The sound of Scott walking toward the group distracted Raziel from finding her behind the car. He dropped the visor over his face and took aim at Parrish. The rest of his group followed suit, dropping to their knees and aiming their weapons at him.
“Blake!” Parrish shouted. “You have been forbidden to come here!”
Blake lowered his weapon to say something to his dad.
“Blake. Carry on,” Raziel commanded in a distinct monotone. Aislen could hear a frequency in his words that sounded hypnotizing.
Blake nodded at Raziel.
Mr. Parrish unleashed his anger at Raziel. “I don’t know who you think you are, to assume you have more power over Blake than I do. You have some fucking nerve! I demand that you let him leave here with me and never contact him again.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” Raziel said in a tone Aislen recognized: uncaring, apathetic, and in control.
Aislen knew what was coming next, and in a flash of epiphany, she knew what she could do.
She moved like lightning through the group and stood beside Blake.
“Then I will be forced to report you to the authorities,” Parrish threatened.
Raze just smiled at him and calmly spoke. “Blake. Carry on.”
Blake pulled the handgun out of his vest holster. He raised it and aimed it between his father’s eyes.
You can miss, Aislen said telepathically, mimicking the resonance hidden in Raziel’s command.
No, I can’t, he telepathed back. Only it wasn’t Blake’s voice.
It was Sigmund Lange’s.
Aislen screamed as she felt Sigmund’s presence. Blake turned and faced her, a twisted smile on his face.
Time stopped.
Aislen could feel the stinging at her temples, as Sigmund started drilling into her brain.
Oh, Poppet, it is such a pleasure to know you are here. I have so many plans for you, you have no idea.
Aislen amplified her energy and walloped Sigmund with it, shoving him away from her. The force was enough to knock Blake off balance slightly, his wrist ticked as the bullet erupted from the muzzle of the gun.
Time caught up with itself again, and Aislen was ripped out of the Viewing just as the bullet met its target.
Thirty-Nine
Aislen plummeted through the darkness, ripped from the Viewing with punishing violence. She did not see where the bullet went. She only heard a bloodcurdling scream as it smashed into its target. She felt sick to her stomach from the vertigo of her uncontrollable free fall and the sick twist of dread.
All she could think of was Raziel. That she might have changed the course of the bullet so that it hit him instead filled her with agonizing grief.
Her descent gained speed, and the darkness grew thick and murky. Maybe the bullet had hit her, her dream-self, hiding behind the car. Maybe she had altered the course of her own life, and this was what death was like.
A deafening roar filled her ears, a crushing din of black noise with the high-pitched whine of a tape rewinding. Aislen could feel the noise working through her brain, could feel it trying to erase her memories, trying to wipe out any residual images of Raziel, her mother, her father, herself.
She fought back, pushing against its uncompromising demand to erase her known history. She grabbed hold of her last moment of cognizance: of Raziel above her, wrapped around her, within her. The heat that had consumed her as they moved together. The sight of his piercing blue eyes locked with hers, the taste of his lips, skin, and sweat, the sound of his voice when he whispered, “I love you, Aislen Walker,” as they ascended together into a dazzling array of color and light.
Aislen battled the darkness in a tug of war for the memory, but the darkness knew a weak spot. She had never said “I love you” back. She had given herself to him body, heart, soul…but had withheld those three words. Raziel would never know how she felt about him.
“Please!” she screamed at the vicious void. “I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have disrupted time! But please just let me keep this one memory!”
The void dropped her. She landed hard on something cold and craggy. Moisture sprayed her face. The crashing noise remained, though it was diminished. The blackness that blinded her lifted, and she was standing on the jagged black outcropping of hardened lava rocks, stretching out into an endless expanse of sea. It churned violently, a cauldron, deep and uninviting. The sky was the angry void, hovering over her, prepared to devour her at any moment.
Loneliness overwhelmed her. She was drowning in it as if it were the ocean swallowing her whole. She might as well jump into the tempestuous waves and let them relieve her of this misery. Life was not worth living this way. She wailed a primal scream, a final revolt. But the wind and the waves ate it up as their own.
Suddenly, a warm air swooped in around her, an arm wrapping her up to protect her from the cold. She knew this energy. In this space of death, she realized she has known it forever. He has been there throughout time, always protecting, always loving, a twin flame that makes her feel whole.
She could feel him now behind her, his resonant energy undeniable. She turned to face him, to say the words “I love you, too” so he would know and never forget.
But he wasn’t there. Only jagged black rocks jutting out from a blacker wall of cliffs was behind her. She had lost him, and the void in the sky evaporated, taking away her last memory.
∞
Aislen startled, opening her eyes into pitch blackness yet again. A different stormy sky was above her now, flashing with lightning and rolling with thunder. It roiled within the circular glass portal of a sky light. She was in the temple, lying naked and exposed on the tatami mat. The negative ions of the storm caressed her skin, prickling her with a chill, but a warmth radiated beside her and blanketed her with a protective heat. She turned her head to see the back of a naked man beside her.
