The Space Within (The Book of Phoenix #3)

by Kristie Cook

  “You’re different,” she said, and she had the same voice as the one that had been speaking in my head, but less tinny sounding.

  She walked up to me. My friends gathered closer, tightening our group. She stood a little shorter than me, and her body was only slightly smaller than mine, but power emanated from her soul, waves of it crashing over us. And something else—a goodness like none other. If Enyxa was the epitome of Darkness, this young woman was the Light.

  “Ya’ll aren’t gonna kill us like you did them, are you?” Bex asked, her voice pleading. “We are different. I swear to God and baby Jesus we’re nothing like them.”

  “Don’t worry. We didn’t kill them,” said the small blond woman who stood by the bald man.

  “Then what happened to them?” Hayden demanded.

  “They did what they always do when we arrive,” said the tall blond guy, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Ran away scared.”

  Bex let out a small sound. I couldn’t blame her. If those rock-solid people—one of whom had ripped another man’s throat out—were scared, who were these people?

  “But are you going to kill us?” I asked, trying to sound braver than my insides felt. My stomach ached as though it’d tied itself into a big, tight knot.

  The girl in front of us tilted her head and gave us a small smile. “We don’t kill unless necessary. Only if there’s no hope at all. And I sense hope in all of you. Not a lot, but it’s there.”

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “I’m wondering the same about you,” she said. “You’re obviously American. And I sense … something … not entirely evil, but … it is tainting you, isn’t it?”

  A chill ran down my spine. How did she know that? And if we weren’t on Earth, how did she know we were American? Were their countries here that similar to ours?

  “Alexis,” the beautiful man growled, and even when it held a warning, he had a bone-melting voice. Almost as nice as Jeric’s singing voice, but not quite.

  “It’s okay, Tristan,” she said, turning her head to glance over her shoulder at him. “They’re not Daemoni. You know that.”

  “I don’t know what they are,” he said as he crossed the few paces to stand next to her. He towered over her—over all of us, even Brock and Hayden.

  Alexis turned back to us, eyeing us carefully. “Yeah, you’re not Amadis, either, and not exactly Norman.”

  “What the hell are Daemoni, Amadis, and Norman?” Brock rumbled. I wanted to stomp on his foot. We seriously did not want to pick a fight with these people. They had unusual powers we didn’t stand a chance against, especially when two of us were only halves of our wholes.

  “Daemoni are Satan’s minions. The vampires you just met are some of them,” Alexis said, and she smiled as my eyes about popped out of my head.

  “Ohmagosh,” Bex whispered. “I was right? Vampires? You have real, live vampires on this world?”

  “They’re not exactly ‘live’,” the blond guy responded with a smirk. “But yeah, you just met some. And since the secret’s out, we may as well tell you. You happen to be looking at a were-tiger, a witch, a were-crocodile, a warlock, and another vampire.”

  He pointed to each of them as he said it, starting at our left with the tall, thin woman, pointing to himself when he said warlock, and finishing with the beautiful blonde next to him. I noticed he didn’t define Alexis and Tristan.

  “So what are you two?”

  “We lead the Amadis army. The Daemoni are trying to take over the world for Satan, and we’re trying to stop them and protect the Normans—the normal humans. And with the way you two moved—” Her dark eyes bounced from me to Brock and back again. “—you obviously aren’t Norman. So what are you?”

  I bit my lip, then simply blurted it out because I didn’t know what else to say. “We’re the Phoenix, Guardians of Earth’s Gates.”

  Her brows pushed together. “What Gates?”

  “The Gates between worlds.”

  She looked over at Tristan. The way they moved with each other and looked into the other’s eyes, they obviously had a deep connection. Soul mates? Twin Flames?

  “I don’t know,” Tristan said. “As far as I know, there are no Gates to the Otherworld.”

  “Owen?” Alexis asked.

  The blond guy behind them shook his head. “Dude, I’m clueless.”

