Rebirth (Cross Book 1)

by Hildred Billings

  Regina wasn’t meant to hear that. Yet she did, noticing the change in Miranda’s countenance. A twang of regret? A pang of pain? When Miranda was down, she was practically dripping through the cracks in the floor.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  By the softness in Regina’s voice, Miranda knew that the discussion had turned from flippant love to something more psychological. Back in their old days, when Miranda often displayed bouts of depression, Regina immediately took on the role of therapist.

  Like Troy currently fretted over Danielle’s grasp on reality, Regina looked at Miranda and questioned her mental strength. Yet what neither Troy nor Regina could ever truly understand was the spiritual weight pressing upon both women.

  “You know what I mean,” Miranda said.

  “I thought we went over that stuff a long time ago.”

  “But it’s true. All of it.”

  “I thought you let it go.”

  Miranda dropped her fork, the metal clattering against the dish and startling Regina into choking on her food for a few seconds.

  “You can’t let go of shit like that!” Exasperation polluted the quiet of the kitchen. “For fuck’s sake, Regina, what are you going to do when your granddaughter comes in here tomorrow, Monday, next week, to-fucking-night and cries out a ridiculous story that seems so crazy, so false, so batshit insane that you swear you’ve heard it before? From me? What are you going to tell her? Are you going to tell her to get over it? Are you going to make her feel more hopeless than she may already feel? Are you going to make her feel like a small child again? Nobody’s going to believe her when she says she sees things so real that it’s like she’s dying over and over again? In her sleep?”

  Regina maintained a carefully crafted countenance. “Death is…”

  “Something that never comes soon enough.” Miranda stood up from her chair.

  Ah, there it was. The talk of death. Wanting to die. Seeing death as an old acquaintance one wants to get rid of but also misses when it’s gone. It was that kind of talk that almost got Miranda discharged in her twenties. Instead, she was shipped off to Regina’s data entry division, home of active personnel who were on the brink of discharges but still somewhat useful enough to the military. The able bodies went to war. The slightly addled and gimpy went to M-Town.

  Once, Miranda confessed some of her darkest realities to the commander she thought she could trust. Didn’t Regina have a granddaughter with issues? Didn’t she know that half her department needed massive therapy? Yet Miranda should have known it was too good to be true – that someone unrelated to these events could possibly understand her. She learned a hard lesson from that moment of weakness.

  “I’m sorry.” The silence was unbearable for both women. One of them might as well say something. “Again.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Regina rested her chin upon her hand. “While you sit and simmer about that, I’m going out to put my kids to bed. Will you be okay here?”

  As Regina collected her jacket by the back door, Miranda pondered why she was compelled to embarrass herself in front of people she actually liked. She needed to keep her friends and confidants available. Only a matter of time, though, before Regina decided that her sanity was not worth listening to the incoherent ramblings of lonely women anymore.

  FOURTEEN

  Alicia could no longer control her balance. She crumpled onto the floor in front of the TV, laughter bubbling up as if this were another fun-filled night at the summer carnival instead of her boyfriend’s post-graduation party.

  “I give up! Someone take my place!”

  A quick game of rock-scissors-paper decided who would go next on the dance game. Serge declared himself victorious and belted for the dance mat.

  As they waited for his turn to end, Clyde opened another case of cheap beer to the sound of Devon and Alicia both demanding more alcohol. Under soberer conditions, Clyde would question how good of an idea it was to give his friends more booze, but his uninhibited brain was too entranced by the colorful arrows on TV to think clearly.

  “Sure you should be drinking more?” Devon asked his girlfriend the moment she popped open another can.

  She curled up in the crook of his arm. “Whatever. This is only my third one. I’m barely buzzed. This is cheap anyway, right? You can’t get drunk off this shit. It’s so watered down.”

  Serge chose that moment to fall on his face.

  “I think Serge might be slightly more than buzzed,” Clyde said.

