Rise of the Mystics Page 14

  It was all too much for me.

  The pool’s surface was like glass. Jacob had been under for several minutes.

  “Meanwhile, here you should know that the Horde army is only a day’s march from the Great Divide. The Circle has already gathered at the Marrudo plateau. The Eramites have agreed to join the Horde’s campaign. A war unlike any seen gathers. All but a few despise the 49th and her Mystics. Jacob’s drowning will make matters worse.” He smiled.

  “This isn’t good news! Why is everything getting worse? It’s too much . . .”

  Talya turned to me and gently took my face in his large hands. “How else are you going to learn that bad news is only misperception, dear daughter?” His eyes searched mine. “Do you feel the fear?”

  I swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Think of the shadow as an evil man. Do you feel that evil man coming against you?”

  “Yes.”

  “As written, do not resist the evil man who comes against you.1 In resisting, you only give the shadow authority by honoring it as a threat against you. Don’t honor what has no true power except that which you give it.”

  He held my gaze.

  “Do you feel the fear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do not resist. Enter that fear with love, which casts it out. Work out your salvation from the storm through that fear. It’s the only way to finally see fear for what it is, a shadow.”2

  I felt like such a failure. The moment understanding came to me, it slipped from my grasp.

  “No need to condemn yourself, daughter. Condemnation is only your earthen vessel’s way of operating in polarity. Instead of condemnation, offer your earthen vessel love. A love that holds no record of wrong is the only form of resistance that casts out fear. Only then will it flee.”

  A calm settled over me in those warm hands.

  “When Jacob rises, I will take both of you to meet the Horde. You’ll understand why when we do. Yes?”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  He lowered his hands. “Tonight, you will dream. When you awake in the other world, you won’t remember any of this. You’ll operate only out of what you do know, as all do. In the end, you will be given a choice, and I believe the pupil I see before me will rise to her glory.”

  My eyes were misted, but those tears were now from gratitude, not sorrow. Talya was a master with me. I loved him.

  He smiled. “You are doing well, daughter of Elyon. Justin’s heart soars with pride. To the extent you can in this world, re-member. Always re-member.”

  I swallowed the knot in my throat.

  The lake began to boil with light, bubbling up as if a fountain deep within had broken loose. Jacob’s head broke the surface first. His eyes were closed as the water streamed over his face.

  I watched in stunned fascination as what had died in the bowels of that pool came to life before me. His chest and his arms, bound in muscle, cleansed of the scabbing disease. His skin was bronzed, as new and as smooth as a child’s.

  The sight took my breath away. But more, the cry of elation that shattered the air as the fountain of water propelled him from the deep and summarily dropped his body facedown on the shore. His torso landed on the sand with his legs still submerged in the shallows.

  Jacob did not rise. He did not look at us. He lay with his arms by his head, trembling in the ecstasy of his encounter with Justin.

  And then he began to sob.

  Talya dropped the clothing by Jacob’s head and winked at me.

  “Follow your heart,” he said. “We ride in an hour.”

  I dropped to my knees beside Jacob’s body and began to weep.

  IT WAS THE drowning that broke Samuel. The sight of the beast running for the pool. Of him stripping naked to defile the air with his disease, then diving headlong into the red waters. He spat to one side, cursing, begging Elyon to take the life of this one infidel, regretting that he hadn’t done it himself already.

  All of this crossed his mind before he thought to ask himself why he was so disturbed. Wasn’t the conversion of Horde to Albino the hope of the Circle? Wasn’t this Justin’s charge to them?

  Samuel sat back against the boulder, listening to the distant, indistinguishable murmur of their voices, confused by his rage. The wizard had conspired against him, first by snatching Rachelle from his grasp, now by turning the enemy who’d slaughtered his bride into an Albino. Nothing would protect Rachelle from the beast now.

  He caught himself again, aware of his obsession with her.

