Transcending the Legacy (29 page)

The rain has stopped falling through the canopy of trees. The leaves are no longer being pelted with the heavy deluge that has been hammering us. I look up through the trees as we move cautiously through the brush keeping Ezra’s words in mind;
be prepared for anything to strike at us.

I notice something to my left. The kindling fire that engulfed the house, has died and the blaze that once was is now just a small glow barely detectable from the heavy trees and shrubs we are sheltered in.

“I know this part of Cartersville well. We are near Dellinger Park,” says Elisha.

Daniel
adds, “There is a lake about five hundred feet to the west.”

I take a much needed deep breath to try and clear
the last image of both Errol and Monica. I don’t feel bad for trying to forget about them. Under normal circumstances, I would have chided myself for being so apathetic and cold about my reaction to block out what I just witnessed, the death of a brother and a friend. This isn’t normal circumstances though. I’m not sure normal will ever be a circumstance I will experience again.

The smell of burning wood fills my nostrils and tickles my throat.
A chain of coughs behind me draws my attention from the tickle in my own throat to Elisabeth. Her condition has worsened. As she coughs and wheezes, she attempts to cover her mouth while keeping up stride with Sebastian next to her. I can’t help but wonder why in her right mind would she not get implanted. Suddenly, she stumbles and falls to her knees. I turn around and kneel next to her as does Sebastian.

Urgently, he calls her name, “Elisabeth,” t
hen looks at the us and asks, “Does anyone have water?”

“I do,” says Corinna. She hands her canteen to Sebastian and he puts it to Elisabeth’s dry lips immediately. She only drinks a small amount before she begins to cough again.

I look at Sebastian wearily, seeing the sadness and fear in his eyes as he watches his sister dying before him. Ms. Olivia comes up behind Elisabeth and helps her to rise.
“Here, Elisabeth, I’ve got you,” she says.

Ms. Olivia looks at me and winks as she walks ahead of me with Elisabeth at her side.
The other guardians swallow the two as they fall into step again, moving forward behind Ira and Cale’s lead. With Sebastian standing next to me and Elisabeth out of earshot, I voice my concern, “The closer we get, the stronger we get. It seems the closer Elisabeth gets, the weaker she becomes.”

Sebastian places his hand on my back, guidingly as we walk behind the others. “I have noticed,” he says grimly.

“If she was given the opportunity to be implanted, she should have taken it. She wouldn’t be on the verge of death right now.”

I look up at Tessa, still clinging to Xander and continue,
“So many could have been saved, but just didn’t have enough time or resources. She had time and the opportunity and she chose to turn it away.”

Just as it comes out, I wonder if I have overstepped my boundary by talking about this woman like this to
her brother. Sebastian doesn’t say anything to me right away, making it obvious to me that I had overstepped it. I’m about to apologize for my rant, when Sebastian takes hold of my arm gently and stops me from walking, Lathan and Seth pausing behind us.

Sebastian
acknowledges, “So many seek redemption in our world, Jesca. Sam, Corinna, my own son Balthazar.” He shakes his head then continues, “It is accepted as a means of survival, but what about repentance being a means of survival.”

I’m confused.
“Repentance?”

Sebastian looks ahead of us, keeping an eye on the growing division between the other guardians and us as they continue to walk on. Sebastian’s eyes meet mine, “What if she is letting herself suffer like this because of her remorse for leaving her only daughter?”

I remember my vision and my mother’s forgiving words. “My mother forgives her. My mother understands why Elisabeth left her with you.”

Sebastian looks at me curiously for a second, then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You don’t understand. She blames herself for more than just leaving her,” he says.

Suddenly, Elisabeth’s cough over powers our discussion and we both look after her. Ms. Olivia is standing with her, arm wrapped around Elisabeth as she leans into the cough.

Over her cough,
I hear Nick holler, “Nate, where are you going?”

I scan the group for him just as I hear Tessa let out a sharp, short scream. I see
Elisabeth falling to the ground taking Ms. Olivia down with her. The rest of the guardians move in on them and Sebastian leaves my side in a flash to help. Suddenly, I see Siobhan jump back from Ms. Olivia and Elisabeth. She looks at Jake, then down at Sebastian as she yells, “It has her!”

