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

by Venessa Kimball

  Nate looks at me, then down at his own flexed hands, realizing I’ve seen his panicked response.

  “What’s wrong, Nate?”

  He and Xander exchange a glance as he responds. “My hands are just a little shaky, that’s all.”

  Sam cocks his gun to chamber the first bullet, drawing the entire trucks attention to him. “You sure that’s it, Nate?”

  Sensing insinuation in his voice, I ask Sam, “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Sam shakes his head and raises his free hand in surrender. “Just concerned, that’s all.”

  Monica continues pairing guns with ammunition clips and passes them out while the rest of the guardians watch and wait for a weapon, oblivious to the exchange between Sam and me.

  I look back at Xander and Nate. The way they are scrutinizing each other silently, I know they are keeping something from us and it burns me up. I move in closer to them, pull one of Nate’s hand from his pocket and hold it between mine. Clammy and shaking, I hold it tighter and ask, “Why are you trembling?”

  Before he can answer, Xander wedges himself between Nate and me, giving Nate the opportunity to pull his hand away from mine and tuck it back into his pant pocket. “Jes, he is fine. He is just tired. Leave it alone,” Xander says clipped.

  I shoot back, “I wasn’t asking you, Xander. But, now that you have butted in maybe you can tell me why he is trembling and you are covering for him?”

  With Xander’s lack of response, I angle around him to look at Nate, refusing to have him get away with not telling what is going on. Xander steps closer to me, blocking my view.

  I glare at Xander and say, “If I leave this alone and something happens—”

  “Nothing will happen,” he says as he stares back at me stoically.

  The others are readying their guns, ignoring our low-toned conversation, when Sebastian speaks up, “We may not need the guns. Maybe they needed to—relieve themselves.”

  Jake is rummaging through another duffle bag with Monica when he looks up and says, “You mean take a whiz? Nah, they would have radioed Briggs. Plus, Briggs would have been behind us still.”

  Still staring at Xander, he shift from one foot to the other apprehensively then turns to face Nate squarely. “Just stay close to me, all right?”

  I can’t help feeling shunned by both of them and I don’t know why the fuck they are keeping me out of what is going on between them. Everything got weird between them after they left that room in Briggs’ compound. Now, Xander and Nate are both looking over my head preoccupied with something behind me. As I follow their stares, it lands on Sam. Does he know what is going on? Is that why he made a remark?

  “Heads up, Jes,” Jake calls to me.

  I look up in time to see a semi-automatic rifle being launched my way and catch it with both hands. The weight of the metal in my hands sparks both adrenaline and panic all at once. I hadn’t held a gun since the Aoikigahara Forest. God, it seemed so long ago now.

  “Briggs will notice that we are not en route and they will look for us,” Siobhan says, trying to remain confident

  “He’ll track back,” Daniel says, matching her hope.

  Monica holds her assault rifle next to her flexed bicep with both hands on it. “Maybe, maybe not. Can’t take a chance.”

  “What was that?”

  Ezra’s question is unexpected, but directed at my exchange with Xander about Nate as he nods to them. I consider telling him what I think may be happening, but my heart clinches and my lips freeze. I shake my head, not sure of what they’re hiding. “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?” Ezra asks, eyeing me still.

  I pretend that I’m watching Monica and Jake pass out the guns. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  “Okay,” he says as he moves back to where Sebastian sits.

  Monica hands a gun to Elicia, and then tosses a handgun to Siobhan. “There, that’s it.”

  She rises and stalks to the rear doors, then looks back at us wearily for a brief moment. She turns back to the doors and pulls the latch up, releasing the doors. The smell of the damp woodland drifts into the cab as we file out behind Monica. Ezra is behind me while Nate and Xander are right in front of me. Small, misting droplets of rain lay pinpricks on my arms and face. I hear the sound of an engine before seeing Briggs’ truck coming up the narrow dirt road we just drove on.

