She swiveled her head from right to left and quickly back to the right again. Not seeing anything of consequence, she looked down and then up.
Then she knew right where to find me.
Almost leisurely, she spun around in midair, a deep and widening grin stretched her flawless skin. In her eyes wasn’t the excitability I’d seen in other Fallen Ones at the prospect of claiming the life of their kind’s archenemy. She had the eyes of an immoral warrior who had suddenly picked up the scent of blood. Her goal wasn’t fame.
Taking my life would be its own reward.
Without waiting, and midstream between another one of Eran’s refusals, I launched myself from the lookout and collided with the woman.
This set off a chain of events so rapid I didn’t catch all that happened. Eran and Rufus set out in opposite directions, tackling the first enemy closest to them. Within seconds, the remaining Fallen Ones surrounded me but were slowly picked away, one by one, by both of my protectors. All this took place as I did my best to get the upper hand with the woman I had engaged.
What seemed like minutes passing were likely hurried seconds and before I knew it, the woman’s limp body was falling to the ground below and Eran and Rufus were hovering on opposite sides of me.
The sky was clear now. The fortress had been freed…from the outside.
Eran rotated to face me. His fury was ebbing away, I saw, as he moved to take my face in his hands.
His breaths were coming in short gasps as he brought his forehead to rest against mine. One shuttering exhale told me everything he felt…terrified of my involvement in the battle and gratified we’d survived it.
“
I suppose,” he said, his breath brushing my face, drawing me closer, “asking you to stand back from the battle inside would be out of the question.”
I pulled back slightly. “To the armory.”
As if he already knew my answer, he nodded quickly after. “Stay close to me,” he stated and then led us over the edge of the wall and through a window below.
Inside, the stench of battle filled the air, seemingly inflamed by grunts echoing off the walls. The lanterns, some downed along the way, lit the passages until we reached the center of the conflict.
There, bodies littered the floor, most still moving, shuddering. Only a few Fallen Ones remained uninjured and they were now being dealt with by the massive number of Alterums still alive.
After seeking the crowd for our housemates, Gershom, Ms. Beeginwigg, Mr. Hamilton, Alfred, and Magnus to confirm they were alive and healthy, I turned to Eran.
“
Watch over me as I get to work?”
“
Always,” he affirmed.
I then went about purging the Fallen Ones from their bodies and to eternal death. With a dedicated focus, Eran and I worked our way efficient through the injured, picking our enemies from the piles, until the last one was eliminated.
In the end, over a hundred bodies scattered the ground, half of them Alterums.
Noting this, my reaction was slight but I felt it. My lip quivered, something that took me by surprise. My emotions had always been locked down, shuttered from others, and certainly never exposed in a room full of strangers. But, there I stood, holding back the onslaught of tears threatening to stream down my face. Alterums, ones I never met before, had suffered a great punishment, one that was meant for me.
It felt as if my chest was crushing in, the air squeezing out of me when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Eran.
Only then did I look up and what I saw was bittersweet.
Alterums lined the walls, covered in blood, a mixture of their own and the enemies they’d maimed. They had been silent, watching Eran and me work meticulously and exact until I finally lifted my head.
Their expressions, however, weren’t filled with hatred or blame for having been responsible for the loss of their friends. To my astonishment, they reflected admiration.
It stilled the breath in my chest.
This should have been enough to tell their thoughts but then they spoke in motion, conjuring in me a tumultuous swirl of feelings so intense I continued to struggle for breath. Starting with just one, we were approached and hands were placed on us in thanks. Progressively, every Alterum in the passageways touched our arms gently in silent gratitude, their faces quivering in reaction to what they’d just gone through, tears leaving clean tracks down their faces.
The great ones, those who had witnessed countless lives in this dimension, who held powers far more potent than me, who were respected by just as many souls here as in the afterlife, joined the procession. They placed their hand on me with a firm purpose, one that told me to take comfort. They didn’t hold me responsible.
There was no sound, other than the scuff of feet along the ground as they shuffled forward, but there was a sentiment and it was powerful. It flowed through us like a hot, fluid stream, uniting us, making us whole.
Even those more potent in their unique abilities than Eran or myself.
Later, I reflected on this quiet but potent expression of thanks by the Alterums and knew it was the most humbling experience of my existence. At the time, however, my thoughts centered around one realization…
The calamitous event Evelyn had forewarned would be needed to rally the Alterums had just taken place.
CHAPTER NINE: BARGAIN
Over the next few days, the fortress was repaired, the bodies were removed, and new sentries were positioned at the lookouts. A routine, a normalcy began again, one that Eran and I and my other prison mates were now allowed to participate in.
Only a few Alterums, it appeared, adamantly refused to comply with the rest. Ms. Barrett and her guards were suspiciously absent over these first few days.
As I freely roamed the passageways, it was hard not to notice the surreal dichotomies within the fortress walls. The ancient kitchen was equipped with state-of-the-art cooking equipment; meeting rooms were lined with antique canvases alongside plasma screen TV sets; and a heating and air conditioning system had been retrofitted inside the primeval stone walls.
Eran and I had been given the largest bedroom, or chamber to use a term more familiar to the century in which the fortress was built. We spent every night there, my head on his taut chest and my arm strung across his torso. He fell asleep each evening with his hand laid gently on my head, as if an inch apart would be too painful for him.
We overlooked Ezra’s disapproving eye while knowing it was ever present each night we disappeared upstairs and every morning we reappeared downstairs.
