She could never atone for her acts. If she spent the rest of her life serving mankind, it could not make up for them. Jorje was right in wanting to kill her. He should have done it . . . should have done it. . . .
He should have . . .
"Arise, child of the Universe."
The words sounded like beautiful music, and Lily rolled to her side, wondering where they had come from. Her sobs were now just intermittent hiccups, but the pressure on her heart remained.
No one was there. The mist had cleared. She sat up leadenly and dropped another scoop of water on the rocks. Steam rose, spiraling toward the ceiling.
Then the lodge was filled with intense light. On the edges of the field she saw white feathers—on a wingspan ten times that of the hawk's. Then a being emerged. Long golden hair, eyes the color of the bluest sky, a robe so white it shimmered like polished silver. Man or woman she could not say.
"Wipe away your tears, Lily Angelica DeLaVega," the being said. "We have much to talk about."
* * *
He was lying in a pool of blood red water, battered by rain and wind. Mud clung to his ragged coat. The sound of thunder was growing distant. He barely noticed the lightning anymore.
The runoff was nearly to his nose. Tony weakly lifted his head and managed to move to higher ground before his thick neck gave out. His surroundings began to fade.
He wasn't going to make it, he realized. Bear would die of his wounds here in the rain-soaked forest, and he would perish with him. His lids fell shut over his round dark eyes. Filled with regret, he resigned himself to his fate. It would be easier, he thought, if he knew Lily was safe, that Shala would grow up all right without him. It would be so much easier.
Soon he'd lose consciousness, and knowing this, he tried one last time to change form. He thought again of Lily—how much he loved her . . . needed her. How much she needed him. Suddenly a shift occurred within his body. His eyes snapped open. He lifted his weary head. Something rose, taking the numbing pain away.
"Call on me again, Brother," he heard Bear say.
Then he was above the earth, white wings straining against the fierce air current. He let out a shrill cry of exaltation, caught an updraft that lifted him high above the leafy canopy. Another time he would have celebrated this success, but now he dipped earthward again, searching for Lily. Although she'd sworn Sebastian wouldn't hurt her, he didn't share her certainty, and each time he saw a shape on the forest floor his heart clutched in terror. But when he descended to investigate, he found only fallen trees or cringing animals caught in the fierce storm and seeking shelter as they could. Finally, convinced she wasn't there, he headed for the lodge.
Except for the wails of the rainstorm and the flap of the billowing curtain hanging over the door, all was quiet as he approached. He dropped to the ground several feet from the lodge, bereft over not finding Lily, and resumed human form. Where could he go from here? Nowhere, at least not in the driving rain.
He would crawl into the lodge for warmth and rest and search again come sunrise. As he neared the opening he heard voices. Flattening himself against the curved rail wall of the lodge, he cautiously lifted a corner of the curtain.
Lily sat cross-legged beside the pit, facing the center of the lodge. The ceiling appeared to have disappeared, and the sky above was a balmy blue, dotted with pure white cotton puffs. Beings of all types lined the walls—a fox and a bear, a small white wolf, a dark raven with intelligent eyes, even Coyote the Trickster. Quetzalcoatl was there, coiled in his feathered serpent form. Buffalo Woman, Grandfather Sky, representatives of the Stone and Standing People.
In front of the Native American deities was a chorus of angels dressed in pure white, their wings folded against their backs, forming a semicircle behind a taller angel.
The Tribunal.
All wore expressions of intense interest as they listened to Lily.
"I am guilty," she said without equivocation. The Tribunal nodded their heads. "Hundreds I killed, affecting thousands I never met like ripples in a pond. I loved no one and was loved by none. But my greatest sin was I didn't care. I reveled in my werewolf ways, relished the wildness, the invincibility, the fear I caused, the blood I spilled."
Again, the listeners nodded.
"Only now do I see the harm I've done. The children . . . the families—" Lily lifted her chin, dark eyes gleaming with tears of remorse. "I confess my crimes to you. Nothing I do or say can make amends. Do with me as you will. I am yours."
