Eternal Starling (Emblem of Eternity Trilogy) (19 page)

“I don’t know, an hour maybe.”

I realized that he had come up with his cunning little plan before I even left Gunnison. He probably followed me here and when I left with my dad, Alex used the opportunity to talk to my mom. This knowledge only made me more upset. “And how did you manipulate her into thinking you weren’t the devil?”

He lifted a shoulder innocently in a kind of half-shrug and hitched one corner of his mouth. “I didn’t get the impression she thought I was evil at all. She seemed to like me quite a bit.”

“She doesn’t,” I countered. “She’s just being nice. Let’s go.”

I got in the driver’s seat of the dune buggy. Alex climbed in the passenger side. I grabbed the headphones off the top of the dune buggy and gave a pair to Alex. The headphones would allow us to hear each other over the dune buggy engine in case we needed to talk on the ride. I knew exactly where to take him. As soon as we got to the secluded little lake in the middle of the dunes where it was quiet, Alex and I were going to have a long talk, and I was going to get some answers. I felt I had been more than patient. If he was going to ruin my vacation, solid answers were the least he could give me. If he didn’t . . . I hoped he could doggy-paddle.

Chapter 13

We didn’t talk during the ten-minute ride to the water. The tiny blue lake was sometimes deep, other times shallow, and occasionally even disappeared depending on the amount of rain the area had. The lake was hardly noticed by most people as they zoomed by it on their way to bigger dunes. The private location was ideal for what better be a very informative discussion.

I pulled up on a flat area near the lakeshore and cut the engine. I unstrapped my seat harness, took off my headphones, and pulled myself out of the dune buggy. The combination of hot sand and water made the air smell a lot like the beach. I walked to a swath of dry sand near the shore. Alex followed me and sat down a couple of feet away.

We didn’t say anything at first, instead staring at the mountains of sand that towered in every direction. After about five minutes, I broke the silence. “Do you want to tell me how you found me when I explicitly told you not to come?”

“I followed you,” he admitted without remorse. My face flushed hot with anger. Alex was quick to note my reaction. “You don’t understand—it’s my job. I couldn’t be sure you were safe unless I was here.”

“Your
job
?” My question was laced with outrage. “Who appointed you my keeper?” Alex was quiet but I decided it was about time for him to enlighten me. “Listen Alex, I’ve trusted you since June, but I need to know what’s going on. If the people chasing me are dangerous enough to potentially follow me through three states and put my family in danger, I need specifics. You said you’d give me the answers I wanted when you had time to explain. We have plenty of that, so start talking.”

Alex sighed, clearly less than willing to share information with me. I turned away from him, listening to the engines of motorcycles race across the dunes. It had been silent for so long that I jumped when I heard him speak. “I’m not sure how to begin,” he said. “I know you’ll think it sounds crazy, but bear with me.”

I didn’t believe anything could be more insane than the things I had already seen and experienced, but his preface made me even more curious.

“The people looking for you are part of a group committed to finding people in love and killing half of the couple,” he stalled to gage my expression. “These are not your average murderers. They’re powerful, Evie.” The ire in his voice was thick.

I considered him, unwilling to believe what he was saying, trying to take it in. This is what he started with? I hoped this was the worst of it and he’d been giving me the bad news first. Without being totally aware of it, I shuddered. I asked the question that seemed to be the most obvious. “What would they possibly want with me?”

Alex took a deep breath. “You are an anomaly, Evie.” His brow knit together as he attempted to clarify himself. He turned toward me. “What do you know about the concept of eternity?”

Eternity? What? I didn’t understand how this would explain why a bunch of psychopaths were looking for me. “It means forever, that things don’t end after you die.”

Alex moved closer to me, never taking his eyes from mine. “What if your eternity doesn’t start when you die?” he asked carefully. “What if your eternity has been going on since before you were born?”

I stared at him with a blank face, wondering what drugs he was on.

“Do you remember when I told you I’ve seen things?” he asked. I gave a reluctant nod. “That gift comes from the institute I belong to, the Amaranthine Society. I’m one of their Protectors. The things I know about,” he explained slowly, “are things that have happened in your
past
lives.” He watched me closely, searching my face for a reaction.

