Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy
Page 71
The images—men and women being taken by force by soldiers, military soldiers. I take the mouse and scroll over the volume control. Sounds of multiple people yelling are the background noise for the newscaster. “One month after the intersection, the U.S. government is still taking down a group of radicals, known as the Dobrian fellowship. New cells are developing as quickly as they are being disbanded.”
The screen switches to another scene, people dressed in civilian clothes fighting against armed soldiers. This is somewhere else, not the U.S. The fatigues the soldiers are wearing are charcoal gray with a red stripe along the length of their arms. They are throwing tear gas among the civilians. The civilians, they must be us, the so-called radicals.
The news anchor continues, “This is a world-wide revolution in an attempt to diminish our resolve that we are safe and do not foresee any future attack on our world. The so-called invasion claims, put forth by the Dobrian fellowship, have been proven false.”
A picture of Adam Claiborne fills the screen. His face has withered, dark circles encompass his eyes and his clothes look disheveled in the image. I wonder where he is, where they have him.
“Adam Claiborne, one of the leading radicals captured just over a year ago, was found dead early last night in an undisclosed confinement cell. The cause of his death is still unknown.”
A flash on the screen to my right draws my attention away from Adam’s image.
An explosion.
I slide myself over to the next computer; turn up the volume so it drowns out the first computer. The words are unintelligible, another language, so I mute it. I look at the date, four months after the date-stamp on the first computer screen.
A flash, another explosion, then confusion.
People running through the streets. A woman being trampled. They are running from something. The amateur footage being shot by a bystander pans out, to the masses filling the streets running from something. As the footage remains focused, I watch, waiting to see what is causing the panic. Then, I see them peppered among the civilians. The shifting faces give them away: grotesque, sunken, sallow. Black orbs with no whites. The faces I saw in the files back in Florida. The faces I saw beyond the Andromeda galaxy, beyond the veil; the occupiers. They were here; just a Michael said they would be. The entire time we were beyond the veil, access to our world had been open and they came. They hid in plain sight until this moment on the screen. Why?
The person taking the footage screams and yells. I can’t understand him, but his tone sounds like he is trying to tell the people to move faster in his panicked state. Then, one of the beings takes hold of a woman and man by their waists, fragments, and disappears. I have seen that before, I have done that before. That thing jumped with them, astral projected. Where, though? The screen freezes, rewinds, stops before the first image of the shifting beings appears and plays back on its own. This must have been one of the first sightings of the invaders.
Were the people running from the beings or something else? I look at the mass of people again. Many of them are being helped along by other civilians. One is being carried. Their faces are filled with terror, but many of them look ill, sick. As the video loops again, I wonder if this was also the beginning of a major shift in the elements of our world. Is that why the beings saw fit to invade, when we were at our weakest?
The video loop stops and starts over again. I can’t look at it anymore. I turn to the third screen. Nothing is looping. I look at the desktop more closely and see folders labeled by month. With my hand on the mouse, I hover over the folder with the oldest date. February 2012, that must have been after we left. I open the folder and see file after file of videos. The team must have saved these as they documented the progression. The folder contains about six video files. Each is labeled: “Element Levels Increasing. Correlation with Human Casualties,” “Human Death Toll by Country,” “Andromeda Beings Taking Over,” “More Dobrian Cells Taken Down,” “Sondians Pose No Solution,” “Gabriel Griffin Found Dead,” “Dobrian Copula Implantation Schedule Locations.”
One by one, I go through each folder for each month we were gone. All video documentation of what has happened around our world. I don’t watch the videos, I can’t. Just the titles build a story of what has happened while we have been gone. The elements in our world shifted due to the intersection, just as Adam Claiborne had told us. It made humans sick, but it wasn’t an illness that would heal. I don’t want to imagine the slow death of suffocation the deceased suffered. I remember the feeling of suffocating too well. The beings from beyond our universe, beyond the veil, came out of hiding and began the takeover. And, they did not stop with those who were not Sondians apparently. They did not discriminate when choosing vessels to occupy, something I’m sure Gabriel Griffin and the other Sondians were not expecting per Michael Sanderson’s naive promises.
I think of Michael, here in our world now. How will he learn of the diabolical souled beings that perforated the Andromeda galaxy rescinding their promise to him? To keep his fellowship safe during the takeover of our world? The rapture of our world? If they are the Hell coming to our world, will the Heaven come too?
The small scrape of the door against the concrete tile floor has me spinning in an about face. Ezra stands in the open doorway, taking in the enormity of what I am watching on the computer screens. As his eyes move from screen to screen, I observe a gamut of emotions pass over his face. I look away from him and down at my clasped hands, searching for stable ground.
