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

by Venessa Kimball

  Abruptly and with no reason, the girl stops walking. The white man and woman look back at her, stopping their own progress. Slowly, the girl’s eyes scan the area, until they land on me. The color of her eyes—I recognize the olive-green color of them, Jesca’s eyes.

  The rupture of a primal roar coming from behind draws my attention from her and I whip around just in time to see uniformed men just like me charging through the village headed straight for the human barricade the natives and I have formed.

  ***

  Xander

  As soon as my hand rests on his shoulder, Nate opens his mouth; brow wrinkled in agonizing concentration, but says nothing. He slowly tilts his head one way and then the other, mouth agape, but words locked away. It’s like he wants to speak, but he can’t. Something is preventing him from talking. I step in front of Nate and place my hands on either side of his face, forcing it to be even with mine. “Open your eyes, Nate!”

  ***

  Nate

  The soldiers charging toward me suddenly change. Their eyes blacken and their invading rush transforms from smooth and fluid to coarsen and inhuman. Inhuman, like the woman consumed by the occupier earlier. Voices whispering obscure sounds needle my ears as I stare paralyzed with fear by these charging demons.

  Paralyzed? I look down at my feet and try to penetrate this stagnate state I’m in, but the power I try to proclaim over my body is not enough to break the hold. Unexpectedly and out of my control, I turn and run in the direction of the native princess, her mother and the gentleman.

  Wake up! Wake up! I open my mouth and try to let go of my voice; shout, holler, cry out, anything to make myself wake out of this, but my voice is being kept hostage by the Dwellers. They are commanding me, trying to consume me like they did to Sam. The admittance sends a spine-tingling chill straight to my bones. I’ve heard these hissing whispers before when I woke after returning from beyond the veil. What if a Dweller got to me while I was beyond the veil? It can’t be! This isn’t like the Dwellers we have seen consume humans.

  From within the confines of the sinister hisses, a stark bellow punctures the echoes, “Open your eyes, Nate!”

  The leaden pressure bearing down on all my senses lifts instantly and the echoing, whispering voices silence. I pull in a long, deep breath, my reaction to being back in the present, out of the vision. One breath is not enough and I pull in the air around me greedily again, and again.

  ***

  Xander

  Nate slumps against the wall as he pants rigidly. He is breathing too fast. He’s going to pass out.

  Just as I think it, Nate starts slipping down along the wall behind him. Swiftly, I grab him under his arms and support his body with mine to keep him standing. I angle my gaze over my shoulder to make sure no one has heard or seen him almost collapse. I lean him back against the wall so I can get a good look at him. When his eyes open, I see that they are clear and alive, no longer dull and lifeless. He is still breathing hard, but slower, and is starting to come around. Nate looks down at my hands gripping his shoulders and tenses, quickly diverting his eyes as he leans his head back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. I can see the frustration he holds in his darting eyes.

  “What just happened, Nate? Where did you go?” I ask.

  Still looking up at the ceiling, he shakes his head from side to side. “I’m just tired.”

  His fucking cop-out answer pisses me off. I get up in his face and let him have it. “Do you think I’m stupid? You were somewhere else completely, like some kind of mind warp. Something was fucking controlling you!”

  I had an idea of what that something was, but I didn’t want to admit it yet. If I did, that made it real and if it is real, then that meant Nate is at risk and so are the rest of us.

  Nate looks into my eyes and pushes off the wall, sending me a few steps away from him. Stoically, he maintains, “I’ve got this, okay! I won’t let them take me!”

  Again, his behavior and words remind me of Sam beyond the veil as he was fighting for his unraveling mind against Michael.

  Nate just fucking said ‘them’ and it can’t get more similar than that. I need to tell someone. Ezra. I’m backing away from Nate, when his hand snatches my forearm and holds it tight.

  ***

  Nate

  “You can’t tell them, Xander!”

  Glaring and noticeably riled, Xander looks down at my hand like he is ready to bite it off in order to be free of me.

  “I have to! They are trying to get to you!”

