The Bright Image: Clean Book 3 Read online

  She put the flat of her hand to her stomach.

  "You wouldn't understand, human. After all, you won't live to see what becomes of this world in the next hundred years. Even the next fifty are beyond you."

  "What are you talking about?" Jeanine said.

  "Once a new generation of aeons rises," said Bayaluggia. "You will see. The world will change."

  "The world keeps changing," I said.

  "One way or the other," said Rebecca, with a nod in my direction.

  "I won't let humanity repeat its mistakes!" Bayaluggia waved her hand and her beasts charged toward us, along with the two wild stars.

  Jeanine threw away her empty pistol and raised her hands. I faced the wild star I had hit earlier as the beasts drew near. This time, without the element of surprise the male aeon, approached me more cautiously, circling in a boxer's stance.

  "You should have finished me after the first blow." He grinned. "A soft man like you stands no chance, even with stolen strength."

  "We'll see about that."

  Not the wittiest, I know, but my life was on the line.

  He lunged at me, jabbing at my face. I took a glancing blow on the side of my head, just in front of one ear. The force behind even that brush rattled my head. I stumbled sideways. He circled to swing again.

  Beasts howled in pain, no match for Rebecca and Jeanine on soma.

  I gritted my teeth and hurled my whole weight at the wild star before me. His punch cracked against my forearm, and I screamed as the bone broke. Then I plowed into him, taking him off his feet like a freight train ramming a small car.

  We tumbled over and over on the dusty pavement until we dented the structure at the base of a metallic power relay. I ended up on top and pounded his head against the side of the relay. Once. Twice. On the third swing, his head went through the metal and he went limp.

  I got to my feet, ears ringing, left arm bent at an odd angle thanks to the place he had mauled it between my elbow and wrist. Rebecca and Jeanine had dropped the beasts who hadn't fled. The female wild star glared past them at me but made no move from her position between Rebecca and Jeanine and Bayaluggia.

  "Turns out this parlor trick is pretty good," said Rebecca.

  Jeanine spat on the pavement between them and the aeons. If my head wasn't spinning and my arm wasn't broken I might have smiled. As it was, I limped as quickly as I could to join the two women facing the aeons. Rebecca took a step forward.

  "Three against one simply isn't fair," said Fiusontha's voice.

  She leaped from a power relay nearby and dropped to land beside Bayaluggia.

  "About time you arrived," said the city aeon.

  "But I am in time," said Fiusontha. "Time to finish this bothersome work."

  Black fluid flowed from the wounds on each of her palms. Her lips drew back in a snarl. Then she saw Jeanine.

  "You—What are you doing here?"

  "Fighting to save my new home. I didn't get the choice last time." Jeanine's hands and arms were as red with traces of blood and torn skin as mine or Rebecca's from the fighting. She raised them, hands as fists, and faced her enemy.

  "Sister, we don't need to fight. Stand aside and I won't hurt you," said Fiusontha.

  "She is human," said Bayaluggia.

  "She is blood," said Fiusontha. "We have the same mother."

  "Y-you can't be serious," Jeanine said.

  "Oh, I'm most serious, my dear older sister."

  "How do you—? How can that be?"

  I stared at Fiusontha as the aeon killer prowled closer to our trio. She smiled at Jeanine.

  "The four aeons needed a vessel to bear their child. A human woman could carry an aeon like me and not go mad, or so they thought."

  "My mother—"

  Rebecca touched Jeanine's shoulder.

  "Don't listen to them."

  "You made her how she is!" Jeanine screamed. She rushed at Fiusontha.

  The wild star between her and her half-sister struck Jeanine in the chest. Her eyes went wide and she fell backward. Rebecca ran forward and crouched to catch her, keeping Jeanine's head from hitting the pavement.

  "Now you know the truth. But it won't help you." Fiusontha raised her hands, shimmering with black fluid. "Time to die."

  I trembled as I stared at the aeons. I could feel the drug effects declining like adrenaline. I had to act now.

  I rushed at the wild aeon standing over a dazed Jeanine. She snarled and swung at me. Rebecca's shoulder caught the blow and she staggered backward, skidding on mud and pavement. I slammed into the wild star, driving.

