Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  My body is dislodging from the arms around me and I open my eyes in sheer panic mode. I can’t see them! I can’t see Xander and Sebastian. A glowing white blinding energy is all I see, even though I feel Xander’s and Sebastian’s death grip now. I close my eyes again and concentrate on reaching Xander and Sebastian psychically. I call to them in my mind. Sebastian is the first to respond. “I’m here! Just hold on, the energy is going to get stronger as we pass through the event horizon.”

  Xander thinks, “I can’t see either of you!”

  Sebastian adds, “The energy around us is moving so fast, it has temporarily blinded us.”

  The spinning, pulling, and yanking is increasing all of a sudden.

  I think, “We are moving faster, Sebastian!”

  I open my eyes, curious to see if the energy surrounding us has changed. Not a good idea. My head begins to move in a whirling motion from the force of the vortex, lolling from side to side, and then jars from left to right. The pounding in my head brings a nauseating headache on and I know I’m about to pass out.

  Sebastian’s thoughts are panicked. “It is the pressure of the black hole bearing down on us. You need to make contact with Nate, let him know we are traversing. Xander, hold her tighter. If she passes out, she will let go. We can’t lose her while we are traversing!”

  Xander tightens his arms around me and I hear fear in Xander’s thoughts. “I won’t let you go, Jes.”

  I pinch my eyes closed and the nausea subsides a little. Think of Nate, think of Nate. My mind flips through a rolodex of Nate images; when we first met in the facility, when he saved me in the pool during training, when I thought he broke our link, when he helped us fight to get Corinna back in Florida, when he held me during and after my nightmares, training with him, kissing him.

  Finally, my mind holds tight on one image. I am staring into those blue-green eyes as he holds me to him. We are swaying steadily to the sound of the soft music. Incandescent, hanging lights surrounding him, the feel of my hands around his neck and his strong arms around me, feeling like he would never let me go, the scent of eucalyptus and mint; the way Nate smells. It was the night of our non-date. The image starts to fade and my hands begin to loosen their hold. I try to grip harder, to hold on, stay alert, but I’m slipping away. A bellowing voice inside my head pulls me from losing consciousness. “Jesca!”

  “Nate?”

  There is no response. No! I have to tell him that we are on our way! I have to find out where they are! Suddenly, Nate’s familiar energy is back with a force that takes my breath away.

  “I’m here, Jes!” he thinks.

  I want to open my eyes, see if he is physically here, but I am afraid I will lose my chance to tell him we are here. I think quickly, “Nate, we are traversing. Where are you? We need to know how to find you!”

  Nate’s voice exudes so much energy in my mind, it reverberates within my chest. “Home Jesca. When you arrive, go home.”

  “Go home? What are you talking about Nate? We’re coming to get you!”

  Nate thinks, “No, you don’t understand! When you get here, this place, it will look like Marietta!”

  Sebastian’s thought come through faintly, “Jesca? Xander, she is slipping!”

  Then Xander’s fearful thoughts mix with mine and Nate’s, “No, no, no. I got her!”

  All of a sudden, a wall of intense heat hits me in the chest and burns straight through me, suffocating me, snuffing me out.

  CHAPTER 17: ILLUSIVE

  Sebastian

  I hear children laughing; Caleb and Balthazar. I want to open my eyes, but they are so heavy.

  One of their small voices strikes a memory. “Daddy, come play.”

  Caleb calling me to play with him.

  “What time is it?” Did I just say that? No, I couldn’t have, but it sounded like something I have said before.

  I feel a delicate hand on my chest and a woman’s voice answers just then, “They need you, Sebastian.”

  Dobria? Oh my God, it’s my wife, Dobria! I force my eyes open wide enough to search for her, but all I see are small slivers of sunlight through a mass of golden leaves. I try to sit up on my elbows, but my head feels so heavy and the pain is so intense, I fall flat to the ground again.

  The woman’s voice is barely a whisper on the wind. “Don’t leave them like you left me, Sebastian.”

