The Space Within (The Book of Phoenix #3) (22 page)

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Debbie said, edging her way closer to us. “We’ll take care of them.”

“How are they faerie business?” Tristan asked, his voice harsh and demanding. I was definitely sure I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. “And why should we trust you with them?”

He sounded upset with the faeries, who looked at each other pointedly.

“It’s not exactly faerie business,” Stacey said. “It’s Otherworld business. They caused the ripple in the veil when they passed through. We need to take them back through it.” Her blue-eyed gaze turned on us. “What you call the Gates.”

“The hell you are,” Tristan said. “They’re under our protection now.” His eyes fell on me—they were hazel, not entirely green like I’d thought before. Gold flecks dotted the green around the pupil, making them unusually stunning. “Where do you want to go? We’ll take you.”

I swallowed. “To Earth.”

He opened his mouth, but Debbie jumped in. “To
their
Earth.”

The force of everyone’s gaze landed on her with these three words. She pursed her lips together and wrung her small hands.

“She means to their dimension,” Stacey said.

“What the hell does that mean?” demanded the snowy-haired woman who’d been standing back with Owen.

“Hush,” Owen muttered to the woman he’d called a vampire. Wow. He had balls.

“It’s a good question,” Alexis said.

Debbie winked at her. “And
you
know the answer.”

Alexis cocked her head, her reddish-brown ponytail falling over her shoulder. She squinted as she seemed to be thinking hard about something. The way Tristan studied her and narrowed his own eyes, I wondered if they were mind-talking.

“
Really?
” she said eventually. “There are multiple Earths in different dimensions?”

“Alternate universes,” Tristan said with understanding in his voice. “That’s a new one, even for me. I had no idea the theory was true.”

The thin, dark-haired woman with yellow cat eyes spoke up. “With God, anything is possible, isn’t it?”

“Of course you’d say that, Sheree,” the white-blond vampire muttered with an eye roll. “Always gotta bring God into it—”

“Enough,” Alexis snapped, cutting off the vampire. She turned her attention back to the faeries. “So that’s what’s going on here? There are really alternate universes and worlds? That’s possible?”

“The possibilities beyond this world and this life you know are endless, young one,” Debbie confirmed.

“It’s cool, though, chick,” Stacey said. “You’re the same kinda. You defend your people and worlds. Your enemies appear to you differently, but they’re all on the same side—the evil side.”

“It’s curious that you ever met,” Debbie said. “You’re really not supposed to. Crossing dimensions is nearly impossible and leads to this confusion. It’s a bit awkward, isn’t it?”

“Awkward? These people are bat-shit
crazy
,” Bex whispered for only us to hear.

Several people’s mouths twitched, fighting smiles as if they’d actually heard her, though. Maybe they had. They had different powers than the Phoenix, but heightened senses would be logical for us to share. Bex must have realized this because she stiffened next to me.

“Can we please just go home?” she pled, her voice overly loud and extra sweet now. “We don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

“Did you make this happen?” Tristan accused of the faeries, ignoring Bex’s plea.

Debbie’s hand went to her chest, and her blue eyes widened innocently. “Wot? Us? No!”

“No, not us,” Stacey said, “but if we don’t get them back to their dimension, they and their world will go tits up in a hurry.”

“You can take them back to their dimension and their Earth through the Otherworld?” Alexis clarified.

“We can get them to their dimension. From there, they’ll have to find their own way to their Earth,” Debbie answered.

Bex and Brock both groaned. I suppressed my own complaint. Stacey had practically called us peers, but I felt intimidated by Alexis and Tristan. I didn’t want to look any weaker than we already did, although internally I was throwing a temper tantrum about having to deal with the Gate again. Like Bex, I just wanted to go home.

“Come now,” Debbie said, curling her arm around Hayden’s and stroking his muscles. “Oh, aren’t you strong? And so handsome. Maybe I won’t let you go but will take you home instead.”

Bex let out a low snarl.

“
Faeries
,” Tristan warned, his voice low and threatening.

Debbie sighed, and then used her free hand to grab Bex. “You, too, dear. Come with us, and we’ll take you back to where you came from.”

She started off toward the freezing water, tugging Hayden and Bex along with her. My insides waged an internal battle, refusing to enter any more water or to freeze my ass off again, but I fought it and started off, too.

“Hold on,” I said, turning back to Alexis. “What did you mean that you don’t kill? You don’t destroy the Dark souls?”

