Charlie knew what the stone was. It was the final piece of evidence she’d needed to know she was doing the right thing.
Imane and Zicon turned towards her. She should have told them earlier but there were a lot of things she’d wish she’d done differently. At this point, they just had to accept what she was about to say.
“What is it?” Zicon asked, leaning an elbow on her shoulder.
“I believe your stories about the angels.”
His eyes brightened. “Welcome to the former skeptics club, Chuck.”
Imane laughed. “I’m glad you trust our word so easily. They gave us a live-action crash course. The last few days have been…weird. I think I’m still in shock.”
Charlie returned her laugh, albeit nervously. “My course was a little less crash, more lifelong affirmation of my purpose on this planet.”
“Come again?” Imane said, her lip hitched and her brow furrowed.
Before Imane could explain, the door of the cottage style house swung open, revealing a long hallway lit by a row of low lights placed along the floorboard. In the foyer stood three men staring as if they’d been waiting. They had been waiting. Much hadn’t changed since the last time she’d seen them, considering it had been three years. One of them surged forward and captured her in her arms, and Charlie, despite herself, squealed as he spun her around.
“I felt you coming,” he gushed as he set her down. “When Khione linked into my soul, she allowed me to see through my third,” Joshua said as he tapped his forehead, his green eyes twinkling. “I saw you coming. I saw you,” he said with meaning.
Charlie brushed a hand through his thick curly black hair. “You’ve grown so strong, Yēšūă.”
“Amazingly, so,” Derrick said. “Soon, he’ll be as good as me,” he finished, his grin buried in a thick beard.
“And one day you’ll be as good as Chris,” Joshua shot back.
Derrick shoved Joshua’s shoulder playfully before he turned his attention to Charlie’s guests. “Khione and Omi are waiting for you in the living room.”
Rooke’s brow rose. “You really knew we were coming?”
“We know a lot,” Chris replied, his smile big, teeth bright against his smooth brown skin. Charlie nodded, the movement small in her solemnness. “They do know a lot. Come on, guys. Let’s get this started.”
As Joshua, Derrick, and Chris turned and began walking down the hallway, instinct took over and Charlie fell in line beside Chris, matching their even strides into the living room. She looked over her shoulder and nodded with her head to the group to follow.
Khione’s living room was very old. Not in age—they’d recently purchased this house a few years ago after the last one burned down, the result of an alchemy ritual fire left unattended. It was old in history and spirit. On the walls were a mix collection of prints, some depicting Sierra Leon, where Khione was from, others abstract pieces of art where interpretation was subjective. The mantle was full of relics that had been passed down through Khione’s family, most covered in rust, others rich in color and meaning. Hung above the mantle was a symbol drawn in bold black strokes. The symbol was four triangles attached at the corners to form a square, an eye enclosed in a circle with an iris that radiated out like a sun.
Charlie entered the enormous living room behind her peers and took a seat at one of the seven burgundy velvet stiff-backed armchairs centered in a semi-circle. Hers was next to Moses’s, towards the west side of the room. The rest took their seats, in the order of their awakening, Chris, Monet and Derrick at the far eastern seats, while Charlie, Moses, and Joshua took the western seats. In the center was Khione, dressed in a beige and white linen kaftan, embroidered with symbols of The Belief–the ankh, the phoenix, and the bat. Omi stood behind her, both hands resting on the back of Khione’s armchair, her gele headdress reaching high and regal.
Charlie looked all around her. A transmutation half circle. Charlie shook her head. I can’t believe this is happening.
The others flowed into the room after them, standing between the armchairs and the mantle, unknowingly finishing the other half of the circle.
“Is this a cult?” Rooke asked, his brow hiked to his hairline. “Because nobody told me this was a cult.”
Khione’s deep voice filled the room in the form of a musical chuckle. “Your definition of a cult is probably sinister with a misplaced devotion to a particular person. We are no cult.”
“You look like a cult.”
Khione smiled but said nothing else.
George tried where Rooke failed. Charlie could see the confusion on his face, on all of their faces. “We were told that we were coming to meet Khione and to explain to her–”
“Why I need to die?” Khione answered.
“You told her,” Tahir hissed to Charlie. Charlie didn’t have a way to tell her that she didn’t have to tell her anything, she’d never had to tell Khione anything. She didn’t have a way to tell Tahir that Khione knew.
“I’ll answer a few questions for you, some I can tell you are dying to ask. Maybe that will save us all some time?” Khione said. She waited a beat. “People think that I am mentally unstable.”
“Wasn’t going to ask that, ma’am,” Rooke said. “Took an educated guess,” he muttered.
“People,” she pressed on, “hear the things that I have to say and denounce it as insanity. People hear my talks of ending my life and think that I’m suicidal, that I have no love for this world and want to be departed of it. Nothing could be more false. I love being alive, I love the people in this room, I love sharing this experience with them, teaching them things, showing them things. However, I’m also deeply in love with a belief.”
“A belief?” Imane asked.
“The belief that I was born for a particular reason, a reason that has been passed down from my ancestors, each of them waiting for a particular calling. It never came. My grandmother never received it, nor my father or my uncles. I, on the other hand, have received it. It is why I must die.”