  Xander’s voice trembles with emotion, but he keeps it low enough to not draw attention to the team of soldiers on the other side of the doorway.

  I want to unbind my mind, let him in to see what I worry may be happening. I believe I can save myself, but the fear that any moment might be the last time my mind is my own haunts me. I look beyond Xander at the doorway to make sure it is clear, then I tell him, “Please, just listen to me, then you can make your choice.”

  Xander runs his hands over his face aggressively, and then folds his arms across his chest. Standing unmoved and listening. “Okay, fine. Go.”

  “Before we came back, when we were beyond the veil and Jes was—” The memory is too vivid still and it tugs at my chest, making me pause.

  Still, I need to push through the emotions and tell him. “When she was in my arms, dying, I had a revelation confirming what I’ve always known. My purpose will always revolve around Jes. I gave her every ounce of my life force. Well, I thought I had. I remember the walls shaking around us, the Dwellers coming for us, the vortex, scooping up Jesca in my arms, then feeling my body drain until I lost consciousness.”

  Visibly confused, Xander shakes his head skeptically. “Sebastian took hold of Ezra and I took hold of you as you held Jesca in your arms. Your eyes were closed, but you were able to stand with help. You were alert, Nate.”

  “See, I can’t remember any of that!”

  I look at the doorway again, checking for the others.

  “The next thing I remember is waking up in the Kyoto facility with a sore neck from the re-implantation.”

  A wall of silence forms between Xander and me all of a sudden. Xander’s expressed face doesn’t hold judgment or ridicule, just unease.

  I shake my head, trying to figure out how to explain this to him so he will understand. “I was awake, but not alert, Xander. I was trapped in a vision.”

  Xander asks hesitantly, “What if you brought something back from beyond the veil?”

  ***

  Xander

  I fold my arms over my chest, continuing to probe, fear building with every thought. “When you gave all of your energy to Jesca beyond the veil, you were weak. What if something like a Dweller latched onto you?”

  Nate leans in to me as he speaks, “I don’t think it is a normal Dweller, like the ones we saw earlier. If it was, I don’t think I’d have come to after we got back.”

  I push the obvious, even though I know he will resist. “We have to tell Ezra or Sebastian.”

  Nate questions defensively, “What if they can’t help me? What if the only thing that can save me is in Georgia, within the Etowah Mounds?”

  I push back again, not letting this go. “What if they can save you, keep you from completely losing your mind!”

  My pulse rises just picturing Nate’s captured stare again. “Cousin, I’ve lost too much of my family. You are my blood. The only blood I’ve left in this world. If you don’t let us try to save you and you are consumed—”

  A spasm of misery takes my words and I swallow to regain my composure. “If you are taken, your blood will be on my hands.”

  He shakes his head slowly, “I won’t be taken, Xander and my blood won’t be on your hands. As long as you help me, I won’t be taken. When you touched my shoulder just now, it peeled away the control this t
hing had on me, brought me back. I think your life force did that. Somehow, we’re still able to connect, even though they’ve said we can’t.” I can’t deny I felt a surge of energy leave me when I reached for him.

  Nate continues, “If you can keep me from falling under until we get to the mounds—”

  “What if it was a fluke? What if I can’t duplicate it? I did it once, Nate. Monica said our abilities could be different if they returned. What if my abilities aren’t solid and I can’t bring you back when I need to?”

  ***

  Nate

  I shake my head, knowing in my soul that this is not a fluke. “Xander, nothing is a coincidence or a fucking fluke in our lives. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  As Xander’s fixed stare bears down on me, I stand firm, not backing down from what I’ve grown to believe as the truth in our existence as guardians. “Everything in me tells me that once I get to the mounds, I’ll be freed from this thing latching onto me. Just please, right now I need you by my side on this.”

  As I wait out Xander’s decision, the heavy silence between us crumbles from the sound of a massive explosion from above.

  CHAPTER 15: SIDETRACKED

  Jesca

  I stand next to Elicia, Nick, Siobhan and Jake, watching the doorway I rushed from moments earlier.

