The Afflicted Zodiac Complete Series

by M J Marstens

  Nyam tips his head back and laughs uproariously.

  “You think too much,” he says when he finally gets himself under control. “But you are right. The twins could only cross dimensions when they were simultaneously direct. Which made me wonder if the same could be true for the others.”

  I make a face. For all the planets to be direct at the same time was an even rarer occurrence than Uranus and Neptune being direct together.

  “Exactly,” Nyam says, reading my look. “But I had a theory. I wanted to push my light energy to see if I could make them all go direct long enough to meet in the third dimension. I had no idea if once I stopped pushing they would all be flung back to their domiciles, but everyone was game to try.”

  “Even Moon?” I ask, surprised she would risk exposing her infidelity to them.

  “Even Lina,” Nyam corrects.

  “Why do you call her Lina, but each other by your god names?” I question.

  “Because names have power and we refuse to strengthen her god form by using her planetary name.”

  I mull this over in my head.

  Shit, how long have I been giving that lady power?

  “And so, I impelled my energy to make all the planets direct,” Nyam continues. “To all our surprise, it allowed everyone to jump realms, and we met in the agreed-upon third dimension. When I released my light, no one was sent back to their domicile. Of course, a small celebration ensued as the others finally got to meet one another. At this time, everyone was still operating under the guise of not mentioning their relationship with Lina to spare me my feelings,” he says the last part with a sardonic twist of his lips.

  “And you said the third dimension was empty?”

  “Mostly, some things already existed when we came, though. A handful of moons, asteroids, and a couple of planets, one a dwarf. We each set up a planet, replicating our domiciles. Your solar system is like a picture of our realms, but not divided by dimension. So I made the sun at the center, then Mercury added his planet, then Lina added hers, and so forth. When we had finished adding these reminders of our homes, Lina proposed we create something together.”

  “Which was-” I start to ask, but cut off abruptly when I feel a strange tingle run down my spine.

  I instantly shoot up off the divan, unnerved by the sensation.

  “What’s wrong?” Kane asks.

  “Don’t you feel that?” I wonder out loud.

  All eight men shake their heads no.

  I turn to look at all the corners of the room while hugging myself, but the unease does not subside, and I cannot pinpoint its location. It feels like it’s everywhere, crawling over me. I open my mouth to try and explain what I’m feeling to the guys, when an eerily familiar laugh echoes through the room.

  Fuck.

  I would know Queen Coocoo’s laugh anywhere.

  The man-gods promptly spring into action, changing to their god-forms in an instant. I see Khal’s and Caed’s familiar red forms and I try not to look at Nyam’s blinding one. To my left, Kane is a towering green giant (albeit not currently jolly) and Mio is grey with horns, just like his planetary glyph of Mercury. Arawn is a dusky purple and the twins are gorgeous shades of blue. One is colored like the sky and the other like the sea.

  I do not get much time to appreciate their unique appearances because they move to make a circle around me, encasing me in a sphere of colored muscles. The deranged laughter sweeps around us, but the physical source cannot be seen.

  I feel something. . . or someone. . . tug a strand of my hair and let out a startled shriek. All eight men turn to face me, placing protective hands on my body. For a second in time, we are all touching. . . all connected.

  That moment freezes into a curious time lapse where it feels like we are being stretched like a rubber band pulled in all directions. Just as quickly, the elasticity of it snaps back and an invisible force bursts through the room, whizzing us through space and time.

  CHAPTER 11

  ZAHRA

  I groan, rolling over on the soft carpet of the office room. . . except I’m no longer in there. . . instead I’m lying in what appears to be a field of purple. And not purple like from lavender plants, but purple. . . grass? Around me, the eggplant-hued meadow sways gently from the soft, warm breeze blowing.

  The grass stalks in my vicinity are flattened into a large circle shape, but the rest stands tall, blocking my view of the horizon. The sky is mint green and cloudless. Pale, long, blonde hair swirls playfully in the wind. I reach a handout to catch the pallid tresses and notice my hand is pink again.