  Fear spikes within me as I do my best to loll my head in the direction of the whisper. I expect to see my deceased wife, but all that is there is a concrete sidewalk, vacant except for the few tumbling leaves scrapping the cement. A sharp, dull pain pumps in time with my pulse in the middle of my forehead, forcing me to close my eyes again. When it subsides, I feel stronger, like the effects of the traverse are beginning to wear off. I sit up slowly, trying to keep any spike in pain from returning. I try to concentrate on moving my eyes more so than my aching head, looking for Jesca and Xander.

  Her voice comes again, still a faint whisper, “If you had been there, they would not have come for me.”

  I clear the thick phlegm that has settled in my throat and find my voice. “Who came for you?”

  As I scan beyond the sidewalk and into the open meadow of tall grass, I see her, my Dobria, kneeling with her hands tied behind her back. My eyes dart from the quick rise and fall of her chest, to the long rip in the sleeve of her blue dress. I remember her putting that dress on the last morning I saw her.

  I look down and reflect on the two troopers that came to our home that night. “Mr. Onoch, your wife was found not far from the lake this afternoon—it appears she was taken into the woods—there had been a struggle at the abandoned car.”

  The sharp clarity of her quickening breaths through the gag in her mouth jar me to look up at her. Her head has risen to meet two dark-suited men with twill hats approaching her. Rich brown ringlets are clinging to her tear-streaked face and the whimper from her concealed mouth tears me apart. I notice the dark metal in one man’s hand. No, I can’t see this! I can’t watch this! I close my eyes and hear Dobria’s faint whisper on the wind that feathers against my face, “You left me and they came. They knew about your family, your legacy. They knew what you had discovered. They had been watching.”

  Dobria’s whisper sounds panicked and her breath is coming faster now. “They had been watching, Sebastian. They were coming for you and found me.”

  The gunshot’s ring invokes a series of wails from deep within me as I cradle myself. I’m so sorry, Dobria. I’m so sorry.

  The sound of long grass being crushed underfoot get closer. My sobs cease as the footsteps stop in front of me. I feel the looming weight of a presence bearing down next to me now. I open my eyes and see that I am no longer in a field. I am in a home watching a small boy sitting at a dining room table. A little girl, sister maybe, sits across from him. They are coloring. I move closer to the table cautiously. An unforgettable voice hums in my ear. Michael.

  “They can’t hear you. It is a memory, Sebastian, my memory.”

  The two children continue to color, when a door opens and shuts quickly followed by footsteps. The children drop their crayons and run beyond me. I turn to see them latch onto a dark-suited man, just as he removes his twill hat to scoop them both up in his arms. The dark-suited man who took her from this earth. This man, this father, killed my wife. Who was he?

  The room flashes brightly, and then fades into the scene of a young man and young Balthazar shaking hands. The dark eyes against the pale skin giveaway the identity of the man, Michael Sanderson. A young woman appears behind him, catching young Balthazar’s eyes. The woman, I have seen her in the worst of times. The image of my son cradling his dying wife and my grandson, Marcus, in his arms fills my mind. Miriam.

  Michael’s whispering voice deepens, “She was a traitor. She threatened my family’s legacy—got in the way. Just as your legacy passe
s on, so has the one my father has passed on to me. This burden spawned from your curiosity, the Copula, the traversing should have ended with you. Not your wife, not your son, not my sister, Miriam, not my nephew, nor any of the others that will suffer because of your actions. You brought this on all of us. You will be the reason for the end of mankind as we know it. The end of humanity as it was. There is no turning back now. Under my direction, my leadership, our world will become strong again. The weakness humanity has cast on our world will be flushed out. A stronger, superior world will emerge.”

  He is insane to believe that without humanity, our world will become superior. Our world will self-destruct. As quickly as Michael’s heavy presence ascended upon me, it dissolves, leaving me with my fear and anguish for those who have suffered and will suffer in the wake of the Onoch legacy.

