The Space Within (The Book of Phoenix #3) (2 page)

He’d given her a blade to keep under her bedding, just in case. She pulled it out, but she could barely stand steady on her feet. Hayden and I both positioned ourselves to guard her. I already had my knife out of its sheath, the blade’s mere six inches seeming like nothing more than a pocket knife compared to what I expected we’d be facing based on that roar. We were prepared in the two seconds it took Brock to come flying through the narrow passageway that connected the outer room with the inner cavern. He had a katana-like sword in hand that he’d found on their supply run the other day.

“Looks like a dragon fucked an elephant,” Brock said, his voice shaking and his chest heaving with pants as he shoved a hand into his dark hair. Seeing someone built like Brock—as tall and muscular as Jeric and whose fighting skills ranked at the top of the Guardians—showing so much fear was enough to scare the shit out of you.

“A dragon and a
what
?” Hayden asked.

“An elephant. I mean, it’s huge as an elephant and with a long trunk for a nose.” He held his arm in front of his face to imitate an elephant’s trunk. “But it’s scaly and has a bunch of horns. And it breathes. Fucking.
Fire!
” His eyes were wild as they remained trained on the opening. “It can’t fit through that passage, though … right?”

“A gozzard,” Hayden said, understanding now, “and yes—”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence to answer Brock’s question. A long, black, scaly, tube-like thing, kind of like an elephant’s trunk, slithered into the cavern from the passageway. It lifted into the air, its end wiggling, as though smelling for us. It swung for Brock.

“Whatever you do, don’t cut—” Hayden began to warn, but he fell silent when Brock’s katana blade sliced through the tentacle or trunk or whatever it was.

The piece fell to the cave floor and burst into little wormy bits that hopped in the air like Mexican jumping beans. As though they could smell us, they swarmed toward Bex and me. One hit my leg and latched on with piercing little needles that sank into my skin. The main body of the beast remained on the other end of the passage, and flames and smoke shot through the opening into our room. The part of the trunk that was still attached to the body split into four parts, peeling back an opening. Several tentacle-like things—these thin, white, and slimy—flared out of the hole, and their ends opened up to little mouths full of spindly teeth. The little black pieces on the ground jumped for us as the white tentacles swayed and swung, the mouths snapping for our faces.

My heart kicked into overdrive and my body into action. I swung my blade in the air while I grabbed the slug-like things on my legs and threw them on the ground, then stomped on them until they fell still. Hayden and Brock jumped and hopped from foot to foot to avoid the little leeches while slicing at the tentacles trying to bite us. Bex screamed behind me, and I spun to find the black things attacking her, and with only one working hand, she was barely able to fight them off, let alone smash them until dead. I left the tentacles to the guys while I helped Bex, yanking the gross little bastards off of her skin and stomping them to death. When she was clean of them all, she looked behind me, her eyes huge. She screamed and tried to jump backward, but she fell on her butt. A louder scream of pain ripped from her mouth—the injuries between her legs hadn’t fully healed yet. I spun to find a mouth snapping at me. I swung my knife at it, severing the mouth from the rest of the tentacle. The creature’s bellows filled the cavern, but it looked like we’d amputated all of its pieces and the thing was retreating.

Hayden ran for the passage. “Follow me! Aim for its eye, nice and deep!”

He ran into the darkness, and I followed. Brock cursed behind me, but his footsteps were right on my heels. We flew into the smaller entryway of the cave. Almost all light was blocked out by an enormous, black, scaly beast with half of its face missing where a nose or snout should have been. Five horns protruded from its head over eyes the size of my fists that glared at us angrily. Its bottom jaw, jutting with tusks longer than my arm, stretched open and flames flew out. I ducked and rolled. When I came back to my knees, I couldn’t see Brock or Hayden on this side of the beast. But I could see its eye. I sprang to my feet, and as it opened its mouth to spit more fire, I jumped into the air, kicked off the cave wall and came down with both hands gripping the hilt of my knife. With the full force of my body weight, I plunged it as deep as it would go into the creature’s eye. Black, inky shit spewed out at me. More black fountained on the other side of its head, and the creature screamed one more time before it collapsed to the ground.