I wasn’t sure if it was Ezra’s reaction to our sleeping arrangements or something else but Eran had not made a single attempt to go any further than holding my head to him. Still, I noticed the reaction in him each time I sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped beneath the covers. Each night, he drew in a sharp breath and then his body would stiffen, almost board-like, until morning came. I didn’t tempt him, although the idea of it nagged me throughout the night, but I didn’t hold back either. On more than one occasion, I nuzzled my lips to his neck and kissed lightly and then increasing passionately until I heard him muttered tightly, “Magdalene…” Then I would begrudgingly acquiesce and lay my head back against his shoulder.
On the third night this habit became more than I could stand. Rolling back against my pillow, I released a frustrated exhale and felt my face twist to a frown.
Unable to ignore it, he briefly broke his rigidity, risking uninhibited reaction to sharing a private bed with me, and rolled towards me to whisper delicately in my ear, “Not long, Magdalene…We’ve been patient. I think we can refrain a bit longer.”
When I heaved another discontented sigh, he chuckled through his nose and then groaned, equally as bothered. “If I don’t get my mind on something other than the privacy of our room…” He rolled towards me, propping his arm on my pillow, and peering down at me through the dark. He watched me for a moment and I got the distinct impression he was absorbing the memory of every detail of my face. Then he focused entirely on my lips before asking, “Do you remember our kiss just before you left for this lifetime on earth?”
Instantly, my muscles tightened. I did recall it and it had been unexpected by both of us.
When I was silent, he quietly recounted it, a light smile lifting his lips. “You appeared at the cabin…in a huff, I’ll add. And you had every right to be upset with me. We were existing between this life and our last. I say existing because it certainly wasn’t living, what you and I endured.”
I nodded, that time running vividly through my mind. It was unheard of in the afterlife to live in despair and yet Eran had, while overcoming the upset in having taken my life in Gettysburg, and I had as Eran separated himself from me during his recovery. Time is not thought of in the afterlife, not in the way it is considered or dominates here on earth, and yet that duration was the longest I’d ever experienced between lives.
By this point, Eran’s smile had faded away. “Being apart from you was punishment I hope to never suffer again, self-imposed or otherwise. I had worried…” He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I had worried that your love for me might have weakened and that possibly…you found someone else.”
“
No,” I whispered, my head lifting from the pillow, closer to him, in response. “No, Eran.”
“
I know that now but…” He shrugged and allowed himself to progress through the discomfort. “I wasn’t sure of it then…That was difficult, to say the least…My worry of it didn’t end until you appeared on the dock.” His eyes glossed, recalling a far happier memory. “You wore a white dress I’d never seen before…Your hair was down, flowing in the breeze and glistening from the daylight…You seemed to be glowing, Magdalene. The sight of you…” He finished with a trembling sigh, unable to express what it had done to him in words.
I smiled, familiar with that reaction.
“
You marched right up to me and without a word took my face in your soft hands and…with fire in your eyes…you reached up and your lips landed on mine.”
“
Were you surprised?”
He chuckled. “To say that would be an oversimplification. It woke me up, Magdalene. I’d been living in a void, a cave, while trying to deal with the turmoil inside me. But your kiss, soft but so firm, brought me back to…well, to life. I suddenly smelled the fresh air, heard the birds in the trees, felt you on my skin. Your hands on my face were so delicate but…determined. I felt that. You, Magdalene, brought me back to life.”
While my heart fluttered, I played it off teasingly. “I had no idea what my kisses do to you.”
“
No…” he agreed reflectively. “You have no idea…”
“
That kiss was unplanned,” I admitted, and his eyebrows rose, questioning. “When I arrived and saw you on the porch…The sight of you filled the emptiness in me that had been so present during that time. I couldn’t stop myself.”
“
I am truly thankful you didn’t. There is no telling what might have happened if you hadn’t broken the spell I was in.” He tried to hide the shutter that shook his body but I still felt it, our bodies lying so close.
“
My leaving for this lifetime was prompted by your seclusion,” I explained. “I couldn’t live without you any longer. And thinking it was safe to return here, to earth…thinking it was safe from the Fallen Ones, I-I came to replace the pain of your distance with a distraction.”
“
Well, you certainly found one,” he replied, frowning playfully.
I rolled my eyes. “Now
that
is an oversimplification.”
“
I always wondered…why did you come to the cabin in the first place?”
“
To see you one last time…before I departed.”
He nodded, understanding. “Couldn’t help yourself?” he asked, smirking.
My jaw fell open and I playfully attempted to shove him. He caught my hand well before it made contact, drew it to his lips, and tenderly kissed each of my fingers. When he’d finished making my stomach turn flips, he didn’t release my hand. Instead, he held it and placed it against his chest, the warmth of it calming me instantly.
“
When you did leave,” he said quietly, “I followed you. Well…I tried to follow you.”
“
Really?” I asked, intrigued. “What do you mean…tried?”
“
I went looking for you…after you chose to launch yourself from the porch and flee from me without a single word,” he said, lifting his eyebrows insinuatingly at me.
I sighed and gave him the answer he hinted for. “I was…nervous.”
“
I see…” he replied. “Please try to overcome that in the future.”
“
I promise to try.”
He accepted that statement as enough for the moment and continued on. “When I didn’t find you in your realm in the afterlife, I realized where you’d gone. Back to earth. But, I thought you had planned to fall during this lifetime as you’d always done with each lifetime prior. So, I fled to the steps where we fall for earth. And I waited there, not knowing you were already in the womb. When I realized that you were gone, I…” he let his voice trail off, the unmistakable sound of regret tainting his beguiling English accent.
I slipped my hand up his cheek, enjoying the feel of his skin against mine. “Eran…” I whispered, pulling him from his thoughts. “I’m here now.”