Iron Star picked up the rifle and shoved it into aiming position against Simon’s cheek. He nearly broke Simon’s trigger finger slapping his hand into position. The young woman’s face faded, the car roared into life, and Simon pulled the trigger with another howl of anguish.
Angela got out of the car and ran her hands down her sides, pressing down the ruffled skirt and straightening her lace-up corset. Cassandra stretched and yawned then wriggled to settle her vinyl pants on her hips. They looked each other over.
“Ready?”
Cassandra nodded. “Yeah.”
Stepping carefully to avoid splashing her granny boots in a puddle, Angela strolled across the street to the club, holding hands with Cassandra. With the lighting nearly nonexistent at the entrance, all Angela could see were several shadowy forms clustered outside the door, laughing, talking, and smoking.
One of them turned and waved. “Hey, Cassie. Angela.”
“Hey, Janet. You made it.” Cassandra smiled. “Where’s Joe?”
“He’s out of town.” Janet gestured at another woman with her lit cigarette. “You guys, this is my cousin Martina.”
They exchanged greetings. Angela searched the other shadowy forms for her best friend, without success. She glanced at Janet. “Have you seen Eric?”
“I saw him dancing half an hour ago.”
“Great. I was hoping he’d make it.”
“Can I bum a smoke?” Cassandra asked.
Janet shook out a clove, and Cassandra took it, lighting from the glowing tip of Janet’s cigarette.
Angela suppressed a shiver. The aroma of clove cigarettes still tempted her. It had only been a few months since she’d quit. Seeking a distraction, she began to sway to the thumping rhythm from the club. “Cassie, I’m going to go find Eric.”
“Sure. I’ll be there in a minute.”
As Angela opened the door, the music slammed into her. She smiled, diving into the strobe-lit darkness. Reaching between swaying bodies, she parted the crowd, scanning for the platinum hair of her business partner. She searched for several minutes without finding him, gradually losing herself to the rhythm.
She felt a touch on her shoulder and turned. Cassandra, illuminated by the flashes, was smiling mischievously at Angela. They began dancing together, Angela’s body moving in tight synchrony with Cassandra’s. Their gazes locked, and Cassandra’s inner voice, always present under the surface of Angela’s awareness, rose into a wordless singing. Her lower belly tightened while her dance movements became more sensuous and provocative, her hips rocking in time to the music.
—Let’s play— Cassandra’s voice echoed in her mind.
Angela’s lips quirked into a half smile. Her girlfriend wanted to dance in the Otherworld again, and though it was risky, she relented. Raising her right hand high to touch empty air, fingers twirling to the rhythm, Angela evoked her dream-walking talent.
The walls of the club dissolved, replaced by the shadowy silhouettes of trees against a star-dusted sky as they entered an in-between place, neither earth nor Otherworld. The forms of the other dancers were ghostly, indistinct. Angela and Cassandra put their hands on each other’s hips, their faces inches apart. Looking past Cassandra, Angela noticed that the dancers had assumed nonhuman shapes with animal heads and human bodies that shifted form and size from moment to moment. No two visits to the Otherworld were ever quite the same, and this was especially true when the two of them made these random excursions.
They moved gracefully amongst the theriomorphic dancers while the strobing scenery marked time to the rhythm of the music, trees becoming walls and then trees again. A light grew in both Angela and Cassandra, as if they were illuminated by an invisible source. They moved closer together, almost but not quite embracing.
Angela inhaled her lover’s scent, and her pulse quickened. Cassandra smiled, her eyes glittering, and she glanced down, pulling Angela closer. Their hips pressed together, and Angela’s belly grew warm. She lowered her hands to Cassandra’s waist and tightened her fingers.
The temptation to make love to Cassandra grew in that place. Angela took a quick, steadying breath. It was dangerous. And exciting. What if she lost control of her talent and they were ejected back onto the dance floor? She grinned. She had always known that she was a little bit of an exhibitionist.
