Danielle looked over his shoulder. As soon as she realized Marlow had pulled up a computer program listing classified military personnel information, she demanded, “How the hell did you get that shit? What are you, a super hacker? Not even the guys who made our security can hack into their own shit.”
Marlow held up his hand again. “Please, I know what I’m doing. Like I said, I have my connections. A man like me has quite a bit of security clearance on your planet.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Hardly. I had to alert one of your generals who is connected to the Federation that Nerilis Dunsman has a vested interest in your world. I had clearance by the end of the day.”
“That’s… insane.” Of course her government knew about the Federation. Why wouldn’t they? It was probably in that big book of juicy secrets every president swallowed the moment he was sworn in.
Marlow smacked a button on one of his screens and said, “You work a majority of your days, right?”
“Yes.”
“For your government’s military, right?”
“…Yes.”
“Good, that gives me a place to start.”
Danielle averted her eyes as he went to work typing on seemingly nothing. Marlow’s fingers hovered over one side of the screen, but once in a while his left pinky strayed toward a series of green buttons lining the top of the screen. “Over here, please.”
A flurry of pictures flashed by the screen. DMV photos. Military ID photos. College ID photos. Marlow had access to every personnel index in America. “What’s going on?”
“I want you to look at some faces and see if you recognize any of them. Normally I’d warn somebody before looking, but in your line of work I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”
“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
Marlow clicked away from the Earth-oriented IDs, his pinky finger searching through indexes until a dark one popped up. At the top of the page was a small, square picture of a man with shaggy black hair and a deep cut across his right cheek. Branded across his shirt was a serial number embossed with bright orange. “Do you know this man?”
Danielle shook her head. “No. Never seen him before.”
“Okay. I’m going to go through each picture on this page. I want you to tell me if you know any of them.”
She agreed to play along. For the next two minutes, Marlow scrolled down the page of profiles, exposing pictures of criminals and the state of damage each subject sustained along with their number. When Danielle realized these people were probably not even from Earth, she wondered what kind of things happened on other planets her kind had never seen before.
She recognized a face.
“Stop!” It was a picture of a woman, frowning, her black hair shrouding her cheeks and illuminating the brown in her eyes. She stood, poised like a pissed-off princess, cheeks drawn down and eyes searing through the camera like fire. “I’ve seen her before. I know it.”
Marlow hesitated to continue. “Are you sure, Danielle? Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes. I saw her yesterday at work.”
The picture of Syrfila Tograten popped when Marlow clicked on it. He pulled up the military profiles from another window and turned on a search function. He clicked on Syrfila’s face until the computer drew up an adequate edge detection to use in the military’s database. It took ten seconds before the official formal pose of the cleaned-up and in-uniform Major Sara Kobayashi appeared on the screen with her details in English.
“Yes, you would appear to be correct.” Marlow leaned back in his chair, fingers off the keyboard and now stroking the fuzz on his chin. “I see someone has had her appearance altered enough for the Federation’s authorities to not yet catch her hiding out on Earth.”
“What does this mean?”
Marlow sighed in resignation. “This woman you see is not really who your government thinks she is. Her name is Syrfila Tograten. She comes from a race of assimilated humans in the Federation called the huling. They turned into a nasty bunch when they were banished after a war hundreds of years ago. Modern day intergalactic terrorists, if you will.”
Devon interrupted their exchange with his own question. “So is she like a mercenary?”
“Somewhat. She was captured and imprisoned decades ago on charges of planning and carrying-out a slaughter of a nearby planet.”
“What happened to her? Why is she here and not in this prison?”
“She escaped captivity while being transported between planets a long time ago. Authorities figured she fled to a volatile non-Federation planet. Only so much they can do, unless they have clearance or there’s a veritable threat.”
“Get them the clearance, then! She’s obviously working for Dunsman. How much more of a threat to our planet can you get right now?”
“That’s just it. She’s apparently working for Nerilis. As long as he’s around her, nobody can touch her.”
“Well, she touched me yesterday. I met her. She talked to me and fed me bullshit about going to…”
Danielle stopped. Hadn’t Miranda warned her to stay away from Syrfila? How did Miranda know her? Did she know something Danielle didn’t?
“This is serious. Syrfila is charged with some very heinous crimes. I’ll try to do some more research to see if anyone else may be involved. Until then, I suggest that you, Devon, and your friends stay here for a few hours while the dust settles back in your world. You would do well to stay away from this woman.”
“No shit.”
Marlow raised an eyebrow before returning to his monitor.
“Any luck?”
“None at all.” He turned off the array of screens, but not before someone else noted the custom imagery in his backgrounds, headers, and icons. Even the digital signature he used on his documents included a certain flair at the end of his name in every alphabet he used to sign it.
He caught the look on Devon’s face. “I like butterflies.”
“Wasn’t gonna say anything.” Yet it did prompt him to say something else. “What is with all the butterflies, anyway? Like our tattoos.”
Marlow didn’t look back at him again. “Butterflies are the most ubiquitous symbol throughout the universe. They’re the corporeal shape of souls.”
