Transcending the Legacy (23 page)

Sebastian shakes his head, shocked by his sister’s explanation thus far.
“I didn’t think you knew about the legacy. Mom and Dad hid it from us.”

Elisabeth nods. “They tried, but it couldn’
t be hidden forever. When you started researching it, poking around and asking them about it, I started to question them too. They told me that it was nothing, a made up story, a legend. I believed them then.” Elisabeth snickers and shakes her head, “When you left for college, things settled for a while. Mom and Dad put an end to the questions I had.” She looks at Sebastian tenderly. “You and I discussed them so many times late at night. Do you remember when you would tell me the stories? What you had learned about our family in your research?”

Sebastian smiles gently and
bows his head, remembering their conversations.

Elisabeth continues, “When you left, you took the stories with you. I graduated high school, Gabe and I married, and we had Ana. After she was born, the visions spiked and the headaches became unmanageable.
At first Gabe thought it was woman issues, but then I explained to him the best I could what I thought it was. God bless him, he listened and believed me.” Elisabeth looks down at her hands in her lap. “He was a good man. He passed a year ago.” Elisabeth looks back up at Sebastian with saddened eyes. “I wanted to be her mother. I wanted to love her and protect her, but I couldn’t even protect myself.”

El
isabeth stares off for a moment. “As Ana grew, she resembled the girl in my vision more and more. That is when I knew that it couldn’t be me. The legacy had skipped me and chosen her.” Elisabeth blinks then looks at Sebastian. “I knew that if I could get her to you, you would know how to protect her.”

Everyone is quiet, intently listening and Sebastian takes hold of Elisabeth’s hand and place his other on top. “
I did everything to keep her safe,” he tells her. I see the shine of tears threatening in his eyes. “She had a husband.” He looks at Ezra. “Ezra Kahn.”

Elisabeth tips her head, acknowledging him.

Sebastian looks at me.
“And a daughter, Jesca.”

Sebastian looks back at her, a tear drops from his eye and lands on his shirt. “She was taken from our world too soon
, Elisabeth,” he says consolingly.

Elisabeth realizes what his words mean; Ana was killed.

She looks at me with a visible weight of sorrow crippling her. “You have the visions?” she asks.

I nod once.

Elisabeth shakes her head slowly as she wells up with tears. Her eyes bounce between Ezra and I. “I’m sorry.”

I’m not sure if she is apologizing for my mother’s death or the fact that I have inherited the legacy she believes was meant for her daughter. I dip my head, signaling my silent reply, then pull Tessa closer to me.

Elisabeth looks down at Tessa, then back to me. “Is this your daughter?”

I whisper, not wanting to make Tessa stir again, “No.”

Sebastian suddenly shakes his head, “Why are you not implanted
, Elisabeth?”

Elisabeth swallows a drink of water, coughs,
then responds curtly, “Don’t need it.”

Ezra leans forward, his elbows on his knees now. “You sound like you do.”

Elisabeth answers, “You mean the cough? I have had that since the first climate shift. The one that took Gabe.”

Out of nowhere, Nate asks her something completely off topic. “Your inability to speak and move back there, was that your headaches, your affliction? Were you having a vision?”

He is fishing for something.

Elisabeth’s eye
s widen and she shakes her head. “No, that was not my affliction. Something else was at work just then.”

She quirks her head and looks back and forth between Nate and Xander a few times.
“You two are brothers?”

Xander an
d Nate look at each other past Ezra and me. They stare a little too long. Long in the sense that they are saying something to each other without words. They are reading each other’s thoughts! How do they have that ability and I don’t? Xander is the first to look away from Nate and back at Elisabeth, “No, we are cousins.”

Elisabeth furrows her brow, her eyes jumping between Nate and Xander still.
“You both look so much like the gentleman in my vision.”

Her eyes snap back to me. “Your visions of the girl, what do you see?”

Is she talking about Onawah’s gentleman in my vision? I look between Nate and Xander and Ezra notices my quick assessment.

“You mean Onawah?”

Elisabeth looks at me.
“That is her name? I never heard her name in my vision. It was always just her, the young man, and the cave.”

Daniel asks eagerly, “The cave, what did you see?”

Elisabeth focuses on the floorboard of the truck as she thinks, “Fire, an old man, the girl. The man is dressed in traditional native garments and he is chanting as the girl sits before him. It is a ritual.”

I wondered if she experienced the vision as I had in the past. “Were you the girl in your vision?”

Elisabeth swallows the bit of food she is chewing. “No. You?”

“I am her in the vision.”

Elisabeth shakes her head in awe of my admittance. Suddenly, her eyes widen as she mutters, “The legacy was never meant for her or I. It was always meant for you.”

She looks at all of the guardians,
“It is waiting for all of you.”

Elisabeth’s awareness of all of our involvement in this is both intuitive and eerie being that she has just met us. She has seen the connection between all of us instantly. Her comment quiets the truck quickly as everyone busies themselves by trying to eat something. I shift to look down at Tessa still resting in the crook of my arm and run my hand along her forehead. She opens her eyes and looks up at me.

