Separated from Yourselves

by Bill Hiatt

  Chapter 37: Old Business (Eva)

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jimmie. He must have realized I wasn’t kissing back passionately enough.

  I looked into his eyes, so full of love, so shadowed by uneasiness—and, God help me, I lied to him again.

  “Nothing. I’m just…a little tired I guess. So much has happened in the past few weeks.”

  “Hey, nobody’s tried to kill us since early last month,” said Jimmie, smiling. “No, seriously, I know what you mean, though. Life is so different now, with our parents knowing and all. Just the other day I was discussing the Underworld with my dad. It’s hard to adjust.”

  “That must be it,” I said, eager to seize on any explanation. “I just haven’t caught up yet.”

  “It’s OK,” said Jimmie, understanding as always. “Who could blame you?”

  You could—if you knew the truth.

  I looked into his eyes again and wanted to tell him. I wanted to so badly, but I didn’t.

  Maybe I was just a coward at heart. Maybe I was overly concerned about what other people would think. After all those months of denial, how could I admit that I really did love Tal after all?

  No, it wasn’t really what other people would think. It was what Jimmie would think. Would he understand, or would he feel betrayed? Would he keep his comparatively new self-confidence, or would he lose it?

  I thought about asking Nurse Florence to set up a dream walk so that I could see how Jimmie would take the news, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, either. I didn’t want to come across as the silly girl I felt like.

  Maybe Artemis had been right after all. Perhaps relationships with guys were more trouble than they were worth.

  Chapter 38: Keeping Tal on Track (Vanora)

  “I have to say I’m impressed,” Eirian, one of my closest allies in the Order, told me. “That plan was so elaborate. I couldn’t imagine it all working.”

  “That Taliesin gives me little choice most of the time,” I said. “Even with former gods asking for his advice and saints intervening in his life—to say nothing of an archangel dropping by from time to time—he just can’t get it through his thick adolescent skull that he has a destiny that will not be denied.”

  “That must be trying.”

  “Oh, you have no idea. Even worse, he never has accepted the reality that sometimes one has to make hard choices. The only way to repair my relationship with him was to pretend I’d come around to the same viewpoint.”

  “Is that why you went along with letting his warriors tell their parents?”

  I chuckled. “Now there was a stupid idea if I ever heard one. Yes, we had a problem, but there were better solutions. I knew arguing the point might undermine his trust in me, though, especially once I realized his friends were all going to agree with him. I even jumped in early so he wouldn’t see me as in any way reluctant. Then I had to find some way to make that silly idea work.”

  “What if he’d figured out that he and everybody else just kept dreaming after the presentation he’d prepared, that the last stand of Nicneven’s followers never really happened?”

  “That was the risky part, but he helped trick himself. I convinced him we needed a flawless feeling of reality, good enough to fool even him, if we wanted the program to be convincing to parents. He worked out the method for me. All I had to do was set up the additional details.

  “I had to stay up all night most of that week, and I had to do some risky things like dream walking him and the others through parts of the battle scenario to see how they would react and to help me flesh out the details. Fortunately, they were all too tense and tired that week to catch me at it. Anyway, the outcome was totally worth it. I knew the parents would fight the truth, at least at first, if we just told them who we were and what we had done. I also knew they’d have a hard time resisting if they thought Taliesin and their kids saved their lives.”

  “I wouldn’t have had the nerve to take such risks myself, worth it or not,” Eirian said. “It’s a good thing you could handle it.”

  “That’s what I mean about Taliesin being stubborn. It would have been a lot less risky if I could have told him the truth, but he would have refused to go along with the idea.

  “I don’t agree with Taliesin’s dark alter ego about most things, but the creature is right about one thing: Taliesin is too much of a Boy Scout.”

  “When the archangel showed up, weren’t your frightened that he intended to tell everyone the truth?”

  I shuddered despite myself. “That was the one moment I worried everything was going to fall apart. From what I’ve seen, though, God’s emissaries are pretty strictly reined in most of the time. I get the impression they cannot interfere, except under very specific circumstances. Raphael spent a little time making it obvious he knew what I was up to, but he never said anything to anyone else. He’s counting on me to do the right thing—and I will, just not quite in the way Raphael expects.”