  We all step away from the dirt road and our truck as Briggs pulls up behind us. The front and rear doors are opening before the truck stops and Briggs and his men pour from the front and back of the truck. Their weapons put our little handguns to shame, donning massive assault rifles and magazines of ammunition. Briggs rounds the front of our truck hurriedly, then comes back toward us bellowing, “Where are my men?”

  Nick walks around the front of the truck, while Jake looks inside. Jake steps away from the truck and readies himself again. “No sign of struggle. They just walked away.”

  Briggs whistles once and his men and him fan out around us, focused scanning the overgrowth around us. “They didn’t just walk away,” says Briggs.

  Our team does the same, branching out from the trucks and into the brush. It is eerily silent. “There are no animals.”

  Daniel comes up next to me. “Sought shelter, just like us. Well, smarter than us actually. The strongest of the species sought shelter long before we did. Animals are the first to sense changes. However, they would never survive the changes that were coming.”

  The abnormality of being in the forest and not hearing the chirp of birds, the scuffle of a rodent running in the overgrowth, not even the sound of buzzing bees or clicking crickets is outlandish. This change to our world has silenced these woods. Is this how it will be everywhere forever?

  “Is there a chance that the strongest of the species has mutated, adapted to survive this climate even without implantation?”

  Elicia’s theory has me question it myself as Daniel speaks, “It is possible that the strongest have mutated, adapted, to survive the changes, but I’ve not witnessed any proof,”

  “You haven’t seen any wildlife for a year?” she asks, still surprised by the fact.

  Daniel is eyeing something in the distance. He answers absently, “No, I haven’t.”

  I track his fixed wonder to an opening in the woods revealing a range of foothills.

  “Appalachian Mountains, I suspect,” Sebastian says.

  Out of nowhere, a breeze kicks up from deep in the forest. The light mist hovering in the air, stagnate against the scenery, visibly shifts. I turn my face into the breeze and sense the slightest quiver in my core. The Dwellers! I panic, scanning the woods aimlessly. I breathe in and out deeply before speaking. “Ezra? About that thing we discussed earlier—”

  Before I finish speaking, Ezra, Nate and Xander are huddled on all sides of me, guarding me with their eyes on the woods. A spasm wretches my body, bending me in half and taking my breath suddenly. Nate takes hold of my arms to keep me from collapsing to the ground. As quickly as the spasm strikes, it begins to fade. The quaking of the vibration in my core remains though.

  Ezra’s voice thunders “Get her back to the truck!”

  I shiver through the radiating tremors as the wretchedness rises again in my stomach. “No, you need my help,” I grunt.

  Xander’s eyes narrow and he snarls, “We need you alive.” He looks over at Nate watchfully. “Do you have her?”

  “Uh, yeah. I have her. I’ll take her.”

  Nate’s awkward stutter is as disconcerting to Xander as it is to me. “Here, let me take her,” Xander says seeming to change his mind.

  Before Xander can snatch me from Nate, he raises his voice, “No, Xander, I have her!”

  They are fighting over who is going to guard me? I yell at them both, “I can take care of myself!”

  Ezra snarls pressingly, “Damn it! Wil
l one of you get her back to the truck, now?”

  Nate starts to pull me back toward the truck when I hear the crackling of branches being stomped underfoot echoing in the woods. I breathe through the sensation of heaving and concentrate on tracking the direction of the sound.

  “Jes get in the truck,” Nate says as he tries to pull me to the truck.

  I pull out of his grip and move away from him. “I can’t. You know me, Nate. I have to help!”

  He growls, “Damn it, Jes!”

  The snapping branches are no longer an echo; they are solid and coming from my right. As I turn toward the sound, I see two soldiers stalking toward us, eyes black as night pupil to rim. They are no longer humans, but Dwellers.

  The soldiers reach for their holsters simultaneously, drawing their handguns as they continue to close in on Nate and me. I don’t hesitate drawing my gun, aiming at one of the Dweller soldier and pulling the trigger. The kick of the gun is felt, but the sound of my shot is lost in the mass exodus of bullets from everyone else.

