by Lucy Kelly
“Addie, as your physician, I can’t have you making another healing attempt until you’ve eaten, and I’ve given you a full scan,” she said in her doctor’s voice.
Addie took another deep breath, “Okay, I’ll eat. I’ll try to calm down a little. You can help me by telling me what we’re doing to make sure these assholes are caught, and make sure nothing even close to this ever happens again,” she said, allowing the depth of her anger to show.
She wasn’t really hungry, but she took a deep breath and reached for a sandwich. She wanted to get in to see Grace, and didn’t want to waste her energy on making them do what she wanted. She knew she’d need every ounce of energy to work on the healing. She wasn’t quite sure what was in the sandwich, they were eating more and more foods native to HeVan. It tasted something like roast beef and provolone. She didn’t bother to look, she just kept eating.
Rune went over and sat next to her. He was her nurturer and he kept preparing bite-sized tidbits for her to munch on.
“I’ve called in two of the best investigators from the House of Assama. It lies north of the two Houses where Grace and her Ankida were investigating. They have historically acted as peacekeepers between the other two Houses when disagreements arose. The two warriors who have requested this duty have many years of experience as investigators and negotiators. They would like to join Grace’s arbiter team,” Arjun explained.
“What are their names? Were they on our ships?” Addie wanted to know.
She was still a little leery of Nephilim who hadn’t been on the ships with them. They had yet to take an oath of loyalty to the new queen.
“No, they weren’t on the ships. Malpha had made them chief investigators under her rule. They were needed here, and were unavailable to go with the rest. They are leaders in their House. Their younger brothers are currently on Earth, working with Jack Walthers, Sarah’s old partner. They have given the loyalty oath to your rule. Justyn has claimed the Mok-Tar, the right of justice. Margan and Trake will be assisting him.”
Addie looked up, “What’s the Mok-Tar?”
She put down her food, wiped her mouth on a napkin, and gave Arjun her full attention. She knew this was going to be important.
She wasn’t at all happy with the explanation. When she found out Justyn would be risking his own life to get justice, she wasn’t pleased. She would speak to her Ankida about it privately. There were too many ears here, so she shelved her objections. Instead, she gave Arjun a look that said—we’ll be talking about this later. She also made a mental note to look up the punishment under the law for attempted murder or attempted assassination of the queen’s sister, whichever was appropriate.
“If I eat any more, I’m going to be sick. Take me to where Grace and Jalen are. I want to see if I can speed up their healing,” Addie stated.
“Come with me. I’ll scan you, and make sure you didn’t do any damage to your own body. Then I’ll take you into the burn unit,” Catherine explained, and Addie followed her from the room.
Everyone there could see she was still hanging on to her composure by a thread. She wasn’t even aware that she was glowing gold and throwing off sparks left and right, her hair floating in the air around her head. They all had felt her coming down the corridor because with each step she took, the floor shook. Addie hadn’t felt it because she was causing it. Arjun and Rune were in awe of her power. It was much more than any previous Nam-Nin had, and it seemed to be growing, as if HeVan itself was feeding her authority.
Catherine took Addie into an exam room. She shut the door to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. She knew Addie would be able to do a lot to help Grace and Jalen heal. What she needed to do now was make Addie aware of herself.
“Come over here. I want you to look into this mirror,” she said, guiding Addie over. Wondering what was going on, Addie crossed the floor. She wanted to get to Grace and Jalen, and she wasn’t willing to be delayed much longer.
“I’m going to look in the mirror, and then I want you to scan me. I’m losing my patience with… Oh, shit! What the hell is this?” Addie asked, seeing herself in the mirror.
“All of us could see you didn’t notice all the energy pouring off you. Your power is growing stronger, and you’ll need to increase your control.”
Addie looked worriedly into the mirror, and concentrated on lowering her power. Her hair floated down and the sparks stopped. When she had it completely under control, she moved to a chair and sat down.