  But no . . . This wasn’t about his love for her. Yes, he was drawn, but there was far more at stake. The Leedhan had made the case plain.

  The Horde were marching and would be joined by the Eramites. Albinos faced extermination. He’d come intent on rescuing Rachelle from Jacob, but what if his role was far more important than he’d imagined? Thomas had always warned him of his impetuous nature, rushing here and there in search of himself. Like a fox chasing its tail, he’d once said.

  So here he was, far from home, a fool or a savior—which was it?

  What if the Elyonites were right in their fear of the Mystics? Hadn’t the magic he’d seen proven that? What if the prophecy was true, meaning the lamb would surrender to the lion Horde?

  It would make the 49th the most dangerous human alive. And he the one who could stop her.

  He stared at the horizon, lost in a stupor, grappling with conflicting thoughts, powerless to stop them.

  When he heard the distant splash of water, he knew the beast had emerged and he couldn’t bring himself to look. But he couldn’t not look, so he peered around the boulder, hoping the Scab had failed to drown.

  Jacob lay facedown, smooth skin glistening in the sunlight. And there, Rachelle kneeling by his side, weeping over him.

  The deeper bitterness came then, like hot tar from deep in Samuel’s bowels. He could feel it rising, feel it heating his face, feel it hardening his mind, and he felt powerless to do anything but surrender to it.

  She’d made her choice. Samuel had found what he’d come for. The Realm of Mystics was here.

  Aaron waited.

  14

  STEVE KNOCKED ONCE on the director’s door, then turned the knob without waiting for a response. It was Sunday. Theresa rarely visited the White Center on Sundays, and yet they said she was in, meeting with Bill Hammond.

  The door swung open and he took in the room with a single glance. The muted television on the wall was tuned to World News, flashing with chaotic images of the church bombing. Theresa was at the glass wall behind her desk, pacing. Bill sat in one of the two leather chairs facing her. They both turned as one.

  For a moment, Steve tried to make sense of their blank stares.

  “What’s going on?” He stepped in, suppressing the outrage that heated his face. “You told me you wouldn’t initiate another MEP attempt until Monday. It’s Sunday.”

  “Good morning, Steve. You were there, you know exactly what’s going on. I’m glad you made it out.”

  “That bombing has nothing to do with Rachelle or any decision to put her through the Memory Editing Protocol! If I didn’t know better, I might be tempted to guess you never intended to wait until tomorrow. By the time I got here, Rachelle was already under and prepped for the procedure. So please, what’s going on?”

  Bill reached for a remote on the desk. The television’s audio blared to life. Sirens, smoke, video of people running from the damaged cathedral. Cynthia, the same World News reporter who’d interviewed Rachelle, was in a small callout box, exchanging reports with the anchor desk in New York. All indications pointed to terrorists, but no claims of responsibility had surfaced yet. The president had left the church five minutes before the bomb went off and was now in a secure location. Had the target been the church or the president? The scene was a frantic mess.

  “I know,” Steve said, crossing the wood floor. “I was there. But again, this has nothing to do with Rachelle.”

  “On the contrary,”
Bill said, nodding at the television. “She was there.”

  “So was I. So were a lot of people.”

  “True. But they didn’t say this.” He pressed another button, and the images on the television rewound to a cutaway that had been aired earlier. Cynthia’s brief interview with Rachelle. The camera was close on her face.

  “I think most religion preaches a form of false law, blinding people to who they actually are as the light. The law’s a system of fear and control based on punishment, because fear has to do with punishment. It’s like the sky in Eden. Something has to give or people will never be free to know who they really are.”

  Bill paused the image.

  Surely no one could think Rachelle had anything to do with the bomb.

  Like toppling dominoes, other details fell in line. At first Steve refused to give them any significance.

  “Rather abrasive comments, don’t you think?” Bill asked.