All of the guardians look at her bewildered and start to back away, leaving Sebastian on the ground with Elisabeth convulsing. Sam and Luke are pulling Ms. Olivia up and away from them, as Siobhan keeps her gun aimed at Elisabeth’s shaking form.

Lathan and Seth act when they see Siobhan’s gun aimed at Elisabeth’s writhing body. They rush past me toward the yelling crowd surrounding Sebastian and Elisabeth.

Sebastian holds his hand up to Siobhan begging her, “No! Just wait! Please! It is a trap!”

A trap?

His plea falls on deaf ears as the guardians yell and holler while Sebastian covers Elisabeth’s body with his, blocking Siobhan from having a clear shot at her.

As Ezra and Daniel ignore Sebastian’s plea and draw their own guns on instinct, everything suddenly slows to a lumbering pace; the multiple hands reaching for guns, Siobhan moving in toward Sebastian, Ms. Olivia trying to lunge at Sebastian and Elisabeth appearing to shield them, the Rephaim moving in with their daggers.

A trap.

I open my mouth to yell, at them. Tell them to
believe Sebastian that it is a trap, but my mouth isn’t working.

It’s numb, paralyzed.

I will myself to run toward them, but while my mind is still working, my body is idle.

I’m not in control.

No!
No! No! The hybrid, it is here!

The guardians and
Rephaim continue their slow motion circling around Elisabeth as Sebastian’s wail draws out. Breaking from the pack, I see Xander cradling Tessa in his arms, moving slowly into the open. His eyes meet mine and he watches me curiously, like he is wondering why I’m standing all the way over here, unmoved. When he calls my name it is drawn out. “Jeeessssccca.”

Suddenly, his curiosity turns to terror as I feel my body yanked
backward and up, through the branches of the trees and into the darkened stormy sky.

The force that has a hold of me snatches me down now,
pulling me back down through the trees. The crash of thick branches snapping against my back and ribs, make me want to cry out in agony, but I’m held captive within myself, unable to express my pain. I’m not sure if the cracking sounds around me are the branches or my body breaking as the pain spreads over my body. All too quickly, the sky disappears from above and I hit the ground hard, an audible, “Ugh,” is forced from my mouth; the only sound from me that is truly mine.

Both disturbing and surprisingly, I haven’t lost consciousness. Well, I
don’t think I have. I hear my labored breathing, the sound from the beating of my heart, and below that a trickling sound that I have heard before, recently, in a vision.

Am I in a vision?

Instinctually, I open my eyes hoping that I am still in the now. With my vision crossing and blurring, I blink countlessly, trying to see.

I feel a cold tickling liquid current moving over and around my left hand.
Water; it’s the stream from my vision.

Abruptly, a foreign and disturbing voice startles me, stirring my nerves and charging my adrenaline as it says, “You are not in a vision.”

Trying to get up, but still feeling disoriented from the fall, I roll over, placing my hand onto the soften
ed ground at the edge of the stream. My hand sinks into the mud slightly, then settles on the hardened ground beneath. With the support of my hands, I rise on my left knee first without a problem, but when I put pressure on my right one, I feel searing pain shoot up my thigh and into the pit of my stomach. Overcome by the agony, I wail as I push through it and rise on my feet shakily. I look down at my right knee and see the evidence of my suffering; my pant leg has been ripped open from kneecap to upper thigh revealing raw flesh mixed with too much blood. I’m not sure if it is the spasming throb of the wound as I stand on my injured leg, or the site of it that almost claims my consciousness. Whichever it is, I breathe through it shakily; in and out, in and out.

You can do this
, Jes. C’mon, move! I hobble and drag, hobble and drag my right leg, drudging through the stream and pushing myself lamely through the sloped wood.

Remember the vision
, Jes.

I close my eyes and see the shaman pulling me along with him.
As quick as the glimpse of the vision has come, it is gone leaving me blinking and wondering how I just did that. How did I enter and exit the vision on command?

Sloped wood, I start climbing as I try and command seeing more of the vision.

Onawah being pulled along by the shaman up a hill. Once again, the flash of my divination is gone, leaving me adrift and unhinged, but not so much as to not understand that my vision is trying to guide me right here and now.