Reading her mind, Cassandra drew her close, and they kissed, tongues flicking delicately between warm, soft lips. The kiss drew a shiver up Angela’s spine as her hands massaged the small of Cassandra’s back. She drew her fingers up as Cassandra’s arms encircled her shoulders to pull her head down, deepening the kiss. Cassandra lifted a leg, wrapped it behind Angela’s hips, and began to rub herself against Angela’s thigh. Cassandra’s presence in her mind changed, becoming more primal as it dropped below the threshold of awareness and accelerated her arousal.
Angela dipped her face into the hollow of Cassandra’s throat, kissing and licking. Cassandra moaned, lowered her leg, and pulled Angela down on top of her as they lay on the grass. The shadowy dancers moved all around them, oblivious. Angela lowered her hands to Cassandra’s abdomen then pushed her fingers up under her shirt as they hungrily kissed. She began stroking the undersides of her girlfriend’s breasts. Cassandra lifted her right leg and wrapped it over Angela’s hips, and they thrust against each other’s thighs with increasing urgency.
A tingling grew in Angela’s center as they moved, amplified by her connection with Cassandra. An electric shiver ran up her spine, and she gasped, her legs trembling. The tingling spread as she flexed her hips. Her breath accelerated, and another wave of sensation rushed from the base of her spine all the way into her fingertips. Her nerves caught fire, and she cried out as she climaxed. Dimly, she heard Cassandra’s own voice, a high-pitched keening, in that hot, liquid moment of timelessness.
Angela realized she was lying half on, half off of Cassandra, their arms and legs intertwined, as her awareness of herself descended from those heights of ecstasy. She lifted her head. Their noses touched as they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. Angela held her breath as she held onto that moment of timelessness, but the distant beat of the music drew her back into the Otherworldly reality. She pushed herself up on one arm. Shadowy, oblivious forms moved all around them. They sat up, still embracing, and Cassandra put her head on Angela’s shoulder.
“Lady! Help me!”
The distorted shout penetrated the thump of the music. Cassandra looked up sharply, her eyes wide.
“Lady!”
They scrambled to their feet. The dancers around them faded away, along with the club music. The nighttime meadow was silent as they fully entered the Otherworld.
“Did you hear that?”
Angela shook her head. “I heard something. I don’t know.”
“Someone called out a name. Sounded like ‘lady.’”
“I hear stuff like that sometimes. It’s usually just one of the animals crying out. You know how this place is.”
Cassandra put her hand out. “Wait.”
“Help…” The voice was faint.
“There it is again,” Cassandra whispered.
They waited a moment longer, but there was no further sound aside from the anonymous rustlings of the forest around them.
Cassandra made as if to push away from Angela. “Someone needs our help.”
“Hang on, Cassie. If we go chasing that voice, we’ll get lost. This is a random meadow, not yours or mine.” Angela had no idea where in the Otherworld this place was. She had first found it while dancing with Cassandra several months ago and assumed that, like all such meadows in the Forest of Souls, it corresponded to the mind of someone at the club. However, she was mystified that it was always night there. The meadow of an awake mind was always day-lit.
Cassandra stiffened and stared at something amid the trees. Angela turned to look. There was a mist rising up from the ground. There was the suggestion of a face suspended in it, twisted in fear, though Angela could not cle
arly make out the features. Cassandra’s breath hissed, and she disengaged from Angela to move slowly toward it.
Angela put a cautionary hand on her shoulder. “Cassie. You know what happened the last time you went wandering here.”
Cassandra stopped and shivered. The mist had vanished, and she glanced at Angela. “I saw something. It looked like a man in pain right there.” She pointed at the spot.
Angela felt as if she were standing at the edge of an abyss as electrical chills spidered all over her body. The unknown pressed down on her from the darkness, and for one breathless, terrifying moment, she was once again trapped in self-imposed exile here, guarding the Soul Thief. She found herself muttering a charm she had used to ward off the fear and anguish brought by that solitude. Angela wrenched her gaze away from where the mist had appeared and, reaching for Cassandra, drew her close once again.
