Bright Star (27 page)

“Guess, Service Man. You were trained in all of this anyway, weren’t you?” Harm stated with a surly curl to his lip. “We’re going to fill it with water, too.”

Jackson did know what they were doing. Sometimes with certain Shifts, water sharpened the skill, heightened the Talent. The Shift would be more prone to work with at least one of them submerged in water.

“That will be you, Jackson,” Destroy said.

“You’ll need to be in the water. We don’t have anything to learn.” As she said it, she waved her hand again and the dingy tub started to fill with water.

“We have something like this at the SHQ.” Jackson’s nervousness was making him chatter, “But this is a long way away from the Sense Dep tank.”

“You won’t think that once you’re in it,” Harm grinned. “Now, get in the tub.” It was a harsh, dark command.

Jackson did as instructed. He stepped into the tub and sat down.

“Now lie back, relax.” Destroy gave him the instruction with a coy yet chillingly childlike smirk.

“What are you going to do?” Jackson asked with his teeth clinking together. He was amazed at how cold the water was. Every inch of his skin felt hard. Ice formed in his veins. He started to shake. He started to convulse. He asked again, as best he could through an uncontrollable stutter, “W-w-w-what are you g-g-going t-to do?”

“We’re already doing it,” the twins stated in unison, their eyes whirling.

Jackson closed his eyes against the sickening image. His blindness amplified their voices which were sibilant, grating, just as terrifying. They chanted in words that were foreign, words that snaked into his ears and spread like acid vines through his skull. Forcing his eyes open again, Jackson found himself bound to a post, the islanders circling him and circling. He was accused and found guilty. He had interfered and he would be sacrificed. The chanting natives assured themselves of prosperity once the traitor was hurled from the mountain. And over the cliff he went, bracing himself to be dashed against jagged rocks.

The world went black then, frosted and drowning. Under water, blue spheres shot past him. Jackson realized he wasn’t breathing. Instinctively trying to rectify that, he took a deep breath and all the water rushed in. It went down his throat into his lungs and stomach. It burned his insides and the blue souls became aggressive, swarming around him, stirring the waters and… bleeding.

More than freezing, more than drowning. He thrashed and thrashed, but that sent the water deeper and deeper into his lungs. And inside, his chest was burning.

Then everything became tart and metallic. Syrupy. He was covered in blood. Her blood. He tried to keep his mouth closed, but it clotted and forced its way into his mouth, thickly filling and stretching his lungs and stomach. Who was she? Who was she? Not Bright Star. Who?

Then Rush was there. His hands were wrapped around Jackson’s arms, and he was pulling him up from the tub. Jackson sputtered and thrashed. He wiped at the blood that was now only water. When he could stand, he blinked water furiously from his eyes as he coughed and spit on the ground. “What the fuck did you do to me?” Jackson he yelled hoarsely at the two that were watching in horror.

Jackson went over and grabbed them both by the hair. He lifted them from the ground.

“Put them down, Jackson,” Rush ordered. “They didn’t know what they were doing.”

“They knew
exactly
what they were doing, and you know it!”

“They didn’t. But it doesn’t matter anyway,” Rush urged. “Just forget this and go back up to the house.”

“How can I forget?” Jackson’s eyes were haunted.

“I can help you,” Rush offered softly.

“No!” Jackson barked. “There’s been enough fucking with my head for one day! I’m done!”

Destroy and Harm laughed. They laughed so hard that their mouths distended and their jaws unhinged. Horrified, Jackson watched as they laughed more and dropped to the ground. They moved awkwardly. Destroy on her belly; Harm on his side. Jackson recoiled in horror.

Rush walked over to them and dropped to the ground beside their writhing, unnaturally coiling bodies. Immediately, they stilled, and for the first time, their eyes stopped squirming. They swallowed in unison. Rush kissed his fingertip and pressed it to each of their foreheads.

When he stood, they were both unconscious. Jackson noted that this was not a normal comatose state, either. No, their High Energy had been totally drained. They were complete vegetables, at least temporarily.

“You know what she’s planning?” Jackson asked eyes riveted to the unconscious pair.

“I do,” Rush answered. He looked back at the twins and they both disappeared into thin air. Then he walked to the house.

“It’s ridiculous that after all this time, after everything, I need someone to save me,” Jackson yelled after him.

“It’s ridiculous, Jackson, that you’re the only one who doesn’t understand that no one needs saving. Not you, not Bright Star,” Rush retorted. “No one.”

He left his brother to think about that.

Burning Mermaids

Jackson noticed immediately that the house was empty. Impossible not to. There were at least seventy-five people living inside the house and another hundred that lived encamped around the premises. But today, no one. And he knew what that meant.

He ran to the Monk’s room. The temple, they had started calling it. He knew better than to believe that there was anything special about the place, however, Jackson needed all the help he could get. He needed to focus and find them before they did something irreversible this time. They hadn’t seen Rush last night and Bright Star hadn’t listened. She never listened. Rush wasn’t going to save anyone this time. He’d said it and he meant it. They were all going to die.

Jackson knelt down before a gleaming yellow ball at the altar. He breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. He held his hands up in the air and closed his eyes. Gingerly he began feeling around in the air. It was a trick he’d learned in the Service. He’d use his whole body as a divining rod. He would find the strongest wave of Energy and follow it like a raveling thread until it lead him to that pulsing surge that could only mean Bright Star and the energy of the Followers feeding into her.

