Judgment (The Alternate Earth Series, Book 3) (3 page)

The man must sense me watching him. He looks my way for a fraction of a second, but that seems to be all Lucian needs in order to land a devastating strike. I watch in horror as Lucian stabs the other man straight in the gut. Blood spurts out of the blond man’s mouth as he falls to his knees.

Before I even realize what I’m doing, I make a mad dash towards the stranger and Lucian, grabbing a large candlestick from the table where the refreshments were laid out. Just before Lucian is able to swing his sword to lop off the head of the man kneeling before him, I’m able to whack my supposed friend on the back of the head. My blow doesn’t seem to hurt Lucian much, considering the small grunt of pain he gives, but it does distract him long enough for the other man to raise his sword and slice Lucian from groin to mid-sternum.

Letting out a cry of pure agony, Lucian quickly turns around, swinging his sword towards me. Just before the blade guts me, I’m pushed out of the way by someone who looks exactly like Malcolm, but can’t be.

“Get back, Jess!” Malcolm’s doppelganger orders.

I feel someone grab my left arm roughly. The Malcolm I know shoves me behind him for safekeeping.

“I thought I told you to stay behind me!” he yells in frustration.

“Take your hands off her!” I hear a woman order.

The Malcolm I’m standing with turns around, keeping his body strategically positioned between this new threat and me.

As I chance a glance around Malcolm, I watch as a petite woman with long, dark hair wearing a black and purple leather outfit strides determinedly towards us.

“Do you really believe your strong enough to take her away from me, Nina?” Malcolm challenges.

“You know I can,” Nina says without a hint of bravado, only certainty. She holds two short swords in both of her hands as she approaches Malcolm.

“Would you really fight an unarmed man? I thought War Angels had a better code of ethics,” he taunts.

The woman named Nina twirls the swords in her hands and slides them into the sheaths on either side of her hips. “I don’t need them to whip your ass, Xavier. Hand to hand combat is fine with me.”

Malcolm closes the short distance between him and Nina by phasing. Even with his unexpected move, Nina isn’t taken off-guard. I half suspect she was counting on him to do it. Even before he phases in, she’s already spinning in the air and kicks him squarely in the chest when he materializes in front of her. She ends up kicking him with so much force he’s propelled past me and onto the floor. Before he can recover, Nina is on him, straddling his waist, and driving her fist into his face with strikes so fast I can barely see them. Finally, she grabs his head with both her hands.

“Make it look convincing,” I hear Malcolm say to her in a low voice.

Without saying a word back, Nina rips Malcolm’s head clean off his shoulders and tosses it across the floor. Like a viper sensing its prey, she turns her head quickly to look over at me. Involuntarily, I take a few steps back, feeling sudden jolt of fear. Nina, however, moves faster than I can remember ever seeing anyone move; though I guess that isn’t as remarkable as it sounds, considering my current state of mind.

She phases to stand in front of me, pulls the ruby ring off my finger, and grabs me by the shoulders before yelling, “Retreat!”

I know then that the woman Malcolm called Nina is an angel. She phases me to a street, but we don’t phase there alone. At least half of the people who infiltrated the party phase in around us.

“Is she injured?” the man who looks exactly like Malcolm asks hurriedly.

“No,” Nina tells him, “she doesn’t appear to be.”

“Who are you people?” I ask, looking at them all, hoping my memory will kick in at any moment.

“Damn,” Malcolm’s doppelganger says, “I guess the amnesia thing really wasn’t a joke.”

Seven men and three women phase onto the street beside us.

“Follow the plan!” Malcolm tells Nina before raising his sword and turning to face the people who followed us. “Get her to Mason!”

“Who’s…” but I don’t get to finish my sentence, because Nina instantly phases me to another location.

My mind barely has time to register that we’re standing on a beach before Nina yells at the five men standing there to, “Go!”

Nina phases us at least ten more times in quick succession. Each time there are people waiting for us, and she tells them to leave as soon as we arrive before phasing us to our next location.

“Stop!” I finally beg her, feeling as though I’m about to pass out. My body is quivering like it’s made of jelly, and I feel like death warmed over. “I can’t take it anymore.”