Danielle remained silent. Likewise, Devon wasn’t keen on this explanation. “I killed a butterfly a month or so ago. It was an accident, but does that mean I killed somebody?”
A vein ticked above Marlow’s eye. “No, ‘normal’ butterflies are not souls. I highly doubt you’ve ever seen a soul outside a body. In this life, anyway.” He opened the drawer next to him and stared down at a book cover. The embossed butterfly was cool to the touch. “Very few people have seen a soul in its natural form. They are not meant to be beheld.”
He pulled the book out of the drawer.
“Like this…” He showed them the cover.
“How can you tell?” Danielle asked. “Looks like any other butterfly.”
“There is a difference, I assure you.” Marlow placed his hand over the book. “I’ve seen them for myself.”
“Oh, really? And how was that for you?”
The bite in Danielle’s voice paled Marlow’s complexion. “It was horrifying.”
He kicked another chair in Danielle’s direction. She snatched it in her hand and turned it around. Marlow glanced at the sleeping men on the couch before continuing.
“That soul belonged to my friend. One of my closest friends. I saw her soul fly from her body in front of my eyes.”
“Was it your girlfriend?”
Marlow rubbed his face with the back of his hand. “No. I didn’t feel that way about her. We were friends at The Academy on one of my home planet’s moons. Me, her… and Nerilis. We were all friends.”
“What was her name?”
A bit of color returned to Marlow’s face. “Joiya. She was a julah, like me.”
“I’m so confused,” Danielle mumbled. “I don’t get what jula
h are, I don’t get what souls have to do with butterflies, and I don’t get why we’re talking about your dead friend.”
“I never said she was dead.”
The cold tone to his voice stopped the hearts he addressed.
Marlow continued. “She is, conventionally. Dead, that is. Her soul left her body, which by most basic definitions meant she died. But her body still breathed, still functioned in a comatose state. Because she didn’t die. Her body didn’t stop working like it usually goes… no, she split her soul from her body and went to the Void of her own volition.”
Devon asked, “Why did she do that?”
“Because she was the High Priestess of the Void, and could not live in the physical realm.” Marlow flipped the pages in his book until he found a chart diagramming the spiritual structure they unknowingly upheld simply by being born, living, and dying. However, it was written in Julah, forcing him to point to pictures and explain as best as he could in English. This was not a book Evan had ever translated. “The person in charge is the Head Priest of the Void, regardless of gender. This is to differentiate from the Head Priestess, who was prophesized to be a woman. Most importantly, the Head Priest lives in the mortal realm while the Head Priestess lives in the spiritual.”
“So she split herself, and that’s why she’s not dead but dead,” Devon said.
“Basically. She’s probably more alive than any of us, but we cannot see her or touch her. Or even talk to her.” Marlow put a protective arm over the book. “She is everywhere, though. She may be watching us now.”
“So she’s God?”
“No. The Head Priestess merely keeps watch over the Void and the souls that inhabit it. If there is such a thing as ‘god’ beyond that, we are still ignorant of them.”
Danielle sighed. “I still don’t get it.”
“That’s fine. We julah spend our lives studying the mechanics of the spiritual realm. I don’t have time to go into all of the little details, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Can I see that book?” Danielle asked.
“I suppose.” Marlow gingerly handed it over. “Be careful. It’s very old.”
The pages were sandy to the touch. Danielle flipped through diagrams, pictures, and text she could not understand. She couldn’t hide her surprise when she flipped to the front of the book and saw the name Nerilis Dunsman written in fifty alphabets, including Latin. Enough to pique her interest.
“This particular print had a foreword written by the then-Head Priest of the Void,” Marlow explained. “Nerilis was once such a man.”
“What a fall.”
“Yes. Joiya ascended to the Void while he was Head Priest. After her ascension, he fell prey to madness. We lost him.” Marlow’s voice was tight in his throat. “You know the rest.”
“Why did he start blowing up planets, though? Mad that she died?”
Marlow did not answer.
“Can we go home?” Danielle asked. “What about our friends?”
At least it was a quality topic change. “They’re in danger, too. Tell them to leave town. Nerilis is not above taking hostages to pull at your heartstrings.”
Devon and Danielle discussed this as they went to collect their friends to take home. The book passed back into Marlow’s hands. “Sounds like this guy doesn’t even know what a heartstring is,” Danielle said.
She was wrong, of course. No one knew better than Nerilis Dunsman. After all, he had snapped the day his fiancée Joiya Lerenan ascended to the Void.
The mercenaries had never known that in their dozens of lives. Some things were still sacred in Marlow’s heart… like the memories of a young and passionate Nerilis claiming he would find a way to protect the Void at all costs.
Julah had a saying about youth: it began in a day and ended in a day. Marlow recalled the day his youth ended. He would never forget seeing the breath leave Joiya’s small, abandoned body, nor the sobs a younger Nerilis Dunsman heaved as he clung to his best friend in his grief, the scarf he used to silence Joiya’s body hanging between their hands.