  The party winded down within the hour, Serge announcing that he had to get up early for work and Clyde nudging Devon in a way that said, “Wink, wink, nudge nudge, you totally getting laid ‘cause you just graduated, so I’ma give you some privacy.” He tripped over Devon’s abandoned mortarboard on his way out.

  The moment they were alone again, Alicia hopped off the couch and said, “I’m going to take a shower. I may kick ass at that game, but it’s hard work being so damn good, you know?”

  Devon now faced the monumental decision of what to do with the rest of his evening. He was too tired to play video games, and since he no longer had comp-sci homework… well! Time to watch TV and geek out to the latest tech shows while checking his phone messages. After scrolling through an endless amount of congratulatory messages from old friends and classmates, he made sure it wasn’t too late to call Danielle back.

  “Yeah?” came a groggy voice.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Yes.”

  Devon glanced at the clock. It was only nine-thirty. Did military people really have to get up early even when they worked office jobs? “Sorry.”

  “Whatever. I fell asleep on the couch. What do you want?”

  “I was calling to ask if you figured out anything about this Relic bullshit.” Even with evidence in front of him, Devon could not believe he was falling for the idea that he was a reincarnated mercenary tasked with a job that should have gone to whoever those international policemen were. Marlow had mentioned something about Federation Forces, right? (He had, but the concept was still beyond Devon’s simple grasp.)

  “I don’t have any clue. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  He had thought as much. What he didn’t anticipate was Danielle changing the subject.

  “Anyway, I should probably tell you something. I told my… friend… about this shit.”

  Devon’s heart forgot how to beat. “What? Did he believe you?”

  “Fuck, no! He thinks I’m nuts! He wants to pretend that I never said anything so he doesn’t have me committed. Some friend, huh?”

  “Yeah. Some friend.”

  “So, I don’t recommend gabbing about our stupid situation. I’ll keep my ears open for anything that sounds like world-ending devices. Guess that’s our part-time jobs now.”

  “It’s now my full-time job,” on top of looking for an actual full-time job, that was, “since I just graduated today.”

  “Oh, right. Congrats.”

  “Thanks.”

  Danielle hung up a second later. Alicia emerged from their bedroom, body shrouded in a white terrycloth robe and her hands filled with the towel dabbing her hair. “Done. Your turn.”

  “Sounds good.” Devon put his phone down and left the living room.

  Alicia sat in front of the TV. Turning it off was overdue. But before going back into the bedroom to change into her nightwear, Devon’s phone rang.

  Since there was no chance of him hearing it in the shower, she picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Devon?”

  Alicia stared at the blank television. What was it? Some faraway memory? Some more recent memory? Which plagued her more the moment she heard Danielle’s voice for the second time in the past few days? “He’s in the shower,” Alicia finally said. “Can I take a message?”

  Danielle abruptly hung up again, leaving Alicia in disbelief.

  “Bitch!” She stared at the tiny clamshell screen. Whose number was this? Who the hell was that? How cou
ld Devon have such damnably rude friends? “Who the hell does she think she is?” A bright D accompanied Danielle’s number. Alicia swore she knew that number from somewhere.

  A faraway memory? A more recent one?

  She put the phone down. Her mind must be playing tricks on her. Must have been the cheap beer.

  Still, halfway across the room, to the sounds of the shower and her boyfriend singing a half-drunken song he wrote the other day, Alicia looked back toward the phone and wondered what the hell the world was coming to.

  She could have sworn that was someone she never thought she would have to see again. Someone she cut from her past like a festering wound in need of cauterizing.

  Her hand wrapped around the gold locket she never took off, even to shower. Every time those feelings, those memories overwhelmed her, she dumped them into her locket. Better than swallowing them into her heart yet again.

  ***

  That night, Devon had a dream.

  A nightmare.

  Of course, he had nightmares before. Who didn’t? Even the most dream-deprived person can at least recall one terrible dream that made them wake up in a pool of their own sweat and tickled the backs of their throats. If a nightmare was bad enough? A person could force themselves awake to make the madness end.