“I wasn’t prepared for this. I’ve had my own small gift all my life. Then Tamiel passed me the Nam-Nin powers. I got used to them; they filled up the empty space inside me. Now, since I’m aware of it, I wonder why I didn’t feel it before” she murmured.
“What did you do to stop it just now?” Catherine asked. She sat on the rolling stool in the corner, and wheeled herself over to Addie. She took her hands in her own.
“At first, I tried pushing it down, as if I were burying it inside me. That didn’t seem to work. So then, I pictured myself standing in a shower with the power of the water flowing down over me and through me and out of me, down into the ground. I returned it to HeVan because, essentially, I think that’s where it’s coming from. Or at least what’s giving the power I already have such a boost.”
“Have you ever done yoga or meditation?”
“I’ve tried meditation a little but never yoga.”
“Well, you need to work on body and mind awareness. You especially need to control your emotions. I’m worried you might accidentally hurt someone and then spiral completely out of control.”
Addie was getting irritated. She stood and walked over to the mirror. It helped to see her image as she was trying to control her power.
“Catherine, I don’t know if I can do this. I fell in love. I was made Nam-Nin before I knew what was happening to me. I wasn’t prepared to become a cross between Wonder Woman, Storm, and Sailor Moon. I mean, seriously, how much more am I going to have to take? I married three men. I left my whole world behind. I gave birth to three sets of twins while negotiating an alliance with the king of another world. Then, to top it all off, people are spying on me with hidden cameras. Grace’s transport is shot out of the sky and… ” Addie was giving off sparks again, so she took some deep breaths, “…and then I go down a freaky elevator with the babies and meet the spirit of some long-dead queen. She permanently linked me to this planet. I can literally feel a tether between us developing. Especially now, after I saw myself in this mirror.” She had calmed down again, so she returned to the chair. The look she gave Catherine was almost haunted. “When are things going to return to normal?”
Catherine reached over and took hold of Addie’s hands. “You are not alone. While I can’t understand everything you’re going through, I can empathize and let you know you are not alone on this adventure. There are over three hundred women on this amusement park ride with you and more coming…”
“But no pressure!” Addie said.
Catherine gave her hands a squeeze, “We’re all sisters together. We have to support each other and help carry the load. So remember, whenever you’re feeling the pressure, call for a girls' night,” she finished, getting the smile she was after. “Okay, let’s go see if your new pool of power helps you stay conscious long enough to heal some people.”
Addie gave her a hug. The two of them left the room and headed deeper into medical, to the burn unit. Both Grace and Jalen were in drugged comas, floating in repair tanks. Only their faces were above the surface so they could breath. Addie could see a large gash down Grace’s cheek. Before, there was so much blood; she hadn’t really seen all the damage.
She felt the anger burning inside her. Along with it was sadness. Sadness her sister was so hurt and also happiness; a happiness that came from knowing she could do something about the hurt and not just sit in a chair feeling helpless.
Closing her eyes, she planted her feet and held out her arms as if she were embracing the area where her sis
ter lay. She allowed the power to flow up into her body. She reached out with her senses to see where the healing needed to go. She remembered concentrating before on Grace’s brain, lungs, and liver. Addie didn’t know how she knew what to do or even which organ was which—she just did. She felt part of her flowing over, through, and around, Grace’s body. The medicals had done a lot. She knew Grace would heal. However, she didn’t want her sister to have lasting pain or reminders of the incident, so she concentrated on her skin first and then worked down through muscles, ligaments and down to the bones. She felt herself weakening and pulled some of that giant pool of power into her own body.
Turning to face Jalen, still keeping her eyes closed, she got to work on him, repeating what she had done for Grace. Every time she started to feel weak, she pulled a little more power from the endless pool beneath her and all around her. Finally, her body couldn’t take anymore and, once again, she collapsed.
Catherine, awed by what she was seeing, leapt forward in time to prevent Addie from hitting the floor hard, but she wasn’t strong enough to hold her up. After she saw Addie was okay, she called her Ankida into the critical care unit to put Addie in a bed so she could check her over. At the same time, they needed to start scanning Grace and Jalen to see how far Addie had progressed in their recovery.
