“Look at this. Newbie here picking like he’s gunning for a prize or something. He’s pickin’ so fast he’s making the rest of you animals look like you’re going slow on purpose,” said one of the guards.
“He’s been gettin’ the stick,” said the guard who’d made it his job to whack the shit out of me on a regular basis. “Maybe that’s what got ’im going fast.”
“Is it? That’s a good idea. Time to motivate these assholes to pick faster,” the head guard said. “And all you pickers can thank your buddy here for this later.”
The guards moved into the fields and began hitting the picker nearest to them. I tried to keep my head down, eyes averted, and kept right on picking. But I heard the thwacking of sticks against flesh, muffled cries of pain, and the laughing guards.
What sick bastards. I bet a lot of Ciardha’s Dark Mob were masochistic turds even before he arrived.
I chanced a glance over at Liam, hoping he wasn’t getting it too bad. Just as I looked over, Liam turned and took the billy stick from the smallish guard that had been beating him in the back with it. Within seconds, Liam had planted himself and had the wooden baton in his hand ready to swing it, daring the guy to come at him.
It didn’t take long for other guards to get in on the action. I no longer bothered to keep my eyes averted or to pick strawberries. I watched as two guards held Liam from behind while the small guard that had been beating on him punched Liam in the stomach. He grabbed the baton from Liam’s hands and began beating him across the ribs with it while a guy behind Liam kidney-punched him, sending Liam to his knees.
I knew if I helped him, they’d probably beat me into a broken mess. But I couldn’t stand there and do nothing.
Without thinking, I dropped the strawberry bucket and heard the berries plink, plink, plink as they spilled out onto the ground. I jumped the berry plants and ran across the two rows that separated me from Liam. I had the element of surprise in my favor. The guards were so preoccupied with whacking Liam, they didn’t see me coming.
I grabbed the club from the little dude’s hands, and before he knew what hit him, I landed a quick uppercut to his chin with the baton, then spun and smacked him full across the face with my elbow. Instantly a torrent of crimson gushed down his face and onto his shirt. He cupped his hands to his nose, trying in vain to staunch the blood.
Broken. Good.
Taking no chances that a broken nose alone would keep this guy at bay, I quickly delivered a roundhouse kick to his ribs, followed by a knee to his groin. The little dude sank to the ground, moaning and yowling.
The entire fight between little dude and me took less than thirty seconds, but it was enough time to draw the two guards that’d been holding Liam off of him and onto me – and to draw the attention of the rest of the guards too.
I can’t hold off twenty of them. They’re going to kill me.
Better to be dead than a coward, or worse, robbed of my Lucent Energy and wasting away as a shell of a man. If I was going to die, I was going to go out fighting. I was way past playing nice and hoping for mercy. I didn’t feel nice, and I knew the Dark Mob would show me no mercy.
I don’t remember much from the fight. My limbs were on autopilot. Our months of preparation gave me some edge. I wielded that small club like one of the baseball bats I’d trained with. It was smaller but thicker, stronger and easier to maneuver. It was a piece of wood made to be a weapon, not one created for a game. I deflected punches and hit the club against faces and knees and ribs. My legs thrust and kicked. I bent down to dodge and jumped to avoid low kicks.
I willed my body to ignore the throbbing in my back and legs from hours of picking berries. I accepted the spreading fingers of pain like warm fleece on a winter day. I wrapped myself in it and said, “Bring it on.”
The aching, the adrenalin, the anguish of loss and the anger had come together into a thunderhead of insanity. I came unglued and unleashed everything pent up inside me on those guards.
My mouth was filled with the tang of blood. My nostrils were filled with the stench of sweat and body odor and blood and wet earth. I had started out fighting almost a dozen guards, I was sure of it. But after a while I noticed that other berry pickers had come over and joined the fray. Liam was there, only about six feet away from me, holding his own and throwing punches at a guard.