Hayden stared at me from the other side of its head.

“Nice work,” he said, his voice filled with awe.

“Comes with being a Phoenix,” I said. “If you and Bex get Forged, you’ll be amazed at what the both of you can do.”

His eyes narrowed for a second, but instead of responding, his gaze dropped to the beast between us. “Dinner.”

Brock and I exchanged a look. We were going to
eat
this? But then Brock shrugged. “Looks like we’ll have plenty to eat for the next few days.”

I left the guys to cut up the meat and found Bex collapsed on her bedding. Her whole body trembled. Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back. The way she gnawed on her bottom lip, though, I knew she was in a lot of pain—physical and emotional. She’d already been through so much. I dropped down to her to clean any new wounds as well as my own.

“I’m okay,” she said, though her voice shook.

“No, you’re not,” I said.

“I
am
. As far as Hayden knows, I’m just peachy.” She ducked her head to catch my attention and looked me in the eyes. “I don’t have much to go back home to, you told me that, but I woke up on another damn
world
. This is all just blowin’ my mind. I got my Hayden now, and I really … I really just want to go home.”

“I know, sweetie. I’m right there with you, trust me.”

“We have to get to that Gate, Leni. I can
feel
it. And I know you and Brock need it, too, right? Because it will get you back to Jeric and Asia?”

I nodded, then went back to dabbing at the little pinpricks of blood on her legs. “Yeah, but Hayden’s right. You need to heal. You need to be able to at least defend yourself.”

She lay back on the bedding with a sigh and stared at the dim ceiling. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, but a tear slipped down her temple anyway. “We might not make it that long, though. We might not ever make it home.”

“We
have
to,” I said simply. I patted her on the knee. “Right now, don’t you worry about anything, but getting better. We’ll figure the rest out.”

If she could hear the doubt in my voice, she didn’t say anything, although I was probably making empty promises. Hayden was right: Bex was definitely in no shape to travel. But if we didn’t make it to the Gate in time, we’d all be in trouble. And the clock had already started counting down—probably the moment we arrived.

Chapter 2

“What are we going to do, Jeric?” Asia asked me from my side, her voice edged with the same agony I felt. Her hair had become black as night, matching her black clothes and our black moods. Her thin arms were wrapped around her tiny waist as though hugging herself, but she did it because she felt that if she let go, she’d fall apart. I knew this because I had the same feeling that I was missing pieces of myself. That I was incomplete.

We both held what had become our usual spots on the water’s edge, watching and waiting. The Phoenix manor loomed behind us, an old plantation-style mansion with an eight-story, abandoned hotel built around it. The sun hung low in the western sky to our right, causing the small waves of Tampa Bay to shine gold and pink. We needed the gold light to come from below, though, from the Gate that would bring our Twin Flames home to us.

“Whatever Leni did for the Book to take them through the Gate, she apparently can’t do it again to bring them back,” she said when I provided no answer.

I crossed my arms over my chest, not wanting to believe it, but after three days of waiting, the truth of Asia’s statement had become clear. Something was wrong, with either Leni or Brock or the Book. Otherwise, they’d be back by now. My jaw clenched and popped. Asia, not normally the touchy-feely type, placed a tiny hand on my tight bicep and squeezed. I looked down at her, and she returned my stare with round, dark eyes that seemed too big for her elf-like face and shining with the desperate sorrow we shared.

“We have to do
something
,” she said. Nearly begged. We both knew what that something was, but she looked to me to make the decision. We were part of the Sacred Seven, and I was supposed to be the leader of not only the Phoenix, but of the Seven, too. I didn’t know how I could do that when I was missing half my soul. I pressed my lips together and blew a lungful of air out of my nose before giving her a short nod.

“We don’t have much choice,” I finally said. “We just have to convince everyone else.”