  The soldiers’ bodies rattle side to side from the impact of the lead peppering them. They both drop to their knees, blood and blackness rolling from their lips. The blood is theirs, but the blackness—it is all Dweller. The soldiers’ mouths part wider as the dark occupiers push from their cadaverous keepers. They slip from the mouths and whip through the brush rapidly. Viciously, they attach themselves to the two closest possible vessels, two more of Briggs’ men. The Dwellers are relentless as they wrap themselves around the throats of the soldiers and push their way into the gasping men. Within seconds, the soldiers writhe and thrash, then revive wired to hunt, invade, occupy or in our case—kill. More unconfined beings serpentine their smoke-like forms through the long, empty branches of the trees, speeding toward all of us.

  Briggs yells, “Pull back. Get back to the trucks!”

  I raise my gun to take as many shots at them as I can when Nate locks his arms around my waist, lifts me off the ground and carries me away toward the truck. I try to push against him, make him drop me back to the ground, but he has gained his strength back and then some. “What the hell are you doing, Nate? We need to help them! I can help them!”

  As I kick his shins trying to get him to let me go, he grunts, “Saving you from yourself.”

  We round the truck at the back doors when I see the familiar ebony Dweller snake along the ground like thick, creeping, charcoal soot. Nate puts me down and holds me to him. Fiercely, I raise my gun and fire, but the inky Dweller skids and dodges my strike.

  With Nate still holding me, he pulls me back from the exposed Dweller as I fire two more shots. Two of Briggs’ men pass us and release an array of slugs into the parasite. The Dweller shrinks back at their heavy strikes, but bullets won’t hold it forever. I look beyond the immediate battle into the thicket and spot four Dweller-possessed transients closing in on us quickly. I sweep the woodland behind me and deadlock on a throng of once mortal and souled humans, now Dwellers savagely advancing on us. No! Siobhan magnifies the fear collapsing in around me as she yells, “Shit, there are more!”

  CHAPTER 16: REPHAIM

  Jesca

  Just as one is within reach of Siobhan, something extremely fast soars across the open space and takes hold of the Dweller, and then disappears among the trees.

  The feeling of a living being’s warmth grazing my skin makes me turn in the direction of an approaching Dweller. It is then that I see the massive entity clutching the Dweller in its giant hands. His other large hand joins the one clenched around the Dweller and pulls it apart, the inky being instantly disintegrating into ash. Nate and I look at each other, astonished and unable to form words for what we had just seen. This colossal being has slowed enough for us to take in the extent of its girth, but it hasn’t revealed its face. “It’s one of those giants from the forest in Japan, the Nephilim,” says Nate.

  I shake my head, shocked to see one of these mammoth beings on Earth again, but this time saving us. I think of what Daniel had said to us about how they might have been trying to protect us in that forest. The giant in Japan did not look like these.

  Unsure of what it will do next, Nate guides me backward, his hands gripping my arms and pulling me back into the open space with the other guardians. I don’t fight him this time. Daniel has his theory, but I’m not up to test those waters and the motives of this ultra-sized colossus before us.

  Branches snap under our feet as we back away and he turns his head toward the sound. He heard that? How could he hear that over the gunfire? Unless, he can sense that we are afraid. He turns completely around to face us now. I’m even more in awe as I look head on at a very human-appearing man, just monumental in size. His strange and beautiful saffron-colored eyes move from Nate to me. His furrowed brow softens just before he sprints passed us, becoming a blur among the team. I watch him move and try and hold steady on his form, but I keep losing him—Suddenly, I see three more of these immense beings slow long enough to surround us.

  Briggs and the rest of the guardians have stopped shooting and are backing away from the zipping behemoth men as they obliterate both the remaining exposed and occupied human Dwellers along with the soldiers the Dwellers took. All but one remains and he is just as panicked as Briggs.

