by D. M. Pratt
“You want me? Come here,” Eve said, closing her fingers around the pin.
“I could have given you everything,” Gathian said.
“No,” Eve replied. “It was me all along. I could have given you everything.”
Gathian looked at her. “You can’t remember. You gave that up when you came back as a human.”
Eve’s mind drifted for a moment, retracing her thoughts back through the events that had transpired. She had not questioned her moment of clarity. She remembered all the keys that had been given to her: Evine’s warnings and teaching, Aria’s wisdom, the seductions when Kirakin had taken her, and the illusions of multiple worlds and the possibilities yet to be lived.
“The three children playing behind the house,” Eve replied. “You, Kirakin and me. I remembered when the little girl looked at me. Her eyes told me who I was, what we are and what we are capable of doing. She made me remember the knowing that we, Kirakin, you and I, are the trinity, the trinity of life. You needed me to make it real again, but the truth was always that I never needed you.”
“That’s a lie,” Gathian shouted at her. “We are your brothers, Me.” He said the name “Me” but pronounced it “May.” It sounded both ancient and modern.
“Me? Is that how I’m called where we first came from?”
“It was what they called you after the first incarnation and then again when we came back and saved them after the flood. The Sumarians who lived in Mesopotamia, the survivors who needed our help to evolve. We helped them and Kirakin betrayed them, me, remember? It was Kirakin who instilled greed and prejudice, hatred, cruelty and the need to enslave and control in their nature. Not all, but far too many felt it like a drug in their veins.”
“That’s why we were banished,” Eve said.
“We were the first. This earth was ours. We helped them in the beginning and it cost us everything. The humans took our place. We gave them enlightenment and they ruined it and banished us. Then, they needed us again after the flood and begged us to come back and we helped them again. You let them banish us, Me. It was your fault then and now if you stop us and I have no intention of letting you.”
Gathian grabbed Cora by the throat and began to choke her.
“Let her go!” Eve commanded.
“And what will you give me?” he asked, squeezing harder.
“I will give you ‘Me’,” she replied.
Gathian loosened his grip on Cora’s throat and his expression changed to surprise.
“Throw the pin away,” he told her squeezing his fingers tighter again. “Or she dies.”
Cora’s mouth gaped opened in a soundless scream. She gasped for air, but none could pass through her throat into her lungs. Her fingers trembled, struggling to break free from the hold of whatever force seized her. She desperately wanted to grab his hands, to stop the pain, but couldn’t. On Gathian’s other side, Beau struggled as well. His eyes said it all. He wanted to break free, strike Gathian down, and help Cora. He wanted to kill Gathian but his body, as strong and fit as it was, only quivered, caught inside the energy field that imprisoned him.
Eve threw the pin away. It clattered across the floor that lay between them. Gathian smiled and slowly released his death grip on Cora’s neck. Tears fell from her eyes, but her limbs remained frozen and locked helplessly in place.
“Now, sister, come to me,” Gathian said.
Eve wanted to move, but fear held her inside the pentagram.
“You were the good brother,” she said. “You told me we could make a better race of humans. A humankind who would not hate or make war, kill needlessly or harm their mother world.”
Gathian looked at her. She could not read the emotions that flashed behind his eyes. They were once again the same summer sky blue as Beau’s, but they held none of his kindness and none of his hope.
“I lied,” he told her.
“What will you do with me?” she asked.
“Use you. Make you release Kirakin. Make you join us and take back this world…our world,” Gathian said.
“Why? There are a million others,” Eve told him.
“There is only one earth. The humans have always been too stupid to understand. Now, come to me before I destroy all you love and ignite a chaos on this planet unlike your precious humans have ever known,” Gathian hissed.
Eve had no choice. She stepped from the pentagram and placed her feet between the red and black circle. The candle, almost spent, flickered. Whatever time that was left to save Cora and Beau and return to their realm was running out. A second step and she stood just inside the white circle. Eve’s heart raced. She had to save Cora and if she gave up her place she could free Beau whose youth had been stolen from him so many years ago. Finally, she took her last step and she stood outside her sanctuary. “Release them,” Eve told him.