I whisper, “This is the stream and the slope she climbed.”

I look up at the slope and see the heavy brush barring any exit from the small open patch. I turn around and look down the slope back at the stream, then whisper, “No, they crossed further back.”

With my mind trying to work out where I am based off of my vision, I notice the pain subsiding enough that I give it a go and step on my right foot fully now. I start to head back down the slope toward the stream, when I hear a rustling in the thicket ahead of me. It is quickly absorbed into a roll of thunder and unexpected flash of lightning, but I freeze in my steps, not taking any chances.
The sky quickly darkens shrouding the brush and trees ahead into darkness again and the rumble of thunder fades. The rustling in the wood has faded with it.

Until Nate shouts my name,
“Jesca!”

Charged by his voice,
I step down on my foot outright, forgetting the pain and attempt to run toward his voice. “Nate!”

Tessa’s entire body is trembling in my arms as I hold her close and move away from the panicked and yelling guardians and
Rephaim. Shiva is snarling at the guardians, freaked out and confused by their attack on Elisabeth. I push past Nick and Ezra into the open path and instantly I see Jesca standing by herself, frozen in place. What is she doing?

“Jesca?”

There is no attempt to answer or move toward me. She remains cemented to the ground. The slightest quiver in her lips and her eyes widening with fear are the same symptoms I saw by the bus. It is a trap! Just as I step toward her, Jesca’s body is wrenched backward and snapped up off the ground and into the trees.

Before her body disappears in
to the trees, Ezra dashes past me and yells, “No! Jesca!”

Shiva is barking hysterically, running into the bush in the direction Jesca’s body was yanked.

Tessa is crying and yelling so hard for Shiva, she can b
arely catch her breath.

“It was a trap!” I yell.

Ezra kicks at the earth with an angry grunt and paces back and forth, his hands covering his face!

I feel a hand rest on my arm and look back to see Ms. Olivia open her hands to take Tessa from me. I quickly give her over and stride back to the widening huddle around Sebastian and Elisabeth.
I don’t expect what I come upon; Sebastian holding a very still and colorless Elisabeth cradled in his arms. Sebastian is stroking her silvery hair away from her face, rocking her. His words are simple, “Her heart has stopped. It took the weakest of us to get to her.”

It had used Elisabeth, killed her to distract us from Jesca.

I think about the times this hybrid Dweller has attacked, who it has attacked. It had targeted Nate, then me, Elisabeth, and Jesca. Wait, where is Nate? I spin around, scanning for him, then I remember Nick calling out for him before Jes was taken. Did he know that it was a trap before the rest of us? Why would he run into the woods? Unless, he was involved in the trap. Did the hybrid Dweller kill Elisabeth then leap into Nate? The thoughts sink in and I know in my gut that I’m right. It has Nate again.

Hurriedly, I search for Nick. He is on the edge of the path with Elisha by his side.
I stalk over to him and take hold of his shirt, pulling him to me. “You saw him last! Which way did Nate go?”

Taken aback by my agitation, Nick leans back from me and says, “We were walki
ng, then all of a sudden he ran off.” Nick nods toward the woods to the right. “Right there. He went in there.”

Realizing I am still clinging to Nick’s shirt, I let go and step back from him.
Ezra comes to my side as I try to make sense of the direction of Nate’s and Jesca’s disappearance. It doesn’t make sense. Where he went is in the opposite direction of where Jesca was pulled.

Ezra’s urgency is visible as he grabs hold of my arm. “We need to go after her
, Xander! It is using Nate!”

Daniel tries to bring reason to the situation, “What if this is another trap?”

Ezra lets go of my arm and argues flippantly with Daniel, “This hybrid Dweller used Elisabeth to distract us. Nate could be a part of this or not. Either way, the trap has already been set and it has the one person that can end all of this.”

Shiva comes charging back from the woods, drawing all of our attention. She is crouched down, looking through the cluster of us at something beyond us.
The animalistic gnarling rumbles snap me to attention. What I see gives me an adrenaline spike so strong, I feel pin-pricks running along my arms and scalp from the rush of fear. Three beasts the size of bears are stalking toward us, stealthily. Lightning flashes above us, spotlighting the blackened eyes and unnatural fibrous muscle mass these mutated creatures possess.