  CHAPTER 18: SIDE EFFECTS

  Xander

  I feel the tickle of her breath along my neck when I wake; Jesca. I must have caught her fall when we landed. I open my blurry eyes and blink quickly to clear them, get them working again. I am lying flat on my back with Jesca splayed across me, her hair partially covering her face. Moving my hand to brush her hair away takes more energy than I expect; must be side effects of traversing. As soon as I lift my head to get a better look at her, a sharp pain stabs through my eyes and pulses throughout the top of my head. Damn it, this is worse than a hangover.

  I lower my head back down carefully and close my eyes. Maybe if I lay here a few minutes, the effects will start to wear off. I lie here listening to the sounds of the trees rustling in the breeze. It’s hard to believe that this is a different world, a different universe. The sound of the rustling leaves softens, and then disappears all together. When I realize the silence, I open my eyes slowly. The trees above me are still, the sky has dimmed to dusk, and Jesca begins to stir.

  She groans, I guess feeling the same effects of traversing that I felt. “Ahhh, my head.” She rolls away from my chest and onto her back. Her breathing is heavy and slow.

  “It’s the effects of traversing. It will pass. Just lay there for a bit. It took a while for my headache to pass.”

  I raise my head slowly, testing my theory. There is a slight ache, but nothing like it was earlier. Wait, how much time passed? First time I woke, it was still light out. Now, it is beyond dusk. I slide up slowly on my elbows and take in the surroundings. Lampposts and trees take turns lining a mix-master of sidewalks. I follow one sidewalk with my eyes until it dead ends into an enormous stone building.

  I sit up all the way now and study the doorway, the building’s windows completely dark, except for one sole light and two figures passing before it. I remember this. I look back at the mix-master of sidewalks. This is Jesca’s campus in Marietta. I look back at the stone building and the glowing window; Ezra’s office.

  Jesca’s moan pulls my attention from the window. She’s trying to sit up. “Where is Sebastian?”

  I help steady her with one hand under her elbow. “I don’t know. He isn’t here.”

  I look back at the building and notice the light in the window is off. I feel Jesca’s body tense under my touch and I turn back to see if she is okay. My eyes meet hers and they are filled with terror as a shining blade rests above the Copula medallion around her neck. Squatting behind her and looming over her shoulder is none other than Sam Crest. His appearance is disheveled and his dilated eyes look crazed against his almost gray skin. “Hi, my boy. I’ve been expecting you.”

  I want to lunge for him, tear him apart, but then I see the blade in his unsteady hand under Jesca’s chin and I hold still.

  Sam’s chuckle is sinister. “You could have saved her, Xander. Before you ever knew who she was, when you were stalking him for me.”

  Sam looks up into the trees as he thinks. “Well, for Michael, but I guess that is me since he took over and—never mind.” Sam shakes his head restlessly and narrows his deranged eyes back on me. He lifts his chin high in the direction beyond me, urging me to look.

  I turn to follow his gaze and see Ezra walking down the front steps and away from the building, disappearing around the corner.

  Sam’s trademark tsk makes me wince with hatred. “You followed him that night. You saw him enter that diner, sit with a girl, the same girl you ran into the first day you laid foot onto that campus.”

  I look back at Jesca, her hands wrapped around Sam’s strong hold. Sam tightens his grip on her and grinds his teeth. “This girl.”

  Jesca grits her teeth and tries with all her might to push the knife away from her throat, but Sam is immobile.

  I hadn’t figured it out until Jesca was already in danger in Florida. If I had, could all of this have been prevented? Corinna Cain being abducted and implanted and enslaved with a Sondian Copula, the wormhole being opened in Aokigahara Forest welcoming an invasion into our world, Nate and Ezra falling into the wormhole with Sam, Jesca’s life being in the hands of the man who murdered her mother and my parents.

  Sam lifts Jes to her feet, blade still resting on her jugular. I stand slowly and cautiously, not wanting to provoke him into doing anything to hurt her. He pulls Jesca back against his chest and tucks his chin between her shoulder and neck. His face contorts monstrously, and then reverts almost immediately. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.”

  To my surprise, Jesca struggles against Sam hard enough that the blade moves from her neck and she is able to break away from him, but for only a second. Sam flips the blade in his hand, throws, and strikes Jesca in the chest.

  “NO!”