  Fuck.

  I’m in What’s-her-face’s body again.

  (And by ‘What’s-her-face’, I mean I have no clue.)

  I sit up and cautiously look around. Where the hell am I? Who the hell am I? I sound like the Wilfred Brimley parody from Family Guy. . . Who the hell did I hit? I let out a cackle. Oh stupid adult cartoons, how you make me laugh. A lazy voice speaking from behind me makes me squeal in surprise.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

  Nyam.

  Except, when I turn around, I don’t see Nyam. I see a delicious-looking man colored a deep citrine. Everything on him gives the impression of golden light and he seems to glow from within.

  “Nyam?”

  “In the flesh, mon coeur.”

  “Why are you yellow and why don’t you look like. . . you?”

  Aside from the voice, nothing else matches his human form. He is even taller, with more muscles and butterscotch colored eyes. His face seems less angular and the overall outline of his features are blurred as if sunshine is distorting them.

  “Because I’m in god-form.”

  “Uh, then why can I see you?”

  Before, he had been pure, blinding light. I couldn’t have tried to perceive a form within the glaring harshness of him before.

  “I was using my light to control the others, who are also blinded by its intensity. Humans cannot handle the light of my true form, not even gods in their human shell. The others are merely used to it, similar to those who stare at the sun. They have built an immunity to it over the years and recover faster. But you were not, and it made you sightless momentarily. Now that you are in your natural state, your eyes do not discern my light in the same manner.”

  “My natural state?”

  Again, my conversational skills must seem really stellar, but I swear to god I never know what these guys are yammering on about.

  “Why do you think you are pink?” He asks me.

  “I don’t know, I was going to ask you. Whose body have I taken over?”

  “You can figure out what makes retrograde planets jump dimensions but not whose body you are in?”

  “Dude, we are standing in a field of purple weeds, with a sky that makes me wish we were eating some mint chocolate ice cream, with me inside a body colored like Barbie’s dream house- this is not the time to test me.”

  “Barbie, huh? I suppose as Venus that is an accurate description,” he comments, fingering my long, long, long hair.

  And then it clicks.

  Crap on a cracker. . .

  This rosy eyesore is my girl-god form, isn’t it?

  Alright Trust Tree members, remember when I said there was a fine line between honesty and lying? It’s really not that fine. . . in fact, it’s pretty much one or the other and right now I need you to lie to me.

  How badly do I look?

  Not that badly, you say?

  Like Popstar Barbie met a hooker, who met Rapunzel, and then got into some body-paint, you say?

  We need to work on your lying skills.

  “I don’t want to be pink!” I wail like a whiney, little bitch.

  “Suck it up, buttercup. We have bigger concerns.”

  “Such as?” I ask petulantly.

  “We are stuck in the fourth dimension and sitting on a faery ring-”

  “A fairy ring!” I exclaim excitedly. �
��I have always wanted to meet a fairy!”

  Nyam looks at me askance, clearly questions my sanity.

  “Stop looking at me like I’m two nuts short of the squirrel tree!” I snap.

  “What does that even mean? Is that even really a saying?”

  “It is in northern Minnesota!”

  (FYI: It’s not. I might be stretching that ‘fine line’ again.)

  “Listen Barbie, forget what you believe about faeries, not fairies. This is nothing like Disney, and Tinkerbell is not coming to help us.”

  I pout. First the Gert tells me this isn’t Harry Potter, and now Nyam the Dick tells me Disney is not real. Way to burst a 1990’s kid’s bubble.

  “Don’t knock Disney!” I yell, stalwartly defending my childhood memories.

  “I bet you even think mermaids are nice,” he sneers.

  “Hey, Ariel is a just a girl trying to make it in the human world, cut her some slack!”

  “Wake up Zahra, Walt didn’t base his shit on the real world. Isn’t Zeus married to Hera and their son is Hercules in the Disney rendition of the epic hero?”

  “Semantics,” I say, because he has me there.