I fall to my knees onto the hard rock we’re standing on. I’m only vaguely aware that we’re standing on the side of a mountain. As I begin to fall back, Nina quickly catches me. A hot wind blows against the back of my neck, telling me, without actually seeing it, that she saved me from plunging backwards off a cliff.

“I’m sorry, Jess,” she says, picking me up in her arms to cradle me, “but we have to phase one more time. After that, you’ll be with Mason again.”

“I’m dying…” I say, believing the words to be true.

“You’re not dying, Jess,” Nina says sincerely. “You’re body just isn’t built to withstand phasing so many times at once. One more phase, and you’ll be back with your family. I pledged my life to bring you back to them safe and sound, and I never break a promise. I just need you to hold on for a little while longer. Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t know,” I cry, unable to hold back my tears of pain.

“I’m so sorry for this,” Nina apologizes, before phasing me one last time.

The pain in my body seems to double in intensity after that last phase. I keep my eyes squeezed shut and continue to cry uncontrollably as my body shakes.

“Is she hurt?” I hear a man ask anxiously as Nina lays me on something soft like a bed.

“Just from the phasing,” Nina replies just as I feel a man’s hand desperately grab one of my own.

“Mason,” I hear another man say, “I need to heal you before you bleed out anymore.”

“No!” Mason answers firmly. “You heal Jess first, Rafe. I can’t die. She can.”

“Then get out of the way so I can do my job,” an agitated Rafe says.

I feel Mason let go of my hand just before I feel a cool palm rest on my forehead.

“Thank you,” I breathe, instantly finding relief from my pain by the man’s touch.

My body relaxes so much I feel like I’m floating on a cloud of bliss, causing me to fall into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

I end up not having any dreams. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the brain needs more memories than I have available to me at the moment to form a dream world. As my tether to the real world pulls me out of my slumber, I’m acutely aware of a man holding me in his arms. I take a deep breath and smell the scent of warm cinnamon and sugar, mixed with something else I can’t quite put my finger on. Whatever it is, I find it completely intoxicating and welcoming.

Slowly, I open my eyes and find myself lying on a bed, snuggled firmly up against a taut, naked chest. I cast my eyes downward to see if the person holding me is at least wearing pants, and discover that he is indeed at least partially clothed. However, I can’t quite decide if I’m relieved or disappointed by that fact. I lift my head to look into the eyes of the man holding me.

“Hi,” the blond man I saw fighting Lucian says to me. His blue eyes are filled with apprehension as he waits for my response.

“Hello,” I reply, feeling a little vulnerable in my current position. I slowly disentangle myself from his arms so I can sit up.

“Jess…” the man I presume to be Mason, my husband, says with a hint of desperation and a lot of worry.

I look over my shoulder, and simply stare at him for a long time before finally asking, “Are you Mason?”

He doesn’t have to give me a verbal answer. The look of utter devastation on his face is enough to confirm my question.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, feeling my heart ache for his loss. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I wish I did.”

Mason sits up from the pillows he was leaning back on and says, “We’ll find a way to get your memories back, Jess. I promise you that. Can you tell me what you
do
remember?”

I reach into my jacket pocket where I hid the locket I was wearing and pull it out. I remove the pin to open it and show Mason the two pictures hidden within.

“I know these are our children, Max and Brynlee,” I tell him.

A true smile graces Mason’s face at this revelation.

“Then you haven’t lost your memories,” he says with certainty. “They’re just being blocked by something. Can you remember anything else?”

Slowly, I shake my head. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mason tells me, taking my free hand into his, lovingly. “None of this was your fault. It was that bitch, Ravan’s, fault.”

“She’s the one who did this to me?”

Mason nods. “She tried to phase you into Heaven when she went there to open the seventh seal.”

“The seventh seal?” I ask, not understanding what he’s talking about.

Mason looks troubled. “I guess we need to have a long conversation about what happened, and, maybe, if you see it for yourself, it will make more sense.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

Mason reaches up and tugs on a snap on my jacket. “You activated the little camera hidden here when Lucian took you away from me.”

“How did he take me?”