He worked at it and worked at it until everything went black. For a moment, he thought he was passing out, but no. There was a glimmer of wavering blue light, another and another. He had a faded sense of déjà vu.

*

Bright Star pressed a kiss to each of their foreheads. And when she did, a thin, golden bubble of light surrounded them. They rose and floated out over the ocean, then plunged below. One after the other. One after the other. This way they would easily be able to follow each other to the depths, to the underlying cave. The one of blues and grays. The one where the water periodically rose to the top, consuming all space, leaving none for air or topside life.

Monk was the last to go. The first had been Point, of course. She could lead them anywhere, and she had refused to listen when he asked her to wait. But Monk, who had a charisma of his own, had waited. “This is the second time I’ve met you on the side of a cliff.”

Bright Star smiled with a teasing dimple. “I know. But last time, I lost faith and you were there to restore it to me. This time, I will restore yours.”

Monk swallowed. How did she know that he had been having doubts about their mission?

Before Bright Star could kiss his forehead, he interrupted, “You know he won’t come this time.”

Bright Star smiled and nodded. “He will.” She leaned towards Monk again.

Monk backed away. “He won’t.”

“Monk,” she intoned, focusing on him intently. “I won’t let you lose your faith now.”

Almost hysterically, Monk took a step away from the slight mental push and piped, “I haven’t lost my faith, Bright Star. On the contrary, I believe more now than I ever have, because I know. I know. Do you understand? I
know
. He won’t save me or any of them. And you will barely escape with your own life.”

“I don’t believe that,” Bright Star declared. Even as she argued, she pushed him harder. “He will save us. He will come to believe in himself. He will recognize his responsibility. It would destroy him to allow innocents to die this way. He will save us, and he will save us all.”

“No he won’t,” Monk countered forcefully. He reached out his hands as if to shake her, but instead he fisted them at his sides. Touching her would be folly for sure. “And I’m not going to do this. I refuse to betray him with you again.”

Bright Star recoiled. Her face crunched into an ugly and menacing visage. She rose into the air. Her fingers curled into claws. “You will go, Monk. If you don’t—”

“If I don’t?” he challenged, finding the courage of certainty. She was stronger than he and the fear inside of him was palpable, but he found courage. “If you waste your Energy on me, who will say the Energy and Keep Time?”

Time
. It had become one of the most important tenets of the Followers from the first time he’d used it. Without someone to keep time, Bright Star would have burned that day in the ballroom.
Yes
, sardonically he thought,
time was all-important when cheating death
. If Rush was called into action too soon, he would save them before there was truly danger. There would be little effort and little Shift. If they called him too late, well, there would be no calling at all, they would all simply die. Keeping Time to ensure zero loss took all the Energy one could muster when dying. Bright Star knew it. Without him, she would have to be the Timekeeper, and she needed her strength.

“You will not come?” she asked finally.

“No,” Monk answered and blinked wildly in his own amazement. It was the first time he had ever openly defied her. He gave silent thanks that no one else had witnessed it. He didn’t know what she would do if she perceived that he threatened the faith of others. And, while his insolence was freeing, he knew it to be damning as well. His heart was still beating like bat wings in his chest. He stepped back from the edge of the cliff as she spun into a blue ball then lengthened like a spearhead and stabbed into the roiling gray waves. He turned his back to the ocean.

As his legs pumped wildly beneath him, he reached out with his mind. He called to Rush, the only time outside of Keeping Time when he had dared. But there was no answer. Rush was not listening. He didn’t want to hear the sounds of their screams.

Monk stopped short. He just… stopped. He had almost made it to the bus. Almost. But he stopped. It hadn’t even been a full-fledged vision. He didn’t know if it had been supernatural at all. All he knew was that while the Followers still would not be saved,
Point
would not be saved, Bright Star would be. Maybe there was something he needed to do after all. Slowly, he turned around and headed back to the cliff, counting in his head.

Bright Star’s Children Are Dying

Directly, Rush had not interfered. Directly, he had left the entire order trapped below a half-mile stretch of craggy outcropping beneath the ocean. The protective bubbles Bright Star had given them burst with explosive force as she joined them in the water. But, Rush did not come. Instead, Monk had come. Monk, whose power was nothing in comparison to hers, thus inconsequential when compared to Rush’s, had come back to save them. He stood in the same place she’d occupied on the cliff with his arms outstretched. He harnessed his High Energy and focused it on everyone below. Wildly, the Energy traveled beneath the water, searching for those souls. Fish had come to the surface working their slick mouths in hopes that the Energy would find them, but Monk continued.

One by one, the bodies started to emerge from the sea. One by one, they rose with their eyes closed and their hands folded over their chests. He had expected them to be bloated with water and grasping for life. Instead, they were surreal in their beauty, and they were all dead. Monk almost faltered, he did, as he saw them coming, one after the other, one after the other, and he realized that he had not saved anyone. A strange pain in his chest started, it pressed his lungs and his heart to the point where they were too small inside of him to support his life. But he didn’t stop. Monk continued to bring the dead from the depths. It was only when he brought Bright Star forth, that he realized he had at least one save. And then, he reached for the last of them, and they all came forward, injured, nearly dead, but alive.