“Guards! To me!” Serpent Lion shouted.
Two of her attendants hurried into the room, waving their hands and coughing. They stood at attention, their faces twitching and their eyes watering.
“At ease.”
At that, both attendants sneezed. They recovered themselves apologetically.
Serpent Lion nodded. “This is the work of Dark Eyes, without a doubt. You must gather a contingent to counter attack. Better yet, send one of my warrior angels to breach their defenses. The coward sought to destroy many of our number with that weapon, and I must teach him never to penetrate this far into my realm again.”
The guards saluted, glancing wide-eyed at the still-smoking crater where the rock had exploded. They turned to leave.
“Wait,” Serpent Lion said, raising a hand. “There is another matter. The Root Hexagon is vulnerable to us now. If you can damage that blasphemous artifact as well, so much the better.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Love and Strife
Then with a sigh she turns once more
To lift her shield, a dismal chore
And save herself from cunning jabs
That seek her secret fragile core.
It was one in the morning when Angela finally returned home, and there was no sign of Cassandra there, either. She felt a hollowness in the pit of her stomach as she debated whether to call Janet. Finally, she dialed Cassandra’s friend, but Janet had not seen Cassandra that afternoon after she had been fired.
The news of Cassandra’s firing filled Angela with new dread. Why hadn’t her girlfriend called or come by the office? Angela contacted the local hospitals. Nothing. The police department took her information and reported no incidents involving anyone matching Cassandra’s description.
Angela tried to reach out to her link with Cassandra. Though, to her relief, the sense of her girlfriend’s presence was strong, there was no response. Finally, reduced to impotent waiting, Angela changed into sweats and a T-shirt and settled in the salon to read.
Two pages into her novel, Angela realized that she had just reread the same sentence three times. Aside from the reading light overhead, all other interior lights were dim. She glanced at the clock. Two in the morning.
Boots clumped on the deck. The companionway slats were raised, and Cassandra descended into the salon. She was halfway down when she saw Angela, paused, then finished her descent.
“Where were you? I called you. Three times.” Angela put down her book. “Then I called everyone else.”
Cassandra stood at the foot of the companionway ladder, hands by her side. She stared at Angela for a moment. “I know.”
Angela slapped the cushion next to her. “What the hell, Cassie?”
“Maybe I didn’t feel like answering. Sometimes I’m busy, you know?”
“What do you mean, busy? You said you were going to the party!”
Cassandra stalked over to the sink, ran some water, and washed her hands, scrubbing vigorously, not looking at Angela. “Something came up.”
“Is that it?” Angela felt the heat in her face. “You don’t answer your phone, and you don’t show up or anything? Sometimes you can be so fucking selfish.”
Cassandra turned around, wiping her hands on her pants. “I was going to come home and meet you. But then I met this guy.”
“Excuse me?”
Cassandra flinched. “Not that. Jeez, you know me better than that. We started talking, and I lost track of time.”
Angela threw up her hands. “You let me down, Cassie. Again. Look, I know you’re still dealing with a lot, but can you at least try to follow through?”
Cassandra dropped into the settee across from Angela. “He was interesting! He’s in a wheelchair because of the war. I want to help.”
Angela snorted. “Help with what, Doctor?”
“Look, I see you helping people all the time. Maybe I feel like doing something with my telepathy besides figuring out what my customers at the checkout want.” Cassandra twisted her hands together then looked Angela in the face. “Besides, I’m sorry, but I don’t like Nadia very much.”
Angela froze, glaring. “You ungrateful… Nadia’s been nothing but nice to you.”
Cassandra barked a laugh. “She says she likes me, but she doesn’t. Remember? I’m a telepath. I know what she thinks of me.”
“Goddammit. At least she’s trying, which is more than I can say for you. You’ve blown her off four times in a row now, and I think you owe her an apology.”
“Fuck Nadia. She can go ice skating in hell!” Cassandra shot to her feet and stomped out.
Angela sat in shock for a moment. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath and stood slowly. Cassandra had thrown tantrums before, storming out to go dance at the Rings or prowl the marina before skulking back to the boat. They always had amazing makeup sex afterward, but it still hurt.
She poured herself a stiff shot of whiskey and went out to sit in the cockpit on a deck chair. She sipped thoughtfully, her eyes tracking the blinking lights of an airliner far overhead. She idly wondered where they were going. A sunny island paradise, perhaps. Or maybe a raucous, electrifying city like New York. Somewhere else, anyway.
Angela picked at a tooth. At times like this, the temptation to drop everything and disappear into the Otherworld for a while was strong. At least there it was warm, and no one argued with her. She let out another sigh as her stomach knotted again. No, here was where she lived and here was where she would fulfill herself.
Nevertheless, the fights always took a lot out of her, thanks to her telepathic bond with Cassandra. Not to mention the fact that they shared a previous lifetime together. Images from that other life, an eon past, floated in her mind’s eye. There, too, the relationship had been volatile, but her partner, the Chancellor, had been more mature, both physically and emotionally. True, Angela had not been through the kinds of trauma that lives spent on earth could inflict. Such experiences could build up a kind of shell around a soul, resulting in buried complexes that could take many lifetimes to unravel.