Gathian released them and Cora raced into Eve’s arms. Her tears fell, streaking her beautiful face.
“I’m so sorry,” Cora said.
“Get inside the pentagram. When the candles go out, you’ll be safe. My car is beyond the gate and my keys are under the driver’s seat. You know where I keep them. Take Beau. Help him. Love him. Go home, Cora, and remember me,” Eve told her.
Cora hugged her again.
“Please come,” Cora whispered.
Eve pushed her friend gently toward the pentagram. Cora stumbled back, crossed the three rings and stepped inside the center of the pentagram. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she turned and watched as Beau stepped into Eve’s arms. Eve and Beau embraced each other. He gently kissed her lips.
“I would have made you happy,” Beau said.
“You did,” Eve replied.
The sad reality of their goodbye pressed in on them. They kissed, sharing in that one last kiss a lifetime of passion and bliss that would never be.
“The candles are dying. Their portal is closing,” Gathian warned.
Their kiss ended. They hugged as tightly as they could. She wanted to press his body into hers so she could keep him forever; breathe his breath one last time. Eve saw the red candle fluttering, fighting for its life just as she fought for her own existence. Eve pulled away from Beau.
“Go,” she whispered to him. “If you love me, go.”
They parted. Beau stepped back holding on to her hand until finally one single fingertip touched hers and then in a heartbeat, he stood inside the pentagram next to Cora.
“Come to me, Me. Sister goddess, Mother Queen,” Gathian said.
His hand extended out to her.
Eve looked one last time at Beau and Cora then turned to face Gathian. She placed her hand in his hand and her nose filled with the scent of smoke. It burned her eyes. Smoky plumes billowed, seeping up from the cracks in the floor around Gathian. He pulled her close to him. The smoke engulfed them. Gathian pressed his body against hers and bent his face to hers for a kiss.
“Take me home, brother,” Eve said, as tears fell from the corners of her eyes.
Gathian closed his eyes and his lips met hers. Eve looked back at Cora and Beau and in a flash of motion she saw Beau leap from the circle. He vanished unnoticed by Gathian into the swirls of smoke. Beau fell to his knees, his hands groping over the floor until he found the silver spike, cold and sticky with Kirakin’s blood. He lunged through the darkness and smoke to Eve, pressing it into her hand. Their eyes met and in one great arc she lifted the pin and stabbed it into Gathian’s temple.
“Potentia amoris intervebras reverti Malo. Nocto Inferno Infiniteroium,” Eve said, as she pushed the pin deeper before drawing it out.
Tongues of red and yellow flame leapt and danced up through the cracks, catching the wood sashes of the windows and melting the lead that held the stained glass above her. All around her the tower burned. She wanted to run, but her legs were too weak. There was not room for three inside the pentagram, but she had saved Cora and kept her promise to Beau. Most of all she’d stopped the Nephilim. Eve closed her eyes in resolve and release
d herself to her fate.
In the last moments of confusion Eve felt Beau by her side. He grabbed her hand and yanked her forward away from Gathian, his body twisting and writhing as he tried to pull the silver stake from his head. Eve could see his body convulsing in pain. In one graceful gesture, Beau lifted Eve into his arms and turned to face the heat and flames that leapt from the stairs. He reached out his other hand and opened his mouth to call for Cora to join them.
“Come,” Beau shouted to her.
Eve, weak from her encounter, clutched at Beau as the searing heat from the fire beat them back from the stairs.
“No!” Eve shouted. “We have to step into the pentagram. It’s the only way out.”