  “You mean making sure Taliesin fulfills the prophecy?”

  “Of course. He was with God at the beginning, and he will be with God at the end. Whatever his role will be, it will be important.”

  I looked at the window at the peaceful little town whose residents had no idea at all that the world would end in their lifetimes.

  Glossary of Names and Terms from Earlier Books in the Spell Weaver Series

  Please note that the descriptions below may contain spoilers for some of the earlier books—but so will this book, so if you’re reading it before you read the other books, I suspect you already know what you are getting into. However, since this material includes only references to the first five books, it does not include any spoilers from this one.

  Because a number of the characters are referred to in the books by first name most of the time, I’ve listed them alphabetically by first name. That also keeps them more consistent with the large number of names drawn from mythology and folklore, for which no last name exists.

  Tal’s Warriors and Other Human Allies

  Alexandros Stratos (Alex)

  Life: A descendant of Ares but originally a bullied loner, Alex was manipulated by Ares into trying to kill Tal. Later Alex fought against Tal’s warriors on Olympus, badly injuring Stan and almost killing Khalid. Despite Alex’s misdeeds, when Tal’s side won, Tal asked Hermes and Asclepius to try to repair the damage Ares had done to him psychologically but also physically, since Ares had transformed him into an Olympian, making it impossible for him to return home. Subsequently, Alex returned to Earth to help a highly skeptical Khalid. Despite Alex’s past, he played a key role in Tal’s victory against the combined forces of Asmodeus and Nicneven. Later, pronounced completely healed by Hermes, Alex was able to return full-time and became one of Tal’s warriors.

  Known previous lives: None.

  Unusual abilities: Stronger than normal as a result of Ares’s manipulation of his body.

  Equipment: Harpe, the curved sword of Perseus, which can cut through anything; occasionally, the sword of chaos, which disintegrates anything it touches and can even cut through magic; Achilles’s armor; Ancile, once the shield of Ares and later a symbol of Roman victory.

  Carla Rinaldi

  Life: A member of Tal’s band and in love with him, Carla accidentally cast a love spell on him. During the battle of Samhain, Carla was put in a coma by being hit twice with the awakening spell. Much later, when Tal succeeded in stripping away the second casting of the spell, she recovered but was in the grip of her past-life self, Alcina, who kidnapped Tal and joined forces with Alcina’s sister, Morgan le Fay. With difficulty, Tal rescued Carla and restored her control over her own body. However, Carla, frustrated by Tal’s continued unrequited love for Eva, later sold her soul in exchange for an undetectable love spell to use on Tal. The resulting complications nearly doomed everybody and made Asmodeus an adversary. When Carla, part of whose bargain was to eradicate her memory of the pact, learned the truth, she helped overcome the combined forces
of Asmodeus and Nicneven and was eventually forgiven by the group.

  Known previous lives: Alcina.

  Unusual abilities: Spell casting, with a special emphasis on commanding sea creatures, inducing love, and physical transformations

  Equipment: Gown that enables her to breath underwater; bow given to her by Artemis that Carla passed along to Eva.

  Carlos Reyes

  Life: Initially recruited shortly before the battle with Ceridwen as a bodyguard for Eva, Carlos was less effective in combat than the others, though his swimming ability came in handy more than once.

  Known previous lives: None.

  Unusual abilities: None.

  Equipment: Sword that causes an opponent to drown from the slightest scratch if the wound is not quickly treated; dragon armor that allows him to breath underwater.

  Dan Stevens

  Life: Once Tal’s best friend, Dan stabbed him in the back to get Eva during the time Tal was in the hospital after the awakening of his past lives. (There is some ambiguity as to whether Dan actually did this or whether Ceridwen implanted false memories to make him believe he had.) In any case, Dan is hostile to Tal at the beginning of Living with Your Past Selves. Ironically recruited by Nurse Florence to be Tal’s unknowing guardian, Dan became Tal’s friend again. When Tal discovered Dan’s possible betrayal, they became estranged again. However, when Dan and Tal had to work together to protect Jimmie in the Underworld, Tal forgave Dan.