  Jesca stumbles backward and falls to her knees. She looks down at the blade, then back at me, before she releases a pain-filled sob. I search for Sam, but he has fled.

  I drop to my knees before her trying think while I deny what has just happened. “No, no, no.”

  Flashes of Ezra’s experiment in the cabin, stabbing Jesca and having me heal her, rushes through my mind. “No, Jes.”

  He was preparing me for this. I hastily pull Jesca into my lap. “Jesca, listen to me. I’m going to heal you. I need you to put your arms around me.”

  Her breath is shallow and her body is shaking as she tries to grip my shoulders with her trembling hands. Silently crying, she whispers, “Xander, I’m sorry.”

  “Stop it, Jes! You are going to be fine, you hear me?”

  Jesca lays her head just below my chin. Her words are almost inaudible. “Xander, pull out the blade.”

  I close my eyes and grind my teeth before I reach down and wrap my hands around the shaft of the blade. As soon as I pull it, I know I need to work fast. God, please let me work fast enough. In one swift motion, I pull the blade, causing her to throw her head back, gasp and spasm limply in my arms. I can’t hold back my own tears any longer. I can’t lose her. I pull her head back to rest on my chest, cradle her to me and close my eyes. I let every ounce of sadness turn to anger, then to energy to heal Jesca. Holding her tightly, I let the force within me flow through every beat of my heart, pumping directly into her. I whisper through my clenched teeth. “I will not let you go.” I hear her breath quicken and she tightens her grip around my neck. Thank you, God, she is healing.

  Jesca’s eyes find mine. “Xander?” Suddenly, the life behind those olive-green eyes begins to fade, her grip on me begins to weaken and her body becomes languid in my arms. I take hold of her face and hold it steady, keeping her fading gaze on me. “Jesca! No! Don’t go!”

  This can’t be happening. Her eyes still as her last breath slowly slips through her parted lips. I can’t look at her like this, but I need to comfort her. In her final moments, she needs to feel safe and comforted. I can do that. I gather her up in my arms and rock back and forth as the rush of tears and soft cries come from within me.

  My tears have stopped falling and her limp body is growing cold in my arms no matter how tightly I hold her to me. The numbness that peopl
e say comes when you have spent all of your sorrow has settled in. I shift Jesca’s body off me carefully and lay her on the ground. I run my hands over her open eyes, shutting them to this world. Placing her small hands on top of her stomach, I sit back on my heels. I don’t pray; no point, my hope is gone. The only thing alive in me now is revenge. I turn away from the purest part of my life and begin my hunt for the darkest.

  CHAPTER 19: CALAMITY

  Jesca

  The ringing in my ears and the pulsating headache rouse me from unconsciousness. I am laying face down breathing in the earth and leaves under me. Instinctively, I blink my eyes open and pull my head up from the ground. Shit! The pounding is so intense I pinch my eyes shut and lower my head back down. When the pounding begins to numb, I open my eyes, but do not move my head at all, just my eyes. I look up as far as I can. I can’t see the sun, but it is still light out; everything has an auburn cast to it, like it is early evening. Xander? Sebastian? My vision crawls along the leaves in all the directions, but all I see is an extended area of leaves, wild shrubs, and a mulched path; a trailhead.

  As I look at it, I get the feeling I know this one. Wait, that’s my trailhead back home in Georgia! I think back to what Nate had said during the traverse. “When you arrive, go home.”

  I raise my head slowly, testing the waters to see if the blinding pain would return. When it doesn’t, I crawl up onto my knees and stand up. I turn in a circle looking for Xander and Sebastian. I don’t see them and my instinct is to call out for them. I remember what Daniel said about Nate and Ezra. Once they ascended the veil, these beings, demons, knew they were here. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter if I call out to them if they already know we are here, right?

  “Ezra?”

  “Nate?”

  Nothing.

  I look at the trailhead, the only opening in the woods surrounding me. I look at the ground and think back to the last time I was here, before my life changed forever. I was running through on the trail, breathing hard from panic, the dark aura on me, and then I see the light. I speed ahead, I’m in the open, I see the lake, then Ezra.