Marlow snorted. When he received a message a from Nerilis, asking for this secluded meeting, he did not know what it would be about. “What of her?”
“If there’s anything I have asked of you…”
“Countless things, Nerilis. I can only imagine what it is now.”
“Protect her for me while I can’t.”
“I see. Why should I?”
“Because it is Joiya’s body, and too much has already happened to it.”
“Joiya herself is gone, Nerilis. Her body is somebody else’s now to take care of.”
“Then protect her because she is my daughter, and that means something to you.”
“What if it didn’t mean anything to me?”
“It does.”
Marlow laughed. “I suppose I need something to do now, since you’ve sworn to stop terrorizing the universe.”
“I’m serious. Please protect her. She is already being abused by that despicable criminal.”
Suddenly Marlow’s smile turned into a judgmental frown. “What do you mean?”
“I saw them,” Nerilis said. “She has wounds all over her back. Scars, too. I know that shazhim gave them to her,” he spat out of their native words with a curse.
Marlow leaned back in his seat. “Since when are you so parental?”
“It’s my fault,” Nerilis continued to mutter. “I was the one who sent Tograten to go get my daughter and bring her to me. She was only an adolescent then. What did I condemn her to? It’s been over fifteen years.”
“Then fifteen years of Hell, I suppose. What bothers me now is why you care so much about her but not a drop about any of the sad shits you destroyed. I can’t believe you only care about her because she’s your daughter. No. This is because she has Joiya’s body, isn’t it?”
Nerilis averted his eyes and stared at a short blade of grass beneath his feet. “This is because of a lot of things. Just swear it to me. For the rest of her natural life.”
Resigned to such a plea, Marlow cast a piece off the chazah board and grunted. “I’ll see what I can do. I still have business on Earth as it is.”
“Thank you.” Nerilis relaxed. “Kick that criminal’s ass if you have to.”
“Ha! I should turn you both in and be set for life.”
Their awkward conversation resulted in not much more than that, the young men yards away growing tired of their games and moving on toward the city proper to celebrate the one man’s birthday with alcohol. Both old sorcerers watched them walk down the hillside, and when their chatter died down on the breeze. Marlow turned to his old companion.
“Why did you ask me here, to this planet?”
“Because,” Nerilis began, “I wanted to see it. It’s the closest I will get to home in a very long time. And because…” He paused, then started again. “I thought about making this my next target.”
A whistle breezed through Marlow’s lips. “Getting close there, weren’t you? This is a proper Federation planet.”
“Would’ve been my first.”
They did not discuss the repercussions of that, and it left them in a state of silence until they sought solace in their loneliness again. They said a terse goodbye, Marlow off to do his own work and Nerilis to hide from the Federation law for the rest of his life. The game board was left askew, the pieces strewn across the stone and falling to the shortened grass. A piece of fruit fell from the tree above, splattering with a loud thud! on the board and caking the remnants of Ramaron Marlow and Nerilis Dunsman’s last interaction in red and pink pulp.
As they departed, each man traveling his own path, they wished the other could understand what it meant to give up their love for the greater good.
Hildred Billings is a Japanese and Religious Studies graduate who has spent her entire life knowing she would write for a living someday. She has lived in Japan a total of four times in four different locations, from the heights of the Japanese alps to the hectic Tokyo suburbs, with a life in Shikoku somewhere in there too. When she’s not writing, however, she spends most of her time talking about Asian pop music, cats, and bad 80’s fantasy movies with anyone who will listen…or not.
Her writing centers around themes of redemption, sexuality, and death, sometimes all at once. Although she enjoys writing in the genre of fantasy the most, she strives to show as much reality as possible through her characters and situations, since she’s a furious realist herself.
Currently, Hildred lives in Oregon with her girlfriend and dreams of a cat.
Connect with Hildred on any of the following:
Website .:. Twitter .:. Facebook .:. Tumblr
The following is a special preview of book 2, CROSS//Revenge, due out this Winter!
The Void still aches to be saved.
Sacrifices must be made.
Nerilis Dunsman may have given up his quest to send as many souls back to the Void as possible, but his band of underground followers are willing to take up the cause. While a secret society of julah death cultists don’t have the power to destroy like their idol once did, they do have one powerful tool at their side…
Knowledge that killing at least one soul still in the Process could save everyone.
Danielle teams up with Devon again, but this time it’s to run for their lives from an organization sending their best and brightest to bring down the mercenaries.
They’ll be chased across Earth - and across the Federation!
The thirst for revenge will only be quenched with Devon’s torture and Danielle’s death. Good thing they have a ragtag team of old julah, unwitting Earthlings, and a host of Federation soldiers on their side.
With any luck, Danielle will regain her memories. Before she’s sacrificed to the great good.
—
--- Prologue ---
They gathered in a lecture hall. Men and women, of different backgrounds but still connected on that visceral we all share the same origin level, who addressed each other with words like “friend” and avoided eye contact between the slits in their black hoods. Their murmurs permeated the hall like wildfire, and between the aging group of men wearing golden ropes around their necks and the younger followers who chattered in hushed frivolity, there appeared no logical reason for these people of such different walks of life to gather beneath a blank banner.
