“Mr. Longsmith? Will?” she said in a gentle voice.
He stirred and opened his eyes to look at her. His face looked younger than it had when he’d arrived. “Dr. Cooper? I must’ve passed out.”
“No, you just fell asleep. You did some very difficult work today. How do you feel?”
He paused, then wonder suffused his expression. “I feel great!”
“That’s great news.” She stood, smiling.
He swung his legs off the couch and stretched. He reached out to shake her hand. “Thank you so much, doctor.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll give you a call and set a follow-up appointment, okay?”
“Sounds good.” He left the room, his steps light, and walked out the front door into the California sunshine.
Later that afternoon, while Angela was catching up on one of her professional periodicals, she heard a tap on the door. She looked up and saw Eric in the doorway.
“Hey.” She put the magazine down. “What’s up?”
He came in and sprawled on one of her office chairs. “Can I ask you a favor?”
She steepled her fingers. “Sure. Anything.”
Eric rubbed his nose and didn’t speak at first. Then he glanced up at her. “I set that appointment with my usual therapist, but it’s not till next week. Could we have a session?”
Angela had been expecting something of the sort, given the stress he was under. Eric had been one of the numerous people she had treated the previous autumn at Franklin. Since then, he had come to her on several occasions.
She glanced at the clock on her laptop and shut the lid. “How about now?”
Eric nodded, relief evident on his face. “Can we do it in here?”
“I don’t see why not.” She went over and closed the door. Even though no one else was in the building, the evidence of privacy would be reassuring.
Returning to her desk, she took out her pad and stylus then started a recorder app. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Eric sat back and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s these nightmares, Angela. I’ve gone round and round with them, trying to analyze their meaning. But I keep drawing blanks. I wake up two, maybe three times a night. I know I’m losing REM sleep.” He glanced at her. “They’re really weird.”
“Okay. You know I can handle weird.”
“All right. I’m back at Franklin, only we’re having a dance party in the third floor rec room. By ‘we,’ I mean all my friends from the Rings and the other clubs. No one from the hospital. Anyway, the music’s loud, the lights are flashing. Then suddenly everything stops. The lights come up a little, and the room has been redecorated. It’s really wild. I can’t describe the colors.” He smiled a little. “But they’re gorgeous.
“Anyway, my friends turn to me, and that’s when I notice that they all have wings. You know, like angels, or maybe fairies.” He laughed. “Yeah. But then there’s this huge crash, and one of the walls explodes. There’s sparks everywhere. Suddenly my friends are fighting. There are these military types with guns, and they’re shooting everywhere. I don’t know why, but I’m not worried. It’s like I’m invisible.”
He shifted uncomfortably. Angela glanced up from her note taking. “At your own pace, Eric. Take your time.”
“Thanks. Anyway, my friends are dying all around me. It’s horrible. But there’s no blood. That’s what struck me as weird at the time. When someone dies, they just collapse in a pile of sludge. Then they vanish. But then my friends pull out these big spears and start stabbing the soldiers. One of the soldiers, a really big guy with glowing eyes, glares at me and comes at me. That’s when I wake up. I think I screamed because my throat was raw.” His voice was steady, but when he looked at Angela again, his eyes were pleading. “Can you help? I take tranquilizers, and they help, but you know there’s no restful sleep when you use them.”
Angela set the pad down and thumped it with her pencil. Maybe it was time for a follow-up dream-walk.
She got up and walked around to his side of the desk. “Eric, I’d like to do another hypnotic session. Is that okay?”
He breathed a quick sigh. “Hell, yeah. I was hoping we could do that.”
“Good. You know the drill. Relax and close your eyes.”
He did so, and she reached out and touched his forehead. The room blurred as she sank into the Otherworld.
His day-lit meadow was tidy, thanks to the extensive work she had done a few months back. Alone, of course, she glanced around for any clues to the nightmares. Seeing nothing obvious, she began walking the perimeter, planning a spiraling search path toward the meadow’s center.