  Known past lives: Sir Lancelot (though the memories are not active).

  Unusual abilities: None.

  Equipment: Sword that prevents him from bleeding when wounded; dragon armor that makes him almost impossible to defeat if he fights against only one opponent.

  Dark Me

  Life: Generally an enemy of Tal’s but occasionally an ally of necessity, Dark Me was created by Tal during a misguided attempt to use dark magic for good purposes. At first he was in Tal’s own mind, battling for control of Tal’s body. A second copy of him was created when Robin Goodfellow tried the blood-double spell to make himself an exact copy of Tal. Unused to controlling Dark Me, Robin lost control of his transformed body to Dark Me’s double (New Dark Me). New Dark Me succeeded in imprisoning Tal and Nurse Florence on Hy Brasil, an abandoned faerie island west of Ireland, after which he tried to impersonate Tal and wreak havoc. Subsequently, he became an ally of Nicneven and tried to manipulate her for his own purposes. This effort failed, and he ended up being bound by a tynged forced upon him by Nicneven. When she fell in battle, he managed to escape Tal and his friends, after which he traveled extensively, trying to find a way to adapt a stolen magic ring to produce a perfect duplicate of Tal’s blood so that he could renew the spell that made him without needing Tal to do it.

  Known past lives: same as Tal

  Unusual abilities: same as Tal

  Equipment: none of his own, though in the past he has frequently stolen Tal’s.

  Eva O’Reilly

  Life: Tal’s early adolescent crush, Eva was separated from Tal by his apparent breakdown, a process aided by Dan’s manipulations. Eva broke up with Dan when she learned the truth, but by then she no longer loved Tal. Eventually Eva ended up with Jimmie after his return to life. Eva wasn’t originally one of Tal’s warriors but got pulled into the group by the magic crises happening all around her.

  Known previous lives: None.

  Unusual abilities: None.

  Equipment: A bow that Artemis originally gave to Carla (Eva was not originally one of Tal’s warriors and so did not receive the same kind of gear the others did).

  Gabriela Golfinho

  Life: Publicly Gabriela was Lucas’s grandmother, though she was in fact his great-grandmother. Native to the Encante, Gabriela visited Lucas to warn him of his impending death. Ultimately, she helped summon some of Tal’s warriors to save him, and when they moved him to Santa Brígida for greater safety, she continued to keep a watchful eye on him.

  Known previous lives: None.

  Unusual abilities: Could appear in human form, of any age, though as an encantado, her natural form is a creature like a dolphin; could cast spells related to the mind, particularly illusions.

  Equipment: None.

  Gordy Hayes

  Life: Originally recruited as a bodyguard for Stan, Gordy became a better student through a magical workaround for his ADHD, as well as from Stan’s tutoring. That situation made him fiercely protective of Stan and Tal.

  Known previous lives: None.

  Unusual abilities: None.

  Equipment: Sword that strikes fear into opponents; dragon armor that makes him fearless.

  Jimmie Stevens

  Life: Dan’s little brother and a close friend of Tal’s, Jimmie died when he was nine but became an earthbound spirit, unable to pull away from Dan and Tal. Four years after the awakening of Tal’s past-life memories, Jimmie became supercharged by Tal’s tendency to bring out latent magic around him. At first this effect caused Jimmie to manifest more strongly as a ghost, able to be visible and even to adopt physical form as often as he wanted. As a result, he was able to aid Tal’s warriors in various ways. A combination of different kinds of magic, however, accidentally made him a living human again, forcing him to face life as a sixteen-year-old, though he died at nine; unable to tell his parents who he really was, he moved in as a distant cousin but was very unhappy. Tricked by Nicneven, he accepted a dark-magic fake Saint Sebastian medal that seemed at first to give him athletic prowess but enabled Nicneven to sabotage him in the middle of the battle, almost causing Tal’s warriors to lose. Saint Sebastian appeared to try to restore Jimmie, and at Jimmie’s urgent request ripped the cursed magic out of him. The pain he and everyone else went through as a result of the experience helped them win the Holy Grail, which Jimmie carried in the final battle with Nicneven in Elphame.