A murmur filled the lodge.
Tony scooted through the door. None gave him any attention except Lily, who looked at him with a tremulous smile. Ask for my help, Tony mentally cried. Ask.
But she turned back to the Tribunal. "What is my punishment?"
The beings broke their formation to talk among themselves.
"Loved no one, loved by none," several murmured. "Thousands suffered from her acts," several more intoned.
"Banishment to the Himalayas," said Raven.
"Return her to the One Mind," said a small angel. "She is a danger while she walks this earth."
"Seven lifetimes of abject service," cried the wolf. Ask me! Tony wanted to scream. But he didn't. Lily must turn to him of her own free will.
As though she'd heard his mental cry, Lily glanced his way, eyes filled with despair. "Tony . . ." She spoke his name as though she hadn't seen him before. Her attention returned to the discussion, then back to him, looking like she was trying very hard to remember something. Then a light of recollection replaced the despair in her eyes.
"Help me, Tony. Please help me."
He got up and walked over and stood beside her. "Tribunal," he said. "I wish to be heard."
The discussion ended and all eyes turned to him. Tony hesitated, unsure what to say. His own words would be inadequate. Only the Great Spirit could move these beings. Putting a hand on Lily's shoulder, he tilted back his head and allowed his eyelids to drift closed.
"Honored beings," he said, still not knowing what his next words would be. But they flowed regardless. "Your child belonged to the wild, running free, following the nature the Universe gave her. She believes she loved no one, but she judges herself cruelly. I saw her keening over her slain companion's form, nearly mad with remorse. Is that not love? She risked her own life to save my daughter's. Is that not also love?"
The animal guides and nature spirits moved away, again lining the walls. The chorus of angels resumed their semicircle. Quetzalcoatl slithered forward, coiling up next to the tallest angel and ruffling his feathers.
"Remember the children she spared," Tony continued. "Not all of them suffered from poverty and neglect."
On those words, a young man appeared. "Hear me," he implored. "I entered medical school last year. They tell me I'll be a great surgeon."
"Yes," the tall angel said, "and many lives you'll save."
The boy became a teenaged girl. "I will enter politics," she told them. "Change is in the wind."
"She'll bring a new era of compassion," said Bear.
"There are more of us," the girl continued. "We live to enrich the world." Then she disappeared.
"Listen to these children, Tribunal," Tony cried. Lily shuddered beneath his palm. He looked down, saw she was crying, and his voice became impassioned. "They show this woman's worth. She says she's loved by none, but Shala loves her like the mother she lost. Show this woman mercy. She is your child as much as I, as much as those she's slain! She deserves your mercy!"
Quetzalcoatl's long forked tongue flickered. Instantly he was a man, the great ruler of the Aztecs, his bronze skin gleaming in the brilliant light. He straightened his golden crown and met the tallest angel's eyes. The angel subtly inclined his head, and Quetzalcoatl turned his gaze to Tony.
"Well spoken, Shaman," he said. "This woman means much to you?"
"I love her," he said softly. "She is part of my heart." Lily looked up at him, a dazed expression on her tear-streaked face.
A
hushed discussion began anew. Tony couldn't make out the words, but he wasn't drawn to listen.
Lily was still staring at him, adoration shining on her face, and he could concentrate on nothing else.
"If my life ends now," she said softly, "I'll die fulfilled. I love you too, Tony White Hawk. More than words can tell."
Bending, he chastely kissed her lips, breathing in the smell of her.
"Stand, wolf woman," Quetzalcoatl commanded.
Tony straightened. Taking Lily's hands, he helped her to her feet. She looked at him so trustingly his heart almost shattered. Had his words been enough? Would the Tribunal heed the messages of the exceptional children who had spoken?
Taking a place beside Lily, he kept one of her hands, waiting with her. He expected the Aztec ruler to speak, but instead it was the angel.