With one last look to the water where Leni and Brock had disappeared, I dropped my arm over Asia’s shoulders and turned her toward the manor, where a small army of Guardians waited. Someone must have been watching us from inside the manor and warned everyone we were coming, because when Asia and I entered, all was silent. I hated the way the other Guardians looked at us—it was like going back to school all over again after the accident that had taken my family and my hearing. Expressions of sympathy mixed with blame and fear: fear that Asia and I would lose our shit and also fear of losing their own halves as we had. The other expression I didn’t know quite so intimately was one I figured cancer patients were familiar with.

“They look at us like we’re dying,” Asia whispered, noticing it, too.

“Aren’t we?” I said.

Her head snapped up to look at me. “No, Jeric,” she said sharply. “We don’t have time for that attitude. We’re going to get them back. Whatever it takes.”

Whatever it took ... Unless the Lakari had backed off the Gates, doing whatever it took to bring our other halves back could mean jeopardizing all of Earth’s souls, and not even I was that selfish. I knew Asia wasn’t, either, but sometimes pushing the pain away to see clearly became impossible. We just had to hope something had changed.

Most of the Guardians were gathered in the old hotel’s ballroom, waiting for us. They silently created an opening for Asia and me to walk through, like Moses parting the Red Sea, until we reached the front of the room.

The Phoenix consisted of the Guardians of Earth’s seven Gates to the Space Between—the place where souls go when their physical bodies die so they can begin their next journey—and to other worlds. Each Gate had a loose hierarchy of Guardians based on seniority, which was a relative term. No Guardians were over the age of thirty-five, and the older ones had only lived that long because they were healers and rarely went on missions, although they still often had to fight. Guardians didn’t have the luxury of normal lives with families and living to old age with our other halves. Our lives were dangerous and our life spans short. Nobody had survived more than six missions in one lifetime in thousands of years. Or so the rumor went.

No one really remembered or understood why, but Jeremicah, Jacquelena, Broderick, and Anastasia held special status over all of them. Rebethannah and Nathayden supposedly did, too, although neither of them had made it to an Earth Gate in several lifetimes. We’d all been part of the Sacred Seven, which meant little to us right now. The true meaning of what this entailed or how it had happened had been lost over generations. All that remained was a vague notion that we were elite among the Phoenix and intended to lead them. Other Guardians said their souls felt our superior status, but we hadn’t felt this instinctively at all.

Still, they insisted that we take our positions as leaders. Even those with seniority at Gates other than ours looked to us now that we were here and the Phoenix were in crisis. In other words, nobody else wanted to make the hard choices. Nobody else desired to make the decision to open the Gates and risk all of Earth’s souls, or to keep them closed and lose us—their supposed leaders—to the Darkness and Enyxa’s control.

Some of those with authority stood at the head of the room and watched us with curiosity, including Melinda and Uri, healers who had the most seniority at our Gate. My eyes scanned over all of their expectant faces as I made my way to the front, but I didn’t stop to discuss my decision with any of them. Instead, I climbed the three steps to the dais in one stride, and Asia followed. We stepped to the front of the low stage and stared out at the sea of faces. I stood with my feet shoulder-width apart, my back straight, and my hands clasped behind my ass. From the corner of my eye, I could see Asia taking the same confident stance. Once everyone settled from our passing through, the room’s silence became complete, as solid as when I was deaf. Hundreds of eyes stared at us, waiting.

“We’re opening our Gate,” I announced without beating around the bush. The deadly silent room exploded into chaos.

“The Lakari will swarm through!” someone yelled, and that was everyone’s concern.

I held up my hand, and the room fell quiet again. Huh. No wonder some people became addicted to power. It came in handy sometimes.

“I have a plan,” I said. “If the Lakari are still waiting to swarm in—which we won’t know until we actually open a Gate—we
will
have to fight. But my plan will keep the fighting to a minimum, and hopefully, the only souls truly at risk are mine and Asia’s. And we’re pretty much lost causes anyway, aren’t we?”

Nobody argued with that statement. Instead, they all looked away—at their feet, at the walls, at each other, anywhere but at Asia and me.

