Jack rested his hand on the gnarled tree trunk and pulled cool night air into his lungs. His black cargo pants and dark blue sweatshirt were loose and comfortable. On the hill behind him, a massive spire reached into the sky, a memorial to those who lost their lives during World War I. Union Station loomed across the street, a massive stone block bathed in spotlights and shadow. He pictured generations of people saying goodbye, embracing on busy platforms with rumbling trains idling behind them. The station opened its giant brass doors for the first time in 1914. Images in his mind scrolled past like a movie. He sensed that they were more than impressions from a documentary, though. They were memories from a past life.

A chill ran up his spine, and he glanced back at the memorial. He remembered swarms of people gathering as the Supreme Allied Commanders stood on a platform at the base of the spire and dedicated the site to the Great War. It was 1921. Model-T Fords, overcoats, fedoras, and flags filled the crowd. He imagined himself in a polished wooden wheelchair, trying to catch a glimpse of the dignitaries. His legs ached, but he knew it was his mind playing tricks on him. He left his legs in a muddy field back in Europe more than a year before. He rolled his chair as close as possible. It was important for him to bear witness to the dedication. The hollow eyes of the dead followed him from the trenches. Their voices whispered in his ear. They spoke of pain and loss. His own and theirs. Sometimes, he caught glimpses of them walking through a crowd or staring out at him from the shadows. Pale faces in uniforms. Not all of them died in explosions or gunfire, the flu pandemic claimed just as many young lives. The newsreels never mentioned that, though.

Ann’s fear flared in the back of his mind, and he returned to the present. A small red Miata rolled into the parking lot. Ann stepped out of the car wearing a light blue t-shirt, red sneakers, and faded, low riding jeans. The man on the phone had not kidnapped her. Instead, he tricked her into coming too. Was it with a story about his own kidnapping? Would she put herself in danger for him? With keys in hand, she took a few steps, leaving the door ajar. Her head was tilting from side to side as if straining to hear something. Maybe she was trying to tune into his emotions as he tuned into hers.

He crept out from behind the tree and loped slowly across the street. Ann paced back and forth in front of her car. As he made his way across the median, her head snapped toward him. Jack wondered if she noticed him or felt him.

“Jack!”

“Shh.” He put his fingers to his lips. Across the parking lot, he saw a shadowy figure in a long brown coat and wide-brimmed hat gliding toward them. The figure moved like a jaguar padding across a field. As Jack stepped up to Ann, he put his hand on the small of her back and whispered into her ear, “This is a very bad guy.”

“I thought somebody kidnapped you,” she said.

“Same here, but it looks like it was a trick.”

They took a step toward the car, but the predator reached them first. The man glared at them with the same clouded gray eyes as the night before. Jack shoved his fear down. The muscles in Ann’s back tensed. The man tilted his head and smiled under the wide brim of his hat.

“What is this?” Jack asked.

The man stared at them for a moment before answering. “More than you know,” he finally said. His voice was a blade skimming across a sharpening stone. But it wasn’t the voice from the phone call. Heat radiated from the man’s smooth bronze skin.

“Who are you?” Ann asked. They each took a step backward, ready to run.

“Janile, that’s enough,” a new voice called out behind them.

They both spun toward the newcomer. But Jack caught Ann, stopping her short, so they were standing sideways between Janile and the new figure, an eye on each.

“Stop scaring our friends,” the man said. “Go watch.”

This was the voice from the phone call. Janile nodded without a word and backed away. Jack felt hatred crash into him for just a moment before vanishing. Had it been a slip of willpower on Janile’s part? Did Janile have the same abilities as him?

“Sorry I’m late children,” the man said. The newcomer wore a dark tailored suit over his muscular form. He was the same height as Jack, had a square jaw, and bright blue eyes. And while Jack’s hair was dark, this man’s hair was a deep black.

“What do you want with us?” Jack asked. His anxiety twisted into Ann’s until it was a single swirl of agitation and fear gnawing at the back of his mind. He wondered again if she felt the same thing. Why hadn’t Millae warned him about enemies hunting him? Was this Jode’s follower? Maybe since the demon was out of his head with no more control over him, his followers would come to claim him. But why?

“There is so much to teach you,” the man said.

A sledgehammer of emotion barreled into Jack, sending him to his knees. Ann sank down beside him. It felt like controlled rage tearing through his mind, tossing aside information it didn’t need. Is this what Ben felt like when he was moving through his childhood memories? He doubted it. Jack suspected that this man’s power was on a different level.

White-hot pain coursed through his body, and the smell of burned hair and sweat filled his nostrils. Were they being cooked from the inside? He gritted his teeth, glared through blurred vision in what he hoped was the general direction of the man’s face, and tried to push back. Slowly, painfully, he added more will. He tried to roar his defiance, but it came out as a moan.