She was in the temple, but it was different. She and Raziel had arrived on a clear night, not a stormy one, and the shrine was dark now, not glowing with the candlelight they had made love to. She looked at the back of the man next to her, wondering if it was Raziel or someone else.
She had woken up in the dream temple before…on a stormy day…with Troy. Was this that day again? She thought of what Raziel had said could happen if she altered the past. That she might still think of Troy as the hero.
Was that what had happened? Had she killed Raziel? Had she changed her life and lost something that had become invaluable to her?
Aislen was afraid to look, afraid to see who she was lying next to, but realized she still had all her memories: of Raziel, Troy, Sigmund, San Francisco…all of them. Maybe she hadn’t changed the course of reality after all.
She quietly sat up as not to disturb the sleeping man. She carefully moved around to the front of him and waited for her eyes to adjust so she could see his face. It was Raziel.
Aislen almost burst into tears. He was here. She hadn’t killed him. And she hadn’t killed herself, either. She looked around at the floor of the temple, strewn with all their clothes that they had ripped off in a fit of passion. That had happened, too.
She looked toward the door where their shoes were still in the places that they left them, and the backpack was still sitting next to his shoes. They were still together and on the run.
Did he still love her? Like he’d said? Had she changed that? Aislen felt a chill wash over her as a gust of wind blew through the cracks of the door. She reached over and grabbed Raziel’s sweatshirt off the floor and slipped it on. Her pockets were full.
She reached into her left pocket and pulled out a letter: a sealed envelope with “Aislen” written on the front in her father’s handwriting. But she’d had two. Her mother’s letter wasn’t there. And she could have sworn she had put them both in her right pocket.
Oh no, what did I change?
In the distance, she heard the faint cry of an approaching train being carried toward her on the wind. Read the letter, now! She could
hear her father’s voice within its wail.
She moved under the skylight, carefully opened the envelope, and unfolded the letter.
Dear Aislen,
I was hoping this day would never come. I was hoping my premonitions could be avoided. But each and every one has fallen into place up to this point, and like dominos, I know that the rest will follow as designed.
Sometimes we make choices that can lead us to a different reality.
And sometimes our choices make no difference.
Fate can be more powerful than Free Will when she wants to be.
And Destiny is a command directive.
Raziel has a destiny.
And you have a destiny as well, Aislen.
Unfortunately, they are independent of each other.
I have seen the future. If my visions are correct, you will alter it somewhat…but Fate and Destiny will not be denied.
If Raziel goes to Australia with you, he dies.
If you run away with him, he still dies…and many more people will die as well: your mother, Blake Parrish, Robert Mathis, and eventually, you.
I’m sorry, Buttercup, you didn’t alter that.
I cannot guide you in the choice you make, but there are some things we must do on our own, and no one can save us.
Just remember…love travels a straight line. It is the only constant. And it is eternal.
Forever,
Dad
Aislen looked up from the letter toward Raziel sleeping soundly beside her. Her heart broke at the thought of not being with him but shattered at the thought of him dying because of her. Aislen wanted to wake him; wake him and tell him how deeply she has come to love him, wake him and have him tell her that he truly loves her. She reached out to touch his face, but something heavy fell out of the other sweatshirt pocket.
She looked down on the mat. Two dolls looked up at her. She had left the effigies behind when they ran from the warehouse in San Francisco, but here they were, in a different reality. And one of them had changed; changed in such a way Aislen knew what she had to do.
She quietly moved next to Raziel, feeling the heat of him, absorbing the intoxicating electricity she felt vibrating between them. She pressed her lips into his hair, breathing him in.
If I didn’t tell you before, I love you, Raziel.
GLISSANDO
Into Dust ~ Mazzy Star
Forty
A piercing howl wailed against his ear, reaching down into the depths of his delta wave state. Raze had cycled himself down to 1 hertz to recuperate enough mentally and physically for the long journey he and Aislen had ahead of them.
The wail penetrated again, demanding consciousness immediately. Maybe Aislen was having another nightmare he thought as he tried to cycle up the ladder. It wasn’t easy to come out of such a deep sleep space and gather your five senses back. He had only allowed himself to go into delta because he knew they were safe. Sigmund and Troy were probably heading to Australia now, and Infinium wouldn’t be able to track his new resonance with their current pool of talent.
He continued swimming up from the depths…2 hertz…3 hertz…4...a wrinkle of static shocked through his brain, a tremor working through his neural network, like what he imagined a stroke would feel like. He dropped back down, treading consciousness at 3 hertz. He felt a sizzling thread of it zap into his hippocampus, and from delta he watched as the memory of Demesne and the killing of Scott Parrish glitched into a different memory.
Instead of a bullet penetrating Parrish’s skull, it slammed into his chest, by his shoulder: not an instantly lethal blow. Scott bellowed in agony, falling backward to the ground, writhing in the ash.
The horrified scream of a female came from behind the car, and Aislen stood up. Blake yelled out from the left, “Dad!”
None of this was how it really went down.
