I wince a little out of sympathy for the baby. “I don’t want to hurt his neck.” I smooth his blanket and tuck it under him with my other hand.
Balthazar leans over and looks down at Marcus. “You won’t, he is tough like his second cousin.”
That is right, he is my second cousin. Anna, my mother was Sebastian’s niece. I shake my head thinking about the complications of my life now, when only a year and a half ago, I was concerned about my work schedule interfering with my classes. Marcus lets out an embittered grunt and I intuitively hush him. “Shhhhh, little guy. It’s alright, I’ve got you.”
Eyes still closed, Marcus’ face relaxes from the scowl, and stretches, arching his back out of my arms. I hold him tight, but give him the room he needs to stretch. He slowly settles back into the crook of my arm and releases an audible breath from his small parted lips. His every movement is a miracle in itself. The warm hand I know very well settles on the middle of my back. I pull my eyes from the baby’s and hone directly in on Xander’s. Diverting his eyes from mine, he looks down at Marcus and whispers, “Beautiful.”
I look back down at Marcus to hide the heat rising under my skin from Xander’s nearing presence. “Girls are beautiful, boys are handsome.”
I feel Xander’s breath graze my shoulder when he says in all seriousness, “I know. I was talking about you.”
I pull away from Xander an inch or two and begin to sway back and forth, refocus on Marcus’s angelic face; distracting myself from how Xander’s making my pulse quicken.
Marcus being a distraction works, but instead it stirs images that play out quickly like a movie reel, but in reverse.
Baby Marcus lying in my arms with Nate hovering behind me in a lake.
Stabbing Michael and diving off a cliff after Miriam and the bundle in her arms.
Miriam plummeting into the lake with Marcus after being stabbed by Michael.
Chasing Miriam and the bundle in her arms through the Aokigahara Forest.
Nate and I holding each other in the SUV before entering the forest, telling me he loved me.
The kiss Xander and I shared at the Kyoto safe house before the intersection.
A man on a computer screen at the safe house. Adam something...Clairborne, Adam Claiborne!
I remember now. He is a scientist. He spoke of black holes, white holes, the soulless wanting to draw us to them. He said whoever went into the black hole might very well be ripped apart, but Ezra and Nate made it. I don’t deserve to be standing here holding this baby while my father and Nate are God knows where. I look up at Sebastian and Balthazar. “We need to talk.”
Siobhan must see the conversation going south real quick, because she moves in toward me and puts out her arms. “I will take Marcus. It is time for him to go down anyway.”
Carefully, I hand Marcus off to her and she carries him away with Jake close beside her. Jake turns back toward us and nods. “We will be back in a bit to get caught up.”
I cross my arms over my chest feeling on display as everyone watches me cautiously; like I may implode any minute. Sebastian puts his hands in his pockets, looks at Balthazar, then pulls out a chair from a nearby table. “We should sit.”
Everyone grabs a chair and Sebastian dives in, “Since the intersection two days ago, the local guardians have taken control of all the Sondian safe houses in a thirty mile radius, including the one where Sam and Corinna were hulled up. The Kyoto team took us in and helped us gather intel from the safe houses. Email messages exchanged between Sam and Michael on Sam’s computer were acquired. Apparently, Michael Sanderson was going to return to the safe house after Sam traversed in the wormhole to ‘clean’ the house and watch over Corinna.”
I feel the guilt of killing Michael biting at me again. “If I had kept him alive, we could have used him to find Ezra, Nate, and Sam.”
Balthazar replies, “Jesca, we did not find his body.”
I feel a chill course through my body. “What?”
Balthazar looks at Sebastian wearily, then back at me. “After you and Nate left. Sebastian took the baby and I ran to the top of the cliff, but he was gone. No sign of him at all.”
Damn it! I should have waited to see if the wound was fatal. I was so focused on going in after the baby and Miriam, to try and save them. Could he have healed himself? No, he has to be dead somewhere in the forest.