Visually, they could see both Grace and Jalen could be removed from the burn tanks. Final scans showed they both were well on their way to being healed. They would need to stay in medical but if Addie performed another healing tomorrow, they would be released. As it was, they could dial back on the drugs keeping them in a coma and gradually wake them.
Chapter Ten
Earth…
Jorne Jors spent hours working alongside Aimeé March, helping her heal the animal victims of the horrific attack at the San Francisco Zoo. Tonne helped the other vet with the injured bears before joining his brother. Both of them were amazed and proud of the small woman. She worked tirelessly, determined the animals in her care would survive.
It was late at night before all the animals were settled down. A couple of times zoo personnel had attempted to get them to leave. But six foot eight and three hundred pounds didn’t move unless it wanted to—and they didn’t want to. They had been given the directive to protect Aimeé March and they had no intentions of leaving the petite beauty. While they admired her abilities, they weren’t blind. They also appreciated her curvy body.
Jorne was the first to feel the itch between his shoulder blades as he’d been in Aimeé’s presence longer. When he was sure it was his wings and not a simple itch, he told Tonne in an undertone what he was feeling. The two of them were close, born just a year apart and about fifteen years after their older brothers, Margan and Trake. Instead of becoming investigators like their brothers, the two of them had leaned toward tech. They were both master programmers. Jorne’s specialty was virtual reality and Tonne’s was three-dimensional constructs. He built programs to help map and navigate space. It was because of this ability they were chosen to make the trip to Earth, mapping space along the way. They had stayed when the ship had gone back because they hadn’t met their join yet, and because they had skills that could be put to good use on Earth.
They were working with Jack, developing new software to be sold by his company. It gave the Nephilim a source of income on Earth. They wanted to support their continued search for Nephilim descendants, and it provided them with good covers.
After they helped Aimeé with the last animal, they discovered Jack had covered for them with the police and zoo security. Jorne was happy to find out they didn’t have to give statements that night, they only needed to go in to the police station in the morning.
As they walked down the path with Aimeé heading for the entrance, she stumbled a little from fatigue. Jorne immediately put his arm around her waist. He would have picked her up and carried her—except he had been exposed to her fierce independence earlier and didn’t want to risk being rejected. If she stumbled again, though, all bets were off.
Somehow they weren’t surprised to find Jack sitting in his car in the parking lot, working on a tablet computer while he spoke on his cell phone. The man had the energy of ten people. He glanced up and saw them. Moments later, he ended his call and jumped out of the car.
“Dr. March, it’s good to see you are well. I trust Jorne and Tonne were helpful?” he asked with a smile.
Aimeé was kicking herself. She’d blithely walked out of the zoo on autopilot. Her car was a mile away at her clinic. While she had enjoyed the walk that afternoon, right now she was exhausted. She was standing alone in a parking lot with three tall strangers. Actually, make it three tall gorgeous strangers. Her gaydar, or her sense of whether someone were straight or not, was dinging when this new hunk appeared and started talking, which was too bad for her team, but she’d take consolation with either of the other two. Now she was just praying they weren’t axe murderers.
“Um…who exactly are you guys?” she asked, her voice getting a little high at the end of the sentence because she was nervous.
She was feeling tiny for the first time in a long while. She wasn’t very tall, at five-feet-four and three-quarters. She always added the three-quarters because she really wanted to say she was five-five, but was too honest to fudge the quarter inch. Anyway, back to her nervousness and feeling small—as a woman with her fair share of curves, she didn’t feel small very often. These men made her feel tiny with their lean hips, broad shoulders, and gigantic muscles. She remembered her attention being diverted from her patient when they lifted the lion—the four hundred and fifty-eight pound lion. She couldn’t help but be impressed, watching the play of muscles on their arms, shoulders, backs, and butts. Damn, but they were fine pieces of man-flesh.