  “Walt tried to contain the reality of the world inside a nicely squared box with a bright red bow tightly tied around it to keep it that way. I hate to break it to you, but you better pray we don’t ‘meet’ any faeries,” he warns.

  “And why is that?” I finally huff.

  “Remember whose domicile is the fourth dimension?”

  “Nope,” I respond, not even bothering to try and recall.

  Nyam tugs my hair until I stumble into him. His body is wonderfully warm and smells like the sunny days of summer. His eyes laugh down at me, as if he doesn’t even care I’m acting like a brat.

  “We are in Arawn’s domain. We are on Pluto.”

  CHAPTER 12

  SUN

  “Pluto?” She gasps, her enchanting rosebud lips round in surprise. “Huh, I figured it would. . . ya know, be colder or something. . .” She trails off, seemingly confused by the planet’s mild climate.

  I have to grin. You can take the goddess out of the human shell, but not the human out of the goddess, it would seem. I drink in her exquisite features while she looks around again, trying to figure out what happened. Lina is only a pale shadow in comparison to the lush perfection of the enchantress in front of me.

  Her hair is exceptionally long and reminds me of the color of spider silk, reflecting both sunlight and moonlight. Unfortunately, the delicate looking mass is going to cause problems. Zahra’s human tendencies have transferred into this form, I’m sure, and she is a walking disaster. It will only be a matter of time before she accidentally strangles herself with her own hair.

  “Don’t move,” is all the warning I give before I blast a beam of pure light from my fingers and it slices through her thick mane.

  The length now rests just above her luscious ass and even begins to curl at the ends, as if the previous weight could not support the natural ringlets. She lets out a sigh.

  “I didn’t realize how heavy all that hair was! Thank you. But next time- ask,” she commands fiercely.

  Polite and mouthy. . . the guys and I have really been missing out. Lina was all pretend innocence, but not our Zahra. She is refreshingly honest. And intoxicatingly gorgeous. Which is to be expected of someone who personifies beauty. Her eyes, though, are the same green as her human form, only brighter, almost turquoise.

  Her face is sculpted flawlessly with high cheekbones and gently arching eyebrows and her body is pure sin. Full breasts, tiny waist, flared hips, long legs. . . all encased in smooth, lovely pink skin. . . she is temptation incarnate. And she is naked.

  Obviously she has not realized she is impersonating Lady Godiva, and I made sure to form breeches around my lower half before she noticed me when we landed. The instant I felt the snap of energy, I knew what Lina had done. While our power is curtailed and suppressed in human forms, Lina’s just seems to grow. Probably because she is feeding off her creation as a whole.

  “Where are the others?” Zahra asks.

  “In opposite domiciles.”

  “Huh?” Comes her confused response.

  “Remember when I said each planetary god has their own domicile and their own powers derived from their domains?” She nods her head. “Well, we are only at full strength when inside our individual dimensions. The further away we are, the weaker we are. Except when we were all working together in the third dimension. I don’t know if it was our ‘teamwork’ or what, but not until Lina cursed us to Earth did we begin to weaken in that dimension. So this being the fourth dimension, Pluto’s domicile is almost as far as I can go from my domicile in the twelfth without collapsing.”

  “And that means Pluto. . . Arawn, right? He is stuck in your realm, eight dimensions up?”

  “Yes. Lina knows there is a chance we might break her curse, and not the way she had hoped for, and is trying to thwart us from doing so.”

  “She is using your hypsoma against you,” she says mostly to herself. “So if Mio is Mercury, he is in the next dimension up. . . which is Neptune’s or Illu’s domicile?” I see her struggle to fit who we are together and how this new piece of puzzle connects.

  “Yes and I’m trying to figure a way to get us to him- together, before we meet any fae.”

  “What’s so bad about faeries again?”