She tipped the last of the whiskey back and felt it burn its way down her throat. With a sigh, she set the shot glass down on the binnacle and made her way back below to sleep.
Cassandra danced out her frustration at the Rings. The strobing lights, body-shaking beats, and dim bodies were psychotropic. Cassandra enjoyed riding the mental tide of the collective mind that formed there. She prowled, circulating amongst the others. The eyes of other dancers would drop rather than meet her stare, perhaps sensing their vulnerability to her secret power. She felt a catlike satisfaction when that happened.
As she moved, she tuned into the limbic minds of the dancers, synchronizing her movements with theirs and drawing inspiration from their interpretations of the music. She picked individuals whose grace was most appealing and partnered with them, regardless of their physical proximity to her. She imagined herself weaving the massed minds together, as if she were a spider casting its web.
Her thoughts turned to Simon. Cassandra admired his serenity and courage, and though she would not admit this to anyone, she sought to emulate him. They were connected somehow, like soul twins, life after life spiraling down millennia of shared history.
Maybe he would like to dance. The thought of giving the wounded soldier some enjoyment made her smile. Lifting her hands, she wove a series of gestures that felt right, somehow, while reaching out with her mind in his direction. What she was doing was risky, especially in this crowded venue, but Cassandra didn’t care.
More clearly than she had ever experienced before, she had a vision. Simon was lying awake in bed. He had been trying to sleep but dreaded dreaming, so he had drunk quite a lot of wine to sedate himself. Unfortunately, the sulfates in the merlot were having the opposite effect.
His body jerked as he became aware of her. He looked around the dark bedroom, confusion washing over him.
—Cassie?—
His voice echoed in her mind, overlayi
ng the music. The thumping receded from her awareness as the link intensified.
—Hi, Simon.—
—What…? How…?—
—What did I tell you? I’m a telepath, man. C’mon, let’s dance.—
—Whaddya mean? I’m not going out now.—
She could feel his irritation.
—No, right now. Just relax and open your mind.—
There was a silence, and then she could feel new impressions of him lying in his bed. She turned her attention to his limbs, particularly the numbness in his legs, and as she had sometimes done with Angela, she projected an impression, a sensory gestalt.
—Dance, Simon.—
—Holy…—
A surge of desire shook him.
—Just let it happen.—
Now Cassandra began to dance as if she had a partner. This was what she missed when she went dancing alone. The sense of two bodies moving as one intoxicated her. Cassandra’s talent allowed Angela to play with her Otherworld abilities without losing her body sense in the physical, and now it allowed a man who had lost use of his legs to experience graceful movement again.
Simon’s throat constricted as a wave of painful joy washed across his mind, erasing the last five years of suffering. Losing awareness of his bed, his darkened apartment, and his pain, he gave himself up to the movement and the beats.
Angela dreamed of her past life as the Lady of Light. She walked with her closest advisor, discussing the war being waged against her people. The uncrowded boulevard was quiet, and she bent to inhale from a scent fountain before continuing her stroll.
“He’s everywhere. His engineers are everywhere, fighting and conquering,” her advisor said. His ornate mustache drooped as he twisted his hands together. “Our people are divided like never before—”
She raised a hand. “I know. I’ve been paying attention.” She fell silent as they walked, her mind replaying the shouts of “strength to the strong” and “chosen people.” It was a contagious madness.
A passerby nodded a greeting, and she smiled. It had not reached the capitol, anyway. She frowned and turned to her advisor, feeling a sudden urgency. “We are beset by storm. By war. Go home and be with your family while you still can.”
The scene whirled away, and she was standing in a councilor’s chamber, bent over a map display. “Here.” She pointed. “We can halt his progress here, though it will cost us.” She looked up into the troubled gaze of her old friend, the Minister of Culture.
“We will lose everything up to that point, Lady.” He shook his head. “Maybe we have already lost everything else.”
“Do not give up! I have found an infection, a traveling disease spreading throughout the Forest of Souls.” She passed a hand over her face and rubbed her eyes. “I believe I know the cause, too.”
Having discovered the machinations of her dead lover, the Soul Thief, who had crossed over into the Otherworld to poison the minds of her people, she had also discovered the key to defeating their enemy.
Fragmentary images of her interminable journey in the Otherworld replayed in her mind. Many times, she had dueled with the bizarre denizens who carried the mind virus that the Soul Thief had unleashed. More often, she would swing a massive scythe to destroy the choking vines in the dense undergrowth surrounding the meadows of those infected.
One mind was impervious to her aid. The virus had turned one of her closest friends against her, a man who came to style himself as the “General.” That man had nearly destroyed her world. Over the ensuing years, the General’s followers had turned on him, one by one, until finally he was isolated, captured, and brought in chains to be judged at the Council tribunal.
He was in shackles, dressed in a prisoner’s drab garment, and his head hung as she questioned him in the Council chamber. Her heart broke all over again as she tore down his rationalizations and forced him to face the fact that he had been coerced, blinded by anger.