“Your sister, Josephine, had a premonition of danger surrounding you and believed you to be in danger. She was with my former business partner at the time. When asked about her anxiety, she reluctantly explained. She didn’t feel she could call the local FBI office with her concerns, so Sarah, my friend, called me. Jorne and Tonne here work for me. They’re programmers but are also former military so they came along to help. Would you like to call your sister?” Jack asked when he could see the woman was uneasy.
“Um…it’s really late, she’s probably asleep,” she said, although she would have liked the reassurance.
Jack just laughed. “She’s been calling every half hour or so for updates. She wasn’t really happy when you stopped answering your cell phone. She says you have a one-track mind when you’re helping an animal in distress. I feel I know you so well…I could probably go shopping and pick out a pair of shoes which would instantly become your faves.”
Aimeé did laugh a little, but she wasn’t fully convinced. Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out her cell phone. She just remembered it was there and saw she had turned it off. As soon as she turned it back on and she had bars, it rang in her hand; the ringtone was the theme from the old Spiderman TV show. At first, she wanted to use the theme from The Untouchables, but was disappointed, so she went with a childhood favorite. She thought of her sister as a crusader—super-hero, anyway.
“Hi, Josephine, did your Spidey sense kick in?” she asked when Jo answered the phone.
“You really have to stop scaring me like this, Aimeé,” Josephine said into the phone.
“Hey, it was Beth who tripped your trigger last time. Besides, those psychos weren’t interested in hurting me. They were shooting my cats!” she said, and barely restrained from stomping her foot.
“Don’t bullshit me. I know you were doing everything you could to stop them. I’ve seen the videos posted on YouTube! That asshole was going to shoot you! Thank God for Jorne and Tonne.”
“Um…about them, do I trust them? They are the good guys, right?” she asked.
Josephine didn’t say anything for a few moments and it scared Aimeé. Finally, she answered.
“They aren’t going to hurt you. I got them there t
o protect you. After that, well, I haven’t actually met them, so I can’t give you an opinion,” she said.
Josephine wasn’t ready to tell her sister the men were supposedly from another planet and believed they were descended from aliens.
“Okay…then. I guess I’ll let them give me a ride to my car. I’m a little too tired to walk. Plus, it’s really late.” She was about to hang up when she thought of something else to ask her sister. “Hey, you didn’t get the family all up in arms, did you?”
“Does the headline, ‘Shooting Frenzy at the San Francisco Zoo’ answer your question? When they couldn’t reach you because you turned off your cell, who do you think they called? You’re just lucky I talked dad out of driving up there from L.A. Call them first thing when you get up in the morning and keep your cell nearby in case you sleep in. They can’t wait to hear your voice. Do not hang up on them the way you did with me,” Josephine said emphatically.
“Okay, okay, I hear you. Look, I’m really, really tired. I’ll call you tomorrow to find out what the big pause was about. You didn’t slip it past me, as exhausted as I am. Tomorrow you spill the beans. I’m gonna hang up now. Luv ya, sis,” Aimeé said.
“Love you too, short stuff,” Josephine said, using the nickname for her sister, who was an inch and a quarter shorter. She had spent a long time teasing her about the fact she was the older, taller sister, when they were in their teens. Now it was shorthand for don’t worry, I've got this.
Aimeé ended the call and slipped the phone back into her pocket.
“So, can you give me a ride to where my car is?” she asked them.
“Yes,” said deep voices from her left and right—and also from the guy in front of her.
His voice, however, didn’t send shivers down her spine the way the other two did. She felt tingles and part of her woke and started singing hallelujahs. Now she just had to find out if they were: (A) straight—because single didn’t matter if they weren’t. Then (B) single and finally, (C) interested in her. Please let A, B, and C, be in her favor for at least one of them. The fact Jorne had put his arm around her when she stumbled, gave her a tiny bit of hope…although he may have just been acting nice. When they didn’t say anything else, she walked over to the car.