The scene was a bloody melee. I hadn’t intended an uprising. I hadn’t intended anything except to stop them from beating Liam. But I was glad it had happened. I was glad that all of us who had been beaten and starved and deprived of sleep and sun were getting a chance to pound the fudge out of at least a few of the assholes who’d allowed it to happen.
We may have been weakened. The guards may have been physically stronger than us. I worked in the kitchen. I knew they were eating better than us. But we had one thing they didn’t have.
Lucent Energy. It still burned in us. Maybe not as brightly as it once had, but it was still there. And we seized our opportunity.
Bodies went down throughout the field. A few were the pickers, but most were Ciardha’s mob. I’d continued to fight the two guards that had originally held Liam, but I finally landed a solid punch to one of the dudes, hitting him in the temple. He fell to the ground, silent and still. I didn’t know if I’d killed him or if he was just passed out, but either way, it was one less body to fight.
I heard Liam shout, “To the buses!”
On his command, the berry pickers began running. It was like they’d organized it beforehand, but I couldn’t see how they could have. It was nearly impossible to talk to anyone without a guard seeing it. But whether it was planned or not, our enslaved crew acted as one, seeing an opportunity to throw off our shackles.
I ran too. I could see pickers ahead of me piling into the mini buses that had brought us to the field. I didn’t bother to jump over the berry plants. I ran and trampled whatever was underfoot, be it a strawberry or the arm of someone who’d been beaten down.
As I ran, I saw the first mini bus in the line close its doors and pull away. I forced my legs to run even faster. Must run faster.
Soon the second bus was full up, and it closed its doors and pulled away too. I scanned the scene as I ran, trying to find Liam.
He stood beside the door of what had been the fourth bus in the line. It wasn’t the one closest to me, but it was the bus I had to get into.
My heart pounded in my chest like it was trying to break itself out. Sweat ran from every pore, covering me in a slick sheen of stink. My breath was loud and labored. Every piece of me hurt. But my mind raced with the joy of possibility.
Liam and I, together. Escaping. We can talk. We can regain our health and strength and make a plan to rescue the others. We can find a way …
“Jake,” he called. “Run faster, son.”
Yes, I am your son, and you, Liam, are the father I always wished I’d had.
“Run, Jake,” he yelled.
Jake. He knows my name. He knows me. He’d known it was me all along.
“Hurry!” he screamed.
I’d pushed my legs as fast as they could go. But despite my adrenalin rush, my legs felt like they were in quicksand. I had no gas left in the tank.
Liam stood inside the bus door, and I could see him waving and calling to me. My ears were so full of the roar of rushing blood, I couldn’t hear what he said.
A searing pain ripped through my calves, and then I was falling. The ground rushed up to meet me. As I went down, I turned my head to see a club coming at me, a guard swinging it at me like you’d swing a baseball bat at a fastball. I put my hands up to block the blow but not before I was hit across the face. Fresh blood spurted into my mouth.
I was aware of nothing but the pain. Pain in my broken ribs, my bruised knuckles, my scraped-up shins. My nose, still not fully healed, was likely broken again. And there was a searing pain in the backs of my legs. I was pretty sure they’d filleted my calves.
My muscles no longer knew how to fight
back. There was only the incessant agony and the knowledge that this time, I really was going to die.
I’m sorry, Em. I’m sorry, Liam.
The all-too-familiar darkness fell upon me.
25. Akasha
Emily
Once you’ve taken a path the first time, it’s easier to find your way the next. My inner being remembered how to find its way from the Netherworld back to Akasha. I meditated and relaxed my whole body and my mind. I set my intention to be one with Akasha. It was like I could see a runway lit up by bright lights, pointing me in the right direction. I was in a familiar place.