Ezra moves farther into the small room and closes the door behind him. The sounds from the two video feeds melding together are roaring through the computer speakers now. I guess I didn’t realize I had them both turned up so loud. I spin back around in my chair to face the computers and fumble to mute the sound on both of them. When the sounds of chaos have been silenced, I turn back around. Ezra is sitting in a chair opposite me, poised to talk. Talk about the legacy that has been kept from us for our protection. The funny thing is the legacy will wind up being our path to salvation, the only true protection we have left.
CHAPTER 30: DELIVERANCE
Jesca
It doesn’t take long to pack. I place my few items of clothing into the duffle bag. The only thing remaining is the ant farm. I flop down on the bed next to the duffle bag and lift the limited world in my hands, peering at the onyx creatures stumbling around through tunnels and crevices. They aren’t moving as quickly as they had when Xander brought them into this very room over a year ago, before we ascended the veil of our universe into a bona fide hell.
Ezra told me everything Sebastian had not while we were beyond the veil. Ezra must have thought it would have thrown me over the edge to learn all of the added details about my lineage and this ancestral legacy I am part of. It didn’t. After seeing what I saw beyond the veil, it is hard to believe that the Onoch legacy could be any worse of a sentence.
As I look closer, I see some of the ants curled up around themselves, lifeless. Others are crippled, pulling themselves along the cavernous tunnels with two, sometimes one working appendage. One particularly still body has the gel-like nourishment cocooning its form. I look above the body and notice that the tunnel above had collapsed atop, trapping the ant.
During the team debriefing, everyone was present. When Ezra and I entered the room, I could feel Nate’s and Xander’s eyes on me. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone. I sat and waited for all of them to learn the turn of events in our reality yet again and where we must go now. I did speak up when the phrase “our entire team” came up. I reminded them that Angela wouldn’t be with us. Monica took this as her queue to tell those of us that hadn’t witnessed her death, what had happened.
Angela, Nick, Luke and Elicia were on a supply run about two miles out from the facility. Dobrian guardian cells were being picked off left and right, so it was risky going out any farther than a couple of miles from safety. The contact ce
ll was going to have the supplies ready for them to load, should have been an in and out, easy. The cell had been breached and it was a trap. Leaving the supplies, Angela, Nick, Luke and Elicia made a run for it. Once they were out of the building, Angela stopped in her tracks. Nick tried to pull her along, but she slipped through his hands and ran back into the building. Nick, Luke and Elicia started back for her, but within seconds, there was an explosion, leveling the entire warehouse. They knew that she would not have walked out of there, no one would have.
I think of the moments before we left the facility to ascend the veil. The ant farm, I asked Angela to take care of them while I was gone. I wondered then what made me choose her of all the guardians to take care of the ants. Something greater than fate was at work when I chose her, I know that now.
The thing is, Angela never appeared to be that strong to any of us, but for some reason the day we left the facility to ascend the veil of our universe, I chose her to take care of the ant farm, just like Ezra asked me. In some divine way, I may have been passing the watch over our team; resting their safety in her hands. We always considered her the timid one. Turns out, she was one of the bravest.
I could easily be wrong about the ant that collapsed the tunnel on himself, just as I was wrong about Angela being alone when she died. I look above the buried ant and see an ant posted at the edge of the hole where the collapse occurred. It is one of the livelier of the remaining ants, moving its upper limbs near its mandibles; it almost looks like it is praying.
A day after the explosion Angela set off to save our facility, Siobhan went back in search of other survivors. I think she hoped to find Angela alive. When the story was being told by Monica, Siobhan had to leave the room. She couldn’t hold in the pain any longer. Monica said that when Siobhan came back that day she told them she had found what resembled pieces of Angela’s clothing, the person unrecognizable. Siobhan had torn off part of the clothing from the body and carried it in her hand back to the facility. Said she wanted a piece of Angela with us to remember that her spirit would live on with them.
All of my assumptions about the computers holding months and months of video files of the last year while we were gone were correct. The story that I assumed by the titles of the files was correct as well. To date, it has been estimated that a third of the world’s population has been obliterated because of the reclimatization effects of the elements and the invasion of the beings from beyond the veil. The Sondians and Dobrians alike are being picked off by the beings equally now since we are the only viable threats; there were no other humans pre-implantation surviving in this world at this point.
As I watch the ant keeping watch over the edge of the collapsed tunnel, I wonder who will be keeping watch over us now.
We board the two private planes in the middle of the night for Marietta, Georgia as planned. As I sit here, in the cabin of the plane, I think of my mother, Anna. I don’t know if she made it out of the hell she so valiantly entered in order to get us out. I know that Monica and the others say that our modified Copulas have made it impossible to link with others, but I refuse to believe that my mother and my bond would break so easily.