Angela surfaced from her troubling dreams of conflict and destruction. For some reason, she thought of the animals fighting on that lonely Otherworld beach. Could it be that the Soul Thief had found a way to manipulate Egregores? She vowed to ask her grandfather’s oversoul about that the next time she went to visit him. As to the content of the dream, no doubt it had been brought to her mind by both George’s lesson and by her vision of the General earlier that day.
There was a muffled thump from above and an awkward slide of panels. Then she heard the tap of shoes on the ladder, soft footsteps in the passageway, and the rustle of clothing. Cassandra climbed into bed quietly, and Angela felt the mattress dip. A moment later, a hand touched Angela’s side, restoring peace to her heart. She shifted her body, thoughts of intimacy briefly arising, but the fog of sleep overtook her. They curled up together, and Angela drifted into calm oblivion.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
War in Heaven: The Lion’s Roar
Realm of Dark Eyes
It was night at the perimeter of Dark Eyes’s realm. Three guardian angels were playing a dice game near a campfire, throwing and laughing uproariously. One of them, the youngest, was taking the brunt of their gambling and had already lost much of his apparel in wagers.
A twig snapped, and three heads swiveled to peer into the night-shrouded forest beyond the border. Seeing a movement, the senior guardian leaped up to grasp his weapons¸ and the others followed suit. Someone approached. The form was indistinct, but as it neared, their weapons lowered, and they gaped. An impossibly beautiful woman, nude, a violet shimmering aura delicately wrapping her body, stepped into the light of the fire beyond the border.
“You…” The youngest guardian licked dry lips. “Halt. State your name and business.”
The newcomer stopped just outside the perimeter and, without speaking, spread her legs slightly and raised her arms. The invitation was unmistakable. All three guardian angels swayed in her direction, but the nearly naked one swayed farthest. Before the other two could stop him, he staggered forward across the border of Dark Eyes’s realm.
Without seeming to cross the intervening space, the woman was on top of him. The guardians raised their weapons and shouted, preparing to leap to his defense, but before they could do so, both the young guardian and his seductress vanished.
The senior guardian’s mental fog lifted, and he swore. “That came from Serpent Lion!”
Root Hexagon, Bald Eagle
Iron Star’s commander, along with a sizable guard contingent, stood watch over the Root Hexagon. The crack in the great crystal was wider, allowing a thin, electric-blue stream of liquid to spill into the corrosive pool. However, he was satisfied that no enemy could penetrate again without his knowledge.
From nowhere, a lightning-like bolt of pure force struck the Root Hexagon with an ear-splitting crack. Sparks showered over everyone in the Crater. The air was filled with the shouts of his alarmed guards. Their weapons were up instantly, waiting for the expected attack. But none came.
After a tense moment, the commander approached the pool for a closer look at the damage. The crack gaped, a sizzling hell mouth drooling life force and raising yellow, stinking clouds from the coolant. Iron Star would arrive shortly, alerted by the automatic alarms, so the commander inspected the flaw closely for his report. Something moved rhythmically within the crystal. He peered at it, recoiled in shock, then leaned closer.
A beautiful, dark-haired man was engaged in coitus with an equally beautiful woman. Their lovemaking was generating stress flaws in the crystal even as he watched.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Long Arm of War
Yet ever do the mighty strive
To seek the heights lest hellward dive
For power’s sake they bend the world
Insuring they alone survive.
The shades were drawn in Simon’s apartment. He was sleep deprived from dancing the previous night, so he napped in his wheelchair in front of the TV, which was still switched on.
He surfaced briefly from
sweet oblivion, hearing shouting from somewhere far away. His sleepy mind reached for the sound.
Simon opened his eyes, alert once again. The rest of the soldiers on duty were at their stations as the vehicle approached the checkpoint. The nightmare replayed itself, a scripted horror story he could not escape.
At the key moment when he would fire upon the car he awoke within the dream. Simon pulled his finger away from the trigger guard and set the rifle down. Everything slowed to a crawl, and he turned to walk away from the checkpoint. Then his buddy stood to bar his way. The man’s face had changed to something robotic and alien, its features inhuman in their perfect regularity. The man reached for him, and Simon jerked away. Then two pairs of hands grasped Simon from behind. He struggled, but his strength drained rapidly as he panicked, and the hands forced him back to his position near the abandoned rifle.
General Iron Star strode up to him from the darkness and waved peremptorily at the other soldiers. “You know what to do. Make sure he doesn’t escape.” The huge man folded his arms and watched impassively as one of the soldiers thrust the rifle into his hands, and another one held him fast.
“Cassie!” He screamed her name in desperation.
It was June, and the farmer’s market at the marina was open. Vendors crowded a large, roped-off section of the parking lot with their stalls and canopies. The scent of flowers and the aroma of baked bread mingled with the salt air blowing off the bay while customers strolled with their cloth bags and woven baskets.
Cassandra had enjoyed shopping there on her Tuesdays off, but now she could go any day she wanted. There was something satisfying about choosing organic produce and taking it home for the week’s meals. The morning after her meeting with Simon and the subsequent fight with Angela, she felt a need for that satisfaction.
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