“What’s your plan?” Yoshi asked. He was a senior Guardian from the Gate near Tokyo who’d arrived just today to meet us and help us figure out what to do. He’d planted the idea in my head of bringing in other Guardians from around the world.

“I’m taking your advice,” I said. “We need to bring in as many Guardians as we can get here in the next day. Then we open only this Gate to see what, if anything, is waiting to get in. If the Lakari are still gathering and any push through, they should be easily handled with the number of fighters we’ll have here.”

“And then what?” Uri asked.

“If I know Brock and Leni, they’re waiting for us on the other side of the Gate,” Asia answered. “The Book probably couldn’t bring them back because the Gate’s been closed. We have to try this.”

“And if they’re not?” Melinda countered.

“Then Asia and I go through the Gate and hope the Space Between has mercy on us and sends us to our Twin Flames,” I said.

Yoshi squinted his narrow eyes and stroked and pulled at the dark goatee that hung to his chest. “That’s quite the risk.”

“One we’re willing to take.” I waited for somebody to challenge me, but nobody did. They all had to understand where Asia and I were coming from. Surely they’d all be willing to take the same risk if they were in our position. When I knew for sure I wouldn’t have to argue this further, my muscles relaxed. “We need to do this anyway. We need to know if the Lakari are still swarming, or if we can open the Gates. We can’t help the Lost and the Broken here when the Gates are sealed like they are. With any luck, the Lakari have moved on or gone back to whatever hell they’re from.”

Everyone eventually came around to accepting our plan and began calling for reinforcements. Without having much of a choice, I’d taken my first real step as a leader, and so far, so good. Leni would have been proud.

The direct reminder of her and her absence sent a new stab through my heart that made my lungs seize. This had to work. She and Brock had to be waiting for us, or we’d have to find our way to them, because I didn’t know how much longer I could live like this. The unknown was worse than anything. When I tried to imagine where she was and what she was doing, I came up blank. I couldn’t even be positive she was with Brock, or if Bex had even survived, let alone if she was with them. Had they found Nathayden? Were they all together? I hoped they’d accomplished their mission, and this wasn’t all in vain. I prayed they at least had each other, although if they were on Nathayden’s world, it was a Dark one. I knew nothing for certain. I could feel Leni’s pain, but nothing else. And I hated feeling her pain. I hated knowing she was
in
pain. All because of me.

If I hadn’t been arguing with her and had followed her like she’d said, we’d at least have been together, if not on this world. Asia and I would have been close enough to them to have gone wherever they had. I’d been trying to learn to follow her instinct as I was supposed to, but when it really counted, I’d failed. And now look where we were: fighting for our very souls.

The pride of my leadership decision deflated. I had to get out of here, where all the dyads were gathered in their perfect, loving pairs.

“We do it tomorrow at noon,” I told Melinda and Uri before pushing my way back through the crowd. Asia followed me.

“I’ll do whatever needs to be done,” she said once we were alone, outside again, watching the water. Just in case. It was better than sitting inside, in our rooms, where we shouldn’t be alone. “But if we need to go through the Gate, how do you plan on doing that since we can’t project our souls?”

“They left with their bodies. So why can’t we?”

“The Gate’s under the water, though. We could drown before we even get there, and if not, we will while we wait for it to open.”

I looked down at her. “Ever scuba-dived before?”

A bit of light came to her eyes. “Yeah, actually, I have. Do you think it will work?”

I shrugged. “I can only hope. So … you think you can teach me, because I never have.”

We spent the next several hours renting equipment and Asia teaching me how to scuba dive, a good and necessary distraction. Knowing we had a plan and were already acting on it gave us hope, too, which we needed more than anything.

“What if this doesn’t work?” Asia asked as we climbed the stairs to our rooms on the top floor, finally overcome with sheer exhaustion that should make sleeping possible.

“Then we come up with another plan,” I said. “Whatever it takes, right?”

We entered the hallway of our floor and stopped. She nodded. “Whatever it takes.”