In two strides Beau stepped across the circles and inside the center of the pentagram next to Cora. With Eve in his arms they were only four feet inside the center of the pentagram. Eve held on hoping her being in Beau’s arms wouldn’t affect the delicate balance of the ritual and that the enchantment would take them all to safety. Eve, Cora and Beau all turned to watch as the same fate that had befallen Kirakin engulfed Gathian. The flesh of his body hardened, cracked and burst apart. The shards of skin and bones crumbled into fine grains of blue sand pouring out from what had been the edges of his body and melting into a river of liquid blue fire. Each blue grain crashed down to the floor forming a large, thick pool of bubbling, cobalt blue slime.
Eve saw faces in the fire that clawed up from the slime: Evine, Aria, Azura, Millard, the woman doctor and hundreds of others who had been trapped in Kirakin’s world. The fire roared up and the room ignited around them like a great dragon reaching in to swallow them. Please, she thought as the last of Evine’s candles flickered out. Please get us out of here. Eve, Cora and Beau vanished in a haze of cool white smoke.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Eve opened her eyes to the soft light of the afternoon sun. She felt the heaviness of someone who’d been asleep for a long time. Her mind struggled back up to consciousness, reaching through a dense cobwebbed haze of incoherence. She could hear the sweet call of birds chirping and cicada bugs clicking far off in the distance, growing closer and closer with each breath. Eve tried to move. Her body felt weak and hungry but, as she breathed in a great gasp of air, she felt alive. Eve looked at her hands and touched her face. She was in one piece. Some small voice inside her told her she had survived. But exactly what she had survived eluded her. The details hung hidden in the fog of thought whirling lazily in her mind.
Eve’s eyes searched around the room. She was in a hospital, but it wasn’t cold and clinical. It was homey, warm and inviting. There were two I.V. drips and a bank of monitors, but little else to make her think she lay in a medical facility. The room was large with one bed and three windows, a dresser and two chairs. A bowl sat on the small table filled with fresh green grapes, golden pears, lush oranges and one perfect, ruby red apple on top. The colors of the walls and furnishings were pale shades of blue, peach and summer green. Paintings of New Orleans and the Louisiana countryside decorated the walls. One window of her room was slightly open and she could feel a cool breeze as it rolled through the gap and gently caressed her skin. It caught the lace curtains, sending them fluttering like waving hands to greet her. Chilly for summer, she thought.
In that instant of tranquil peace, Cora rushed through the door. Her brow was furrowed in concern, but a great warm smile graced her lips. Eve smiled back. Eve noticed the scars that should have been on her friends face from the Nephilim’s attack were completely gone. They had somehow miraculously healed as perfectly as if she’d never been wounded. Cora’s face was more radiant that she could ever remember. Eve could see a sense of relief intertwined with the love that sparkled in her eyes as she crossed the room.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first opened your eyes. You were asleep for so long. But I knew you’d come back to us,” Cora said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Cora threw her arms around Eve and held onto her for a very long time, then pulled back to study her friend’s face.
“Hey, suga…it’s me, Cora,” Cora exclaimed. “The doctor said your memory might be hazy after so long, but it’s okay. So, don’t you worry one tiny, little bit.”
“Long? I don’t understand. How long? Where the hell am I?” Eve asked. Her voice was raspy and hoarse as if she’d drunk whisky and smoked cigarettes for a hundred years. Eve struggled as flashes of images and events sparked in some dark crevasse of her memory. Bits and pieces of faces and places began to come into focus, pulling together into an enormous, intricate puzzle. But somehow the pieces didn’t fit neatly together. There were gaps and sections missing. What she could drag into focus seemed like a fantastic nightmare wrapped in a tsunami of emotions somewhat akin to hurricane Katrina on crack. Her head suddenly began to hurt as she tried desperately to make herself remember. There was the word Nephilim that pounded in her head.
Eve’s hand went up as if touching herself would stop the throbbing. She could see flashes of something large and red and frightening. Eve looks at her friend whose flush of concern had returned. Eve knew she had saved Cora and maybe Beau. Maybe? Did she? Eve struggled to remember the rest. She had to remember what happened to Beau.