I take the bag of food Ezra has been feeding me and put it in front of her before whispering, “You need to eat
, Tessa.”

She looks down and shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

I glance to my left at Ezra.

He hands me the canteen
of water he is holding and says, “She needs to drink at least.”

I take it from his hands and open the lid. I hold the bottle close to her lips and say, “Please just drink then.”

She looks at the bottle, then me before she takes it from my hands. She takes a long drink, tipping it back bit by bit as she drains it.

She finally comes up for
air and I smile at her lightly. “You were thirsty.”

Already, her eyes seem brighter and the color of her skin has
perked up.

I try nudging her with the bag of food again. She hesitates, but I see the want in her eyes. I whisper, “I will have one if you do.”

She looks up at me with her brightened gray eyes and smiles faintly before reaching into the bag to grab a nugget of food. Her smile suddenly dissolves as she seemingly thinks about something. I prepare myself for a question about her dad or about where we are going when she leans closer to me like she wants to ask me something in secret. I play along and lean into her, placing my ear close to her small mouth as she speaks. “Jesca, who is Michael?”

As soon as the poisonous name leaves her innocent lips, I pull away just a hair and whisper back. “Where did you hear that name
, Tessa?”

My scrutiny frightens her a bit, her whispering answer quivers, “He told me.”

“Who?” I probe.

“Michael.”

Still hunched over Tessa, I look dead center at Sam and follow the path of his inspecting eyes. They lead right to Nate.

A
procession of thoughts run through my head; Nate’s behavior since being back from beyond the veil, Xander’s and Nate’s secrecy, their appearances, the random sickening feeling of a Dweller’s presence when either of them are near. I hear Sam interrogating voice in my head when I asked Nate if he was alright and Sam’s immediate response asking if he was sure.

Sam knew then that something was going on with Nate and Xander. He saw it because he had been controlled by Michael.

Is that what is going on here? Is Michael controlling Nate and Xander?
I look at Nate. His head is tilted back against the window panel, his eyes closed.

Shiva was barking like crazy at the entrance of the tunnel ju
st before Nate found Tessa and me. As soon as Nate appeared, Shiva stopped barking. She even started wagging her tale. The nauseous feeling hit me before he found us, but went away as soon as he walked through the doorway.

I angle to peer at Xander. He is leaning forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees and hands folded.
Xander telling me to back off when I approached them about their behavior. He was trying to hide it. In Tom’s compound, he looked just as ill as Nate, then moments later he looked fine.

What about Elisabeth? I peer across the aisle at her. Xander and Nate were holding her captive when we met. It could have transferred to her easily.
She is chewing her food quietly now, but she couldn’t walk or talk earlier. It could have gotten to me when Nate and I were arguing by the bus. He touched me. Does it move between us through touch? I didn’t see anything though. No inky, black being approaching. I just felt the sensation of being frozen, stagnate. I look at each guardian. He could hide among any of us with little detection. How is he doing it?

I’m threatening
a complete breakdown as I narrow my eyes on Xander, the one that told me everything would be alright as soon as we got to the mounds. My voice trembles as I ask him, “He is here, among us. Why didn’t you tell us?”

My disruption of the quietude is enough to make Xander and Sam both look at me, dumbfounded by my question.

Ezra questions urgen
tly, “Who is among us? Who are you talking about?”

I peer at
Nate now, staring at me shocked by my question. I aim my attack at him. “Seems your partner is speechless. You have an answer?”

Nate realizes they have been caught
. He stutters, “I wanted to tell you.”

Xander’s voice yells over Nate’
s warningly, “Nate!”

I feel Tessa tense in my embrace and I rock side to side soothingly.

Nick asks eagerly looking from Nate to Xander, “What is it?”

Nate and Xander say nothing.

Nick probes again,
“Nate, what the hell man?”

Nate pinches hi
s eyes shut and shakes his head. “A Dweller is...”

Ezra explodes, cutting Nate off before he can finish his sentence. “A
Dweller is among us?”

Monica Siobhan, Jake, and Luke draw
their guns and snap them into action, readying them for quick aim at both Nate and Xander.

Xander releases his wringing hands and
holds them out splayed before him staring at the four guns aimed at him and Nate. Obviously stunned looking down the barrel of four guns, he keeps his voice as even as possible. “It’s under control. We just need to get to the mounds.”

Panicked by the guns being drawn on both of them I look between the four guns and Xander, angry at his idiotic comment.
“Under control? You have no control! It isn’t just a Dweller, Xander! How is Michael involved in this? He is here, isn’t he?”

I ignore the questioning whispers of the guardians, lean over Tessa,
and bark at Xander. “Tessa just asked me about Michael! How would she know about him! How would she know his name unless he was trying to get to her too?”

Siobhan hisses between her teeth, “Xander, I
swear I will shoot if you don’t start explaining quick!”