  Pain bloomed in my arms, shoulders, and back. Drops of rain hissed as they evaporated in the energy hearts' collective heat. The aeon collapsed under my impact. I staggered heart pounding, eyes gazing into the sprinkling, clouded sky. Bayaluggia and Fiusontha prowled toward us. Jeanine still gasped for air but crawled behind me and Rebecca. She groaned and sank onto her side.

  "She's unconscious," said Rebecca.

  "And you are out of time," said Bayaluggia. "Your tricks won't hold much longer, judging by how you look now."

  Rebecca sent an image to me, an image of Elizabeth from last year in Yashelia's garden. Elizabeth pressed her hands to another mad aeon, reaching into the monstrous man's mind and paralyzing his body.

  I took her meaning. An aeon's mind might be contained in their tree, but it was also accessible by touch. Fiusontha had cleaned Elizabeth, but her mind was still in that killer's psyche somewhere. I nodded to Rebecca.

  "Make me an opening," I sent her.

  She grimaced.

  "Be quick," she returned silently.

  An expression of fury stretched across Bayaluggia's face. She raised her gaze from the fallen wild stars and glanced at Fiusontha.

  "These others were more bark than bite."

  "You'll find I'm the opposite."

  I couldn't help the tremors running through my agonized body. Fear and pain made a potent combination and left me hesitant. I clenched the fist on my good arm. The other hung open at my side.

  Fiusontha lunged at me, flicking black fluid ahead of her hands. Droplets ate through my rain clothes, and I threw off the coat as quickly as I could. I hurled the garment at Fiusontha's face. She tore through it with both hands.

  Rebecca darted forward, batting Fiusontha's hands down with her enhanced strength. She kept a grip on one arm and stayed focused on the killer. I stepped into the gap left by Rebecca's hold and grabbed Fiusontha's wrist as she cut at me.

  Black fluid dripped onto my pant leg. My leg seared with pain as the fluid ate through skin, flesh, and muscle. I couldn't keep my weight on that leg. As I collapsed, I dragged Fiusontha's arm with me. I fought through the pain and attacked the mind I sensed at my fingertips.

  What I felt made my mouth go dry and I almost released Fiusontha's hand in terror. Her mind did not burn my consciousness, but dissolved my outer defenses in an instant. Pain wracked my mind, worse than what I had left behind in my mauled body.

  I hurled myself forward, deeper into her mentality. Shards of broken glass, blood on fragments still stuck in a shattered windowpane, with even the crosspiece cracked in places, formed as images I could not reject or counter.

  This blood wasn't mine. It turned black. It ate the glass. It was hers.

  Beyond the broken window, frantic faces lurked like ghosts, wispy, ethereal. Unlike when I had dived into Yashelia's mind months ago, this one hurt just to touch. I could only imagine what the minds of those she had cleaned had been suffering for days, or months, or years. I recognized two of them.

  Karen Myles, Jeanine's mother stared at me through a haze of pain-induced madness. Beside her, Elizabeth's projected feature contorted with agony. I lurched in their direction.

  "D-don't come closer!" said Karen, oddly lucid. "You'll be trapped too."

  "He's our best chance," said Elizabeth. "He can help us."

  Karen turned toward her.

  "You know him?"

 
"Yes." Elizabeth's voice sounded halfway between a gasp and a hiss. "He—"

  "Stop!"

  A loud but familiar voice boomed over the hazy scene, the broken glass, and the ghostly prisoners. I looked at the sky. Fiusontha descended, clad in white, a gown that fluttered beneath her. Four shadowy shapes followed her, humanoid but I sensed they were not complete minds.

  Two were bright, two were dark, one in each pair male and the other female. The bright ones I identified by feel as similar to Sudhatho and Yashelia. Another resembled Balancar, but I did not recognize the last one but I guessed she must be Tohamaya.

  The seeds of her four aeon creators flanked Fiusontha. She folded her arms. Her mentality crashed upon me with crushing weight with the sound of thunder and the speed of lightning.

  The blow would have repulsed my embedded mind if I had not braced my processing power to push back. My memory flared and I shoved at Fiusontha's wave of will. The forces met. I screamed both in mind and out.