“My name is Darean,” the man said. The surge of emotion shut off like someone closed the tap. They fell forward onto their hands as if paying homage.

“And, you are Ann, and you are Jack.” He gave a slight nod to each as he spoke their names. Jack grunted in response, and reached over, helping Ann stagger to her feet beside him. She had bloodshot eyes and glistening sweat-soaked skin.

“What are you?” Jack’s voice was raw, and he clung to Ann’s arm.

“That is a good question,” Darean said. “But the important question is, who are you?”

Jack felt the glare of battlefield corpses staring back at him as he looked into Darean’s cool blue eyes. He shuddered.

“Nobody,” Jack said. “We’re nobody.”

Darean narrowed his eyes and looked at the pair closely. “Something interrupted your bonding, you didn’t awaken.”

“What does that mean?” Jack asked, stalling. He knew what it meant. Millae told him he would find her and bond, that he would awaken. But Darean thought they were interrupted. Why? Was he not awakened? Jode’s remnant was gone, replaced by Ann. His new abilities to see and feel other people’s emotions felt like an eruption inside him. What else was there to awaken? He took a small step forward, putting himself between Ann and Darean.

“It means you’ll go mad and die and start all over again because you’re Nostshen, cursed by Millae to be reborn without end. If you do not bond with a female, your sanity will drip away. It is the Shen madness.” Jack and Ann stared at him. He continued with a resigned sigh as if speaking to young children. “Millae and Jode are the creators of life on Earth and you are Nostshen, the cursed offspring. Humans are your descendants.”

“Descendants,” Jack said, drawing the word out slowly. A fog was drifting over his mind. He thought he already knew this, Millae told him in the In-between. But he wouldn’t go mad now. He had already been mad, had committed suicide, had heard Jode’s whispers, and felt urges to commit unspeakable violence. He acted on those whispers more than once.

But he was back from the In-between now and bonded with Ann. Did Jode’s whispering voice, all those years, cause his urges, or was it really the Shen madness creeping up on him? Or maybe he was crazy now and all this was a delusion. Maybe he was still laying in that ditch next to his motorcycle. He glanced around the parking lot and rubbed his index finger and thumb together, feeling the texture of his skin. It was something he often did when the voice was particularly strong, something that grounded him in the present.

“This is real,” he said, slurring his speech. Darean smiled pleasantly. Jack’s eyes glazed over, and his mouth hung open.

“I am Nostshu, one of seven gods who remain to bring order to the world. We were created by Jode after he cast Millae aside.” Darean paused, searching the faces of the enthralled Shen for comprehension. “My disciples are the Nostshi and Nostmara. While you pay penance for burning the world in the first age, we bring peace and balance through order. And I can help you find peace, Jack.”

“That sounds nice,” Jack said. He could feel Darean rooting around in his mind, looking for something.

“It will be nice, but you have to help me first,” Darean said.

“I like this place,” Jack said, looking up to Union Station and then over to the World War I memorial. A lazy smile crossed his lips. He hoped Darean found what he needed.

“What do you remember about the memorial, Jack?” Darean asked in a soothing tone. “I see fragments of your memories and know you were here in another life. Let’s travel back and find out who you are. And then you can help me find the Isle of Song. Don’t you want to help me find the Isle, Jack?”

“Of course,” Jack said. “It’s a nice place.”

Darean narrowed his eyes. “You’ve seen it, child?” he said.

“Sure,” Jack said, “I talked to Millae there. She was sitting by the water.”

“When? During your awakening?” Darean’s voice was sharp, and he took a step toward Jack.

“Oh no, I was dead.”

“The In-between,” Darean said. “When were you there?” He pressed more will into the boy. Jack’s eyes rolled back into his sockets, veins expanding, filling the white space with the deep red color of blood. He moaned and staggered back into Ann.

“When,” Darean demanded in a low growl. Jack closed his eyes and trembled without responding, and Darean forced himself to calm down, gently nudging a sense of calm into the boy.

“The memorial is good, so many of us died,” Jack whispered when he finally opened his bloodshot eyes. He was staring at the monument across the street.

“That’s right, Jack, tell me about the memorial,” Darean said, slowly pushing more will into the boy. “Were you at the dedication?” Jack convulsed and blood swirled in the whites of his eyes.

“Someone on the stage is staring at me,” he said.

“More,” Darean said.

“My legs hurt.”

“What else?” Darean asked.

“Something isn’t right. The man next to the general is staring at me. I have to leave,” Jack said.

“Where did you go?” Darean asked.

