The Death Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy Box Set: (Books 1-3) (77 page)

Commander Rachett picked up a shard, one of his eyes caught in the mirror-like image and didn't like what he saw there.

Fear.

His own, and that of Beth Jasper's future within The Cause.

Chapter One

Jeb Merrick

present day

Jeb strolled dead center into the group of Reflectives who came to attend the finals of the new class of Reflective trainees.

The entire coliseum was packed nut to butt, the ground beside the ring was standing-room only.

It was the female
, Jeb determined easily—she was the draw this day. If he were to be honest with himself, he'd admit the same. After all, the last female combative had been killed in action over a decade ago. Jeb had heard of it but it had been before his time.

This one... she was different.

For one, she bore the scars of their calling, her elegant limbs littered with pockmarking and wounds in various stages of healing. Even with their advanced recuperative powers, Jasper was a mess.

It was such a shame, she was a beautiful female though not the Papilio ideal. It was almost a purposeful snub that she refused to become the he-she that many assumed she would, retaining her femininity despite the brutal calling of the Reflective. He supposed it could be to some advantage in a mission to one of the other sectors.

Jeb found a corner and put his back to it, watching the small group of inductees warm their bodies inside the practice area for the final sparring to come.

Jeb liked to possess a vantage point that allowed him to see all who came through portals, windows and otherwise. Jeb was at an advantage, with his  six feet four frame, he'd skim most of the heads in his line of sight.

The ones he couldn't, were of his kind, Reflective warriors of The Cause.

His eyes unconsciously scanned the vast interior of the coliseum. He took in the stands filled with the government of his world. English was not their first language, but one used in more than three quarters of the worlds they policed. Latin was their primary and native to Papilio.

All Reflectives were fluent in the primary languages in the thirteen sectors they held as their responsibility. Latin was spoken exclusively by Papiliones.

Jeb stood up straighter, gaining another couple of inches of precious visual real estate and caught sight of his own team, three years past their own graduations at age twenty.

They began taking up the remaining corners of the main floor that surrounded the ring, while the civilian population soared upwards in floor to ceiling tiers that held them in marble benches.

The grooves of thousands seated before them had worn broad divots in the soft cream and peach-veined marble. Centuries worth of observers had witnessed this annual ceremony.

All welcomed the newest recruits. The civilians did not want to know
how
they were protected. Just... that they were.

Jeb felt a smirk form.

Sometimes he wondered why he jumped.

He grew solemn as he waited and then... he saw
her.

Beth Jasper.

He'd seen her about in the Barringer Quadrant, shopping for sundries and other—but never this close. It was like a different woman inhabited her body today.

Gone was the softness of his earlier observances. Instead, here was a woman with nothing but hard angles and planes, an indifferent and cool stare met those of her team.

Those that she would fight.

Not a one had softness for her.

Beth stood alone.

Jeb looked at the five others, all males and a slight furrow tied his brows together in the shadow of a frown.

She was sorely outmatched physically, though the recruits were all equal in years. Recruits graduated each year in small groups, all at twenty cycles of age, as it had always been.

Jeb studied Jasper, assessing her as all Reflectives could. Five feet two; curves she couldn't mask, even with the bland Reflective uniform; stood in stark relief. Her black hair was in a tight braid that stopped at her waist, an unusual length for a woman of his people. An unheard of length for a Reflective. It was noteworthy she had kept hers long.

Perhaps it was a bid for femininity in a role that was exclusively male?

Jeb reluctantly moved his gaze to the other five in turn, searching for his new partner. Jeb adored babysitting. Actually, it was loathsome but necessary, or they'd have a troupe of Reflectives bouncing from one world to the next where they shouldn't land.

Jeb felt his lips twitch. He had been the same when he was twenty cycles. Ignorant... a hot head. A trait his former mentor had seen fit to beat him into understanding.

Now it was Jeb's turn to mentor a new recruit, his three year first partnering now at an end.

Ignorance was not tolerated in The Cause.

The interior lights of the coliseum switched on, spreading the solar-powered illumination to every corner. It washed the faces of the Reflective inductees in an eerie mockery of false illness, a sickly yellow cast coating their flesh.

Reflective Kennet stood in the far corner, exactly opposite of Jeb's position and gave a chin lift in greeting and received one in return. Jeb noticed Kennet wore his dress uniform. He was on duty. That meant his ass could be snatched to one of the other twelve sectors at any time.

Yet, he was here.

Jeb allowed his eyes to run over his compatriots dress uniform, noting the deep navy, black at a distance but a midnight blue when kissing close. The only striking thing about the ensemble was the Reflective crest.

The butterfly rode high against his left breast, standing vigil over the heart. An iridescent rendering had been executed with real gold and silver, microscopic jewels used in the multicolored threading. Only a small shift of movement was necessary for the glitter of their station to alert those who passed that they were Reflective.

The slaves of protection for Papilio.

Jeb's musing was cut short as the chime sounded, a clear ring that donged six times for the six candidates.

All would fight and be judged in various degrees of worthiness. The illegal betting had been deep and vicious.

Beth Jasper was underdog.

Humanity had come to see the female fall.

There were only two rules: no blades—no death.

Had he been a betting man
, studying the graceful Jasper as she warmed up,
he would have bet on her.

Jeb Merrick understood much could be accomplished without death as an end result. He was profoundly happy that it was not he that stood in that ring to beat a female into the mat. Jeb wasn't sure he could have done it.

