Bright Star

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  “No. It was her. It was the pain, but not just the pain.”

  Rush continued to watch him carefully, as if he was waiting for Jackson to make a discovery of some sort.

  Jackson pushed up in his bed and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed. He had to think. He had to remember. And then it came to him. Parameters of Shift 101. He knew that pain, there was only one thing that caused that kind of pain. Perma-Shift. Bright Star had given off waves and waves and waves of acute Perma-Shift. But how? She hadn’t been in the middle of a Shift and no one, not even Jackson could stand Perma-Shift for any significant period of time. Still, this pain, it wasn’t new. It felt as if it had been with her for a very, very long time, and it felt as if it was growing. Yes, Jackson was sure of it. The hurt inside of her had been growing, gathering strength and intensity. He could see it surging, hurtling through her body.

  The Perma-Shift was caused by High Energy. Bright Star was harnessing High Energy. His mouth dropped open.

  Rush pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

  “What is it, Rush? Tell me. What is she going to do with it?”

  “Think, Jackson. What could she do with it?”

  Jackson went still. Fleeting pictures of Bright Star dying skittered through his mind. He could see the twisted, mangled car of the train she had persuaded the Followers to crash. He could see the phalanx of dead bodies, bloated by ocean water following Monk, then burrowing into the ground. He could see the bodies of Destroy and Harm.

  He thought of the barely leashed Energy. Bright Star could do anything.

  Anything.

  “Where is she?”

  *

  “Where are you going?” Jackson demanded as he watched his brother pull on a loose jacket.

  Rush looked over his shoulder at him but did not respond.

  “I’m coming, too,” he added.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re going to find her. She’s been masking her High Energy since dinner. I know because I’ve been trying to find her. Whatever she’s going to do, she’s going to do it now. You know it, so you’re going to find Bright Star. You’re going to stop her.”

  Rush said nothing.

  Jackson reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “I know you are.”

  “It’s time,” Rush answered.

  “I have to do something.”

  “It’s too late for you,” Rush assured him.

  “I have to try.”

  “It’s too late,” Rush countered again.

  “If I get to the Service…” Jackson’s voice trailed off as he remembered the last time he had been there. He remembered that he had been acknowledged as Rush’s brother. He remembered the guards whose names had changed, who had started speaking like the parish that inhabited his home.

  “It’s too late,” Rush explained to him again, slowly this time. “It has to be me.”

  “I should have listened.”

  “You never would have, Jackson. You couldn’t have. This was as much fated as anything could be.”

  “You don’t believe in fate.”

  “Bright Star,” Rush breathed. “Bright Star has a way of making anyone a believer.”

  “Is this why you have always hated her?”

  “I never hated her, Jackson, just like I never hated you. I couldn’t. I don’t think I can make you understand because I can’t understand it.” Rush smiled and grimaced at the same time, his eyes spelled irony. “I don’t want her. Why would any man want her?” He said the words with a pointed humor. His voice was punctuated by a flashing blaze of his eyes. A yellow light the same as Bright Star’s blue one passed quickly over Jackson. Air rushed into Jackson’s lungs, he could not head off the surprised reaction. “But whether I like it or not, she is mine—a part of me. She was made for me. She made herself for me. So we are parts of the same whole.”

  A man in a yellow and white robe appeared down the hallway. His identity, or rather his religion, was obvious. Rush called to him. “Monk, come and keep an eye on my brother.”

  Jackson rolled an exasperated eye. “I don’t need him to keep an eye on me. Wherever you’re going, I should be going, too. I can help you find her.”

  Still, before his eyes, Rush disappeared. His body, his mind, his spirit were now just as masked as Bright Star’s. Jackson couldn’t follow even if he wanted to.

  Monk neared Jackson warily, though his first words were congenial and conspiratorial. “All-powerful and yet he runs from us.”

  “You and your Followers?”