  The giant that defended Nate and me is moving slow enough for me to track him again. He is wearing a gauzy, burlap-type material as a shirt, a dark cotton material for pants and no shoes. His long, chestnut hair whips around as he moves from one Dweller to another. I notice another one slow, fair skinned and silver, cinereous eyes. He is just as massive as the other, and wears similar burlap and cotton clothes; again, no shoes. He takes a Dweller-occupied man in each hand and snaps their vertebrae, folding them in half with the squeeze of his fingers. He drops them to the ground then rockets into action again. Two more slow to a visible pace as the Dwellers dwindle. How many are here?

  All of us are huddled together now, except Ezra and Xander, who are still in on the edge of the brush.

  Xander starts to back away, yelling for Ezra, “Ezra, get back!”

  Ezra backs away a bit, throws down his empty handgun and picks up one of the abandoned and strewn rifles from the ground. He aims it directly at the Herculean man that rescued Nate and me moments ago.

  I break away from the huddle and take hold of the barrel, raising it high into the air. “No, Ezra!”

  Ezra pulls it back into him, away from my hands, and grimaces disapprovingly. “What are you doing, Jes? They are Nephilim! They will kill us! That is what they do!”

  Shit, Ezra still thinks they are trying to kill us! He doesn’t know what Daniel told us about them when he was behind the veil!

  Daniel flanks Ezra on his other side, saying, “They are not going to kill us!”

  “You don’t know that!” Ezra readies to aim again just as one of the giants storm toward him in a blur. Before Ezra fires, he takes hold of the rifle and launches it deep into the forest. Taken aback, Ezra stands frozen from the mountainous man approaching him now.

  The dark haired, amber-eyed giant mumbles something in another language and closes in on Ezra. He looks mad and I don’t know if he is going to attack him, so I do the first thing that comes to my mind, step between them.

  I hear Xander growl at me in the distance, “Jesca, what are you doing?”

  Ezra takes hold of my arms and starts to push me out of the way. I use all my muscle to stand my ground and lock eyes with the vast mortal before me. “Wh—Who are you? Are you a Nephilim?”

  I can’t help sounding breathless from this astonishing being mere inches from me. He doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t understand me. The sharp edges of his rugged face are both intimidating and beautiful as I attempt to tell him who I’m. “I’m Je—”

  He stops me before I can finish telling him my name, with a baritone voice that is both frightening and tender at the same
time. “I know who you are.” He looks back at the rest of the guardians and Briggs’ team. “I know who all of you are.”

  He calls out in that same strange dialect he used earlier. In a flash, four other mammoth men come to stand next to him. A fair-headed one stands to his right. Another to his left has red hair and just beyond him, the other has hair black as a raven. The last one to step up has deep-brown hair and brilliant amber eyes, just like the rest of them. With all of them standing in front of us collectively, I stumble back against Ezra’s chest. I wonder if the one that defended Nate and me is the leader of this titanic army of five.

  Like he read my mind, he replies, “I’m Ira.” He points to the fair-headed one, “Seth,” then to the red head, “Errol,” the raven-haired one, “Lathan,” and the one with brown hair just like Ira’s, “ and Cale.”

  Ira focuses on Ezra suddenly. “We are Rephaim, not Nephilim.”

  Ezra stiffens uncomfortably from Ira’s words.

  Daniel draws Ira’s trained eyes from Ezra with his expressive excitement. “Amazing! Of course! I’d displaced the Rephaim branch of descendants!” Daniel’s eyes are wide and he is muttering something under his breath, like he is jogging his memory of what he knows of their race.

  Ira looks from Daniel to the herd of us. “You need to get back in your transport.”

  Our transport? I look at him confused at first, and then realize, “Oh, you mean the trucks.”

  Ira and the other Rephaim advance on us, as he continues to speak, “It is not good for you to be out in the open. Your transport will help protect you for now.”

  As Ezra, Daniel, and I back up, the Rephaim pressing us back toward the truck, Daniel stutters and rambles under his breath.

  Hearing his hushed rant, Ira looks down at him curiously.

  Daniel stammers, “Thank you f—f—for your protection.”

  Ira nods, but relays no other emotion as he and the others corral us into a cluster. Briggs’ voice is gruff, and directed at Daniel and Sebastian, not the giants. “We are about five miles from the Tennessee compound.”