I sat unmoving, trying to grasp what he had said. “Like reincarnation?” I said it mostly as a question to myself.

Alex answered, “Kind of, though it’s a bit different from the definition of reincarnation you’re probably familiar with.” He continued to stare so hard I felt like his eyes could knock me over, even though I was sitting down.

“What’s different about it?” I asked, confused.

“Most people believe reincarnation is directly linked to your actions in your previous life. They think that the life you’re currently living is a tool for you to learn something and grow. For example, if you did something in a previous life, like abusing someone, you may come back in your next life as an abuse victim. It’s a way for your soul to mature.

“While that aspect of reincarnation is a part of the belief system of the Amaranthine, there is another, much stronger facet to it. Love,” he said, still watching me closely. “Reincarnation is a means for finding your soul mate. Souls spend hundreds, even thousands of years living and dying in search of their one true love. The Amaranthine Society works to ensure that everyone has the opportunity, the best chance possible, of finding their soul mate and being together forever.”

I had so many questions I didn’t know where to start, but Alex took a breath and continued.

“In addition to the Amaranthine Society, there are others who belong to a sinister organization, the Daevos Resistance.” He looked at me pointedly. “Emil is one of those people.”

I inhaled a sharp breath. Alex had said Emil was dangerous, now it seemed I’d finally get an explanation why. “The members of the Daevos are committed to exterminating souls, leaving a person’s soul mate to wander eternally without their other half. Every soul has the choice to become good or evil, but finding your soul mate makes you happy and balances your emotions so you’re less apt to choose a negative path. By targeting soul mates and taking half a person’s soul, the remaining soul mate is much more likely to join the ranks of the Daevos Resistance. The goal of the Daevos is to bring as many souls into the Resistance as possible, and grow their army.

“While the Daevos have the power to take souls, they don’t have the power to sense the bond that indicates people are soul mates. For that, they need a Tracker. Some Trackers join the Daevos willingly, but most are abducted and forced to help them. When the Daevos Resistance was organized, the Amaranthine took on the responsibility of protecting Trackers. Dealing with the Daevos is a time-consuming process, but it’s not usually difficult. Daevos Resistance members have a knack for evasion, but other than that, the Amaranthine Society holds all the powers.”

He pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them as he studied the dune on the other side of the water. “Remember when I told you about soulmarks?”

I nodded.

“Your soulmark is a little different. While it still acts as a marker for your soul and reacts to your soul mate, your soulmark is a variation of the trinity knot, which represents life, death, and rebirth. It’s the mark of a Tracker, and it stays the same through each of your incarnations.”

I absently reached behind me and rubbed the lily on my back.

“Trackers have the ability to locate any bond. They can find soul mate bonds, but they can also track the bond between a Protector and Tracker. They’re invaluable to the Daevos Resistance for both reasons.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why do Protectors and Trackers need a bond?”

“Because Trackers are like any other soul. They live and die through many incarnations. Once the Amaranthine Society knows a soul is a Tracker, the Tracker is assigned a Protector. The Protector and Tracker form a bond that allows the Protector to follow that soul through each incarnation.”

“What about when the Protector dies?” I asked.

“The lifespan of a Protector isn’t the same as a normal human,” he explained. “I mentioned that my society has many powers, one of them is that I live for a very long time. Once we’re assured a Protector is no longer needed for a soul, we have a choice: become human again, or be assigned another case.”

“So you never get older?” I asked.

“Not while we’re Protectors. When we reach the age of twenty-one, we stop aging. If we ever choose to leave the society, the aging process starts again.”

“So, how old are you really?” I wondered, but an even more pressing question came to mind, “Wait! How old am I?”

Alex lifted his eyes and he watched the surface of the lake. “I’ve been your Protector for two hundred and fifty years, but I imagine your soul is much older than that. I don’t know what happened in the lives you had before I became your Protector.”

I tried to do the calculations in my head. I’d never been very good at math. When I realized how old Alex actually was and how long he’d been protecting me, I stuttered, “You’re at least two hundred and seventy years old!”

