Fighting for Infinity (3 page)

FIGHTING FOR INFINITY

LOST IN THE DARK

Maryah

It was like a dream, a terrible but extremely rewarding dream.

I found him. I found the monster. As terrifying as that was, I kept reminding myself that only my spirit was with him. He wouldn’t even know I was there.

I tried to observe and make a mental note of everything. The young girl I’d seen in my other travel session was with him again. They were in the same place. This room was made of stone and had no windows, and it was dimly lit by candlelight.

The raven-haired girl was sitting at a table in front of an old thick book that called to me. I hovered over it, wishing I could open it and scan through its pages, but with no physical form that was impossible.

“Well, hello there.” Dedrick looked at the book then sneered. I could almost smell his rotten breath just by looking at his crooked yellow teeth. “We knew you’d be joining us soon.”

I scanned the area around me, but no one else had entered the room.

“Yes, Mary,” Dedrick said, “or should I say
Maryah
, I’m speaking to you.”

If I had a body, it would have gone rigid. He couldn’t see me. That was impossible. But Dedrick’s eyes penetrated me as if I were flesh and bone standing in front of him.

He walked over to the girl and ran his fingers through her black hair. “She’s irresistible, isn’t she? Once you’ve seen her, you’re forever drawn to her.”

He yanked the girl to her feet and shoved her aside. Her expression was cold and emotionless. “She’s my tempting flame, and you’re my predictable moth.”

Her black eyes met mine as if she could see me too. She didn’t have the signature golden irises with black slits like a snake. She wasn’t under Dedrick’s mind control, but something about her was chilling and eerily familiar.

“Maryah,” Dedrick barked, snapping me out of my intense study of her. “Meet Rina. I think you two will become great friends.”

I hated that he was speaking to me as if I were really in the room.

I wanted to find out more about where they were, and Rina, but I didn’t feel safe with Dedrick speaking directly to me, so I tried returning to my body.

Nothing happened.

I grappled for the cords of energy that usually connected me with my body, but my connection was gone. I tried again and again, getting more anxious and desperate with every attempt.

“Come now, Maryah. You didn’t think it could actually be that easy, did you? Didn’t Gregory’s capture seem a bit too convenient?” Dedrick sat down, kicked his dirty boots up onto the table, and laughed. “All this time, I’ve thought I needed you—the physical you. But I came to realize your body isn’t important. Your soul is what I require. And now I have it.”

Rushes of painful energy lashed through me like a lightning storm. I kept opening my awareness, my energy, my soul, trying to reconnect with my body. I stared at the feather on my phantom ring, willing to see its light, pleading to form a bridge back to my body. I pinched my wrist as hard as I could but felt nothing.

“Look at you.” Dedrick snickered. “Like a lightning bug trapped in a glass jar.”

I darted around the room as if I could fling my spirit into a wall and a secret door would open so I could fly out. I caught a glimpse of light in a glass bookcase, and I slowly moved toward it.

Reflected in the glass was a glow of gold, silver, and green light in the vague shape of me. I moved side to side and so did the light. Around the glow was a translucent bubble.

“Pretty, isn’t it, Rina?” Dedrick cooed. “Like our own life-sized snow globe.”

She nodded while wringing her hands and keeping her eyes on her bare feet.

Was I really trapped? How was that possible? Harmony’s words echoed in my head:
Imagine someone ripped your heart out of your chest and threw it in a cage. Outside the cage, vultures, rats, and coyotes circle, waiting to rip your heart apart and devour it. Worse yet, as they circle, their wicked energy surrounds the cage, tainting the pure and good soul inside. Over time, your heart starts to change; it becomes evil too. Smothered by negativity, it slowly stops beating until it ceases to exist.

I wanted to cry.

“Let me go!” I shouted.

Dedrick folded his hands behind his head and smiled. “You aren’t going anywhere for a very, very long time, Maryah. Might as well make your soul comfortable.”

I stared in disbelief. I was trapped. My stomach felt as if it had plunged to the floor and was waiting for the rest of me to catch up. I swallowed down the taste of bile in my throat.

“Can you hear me?” I tentatively asked.