  “Yes, that was unfortunate and unplanned. They’ve taken her comment out of context. Either way, I don’t see—”

  “I received a call from Karen Willis an hour ago,” Theresa cut in. “She said Rachelle divulged classified information she had no way of knowing.” The director drilled him with a hard stare. “Not only did she read Karen’s mind, she spoke that mind.”

  Steve threw up his hands. “She was expressing her struggle with religion. It has nothing to do with classified information!”

  “I’m not talking about what was aired. I’m talking about what wasn’t aired. A comment about a program called StetNox. Sound familiar?”

  His mind spun back to the question Rachelle had asked Karen: What’s StetNox?

  “You’re saying Karen Willis ordered this MEP?”

  The director turned to the glass wall and stared at the view of the city, cautious. When she spoke, her voice was tight, quiet.

  “I’m saying I was given no alternative.”

  “I don’t think you appreciate just how dangerous Rachelle is,” Bill said.

  Steve shivered. It’s a setup. They’re going to pin this on Rachelle. The whole thing was a setup, not by DARPA but by someone else who feared far more than a bloodied nose from a girl saying inappropriate things. And he knew only too well that with the right spin, even the most absurd story could be made to sound perfectly reasonable.

  Rachelle had been attending the cathedral for months now, at Theresa’s suggestion. They could say that Rachelle’s experience in Eden gave her ample motivation to hate religion. They wanted her to be filmed at the church, seated well out of danger. They’d fished for her views on religion, already knowing how she felt. They’d known when the bomb would detonate and what the damage would be.

  And who were they? Vlad Smith?

  He could be wrong, but it all fit into a frame that explained how and why they’d treated Rachelle as they had this whole time.

  The only thing that didn’t fit was the MEP. Why attempt yet one more brain wipe now, immediately following the church blast? What did Theresa and Bill know?

  Steve took a deep breath and sat heavily in one of the leather chairs, eyes on the television’s frozen image of Rachelle. He couldn’t betray his suspicions, but he had to know more.

  “Okay, so let’s say the new MEP works. Her motor memory remains but she loses her historical memory, and with it, you hope, her psychic abilities. No more reading of minds.”

  Theresa nodded. “She opened the wrong can of worms this time.”

  But it had to be more than that.

  “And if the MEP fails?” he asked.

  “We cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”

  Steve barely heard her. His mind was on Vlad. More precisely, what Rachelle had told him about how Vlad first poisoned David in the dream, then returned to this world to go after her.

  Fact: Vlad Smith had penetrated Project Eden and was still at large.

  Fact: While in Eden, his primary focus had been Rachelle.

  Fact: In her confrontations with Vlad, Rachelle had regained her sight and found a way to vaporize the canopy over Eden.

  Fact: David had died in his sleep while dreaming of the other world.

  Fact: Rachelle had dreamed last night and awakened with details of that death.

  Fact: Rachelle could read minds and make water boil from across the room. She was arguably the most valuable subject science had ever encountered. But rather than work with her, the powers that be insisted on wiping her mind.

  Why? Because Vlad was pulling the strings and he wasn’t done with Rachelle. At least that’s how Steve was seeing it.

  “Tell me again about the variance between this new MEP and the MEP from last week,” he said.

  The answer was belated, from Bill. “The team is testing a new agent, still classified.”

  “So now she’s a guinea pig?”

  “Hasn’t she always been?”

  Steve ignored the comment. If he did nothing, Rachelle would continue to be at their mercy. Knowing what he did now, he could no longer sit by.

  “How long will the new protocol take?”

  “Two hours. Another hour before she’s awake.”

  Steve nodded. “Okay.”

  The director studied him. Exchanged a glance with Bill Hammond. “This isn’t going to be a problem, is it, Steve?”

  “My only concern is that she be treated as humanely as possible. She just lost her—”

  “Her father, I know. In two hours she won’t have any memory of her father. It’s the most humane thing we can do for her.”

  “Maybe. Assuming it works. Either way, I want to be the first face she sees.”

