Indescribable: Book Two of the Primordial Read online

  The creature approached in the air, raised the arrow high above its head, and brought it down in a jabbing arc right at Carolina’s heart. The pain was unbearable as the arrowhead cut into her. She could feel the rush of blood spill down her chest and stomach, soaking the fabric of her dress and making it stick to her skin.

  THE MEMORY faded and The Mistress found herself on the cold, marble floor of The Master’s palace. She understood now that she had been forced to come there, just as so many other men and women had been over the years. She knew the way things worked in Fractus. It was no secret. She knew that ever since Thomas Riley had come up with the idea for the ritual that would promise True Love for all Durori that the cherubs were sent to Earth to mark whichever mortal would be that particular Durori’s One True Love, and from there, they would spend eternity together in Fractus. She knew that as soon as they arrived, whatever memories they had of their previous life would begin to fade into nothing. And truthfully, she had always known that she had been marked at some point in time, that she had had a life before Fractus, but until she had begun to remember what that life had been and the circumstances that had brought her there, none of it had mattered to her. She hadn’t even cared about any of it. Until now, she had been OK with the present. Before, she had remembered nothing about her previous life on Earth. To her it had only existed as philosophical knowledge; it was like a hard to comprehend realm of existence before being born.

  At the end of the hallway, the doors to the Master’s chamber opened. The echo of the heavy wood was a shocking reverberation within the long, narrow space. Miles emerged from the meeting room. The soldier walked toward where The Mistress was trying to stand from the floor. She was still on her knees when Miles stood over her. She studied his filthy cloak and disgusting, carrion face. The silver chain hung from his neck and the fox head medallion swung to and fro. Behind him, the door was still standing open. After looking down at her, he passed her by, not bothering to offer help or condolences.

  Carolina stood from the cool floor, unsteady on her feet at first, but as the headache continued to disappear into oblivion, her legs became more stable. She knew from then on that she would never think of herself as The Mistress again. She was Carolina Rimbault. She made her way across the floor, toward the open doors. As she approached, she looked up at the mounted fox head that hung above the doors on the smooth, polished block of pine. She knew that it wasn’t the same fox that she had regarded as a pet all those years ago, but what it signified to her was sickening. The knowledge of what had happened to Violet put a whole new perspective on the trophy that she was looking at. It no longer symbolized the freedom that The Master had always insisted that it had. Instead, it now brought to mind how evil he truly was and the horrible actions that he was capable of doing without a second thought.

  Carolina passed underneath the fox’s head and stepped through the open set of doors. Her blue dress dragged behind her. The Master sat in front of her, across the room. He was sitting arrogantly in an elaborate throne that had been made from countless white bones. A series of large, open windows stretched along the wall behind him. She knew how much he liked to sit there and look out over his land.

  From behind the hummingbird-like mask that she wore, Carolina studied him. This is the same man that seduced me, attacked Jonathan, killed my mother, and brought me here. He forced me here against my will, she thought. Even though in more recent years he had constructed a functional right hand out of bones, it didn’t hide the fact that he was the same James Percy that she was remembering. She could see him for what he was; he was the same, no good man that she met long ago. She knew that despite the stories of the promise of love for all Durori, it wasn’t love that caused him to bring her there. It wasn’t the pure and true love that Thomas Riley had been thinking about on that long ago night when the Era of Love and the cherubs had been created. Legend had it that the love that Thomas had for his wife was the greatest of all, and Carolina understood that James had only seen the idea as a way to satisfy his own twisted desires. Carolina knew that her reason for being in Fractus had nothing to do with Thomas’s original intentions. What James had done to her was out of an obsession that he had. She knew that he was so obsessed with her that he would stop at nothing for her to be his and that he had seen Thomas’s idea as a perfect opportunity to claim her for himself.

  “Miles says that the one known as Shane is missing,” James said. He didn’t stand from the throne. Up until then, it had been assumed that the soldiers had completed their mission of retrieving the three that they had been sent for. It was common knowledge all across Fractus that Embry and Meghan were there and that they had recently married. “That he wasn’t with the other two when they were found. He says that they’ve searched extensively, but haven’t been able locate him. Worst of all, Miles thinks that someone or something else may have gotten to Shane first.”

  Carolina stood facing him a moment longer. Everything that he was telling her was all signs for the worst. All she could see of James was that behind the mask and cloak that he was wearing he was nothing but a being of evil intentions. Not saying a word, she turned her back to him and walked back through the doors that she had entered through. She walked down the length of the hallway. Her boots clomped on the hard marble. At the end of the hallway, the elevator was open and waiting for her. The chains rattled above her as the elevator took her to the bottom level.