  Not this nightmare. Devon was trapped. The far recesses of his mind had unlocked, and little by little suppressed memories filtered out, ready to strangle him.

  He lay face down on the ground, body immobile as it died. He did not want to die. Not like this. He wanted to die with the knowledge that his soul would depart somewhere. He wanted to go to the Void.

  “You must promise,” came Marlow’s voice. “You must make your wish the moment of your death. Make it clear. Don’t complicate it. The simpler it is, the simpler it will be for you to break the Process.”

  Even with that reassurance, when Devon realized that his breath was going to end, that his body would be obliterated with his planet, that the two feminine bodies next to him, bleeding and lifeless, would also be obliterated… when he realized this, he was more frightened than anyone else could be. The concept of the Process did not make sense. He wanted to die. He didn’t want to become anyone else. He didn’t want anyone else. He wanted to extend his hand and take Sulim’s, her limbs covered in blood from her violent death at Nerilis Dunsman’s discretion. There was no guarantee that his next life would be easier. There was no guarantee that she would ever love him like he loved her.

  ***

  “Sul…” Devon awoke, his bedroom dark and his girlfriend asleep beside him. The twitter of morning birds rang outside the window, and the time of dawn began.

  His head hurt.

  Devon had never had a dream quite like that before – and it pained him to think that perhaps he was finally beginning to remember bits and pieces of his previous life. He supposed that his first life would be the most persistent since, in a sense, he was Sonall, and Sonall was him. There was no reason to assume things worked differently.

  He became ill as he remembered his first death. Had he really confessed that he was in love with her? If Sonall slept within him, Devon supposed he should know the truth.

  Sonall loved Sulim – somehow it was easy to believe. She was strong, only slightly older than him. She forsook distractions to become the great mercenary she was. She never once took a public lover. She was the most focused woman that Sonall ever knew. Unlike Sulim, he was not good at giving direction, so he allowed her to take control of assignments whenever they were grouped together. She spoke bluntly and walked with a no-frills gait. And she never showed any interest in anyone, be they male or female.

  Perhaps the light blond hair and bright hazel eyes were the same appearance Sonall fell in love with. Sonall, unlike Devon, was not shy around women. It was during his missions with Sulim that Sonall’s desire for her increased. Yet she was always cold to him, and Devon did not believe that Sonall ever confessed to her.

  Now he questioned his own motives. Technically, he had only met Danielle a week ago. Now he realized that his past self was in love with her past self. If physical characteristics and the soul of all things could pass between bodies, then could emotions? According to some of the files, they had been married on a few occasions. Were they married simply because their fates were intertwined? Or because Sonall was always trying to accomplish what he couldn’t in his first life?

  It left Devon to only question one thing now: was he in love with Danielle? Had Sonall’s soul successfully latched onto Sulim’s and demanded that emotion bloom?

  Devon stared at the back of Alicia’s head. She breathed lightly, her body in a deep sleep.

  He turned back over toward the window.

  A faceless black head stared back at him.

  An icy sheet lay over Devon. Alicia continued to sleep unperturbed, but Devon gripped the edge of the bed and stared into the endless darkness of the creature staring back at him.

  Don’t. Move.

  Wispy shadows slowly traveled down the bedroom window. Sparks of golden light fizzled out as quickly as they emanated from within the black husk looking to feast on Devon’s soul.

  Don’t move don’t move don’t move don’tmovedon’tmovedon’tmove.

  Half the night was wasted waging a silent war with a creature that knew Devon lurked somewhere nearby. Not that Devon knew anything about these beasts yet. In time, Marlow would give him the same sorry speech that he gave Danielle. Such sad creatures. Can’t find their way back to the Void. Will cease to exist if they don’t devour your soul’s endless potential.

  Even so, Devon knew this. He had fought these creatures off for a thousand years. While the Shadows had never succeeded in sucking out his soul, their games had come for Devon’s other incarnations. Running, attacking, screaming… lying as still as possible, hoping they would go away.