  “They aren’t my Followers.” The monk returned gathering his robes around him. His robes still looked remarkably like stolen hotel sheets. Still, they were startling again his dark skin.

  “He isn’t running from me. He thinks he’s protecting me,” Jackson countered.

  “He is protecting you, Jackson. I’m glad you finally realize it. He’s protecting us all.” Jackson knew that he had not imagined the contempt in the monk’s voice.

  “Do you know what Bright Star is going to do?” Jackson asked. The monk merely closed his eyes in accord. “You have something to say, Monk?” Yet Monk was silent. Jackson huffed out a labored breath. “Why did you stop?”

  “Dying?”

  “Yes. Dying.”

  “Before they came for me—Bright Star and Point—I had always known there was something more. Perhaps I had been one of those out there who had that propensity toward High Energy that just never really amounted to much more than passive Talent. You know, a precognitive moment here, an impressive ability to draw a perfect circle there. It was nothing. I could never have affected a Shift back then. Not like you. But they came for me, and it started something inside of me. Even before I was touched by Rush, my High Energy grew solely because I finally understood and accepted what it was. Bright Star was my guide in blindness. She led me to light.”

  Jackson acknowledged that this was possible. Monk continued, “The first time… that time in the train… I don’t know how to describe it. I didn’t die that day. No one did. But we came so close. So close. Have you ever been that close to death? Don’t answer. We both know you haven’t.” Monk cleared his throat, then shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you it’s exhilarating, because it is not. I had a broken metal rod stuck through my chest. My head was smashed between two seats because I, like a coward, tried to take cover at the last minute during the crash.” He took a long breath. “I had never felt that much pain before in my life, and I haven’t felt as much since.

  “When he came… when Rush came, it was—to sound a little cliché—it was like the sun coming out. The pain subsided to where it was like it was there but inconsequential. And then nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Monk repeated. “No pain. No crash. Everything was set right once again as if it had never happened. But it had happened, we all knew it, and somehow, without physical evidence, we could all feel it. I could explain it to you in an equation, a proof. However, to put it simply, the High Energy was left. True, some was used to right our wrong, but the rest seemed to stay inside me. To blend and become part of what was already there, to make me more than I had ever been. I tell you this, but you know it. You may not be able to remember your experience, but it has been a part of you your whole life. Rush has been a part of you.”

  Jackson didn’t respond.

  “I don’t have to tell you. You know,” Monk insisted. “Still, with the enhanced High Energy, I started to see as she saw. I am his child, born of his Talent, but it was Bright Star who made this happen. She led me to the sight.”

  “And in your sight you lost faith?”

  “Faith?” Monk chuckled without humor. “No, in my sight, my faith strengthened. My servitude was complete. I learned something more important than any of those things that Bright Star holds as tenets: Rush didn’t want me to die.”

  Jackson could say nothing. His eyes began to water and he coughed to hide the closing o
f his throat. Rush didn’t want me to die. The words were haunting and pure. He wept silently, failing to comprehend why those words had such a profound impact on him.

  “You’re crying,” Monk remarked. “But you don’t know why.”

  “Everyone reads my mind,” Jackson muttered bitterly.

  “You may not believe this, Jack…” Monk flashed a quick grin “But half the time, no one has to. You wear your emotions on your sleeve.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I can’t tell you who she is. It would be a betrayal to them both.”

  “Nobody can tell me a fuckin—”

  Monk raised a hand and interrupted him. “But I can tell you her nature. She is born of destruction. She struggled with her nature as I struggled against my own nature, as you struggle with the knowledge of your brother’s greater power. But in the end, hers is not a struggle she can win. She knew that once, and tried to set things right. But Rush couldn’t let her…”

  “You mean the first time they met.”

  “Yes.” Monk nodded. “She tried to end it then, but even then he loved her and couldn’t let her do it.”

  “Rush doesn’t love her. He told me.”

  “Rush doesn’t love Bright Star, that’s true. But the other…”

  “Who?”