  Carolina stepped outside of the palace. The grounds surrounding the lopsided structure were a smooth stretch of green. Her eyes scanned the landscape and the surrounding woods. Something near her feet caught her eye. When she looked down she saw that it was a single, orange leaf that was being blown across the ground. The sound was loud. The leaf tumbled across the lawn. When she looked up again, she noticed something that she hadn’t seen in over two hundred years and had completely forgotten about until that day. Some of the trees were changing color. Like the leaf that had just clattered past her feet, orange and yellow leaves rustled in the breeze. An occasional leaf fell from the branches and to the ground. The air felt cool against her skin. She inhaled deeply and could smell the drying foliage of the woods. When she looked back to her feet, she saw that the grass wasn’t as green as it had been just a moment earlier. It was now almost straw-like.

  What happened next was breathtaking. An orange sun crested the horizon with a fiery intensity. The light was nearly blinding. Carolina had to hold her arm up and block some of the light. Her shadow stretched behind her in a long, autumn angle. It was the first time that there had ever been a sunrise in Fractus. Like the earthquake-like rumble, the memories coming back to her, and Shane turning up missing, Carolina knew that the sun and the leaves were both additional signs that things were changing.

  Carolina reached her hand to the mask that she wore and removed it from her face. She held it out in front of her and studied it for a moment. For the first time, she didn’t see the beauty of it. Now, she knew that it had been James’s way of keeping her hidden from the rest of the world. To him, masks were a symbol of hierarchy and place. Hummingbirds represented love, but she knew that the “love” that he thought he felt for her was nothing more than a dangerous obsession. What he didn’t know was that one of the other beliefs of hummingbirds was that they were able to travel into the past. This was something that Carolina had read long ago in one of her father’s books and was now coming back to her in such clarity that it was like she had just read it the night before.

  Carolina thought back to everything that James had done to her and her family. She lifted the mask high above her head and brought it down in a wide arc against the side of the palace. The plaster shattered and fell to the ground. She dropped the rest of it at her feet and wiped the dust from her hands on the fabric of her dress. Unmasked, she began to walk away from the palace, toward the woods and the glaring sun that was already well above the horizon.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN MEGHAN woke that day, she stayed in bed
a tad longer than usual. Embry’s back was turned to her. He was sound asleep, and as usual, wasn’t wearing a shirt. The white sheet was low on his body, near his waist. Lying behind him, Meghan could see the folds of muscle at each of his shoulder blades where the leathery wings would fling themselves out from his body each time that he transitioned into his Durori form. It was the position that Meghan often found herself waking up in. It was a reminder of what he was and of the dreams that she so often had of the winged soldiers. Meghan had seen the transformation several times and somehow the otherworldliness of it still managed to scare her. Yet beyond the fear that it caused within her, she was beginning to see beauty in it. Pretty soon you’ll forget everything that you knew before, she remembered Valerie telling her the day before. Was that what was happening to her? Was she so easily accepting all of this because she was forgetting her previous life? She knew that she was; by then she could barely remember what her mother and her father’s faces had looked like.

  She softly reached her hand out to Embry and traced her fingertips along the muscles of his back. At her touch, Embry shifted in his sleep. She gently moved her hand away from him. She didn’t want to wake him. It was the day that she and Valerie were going to the laboratory. It was why she was awake so early in the First Twelve. At that time, everyone else but her and Valerie would be sound asleep, making it easier for them to go through with their mission. Meghan knew that it was her best chance yet at learning how to save Embry. She hadn’t even known until recently that he, like the rest of the Durori, had been created out of a flesh and blood man. The knowledge of it gave her more hope than she had before. Even though she was still reeling from both the failed attempt at locating the book and the fact of losing Shane to the soldiers and The Indescribable in the process, the new knowledge was promising. If she was able to see how the Durori were created, how The Master had transformed everyday men into what he wanted them to be, then she would be able to do the same thing again, only in reverse, turning Embry back into a mortal.

  A dream that she had been in the midst of just before waking came back to her. It had been another one of those dreams where she had been wrapped within a pair of feathery wings.

  In the dream, she had been standing on the stone overlook in Fractus. The ocean waves were crashing below her. In the dark, the water was nearly black. The round, white, full moon reflected against its surface. A figure approached her from behind and wrapped her in a pair of wings. She felt safe.

  Meghan had woken with a jolt. Now, as she studied Embry’s back and had the mental image of his own wings in her head, she remembered that the wings in the dream had not been the same as his. Instead of a span of leathery skin, the ones in the dream had been covered in feathers. She knew that it wasn’t Embry that she had been dreaming about. It had to have been one of the soldiers. But why had she felt so safe in the embrace? Was it a sign that she was slowly but surely accepting her fate?

  She eased herself out of bed and quietly stepped across the hardwood floor. She stood in front of the tall wardrobe that was on the opposite end of the room from where Embry was lightly snoring. The beautiful piece of furniture was several feet taller than her. It was a massive piece of heavy wood. Meghan was used to seeing the cheap, pieced together type of wardrobes that came in cardboard boxes. This one was the kind of thing that would only be found with a hefty price tag in antique stores back at home. Before going to bed, she had stuck a piece of tacky gum to the inside of the door so that it would be quieter upon opening. The loud snap of the old catches would have surely woken Embry, she had assumed.

