Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

far as I know. But I have to remember it’s not really Jackson, just as the woman before me isn’t really Julia. They’re spirits physically manifesting themselves so I can interact with them. As bizarre as that is.

She takes my hands in hers. “Will you come with me? We haven’t much time. But if we hurry, you can return to your people before Cain and his entourage arrive. He is not nearly as fleet of foot as the warriors he sent ahead.”

Everything about this is so sudden: her appearance after weeks of being absent, the news about Jackson/Gaia, and now this plea for me to intervene—to rescue Cain’s people from an impending onslaught of UW troops. Why do I have to be the one to save the day?

The truth is, no matter how heroic my deeds may seem to others, they never come close to changing the way I see myself. I can’t do anything to make up for the past. I’ll never find sweet redemption after what I did in the bunker so long ago.

I was a killer. Saving lives now won’t change that.

But looking into Julia’s eyes makes anything seem possible. She loves me, this strange spirit I can never hope to understand. She believes in me. And during these recurring moments of indecision and low self-esteem, her trust is all I need to make up my mind.

“All right,” I say. “Let’s go.”

We take to the skies together, hand in hand, the golden aura of dawn’s approach warming our backs and casting the landscape before us in stark relief against storm clouds gathering over the brackish sea. The air, chilled by the night, rushes over us and whips Julia’s hair back from her brow like a glittering mane. She smiles at me, and I wink at her behind my dusty goggles. She doesn’t wear any, doesn’t need them, barely blinking in the cold that would have shivered my eyeballs in their sockets.

Without a word, she points out the mass of figures moving below, heading east. Cain and his people—it has to be. I bank left and hurl myself upward in a steeper trajectory. The last thing I need is a bullet in the gut from an overzealous member of Cain’s tribe. Julia matches my course and speed. Together we pass over the remaining kilometers of sand and ash until we reach rolling mounds and windswept dunes. Eventually they flatten to welcome the poisoned, frothing ocean waves that break onto shore.

Julia points again, this time at a lone figure standing on the seashore a couple hundred meters to the south of Cain’s Shipyard, beyond a hill of grey sand and scattered debris. I give her a thumbs-up to show I understand, and we make our descent, dropping to the sand within fifty meters of where the man stands, oddly out of place.

“Impressive,” Julia remarks after my landing. Of course she remembers my fledgling attempts that would send me flailing across the ground like a broken bird.

“Lots of practice.” Barely an extra step this time before I’ve regained my balance. I turn my attention to the figure before us, a man who appears to be reclining at an odd angle on a pair of iron poles sunk deep into the wet sand. Has he fallen asleep out here? “Who’s this?”

Her expression clouds. “Come and see.”

She leads me to the corpse—for that’s what it is, the body of a man staked into the ground, two rods crossing through his flesh to form a large X. Judging by his thermal bodysuit, he was a member of the UW team.

I can’t help wincing at the sight. I’ve seen more than my share of death—been the cause of a lot of it—but what happened to this man was brutal. It shows no respect for his dignity, much less his life.

“Did Jackson—?”

“He cannot harm your kind in this way.” She shakes her head. “He can only influence those he’s deceived to do such things for him.”

“Cain.”

Julia’s silence is confirmation enough.

“What the hell is he thinking? Does he want all-out war?” I turn toward the sea where the Argonaus sits in the distance.

They will have already seen this man’s body. They’ve probably recorded images to send back to their superiors in Eurasia and are now awaiting orders. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what those orders will be: terminate all hostiles with extreme prejudice.

But from what I’ve observed—hovering above the bridge of the Argonaus in the dead of night and listening in on conversations among the senior officers—Captain Mutegi is a far cry from the hot-headed, bloodthirsty military stereotype popularized by the Sector rebels decades ago. The same goes for the members of the UW team I’ve met. Either the United World military has grown softer and hopefully wiser over the years, or these people are exceptions to the rule. Regardless, Mutegi seems to have a level head on his shoulders, and he won’t act rashly at the sight of this heinous crime.

I hope.

“We should bury him. Now. We can’t leave him out here like this. The sun—” I move to pull the body down from the iron stakes. Lengths of rebar, by the looks of them. “Anytime you feel like lending a hand...” I grunt, hugging the body.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help,” Julia apologizes. “I cannot interact with humans who can’t see me.”

“Because he’s dead.”

“Even if he were alive. He was not open to the spirit world as you and Daiyna are.”

“How would you know that?” I frown at the mention of Daiyna’s name. Just as Margo surmised, all is not well back at the Homeplace, and Daiyna has caused most of the discord, from what I can tell. “Were you with them—the crew, before Margo found them?”

Julia nods. “This one was full of anger and fear.” She holds an open hand toward the dead man. “There was no way for me to reach him. He died acting rashly. If I didn’t know better, I would say Jackson had influenced him, too.”

I