Balthazar continues speaking as I think about places he could be hiding. “Some of the cells nearest to the forest have banded together and started a search and rescue, but they have turned up no living thing. Even if we did find him, he wouldn’t have talked. The data we have collected from the safe houses has given us more than he ever would have. It has revealed that the black hole in our galaxy and the black hole in the Andromeda galaxy merged days prior to the intersection creating a super massive black hole. Devices similar to the ones I used when traversing between Earth and Sonde were found at Sam’s safe house. We are hoping we can utilize these devices to access Ezra and Nate.”
My heart skips a beat with the glimmer of hope Sebastian reveals. “So we can go get them if these devices work?”
Sebastian nods. Relief flows through me for the first time since waking from the sedation. Their sacrifice to protect us won’t be in vain. We can go get them and bring them home. Sebastian reaches across the table and squeezes my hand, reassuringly. “Jesca, Nate and Ezra made a choice to protect all of us. They made it through the black hole and are safe until we get to them.”
A cloud of doubt passes over my hope, remembering my vision with Ezra and Nate and how Ezra seemed on edge, defensive of where they were.
“They are safe until they are discovered.”
Sebastian drops my hand and is all ears. I look around, everyone else is too. Xander and I take turns telling Sebastian and the team everything that happened during our dreams with Nate and Ezra. Sebastian looks at Xander first. “So, they both appeared to be fine, like themselves?”
Xander nods. “Yes, they seemed to be fine. Ezra seemed worried about the beings there. He said that they were being careful though.”
Sebastian nods and scratches the back of his head. Balthazar looks at me now. “You said that Ezra told you the world they are in is almost identical to ours.”
I nod in an attempt to stay with the conversation, but I am still preoccupied with Michael Sanderson’s whereabouts. Could Michael have snuck in behind us while we were struggling in front of the vortex and traversed before Sam, Nate, and Ezra? No, someone would have seen him. Ezra would have told me he sensed him there when I talked with him. Wait, he did see someone though! He didn’t say it was Michael. Maybe he didn’t know it was him.
Sebastian, “Jesca, what is it?”
“I asked if they had seen anyone too and Ezra said yes. He said that the beings appeared to be human, but he didn’t want to risk anything by communicating with them. What if Michael is there somehow?”
I didn’t want to say anything about my thoughts on Michael being there, but I couldn’t hold in my concern where Ezra and Nate are concerned. Neither Sebastian nor Balthazar say anything to rebuke my concern, which fuels the rest of the team’s chatter about our fellow guardians being at risk. Sebastian and Balthazar remain silence, I’m sure thinking over the brief conversations and little information Xander and I were able to share with them. Xander cuts through the chatter, shifting in his chair, he leans in, and cuts the chatter off with a commanding voice, “You, as well as I, know we need to get to them. Test these devices you have by opening another wormhole that could link with Andromeda’s black hole to reach them.”
Balthazar sits back and crosses his arms. “And how do you know that could work?”
Xander looks at me nervously, then back at Balthazar. “I don’t know the details. Nate told me that we needed to traverse to them and that you and Sebastian would have answers.”
Woah! Why didn’t Xander tell me that he and Nate spoke about that? I wonder what other things were discussed. I cross m
y arms over my chest, wary about what went on between them in this conversation and what he is not telling me.
“Really, what else did he tell you, Xander?”
Xander does his best to ignore my question keeping his eyes on Balthazar, but I see his jaw grinding steadily, a telltale sign that he is hiding something.
Passing over my question, Balthazar adds forcefully, “And risk you landing somewhere totally different, another world even, from where they are? No, not going to happen. We need time to open up these devices, look at algorithms and coding to see if the Sondians embedded a code specifically for this place, wherever it is. Do you know what the odds of being torn apart in a black hole are?”
Nick mumbles, “Zilch, zero, nola, nada, een, nul.”
Aggravated, Balthazar raises his voice over Nick’s, “We need to send a probe first, not a guardian!”