  Monk ignored this question. Instead, he continued his warning. “I tried to stop her. I tried to keep the truth from her as long as possible, but she is strong. I don’t think any of us besides Rush will ever know the true boundary of her power. She sucked the vision from my mind. Jackson, Bright Star has committed murder. She will commit murder. She will never stop committing murder. She will destroy us all, has destroyed us all.”

  “She is not a force of destruction.”

  “She is, just as she is a daughter and a sister,” the monk snapped. Then, as if in meditation, his eyes closed briefly. When he opened them again, he smiled. He sank to the ground and sat cross-legged before Jackson. “Sit,” he instructed.

  Jackson dropped to the ground beside him.

  “Do you believe the world is in danger?” the monk asked.

  “Yes,” Jackson answered, a tick in his jaw.

  “Do you know what that danger is?”

  Jackson’s ignorance was a live thing. He shook his head. “Rush wouldn’t tell me.”

  “He didn’t want you to try and interfere, even though he’s already planted a Shift that will prevent you from leaving this place anyway.”

  Jackson’s eyes widened. Mentally he started to reach outside of the compound as he tested Monk’s words. In seconds he found he could not see beyond the walls of his home.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Monk waved his hand. “Since I know you are as powerless as I am, I will tell you what he would not.” He measured Jackson with his gaze. “In the simplest terms, she is linking herself to every human being in this world. We are all becoming Followers. We are becoming her as she is becoming us. This includes me. This includes you. And when we are all one, she will do as is her nature.”

  Jackson’s heart ceased to beat in his chest. He felt it stop, seize, fold in on itself. He had to force his veins open wide to save himself. He knew what she was going to do. Perhaps he had known it before this monk had told him. He couldn’t breathe, and his right eye started to close involuntarily. “She can’t do that,” he rasped.

  “She will do it.”

  “No, you don’t understand, Monk, she can’t do it. Even with all of the High Energy she’s harnessed. She doesn’t have enough of it to affect that kind of Shift.”

  “You’re right,” Monk told him. “She needs more, and she needs to focus it.”

  High Energy

  Bright Star needed High Energy. She needed lots of it. She needed as much as she could take in order for this Shift to bind her, then kill her. Her eyes no longer dimmed, they were constant and near blinding blue beams as she hovered above the city steeped in High Energy. She needed to see the Holy Man again.

  *

  She dived like a striking eagle through the air. She pierced the ceiling of the temple and stood in front of him. The monk knelt at the altar and she was sure he waited for her. Bright Star crouched beside him like a starved beast waiting to pounce. Her eyes beamed directly into his. Neither Bright Star nor Monk spoke. They didn’t even communicate in their common mental path.

  “So you understand now?” Monk asked her slowly.

  “Yesss,” she whispered. Her words were sibilant and her body snaked awkwardly from side to side. Her hands lashed out until she held the Monk’s head in her hands, then she leaned forward to kiss him and suck the life from his body, never realizing that he took just a bit from hers.

  When she was done, she howled as the High Energy coursed through her. She dropped the body and located the other occupants of the palace. She did not want to hunt them. But she had no choice. She was going to eat them all alive.

  One by one, she found them. She lured them to her with a pair of inviting open arms. When they were near, she said the Energy in honor of Monk and their sacrifice. She lured Stream, pressed her lips right to his temple. The she clasped strong fingers to the base of his skill and his High Energy, his very life force, drained from him. He dropped to the ground before she was even finished. Bright Star wavered in the air as her body struggled to hold all of that Energy inside, but she would continue, she had to.

  She found all of her children and she ate them all until one and a half remained. Where was Point? Where was the woman who would help her to harness all of this Energy… to focus it? Where was that silver blue star that lived within in her? The star that was second only to Rush with its High Energy. She wouldn’t need others, if only she could have that star.