“This is easy. This is way too easy,” Zicon murmured. He rotated brown eyes towards Charlie. “It’s almost like it was planned.”
Charlie sighed. Might as well get this over with. “I am a Keeper, Zicon.”
“Of,” he almost barked, his tone hinting of frustration.
“Of The Belief.”
“C’mon, Chuck. Lady of the Lake over there can speak her squabble talk but you can’t. What belief? Like, I didn’t even know you were spiritual! You never went to church!”
“I’m not. This isn’t about spirits. This is about equivalent exchange. Keepers and Vessels are bound for life to this belief. The belief that one day the Vessel would need to give her life to save something, to save someone, to save some place. We didn’t have many instructions, only that the Vessel would know and that we would all be linked to them through shared thought. I didn’t want to be this. I spent so much of my childhood being told that this was my future and when that future manifested itself in Khione, I rebelled. That’s why you know me simply as Charlie, a nurse with terrible taste in men and more ambition than money.”
Imane scoffed. “Everyone I know is a liar, man.”
“I didn’t lie!” Charlie cried, desperate to defend herself to the people she considered friends. “I just didn’t tell you everything about me because–”
“She never planned on coming back, that is simple to see,” Joshua said, frowning.
“Charlie thought she could denounce this. But Charlie has the gift of shared thoughts with us,” Derrick explained. “She can’t run from this. You can’t run from your purpose.”
“You can’t run from your purpose,” they others echoed.
“That doesn’t creep anybody else out? Just me?” Rooke asked, his hands splayed and his face displaying that he was indeed…generally creeped out.
Moses wrinkled his nose in disagreement. “It’s easy to do when The Belief never manifested. This Belief has gone through fifty-seven ge
nerations without a single manifestation. Fifty-seven. I don’t blame her. Running is an easy solution to fruitlessness if you ask me.” Derrick, Chris, and Joshua glared at him but Moses shrugged. “I’m just saying if you wanted to run away. But I don’t know much about running away.”
“I didn’t run,” she stressed, her voice strong with conviction. ” I didn’t believe. There is a difference.”
“And now you do,” Chris confirmed from his armchair, tall and sure.
Charlie bit her lip but nodded.
“We’ve already prepared almost everything that needs to be prepared. Do you have the stone?” Omi asked. The flames from the fireplace reflected in her eyes, over her warm brown skin and Charlie was reminded why Omi was not a Keeper, and that Omi was more powerful than them all.
“If you can call it a “stone,” Rooke rejoined.
“Then it is time.” She glanced at Joshua, Derrick, and Moses. “We will travel with you.” Khione stood and turned towards Charlie and the others. “Chris and Monet. You will stay and watch the passage. Be alert.”
“Without hesitation or error,” Chris said, his voice rough. “I can’t believe you are leaving. What are we going to do now?”
“Help. She will need your help. You will love her and aid her just as you’ve aided me.”
“Wait,” Tahir said, raising her hand. “Jin’s not going to become…like the new leader of your cult. That’s not a part of the deal.”
“It’s not a cult,” Monet muttered under her breath.
Khione shook her head. “No, she won’t. She is a receiver of the Belief, not a practitioner of it. She will lead her own life but these very special people are connected to me and dedicated to my body and they will be dedicated to her. I’m not sure what will happen to our belief after our Belief is fulfilled. My death may be the death of it. Yet we’ve always been prepared for that. It is something you cannot escape.”
“You cannot run from your purpose,” the Keepers all said in unison.
“You cannot run from your purpose,” Khione echoed softly, staring into the fire.
CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE
“Another one please.”
“Uh, he doesn’t need another one. Thanks,” Jon said to the server as soon as the words left Aiden’s mouth. His friend glanced at him, the concern on his face evident. “You want to pull yourself together?”
Aiden pursed his lips and tried to look around Jon to get the server’s attention again. “I’m fine,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
“You’re shaking, dude. This isn’t the cheap ass coffee we used to drink back at the station. This is,” Jon glanced down at the menu. “Caffe con panna,” he said with flair as he turned towards Key. “Do you have to take us to every fancy snooty hobnob place you can think of? Convenience
store coffee would have been fine. A Ho-ho and coffee in a Styrofoam cup.”
“It’s just a damn cappuccino, Jon, and for once, Jon is right, Aiden. That stuff is strong. Your hand is literally shaking.”
Aiden looked down at his hand wrapped around the ivory handle of his last cup. It was shaking so bad the bottom of the cup clattered against the plate it was centered on. Grimacing, he placed the cup down and folded his arms across the top of the marble tabletop. “When do we go get Jin?”
Key took a slow slip and Aiden could tell he was accessing his mental state. He wasn’t losing it, he was nervous, he was anxious. “Soon. Tahir, Rooke, and George are headed back with the person as we speak. They left Philadelphia about two hours ago.”
“I hope they don’t need anything bigger than the rocks we collected,” Jon said, holding up a brown bag that was full of small white rocks. “Can’t get back onto Liberty Island. It’s four in the morning.”
