by Sandy James
Rebecca pressed her hand, which had stopped glowing, against Artair’s chest and caught the first gasping breath that filled his lungs. “Yes, that’s it. Come back to me.”
A rhythm began, his chest rising and falling in slow, even breaths. His eyes fluttered open.
She let a satisfied smile cross her lips. “That’s it. You’re back.” She leaned over him, running her hands over his healed chest. “It’s all right now. You came back to me, just like I knew you would.”
Funny, there were no tears of joy. Just a feeling of accomplishment. Her tender and loving emotions seemed to have lost their sharp edge.
His gaze found hers, those handsome green eyes full of curiosity and, thankfully, full of the spark of life again. “Becca? Becca mine?”
Rebecca smiled but felt little happiness. “Yes. It’s me. Are you better?”
“Aye.” His gaze scanned the area. “Helen?”
“I’ll handle her. You go get the baby and take care of her. Her aunt’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. I love you, Artair. Always remember that.”
“I won’t leave you.” His labored movements betrayed how weak he still was. Coming back from the dead evidently wasn’t easy.
As he tried to get to his feet, she put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “I have to do this myself.”
She kissed him, letting her lips rest against his for an extra moment, but she had more to do. She stood and walked over to Sparks’s limp body, hoping she wasn’t too late.
The energy sizzled through Rebecca, and she wanted to harness that power to bring back her friend. As she approached the still body, something was different. She knelt next to Sparks, but she felt no life hovering nearby as she had with Artair. No sense of Sparks’s essence remained in that cold shell.
She knelt and held her hand over Sparks’s chest. It never glowed orange. She blew a long breath over Sparks’s beautiful face. “Please. I don’t want to lose you. Please come back to us.”
Her whispered plea went unheeded. Sparks was gone. There would be no bringing her back. She’d been dead for too long. Her spirit had moved on.
Rebecca couldn’t cry, couldn’t take the precious time to feel anything as draining as sorrow. She needed to be strong if she wanted vengeance. Anger raced through her, drowning out her anguish. It was time for payback. Grief could come later. She was an Amazon, and it was up to her to stop the evil that had been unleashed. She rose to her feet.
Squaring her shoulders, she faced Helen.
“Such a touching scene,” Helen said with a crooked smile. “We’re as powerful as any of the Ancients. Forces to be reckoned with. What we’ll be able to do together! And when our sister comes of age… Just think of it. We’ll be able to change the world. Can’t you see it, Rebecca? We can save this planet from humanity’s selfishness, we can—”
“You’re rambling. And you didn’t hear me earlier. I’m never going to have anything to do with you, unless you count the fact that I’m getting ready to lay you in your grave. Just like you did Sparks. Just like you did Trishna. Just like you almost did Artair.”
Fury gave Rebecca strength beyond anything she’d ever known existed. It made her giddy. It made her cocky.
It made her dangerous.
Voices whispered in her head, twisting and twirling. “You are one of us now. You control the world. Use your strength.”
With only the swipe of a hand, she sent one of the enormous boulders hurtling at Helen.
Helen deflected the stone. It crashed against the wall, splintering in a shower of rocks. “No. You—you don’t understand. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. You and I should work together. We need to repair the damage they’ve done to our world. We need to—to—help the Earth.”
“Your evil far outweighs any good you could do. You’re a murderer. A cold-blooded murderer of women who could have helped keep all the bad things on this Earth in check. And you say you want to save this planet? This planet can’t handle a power-hungry bitch like you. It has enough problems.” Rebecca flung another boulder at Helen.
Helen deflected it like a hockey goalie. “Stop it. Please, just listen to me. I did this for us. I did it for the Earth. I did it for—”
“For yourself.”
“She is not like us, Rebecca,” the seductive voices coaxed. “She will never understand. We are Ancients, we are legion, we are eternal. You are one with us. Use your power. Destroy her and come to us.”
Rebecca flipped her wrist. The pole Sparks had been tied to sailed at Helen like a javelin.
Helen blocked it with both hands. It splintered into tiny pieces of wood that fell into a pile at her feet.
“I told you,” Rebecca said in a steady, threatening voice, “there is no us. Where is she? Where did you take the baby?”
“She’s our sister. I won’t hurt her. We can raise her, train her, make her strong.” Helen dodged the rocks Rebecca kept raining at her. “Please, Rebecca, if you’d just listen.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me the first couple of times I said it, so I’ll repeat myself. I’m going to kill you. You murdered Amazons, and you hurt the man I love. You murdered the only mother that baby’s ever known. You signed your own death warrant, and I’m the person destiny chose to serve justice.”
Helen faltered, backing herself against a wall, trying to stop the shower of stones. “I had to. We’re goddesses. We’re—”
“No ‘we.’ Never ‘we.’ Where is the baby?” The air crackled with Rebecca’s newfound energy as sparks of light exploded around her. She fed on it. Absorbed it. Used it.
“M-my priestess has her in my cabin. We need to—to help her learn her powers. We need to help her ascend when she comes of age.”
A knowing smile crossed Rebecca’s lips. Helen’s voice held a shaky timbre. Another tell. Victory was so near, she could almost touch it. And it felt wonderful. “You’re obviously hard of hearing. There is. No. We. There’s just a baby who was stolen from her home. I intend to make sure she’s got a new one. And I intend to make sure she isn’t tainted by the likes of you.”
A flash of silver caught her eye, tempting her. The sacramental knife lay nestled between two rocks, winking at her. She rolled both stones away with her mind and called the dagger to her with the crook of her finger. The bloody blade sailed slowly across the cave and settled in her outstretched palm.