“Let’s get out of here.” Cassandra’s eyes were wide and shining in the starlight, her eagerness gone.
Angela nodded, lost in memory. That voice had cried out “Lady,” which was a title she had held in her previous lifetime when she had led her people to the earth so long ago. Could it have been a revenant from that other time, reawakened by her reckless exercise of power? She regretted the impulse that had brought them here.
Cassandra nuzzled Angela under the chin and hugged her tightly, sensitive to her mood. Angela sighed and exerted her dream-walking talent. The club and its occupants reappeared around them with a deafening thump. The music shocked her ears after the silence of the forest at night, and Angela looked around to get her bearings. A familiar thatch of white hair moved in the crowd nearby.
Leading Cassandra, Angela pressed through the crowd to where Eric was dancing. “Eric!” She waved, catching his attention. He mouthed something inaudible, gesturing toward the wall, and they went to one of the lighted alcoves at the perimeter of the room.
“Angela! Cassie!” Eric beamed, hugging them both.
Cassandra smirked. “Hey, Eric. How’s hunting?”
Eric grinned. “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”
Both women laughed. Angela mimed tipping a shot glass. “Want something to drink?”
Eric nodded. “I’d love to. My usual.”
“Let me get the drinks.” Cassandra disappeared into the swirling crowd.
“Are you okay?” Angela peered at Eric, noticing new lines around his eyes. He was working too hard despite her remonstrations.
He rocked a hand. “Meh. Shit happens.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and gave him her best sultry look. “He is going to miss you.”
“Never mind him.” He dismissed his ex with a wave of a hand. “I’m just glad you’re here. It’s been weeks!”
“Yeah.” Angela shook her head. “I need to do this more often. It’s so hard to get away, though.”
It was later than Angela’s usual bedtime, and she wanted to be rested for Nadia’s party the next day. Eric, Angela, and Cassandra emerged from the club, talking loudly and laughing, and walked the gauntlet of smokers at the entrance.
“So, see you at eight tomorrow?” Unlike Angela, Eric was able to stay out partying and still get up early.
“Yeah.” She sighed and looked at Cassandra. “Ready, hon?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Angela scrutinized Cassandra’s face. Cassandra grinned and playfully shoved her shoulder.
“Where’d you guys park?” Eric asked.
Angela pointed.
“That’s where I’m parked too.” Eric accompanied them as they walked toward Angela’s car.
Angela glanced at him. “So, how’d you do tonight?”
Eric cracked his knuckles. “I got three phone numbers and one guy who wanted to do it in the bathroom.” He grinned merrily at them both. “Don’t worry about ol’ Eric.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
War in Heaven: The Flux
Battlefield near Bald Eagle
There were countless battalions of angels in formation on the great, featureless plain while air squadrons soared overhead. Huge insectile war engines, snake-like arcs of electrical force crawling over their armor, aimed their blackened muzzles at a smudge on the horizon. In the sky hovered the image of a gigantic scimitar marked with a crescent and star. Iron Star stared, feeling the electric tension that preceded a storm or a battle. It was impossible to see any details, but he knew the enemy well enough to guess that they had brought a force twice the size of his own. Otherwise, they would not have dared to venture forth.
His helmet, which he never removed when on the battlefield, magnified the sound of his breath as he stepped back into the mobile command post to confer with his commanders. His rust-red armor clanked as he took a seat at the table over which they were conferring.
“Shaken Fist and an ally are believed to accompany Silver Scimitar here.” Swagger Stick, a seasoned command veteran, pointed at a curved line depicting the right flank of Bald Eagle’s army.
Shaken Fist, an ancient foe, sought at all times to foment division within Egregores and pursue their proliferation rather than consolidation. In keeping with his philosophy, he was not a true Egregore, rooted in the living minds of the underworld. Instead, he was a loose aggregation of angels and other spirits, coalesced into a constantly changing, monstrous entity. Little more was known of his origins, much to Iron Star’s frustration.