It wasn’t until she was close to the opposite side of the meadow that she saw it. Near where she had entered was a new tree, a conifer.
“Well, look at you.” She trudged over to the center of the meadow. “I wonder.” Perhaps this tree was a symbol of something her grandfather helped awaken in her. But why hadn’t it shown up in Longsmith’s meadow?
Letting her gaze travel lazily up the trunk, she saw a mist gather near its top. Her heartbeat quickened as movement flickered in the mist. Then a thunderous explosion rent the air.
Men fought on a battlefield, just as in her own meadow. But whereas in hers they had been dark-haired men resembling Roma, these were fair complexioned and almost unnaturally beautiful in an androgynous way. The warfare was just as ugly, though, and ear-splittingly loud. Screams mingled with meaty smacks as soldiers butchered each other, their lives erased by the hundreds with careless brutality.
She watched for a few minutes more, but finally she turned away, nauseated by the violence. The sounds faded as she withdrew her attention. Eric deserved an explanation, but she wasn’t about to tell him about seeing meme angels at war—if that was what they were. George’s explanation had been somewhat cryptic.
About to return to the office, Angela paused. Why hadn’t she take Eric into her confidence? If he’d gotten mixed up in whatever was going on with that strange meme war, he might be endangered in the same way as Simon. He did, after all, go through a period of trauma recovery, so he might be vulnerable to whatever was afflicting PTSD sufferers. She gave the question due consideration. She knew she could trust him. That wasn’t the issue.
What she worried about the most was his mental flexibility. He was, after all, conventionally trained, and though he was a brilliant Jungian psychiatrist, he would probably be unhinged by the direct experience of the supernatural. Angela had grown up with it, and her Romani relatives had their own vocabulary for what she saw almost daily.
Her rationalizations were a little thin, but she could not make such a momentous decision on Eric’s behalf right then. With a sigh, less enlightened than before and more uncertain of herself, she found her path back to the office.
She was standing to one side of Eric’s chair. She walked back around to her own chair and sat, swiveling back and forth, while Eric regained his normal awareness.
His eyes fluttered, and he opened them to stare at her. “Man, I feel like I just slept for hours. So, what did you find out?”
Angela grimaced. “I’m afraid I don’t know. About all I can say is that it’s probably related to last year, and that I want to see you again. In the meantime, hang in there.” His face fell, and she raised a hand. “It won’t be more than a couple of days, I promise. I just need to do a bit of research so I’m better prepared next time.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
War in Heaven: Iron Star Attacks
Somewhere above Bald Eagle
Iron Star rode his chariot, a rare thing for him to do. Surrounded by his strike force, he sped above the terrain of Bald Eagle toward a gateway that opened into Diamond Angel’s realm. Her most recent attack on the Root Hexagon had been devastating, and if it weren’t for his timely intervention, she would have plumbed its innermost secrets and, by implication, those of Bald Eagle himself. Her emissary, a new, powerful angel, had been wounded grievously but had not been destroy
ed before he escaped.
The beasts drawing his chariot howled as they accelerated. Iron Star counted on the element of surprise such an attack would give him. He had a specific objective in mind and did not want a protracted war with Diamond Angel.
Peering over the chariot’s windscreen, he raised a hand then thrust it forward as the squadron entered the gate. Almost immediately, powerful forces buffeted him. The alien spaces surrounding the enemy realm were filled with turbulence and dimensional incongruities caused by the isolation trap as well as by Diamond Angel’s own alien origins.
Several of the flying angels accompanying him disintegrated in blinding flashes, unable to weather the changes forced upon them by the new realm. The rest continued, heading toward a shining palace ahead. Diamond Angel had gathered a disquieting amount of power in a short time.