"You have done well, daughter, yet there is more for you to know.”
Eyes now dry, Lily faced the angel's light without flinching.
"The judgments you heard us reflect on, Lily, were only echoes of your own self-condemnation. Your crime was not in adhering to your werewolf nature. You lived that life in accordance with its Laws, yet retained some spark of your humanity, as the testimony of the children attest. But your fear of your leader's censure sapped your integrity. When you killed the wolfling, you parted from yourself, and became lost and unanchored, searching for meaning." The angel fluttered its wings. "By coming back to face the Tribunal alone, unaided by your advocate, you surrendered your defenses. And in your defenselessness you found salvation."
"But there is one more task ahead," interrupted Quetzalcoatl, "before you are redeemed."
"What?" Lily asked.
"It will be revealed in its own time."
"I will fulfill it as well as I can."
The Aztec ruler bowed. "This is all we ask of you. Remember, wolf woman, stay true to yourself. In doing so, you cannot fail."
He moved his eyes toward Tony. "And you, Shaman, have stared into your doubts courageously, but have still failed to make a choice. You can't delay much longer."
"I understand."
Instantly, the light inside the lodge grew in brilliance, although the moment before Tony would have thought it couldn't get any brighter. A sense of peace unlike any he'd ever known embraced him. Lily's hand was still enclosed in his. As the light increased, he felt a subtle change in the feel of it, and he looked at Lily, then blinked in astonishment.
Again, silver down covered her skin. But now it seemed like filaments of light instead of hair. Her body was brighter than the field that enclosed them, and her face radiated serenity.
She returned Quetzalcoatl's bow. With a smile the god resumed his serpent form and vanished. The angels, animal guides, and nature spirits lingered an instant longer, then they too evaporated in the mist.
Soon the rough branch and mud ceiling of the lodge came back, and only the radiance left in the spirits' wake confirmed the beings had even been there.
Lily released Tony's hand and sank slowly to the floor. Stretching out on her side, she folded her hands and put them beneath her head. Still radiating light, she gave a sigh of complete fulfillment, then fell fast asleep.
Tony settled beside her to wait until she awoke. The Stone People stared at him, giving him the full import of what had occurred, and he took it in, knowing he was meant to share it with Lily when the time came. It pained him that her ordeal was over, but even before he'd taken her to the lodge he’d known it wasn't. He'd felt the injustice of it then, but now it nearly tore him apart.
But she was alive, she'd survived both the werewolves and the Tribunal. He'd be at her side for her next and final challenge, and for the moment he was determined to just appreciate having her here. He swung away from the pit, let his eyes drink her in. The shimmering cover had left her body. She reclined quietly on the floor, very human, very tired.
Then he noticed how still she was. Her chest wasn't moving. Rising to his knees, he bent over and put his ear to her face. Was she breathing? Oh gods above, he didn't think so. And she was so pale.
Berating himself for making love to her in defiance of tradition, he put his fingers on her throat and found a pulse.
So why the hell didn't she breathe?
He rolled her onto her back, placed his mouth over hers, and blew air into her lungs. After several exhales, she still didn't move.
Breathe, Lily, he willed, breathe. He shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have touched her, despite her pleas—she hadn't fully understood the consequences. But he had understood and still allowed his desire for her to put her in this danger.
Suddenly she coughed. Never had Tony heard a sweeter sound, and he rocked back on his knees, flushed with relief. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically again. Her face looked more serene than he had ever seen it. Now the only thing that stood between them was Quakahla and the passing of his people. Exhausted himself, Tony reclined beside Lily. Knowing he was now free to love her with all his heart, he took her in his arms and fell asleep.
Later, when he felt Lily stir in his arms, he stirred fully awake. The Stone People had ebbed to small sparks of red. The lodge was cooler now, and dressed only in his loincloth, he shivered and moved closer. Lily slowly opened her eyes and smiled at him luminously.