“Have we rooted out the remnants of insurrection?” Iron Star asked. His ever-present rage pulsed in his ears as he contemplated the damage done by the separatists within his own ranks. Their efforts to split Bald Eagle into smaller factions were an outrage to his orderly nature.
“Three spies from Shaken Fist have been executed.”
Before Iron Star could reply, an angel burst into the room, stopped, and saluted. Iron Star regarded the intruder. “At ease. What is it, soldier?”
The angel, a genderless servitor, relaxed its salute. “The Root Hexagon. There’s an intrusion. Looks like a flux surrounding it.”
“There’s a lot of battle flak right now. Could be anything.”
“We’re sure it’s something new, sir.”
Iron Star turned to his commanders. “Wait for me here. I must attend to this.”
He rose and followed the angel out of the post, and they stepped through the rippling cloud of a portal nearby and emerged at the lip of the Crater. Iron Star and the angel climbed down and approached the Root Hexagon. There was, indeed, a shimmering veil of force that circled the crystalline form. Sparks and smoke arose where it touched the bubbling pool. Faces could be glimpsed in the smoke, prominent among them being that of a woman with dark, unruly hair, her brow creased in concern, and a younger woman, short haired, dark eyed.
Iron Star stared at the flux for a moment. He had not seen anything like it before so near the Root Hexagon. It resembled a portal, though the nature of the Root Hexagon normally prevented one from opening anywhere within the Crater. One thing was clear, though: it did not belong at the heart of Bald Eagle’s power.
He signaled to the angel, who reached behind its shoulder and unlimbered a standard-issue dissolution gun. The angel took aim and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened for a moment, and then a curl of smoke rose from the apparatus. The angel looked at it, frowning, then dropped it to the ground, where it disintegrated into the soil.
“It appears to be invulnerable to ordinary weapons.” Iron Star crossed his arms. “We must study this thing. It’s interfering with the Root Hexagon.” He paused, thinking. “If possible, send a probe into the flux to gather intel. Report back to me with any conclusions, no later than four turnings from now.”
The angel nodded. Iron Star turned to stride back up the slope. Partway up, he looked back at the flux, which was already stronger. “This is not acceptable.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Something New, Something Old
“Coming below?” Angela asked.
Cassandra shook her head and waved a paperback. “Nah. I
’m not sleepy.”
Angela climbed below decks on the dark, silent sailboat, leaving the companionway hatch open. She walked with dragging steps toward the master cabin, shedding clothes as she went. She flipped on the cabin light and swept cast-off clothing from earlier in the evening onto the floor, grumbling. Pulling back the covers, she got into bed then fumbled for the light switch by the headboard.
Although she was exhausted, sleep eluded her, and she turned over restlessly several times. The slight ringing of lines slapping spars, usually unnoticed, was like a hammer, rhythmically pounding out the passing moments. She opened her eyes once to stare at the pearlescent glow leaking around the curtains from the moonlight outside then closed her eyes with a sigh.
Ring, slap, ring. Each chime of rope against aluminum spars echoed, becoming weirdly distorted, and the sounds began to blur together. Then the ringing gave way to the song of night insects, and a breeze tickled the hair on her head. The fog of sleep in her mind lifted, and when she opened her eyes again, she groaned. Not again.
Angela sat up, her palms resting on damp grass in her meadow in the Otherworld. The sky brightened as if the sun had been switched on, revealing wisps of torn, cottony clouds in an achingly blue sky. Wearing nothing but her cotton briefs, she shivered in the moist morning breeze. Angela got to her feet and surveyed the scene around her.
“What now?” Her voice had more irritation in it than she had intended.
There was no answering voice or portent. She walked over to a small, tidy cabin that, years before, she had built at the edge of the forest. Going in, she pulled on a serviceable pair of pants and a shirt then retrieved a tall walking staff from behind the door.
Going out and closing the cabin door, she tried again. “Who’s calling me at this hour?”
There was a faint song, a tuneful humming in a deep voice. Angela smiled, feeling warmth in her heart. “Granddad!”
The God of Battles Page 3