“We brought you here after you fell, darlin’,” Cora told her.
“Fell?” Eve asked.
“We were all so worried,” Cora told her.
Eve reached out and touched Cora’s face, tracing her finger down her cheek where the gash should have been.
“Your face? It’s okay? How?” Eve asked.
“It better be as much as I spend on ridiculously expensive creams and facials. I’m fine. What I need is for you to calm down,” Cora said. “Your face is so flushed. I should get the doctor and your vitals are not happy at all.”
The monitors connected to Eve were giving out peak readings. She was flushed and excited.
“I…I don’t want the doctor. I want to know what happened.”
“Oh suga’. You… you fell in the topiary and split you head open, the night of the Bells of Charity dance,” Cora explained.
“What?” Eve shouted. “No, I fell asleep after… we…after…” She struggled. “… and then I woke up and came to see you and…”
Cora’s brow furrowed and her face grew dark.
“I told you…I made love to….”
“Beau Gregoire. He was the one who told me everything. He said it was entirely his fault. He’s been an absolute angel, coming here, taking care of everything; doctors, hospitals, the baby,” Cora told her.
Eve looked at her dumbfounded, as if she’d not heard correctly.
“Oh, my. I’m not supposed to say that yet. I am so not good at this. The doctor said we were to only tell you a little at a time. Let me get Dr. Dorian,” Cora said and rose to leave.
Eve struggled to get up. The room began to spin. She was so weak the effort made her woozy. Cora was back by her side in an instant.
“Nurse, Doctor!” Cora called. “Please, lay back down this instant!”
Cora put her arms around Eve, struggling to get her to lie back on the bed. Cora grabbed the call button to the nurses’ station and pushed it as impatiently as if she were commanding a reluctant elevator door to open.
“Please suga, please lay down,” Cora said.
At that moment Beau stepped through the door. He rushed to Cora’s side and gathered Eve into his arms. He lifted her and gently laid her back on the bed.
Eve’s eyes welled with tears as Beau tucked her in. He took her hands and kissed them.
“Go get Doctor Dorian,” Beau said, commanding Cora, but never taking his eyes from Eve’s.
Cora rushed out of the room to get help.
“How is this possible?” Eve said.
“I don’t know where to start.” Beau fumbled for what to say. “I… I never even got to introduce myself at the house that night. Everything happened too fast. I’d just returned from living in Europe for over fifteen years. My
parents were dead. They left a ton of business to attend to and I was sure I never wanted to come back to the memories. My grandfather called and told me I had to come back to settle my estate or lose it. When I got to New Orleans, I realized all I wanted was to be home… in my house where I grew up. When I got there this event was going on. I wandered through the rooms that had been the only home I’d ever known. I felt so completely lost until I saw you come in through the front door. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you, Eve. I watched you move through the entry like some ethereal goddess. You looked beautiful and smart and confident. I asked you to dance and when I stepped next to you, I felt as if I’d known you for a hundred lifetimes. It was crazy. I was crazy. I was so attracted to you. My body ached to touch yours. I had to come over and ask for a dance. The next thing I knew, you were in my arms and we were standing in the gardens. I don’t remember how, but we were. I wanted to say ‘Hi, I’m Beau Le Masters, but I kissed you and couldn’t stop kissing you. We’d just met, but when I kissed you, you gave yourself to me so completely I knew it had to be right. Please tell me you remember this?” He asked his eyes pleading.
Eve struggled. Her thoughts and all the memories associated with them were disjointed and confused.
“I… remember coming in the house and walking into the main parlor. I remember you came out of nowhere and asked me to dance. I wanted to give you my name, but names and words were unimportant. The next thing I knew we were in the topiary maze and you kissed me so hard you took my breath away,” Eve said.
Beau smiled at her. “I kissed you and you kissed me back. It was surreal. Time stopped and nothing else mattered. I don’t know what came over me, Eve. You seduced me in a way I have never been seduced and we started making love.”