  “There must be Gates here,” I said. “That’s how we got here in the first place.”

  “Right,” Bex said. “We just need to find that one again, go through it to get back to Earth, and we’ll be out of all ya’ll’s hair. No harm, no foul.”

  “Um … you are on Earth,” Alexis said, placing her hands on her hips.

  Two more small bodies popped into sight from nowhere, both of them female with big blue eyes and white hair, one with traces of purple and the other with shades of pink. How could we be on Earth when there were all these creatures and people who appear out of thin air and disappear as easily? Either she was lying, or we’d lost our sanity to the Darkness.

  “We’ve got this,” said the one with the pink hair to Alexis.

  The other one waved her hand toward all of them. “Go on. You lot need to save the world, remember?”

  More English accents. I was completely confused.

  “Great,” Owen muttered. “Just what we need—faeries.”

  My gaze flew to him. He gave me a nod, his sapphire blue eyes smiling, as though saying, Yeah, we have those, too.

  “Stacey and Debbie, right?” Alexis asked the … faeries. Now I knew we were definitely not on Earth. I didn’t care what this Alexis chick said. Maybe they called this world Earth, but it wasn’t the Earth. Not my home, thank God. The Lakari and everyday humans were enough to deal with.

  “Yes, I’m Debbie,” said the one with the purplish hair.

  “Stacey.” The other one dipped into a curtsy.

  “Wotch her. She can be naughty,” Debbie said, although the way she eyed Hayden, I thought she might be pretty naughty herself. Bex tensed next to me, and I grabbed her arm as a warning.

  “Not naughty. Just fun.” The twinkle in Stacey’s eye confirmed this, especially as her gaze lingered over Brock.

  “There’s nothing fun about this,” Alexis replied, and the faeries scowled as their attention was pulled from the men. “We felt a ripple in the veil and came to check it out. Do you know what happened?”

  “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Debbie said, edging her way closer to us. “We’ll take care of them.”

  “How are they faerie business?” Tristan asked, his voice harsh and demanding. I was definitely sure I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. “And why should we trust you with them?”

  He sounded upset with the faeries, who looked at each other pointedly.

  “It’s not exactly faerie business,” Stacey said. “It’s Otherworld business. They caused the ripple in the veil when they passed through. We need to take them back through it.” Her blue-eyed gaze turned on us. “What you call the Gates.”

  “The hell you are,” Tristan said. “They’re under our protection now.” His eyes fell on me—they were hazel, not entirely green like I’d thought before. Gold flecks dotted the green around the pupil, making them unusually stunning. “Where do you want to go? We’ll take you.”

  I swallowed. “To Earth.”

  He opened his mouth, but Debbie jumped in. “To their Earth.”

  The force of everyone’s gaze landed on her with these three words. She pursed her lips together and wrung her small hands.

  “She means to their dimension,” Stacey said.

  “What the hell does that mean?” demanded the snowy-haired woman who’d been standing back with Owen.

  “Hush,” Owen muttered to the woman he’d c
alled a vampire. Wow. He had balls.

  “It’s a good question,” Alexis said.

  Debbie winked at her. “And you know the answer.”

  Alexis cocked her head, her reddish-brown ponytail falling over her shoulder. She squinted as she seemed to be thinking hard about something. The way Tristan studied her and narrowed his own eyes, I wondered if they were mind-talking.

  “Really?” she said eventually. “There are multiple Earths in different dimensions?”

  “Alternate universes,” Tristan said with understanding in his voice. “That’s a new one, even for me. I had no idea the theory was true.”

  The thin, dark-haired woman with yellow cat eyes spoke up. “With God, anything is possible, isn’t it?”

  “Of course you’d say that, Sheree,” the white-blond vampire muttered with an eye roll. “Always gotta bring God into it—”

  “Enough,” Alexis snapped, cutting off the vampire. She turned her attention back to the faeries. “So that’s what’s going on here? There are really alternate universes and worlds? That’s possible?”