  I was talking to Ezra and he was pissing me off with his overprotective dad complex. He begged that I stay close to him and Sebastian and not do anything stupid. That little gem ticked me off and I let him have it.

  My anger was quickly doused when he rested his hand on my shoulder and told me, “I just want you to be safe, all right?”

  The magnitude of his sentimental touch and words went deeper as I saw a glimpse of my mother holding Ezra in her arms beyond the veil. A myriad of sadness covered me as I remembered that image for myself. Michael had put a dagger through my father and my mother held him as I raged in Michael’s direction.

  Wanting the image to end, I closed my eyes and pushed it as far back in my mind as I could. I nodded at Ezra, accepting his request to stay close to him and Sebastian. When he left, I was hit with the familiar nausea that accompanies something bad––usually a small shit storm upon the much larger shit storm. I listened for the telltale hum that usually accompanies it, but it wasn’t there. It felt just like it did earlier, when the Dwellers attacked Briggs’ camp. As I turned, searching for the cause, I locked eyes with Xander first, then Nate partially in the shadows behind him. No one else was in the room, just the two of them. Suddenly my stomach retched and the absent humming spiked to flood my ears. I wondered if something had attacked Briggs and his troops above and we just hadn’t heard it from down here. Trying to remain unaffected in front of Xander and Nate, I rushed from the room not wanting them to see me spying on them.

  As soon as I left the doorway, the humming completely stopped, but the squeamish feeling lingered. I saw Elicia and made a beeline toward her.

  Seeing my expression, Elicia grabbed something from one of the bins and shoved it into my hand. She demanded, “Eat this. You look like shit.”

  Absently, I nibble on the nutrition bar and stare back at the doorway I just rushed from. As Nick and Elicia stand by me, I can’t help my curiosity. Nate and Xander have been there a while now. I consider going back in, but then talk myself out of it. They could just be talking and that isn’t a completely bad thing now that I’m trying to separate myself more from both of them. Unsatisfied, I try to slip into their heads, but I come up empty.

  My stomach suddenly lurches again and I take another small bite of the bar as I watch the doorway. What is making me nauseated? I look back at the entrance we descended from, but I don’t see or hear movement from above so it can’t be coming from there. Plus, if something were going down, Briggs and his men would have come to us.

  “I wonder what it will look like out there? I mean, we know what it smells like,” Nick says, breaking the silence.

  Jake huffs, “Third Tuesday. I don’t think Kyoto did that with the bodies.”

  Siobhan replies, “We wouldn’t have known if they did. We only went out a few times before—”

  Siobhan shifts uncomfortably and looks away from our huddled circle just as she softly says, “—before the last time.”

  I look back at the doorway. Still no sight of them. Are they fighting? I close my eyes and try one more time to get into their heads with no avail. Fuck.

  Nick and Elicia are making small talk, considering what above ground will look like in the daylight, when the slightest vibration channels from the tip of my toes to the core of my stomach, then trails up my chest, taking my breath away.

  “Something isn’t right,” I say flatly, drawing the nearest guardians’ attention instantly. Like my words ushered the reaction, a thunderous blast ignites just above us. Instinctively I cover my ears and scurry to any shelter I can find as ceiling and walls quake and begin to crumble from the spreading blast above.

  Monica yells at us, “Get in the truck, hurry!”

  I see her already opening one of the truck doors and guardians running toward it. Instead of following, I run toward the doorway where Nate and Xander are when two arms take hold of me.

  “No, Jes, get in the truck!” Ezra bellows

  Another blast rocks us and I slip from Ezra’s strained grasp. I run for the doorway to save Nate and Xander when they appear at the entrance. Relief fills me when I reach them.

  Ezra comes up behind me instantly and yells, “You three get in the trucks now!”

  Moving together, Ezra, Nate, Xander, and I move to the truck.