  Known previous lives: None

  Unusual abilities: Some ability to communicate with the dead as a result of his own death.

  Equipment: Sword blessed by Apollo that provides light and some magic resistance (at the time the others received dragon armor from Gwynn, Jimmie was still a ghost and didn’t need armor, so he didn’t receive any).

  Khalid

  Life: Khalid is a half djinni abandoned by his father, who discovered Khalid’s mixed ancestry. Khalid lived on the streets until he encountered Tal and his friends. Though suspicious of him at first, they eventually took him in. He lived with the Sassanis, who thought he was a refugee whose life was in danger. He was viewed as a brother by Shar but was reluctant to let the Sassanis adopt him because he still wanted his father to accept him as a son.

  Known previous lives: None.

  Unusual abilities: Can move fast, become invisible, and jump very high; immune to fire; able to pick locks, even magical ones.

  Equipment: Dragon armor that enables him to fly; faerie dagger; bow made by Hephaestus; magical arrows with a quadruple blessing from Hestia, Helios, Eros, and the archangel Raphael; quiver that slowly generates more arrows.

  Shahriyar Sassani (Shar)

  Life: An athlete with an extensive martial-arts background, Shar became friends with Tal under very unlikely circumstances, possibly in part because of their strong past-life connections. Shar considered himself Tal’s second-in-command in combat situations.

  Known previous lives: Achilles, Alexander the Great (in his current life he was also a descendant of the earliest Persian royal house, which also made him a descendant of Perseus).

  Unusual abilities: Multiple connections that made it easier for him to summon Olympian aid.

  Equipment: Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar (Zom), a sword from Persian legend that made him and anyone else touching it immune to hostile magic; dragon armor that enabled him to raise the spirits of some of Alexander’s soldiers for a brief period to help in battle.

  Sophia Weaver (Mrs. Weaver)

  Life: Tal’s mother, she developed her latent abilities as a seer because Tal’s presence encouraged that kind of gro
wth.

  Known previous lives: None

  Unusual abilities: powerful but erratic ability to gain information by supernatural means

  Equipment: None

  Stanford Schoenbaum (Stan)

  Life: One of Tal’s best friends since childhood, Stan became the first one let in on Tal’s secret. Stan played a key role in helping Tal get magic to work on modern technology, such as computers. Despite not being very athletic initially, Stan adopted rigorous physical training so he wouldn’t be a hindrance in battle.

  Known previous lives: King David.

  Unusual abilities: None as Stan; when operating as David, he seemed to have a special blessing on his weapons that he couldn’t see himself.

  Equipment: Sword of David adapted by Govannon to increase Stan’s strength; dragon armor.

  Taliesin Weaver (Tal)

  Life: Tal’s past-life memories were awakened by Ceridwen when he was twelve. After recovering from what people assumed was a nervous breakdown, he learned how to use the memories and abilities from those previous lives. Because some of these abilities were unique, he attracted much unwanted supernatural attention. Many of his enemies struck because of various prophecies that he would prevent them from fulfilling their plans. Others feared his unique powers might some day endanger the existence of the entire supernatural world. On the other hand, Vanora and some other members of the Order of the Ladies of the Lake considered Tal a kind of messianic figure, someone who, according to the Book of Taliesin (which Tal himself dismissed as “hogwash”), was with God at the beginning of the world and would be with him at the end.

  Known previous lives: Tal knew all his previous identities, but the ones relevant to the story are the original Taliesin, King Arthur’s bard; Heman, grandson of Samuel and friend of King David; Patroclus, friend of Achilles, who died during the Trojan War; Hephaestion, son of Hephaestus and a close friend and adviser of Alexander the Great.

  Unusual abilities: Access to all previous lives; ability to learn new magic and create original magic far more rapidly than most spell casters can; ability to manipulate magic weapons and objects in ways not originally intended (such as being able to use White Hilt’s flaming blade like a force field or a laser); power (which he doesn’t control) to activate latent magic in the people and things around him.