CHAPTER 18
Death proved to be dark, noisy, and uncomfortable. It surprised Aquarius, who’d imagined it more as floating in the void. Quiet. Peaceful.
NOT!
His afterlife burned, and his life flashed in that nothingness.
The moment of his birth—Take it away. I don’t want to see it. Ah yes, the mother who didn’t want him. According to the family who adopted Aquarius, she’d been unwed, which, at the time, in the late eighteen hundreds, was considered a grievous crime.
The baby and toddler years flashed by. Happy times.
As a pre-teen, he saw himself rolling a hoop, before a bully knocked him down and stole it. He’d not retaliated since he only fought when those weaker got attacked. Meaning the bully later got a fist to the face—several times—when he went after Aquarius’ younger brother.
There was his first crush. Amelia of the golden curls, who gave him sweet kisses but then married the banker’s boy.
He relived his first death, jumping through a hole in the ice to save the teen who fell through.
While he’d managed to heave them out, the friends who carried the teen off to a warm place left Aquarius to die on the ice.
He might have been bitter but for the second chance he received in that moment.
Then onwards to his life as a Zodiac Warrior, fighting monsters in the early years, but as technology evolved—from horses to cars, electricity and phones, to finally computers—he developed a fascination for it. He found ways to use the advances to make their missions more productive and safer.
The replay of his life finished with his last days spent with Ishar. He would have whimpered if he had a voice when he was only allowed to relive their last night once. He wouldn’t mind it playing over and over again for all of eternity.
Upon the moment of his death—frozen on Mars, not exactly how he’d imagined—the burning sensation faded and he descended into pure darkness. Eternal quiet. A nothingness that would have grated if he had any feelings left.
The silence ended with a gurgling, followed by a sensation of floating, as if he were weightless. Bubbles tickled across his flesh, only he didn’t have body. Right?
Wrong.
Sensation returned slowly with pins and needles jabbing every single nerve. His feet—Wait, I have feet?—planted on something solid, and as his auditory sense returned, he heard the suction of fluid being evacuated.
A whoosh led to air rushing against his damp skin, and he shivered. He also quivered, his legs trembling with the effort of keeping him upright.
“Wake up,” a female voice said. “Open those eyes and show me you’re in there and that I didn’t work my ass off for nothing.”
Strange… That sounded like Ishtar. But Ishtar was dead, like him. Had his soul found her?
Tap. Tap.
The slap against his cheek certainly felt real. He opened his eyes and blinked. Blame the bright light. Could Heaven tone it down?
“There you are,” she crooned. “The next few moments will be disorienting as your mind and body adjust to one another.”
Adjust to what? The blur in front of his face began to clear and filled with—
“Ishtar.” The word whispered past lips that felt as if they belonged to someone else.
“Yes, it’s me.” She offered him a bright smile. “And what’s your name?”
He opened his mouth to say Aquarius, only to pause. That wasn’t right. His last act before dying had been to relinquish his Zodiac Warrior status. His old name didn’t seem correct either, so he settled on the one he liked most. “I’m Reece.”
“Excellent. Can you take a step forward for me? Let’s get you out of the tank so I can wrap you in a towel.”
A towel would be nice, as his body still shivered. Definitely not an avatar anymore. He’d not felt temperature since his first death.
His legs obeyed, even as they felt detached. One foot up and forward then down. Definitely his. The floor, while warm, pressed solidly against the sole.
“Good. Hold still while I cover you up.” She meant it quite literally. A soft length of fabric draped around his shoulders, and she pulled it tight around his body. Heat radiated from it, relaxing his tremors. She used a smaller towel to reach up and scrub at his hair.
“How am I not dead?” he asked. “How are you not dead? What’s happening? I saw the Kukakk kill you. Twice.”
“Yeah, which was unfortunate. Good thing I had a spare clone.”
“Wait, you had more than one?”
“Tanks fail. Sometimes the clone itself is defective. I’ve got several tanks scattered throughout the citadel as a just-in-case.”
“That would have been good to know,” his wry reply.
“Would you have acted less stupidly if you had?”
“Probably not.” His mouth quirked.
As he began to become more aware, Reece glanced around and saw the glass cylinder he’d stepped out of. “You put me in a tank. Is that why I’m not dead?” Because he distinctly remembered freezing on the citadel rooftop.
”Oh, you died. Idiot. What were you thinking going outside without a suit?”
“I had a helmet.” A lame retort.
“Which protected your head, but the rest of you…” She sighed. “By the time I reached you, your ass was more solid than the hunks of steak I kept in my freezer.”
“I didn’t realize the Martians had the medical technology to thaw and bring people back to life.”
“We’ve advanced, but even we can’t do that. Luckily, I managed to extract a viable genetic sample.”
It took second for his sluggish brain to figure it out. “You cloned me.”
“Not easily. Growing you a new body turned out to be the easy part. I never thought to get a copy of your mind before I left. Luckily, your dumb rock of a brain froze instantly. The extraction process of your memories was a bit tricky, though, seeing as how I had to carefully thaw and then reactivate your neural pathways for transfer. So far, you seem intact.”
“Meaning what?”
“Could be you’ll find yourself with holes. AKA, you’ll try to remember something, and it just won’t be there. While I did my best to get everything, you did die.” The last emerged accusatory. “In better news, your clone is in perfect health, but I did tweak your genetics slightly.”