  She called to the mother. “Point!” Her voice was loud, ringing, traveling throughout the palace. Point did not come. Then with little Energy, Bright Star reached out to find the most devoted Follower. There was no trace of her. Nothing. But she knew they couldn’t be gone. Point couldn’t leave. Point wouldn’t leave. No. Rush was hiding them somewhere. Hiding them from her.

  “Point,” she called again, this time adding a powerful suggestion to her voice in hopes of coaxing the expectant mother out of hiding. It didn’t work. Bright Star was torn then. She didn’t know whether she should go ahead and attempt her Shift while the absorbed Energy was hotly coursing through her, or if she should expend Energy finding Point and the unborn child who now possessed something of hers. The roar that tore from her was deep and low, shaking the walls of the palace.

  With a feral and frustrated growl, Bright Star decided to rise through the palace to the roof. She would have to perform this ceremony alone and without Point or the baby’s life Energy.

  Wed

  Jackson went in search of Monk. The whole compound was eerily empty, and he couldn’t stand the waiting alone. He’d tried to walk outside, but Monk had been right, the Shift Rush had used was insurmountable. But Jackson didn’t find Monk.

  Her copper head was bowed in prayer. Her milky skin was radiant. Bright Star was kneeling in the temple with her hands clasped reverently in front of her. The serenity of her pose only served to underscore the raging Energy pulsing beneath the surface. The passive violence he sensed within her caused him to reach out for Monk. He should have been able to locate him, but just like everyone else, he was just…gone.

  “What have you done?” Jackson demanded. His fingers dug into her upper arms as he shook her. She flopped limply like a rag doll. Even as her body was relaxed, he could feel the High Energy and Perma-Shift inside of her coursing strong. His hands started to vibrate painfully from the rapid, pulsing force. It was strong enough to spill around them and cause metallic items to levitate.

  “You don’t understand,” she cried.

  “No,” Jackson countered, “You don’t understand! You will ensure that he saves the world by destroying it yourself. You no longer care about anyone. You are addicted to his thirst for your life. You are destroying him!”r />
  “Rush can’t be destroyed.”

  “All things die.”

  “He won’t,” Bright Star challenged. As her words became more forceful, her eyes began to beam blue light at him. The light bathed Jackson’s face and he tried to resist the leap it caused in his pants. Still, after all this time he was unsure if the light from her eyes elicited this response. He didn’t know if she had some preternatural power over men, or if he simply loved her. No, not quite true. He was certain that he loved her.

  She stood and neared him. Her blue eyes turned upward as she approached him to keep him in her thrall. She was so small as she neared him, her copper head thrown back and her beaming eyes holding him. “Haven’t you noticed? Can you not see him as I can? He is growing stronger if anything, more unstoppable if anything, more responsible.”

  “Not more responsible. Quicker only to save you.”

  “Jackson, you know that’s not true,” she chided. “He no longer cares to save me. He hates me.”

  “He doesn’t,” Jackson argued half-heartedly.

  “He does,” she insisted with a sure nod. “And he hated the Followers.”

  Jackson did not fail to note her use of the past tense. Hated. “What have you done, Bright Star?”

  Instead of answering him, she said simply with a sad shake of her head and in little more than a whisper, “I can’t have your High Energy, can I? You are Jackson, The Impervious. I can’t take it from you. He won’t let me.”

  “What have you done?” Jackson screamed into her face. He wiped the moisture from his eyes in furious desperation. “Bright Star, what did you do?” He shook her and shook her until he thought he would break her. Then he did.

  The suggestion shattered into tiny pieces as he heard the animal growl from the courtyard.

  Rush! Rush! Jackson called mentally. He cast a wide net with his mind trying to reach the brother who had shut him out for so many days. Rush, please tell me where you are. Tell me what’s happening.

  The response was distant but strong. His brother was far away, but he was in good health. Jackson, Bright Star has lost control. She is on a rampage and she will kill everyone with High Energy in her path. She will kill everyone.