As it had been the first time I was in the Akashic Field, it was as if my senses no longer existed. My body remained in the Netherworld with Madame Wong, but my Anam was in the Akashic Field. I had no eyes, nose, ears or skin. Yet I felt the low, persistent hum of the endless harmonies buzzing and resonating with each other. And I knew there were many lights, like a gazillion small stars, pulsating around me in all directions. These lights were separate from each other yet connected as if by an infinite mesh of filaments, spreading out in all directions.
I was at peace. I felt no urgency. No fear. There was no worry or agitation of the mind. There was only an overwhelming sense of harmony with all that is.
As before, I found myself drawn to one particular point of light. To one particular vibration in the endless thrumming all around me.
My mother’s light was as warm, as joyful, and as beautiful to me as it had been when she was in her human body. The human part of me still sat in meditation with Madame Wong in the Netherworld and longed to be held in her arms. That part of me still thought from time to time that life would be different – better – perfect – if only she hadn’t died. If only …
But the inner me, the part that was floating in the infinite space of the Akashic Field, knew that no matter how lost or adrift I felt, a part of me was always there with Akasha. And with her.
I was at once a part of her, and she was a part of me. I was infused with her, unable to tell where I left off and she began. We were one.
My mother, Bridget Adams. She was an eternal point of light existing apart yet beside me at all times. And we were connected by the filament of the Akashic Field, a thin thread of Lucent Energy that I could not see with my human eyes, but there, at one with Akasha, I could feel it. I knew it.
We have no words in our human language to describe the immensity of love that I felt. There was no speech between us. Not even the exchange of thought. There was only instantaneous knowing.
My mother had been separated from her human body for ten of my Earth years. Her essence had long ago given up longing, resistance, fear and desire. She had wholeheartedly accepted the truth of things.
And in that moment, she shared with me the gift of her knowing. As I melded with her in Akasha, I could see it – feel it – realize it all so much more clearly than anything Madame Wong had said.
It was so simple. I’d wished for more Lucent Energy. “Too bad we can’t just make more,” I’d said to Jake.
We can make more.
It had hovered there in front of me. It seemed like something I should have realized. Like something we could have at least figured out.
But we hadn’t.
It was as clear as the summer sky after a drenching rain. It was as obvious as a huge zit on my nose.
Lucent Energy doesn’t create love. Love creates Lucent Energy.
In that instant of knowing, I saw why we hadn’t made headway. Ever since we’d come back from the Umbra Perdita, I’d focused solely on holding onto my light. I clung to it like I’d cling to a life raft on an open ocean.
We’d focused our energies on keeping the dark out. But just keeping the dark out hadn’t been enough.
We hadn’t focused on letting the light in. We hadn’t focused on creating more love.
“Focus,” I’d told myself. Every time I’d thought about Jake, I’d force myself to push the thought – and him – away. I had confused my lust for Owen with my love for Jake. I’d pushed my love for Jake aside and down, thinking that it was the right thing to do.
I’ve had it all wrong.
Sure, I’d thought some loving thoughts. For my dad and Fanny and Jake – and for our little Lucent Tribe. But I hadn’t allowed myself to fully love.
As I bathed in the warm Lucent Energy of my mother’s being, I knew that the path was clear.
I felt an idea fill me.
Hatred never defeats hatred. Only love can balance the two energies.
I didn’t know how we’d build a love factory and get production of this most essential element going again. And while I was in the Akashic Field, I didn’t have the desire to come up with a plan. Brighid’s light may have been no stronger than a single candle flame, but it was enough. I felt content to know that so long as there was a spark of love in the cosmos, Lucent Energy could not die.
In the next instant, I was no longer enmeshed with my mother’s being. I felt myself move away from that familiar point of light. I went upward and sideways all at the same time and spiraled away from her. I sensed that the fine mesh of Akasha still connected us, but I was no longer one with her.
My being moved further and further away and up and out. The web changed around me. There were fewer and fewer lights and filaments to the web. It was like an infinite number of stars blinking out, one after the other. I had been bathed in infinite light. Soon I was in nearly total darkness.