Tessa starts to whimper as she squeezes her arms around my waist. I yell at Siobhan, “No, you won’t! Back down!”

Siobhan, Luke, Jake, and Monica keep their guns level, not retreating. I try to understand that Siobhan and the others don’t know what I know in my gut, that Xander and Nate aren’t a direct threat right now for some reason. I need to know why!

Xander keeps his eyes steady on the four weapons pointing
to our side of truck. He says evenly, “Michael died.”

I challenge him, “How do you know that?”

Xander’s voice remains eerily steady. “Because I saw his soul yanked from his own body that’s how.”

I hear the latch of Tessa’s buckle release across us and wiggles in my arms to break free. I try to reach for her
, but she has crawled quickly across the aisle to Ms. Olivia. Tessa sits in the seat next to her and wraps her arms around Elisha’s waist.

Monica warns him to talk faster, “Xander?”

Xander continues as evenly as before, “In a vision, I saw Michael’s soul combine with a Dweller. He had just left our facility and he found Sondians that had defected and joined the Dobrian fellowship. They wanted to implant him, help him, but he refused. Dwellers attacked them and occupied the entire cell. One Dweller found him and it drew his soul from his body with some kind of ritual, a chant. It combined with the soul before my eyes.”

There is a pause before he continues, “It started with Nate when we got back from beyond the veil.”

I think of the inky matter slinking along the surface its prey. I challenge his explanation, looking at Nate for an answer. “Didn’t you see it coming?”

Nate responds, eyes still glued to the weaponry aimed at him. “No, I saw nothing.”

Xander continues, “When it combined with Michael’s soul, it transformed, evolved into a different type of Dweller. That is how it got to him. It is invisible to us.”

Sam interjects all of a sudden,
“It is jumping between vessels.”

Daniel asks accusingly, “And you know this how?”

Sam tilts his head to look down the aisle at Daniel. “You forget that I was haunted and controlled by that bastard for years. I could feel his essence, his spirit among us on that plane.”

I look at Corinna as she stares at me and ask, “You knew also?”

Corinna nods. “Yes.”

Sam defends Corinna, “I told her not to say anything.”

I ask, “Why? Why have none of you told us this! This thing is hopping from one vessel to another, threatening all of us.”

Nate
answers, “Because of the Rephaim. They are keeping it from taking any of us.”

Xander
adds, “The hybrid Dweller is intimidated by them because it knows that they can kill it. That is why we needed to stop to bury the pup. Nate and I had just figured it out and we needed to tell Ira and the others, so they could help protect all of us until we got to the mounds.”

Luke
interjects, “The Rephaim aren’t keeping it from drawing the other Dwellers to us though.”

Jake mutters in disgust,
“It’s like some kind of tracking device. It is using us as radar for the rest of them to find us. We are leading every Dweller tracking us to the mounds.”

He was right. This hybrid
Dweller donning Michael’s soul is like a target on the vessel it haunts.

Monica demands matter-of-factly,
“We need to leave them behind then! They are going to get us killed if we don’t!”

Daniel, Sebastian, and Ms. Olivia begin to argue with her.

I defend Nate and Xander, “No! It is not attached to them right now.”

Everyone quiets again.

Siobhan jeers, “How can you tell? You can’t see this thing!”

I remember Nate’s sallow face and dull eyes in Tom’s compound.
“You can tell. It makes the vessel look ill. The eyes look dull, opaque and the face is sallow, ashen.”

I focus on the memory of Nate, remembering
him in the cavern by the pool in Tom’s compound. How he touched my face, almost kissed my lips. Telling me that we were lost and we have been given a second chance. Were those his words, his actions or this thing taunting me? I look over at Nate. “It was in the compound with us, wasn’t it?”

Nate’s eyes meet mine. He must see the deeper questioning in my eyes or hear it in my tone. He responds,
“Yes, but not the whole time. I am still in here, Jes. I am still me.”

The look in his eyes and the authentic honesty in his voice make my mind settle believing him.

Xander
adds, “It never had a chance to act within us because of our resistance.”

Elisha questions, “Resistance?”

Xander continues, “Our strength and abilities are returning, getting stronger the closer we get to the mounds.”

I realize what they have been thinking.
“You think that if we get to the mounds you can fight this hybrid Dweller off.”

Xander nods.
“When we buried the pup, we told Ira and the other Rephaim so they could help us.”

That is why Xander asked for them to help bury Stella.

Xander continues, “We are the closest to you
, Jes. When we get to the mounds, this hybrid may try to take Nate or me to attack you.”

Nate
adds, “We need to keep it from you until you get into the mounds and fulfill the legacy.”

Which I still don’t know how to fulfill.

I refuse to think of anything happening to either of them. “I won’t let it take either of you.”

Nate breathes in a deep, tense breath and says gravely,
“Not your choice.”

Giving myself whiplash, I look between them appalled and yell, “You are choosing to let this thing take you?
”

Commandingly Xander leans over and looks beyond me straight into Nate’s eyes.
“Hey! Enough!”