“You didn’t give me a tail, did you?” He only half joked.
“While tempting, I stuck to strength, longevity, resistance viruses, oh and stamina, because you’re going to need it.”
“Oh?” He purred the syllable, but she shook a finger at him.
“Not for that. Not yet at least. First, you’re going to listen to the epic harangue I prepared, and it starts with, what the fuck did you think you were doing?”
“Which part? Because the coming-to-Mars part was a no-brainer. When I saw you go down and the Kukakk take off in your ship, I knew I had to come here. Would have been here sooner if Nimrod hadn’t blocked me from getting to the portal,” he stated sourly.
“On my orders because I wanted to handle the Kukakk without putting you in danger.”
His brows rose. “Oh, because it’s so much better that you were the one in peril.”
“I had spare bodies. I was fine,” she groused.
“I guess Nimrod didn’t think so since it eventually let me use the portal. And a good thing, too, because I managed to destroy the Kukakk after it killed you again!” He didn’t hide his annoyance at having lived through her death twice.
Her lips twisted. “Yeah, it caught me off guard. Your fault. When I realized you were wandering the citadel, I did a quick copy of myself and then started looking for you instead of watching for the Kukakk.”
“Well, that Ishtar told me to take out the fucker, so I technically was listening to you.”
“My dumb ass should have told you to wait while my clone revived. I arrived minutes after it was all said and done, and let me tell you, seeing you dead was not fun.” She glared.
He glared right back. “Gee, I don’t know how that feels. Oh wait, I do, times two.”
Her lips curved. “Maybe we should avoid that in the future.”
“Agreed.”
“Now on to why you died. You gave up your avatar status.”
Not asked, stated. “I did. I made a deal with the Aquarius Astraeus. Actually, more like I asked it to do me a favor and it agreed.” He paused before asking, “Did it work?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute. I told you I didn’t want you sacrificing yourself for a dead planet.”
“I made you a promise I’d fix Mars if you helped with the Kukakk.”
“And I told you to forget about that deal. Not to mention, if you thought I was dead, why the hell would you have gone through with it?”
He shrugged. “Because.”
“Because you’re a big dumb hero,” she growled. She grabbed his towel and yanked him close. “Brave. Selfless. Honorable.”
“Really hoping you’re going to add handsome in there.”
“As if your looks matter. It’s what’s inside your skin that attracts me most.”
His heart tightened. “Ditto, but I’m gonna add you’re pretty damned hot, which makes the whole package even nicer.”
She snorted. “You do realize I have the medical knowledge to change my appearance to anything I want.”
He arched a brow. “So that fantasy I had of being with a red-haired, green-skinned Martian woman can still come true?”
She stared at him.
He grinned.
She shook her head. “Really wondering why I like you.”
“Because I’m awesome?”
“I’m still mad at you. If I’d not moved quickly, I’d be yelling at your corpse.”
“Let me ask again, did it work? Did the Astraeus restore the magnetic field?”
Her lips pressed tight. “It did, and the atmosphere is already starting to rebuild, but what made you even think of trying that?”
“Nimrod and the prophecy. With the latter, we assumed a few things, like the fact I’d have to die.”
“Um, you did.”
“Not really. or we wouldn’t be arguing right now. It occurred to me the Astraeus never wept when they lost an avatar, so why would they start with me? Which led to me realizing they wouldn’t, but what if one of them transformed into something else, say the guardian of a planet?”
“You took a big risk.”
“So did you but guess what. We are two for two. The Kukakk is gone, and Mars is making its comeback. Curious question, though, how do stars weep?”
“By blinking and dripping gobs of light. Scientists on Earth were baffled, then again, it doesn’t take much to confuse them.” She smirked.
“What happened to the Aquarius constellation stars?”
“Why don’t you come see for yourself?”
“I don’t suppose I could get some pants first?”
She eyed him up and down. “Nope. Your naked ass will think twice before running outside.”
“Can we even go out there?”
“Not without a suit, but I doubt we’ll need those for long. The time I spent reviving you, the Astraeus has been working hard to rebuild the atmosphere.”
“What makes you think it’s the one doing it?”
“Because what should have taken years has happened in days.” She tugged him by the hand and led him from the room with the cloning tank into a chamber he’d not yet seen. A grand room with vaulted ceilings and an ornate patterned floor, but it was the massive stone throne that really caught the eye.
She ignored the seat of her power, though, and dragged him to a window.
A window no longer covered by heavy shutters, showing a sky hinting of orange. Through the glass, he could see a glowing nimbus arcing overhead.
“What’s that?”
“Mars’ new god. It seems the stars it used to inhabit are now wrapped around the planet.”
“Cool. Does this mean you’ll be waking up the folks in statis?”
“Soon. We’ll need to supply the citadel before we even think of doing that. Or do you want to deal with some hangry Martians?”
“Good point.” He wrapped his arms around Ishtar and tucked her against him.
She leaned back and murmured, “I’m sorry I left without telling you.”
“So am I, especially because I never had a chance to say I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
That startled. “I kind of expected you to tell me it’s too soon.”
“Not when it’s right. I knew from the moment we met that we belonged together.”
“You sure didn’t act like it.”
“Because I didn’t think I deserved love.”
“Of all the people in this galaxy, you deserve it most. And lucky me, I get to prove it to you every day of our lives.”