  The explosion of sound and fury tore through my exposed mentality, flooding every sense and pore. I could not deflect the wind, but I opened the windows and let the storm pass through me. Howling dreams, thoughts, anger and envy, raced the halls of my mental house. It passed and I hung in a state of near unconsciousness on the edge of Fiusontha's mind, still stuck there, but barely awake enough to fight.

  I sensed nothing for one minute, then another.

  Something brushed my mind, a cool caress that made me open my eyes.

  "Jeth," said Elizabeth softly.

  She stood in the blank void, her usually cold mind open and inviting. Her pain was gone. I didn’t sense Fiusontha anywhere near.

  "What happened? Where is she?" I asked. Then, I thought in terror she might have done something to me. "Am I clean?"

  "No." Elizabeth's touch traced down the edges of my mind, a temporary balm to the fiery pain building within every part of me. "My pain is gone too."

  "Where is she?" asked Karen Myles approaching from one side.

  Elizabeth furrowed her brow in my imagined world.

  "I think she's gone inside his mind."

  "Inside?" I murmured.

  I searched memory and thought, rifling through my inner world. Fiusontha's presence throbbed in the center of everything, sending pulses of pain every other second. I could feel her emotion. She was furious.

  "I will burn you from within," she whispered at the edge of my mind, a thought that sounded like my voice, not hers. "You aren't worth cleaning, so you will die instead."

  I pushed toward her core, assailed her borders. I struggled, locked in mental combat with drones and internal barriers for seconds where I could focus on nothing else.

  When I broke through the shell was hollow. I stood in an illusion that filled all my senses. It appeared to be a graveyard on a forested hillside. Beneath trees, headstones pointed to the sky, rising slowly up the slope. I emerged at a projection at the gates, with no way of knowing how far it went.

  A feral urge pushed me to explore this place. I did not recognize it from my own memories. It must belong to Fiusontha somehow. I saw no other option. I started to climb.

  Unregistered Memory, Rebecca Waters, The Energy Farm

  Bayaluggia grabbed Jeth by the shoulder and started to pull him away from Fiusontha, where he clutched her wrist. Rebecca didn’t let her break the connection. She tore the aeon’s fingers from their grip on Jeth’s shoulder, and then shoved her backward.

  The city aeon shifted her grip and grabbed Rebecca. She twisted Rebecca’s arm and hurled her against the chain link fence on the side of the energy arm. Rebecca clanged against metal and then bounced back, leaving a dent in the material as flashes of pain flickered along her spine.

  “You’re stolen powers are waning. I can tell,” said Bayaluggia.

  Rebecca grimaced, but it was true. She felt the strength of the empowering soma leaving her bit by bit. She put up her hands and circled around Bayaluggia, trying to get closer to Jeth and the other aeon.

  For there part, both of them must be utterly absorbed in the mental struggle. Jeth’s pants were scored with holes rimmed by black traces of Fiusontha’s lethal fluid, and he likely wouldn’t be walking again anytime soon even if he won. Rebecca snarled in anger. She jabbed at the aeon. Bayaluggia retreated.

  “I’ll win. When the time is right.”

  “The hell you will.”

  Rebecca positioned herself between Bayaluggia and the pair locked in frozen mental combat. Jeanine caught her eye from the other side of Bayaluggia. The refugee girl held a backup pistol she must have hidden under her raincoat. Rebecca just had to buy time for her to aim, and she wouldn’t have to fight the aeon alone.

  She traded blows with Bayaluggia, lighter than the wild strikes Jeth and the others had dealt out. She maneuvered Bayaluggia into position, step by painful step. The aeon’s next blow wrapped around Rebecca’s arm. Lights flashed in her eyes as Bayaluggia’s fist glanced off the side of her head. Rebecca staggered sideways, grabbing Bayaluggia’s arm before she could pull it back. She held the aeon in place.

  Jeanine fired twice. Both shots hit Bayaluggia square in the back, splashing ichor across her black clothes. The aeon shook as electrical shocks arced through her. Jeanine had loaded the pistol with anti-aeon ammunition from Thomas’ crate.

  “Why did you do it?” Rebecca asked, forcing Bayaluggia to her knees with all remaining strength.