But for every word an elder did not utter, a younger vocalized, until they passed each other and the younger ones were compelled to hang their heads. As children and descendants of those that spent eternity in silence, everyone had the cultural directive to create an atmosphere devoid of raucous.
So when an elder climbed the platform, those in attendance dispersed themselves to any of the seats sprawled throughout the hall. Their voices quieted, but the sounds of shuffling robes and screeching chair legs echoed. They waited for the hooded elder to speak.
“My fellow children of the Void,” he grumbled, the acoustics of the hall embracing his voice, “it has been a cruel year for those of us who, in our faith, supported a great man’s work. For centuries we, the League of Spiritual Awareness, have lent our support and abilities to Master Nerilis Dunsman in the hopes that his great but tragic work could mend the holes in the universe.”
He cleared his throat, hands gripping the podium and robes pushing down the more he stood upright. “Not even half a year ago, this great man was hunted down by a pair of zazipah and their traitor of an overlord. Let us take a moment and pray to the Void for his fate.”
Cloaked heads bent in honored prayer while the elder backed away from the podium. A smaller figure ascended the platform and waited to be introduced.
“My good fellows,” the elder continued, “now is a time of mourning and solemn reflection on all that is to come to our poor, hollowed universe. Yet before we admit defeat, we must hear the voices that echo among us. Please allow me to step down and allow a brave, sanctified woman to say her piece.”
Subtle applause drifted through the audience as the feminine figure approached the p
odium. Due to her petite frame, she had to climb onto a small partition so her shadowed face could look over the podium.
Her voice cracked before the spectators. “The time has come,” she said with renewed fervor, “for us to act. All my life, I have known the existence of a great man who saw a problem and took it upon himself to fix it. And for that he was persecuted, pursued, and stopped by another man who called himself his friend – a traitor, as the elder said, to the heart of our kind! I ask you, is it not our jobs as julah to protect the sanctity of life, to attain the knowledge of the Void, and to above all else search for a balance in the universe? Why, then, is one man judged for what he knew must be done? Our world is small, but the universe is grand. Those who oppose the balance must be punished. We cannot allow our pacifistic nature to cloud our sight. Master Dunsman did not. He did the dirty work, and we mourn his absence.”
She let her words melt into her audience’s ears. She knew that she was judged by her readiness to take up their cause. Her eyes traversed the crowd, scoping for the young, the old, the sages, the acolytes…
The soldiers.
They lined the edges of the hall, cloaked to conceal their identities but also their status as the planet’s lowliest class, displayed by the break in the cloak that showed their leather boots and the daggers strapped around their ankles. They leaned against pillars and draped over the backs of chairs. A few were women, but most were men. In the deepest demonstration of their rank, they whispered to each other like common miscreants. She wanted to chastise them from her podium, but clutched the edges of the wood instead.
“Now,” she continued, while her elder looked on in renewed pride, “we find ourselves in the greatest predicament since the inception of the League of Spiritual Awareness. Our hero, the man who led the greatest revolt across the universe, is missing. Pursued by the Federation forces and even our own government like a disgusting criminal!” She paused, knowing that these words would inspire murmurs of agreement and dissent. “His trial may be over, but his vengeance is in our hands. My brethren,” she raised her arms into the air, “we must not let his enemies live without remorse! The only way to avenge our master is to succeed in the ascension of two final souls to the Void!”
The audience did not know whether to applause, although their hands were slowly tapping together.
“And it is I who will rise to the challenge and seek revenge on behalf of our master, Nerilis Dunsman, and seek to continue his great work!”
Everyone finally stood to applause, their cheers rising in a fury of approval. The young woman bowed her head in appreciation and stepped down, only to be met by two elders who bestowed upon her a sash that marked her as an honored martyr.
With the entire hall in a glorious uproar, it was not impossible for another hooded man to slip in from the entrance and whisper an urgent message into the nearest soldier’s ear. This began a game of passing the message down a long line of men and women with daggers around their ankles, until it reached its intended recipient – a man who did his best to not stand out, yet who was recognized by his fellow caste. He departed down a side corridor where he would go unnoticed until he followed the messenger out the entrance.
He was passed off to an older, uncloaked man who stood with a cane dressed in his tailored suit. The old man said something that no one else aside from the soldier could hear, and it culminated with the passing of a stuffed envelope between their hands.
The soldier opened the edge of the envelope and saw the markings of Federation currency. He instantly sealed it again and shook his head.
It was not until the audience parted to allow their new, feminine savior to pass through that the unmasked man and his bodyguards fled. The rest of the audience poured out behind their elevated woman, and for a brief, scattering moment his eyes locked with hers through the folds in their hoods. She saw crippling weakness; he saw a vain thirst for vengeance.
Her lips curled into the formation of words so powerful that he nearly turned and demanded the envelope back.
“I will capture the elusive butterfly. And I will sacrifice her for the good of the Void.”
