece float to the ground—the half I knew was Rebethannah. The other half never fell. Enyxa didn’t discard it. The light of Rebethannah followed the Dark mist of Enyxa as she floated away.

What did she do with him? To them?

I wanted to go after them.

“Come on, Jacquelena,” Jeremicah’s soul called to me. “Hurry! We have to get to the Space Between together or we won’t survive.”

The memory disappeared. No strangely colored world overcome with darkness. No pieces of our souls lying about. No inkling of what happened to Rebethannah and Nathayden. Only the vague memory of her chasing after him, trying to help him.

A scream lodged in my throat, and I clawed at my neck as though trying to get it out while my consciousness fully returned to the present, where I sat on the floor of our hotel room in the Phoenix manor, my hands at my throat. Jeric sat next to me like a statue. Based on his shocked expression and wide eyes, he must have remembered everything, too.

I crawled into his lap, and his arms slowly fell around me and eventually tightened. We held each other, rocking back and forth, as our minds tried to make sense of the past and what—if anything—it all might mean for our present.

After several minutes, once our heart rates settled, Jeric nudged me off his lap and reached for the Book of Phoenix. He flipped through the pages until he came to a blank one. If he even noticed my crappy pictures, he didn’t say anything. His mind seemed to be focused on something else. He picked up the pencil that had been sitting in the groove between the pages and began sketching his own drawings.

The pencil dashed over the page so quickly, I barely caught the image before Jeric turned the page and went to work on a new sketch. He repeated this several times, as if in a daze, and within minutes, he’d filled half a dozen pages with images of men. After he finished the last one, he flipped back to the first, and we both studied the rudimentary portrait. Jeric had some artistic talent, but nothing like Jacey. Still he was better than me (now), and as he filled in more details, the face became clearer.

“His eyes were darker then,” I said, and Jeric nodded while rubbing the pencil lead over the page, darkening the irises.

Once that version looked more complete, he turned to the next page. This guy had lighter eyes, but dark hair, and I recognized him just as I had the first. We went through each one, Jeric bringing the drawings to life as best as his talent allowed, and I offered little details as they came to mind.

“He had a mole on his left jaw that time, remember?”

“You forgot the cowlick right over the middle of his forehead.”

“Be sure to add the
doofa
. He only took it off for bed back then.” The word came out as if I used it every day. At one time, I had, and Jeric knew exactly what I was talking about. He drew what was a sort of hat that stretched over our long heads and protected the sensitive ridges along the back.