“You were wearing King Solomon’s ring at the time. The ring with the ruby that Nina took off your finger before she phased you out of Lucian’s apartment. Anyway, he and Ravan were waiting for you to join them before opening the sixth and seventh seals. I think they wanted to show off in front of you.”

My forehead crinkles, because I’m still very confused by what Mason is trying to tell me.

“Let me show you the video you took right before you lost your memory,” Mason says, standing from the bed and searching through a backpack sitting in a nearby chair. He pulls out a black t-shirt and puts it on.

I sigh, feeling slightly disappointed that he felt the need to cover himself.

Mason must have heard me. He looks over his shoulder at me and smiles.

“Well, at least that hasn’t changed,” he says, still smiling.

I feel my cheeks flush. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Please,” Mason says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Don’t apologize. It was a natural response. One you’ve had many times over the last few years.”

“How many years have we been together?”

“We’ve been married for seven years, Jess.”

I take a deep breath. “I need those years back,” I say, feeling a sudden desperation to remember who I am. “I need my life back.”

“Then trust me to help you do just that,” Mason says, holding his hand out to me. “We’ll find a way to get them back together, like we do everything in our lives.”

“In all those years, have I ever told you how gorgeous you are?” I ask Mason, unable to keep my thoughts to myself as I stare at him.

“Once or twice,” Mason replies with a pleased, almost shy grin, which makes him even more irresistible to me. I feel an overwhelming urge to lean over and kiss him, but I hold myself back. He’s having a hard enough time dealing with my state of mind. I don’t need to give him any false hope that my memories of him are coming back to me.

Yet, I know that would have been the natural reaction of the old me. I would have kissed him and one thing would have led to another…

I seriously doubt we would have left this bed anytime soon.

“What are you thinking about?” Mason murmurs knowingly. “Your cheeks usually only get that red when you think about having sex with me.”

I immediately cover my face with both my hands, in utter mortification.

“Then don’t look at me,” I say, my words slightly muffled behind my hands. “I can’t help it.” I peek at Mason between my fingers, and catch him smiling at me as if I’ve just made him the happiest man in the world. “Seriously,” I tell him, lowering my hands to my lap, “look at you. What heterosexual woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to make love with you? And I can only imagine we’ve done that a lot in the past seven years.”

“A LOT,” Mason confirms with a firm nod of his head. “Enough to make two children and possibly a third.”

“A third?” stunned, I involuntarily place my left hand on my tummy. “Am I pregnant?”

Mason shrugs his shoulders. “Not that I know of, but anything is possible, especially after our last night together.”

“I wish I could remember that,” I say longingly.

Mason chuckles. “You will. One way or another, I’ll make sure you do. Now, come on. You have a lot of other people who want to see you again. And then I’ll take you to Josh’s room, so you can watch the last video you took.”

Mason holds out his hand to me, and I readily accept it.

I feel so much more comfortable with him than I did Lucian. In all honesty, Lucian kind of freaked me out. I knew there was something wrong with him. I just didn’t know what. I still don’t, really.

Mason and I walk out of the bedroom together and begin to stroll down the hallway.

“Where are our children?” I ask, wondering why Mason didn’t say we were going to see them.

“It’s part of the long story,” Mason tells me. “You see, this isn’t the reality that we live in normally. It’s an alternate one. Our children are back home, waiting for us.”

I stop walking.

Mason turns to look at me, still holding my hand with his.

“We’re in an alternate reality?” I ask, not doubting his words, just having a hard time wrapping my brain around such a concept. “How did we get here?”

“You brought us here.”

“Me?” I ask. “How?”

“Like I said,” Mason replies, “it’s a really long story. One I might need the help of our friends to tell you. Come on,” Mason urges with a gentle tug on my hand, “let me take you to the others so we can explain it all to you.”

I continue to follow Mason down the hallway. We come to a grand staircase, which begs the question, “Where are we exactly?”

“Boldt Castle,” Mason answers. “This is the headquarters for the resistance on this world. We came to this reality to help them fight against what Lucian is doing.”

“And what exactly is it that he’s doing?”

“Causing the Apocalypse here, without God’s permission.”

“Why doesn’t God just stop him from doing it?”

“That’s what He sent us here to do,” Mason says, though his words sound troubled.

“What’s wrong?”