  “The possibilities beyond this world and this life you know are endless, young one,” Debbie confirmed.

  “It’s cool, though, chick,” Stacey said. “You’re the same kinda. You defend your people and worlds. Your enemies appear to you differently, but they’re all on the same side—the evil side.”

  “It’s curious that you ever met,” Debbie said. “You’re really not supposed to. Crossing dimensions is nearly impossible and leads to this confusion. It’s a bit awkward, isn’t it?”

  “Awkward? These people are bat-shit crazy,” Bex whispered for only us to hear.

  Several people’s mouths twitched, fighting smiles as if they’d actually heard her, though. Maybe they had. They had different powers than the Phoenix, but heightened senses would be logical for us to share. Bex must have realized this because she stiffened next to me.

  “Can we please just go home?” she pled, her voice overly loud and extra sweet now. “We don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

  “Did you make this happen?” Tristan accused of the faeries, ignoring Bex’s plea.

  Debbie’s hand went to her chest, and her blue eyes widened innocently. “Wot? Us? No!”

  “No, not us,” Stacey said, “but if we don’t get them back to their dimension, they and their world will go tits up in a hurry.”

  “You can take them back to their dimension and their Earth through the Otherworld?” Alexis clarified.

  “We can get them to their dimension. From there, they’ll have to find their own way to their Earth,” Debbie answered.

  Bex and Brock both groaned. I suppressed my own complaint. Stacey had practically called us peers, but I felt intimidated by Alexis and Tristan. I didn’t want to look any weaker than we already did, although internally I was throwing a temper tantrum about having to deal with the Gate again. Like Bex, I just wanted to go home.

  “Come now,” Debbie said, curling her arm around Hayden’s and stroking his muscles. “Oh, aren’t you strong? And so handsome. Maybe I won’t let you go but will take you home instead.”

  Bex let out a low snarl.

  “Faeries,” Tristan warned, his voice low and threatening.

  Debbie sighed, and then used her free hand to grab Bex. “You, too, dear. Come with us, and we’ll take you back to where you came from.”

  She started off toward the freezing water, tugging Hayden and Bex along with her. My insides waged an internal battle, refusing to enter any more water or to freeze my ass off again, but I fought it and started off, too.

  “Hold on,” I said, turning back to Alexis. “What did you mean that you don’t kill? You don’t destroy the Dark souls?”

  “Only if there’s no hope. But there’s almost always hope, if you look for it. Unless they’ve completely given into the evil, you might have to search hard, but it’s there. And we have to show mercy to those souls, no matter what they’ve done, or we’re no better than them. We lead them back to the good side. That’s our job. Is that yours?”

  “Sort of. We lead them back to love and Light.”

  She gave me a smile. “Same thing, right?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded and returned her grin. “I guess it is. It was, uh, good to meet you.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Very … interesting,” Tristan agreed.

  I gave them a little wave, and then turned to catch up with Debbie, Hayden, and Bex. Brock followed me, Stacey’s arm draped around his waist and her free hand petting his muscular arm as they walked. Brock neither encouraged nor dismissed her. He was in his own Dark world again. Thank God and sweet baby Jesus, as Bex would say, that the faeries didn’t force us to return to the icy water. Once we reached the edge of the shore where we’d first arrived, they circled their arms around us, clasped hands, and lifted their arms upward.

  The world—this Earth of a different dimension—disappeared and a blinding light surrounded us.

  “Cheers,” one of the faeries said, and that was the last we saw or heard of them.

  I felt like a penny sucked up in a vacuum, being pulled forcefully through a tube with no control of where I went. My body bounced up against some kind of wall and ricocheted off like before. I hoped that meant we were back in the Gate. If only I could see. If only I could find the opening to Earth—our Earth. The one where my Twin Flame waited. The only place I would ever feel complete.