Raze felt the sharp voltage squirm through his memory banks. He ran to Scott Parrish, placed his hand on his head to send an option-lock frequency into his brain, and deresonated him out of Demesne. Then he ran to Blake, grabbed hold of his skull, and option-locked and deresonated him, as well.
Then he turned to Aislen. She was standing in a nightgown, covered in ash. Raziel felt the connection even in the new memory, recognized the danger she presented to him in an instant. The electric worm in his brain manipulated his memory centers, trying to change the story he knew, where he deresonated her, into a new story. This Raze wouldn’t take the risk of feeling emotions; he lifted his gun, not to de-rez Aislen but to kill her.
Raze dove down–down, down, down–into the cold depths of consciousness, coming to a screeching halt at .2 hertz. He hovered there on the precipice of death, shutting down all other brain activity, denying the memory-seeking charge access to any more memories.
Raze realized then that Aislen had gone back to that night, and she’d changed the timeline somehow.
Raziel lingered in low delta until he was sure he could manage the ascent with his past memories intact while absorbing whatever new memories the shifted timeline had created. He prepared himself to face the truth: that he had killed Aislen Walker and would wake up in his own bed back in San Francisco, overcome with grief that he had killed the woman he loved.
The howling on the surface intensified, and Raze could feel his physical body shaking. It was time to face the present and whatever it was in the now. He slowly scaled the frequencies, clinging to the one rope of memory he couldn’t bear to lose: Aislen in his arms in the candlelight and the afterglow.
The howl grew louder; a deep rumble vibrated through his flesh and bones. He held onto Aislen as other memories snapped into place. The trembling increased, like a powerful earthquake. It felt like the walls of his room were going to disintegrate.
As he forced himself up into Alpha, a new memory came into his head.
It was her voice, clear and embedded with emotion. If I didn’t tell you before, I love you, Raziel. It was Aislen, imprinting the thought as well as the feeling into his head as he slept. He could feel her presence all around him as he opened his eyes.
He was in the temple. Rain pounded on the glass roof, and a train was barreling past the wooden building, shaking the hell out of it. He searched the darkness for Aislen as his eyes adjusted, but she wasn’t there. He looked to the door. Her shoes were gone, along with the back pack. Had she ever been there?
Raze felt the mat around him in the darkness for any trace of her energy having been next to him, any proof that she wasn’t only alive in another reality, or just in his memories.
His hands found something. Actually, two things. He lifted them up.
The dolls: an Aislen dressed all in black, and a Raziel, naked, painted entirely white, with huge, feathered wings on his back.
GLISSANDO II
The Night We Met ~ Lord Huron
Forty-One
Aislen was flying yet again. Only this time in a plane, through a real sky, and wide awake. She gazed out the window of the small jet. Gigantic puffs of pure white clouds drifted lazily by. From up here they looked edible, like meringues floating on a plate of pristine, Tiffany blue. It was understandable why sages throughout history depicted the sky as heaven. It would be easy to want to stay forever in a place like this, so tranquil and serene.
She turned her attention to the landscape below: rust and ochre dotted with dark green shrubs that looked black from the sky, a harsh juxtaposition to the heavens above. The view looked exactly like the map her father had drawn as a child. It looked exactly like The Stratum. It looked like Hell.
Aislen slammed the window shade down as the plane continued forward, literally skipping time at 500 miles per hour, carrying her into the future.
She’d stopped changing frequencies. She didn’t really care. Everyone knew where she was going. Sigmund knew or at least was counting on it. Raziel knew, but she had taken the bag with all the money and left him stranded. Infinium and The 8? They only knew she existed. Any frequency they found of her would b
e that of a girl she’d left behind days ago. Aislen had changed. No one really knew her now. Aislen wondered if she even knew herself anymore.
The amulet purred against her chest, matching the low hum of the jet engines. Just like the engines, it had become white noise. It was always present, but at some point her mind tuned it out. It had been perfectly happy while her world fell apart, while she ran from danger with Raziel…while she fell in love with him…and while she went back in time and changed it somehow. It didn’t protest as she left him behind, possibly forever, stole two more cars, or drove off into the unknown. It never complained once, never warned her to stop, just let her continue down this destructive path alone.
Only when she decided to go to the airport in San Francisco did the amulet jolt her with a strong “no,” guiding her to San Jose instead, then giving her the silent treatment until they got to Los Angeles.
Aislen had no idea where she was supposed to go in Australia. All she knew was the continent was massive, and finding her mother would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The map her father had drawn as a child was worthless to her. It was a piece of art to Aislen; only Raziel knew how to decipher it and where they were supposed to go. She had been counting on him to get them there.
Once at LAX, she bought some travel clothes, another bag, and a travel atlas. She sat in the bathroom stall, hovering the amulet over the map, begging it to tell her where to go. It wasn’t interested in the obvious and guided her to Brisbane instead of Sydney. It also wasn’t interested in giving her anything beyond that and went quiet again, perfectly content for another 20 hours. Only when they arrived in Brisbane did it guide her to Alice Springs before dropping again into a soft purr. The peaceful hum should have been reassuring. It was anything but.
Time Walker: Episode 2 of The Walker Saga Page 27