That comment gets my attention. “My father and the man I am linked to are trapped in a world that could kill them and you want to send a probe? All that will do is set off more bells and whistles for the beings in that world to possibly attack them. Ezra said he is concerned already. We don’t need to send something else to raise more flags for these beings unless that something can fight back.” I didn’t want to add my thoughts about Michael, but my patience is gone. “What if Michael somehow got over there?” I scoot my chair back roughly and start to pace. “We can’t find him. What if he passed through the vortex in the forest?”
Elisha tries to calm me, “We would have seen him, Jes.”
I shake my head, “We were all distracted. He could have slipped through.”
I close my eyes and pinch my nose as I pace trying to grasp for any memory of that night.
Then, like a curtain in my mind parting, but only for a moment, the image of Nate holding me before disappearing into the wormhole. “We will find each other again.”
The curtain in my mind’s eyes shifts.
Nate slowly fading away in the dream I had this morning saying, “You need to…”
As quickly as the curtain parted and swayed for me, revealing fractured memories, it seals, obstructing anything else from coming through.
Damn it, he was going to tell me what we need to do to get to him! I need to what? I stop pacing and try to concentrate on getting back into my head.
Fixated on the memory, I almost miss the soft, feathery whisper words brushing against my ear. “You need to find us, Jes.”
I pull my hand away from the bridge of my nose, open my eyes and look up at everyone. Nick has his arm over the back of Elisha’s chair. Xander has his elbows on his knees, deep in thought. Sebastian is tapping a pen on the table, eyes watching it, but mind obviously somewhere else. Was I the only one that heard that? I close my eyes again, turning away from all of them. Sebastian whispers to Balthazar about the devices, but I block them out. I think of Nate again and another whisper falls on my ears, but this time it feels like he is standing right behind me delivering the message. “You can find us. Use our link.”
As quickly as Nate’s energy befell me, it disappears, leaving me depleted of my own. I open my eyes slowly and turn back toward the team. “It’s the Copula.”
Xander looks up at me first, examining what I am getting at.
“Nate, he said that I needed to find them using my link.”
Xander’s face transforms from that of concern to that of objection. He sits back in his chair, folds his arms over his chest and challenges me. “How?”
I can sense Xander’s jealousy immediately. I try to ignore it. “It makes sense that I could find them because of the Copula.”
Xander studies me, and then shakes his head. “I’m linked to Nate too. Why didn’t I hear him?”
Smart ass. His jealousy is really getting under my skin. “Our link is a little different than yours and his, Xander.”
Xander smirks and shoots daggers at me now. “Yeah, it is different all right.”
Son of a ...
Balthazar thwarts the back and forth between Xander and I. “Jes, you have been through a lot. You could have imagined it.”
I shake my head, frustrated with the direction Xander has taken this conversation and Balthazar’s condescending approach. Feeling trapped between the two of them, I turn to Sebastian. “You know how strong a link can be, Sebastian. You said it yourself. You have experienced it with your own son.”
Sebastian casts notice from Balthazar, to Xander, then back to me. “What are you suggesting Jesca?”
Balthazar turns to Sebastian ready to argue him even entertaining my idea. Prepared for an argument, Sebastian holds his hand up to his son stopping him before he starts. “She is right. I would not have my son safe with me if this were not the case, Balthazar. We know how powerful the Copula can be within us.”
Balthazar’s lips tighten as he weighs Sebastian’s words. The small gesture, Sebastian placing his hand on Balthazar’s shoulder, tugs at my heart as I reflect on the bond that was just beginning between myself and my father.
Balthazar notices my stare and his face softens. “Even when the Sondian Copula was stripped from my body by Michael Sanderson himself, my soul was determined to reach my father. The bonds a soul makes can never be erased or stripped.”
Balthazar looks down and I can see a mental struggle going on in his head, I just can’t read it. “Jesca, you have to realize that there is a risk of losing you. My father and I have only attempted this within our universe. You will be venturing into uncharted territory, beyond our universe.”
“Until Sam, Ezra, and Nate. They made it and I will too. There is not a doubt in my mind Balthazar. I will find them. Just figure out how to get those devices you found working with my Copula and I will figure out the rest.”