“Only if there’s no hope. But there’s almost always hope, if you look for it. Unless they’ve completely given into the evil, you might have to search hard, but it’s there. And we
have
to show mercy to those souls, no matter what they’ve done, or we’re no better than them. We lead them back to the good side. That’s our job. Is that yours?”

“Sort of. We lead them back to love and Light.”

She gave me a smile. “Same thing, right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded and returned her grin. “I guess it is. It was, uh, good to meet you.”

“Definitely.”

“Very … interesting,” Tristan agreed.

I gave them a little wave, and then turned to catch up with Debbie, Hayden, and Bex. Brock followed me, Stacey’s arm draped around his waist and her free hand petting his muscular arm as they walked. Brock neither encouraged nor dismissed her. He was in his own Dark world again. Thank God and sweet baby Jesus, as Bex would say, that the faeries didn’t force us to return to the icy water. Once we reached the edge of the shore where we’d first arrived, they circled their arms around us, clasped hands, and lifted their arms upward.

The world—this Earth of a different dimension—disappeared and a blinding light surrounded us.

“Cheers,” one of the faeries said, and that was the last we saw or heard of them.

I felt like a penny sucked up in a vacuum, being pulled forcefully through a tube with no control of where I went. My body bounced up against some kind of wall and ricocheted off like before. I hoped that meant we were back in the Gate. If only I could see. If only I could find the opening to Earth—
our
Earth. The one where my Twin Flame waited. The only place I would ever feel complete.

Darkness surrounded us instead of the blinding light of the Gate as we continued traveling through the vacuum. Then a light began to shine from far away, growing closer by the second. A prism of colors came into view—what looked like Jacey’s version of the Space Between. My heart raced at the thought of going there, but we blasted on past it, unable to stop even if we wanted to, and nothing but blackness engulfed us again.

Until we finally landed on a cold, hard surface. Ice. My vision came slow to me, and when it did, I could no longer suppress the temper tantrum.

“NOOOO!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, stomping my foot on the frozen floor that glowed blue from within. “Why
here
? Why the fuck this god-awful place again?”

Anywhere else. How many other millions of worlds could we have gone to instead of here? I would have even taken Erde over this world. At least there was light, as miserable and gray as the place was. The screaming monsters were terrifying, but at least there was food. There were trees and the ability to build a fire for warmth. The people there were completely Dark or close to it, but there
were
people. And not all had succumbed. The world hadn’t totally given into the Darkness. Not like here, where there was no hope left.

“You’re here because this is where I want you.”

I spun to find Enyxa standing in the depths of the ice-coated cavern, still wearing the black suit that looked painted on and her spiky-heeled, thigh-high boots. I jumped and soared across the small room at her. Brock somehow beat me to her and tackled her to the floor. I landed on my feet and slid several inches, and I had to leap over them before they steamrolled me down.

Brock yelled nonsensical, angry sounds as he swung his fist at her. She caught his arm in her hand, and he immediately fell still. His face twisted with torture, and his body collapsed to the ground as he screamed with a terror I never wanted to experience. But I didn’t have a choice.

Enyxa brought us down with the memory of how she’d Separated us, making the pain as she ripped our souls into two clearer than ever.

“The Darkness is thorough here, isn’t it?” she asked as we all lay writhing on the cold floor. “As I said, one of my favorite places. It’ll help you along. So will this—a memory I’ve been waiting a very,
very
long time to share with you. Remember how I said I was once like you? I meant it in every possible way. Let’s go back to the beginning, to when we were Union souls for the first time and sent to Earth to guard the Gates. To the beginning of the Phoenix Guardians, a few millennia ago. To when we were the Original Seven.”

My breath caught.

“Yes, Jacquelena, as a Union soul, I was part of that Seven. We were known as Ny’xan then. When you and Jeremicah are One, you are known as Ja’mai. Broderick, you and your other half are An’bris, and Nathayden and Rebethannah are Ra’den. There were three other Union souls, but we’ll get to them soon enough. We Seven Unions were responsible for guarding Earth’s Gates and keeping Satan and his followers out. But we failed. More specifically,
Ja’mai
failed, since you were, after all, our leader.

“Satan forced his way through a Gate and attacked us, knowing he couldn’t take control of the world as long as we survived. He ripped our souls in halves, starting with Ja’mai. He was too arrogant and proud, however, and underestimated us. Instead of taking care of each of us and ensuring we were completely destroyed, he tossed the Separated souls aside to move on to the next Union to split. We—Ny’xan—helped Ja’mai’s torn souls through the Gate, giving our leader safe passage to the Space Between. We helped each of the others, too, while Ra’den and An’bris continued to fight the demons infiltrating our world. At last, only An’bris and Ny’xan remained.”