Dedrick watched me but didn’t reply. The girl leaned against a wall, biting her fingernails. It was hard to tell where her bare feet ended and the dirt floor began. 

“Can you hear me?” I yelled to her, my voice cracking with desperation and fear.

Neither of them flinched.

“I wonder,” Dedrick said, “what’s going through that mind of yours. Are you wondering how this is possible, or have you already figured it out?” He glanced at Rina and smirked. “If so, she figured it out a teensy bit too late, eh, Rina?”

The girl, Rina, was short, pale, and too thin. She couldn’t have been more than twelve, but her obvious lack of nutrition and hygiene made her look as old and gray as the grimy, threadbare scrubs she wore.

“What I’d really love to see is dear Nathaniel’s reaction. What will he say?” Dedrick weaved his fingers together, using them as a hammock for his bristly chin, which framed his sadistic grin. “What will he do when he realizes his soul mate, whom he was so recently reunited with, slipped out of his grasp again?”

Dear god. Poor Nathan. As if I hadn’t put him through enough already. He would freak out. So would the rest of the kindrily. 

Dedrick cackled as he stood. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

Dedrick held out his hand to Rina. She shuffled forward, lifting her head just enough that I could see her dark eyes. Were they black, gray, dark blue? It was hard to tell in the dim lighting from the single candle. She blinked quickly then reached out as if she could touch me.

“What are you doing?” I tried to leap back but couldn’t move. Somehow she held me in place with only her hand resting against my phantom arm.

“Good girl, Rina,” Dedrick said to her. “Don’t botch this up or there will be serious consequences.”

She bowed her head, and warmth surged through me. For a moment, I could have sworn her skin glowed pale blue, but I refocused, and the light was gone. Dedrick’s eyes were closed and so were hers. Neither of them moved or said anything, but I could tell something was happening. Something I didn’t understand.

“What are you doing?” My vocal cords shriveled along with any confidence I had in my ability as I whimpered. “Please let go of me.”

Rina’s hand grew warmer, but she didn’t budge or open her eyes. Same with Dedrick—it was almost as if they were no longer in the room.

UNWELCOMING PARTY

Nathaniel

“What if something happened to her?” I asked, pacing beside our bed.

“How could anything happen to her?” Harmony argued. “She’s right here.”

“She’s fine physically,” Krista pointed out. “Maybe she’s just in a deep travel. Like a deep sleep.”

I leaned over her and caressed her cheek. I’d seen her sleep deeply. In previous lives, I’d seen her astral travel a million times to watch countless people or events, but never like this. Something was different in a very worrisome way.

Then I felt it—a shift of energy in the room. My eyes darted up to Carson. He stood across the bed from me, staring at Maryah, tugging on the strings of his sweatshirt. Krista sat beside Maryah, holding her hand. Harmony was leaning against the bedpost. Her eyes met mine.

“What?” Harmony asked me. “You look perplexed. More so than you did ten seconds ago.”

I glanced over my shoulder then scanned the room. “Everyone out.”

“Nate?” Harmony questioned.

“Just please leave me alone with Maryah for a few minutes.”

Carson squinted. “But—”

“Please and thank you,” I said firmly.

They exchanged worried glances, but Krista stood. “Let’s go see if the others have any ideas.” She motioned for Carson and Harmony to follow.

Reluctantly, Harmony turned away but stopped at the door. “Shout if you need anything.”

I nodded. “Shut the door behind you, please.”

The handle latched behind her. Only Maryah and I were left in our quiet room. I sat on the edge of the bed and cocked my head, listening. No matter how exceptional my hearing was, I wouldn’t be able to hear what I had felt. I needed to feel it again.

I lifted my chin and closed my eyes. And there it was—an invisible presence hovering inches away from me, the presence I had felt several times before we confirmed that Maryah still had her gift. She was astral traveling but lurking in our room.

“Why are you watching
me
?” I said out loud. She couldn’t physically answer me, but I hoped maybe she’d return to her body once she knew I sensed her. I held her hand, waiting for her to be physically present again.