Mason shakes his head as we come to stand at the foot of the stairs.

“It’s like nothing we do here works,” Mason admits, not hiding his frustration. “We keep trying to stop him, but it’s almost like we’re destined to fail. I’m beginning to wonder what the purpose of us coming here really is.”

“So you don’t think you can save this world?”

Mason bows his head. “I keep trying to have faith that we can. Maybe I’m just not seeing the bigger picture. I don’t know.”

“Hey,” I say, placing my index finger underneath his chin to lift his gaze back up to mine, “don’t lose your faith. If God said you can stop it, you will. I don’t think He’s the type of person who lies.”

Mason grins. “That’s exactly what you would say to me in a time like this.”

“And do you always believe what I tell you?”

“Always,” Mason nods.

“Then don’t start doubting me now.”

“There she is!” I hear a woman say excitedly.

Out of a room to the left of the foyer Mason and I are standing in, a group of people quickly walks out to greet me. I feel overwhelmed with all the hugs from strangers, but not uncomfortable. These people are my friends. Of that, I have no doubt whatsoever. I simply don’t remember what their names are.

“We were so very worried about you,
mon cher
,” a woman with short, curly dark hair says to me. “Oh, forgive me,
mon ami
. I am JoJo. I forgot you don’t know who we are.”

“And I’m Leah,” the youngest of the group tells me.

One by one, they all tell me their names.

“You probably already know my name,” Malcolm’s double says to me. “But, just to be clear, I’m the real Malcolm. Xavier is just an imposter.”

I did remember Nina addressing the Malcolm I knew as Xavier.

“He’s just the Malcolm of this reality,” Mason chastises. “He’s not an imposter, Malcolm.”

“Either way you rationalize it,” Malcolm says, “I’m the one from the Origin. Thus, the only one who actually counts.”

“The Origin?” I ask, not having heard that term used before now. “What’s that?”

My question instantly silences the room. Everyone is looking at me oddly now, making me feel extremely self-conscious about my memory loss.

“I told Jess that we would tell her everything she needs to know,” Mason says to the others, taking my hand again. It’s a small gesture that instantly calms me. “So, why don’t we all go into the library and explain things to her?”

For over an hour, my friends tell me all about myself. It’s an odd sensation to know that other people know more about me than I do. When they get to the part that I’m a vessel for the Archangel Michael, I have to stop them.

“Can he talk to me?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Chandler tells me. “Michael hasn’t tried to make contact with you yet?”

“Maybe,” I say, wondering if the feelings that have been trying to guide me actually belong to my Archangel.

My friends tell me about fighting the princes of Hell in our reality.

“I saw someone with you who looked exactly like Lucian,” I say. “Was that Lucifer?”

Once again, I’ve brought complete silence to the room as everyone begins to look uncomfortable.

“Did I say something wrong?” I ask, since no one seems to want to meet my eyes.

“Sore subject,” Mason says to me, his expression dark after the mention of Lucifer.

“Why?” I have to ask.

“Because he’s a lying son of a bitch who can never be trusted,” Malcolm practically shouts.

“Again,” I say, “why?”

“He made us a promise,” Brand tells me calmly, “but it seems as though he doesn’t intend to keep it.”

“We needed his help to get you out of Lucian’s place,” Mason says. “He was the only one of us who had ever been to it, and our phasing has restrictions. We can only phase to places we’ve been to before. He promised that he would phase us all there and come back to the castle afterwards. We did have another Watcher who could have taken us there, but we didn’t have time to find Ava. When the blood rain began, she took her daughter, Mia, somewhere without telling any of us where she was going.”

“Well, why didn’t you use Xavier or Noel instead?” I ask. “Why couldn’t one of them phase you there?”

“It would have compromised their cover,” Brand tells me. “We couldn’t chance that. Not considering how high the stakes are now.”

“Yeah, I kind of thought the two of them might be working with you guys. Especially after Xavier told Nina to make their fight look convincing. I have to say, ripping his head off was pretty believable to me.”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do sometimes,” Nina says with a self-satisfied grin, hinting that she actually did gain some pleasure from decapitating Xavier.

“So, where do you think Lucifer is now?” I ask the group.