He understood it for the weakness it was.

Jeb's eyes fell on the favored male in the class, Lance Ryan.

He could,
Jeb knew
.

Jeb took in the predatory eyes that were all for Jasper and tensed without being aware. It had seemed fine when he'd entertained attending the ritualistic Reflective ceremony. It was a bloodthirsty hold-over from centuries past. Yet, like many traditions that were no longer necessary, it had been kept—flourished.

Jeb unconsciously leaned forward as the first recruit came and bumped fists with the well-known Ryan.

For being a jack ass,
Jeb thought.

No one truly liked Ryan, yet he had garnered the respect of many through brute force and jumping prowess.

Respect earned through fear instead of deeds, was not truly respect.

Ryan was ferocious in sparring and the martial arts, a keen jumper, who was rumored to jump through some reflections as small as a fist. But not while they were in motion.

That was a rare skill.

He had heard of only one Reflective who was so fine a jumper that they could jump as a drop of rain fell from the sky. Jeb shook his head in disbelief. Legend... yet, he wished he could have been there to witness such a thing.

The men raised their fists from the greeting then placed them over the plain insignia that rode the breastbones of their sparring tunics. The simple outline of the insect that had identified them as Reflectives was the same for all.

They stepped away from one another.

A huge gong sounded, making Jeb's teeth thrum and the two recruits burst into each other in a smack of flesh and bone.

He couldn't help but be riveted.

Ryan's beauty as a fighter was an awesome thing to behold, landing punch after punch into the side of the one he faced—all organ strikes.

The other man,
Jude Calvin
, Kennet's new partner, Jeb vaguely remembered, came in close and took Ryan's considerable strike advantage away.

Calvin was going to try and go to ground. He wrapped his substantial arms around Ryan's torso, swinging a man that weighed two hundred fifty pounds if he was an ounce, and pile drove him into the mat.

The impact of it to those so close to the spar was felt in a reverberating punch.

Ryan's response was to shoot his arm out and flat palm Calvin's nose.

A low
boo
from the crowd sounded, which Ryan ignored.

Blood burst from the offense, shooting like a geyser of bright red water as Ryan leaped off the mat, smearing the mess he'd made of his equal.

Jasper's head swiveled toward a female voice rising above the crowd's, “Shoot, Calvin... shoot!”

A small fist swung above her head for emphasis and the crowd hissed their displeasure at Jasper's coaching from the sidelines.

Calvin shot, taking those long legs of Ryan's out from underneath him as he sprung forward, his nose bleeding like a sieve.

Commander Rachett stood in the corner of the ring in typical stoic silence, his body tense like a snake before it strikes, as Ryan slapped the ground again. His body smacked the mat in a hard bounce, making an echoing slap that silenced the crowd.

Oohs and aahs of low-grade fear were heard all around Jeb.

This time, Ryan rolled Calvin over and pretzeled his arm into a position of unnaturalness.
Shit,
Jeb thought,
he's got him in an arm bar.
A
classic move picked up from a jump to Sector Three, Earth.

A place he should not have visited yet
, Jeb thought with unease. A class seven world was for partnered jumps only.

Calvin tapped out, hitting Ryan lightly on the leg that rode behind his own.

It was Beth Jasper that let Jeb know what would happen next, like a cat losing its balance she moved forward...

As Ryan snapped the arm he had locked.

Calvin roared in agony, holding his injured limb as Ryan's boot came high over his head to smash the face of one he'd already beaten.

Jeb stilled.

Surely Rachett would disallow this?

Jeb saw the brilliant flash of Beth move behind Ryan, like a shimmer of water on a sheet of glass.

She executed a spinning kick that knocked the fucker on his ass.

Beth bounced away in avoidance, her fists riding beside her jaw, fear swimming in her eyes.

Her body belied the windows to her soul... calm in its economical movements.

Rachett stepped away as medics pulled the moaning and shocky Calvin away.

He'd heal.

But that wasn't the fucking point, was it?

Ryan lacked integrity. A critical component of the militia that comprised the Reflective.

Ryan stood, his eyes nailing Beth. She'd screwed the order with her timely intervention.

They cautiously circled each other.

Jeb knew Jasper had no friends within the trainees circle, however, she'd moved almost compulsively to help Calvin.

While every recruit had observed another be cut down unfairly, Jasper had acted.

And now she would pay.

Principle,
this would not end well.

His guts churned. Jeb wasn't easily affected by fights and blood, but as they said on Sector Three: this was wrong on a hundred different levels.

Jasper backed up, neatly outside of Ryan's long reach, easily twice her own. She appeared to remember her training, a drumbeat that was part of every Reflective's internal clock.

It wasn't enough, as Ryan caught Jasper before she had a chance to block his assault. He nailed her gut in a sucker punch, then landed a subsequent fist into her jaw.

Beth was already moving evasively,
thank Principle
, or she'd have been out and at his mercy.

Ryan had none.

As it was, Jasper fell in a spinning backwards arc, landing with her palms splayed behind her to arrest her fall. Blood splattered the mat they fought on from the cut lip made by his grazing fist.

Ryan stalked toward her, hatred leaking from every pore. Their final match played out in a sick parody, unforgiving eyes watching Jasper from every corner of the mat.

Jeb heard Rachett's tense voice rumble from a distance, “Get the fuck up, Jasper.”

Jeb's felt his face tighten into a scowl at their commander's words. Though he'd been just as tough when he was a recruit under Rachett.