Key inhaled, leaned forward on his elbows and clasped his hands together, his thumbs resting against his nose. “I don’t think that will be necessary, however, I set a marker so that I can flash over there if necessary.”
“Foresight. That’s why you’re the leader of this whole ragtag army,” Jon said, elbowing him.
Thirty minutes later, and a much weaker coffee, Key’s phone rang. Aiden was hopeful as Key relayed their next meeting point to whoever was on the other side of the line. When the conversation was done, he raised his hand for the check. “They are here and we are headed back to The Battery.”
Aiden wasn’t quite sure what he expected but he didn’t expect this.
They’d met at the Jerusalem Grove Labyrinth along the carved lines of stone set in low grass. It seemed like a proper place to meet cryptic people. Seven figures all dressed in outfits straight from a reenactment of a Jim Jones documentary stood in front of them. In the center of their foreheads was a symbol, one Aiden had seen before.
“They have a connection to the stone?” he whispered to Jon.
“We are the only connection to the stone. In the purest sense,” the tall woman at the center of the group said. She bent her head as if she were studying Aiden, assessing him. It felt odd. “You’re the one.”
“He’s the one,” the others with her echoed.
Tahir sighed. “That’s Moses, Derrick, Joshua, Charlie, and Omi,” Tahir said, pointing to each of them. “They do that,” she explained. “I couldn’t get them to stop the entire ride over. One minute they are normal people, like really, really cool, you know, and then they go all Stepford Wives on you at the drop of a dime. Just know they know.”
“We know,” the group said.
Tahir gave them a stern look. “Stop that!”
“I am Khione of The Belief, the vessel The Belief calls for,” the tall woman said. She approached Aiden with the grace of someone who knew they were powerful and Aiden wanted to run. There was something in her eyes that held him in place, froze his feet to the ground. “And you are fire–the one who will read the new name of the stone.” She paused right in front of him and looked down. Her long graceful fingers came to his forehead. “Does he know of the flutter?”
The woman who stood closest to her shook her head. “No, he does not. There is a lot he does not know.”
The tall woman nodded. “Good. That knowledge can change you, change your decisions.”
Confused, Aiden took a step back, watching her fingers fall from his forehead. “What don’t I know?”
Khione tilted her head. “What do you know?”
Aiden opened his mouth to answer her question with a question but she turned from him. “Where is the stone? This should be completed before the sun rises and falls again.”
Key held up a small hemp bag, weighed down with its contents and thumbed back towards Liberty Island. “Less of a stone and more of a few tons of stone but we managed to chip away a good chunk of it. Is that enough or do you need the whole thing because that will take some time.” Key said it like it was possible.
Khione shook her head. “That is enough. It is only a conductor. A speck would have worked. The passage is open on our side and this will help open it on the other.”
“Passage?” Jon asked.
“The soul you seek is in a realm called Discord. She is effectively trapped there and this will…untrap her.” She turned to Aiden. “There needs to be bait. A sort of target to build your half of the passage on. Do you have a place that she spent a lot of time at? A place she would run to if she found a way out of Discord?”
Aiden’s brow furrowed. “One place comes to mind but…I don’t live there anymore. Our old apartment. I don’t have access to it.”
“Aiden. Catch.” There was a whistle and when Aiden looked up, a set of keys were sailing through the air. He caught them and looked down. He recognized them. “How…”
Jon laughed, low and quiet, bashful. “When we set you up in the new apartment, I made sure the transfer the lease of your old one into my name. I figured one day, when all of this was over, you’d want to go back.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I will say it was expensive as hell. The rent in New York is a rip-off.”
; Aiden’s mouth opened and closed, lost for words. “Jon…I–”
His best friend waved him off. “Save the mushy shit for Jin.”
“Now that we have a location, I think it’s best to get there and work fast.” Khione began to move but Aiden hadn’t so she turned to him. “Is there a problem?”
Aiden stared at her for a moment before he shook his head. “No. No. It’s just, I don’t know you, I don’t know of your capabilities and although you’re my only hope, I don’t understand what the rush is. I want this done correctly and properly. It’s my girlfriend’s life we’re talking about.”
“It’s not a matter of correctly and properly. It’s a matter of getting her out of Discord as soon as possible.”
“Why?” Aiden asked, panic rising. “She’s been safe this entire time, hasn’t she? I was told this realm isn’t like Antris. That is a realm for spiritualists.”
“I don’t know much about Discord besides what my father has told me. Although it’s not a dangerous place, it isn’t a safe place for her to be in either. No one is sent to Discord mistakenly. No one. Anyone who believes their being there is an accident begins to disrupt the spiritual flow of it. Discord relies on spiritual balance. So, if you think you do not belong, are eager to leave, then the realm will fix that line of thinking by allowing you to accept fate.”
Aiden frowned. “Fix?”
“Yes.” She began walking away, emphasizing the need for expediency. “By making you forget who you are.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY FOUR
Aiden stood in front of his old apartment, his hand poised at the door, his key, marked up and worn from use, inches from the keyhole. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see this place again. There were so many things he wasn’t ready to see.
There was a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked over and saw Jon. “You okay, bud? Want me to do it?”
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