SEVENTEEN
One hour was not enough distance between Danielle and her assailant. With nothing more on her back than the clothing she wore, she drove out of town as quickly as she could. Her only haven was an hour up the northern coastal highway.
She rummaged through a stack of CDs between the seats and popped one into the stereo. As the throb of heavy percussion and electric guitar filled her car, Danielle drummed her fingers upon her steering wheel, willing herself to have empty thoughts.
Every car appearing from the shadows could have been her assailant. Although that day was not the first time Danielle ever had a gun pointed at her – she was military, after all – she still did not appreciate the overall situation imposed upon her. She was surprised she still went along with it. Here Devon proclaimed he had visions about past lives, but all Danielle could do at best was admit that yes, maybe this strange stuff was true.
“Please, God, don’t let my grandmother be dead by the time I get there,” she muttered. It was bad enough she and Devon were charged with explaining everything to Troy and Clyde, but now Danielle considered telling her grandmother!
Regina would understand. Regina never tossed her out after those years of psychiatric help, so why would now be so different?
Aside from the fact that she was a helpless child the last time it happened. Now, at thirty? Perhaps Danielle was a lost cause.
Gray clouds appeared. Music thumped through the car stereo. Danielle’s brain wanted to explode.
She approached the small ranch off the highway. Regina’s red truck sat out in the driveway like a cherry beacon – another car was parked behind it. Danielle did not recognize the green SUV in her grandmother’s driveway. It certainly wasn’t her step-grandfather’s. A friend? So much for the heart to heart Danielle hoped to have.
Danielle squeezed her car into the driveway. As she got out and stretched her legs, she caught a whiff of something sweet cooking inside the dilapidated house.
She may have grown up here, but since moving out years ago, Danielle still knocked every time she came to visit. I can remember the last time I stood here with my mother, she thought. That hand clasping hers, the other brushing away Danielle’s long hair as her mother told her to behave for Regina.
Who knew that such a moment sealed Danielle’s young fate forever? That she would call this old farmhouse home from the time she was five?
What would Regina say when Danielle unloaded strange ideas? Would she believe her out of love and obligation? Or would she wonder if her granddaughter was sicker than ever?
“Hello?” Danielle entered the living room. The familiar scent of musty old things flooded the nostalgic parts of her brain. For a moment, she was safe, if only because her current spirit told her she was.
No, no, no, it’s the same spirit, she thought. The same soul. The same stupid you.
“That you, Danielle?” Regina appeared from the kitchen, wrinkled hands wringing a towel. Two place settings remained on the kitchen table. Where was the guest? “You must have driven pretty quick. You weren’t speeding, were you?”
“No, of course not, Gran.” Danielle gave her grandmother a light embrace.
Regina laughed. “I was somewhat surprised to hear you were coming so suddenly. What happened to get you out here? A pack of wolves chase you down?”
Danielle was too intrigued by the blessed scent of chocolate to pay attention to what her grandmother said. “I needed to get away for a little while.”
“Understandable. Are you staying for dinner?”
“Probably.”
“Excellent. I’ll heat up more.”
“Speaking of food,” Danielle continued to talk even after her grandmother abandoned her to go into the kitchen, “what are you making? And why?”
“Some muffins. Apparently, I knew you were coming and needed chocolate.”
“That’s your job, I hear. Intuition and all that crap.”
“Sounds good. I’m gonna pop into the bathroom upstairs.”
Danielle reached the top of the staircase and discovered a locked bathroom door and the sound of running water. Was somebody in the shower? Who in the world? Certainly not her step-grandfather. That man practically lived in the nearest town and only came home to sleep. The guest? Whoever it was?
She went back downstairs and confronted her grandmother about the visitor. “So who are you sneaking around with, eh?” she chided. “You got some man up there?”
Regina smiled. “No, hon.”
“Who is it? Seriously.”
“A visiting friend. She stayed the night, so she’s freshening up before going home. I was making the muffins for her to take.”
“Do I know her?”
Regina pulled out the muffin tin. The scent of chocolate overpowered the kitchen, temporarily making Danielle forget what she had asked. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Regina said, changing the subject.
“What makes you think I need to tell you something?”
“Because you never visit me unless it’s a holiday or you’re in some sort of trouble. And it’s not time for my Independence Day barbeque yet, so it must be the latter. What’s wrong?”
The bathroom door slammed upstairs, interrupting Danielle’s thoughts.
“Tell her to hurry up in there because my bladder isn’t as young as it used to be.”
“Don’t give me grief about an old bladder. Sit down so I can give you a muffin.”
Danielle obliged with a small smile. As she sat at the tiny kitchen table near the back window, Regina grabbed an old fleece sweater off its hook and wrapped it around Danielle’s bare shoulders.
A fresh muffin was offered with a grin. “Careful. Hot.”
“Thanks.” Danielle had little patience for the wrapper.
Something creaked on the staircase behind the kitchen wall. A curt farewell sounded before the front door opened and closed.
“Your friend didn’t want your muffins, huh? Shame. They’re delicious, as always.”
Rebirth (Cross Book 1) Page 19