  “Of course.” Theresa offered him a tired smile. “I know how close the two of you are. It’s the least you can do.”

  No, it’s not, Steve thought. Not even close.

  15

  I COULD NOT LIE—I loved Jacob with smooth skin, cleansed of the scabbing disease. In spite of Talya’s insistence that our bodies were only our earthen vessels, I found myself captivated by the change of his body. I did not resist the temptation to touch his skin. Even Judah, the lion, took an interest in the changes to his new friend, perhaps because the old smell was gone, replaced by the scent of fresh skin.

  I laid my cheek on his back as he lay on the grass, and I draped my arm over him when he rolled over, laughing with delight. And when he stood, I threw my arms around his neck and held him tight, afraid to let go. Maybe I thought he might revert. Maybe I just wanted to be close to him, because I’d never felt so attracted to any man as I was to Jacob.

  It was as if a thin layer of gray mud had been washed from his body to reveal strapping muscles, which now clearly defined his broad chest, his arms, his belly, his thighs. He still had his dreadlocks, but even they were washed clean of any odor. And his eyes . . . Dear Elyon, how his eyes shone, green now rather than gray.

  I felt like a woman next to him, holding his face and looking into his gaze, tracing his shoulders with my fingers, lifting his hair and smelling the sweet scent of . . . I couldn’t say what the scent was. Just clean. Maybe the smell of spring.

  His personality was the same as before, naturally—he was still Jacob in every way. But his spirit was soaring, and I with it. He tried to explain what had happened deep in the water, but he kept stumbling over his words because there were no words.

  “Love!” he cried, spinning on the meadow with arms stretched wide. “More love than I imagined a heart could feel.”

  “And colors?” I asked, side-skipping around him. “Did you see the light?”

  “Colors and light and the sky and the sun!” He grabbed my arms and we spun round. “The kind of light I see in your eyes now.”

  We laughed.

  “Justin! Did you see him?”

  He pulled up, thinking. “I don’t know. I heard him. I felt his love. But I didn’t see a man.”

  Talya chuckled, and we turned to where he sat cross-legged under a leafy tree heavy with red fruit, picking at a splinter in
his foot.

  “What is it, old man?” Jacob said. “Tell me what I saw.”

  “Do you think Justin is still in an earthen vessel? He can appear as he wishes to whomever he wishes and to as many as he likes without the restrictions of space or time. And he has, millions of times throughout history.”

  “So I did see him?”

  “Of course. More importantly, you feel him now. You are one with him.” He lifted the splinter, now free of his foot. Flicked it into the grass and looked at Jacob. “It’s called the first love, a foretaste of what you may know.”

  “And this?” I asked, slipping my arm through Jacob’s. “What is this called?”

  “I would say this is mostly one earthen vessel clinging to another in delight.” He winked at me. “A wonderful sight to behold. Enjoy it while you can.”

  He’d told me he was going to take us to meet the Horde. Then what, I didn’t know, but I fully embraced his permission to enjoy my time with Jacob while I could. We talked and we laughed and we danced, and the lion joined us like a dog at play, rushing this way and that.

  Talya said we would leave the high ledge overlooking the Realm of Mystics within the hour, but two passed before he led us to a brown stallion and a black mare he’d tied to a tree beyond the pool. The way down the southern cliffs was long and treacherous on horseback, but neither Jacob nor Talya seemed to notice any difficulty, so I let my mare have its head and follow their mounts.

  That being said, I felt much more at ease when we finally reached the base of the plateau and headed southwest. We would take the southern route over the Great Divide and reach the Horde encampment from the southeast in the morning.

  As the day passed, the wonder of Jacob’s drowning slowly faded, dimmed by my concern of what awaited us both.

  “Talya?”

  We rode through the grasses of the plains, three abreast with me in the middle. He turned his face, and in his eyes I saw a depth of wisdom and knowledge that I had only begun to know. It made me wonder what stood between me and his wisdom.