  The sun was up by the time the black husk crumbled into dusk, the forgotten souls of the dearly departed blown away in the wind. Devon heaved a sigh of relief and finally fell back asleep.

  ***

  The Void was as difficult to reach in a manmade interdimensional rift as it was on a common planet. The afterlife wasn’t meant to be reached. Not with the everyday mind. Certainly not with a mortal shell.

  Only a soul could hope to achieve that level of ascendance, and death was usually required.

  The few who could visit and search the Void and return to their bodies afterward were given lofty titles. Searchers. Seekers. High Yet Humble Visitors. Ghosts. Apparitions.

  High Priests of the Void.

  Nerilis Dunsman wasn’t just an ex-High Priest of the Void. He was often regarded as one of the most powerful julah to ever walk his people’s earth. An amazing anomaly that may have found answers in his family’s selective breeding over the many generations the Dunsman Clan – now renamed the Ducah Clan to distance themselves from Nerilis – practiced careful matchmaking to ensure only the most talented progeny. But not even genetics were enough to give a man the power to surf the Void with his third eye. Natural talent. Pride. Hard work and dedication. He had all three.

  He meditated in a quiet corner of his hideout. Fasting was required for his searches, for food had the unfortunate ability to distract the body and tether the soul to its mortal coil. Hedpah fumes filtered into the room. The plant, which had the metaphysical properties required to connect the soul to the Void, was chewed up and shoved into an amplifier Nerilis had been forced to purchase on the intergalactic black market. Nerilis was disgusted by the idea of his money going to fund terrorists and their ilk, but when a man was the most wanted criminal both in and out of the Federation, he didn’t have much choice. Hedpah was necessary for his travels into the Void. An amplifier was required to make it worth it. Things had to be forgiven.

  Thousands of years ago, Nerilis had access to all the hedpah he could use. Crates of it were stored in the Temple of the Void, where he lived and served as the High Priest until retiring to pursue a life of saving t
he universe.

  That’s what he told himself every time he settled onto a new planet and immediately planned its destruction. He was saving the universe. Sacrificing a few innocents for the good of all to come. That’s what he swore to do when he became High Priest. That’s what he promised the woman to whom he was once betrothed.

  She was in the Void, somewhere. She rarely said hello when he went to visit now. Her disappointment in the man she loved was too great, too raw.

  Nerilis wasn’t searching for her, anyway. He was searching for a piece of Earth’s soul.

  He could see things, divine the apparitions that appeared before him as his mind and soul traversed the endless expanse of the Void. His innate knowledge of the afterlife and personal connection he had with its hierarchy meant he understood things not even his contemporaries like Ramaron Marlow could comprehend. It was how he discovered the Relics on every planet he had targeted. While Marlow and his mercenaries required more practical magic to achieve the same end, Nerilis could momentarily ascend to the Void and have the Relics come to him.

  He drew the strength of Earth into his veins, he channeled the hopes and fears of billions through his soul, and he saw the endless sunset as it rotated around the earth. Seasons changed and winds waged before his closed eyes. The drop of a pin was infamy; the scream of war thundered through the universe.

  Somewhere, in one corner of this inhabited planet, was a Relic holding the collective soul of its people. And somewhere, in another nearby corner, was the heart of one. A heart strong enough to capture a piece of Earth’s soul in a tiny trinket.

  Usually, he discovered the collective Relic first. But Earth was such a religious, spiritual planet, filled with a cacophony of preachers and the harmonies of prayer that it was like dunking his head into cold water instead of the warmth of the seas of spirituality.

  Instead, he saw the outline of a girl clutching her pendant.

  He lingered in the Void long enough to gleam more details of this poor, wretched soul. She was not in the Process, but she was possibly reincarnated – hard to tell when the two strongest energies surrounding her were Processed souls. Those drowned out even the loudest drum.