Am I witnessing the death of the Universe? Has Ciardha won? Am I too late?
26. Berrach
Jake
I assumed I was dead.
But the pain proved to me that I was still alive. I felt like I’d been run over by a steamroller, flattened like a cartoon character. But I wasn’t in a cartoon, and I wouldn’t be miraculously healed and whole again in the next scene.
I would revive long enough to know I was still alive; then the agony overwhelmed me so much I’d pass out again. I was never awake long enough to know where I was or take stock of my exact injuries. I only knew that I wasn’t dead, and each time I awoke, I wished that I was.
I have no idea how long I went on that way. It could have been only a few hours, or it could have been weeks. I only know that one time I awoke, and I felt something wet on my lips.
Water. Yes, I want water. I pushed my tongue to my lips, thirsting for the wetness I’d felt there. My lips were dry and cracked like the desert in summer. I moved my tongue to search for the moisture. Even that small movement hurt.
I found the droplets and licked hungrily at the cool water. It was still dark and quiet. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open and it was just dark in this place or if I still had my eyes closed. I didn’t hear anything, but I felt like someone was with me.
“Water,” I said. It came out as a hoarse, barely audible croak.
I felt a few more drips hit my lips, and I again sucked them in.
“More,” I croaked.
“Now, now. Don’t be greedy, nub.”
That voice. I know that voice.
A few more drops on my parched lips. I forced my eyelids open and realized that I could see out of only one eye. My left remained closed no matter how hard I tried to open it.
With my one eye, I tried to focus on my surroundings. Everything was blurry. It wasn’t dark, but that’s about all I could determine. I finally made out a dark blob of a silhouette.
“Who’s there?”
“I know it’s been a while but don’t you recognize your old friend?”
I blinked my one good eye and tried my best to focus. My head felt like someone had slammed an icepick through it, the pain of it threatening to make me pass out again. But I willed myself to stay awake.
It was a young woman, not a guy. Her hair was long, and it was a big, dark halo around her head. Curls. Lots of long curls. Pale skin. She was short, maybe no more than five feet four inches standing, and thin. She straddled a chair, and she stared at me unflinchingly wi
th big, dark eyes. Her eyes weren’t completely black like Dorcha’s, but the irises were nearly black.
“Fanny?”
“You do remember me.”
“But … you were there. In that dark place.”
“Yes, where you and the red-haired bitch left me.”
“We didn’t leave you. He wouldn’t let you come back.”
“Doesn’t matter now anyway. All that’s behind.”
“All what’s behind?”
“The life of Fanny Katz. A petty, insignificant child.”
“What are you talking about, Fanny?”
“Fanny is dead. I am Berrach.”
What is she talking about? Berrach?
I blinked my eye again, trying hard to focus and get a clear picture of Fanny. It sure looked like Fanny. Hair a bit wilder than usual. It was like someone had taken a tornado to her head and formed a dark cloud of hair around it. Everything about her looked like Fanny except for the black eyes.
She was right. Fanny was dead. Berrach had taken her place.
I tried to curl myself into a ball to get warm, but I found that I couldn’t force my limbs to move. I shivered uncontrollably. “You’re one of the soulless. You’re robbing me of my warmth.”
“Don’t be an idiot, you git. You’ve got a fever from infection.”
“Why are you here, Berrach? Did he send you to finish me off?”
The person who used to be Fanny laughed. “You’re already finished; you just don’t know it yet.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but I didn’t have the strength or will to ask. All I could say was, “May I please have more of that water?”
“Oh, what good manners you have. Worthless, pathetic waste of time, that. I don’t give a shit about ‘please’ and ‘may I’.”
“Fine, then give me some fucking water.”
“No.”
“Alrighty then. You don’t want polite, and rude didn’t work. What will it take to get some more water?”
“I will give you water if I feel like it, and I won’t give you water if I don’t feel like it.”
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 70