  Darkness surrounded us instead of the blinding light of the Gate as we continued traveling through the vacuum. Then a light began to shine from far away, growing closer by the second. A prism of colors came into view—what looked like Jacey’s version of the Space Between. My heart raced at the thought of going there, but we blasted on past it, unable to stop even if we wanted to, and nothing but blackness engulfed us again.

  Until we finally landed on a cold, hard surface. Ice. My vision came slow to me, and when it did, I could no longer suppress the temper tantrum.

  “NOOOO!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, stomping my foot on the frozen floor that glowed blue from within. “Why here? Why the fuck this god-awful place again?”

  Anywhere else. How many other millions of worlds could we have gone to instead of here? I would have even taken Erde over this world. At least there was light, as miserable and gray as the place was. The screaming monsters were terrifying, but at least there was food. There were trees and the ability to build a fire for warmth. The people there were completely Dark or close to it, but there were people. And not all had succumbed. The world hadn’t totally given into the Darkness. Not like here, where there was no hope left.

  “You’re here because this is where I want you.”

  I spun to find Enyxa standing in the depths of the ice-coated cavern, still wearing the black suit that looked painted on and her spiky-heeled, thigh-high boots. I jumped and soared across the small room at her. Brock somehow beat me to her and tackled her to the floor. I landed on my feet and slid several inches, and I had to leap over them before they steamrolled me down.

  Brock yelled nonsensical, angry sounds as he swung his fist at her. She caught his arm in her hand, and he immediately fell still. His face twisted with torture, and his body collapsed to the ground as he screamed with a terror I never wanted to experience. But I didn’t have a choice.

  Enyxa brought us down with the memory of how she’d Separated us, making the pain as she ripped our souls into two clearer than ever.

  “The Darkness is thorough here, isn’t it?” she asked as we all lay writhing on the cold floor. “As I said, one of my favorite places. It’ll help you along. So will this—a memory I’ve been waiting a very, very long time to share with you. Remember how I said I was once like you? I meant it in every possible way. Let’s go back to the beginning, to when we were Unio
n souls for the first time and sent to Earth to guard the Gates. To the beginning of the Phoenix Guardians, a few millennia ago. To when we were the Original Seven.”

  My breath caught.

  “Yes, Jacquelena, as a Union soul, I was part of that Seven. We were known as Ny’xan then. When you and Jeremicah are One, you are known as Ja’mai. Broderick, you and your other half are An’bris, and Nathayden and Rebethannah are Ra’den. There were three other Union souls, but we’ll get to them soon enough. We Seven Unions were responsible for guarding Earth’s Gates and keeping Satan and his followers out. But we failed. More specifically, Ja’mai failed, since you were, after all, our leader.

  “Satan forced his way through a Gate and attacked us, knowing he couldn’t take control of the world as long as we survived. He ripped our souls in halves, starting with Ja’mai. He was too arrogant and proud, however, and underestimated us. Instead of taking care of each of us and ensuring we were completely destroyed, he tossed the Separated souls aside to move on to the next Union to split. We—Ny’xan—helped Ja’mai’s torn souls through the Gate, giving our leader safe passage to the Space Between. We helped each of the others, too, while Ra’den and An’bris continued to fight the demons infiltrating our world. At last, only An’bris and Ny’xan remained.”

  Her gaze swept over to Bex and Hayden, and then to Brock, letting this sink in, before returning to me.

  “Satan grabbed both of us and reached into our bodies at the same time to retrieve our souls. We fought like the warriors we were, but he was too Dark and powerful. He yanked our souls out. He ripped An’bris’ in half first and tossed the pieces to the ground, then went after our soul. Both halves of An’bris made it through the Gate and to the Space Between. Satan threw my piece into the Gate, setting it on a path to always return to Earth, and he took my Twin Flame’s half with him to the Dark worlds, although we didn’t know it then.”

  She made us relive the agony as she spoke, but I had a feeling she was holding much of it back, ensuring we could hear her story.