Hordes of anonymous angels burst out from orifices in the building—defectors, serving Diamond Angel. They were ground forces, though, and his squadron decimated their ranks. The defectors hurled spears of light at his angels, striking several of them. However, most of his fighters were able to bring their weapons to bear on the defenders. Vast explosions rocked the edifice, blasting away at its fundamental structure.
Iron Star aimed his craft at the main entrance, landed with a bone-jarring thump, and leaped off. He paused to survey the defending phalanx that had gathered between him and the palace. He hefted his sword, and his battle cry echoed from the castle walls. Running across the intervening space, he was a whirlwind of destruction, leaving a trail of decomposing carcasses as he approached the gate. With a mighty heave of his sword, he split one of the doors and pulled it apart.
As he crossed the threshold, something punched him, hard. He staggered but remained upright. His ears rang and his limbs tingled, but his armor protected him from the attack. More angels poured out of the shadows to engage him.
Raising his sword in a high overhand grip, he attacked them, dispatching two and sending the rest fleeing. He strode toward where Diamond Angel was waiting, her staff raised before her. When they were within striking distance, they began circling one another, their weapons moving as they sought weaknesses in each other’s defenses.
There, a vulnerability: she was weakened by sentimentality. Without hesitation, Iron Star struck at an opening and was rewarded by a scream of pain as she fell to a knee. Flame spilled forth from a wound in her side.
“Cassie!”
He ignored her strange cry and raised his weapon high. She rallied, twisting her staff and striking a powerful blow. His armor protected him from its crushing force. He hurtled through the air to land in a heap by the door.
Iron Star picked himself up, shaken by her strength. She was mightier than he in her own palace. He was lucky to get a strike in.
The fighting sounds outside grew fainter. Fearing that his forces were being driven back, he retreated, escaping the palace. Iron Star climbed aboard his vehicle and took off. His remaining squadron members followed him back to Bald Eagle. He predicted she would retaliate soon and seal her own doom. He derived some small satisfaction from that.
War on Earth
“Nobody’s watching, man. Just do it.” He mimed an overhand blow for his reluctant friend. “Like this…”
—
“You bump into her.” There was the flash of a knife. “I’ll get the backpack…”
—
“That ho got some back, bro. I’m gettin’ me some.”
—
“That bitch got some money.”
—
“I’m gonna ride that…”
Lakeshore Drive by Lake Merritt, Oakland
Cassandra drove in rush-hour traffic, her thumbs tapping the steering wheel to the rhythm of the music on the stereo. The little skeleton swung on the rearview mirror as she turned a corner. Her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of what to do with her day when she heard a voice in her head.
—owe your dreams to Uncle Sam—
She slammed on the brakes and narrowly avoided getting rear-ended. The car passed her on the left, honking. Cassandra started looking for a parking spot, driving slowly until she found one.
She climbed out of her car and locked it then turned carefully in place until she felt an inner nudge. She stared at an apartment building across the street. With part of her mind, she tuned into the thoughts of passing cars and pedestrians. Cassandra wove her way across the street.
Pause. A car passed. Four steps, angle left. Another car, horn blaring, whipped by. She reached the other side.
With most of her attention, she began tracking the mental “tone” of the meme that she and Angela had crafted. Another voice echoed in her mind.
—fighting his wars—
Now on the sidewalk near the apartments, she began walking toward the new voice. Cassandra shivered suddenly, feeling a sense of menace. The shadows around her darkened, and she heard a different voice.
—bitch got some money—
She pretended to see an imaginary person and waved, standing on tiptoe. No one was nearby. She quickened her pace and decided to broadcast a protective thought.
—I’m not here. You need to look away. Keep going. Don’t bother me—
Relaxing and seeing no sign of pursuit, she opened herself once again and resumed her walk. At first, there was mental silence. But then she heard a faint babble of voices. It grew louder and more discordant. She reached into her pocket and pinched her fingers together. The voices stopped.