Her gaze swept over to Bex and Hayden, and then to Brock, letting this sink in, before returning to me.

“Satan grabbed both of us and reached into our bodies at the same time to retrieve our souls. We fought like the warriors we were, but he was too Dark and powerful. He yanked our souls out. He ripped An’bris’ in half first and tossed the pieces to the ground, then went after our soul. Both halves of An’bris made it through the Gate and to the Space Between. Satan threw my piece into the Gate, setting it on a path to always return to Earth, and he took my Twin Flame’s half with him to the Dark worlds, although we didn’t know it then.”

She made us relive the agony as she spoke, but I had a feeling she was holding much of it back, ensuring we could hear her story.

“We all returned to Earth as Separated souls for the next cycle,” she continued. “All of us except my other half. While we were in the Space Between, you promised me, Jacquelena, that you would find me. You swore to me that you would find my soul and you would help me stay in the Light until we were able to find my Twin Flame and make us whole again.”

Enyxa paused, stood and walked over to me, towering over my form on the ground. She squatted in front of me and stared me down with her black-as-night eyes.

“You
promised
,” she hissed, her voice colder than the ice I lay on, sending a new shiver down my back. “You promised, and you lied. You never found me. You never helped us. You abandoned us!”

“We … we didn’t … we had no idea,” I stammered.

“You were our leader! You were supposed to be there for us. Instead you let us go Dark. It’s
your
fault we lost each other!”

I rolled onto my knees, lifted myself to her eye level. “We. Didn’t. Remember. You
know
we never remember. We’ve been through how many lifetimes since then?”

“Don’t give me excuses!” Her voice rose into a shrill shriek. “It’s all YOUR FAULT, JACQUELENA!”

She brought us body and soul into the memory of the original Separation. At that time, we’d been a Union for so long, had existed as Ja’mai for so many life cycles, we no longer remembered anything different. And then Satan himself broke through the Gates and through our defenses. He entered our world, destroyed our peace, severed us from each other and everything we knew. It had been the most painful Separation, when Satan had been the one to rip us apart. I knew this now as I relived the full extent of it, screaming through the renewed agony.

Then Enyxa took us through her memories again, through her hundreds of horrific lives as her soul grew Dark while our souls had been finding each other, re-Bonding, and eventually becoming Unions again. And then to the first time she Separated us. She destroyed another of the Original Seven, permanently Separating them and forcing them to go Dark. She did it again and again, each time waiting for us to grow into Unions, ripping us in halves, and taking one more of us. Until the last time, and only the three of us remained. She’d tried to destroy Rebethannah and Nathayden then when she took his half to the Dark worlds with her. We’d fed ourselves right into her hands by bringing Bex to Hayden—by bringing all of us to the Darkness.

We’d effectively demolished the Original Seven.

“You’ve had this vendetta against us all,” Brock snarled, bringing my focus back to the present. He was on his feet, his chest puffed and his arms flexed. “
You’ve
caused all the tragedies in all of our lives!”

Enyxa beamed widely. “Yes, Broderick, but you already knew that. Everything that’s happened since I went Dark—every single heartache including your son’s death, even bringing you and Anastasia to be Forged together over and over again, and allowing you to bring Rebethannah to Nathayden—
all
of it was to lead to this very moment. But now you know who is truly to blame. If Ja’mai had been a real leader, we’d all be Union souls, living in the Light on Earth. If Jacquelena had kept her promise to me,
none
of us would be here right now. You would have never gone through the horror of losing your child and your mother. You would be with your other half—who you’re
supposed
to be with.”

“What does that mean?” Brock barked. “Who am I supposed to be with?”

Enyxa rolled her eyes. “You have to look within to know that. The real problem is why you are here and not with your other half in the first place.”

Brock turned toward me, his chocolate-brown eyes nearly as black as Enyxa’s. His lip lifted in a snarl as he glared at me, his biceps flexed, and his chest lifted as he inhaled through enflamed nostrils. He looked every bit as powerful as that Tristan had, and the blame that filled his eyes paralyzed me just as effectively.

My heart broke for him and everything he’d been through. It cracked into shards for Bex and Hayden and all of their pain, and more for the rest of the Seven that no longer existed. It shattered completely for all of the souls that had gone Dark because of me. I took the full weight of all the blame. Everything Enyxa said was true, I knew now. I remembered it clearly.

It had all been my fault, and none of us would be here if it weren’t for my failures.