  Siobhan and Elicia are standing at the open doors of the cargo trucks, waving and yelling at us to hurry. Their voices are lost to me when a rain of gunfire is unleashed above us. It’s Briggs and a cluster of soldiers firing back into the hallway entrance of the compound and shuffling down the ramp toward the trucks. I jump into the truck after Ezra and see everyone sitting on either side of the truck. Xander and Nate come up behind me and we all file in to sit. The truck looks bigger inside than it did on the outside. All of the guardians actually fit in here.

  “This everyone?” Briggs asks at the door.

  Monica yells from the front of the truck. “Yes!”

  Briggs looks over his shoulder and I follow his gaze through the window panel on the side of the truck, catching sight of the soldiers firing on Dweller-occupied humans bearing down on them as they make their way to the other cargo truck.

  Ezra yells, “The Dwellers got in?”

  Breathing hard, Briggs nods quickly. “Yes, we just lost the Kyoto facility and another compound just south of Kyoto. My guess is we are the first in the U.S. We can’t hold them long. I’m sending two of our soldiers to drive you. They know the route. We will follow you in the second truck!”

  Before anyone can respond to him, he slams the double doors and hits the back of the truck three times. Daniel rises and lunges at the back door, setting the latch in place, locking us in. The truck leaps forward then starts to move. I watch Briggs from the side window running toward the other truck and his men break off from the entrance to the upper compound. Our truck makes a slight turn to the right, but I follow the fighting soldiers at the entrance through the window panels on the other side of the truck. Then, a wall of stone and dirt surrounds us on all sides; we are in a tunnel.

  I keep my eyes on the rear windows, watching the clouds of dirt billow up from the tires. No sign of headlights following us has me worried.

  Xander’s voice breaks the breathy, adrenaline-driven inhales and exhales in the truck. “Where are they?”

  As soon as he asks, I see the dull glow of headlights through the dust behind us. I yell, “There! They are behind us!”

  Their truck comes up on us quickly, and then keeps pace about a car’s length behind us. Swaying side to side in my seat from the rugged ter
rain, I notice something jabbing the center of my back. I turn to see a metal rod running along the back of our seats.

  Noticing my shifting around, Ezra looks down at me.

  I ask him, “What is this?”

  Suddenly, the truck thrusts, sending me into Ezra and Nate. The power of the truck’s momentum is so strong; it takes a bit for all of us to right ourselves with the help of the metal rod at our backs.

  The blur of the tunnel beyond them through the window panel proves how quick we are moving. Suddenly, a scraping sound on the metal wall at the front of the truck catches my attention. A small, rectangular piece of the metal slides open, connecting us to the front cab of the truck and a set of dark eyes peer through. “Buckle up and hold on to the rods back there! That’s what they are for,” says a deep, baritone voice from the front.

  Everyone is grasping a portion of the metal rods now and Nick responds with a sarcastic bellow, “Yeah, yeah got it! Thanks for the advanced warning on the warp speed, Han Solo!”

  The soldiers chuckle on the other side of the cabin before sealing us off from them. We are instantly hit with another punch of speed more powerful than the last. I curl my hands tighter around the rod behind me. The inside of the truck suddenly shifts from darkness to light and I look in the rear windows to take in the tunnel’s exit on the side of the stacked mount that cradled Briggs’ compound.

  The view is brief as a swarm of bodies clawing and climbing, pounding and driving their bodies into the truck carrying us. One body attaches to the back doors of the truck, peering into the windows with onyx-filled eye sockets and a sunken, skeletal face that once resembled a woman. Another body hits the window panel behind my head and I turn to catch a glimpse of its evil grin, rising inhumanely around the edges.

  The bile rolls in my stomach now, a reminder of the warning I received in the compound moments ago. The dwellers brought it on.

  The truck jerks to the right, when two large male Dwellers throw the weight of their bodies into the side of the cab. Then it fishtails to the left as a cluster thrusts into the other sidewall of the truck. Everywhere I look, the black eyes and sunken faces that once were human are concentrated on what is in this cab. The Dweller at the rear window steadily pounds the glass over, and over again with its head as it clutches the metal panels housing us.