  “They are the protectors of this realm. Without Pluto here to reign them in, they consider us intruders and will soon come out to defend their homes. Remember, Pluto’s domicile is the Realm of Four Kingdoms. Here, the fae are intricately linked with each domain of rot. The faeries regulate toadstools, the elves regulate mushrooms, the trolls regulate mold, and yeasts are regulated by the goblins. Together, the faeries, elves, trolls, and goblins make up the fae. They are not cute, with wispy wings, and magical dust. They are part of their environment, barely even humanoid, and not functionally sentient enough to explain our presence to them. Which is why Lina sent you to this realm with me. She is hoping to kill us both off in a way that makes recreating our energy into our god-forms again nearly impossible.”

  “What’s that mean?” She asks in a screech.

  “If the fae get to us, they will consume us-”

  “When you say ‘consume’, do you mean-”

  “Eat. They will eat us. And then shit us out. And from their excrement comes the fungus spores and we will be scattered all over this dimension without a second thought and without anyone being the wiser. Our pieces will be too dispersed to put back together and quite frankly, I doubt there is anyone powerful enough to put us both back together, except for maybe Lina herself.”

  “Why did Arawn even make this beautifully deceiving hellhole?” She bellows.

  I slap a hand over her mouth.

  “Hush up, mon coeur, and calm yourself. These creatures are not bad, they are just doing their jobs. You cannot be any angrier at them than at a four-year-old who colors on the walls.”

  “Well, I think you and I have different survival-slash-parenting outlooks, because I would be angry at some kid coloring on my walls, and I’m totally pissed I might be eaten and then shit out as mold!”

  Never let it be said that Zahra’s doesn’t speak her mind.

  “So how do we get out of this mess?” She asks, hugging herself.

  I quickly give a small burst of power and am rewarded when I see a soft wrap dress caress her curves. Of course she is oblivious, but that small exertion taxed me. I must be careful if I want to get us out of here alive.

  “We need to get to the others and reunite. Our powers are stronger when we are together. Especially now that we have been freed into our god-forms. Unfortunately, that means we are rapidly nearing the end of our curse, if Lina feels comfortable enough to take us from our human shells.”

  “Ugh. I hate how you say ‘human shell’ like there is some poor Zahra husk floating around back on Earth. How do we ‘reunite’ everyone.
. .”

  “We make everyone direct, so we can jump dimensions together. But I’m so weak. There is no way I can do that. In all honesty, I probably can barely jump up into Neptune’s realm.”

  “How do you become stronger?” She asks.

  “By ‘feeding’. I must be in my own domicile to be at full strength, but outside my realm, I can feed on the souls of other life to sustain me. The more conscious the creature, the greater the energy transfer. Of course, the highest sentient form in any dimension is us and we can ‘feed’ one another without risking our souls. But again, that only works if the god I’m feeding from is at full strength. So when I would visit Pluto here, he was in his domicile and at his strongest. He could afford to give me a boost until I got back to my domicile to replenish myself fully.”

  “And ‘feeding’ entails what again?”

  I chuckle at her expression, her nose crinkled in curiosity and something else. . . perhaps the memory of Saturn feasting on human women. . . or perhaps the manner in which he was feasting. . .

  “Feeding can be allegorized to drinking in a person’s essence. Souls are fluid, and as such, it can be hard to harness the shifting energy. There are many ways to direct the soul’s essence to become more fixed, but sex is probably the easiest and most enjoyable. Since sex centers the soul energy, especially after orgasm, it makes it easy to ‘drink’ in.”

  Her nose scrunches up even more than before and her breathing becomes slightly erratic. From where I stand, a new perfume infuses the air: desire.

  Hers.

  I can feel my blood heat at the scent.

  I know where her thoughts have gone and even though our joining will have no effect on either of us gaining any real power, I’m more than happy to indulge her.

  “Is that,” she starts out hesitantly. “Is that how you and the guys shared power?”

  And of course, concerning her, I’m always wrong. She is not turned on by the idea of us fucking. . . she is turned on by the idea of me and the guys fucking. It’s my turn to look at her curiously.

  “Is that something you would like?” I tease, already knowing the answer. “To see Mercury and me kissing, while fisting our cocks in our hands and stroking one another until we come together?”