Nick hisses a chain of
curses behind Ezra and me as we both pull our guns. Drawn to our weapons now, the beasts raise their bulbous heads and display their enlarged razor sharp teeth. The one in the middle releases a carnal roar initiating their charge.

Ezra’s command to fire on them is swallowed by our emptying our ammunition on them. As the bullets strike, it only seems to agitate them as the bearlike
Dwellers rear up, then charge us full force.

Seth and Cale
are the first to rush them, daggers drawn. Ira cuts around through the woods to attack from behind. Seth releases a rebel yell just as he plows into one of the beasts, sending it airborne then landing on flat on its back. He doesn’t give it a chance to rise, taking his dagger and slitting the creature’s throat from ear to ear. As the inky Dweller begins to withdraw through the vessel’s widened mouth, Seth takes hold of it instantly and rips it apart with his hands, turning the evil being to ash. Ira has killed another and I catch sight of him just as he rips another Dweller to shreds.

Ezra and I pull back, guns held steady as we huddle close to the other guardians;
back to back. I’m searching the woods anxiously for more of these freakish creatures awaiting their attack, when Tessa screams from behind me. Another one of these mutated bearlike creatures is coming up from behind us on the other side of the path.

Daniel bellows in fear, “Another to the left!”

Low and behold, another beast reveals itself, parting the thicket with its enormous body, ready to pound on us.

Siobhan hisses, “They will just keep coming. We need to get out of here!”

Jake adds, “We need to use our abilities to get to the mounds Sebastian.”

I growl, “What about Jesca and Nate?”

Ezra demands, “We will go after them!”

Shiva is snarling at the slow stalking
Dweller mutation.

Obviously angry with himself, Daniel snaps, “Damn, we are going to have to separate!”

Ms. Olivia argues, “We can’t! That is what it wants!”

Ezra bellows back at her, “It wants us dead! We have to! It will be harder for it to get us all at once!”

Ezra fires his gun at the creature in the thicket. It looks like it is recoiling, but then surprises me and leaps at us. Lathan’s roar precedes him, as he throws his body into the beast sending it into the one behind us. Both beasts roll, but recover instantly and are ready to draw blood as they charge us again. We fire at the two remaining beasts as a blaze of fire shoots from Jake’s open hands, covering the beasts in flames. The screeching and gnarling shrills coming from the fire-laden bodies are so loud, I have to cover my ears.

I look around frantically, trying to see if there are any other beasts stalking toward us.
The remains of the beasts are all I see until Lathan announces, “Another one!”

I turn to see it coming from the woods on the right. Another flash of lightning brightens a cluster of tree trunks with the large frame of this beast approaching low to the ground.

Daniel speaks quickly, “He’s right! Sebastian, Luke,
Siobhan, and Jake, take Olivia and Tessa! Nick, Elisha, Corinna, and Sam, you come with me! Use your ability to astral project!”

Ezra’s anger boils over.
“You can’t! It is too dangerous!”

Daniel yells back, “We have to if we have any shot of making it to the mounds!”

He was right, two miles between here and there, they needed to get there quick.

Daniel continues, “It will draw
the Dwellers in different directions! They can’t attack all of us at once! It is our only shot! Cale and Seth will guard us along the way!”

Daniel looks at Cale and Seth. They both nod and ready themselves to run.
Suddenly, half of our cluster disappears into the atmosphere leaving Ezra, Ira, and Lathan to the approaching beast now tearing through the brush to get to us.

Lathan commands Ezra and me
, “Run!”

Without thinking
, I run in the direction I saw Jesca disappear. Ezra is next to me in a flash keeping stride. I hear Shiva ahead of us. She stayed behind.

I tell Ezra, “She is tracking her.”

I see Ira’s blurred frame, steady and keeping pace with his enormous strides to my right. The feeling of Lathan’s presence follows to my left.

In a flash,
I catch sight of Shiva’s silver coat shining under the electric discharge from above, just as Jesca’s voice carries through the wood.

She says his name,
“Nate.”

My panic spikes and I pick up
my pace, racing to get to her before anything bad happens.