I looked down the hall toward my room, but hesitated. I turned back toward the girl with the slight frame but the strength and resolve to do something most grown men could never do. “And when we’re back with them, you need to tell Brock.”

“Tell him what?” she asked innocently, though I was sure she knew.

“What happened.”

She narrowed her eyes. Yep, she knew. “Or what? You’ll tell on me?”

I cocked my head and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not talking about what happened at Mason’s condo. I’m talking about what happened to you. Brock deserves to know. Your relationship deserves it.”

She shrugged my hand off her shoulder and strode down the hallway.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Jeric,” she said over her shoulder before opening her door and disappearing inside.

I did know, though. Leni and I didn’t keep secrets from each other, and I knew Asia had confided that she and Brock didn’t have the same relationship we did. There was a wedge between them that shouldn’t exist between Twin Flames. Something big and bad had happened to Asia that had driven her to stab that broken bottleneck into Mason’s balls. Something significant enough that it had probably changed her. Brock deserved to know what made her the woman she was with him.

With the unhesitating vehemence she acted with, I had a pretty good idea what it had been. Another fucking coward bully who’d probably claimed to love her.

Men like those made me wonder why I should even care about Earth’s souls. They were all doomed anyway.

* * *

The next day found hundreds of Guardians gathered to give my plan a try. The number who came had surprised me at first, but Melinda and Uri made a good point when I said something at breakfast—with the Gates sealed, the Guardians really had no purpose. They had nothing to guard, and they had no way to help the Lost and Broken souls. Their former lives had been wiped out, so they couldn’t go back to those. And the thought of being able to live normally and maybe even long sounded nice, except that’s not who we were. Not as long as the Lakari were still here, threatening Earth’s souls. It had taken me a while to accept it myself, but I knew deep down what I was. What we all were. We were warriors, and we had a purpose, and without purpose, there’s not much to life at all.

We needed the large numbers, because we needed some pairs to project to fight the Dark souls, others to guard those bodies, and more to fight any physical Shadowmen that dropped into human form. Asia and I were the only ones who had to swim out to the Gate. For such a tiny thing, weighed down with the equipment, she had no problem making the swim halfway across the bay. More proof we could never lead ordinary lives again: our bodies were altered. We were meant to fight and to protect, whether it was against assholes like Mason Hayes or Dark souls that belonged in the realms of Hell.

Once we reached the island where the weeping willow stood, Asia and I dove down to the bottom of the bay. Several dozen ghost-like figures stood at attention—Guardians’ projected souls waiting for us. As soon as Asia and I were in place, I gave the signal. Two of the Guardians opened the Gate.

Bright light flared up around Asia and me. We both tensed for the fight. Lakari would come through in spirit form, so it would be difficult to fight them like this, but we had to be prepared for anything. When the Gate took us through, we didn’t know what we could end up facing. Hopefully, we’d be facing Leni and Brock, or, at least, the Space Between that would lead us to Leni and Brock.

All we needed was for the walls to close completely around us and the Gate to sweep us away without any interference. As the light reached higher toward the water’s surface, it began to thicken. Asia looked at me with hope in her dark eyes. I gave her a tight smile. Our surroundings faded away as the wall of light solidified. My smile began to grow real when the water drained away, down through the sand below our feet. We both removed our air regulators.

“No Lakari,” Asia said. “They’re gone!”

A hole stretched open behind her, and I nodded at it. “There it is. Get ready.”

We both prepared to be sucked into the hole. I could barely see through the small opening, but light shone through it, not darkness. Lakari weren’t waiting to swarm through. The Gate was working for us, helping us to reunite with our Twin Flames. I had no idea what to expect once we passed through, but relief already flooded over me. Not long from now, I’d be holding Leni again.

The hole widened. It grew taller than Asia and wider than both of us standing side-by-side, and I began to wonder if it would suck us in after all, or if we needed to jump through it. I couldn’t tell if we stared at a gray sky or a gray wall or gray water. It didn’t matter.

“We better go through,” I said. “Before it’s too late.”