“I can’t tell you,” Jack drew in a ragged breath, “I don’t know what the Isle of Song is. Why are you doing this?”

Jack screamed.

“Good,” Darean said with a nod. “You were the broken Shen in the wheelchair that day. I followed you to your apartment, do you remember?”

“My apartment,” Jack said.

“Filthy.” Darean grimaced at the memory. “See your other life through my eyes, child,” Darean said, sending the command into Jack’s mind.

As he stood in the ramshackle one-bedroom apartment, all those years ago, he could sense the phantom pain of the boy’s severed legs. Deep, angry scars formed a spider web across his neck and face. He assumed more damage was hiding under the grimy white t-shirt. His wheelchair smelled of oil and whiskey. This Shen had never bonded, never awakened. The tide of World War I swept him up before he had a chance to find a female. And the horror of the trenches, the men dying around him, triggered the lurking Shen madness.

The sad Shen’s broken mind was filled with mud, blood, and death from this life and many before. After a few minutes of interrogation, it was clear that the Shen was not the one he sought, that he did not know where the Isle of Song was.

“I give you this mercy,” Darean said, as he plunged the kitchen knife into the Shen’s throat. The boy convulsed in his chair, choking, and a gurgling sound filled the room as his life’s blood gushed down the front of his grimy shirt. Darean stepped back quickly, running a hand down his pristine pinstriped business suit. Shen’s blood was valuable. Normally he would harvest it for his Shi disciples, but he was pressed for time. The train for Washington D.C. left in less than an hour and as a senior adviser to the commanding generals he had to be on that train.

“That’s enough, Darean,” a woman’s voice severed his connection with Jack and catapulted them both from the memory.

Jack’s self-awareness rushed back into him like a mental tsunami. He gasped and shook off the phantom pain in his legs, clutching his chest and throat to make sure there wasn’t a blade sunk into his flesh.

“What is the Isle of Song,” Ann asked, shaking off her own mental fog.

“It is what we seek, child,” Darean said, looking past them. Jack followed his line of sight. A dark figure stood on the edge of Union Station’s roof, high above the parking lot.

“I’ve lost them, Janile,” Darean said. His blue eyes did not waiver from the rooftop. Jack grabbed Ann’s hand and started to tug her away, but the pair froze as the woman stepped into empty air. Instead of smashing into the ground, she calmly raised her arms, long coat billowing above her. Strands of lightning reached up and poured into her from the concrete below. The bluish-white fingers of energy cradled her, slowing her descent until she landed on her feet with a bounce. She strutted out of the landing, moving toward them.

“Run,” Jack said. He gaped at the woman from a distance as they sprinted past her toward the parking garage. She had shoulder-length dark hair, pale skin, and what he thought was a long coat was actually a black cloak. She wore a modest fitting white peasant blouse, tucked into skin-tight blue leather pants. The pants plunged into knee-high brown boots. She could have been mistaken for a Renaissance Fair actor, except for the rich red blood pulsing through her eyes and the lightning dancing up and down the length of her body.

“Very dramatic, Laean,” Darean said.

“You can’t have them, demon.”

Darean moved his eyes to the corner of the building where Jack and Ann had fled. “You overestimate yourself,” he said.

Jack could feel the struggle of wills behind him as his legs pounded into the asphalt. They skidded around the first pillar in the parking garage as he heard the clash of metal. He wondered what was happening but didn’t dare stop. Just as they rounded the second pillar, a figure stepped out in front of him.

“Jack,” the man said, but the world slowed, and Jack threw out his free hand in front of him as if to stop the man from advancing. His vision blurred and a pressure in his skull crushed all thought. His skin bristled with goosebumps and he imagined a raging current of pain flowing up from the ground. A writhing white torrent of lightning burst from Jack’s outstretched hand, smashing into the stranger. The man flew backward and slammed into the pillar. He lay in a smoldering heap.

“Is he dead?” Ann asked.

Jack looked at the unconscious man and then down at the remnants of static electricity twisting over his hand.

“I don’t know,” Jack said.

“How did you do that?” Ann said. “The lightning came up from the ground, I felt it.”

“I think I was just the conductor,” Jack said.

The sound of clashing steel rang out from the parking lot behind them. He turned and saw Laean on the hood of Ann’s car. They swung swords covered in writhing electricity. The speed of the violence captivated him.

“He’s moving!” Ann said, pointing at the man on the ground.

The man’s chestnut-colored skin smoldered under his jacket and jeans. He reminded Jack of his guide in the In-between somehow, except younger. Jack wondered why Janile hadn’t sounded the alarm for his master. Maybe this man had killed him, but it didn’t matter now.

“Move,” he said, grabbing Ann’s hand. Without looking back, he pulled her into the darkness of the parking garage.