  Inside, there was a stack of neatly folded clothes on one of the shelves. Meghan quietly began putting on the outfit. It was the ones that she had been wearing when she had been brought to Fractus: a red v-neck t-shirt and a pair of comfortable, perfectly fitting jeans. The cherubs had washed the clothes and returned them to her. It was the only set of clothes in the entire wardrobe that were familiar to her. The rest had been sewn and constructed by the cherubs in an effort at recreating the style that she was used to. There were long skirts, pants, and hangers full of solid color tops. After she had her jeans zipped and buttoned, she was in the process of putting on the shirt, but a white t-shirt that as hanging on the far right caught her eye. As soon as she saw it, she knew what it was. A huge, glittery red heart was emblazoned across the front. In her adult life, Meghan had never been one for screen printed tees except for sleeping and lounging around the house, it was something she felt that she had outgrown several years earlier, but somehow this seemed appropriate. She tossed the red v-neck to the side and went with the other one, the one with the heart. It made her smile to know that the cherubs had created the shirt just for her. She found it amusing that they had assumed that all mortal women would like something so shopping mall tacky, but she knew that they had been trying to be accommodating with their efforts, and it was the effort that comforted her. She imagined them sitting at sewing machines, studying catalogues of modern “fashion” as they worked. She could just picture their confusion over the horrid displays of what was on the pages in front of them.

  When she turned around, she noticed something that she was surprised that she hadn’t seen before. There was light coming in from around the window. The blinds were made of thick wood, but around the slats, there was a bright light that was shining through. It was a familiar sight to her; it was early morning sunlight. She remembered being told that it was always night time in Fractus, the First Twelve and Second Twelve, she remembered the way that time was broken up without the aid of the sun. She walked to the window with a bit of confusion. She just barely pulled the blinds back with her finger. When she peeked through, she was surprised to see that aside from the sunlight, the leaves of the woods were an array of fall. The ground was already littered with colorful leaves. The sight was breathtaking. It was like waking to the most beautiful autumn day imaginable.

  She eased the blinds back to where they were flat against the window surface, glanced one more time at Embry, and walked through the house. A moment later, she stepped outside on the porch. Just like she had imagined, the air was cool. She crossed her arms against the crisp air and inhaled deeply. It smelled wonderful. Fall had always been her favorite season. She loved the relief that was felt from the long, hot, southern summer, the changes in the landscape, the fall produce, orange pumpkins, and oh…candy corn! She loved candy corn.

  Valerie rounded the corner. Her hair was crimped and teased out. Meghan could smell the hairspray even from where she stood on the flat of the porch. Valerie was wearing a red and blue high school letter jacket that hung off her narrow shoulders. Jelly bracelets that were around her wrists peaked out of the sleeves. A pair of tight, acid washed jeans that appeared to have been painted on covered her lower half all the way down to her ankles where a pair of purple high heels covered her feet. Despite the outfit, she was carrying a rake. Coming from somewhere off in the distance there was a low, steady rumble.

  “I was about to give up on you,” Valerie said. “I was just about to start cleaning up some of this mess.” She motioned toward the leaf covered ground.

  “So I guess our trip to the lab is out,” Meghan reasoned

  Valerie leaned the rake against the porch railing. She teased her hair out with her fingers even further than it already was. “I’m ready when you are, my dear. All of this can wait.”

  Even though the air in general was cool, the inside of the woods was actually cold. Side by side, Meghan and Valerie walked along the path. The fallen leaves crunched underneath their feet. Meghan remembered how Valerie had told her that the path would lead you to wherever it was that you needed to go. Despite the sunlight that was filtering through the dry leaves, each of the lanterns that hung on the branches alongside the path was still lit with an orange flame. Together they followed the leaf strewn path as it meandered through the trees. Meghan thought about how easy it was to follow a path that always led you to the right place. She thought about lif
e being that way. For the first time, she really believed deep down that if she followed her heart and her intuition, stayed on path as it were, then the destination would always be right.

  When they emerged from the tree cover, the laboratory was stretched across the land in front of them. Opposed to the antebellum plantation houses that stood in Fractus, the lab was an ugly and lifeless, muddy-red brick building. It was long and flat, the kind of place that Meghan imagined bored employees reporting to everyday in Any-town, USA. Straggly, overgrown shrubs stood in a straight row across the front. Valerie looked at her surroundings, making sure that no one was there that would see them, and ran toward the building. In her heels, running across the grass was no easy feat. Meghan followed closely behind. They stopped at the front door. A small, broken block of concrete was under their feet. On each side of the door there was a permanent brick planter that was nearly as tall as Meghan’s waist. Each of the planters held dry dirt and an even drier plant that seemed to have not seen a drop of water in who knew how long. A dilapidated, white vinyl canopy hung over the entranceway. A piece of it was hanging loose. Valerie reached her hand to the doorknob. It was locked.