Balthazar scrutinizes me, trying to call my bluff; that I am afraid. I hold his gaze, working hard not to show the anxiety that is swelling within me. It takes moments, and then he releases a deep breath. “Alright. We are just waiting on our support team to arrive; we hope anyway. With the intersection and the chaos ensuing above ground, we aren’t sure if they will arrive at all. They may have to seek shelter with another Dobrian cell.”
Having not heard a word from Xander, I let my eyes roam over to see response to Balthazar’s and Sebastian’s agreement with me. His glare is fixed on me, so I don’t linger, knowing I will get an earful the moment we are alone.
Unexpectedly, the cafeteria door swings open. We all turn toward the sound of baby Marcus’ whimpering cry, but Siobhan is the quickest to rise and streak across the cafeteria to the guardian bringing him in. The woman guardian says in broken English, “He no sleep. No disturb Isabel and sister.”
The guardian carefully places Marcus in Siobhan’s arms and she cradles him to her chest, hushing him and placing soft kisses on his forehead.
Isabel and her sister. Oh my God, I am so consumed with finding Nate and Ezra, I forgot about Isabel and Corinna! Flashes of Isabel in the meadow of Aokigahara Forest and Corinna fighting by Sam’s side during the battle bombard me. They must have sedated Corinna to get her back here against her will. The Sondian Copula changed her; made her sinister. I wonder if they tried to remove the Copula. What about Isabel? I’m sure she was a wreck seeing her sister in the state she was in during the battle.
“Are they okay?”
Sebastian rises slowly. “Isabel is fine.”
“What about Corinna?”
Monica leans forward in her chair. “Jesca, we knew that if she came out of the sedation with the Sondian Copula still intact, we would be putting our team as well as the Kyoto team at risk. We had to attempt removal of the Sondian Copula and the old Dobrian Copula as well as implant the new, modified Copula. The same one we fitted Marcus with.
Monica looks down for a moment. That small gesture makes my heart drop. Something happened. “What is it? What has happened to her?”
Chapter 4
Ezra
I was the first to come to consciousness. Nate took longer to wake
. It is a typical effect when traversing through a wormhole. I have experienced it every time I have traveled. It had been a while since I traveled though. Since Anna passed to be exact. There are some things our bodies simply will not adapt to or aren’t meant to adapt to and traveling through wormholes is one of them.
When Nate and I fell into the wormhole, I tried to hold on to both him and Sam Crest. Wherever we landed, I needed answers from Sam and I would get them even if I had to beat it out of him. Once we were in the wormhole, the energy surrounding us was so intense and the movement so fast that I could only see fragments of Nate and Sam as I held onto them. The energy around us in the vortex maintained such a blinding light, it was difficult to see. On top of that, the pressure the wormhole exuded drained my ability to stay conscious. The pulling of my limbs was slow and deep within my muscle tissue; such a strange feeling. My body felt like it was stretching in every direction, but it wasn’t painful. It was kind of like stretching in the morning, but I was not in control of stopping the stretch and strain of my limbs. The only thing I could control about the traverse was holding onto Nate and Sam. Then, I felt a weightlessness take over, like my body was becoming nothing and everything at the same time; becoming a part of the wormhole, swirling in time with the vortex. I lost sight of Nate and Sam by the blinding glow of the energy flowing around us and between us. I still held on to them. Without warning, a wave of intense heat hit me and radiated through my entire body taking my breath away. I tried to catch my breath, but there was nothing to breathe; air ceased to exist in this tunnel. This was something I had not experienced in other wormholes. The heat wave was quickly replaced with a frigid cold wave that sent my body into a full on seizure. After that I blacked out. Thinking back now, that could have very well been us passing through the event horizon of the black hole.
A sound accustom to our world brings me back to consciousness; birds chirping. Sensing the bright light of the sky above me, I open my eyes slowly. I blink a few times to clear my blurry vision, revealing a small figure hovering above me to my right. It is a boy, maybe five years old. I don’t try and sit up. I stay very still, not wanting to scare him off.
Ascending the Veil Page 3