Did she want to see how we reacted while she traveled? Was she curious about what we said or did when she wasn’t around? “I have nothing to hide from you.” I spoke to her soul that I sensed hovering across from me. “There’s no need to spy on me.”

Her body still rested peacefully. I curled up beside her, sliding my arm under her neck and kissing her forehead while suppressing a grin. My fingers trailed along her collarbone. “Return to your body in the next two minutes, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

Two minutes ticked away and still no movement, but I could feel the energy circling the room. She was watching me.

“Fine then.” I adjusted my head against the pillow. “I’ll be napping. Wake me when you return.”

After a few minutes of listening to Maryah’s steady breathing, I dozed off. I have no idea how long I was asleep, but I awoke because of a loud gasp. Louise stood in the doorway
with her hands over her mouth.

“What is it?” I sat up, searching the foot of the bed where she was staring. “Louise?”

Maryah hadn’t budged.

Louise braced herself against the doorframe. Her facial expression was a mix of anger, shock, and worry. “How?”

“How what?” I climbed out of bed and walked over to her. “What’s wrong?”

She yanked my arm, pulling me out of the room while slamming the door shut behind her. “Carson!”

He blurred to us before I could ask why we were standing in the hallway.

“Go in there,” Louise told Carson, nodding to our bedroom, “and keep an eye on Maryah.”

“Because?” Carson asked, clearly as confused as I was.

“Just do as I say.”

He opened the door, and she practically shoved him inside before slamming it closed again. She grabbed my elbow, guiding me down the hall.

“Louise, what in the world has gotten into you?”

Faith was sitting at the island eating pickles out of the jar while Shiloh smeared peanut butter onto toast.

Pickle juice dripped down Faith’s chin as she asked, “What’s all the commotion about?”

“I could see his aura,” Louise said.

“Whose aura?” Faith and I asked at the same time.

“Dedrick’s. I’d know that murky evil energy anywhere.”

“Dedrick?” I
tensed, scanning the kitchen as if he’d actually be in our house. “Where?”

Louise grabbed my wrists, glaring at me over her glasses. “In your room. Not his body, but it sure as hell was his spirit.”

Faith gasped as I dissolved from Louise’s grip and traversed to the bedroom.

Carson startled. “Everything okay?”

“Where is she?” I yelled, circling the bed. “What have you done to her?”

Carson stood with his hands open in front of him. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Not you,” I barked. “Dedrick.”

“Dedrick?”

Louise opened the bedroom door. Faith and Shiloh stood behind her, peering in with wide eyes.

“Where is he?” I asked Louise.

Her jaw shifted and her nostrils flared, but she motioned toward the dresser. I realized, moments too late, that she didn’t want him to know she could see his aura. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight.

I stomped over to the dresser. “I don’t know how you’re here, but I swear, if you hurt her, if you do anything to jeopa
rdize Maryah’s wellbeing, I will hunt you down like the savage cretin you are, and I will torture you until you beg me to kill you.”

Silence. It’s not like I expected Dedrick’s soul to reply. I knew how this astral traveling system worked, and astral traveling is what he must have been doing. “Louise, is he in front of me?”

“Two steps to your left.”

I sidestepped twice. I could feel his putrid energy tainting the room. How could I have mistaken his energy for Maryah’s? I should have known it wasn’t her, but until now, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible for Dedrick to astral travel. I raised my chin as if I could look him in the eye. My voice came out in a snarl. “Mark my words, Dedrick, you will pay dearly for this.”

Louise walked up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. “He’s gone.”

I opened and closed my fists, which had been clenched at my sides. “For now.”

I took a deep breath and turned to face the others. We were all at a loss for words. I stared at Maryah lying motionless on the bed, her soul who knows where, somehow being controlled by Dedrick. It was worse than any nightmare I could have imagined.

“Damn,” Carson muttered. “He must be using Maryah’s power as his own.”

“How do we stop him?” Krista asked quietly.

“Carson,” I said, “please tell me your Scion mind has figured out a way to get her soul back into her body.”

He opened his mouth then shut it again without saying anything. Even Carson couldn’t figure out this one.

“Gather everyone.” Louise shooed Carson and Krista out of the room. “Immediately.”