More carefully, Cassandra opened her mind just a little bit. The massed thoughts of Oakland were like a bellowing storm, but she managed to hold them back. After a moment, she heard another voice.
—why keep fighting—
She looked up. That had come from an upper-story apartment. She felt her heart swell with the accomplishment. Cassandra stopped walking, oriented herself, and listened for more traces. Angela was going to want to know how well the meme had spread. Cassandra would tell her in a few minutes. This work required complete concentration.
—gonna ride that—
She tensed. Her broadcast should have taken care of all such threats. She looked at her watch, feigning concern. She resumed walking more quickly. She heard footsteps behind her, accelerating. She broadcast another thought.
—I’m not worth it. Cops are coming—
The sound of pursuit continued. She glanced in a window to one side and saw a reflection of a man who was half walking, half running to catch up to her. She gasped—a thin almost-screech—and an electric shiver ran down her spine. Her legs were weak, but she broke into a run. Her mind filled with a cacophony of voices. The blaring shattered all remnants of concentration. Her heart raced as she dodged into the street to get away.
—Cassie!—
Tires screeched. She turned her head to see flaring headlights and a white face. Cassandra felt an enormous jolt, followed by red darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Vengeance is Mine
Then liberation comes to those
Whose poison’d minds had no repose;
Their dreams reclaimed, they waken then
To live again and war oppose.
All hospitals smelled the same, and Angela had never gotten used to the antiseptic odor. It was the aroma of help, fear, and sickness. She strode to the nurse’s station.
One of the duty nurses smiled. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a patient named Cassandra Grey.”
The nurse tapped on her keyboard. “Room 304. Down the hall—”
“Thanks. I’ve been here before.”
Angela hurried down the corridor, ran up the stairs to the third floor, and flung open the door to the corridor. Turning left, she sprinted then slowed to a rapid walk to catch her breath as she approached the room. Barely glancing inside before entering, she rushed over to Cassandra’s bedside. Her leg was in a cast, and her head was bandaged.
“Oh my God, Cassie.” Angela leaned over the bed carefully a
nd hugged Cassandra. Her injured girlfriend’s scent erased all thought. After a moment, Angela straightened, still holding Cassandra’s hand.
With her free hand, Cassie gestured at her broken leg. “Looks like the hunter got me.”
“Cassie, what happened?” Angela pulled up a chair and sat.
Cassandra grimaced. “I was on the way home when I picked up a piece of our meme.”
“What do you mean?” A chill ran down Angela’s spine. “What exactly were you doing?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I heard someone’s thoughts, and they were thinking about your meme.”
Angela choked. “Cassie? Didn’t we talk about that?” Before her girlfriend could reply, she waved her hand. “Never mind. I’m just glad you’re alive.” She took a steadying breath. “So you can track it after all.”
“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe it was bait. Anyway, I parked the car.” Cassandra’s eyes widened. “Did you…?”
“Yeah, Eric’ll drive it back to the marina. Go on.”
“So I got out and started walking. Lake Merritt’s usually pretty safe in the afternoon, so I wasn’t worried. But then I started picking up threats.” Her face tightened, drawing lines across her young forehead. “First there was someone thinking about robbing me. So I pretended to wave to somebody.”
Blood pounded in Angela’s ears. No one touched her Cassandra. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded for Cassandra to continue.
“Then, it was like I was being followed. Got a creepy premonition. I picked up some guy thinking about raping me, only maybe it was just some random dude. I don’t know anymore. Thing is, I was putting up my ‘do not disturb’ vibe after I heard the mugger, so no one should’ve bothered me.”
“The hunter.” Angela’s voice was clipped, and her throat tightened with anger.
“Yeah. So, then this guy started following me. I saw his reflection in a window and panicked. Kinda lost control. Ran out into the street. I swear that car wasn’t there just a second before, and then boom. Out like a light. Woke up in the ER.” Her brow wrinkled again. “There was something…”
The God of Battles Page 20