  “I didn’t want to see it.” The aeon’s eyes rolled in her head.

  “See what?”

  “What could happen next.” Bayaluggia spat blood and saliva into the mud at Rebecca’s feet. "What have we done to this world? What will we do to the others?"

  “The others?” Rebecca hissed.

  The aeon sank into a sitting position, eyes glazed with pain.

  “Jeanine,” said Rebecca, stepping back. “Keep an eye on her.”

  Jeanine kept her gaze down the barrel of the gun.

  “Will do.”

  Rebecca turned toward Jeth and Fiusontha. Rain still fell on the farm. She started forward. Then, Fiusontha’s arm twitched. The traces of black in the palm darkened with new fluid. Rebecca clenched her jaw and leaped ahead. She intercepted the aeon killer’s hand, and in the next instant, she plummeted into the monster’s mind.

  I picked my way up the hill through the mental graveyard. Tall grass and green weeds poked at my ankles. Dim sunlight filtered through clouds and trees. The gloom smelled of fresh loam, new life springing from between graves. Here I felt no pain from my body. The screams and cries and cold of Fiusontha's mind were gone as well, along with the smell of spilled blood.

  I climbed, passing a larger structure with a winged angel on top. Such an old symbol, but one realized in the world I knew by the protector aeons, secrets and all. This illusion was seamless, a memory not a construct or compilation of multiple moments.

  I doubted the virtual world would be so flawless with my presence unaccounted for, though it was possible. Whose part was I playing in this mind? A shiver ran down my spine. Fiusontha's presence lurked behind me, predatory and lethal.

  Looking over my shoulder, I scanned the way I had come. Nothing but grass and graves were visible there. Apart from being in Fiusontha's memory, I might well be buried beneath her conscious mind. Aeons held countless memories in their trees, connected to their bodies over seemingly unlimited distance. Frowning, I turned and continued up the hill.

  A hand brushed my shoulder. Startled, I cast about for the source, but the mind I felt was neither alien nor shadowy. Rebecca's presence glowed like an open flame beside me. I sighed with relief when I saw her projection.

  "Don't sneak up like that," I said.

  "I didn't sneak." Rebecca looked around. "This is the first place I came in."

  "We're in one of her memories," I said.

  "It makes sense." Rebecca turned to face me. "If she's nested most of her consciousness in your mind a lot of the old unconscious will be along for the ride.
"

  "Why this, though?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine. She's not exactly normal, not even for an aeon."

  My frown returned and deepened.

  "Right. This place could be important. We need to find out why."

  "If it's her memory, some version of her has to be around somewhere. Finding her here should give us context."

  "Right." I looked up the slope. A little tug in my gut urged me forward. "I've got a feeling she's this way."

  Rebecca glanced down the hill at the gates. Shadows filled the world beyond them. She nodded.

  "You came from down there. I'd bet you're right."

  We climbed upward together. I can admit, I felt a lot better with Rebecca there. I've been a skilled memeotect for years, but her prowess in mental combat exceeded mine by a giant leap.

  Nearing the top of the hill, I heard a soft whimper. A little girl with long black hair sat on a headstone by the back fence, crying. She looked up as Rebecca and I approached.

  "Daddy." Her voice was flat. She wiped tears from her eyes, looking at me. "You found me."

  "Yeah." A ghost of words spoken before passed through me, the words whoever the girl thought I was had said those years ago. I repeated them out loud as they appeared. "I wouldn't leave you for long. You're precious to me, child."

  "She never says that kind of thing to me," said the young Fiusontha, her voice cracking, frustrated. "Mother hates me."

  More words came, but this time I didn't want to say them. The words Fiusontha's father had said were some no child should hear from either parent.

  He had said, yes, she told me the same when I conversed with her. Forget her forever. She is human, and far from your real mother.

  Instead, I said, "That can't be true. She's your mother."

  The girl raised her head, eyes widening.

  "You don't know that."

  "Actually I do."

  "She told me to hide. The rest of them hate me too."

  Of course, they hate you. They are afraid of all of us. These people are backward. They don't matter any more than the grass on the ground or the moss on these stones.