ONE
Earth; November 7th, 2007 (Federation Year 5614)
Danielle stomped down the sidewalk on a frosty Wednesday morning. She did not know if these nerves stemmed from the chills that ran up and down her body from the lingering fog and low temperature, or from the rapid beating of her heart as she focused on her current errand: coffee. Get coffee. Lots of coffee. So much coffee she would be awake for the next twenty-four hours.
Or at least that was the plan that looped in her head like some failed battle formation. It was the first day of her vacation and there she was, at eight-thirty in the morning, trekking down the sidewalk in nothing more than jeans and her winter-lined white coat that was supposed to protect her from the cold. Her eyes glanced at the faces that passed by – people in suits on their phones, men and women in café uniforms rushing to beat foot traffic to the next crosswalk, estranged tourists with their cameras in their hands, a plethora of Army and Air Force personnel straggling along at casual speeds as they gossiped to each other and occasionally saluted a superior. Only Danielle would spend the first morning of her vacation in the neighborhood she worked in.
“Excuse me,” she said to a cloister of uniformed men. They let her pass by as she bolted for the nearest coffee shop on the corner of an avenue and the wide street that intersected M-Town, the city’s answer to overcrowded military bases and government offices. Danielle was not surprised to be greeted in the warm, cinnamon-scented shop by a woman in an Air Force uniform who held the door open with one hand and balanced a clipboard in the other.
She stood in line behind another woman in uniform and checked how much time she had on her watch. Only one hour left until she had to be at the airport. How long was this line? A solid line of four people, all in uniform, looked toward the counter to get their morning coffee.
“Cromwell? What are you doing here?”
For a moment, Danielle kept herself in denial that her boss Capt. Miranda Hotchner, svelte and stylish in khaki, was in the same café as her. Bad enough she had to work with her nearly every day. Bad enough there’s enough sexual tension between us to make the clergy clutch their rosaries, Danielle thought. The two locked eyes, Miranda checking her shock while Danielle pretended this wasn’t the greatest inconvenience to clock her on a Wednesday morning.
“I’m here to get…coffee…what else would I be doing in a café?” Manners rarely mattered in their department, and certainly not in a public coffee house where a dressed-down Danielle didn’t have to answer to her superior. Or at least not as far as the other customers cared.
Miranda clicked her tongue. “Isn’t today the first day of your vacation? What are you doing in M-Town?”
Danielle looked away, cheeks blushing red as she averted her eyes from Miranda’s relaxed countenance. “I’m on my way to the airport and wanted to get some coffee.”
“Oh?” The line moved up one. “Going somewhere for your vacation?”
“Not really. I’m going to pick somebody up.”
“Even better, right?”
“I guess so. What are you doing here? You usually make the coffee in the office.”
Miranda scrunched up her nose. “Ever since they replaced the old coffee with that new generic shit, I’ve been coming here. I figure what’s twenty bucks a week when it means better quality for my sanity.”
The barista behind the counter called for Miranda’s attention. While Danielle waited for her turn, she counted how much Miranda was spending on coffee per year. Twenty dollars a week, eighty dollars a month, and then… Danielle balked at the idea of spending that much on coffee, but always harbored a suspicion that Miranda was richer than even her captain’s salary allowed.
Danielle glanced at her watch again. With more nerves driving through her, she waited for Miranda to pick up her coffee and get ready to leave. Before she departed, however, she turn
ed to Danielle, coffee in hand, and said, “Enjoy your vacation, and make sure to return soon so I can go on mine, okay?” She sauntered out of the coffee house, only stopping to say hello to somebody in the doorway.
The barista snapped her fingers to get Danielle’s attention. She hastily paid and shuffled out of the café, stopping outside only long enough to put her coat back on and take the first few beautiful sips of French roast that she decided she deserved that day. Her car beckoned.
With coffee in cup holder and radio on stand-by, Danielle took in a deep breath and pulled out of her parking spot, ready to cruise down the avenue on a drizzly morning.
For fifteen minutes she sat in silence on her way to the airport. Saxophone music interrupted her clear thoughts as stations overlapped each other, prompting Danielle to shut off her radio as she turned onto the exit that led to the international airport. Before she paid for her parking space, however, she pulled a piece of paper out from her pocket and read her own hasty scribbles to make sure she was at the right terminal.
She stayed in the driver’s seat after turning off the car, adjusting her rearview mirror so she could get one last look at herself before going inside. She wiped the glistening specks of coffee away from her lips, patted down the stray blonde hairs on her head and adjusted the collar of her black turtleneck sweater beneath her white coat. The last of her nerves blossomed as she entered the bustling airport.
Amidst a flurry of flight attendants, tourists with suitcases, and security guards, Danielle shoved her way through morning airport foot traffic to the outskirts of the international terminal where large, LCD displays of flight times and statuses flashed above news tickers and calls for common sense when using the airport facilities. Danielle pulled out her piece of paper and checked the flight number before shoving her way past a group of lost businessmen who gaped at a canceled flight to Germany. Her eyes lit up in delight as she noticed her flight was to land in the next fifteen minutes.
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