I refuse to believe that any bond I have made with those I have come to love and respect would break so easily. I still had my abilities, right? One of my abilities was Telepathy, transmitting information from one person to another through the mind. Monica said the abilities would be off due to the elemental shift in our world now, but once we adapt, our abilities would as well. She also said the abilities might mutate and we wouldn’t know how they would be affected until they return, if they return.
I close my eyes and lean my head back on the headrest and focus on what I remember about my mother’s energy, her essence: vibrant, potent, warm, comforting, nurturing, always protecting.
Her voice is a whisper blended with the hum of the plane’s engine, “I’m here.”
Upon hearing my mother’s voice, I open my eyes and seek out Ezra. He has occupied the seat next to me, head lulled to the side and eyes closed. I almost shake him awake, tell him that Mom is here with us, but then I hesitate. Her soul will find his again on its own time.
I look beyond Ezra and see Nate and Xander in the two far seats, side by side, both of their eyes closed. Nate shifts and becomes tense. Xander’s brow is furrowed and his jaw is clenched, always on guard, always protecting. I can’t deny I love both of them and I know my decision to not choose between them will only come back to haunt me. For now, it will keep them alive. That is all the justification I need for my not making a decision.
I lean my head against the chilled window and stare out into the darkness, the new and uncharted world beneath us. I would expect fear to creep into my chest right about now. You know, the strike of lightning feeling I always get. The sensation doesn’t come. I don’t fear the path I am on or the ancient legacy I have inherited like I have the rest of this journey. In our transforming universe, our evolving world, adapting, evolving and surviving will only be one part of mankind’s deliverance. Transcending the legacy I bear, discovering its blessings among its curses for our world, will be the other.
Please continue reading for a sneak peek of Book 4 in the Copula Chronicles series, Legacy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Having always been passionate about the written word, Venessa Kimball embarked on writing what would become her debut novel, Piercing the Fold: a young adult urban fantasy series in 2010, with a 2012 release with Crushing Hearts Black Butterfly Publishing, it quickly finished out as a four book series. Venessa has also written a compelling teen contemporary series, the Evan series.
Venessa also writes New Adult and Adult romance under the pen name V. Angelika. When she isn’t writing, she is keeping active with her high school sweetheart and three kids, chauffeuring said children to extracurricular activities, catching a movie with her honey, and staying up way too late reading.
Connect with her at:
www.VenessaKimball.com
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have said this a million times, and I will say it a million more: It takes a village to produce a novel. The village I have been blessed with has helped bring this novel from imagination to realization. It could not have been accomplished without the energy of so many behind the scenes and I thank you with all my heart. Rebecca Poole, thank you for bringing the covers of the Copula Chronicles to life and formatting the content with all the pretties. Kristina Circelli with Red Road Editing and Dawn Miller for their keen eyes. Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing for believing in this series.
Dawn Miller, thank you for being an extraordinary friend first and a meticulous critique partner second. Your critiques, opinions, fine tuning edits, and nudges to push the characters make my stories more compelling than I had ever imagined.
To my beta readers, I have always asked you for brutal honesty and you have obliged. Thank you for that!
To my launch team, Darlings, thank you for embracing and spreading the word about my writing and being my biggest cheerleaders on my writing journey. I am truly blessed to have fans as great as you!
Austin DD gals, I love you dearly. Thank you for the inspiration and motivation you infuse into the atmosphere every month at our gatherings. I owe you a cheese tray and antipasti tray next time my friends.
To the bloggers and community of readers that have put energy and time into posting and spreading the word about my writing, you have been the life line for my books as they make their way into sea of novels and novelettes. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for all that you do to spread the word for authors worldwide.
Much love to all of
you,
~V
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Other Novels Published by Venessa Kimball
New Adult/ Adult Urban Fantasy- Sci-Fi series
The Copula Chronicles
Origin, Book 1
Descend, Book 2
Ascend, Book 3
Legacy, Book 4
Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection Boxed Set Books 1-4
*previously titled as the Piercing the Fold series.*
YA/Teen Contemporary Fiction Series
the Evan series
Dismantling Evan: Book 1
Saving Gavin: a Novelette, vol 1
Resurrecting Gavin: a Novelette, vol 2
Reviving Evan: a Novella 1.5
Novels Published by Venessa Kimball
Writing as V. Angelika
New Adult Contemporary Romance
Crossing Stars Duet
Cross the Stars (Crossing Stars Duet #1)
Steal the Moon (Crossing Stars Duet #2) - Coming Soon
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SNEAK PEEK OF LEGACY: A COPULA CHRONICLES NOVEL, BOOK 4
PROLOGUE: INCANTATION
Etowah Mounds, Georgia 1830 AD
Two strong, tan hands strike a rawhide drum in turn. Bum … bum.