He cringed. “Two hundred and seventy one, actually.”

The number was too difficult to wrap my head around. “You don’t
seem
that old.”

He smiled and cocked his head to the side. “We adapt for each new life cycle. We don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.”

I thought for a moment, but everything was so new and hard to grasp. It seemed Alex had another revelation for me every time he spoke. “Is the lifespan of Daevos members similar to the Amaranthine?

He nodded. “They stop aging at twenty-one also.”

“Can Daevos members be killed?”

Alex picked up a small red and white shell that was lying next to him on the sand and rubbed it absently. “They can be, but souls are given many lives to redeem themselves. Some souls eventually become so evil that their souls are taken in the same way that Daevos members take souls. Their memories are stripped and they are sent to the Nothing where they spend eternity unable to retain any of their memories. It’s a horrible death. The Amaranthine are forbidden from taking a soul without orders.”

I stretched my legs out in front of me and rubbed my hands down my thighs as I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said, turning my head toward him, “say I decide to believe all this. How does it work? The reincarnation I mean? I’m not the same person every time I come back. I can’t be, can I?”

“Your physical appearance changes with each incarnation, but your personality is similar,” he answered. “You aren’t exactly the same, but you keep a lot of the same characteristics.”

“Huh,” I said, wondering what aspects of myself had traveled with me through time.

“Trust me,” Alex said. “You were just as stubborn, opinionated, and outspoken two hundred and fifty years ago as you are now. It constantly amazed me no one tried to behead you.”

I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at him. Though, truthfully, it gave me a strange satisfaction to know that despite all the years and different bodies, I’d never lost myself. I picked up some sand and let it run through my fingers. “Explain the bond we have. How do you find me once I die, before my soul is reborn?”

“When you die, your soul’s past is judged. If it’s decided your soul isn’t ready to move on to the afterlife, your soul immediately moves into the body of a child about to be born. During the death and rebirth process, your soul leaves a marker that can be followed by someone with a bond to your soul. It’s kind of like a trail.”

“You don’t ever worry about getting on the wrong trail?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “No, the marker and bond is specific to your soul.”

“So you meet me in each life, or what?” I asked.

“No,” he answered. “I only become involved in your life if there’s a direct threat to you. For the past few months, Trackers have gone missing, even Trackers with Protectors. The Protector / Tracker bond is severed somehow and the Trackers can’t be found. Because of that, the Amaranthine ordered all Protectors to become a physical presence in the lives of their Trackers. A Protector can’t defend a Tracker remotely; we have to be a physical presence to do that.”

“You’re not with me every second, so how do you protect me?”

A smile touched his lips as he held up his right hand. The sunlight reflected off the black stone ring on his index finger that I’d noticed when I first met him. “This ring is connected to our bond.” He reached over and put it in front of me placing the thumb of his left hand on the ring. When he did, a symbol appeared. It resembled a circle and two half moons on each side of the circle. He ran his thumb over the symbol in three swift motions, first to the right, then to the left, then straight up. Suddenly an image appeared on the ring.

I looked closer and my chin dropped. It was an image of Alex and me sitting in the sand on the shore of the lake. I waved my hand in the air and the image waved also, like a live video feed. Alex brushed his thumb three more times in the opposite direction; the image faded. “The rings are given to Protectors as a way to watch our Trackers and make sure you’re always safe. I don’t watch you all the time, but I check in. The ring also allows me to transport to you immediately, so if you need my help, I can be there in an instant. I asked you to tell me when you’d be with Emil so I could make sure I was watching every second during the times you were together.”

“So that’s how you knew about the lemonade and the break up?” I asked, stunned. That was one of the questions I’d wanted answered the most. And if he hadn’t had the ring to show me, I’d have been the one calling the mental institution.

He nodded. “Luke deserved every drop of lemonade he got.”

We sat for a few minutes as more questions and realizations kept popping into my head. As I thought of the Van Gogh painting at Alex’s house, I put my hands over my eyes and shook my head. When I opened my eyes, Alex was watching me with a puzzled expression. “When you showed me
Starry Night
, I should have known it was more than a coincidence you had my favorite painting hanging on your wall.”