"Oh, Tony," she said, "I had the most wonderful dream."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lily had expected sunshine and singing birds to greet her that morning, but the raindrops drizzling on the top of the lodge told her differently. She and Tony crawled out of the sweat lodge into a gray day. She wasn't even sure it was morning because the sun was nowhere to be found.
She'd wanted to tell Tony about her dream, but he'd insisted they leave for the village immediately. Now, after making their way down the muddy slope of the mesa, they stood beneath the dripping tree where they'd left their provisions and Tony was rummaging through the backpack.
His urgency should be making her uneasy, but it wasn't. Tony had escaped Sebastian unharmed. She'd survived the Tribunal, and it had ended so blissfully she almost wished it weren't over.
The experience had irrevocably changed her. Not anything she could quite put her finger on, but she wasn't angry anymore, or bitter or sad, regretful or guilty. Everything was okay now. The future was full of promise.
The Tribunal had taken her to a world of white upon white, a place so filled with joyful possibilities she'd wept from sheer happiness. She'd floated on clouds and felt herself rocked by loving hands as if in a cradle. Voices had crooned words of forgiveness, words of encouragement. Never had she known such peace.
"Don't you want to hear about my dream, Tony?"
"Later, while we walk to the village." He handed her some water with terse instructions not to drink too much, then reapplied himself to his search for the backpack.
Although Lily had neither eaten nor drank since the morning they'd walked to the lodge, she wasn't hungry or thirsty. She felt marvelous, better than she ever had. Her bruises and scratches were gone, and despite the rain, the radical drop in temperature, and her wet and muddy feet, the deerskin dress was keeping her comfortable. Her only uneasiness came from the suspicion she was fooling herself.
A dream? Truly, the experience had been as crazy and blissful as any dream she'd ever had, but the content . . .
Well, even though werewolves were considered imaginary by mortals, they were still bound by natural law. They couldn't appear, disappear, and reappear the way her nocturnal visitors had. And she'd been visited by dead ones, angels, gods, for heaven's sake,
creatures that didn't just drop in on mortals every day.
No, it was easier just to call it a dream—a wonderful, cleansing, heart-lifting dream—and leave it at that.
"Why are we in such a hurry?" she asked, taking a small sip of water. "It's a beautiful day."
"Put that on," he said, lobbing a small packet her way and glancing dubiously at the dripping sky. "It'll make the beautiful day a bit easier to en
dure."
The packet contained a thin plastic rain cape, which crackled as Lily let it unfurl. After slipping it on, she pulled up the hood, realizing she'd been cold after all.
Then, still all business, Tony shoved her boots and socks in her hand. She kicked her sandals off. After she'd laced up her second boot, she looked down. The wrinkled cape was a putrid shade of green, hung well below her knees, and was the ugliest thing she'd ever seen. The boots, already battered from two long hikes they were never meant to undertake, ended a short distance above her ankles and revealed a span of mud-covered leg.
Lily almost laughed. In all her life the only thing she'd adored almost as much as the smell of fear and blood was clothing. What had become of her?
She looked over at Tony, who crouched on the blanket pulling on his own boots. Still in his loincloth, he was half naked, rain-soaked, and covered with mud, but to her he seemed the most magnificent man who ever lived.
The other Lily, the one who'd lusted for blood and clothes, had died last night. And this new Lily wasn't consumed with how she looked. She found pleasure in simply being alive and with the man she loved, in anticipating reuniting with the child she adored, and getting to know the Dawn People better. She'd finally found a place where she belonged and she would hold on to it the rest of her days.
"How are you doing, Tony?" she asked. "I'm ready to go home now."
Home. She'd never used those words before. My house, the house, my den, my hotel room, yes. But home? None of those places had felt like a home.
Tony had already donned the rain cape and was lacing up his boots. "Get the water bag, will you?" he asked, standing to fold up the blanket.
"Sure." His melancholy perplexed her. She'd survived the Tribunal. They were together. What more could he want?
Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set Page 49