Just like the bullet she’d held between her fingers the day Sparks had shot at her, Rebecca wondered how something so small could cause so much damage. Since it had twice been the tool of evil, the time had come for the knife to be used for good.
With a quick twirl of her finger, she raised the dagger to hover in the air. She spun it until the blade pointed at Helen. Then she narrowed her eyes and sent it flying.
Before Helen could raise a defense, it sank in her gut.
“No!” she screamed. Blood stained her white dress. “You can’t kill me. I’m a goddess.” She sank to her knees. “You can hurt me, but you can’t kill me. This isn’t over. I want to be your friend, your sister, not your enemy.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly what you are. My enemy. You’re the arch villain, and I’m the superhero.” Rebecca walked over to retrieve her bow and blessed arrows, having a passing thought she could bless them herself now. “Can’t kill you, hmm? You seem to have forgotten what an Amazon does. We slay demons like Jin. And we slay rogue goddesses like you.”
She calmly pulled an arrow from the quiver and notched it in her bow. Easing back the shooting string, she took aim.
The priestesses rushed to surround Helen, preventing Rebecca from finishing her job. She couldn’t risk hurting the girls who were shielding Helen. Uttering some words in Latin, Helen and the priestesses disappeared in a burst of light.
“Damn it!” Rebecca lowered her weapon and stomped her foot, setting off a strong tremor. Whirling around, she faced Artair who’d risen to his feet. “I had her! I
had her, and then I let her slip away!”
* * *
Artair tried to come to terms with what he was seeing. Rebecca’s beautiful blond hair swirled around her, whipped by the wind she was creating with her anger and disappointment. Did she know she was surrounded by an unearthly glow? She had no grasp of the strength she now wielded. She needed help before she hurt someone or before he lost her to the power his death had given her.
“Aye, she’s gone. But we’ll find her. You need to calm yourself.”
The ground rumbled again. “Calm myself? Are you kidding? I have to go after her. I have to! She killed Sparks.” The walls of the cave seemed to bend with her anger.
“You must control your powers, Becca, or they’ll control you. You need help, lass. Let me help you.” He reached out a hand.
She smiled, but not the smile Artair knew and loved. Rebecca’s warmth was gone, replaced by an inhuman chill.
“Need your help?” She shook her head. “I have total control over these powers. God, Artair. You should know what this feels like. I can hear them all, every person on the face of this planet. I can feel the plants, the animals. And I can help them, all of them.”
The power had infected her, corrupted his Becca. He had to save her from herself. “We must call Rhiannon. She can help you shed these—”
“Shed?” Her shriek echoed through the cave. “You think I want to lose this type of power? Are you insane?”
“’Tis not natural. They’re borrowed powers, given by Ancients who hate humans. They must be returned before they…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest. The powers would turn her into a selfish deity. The world already had way too many of those, and he loved her too much to lose her—especially to that kind of future. Rebecca was kind, loving, grounded. Earth. She of all people wouldn’t want to follow the corrupting path laid at her feet.
“But, Artair—think of what we can do now. Think of how I can help the Amazons.” She suddenly stopped, another frosty smile crossing her lips. “The Amazons. I have the power of life now. I can help my sisters. I can give them what they deserve.”
Rebecca disappeared in a flash of white light.
“Ah, Becca mine. What have you done?”
* * *
It was akin to being drunk on good tequila. Intoxicating. Dizzying. Liberating.
Rebecca’s blood pumped hot and furious through her veins as she floated on the winds her mind created. She could feel it all. The smooth rotation of the planet on its celestial axis. The communion of the animals. The buzz of the humans who needed her love and protection. The whispers of the Ancients.
And her sisters. She loved them to the very depths of her soul. That love had sent her on this journey. She had to find them.
She landed outside the Stay Inn and stared at the window of the suite where her sisters would be waiting for her.
The words of the Ancients whispered in her head, distracting her from why she’d come. “You are special now. You are more than you ever dreamed you could be. You are more than plain Rebecca Massee. Come to us. Leave these humans behind. Leave these Amazons behind.”
Not yet. She couldn’t leave yet. She needed to show them all what she’d become. Rhiannon. Rick. People who considered her a lesser mortal.
And the Amazons. Oh, how Rebecca wanted to show her sisters! They would understand. Surely they’d recognize the good she could do now that she was a goddess. They wouldn’t want her to give up this type of power, not as she’d already given up one of the things she’d always wanted in the world. To have a child.
But the seductive call of the Ancients echoed through her mind. “Come to us. Be with us. You are beyond this world now.”
“No! I want to stay here. I want Artair. I want my sisters.”
Thoughts of the Amazons pushed against her conscience. They sacrificed all that made them women to be the saviors of the world, to be the saviors of human beings who never appreciated them, who never even knew about them. But now she had all the powers that rose from the Earth. Death. And life.
“Come to us, the voices hissed. Come commune with those like you. Come to us.”
“No!” Rebecca shook her head, trying to move aside the voices from her mind. She had something important to do. She would restore the most vital thing the selfish goddesses had taken away from the Amazons.
With a blink of her eyes, she popped into Gina’s suite. She smiled when she saw her sisters.
Three sets of curious eyes turned her way.
“Rebs!” Megan called from where she rested on the big bed. “Did Rhiannon pop you back here?” She sat up and smiled. Then her lips sank to a frown. “Something’s wrong. What happened? Did you find Helen? Where’s Sparks?”
“Sparks is gone. Helen got away. She’s wounded, but she got away. Don’t worry. I can find her now. I’ll take care of her. I promise.”
She brushed aside the gloom over Sparks’s death. Grief made her feel too mortal. Rebecca chose instead to collect more of the heady powers and savor them like a good piece of expensive chocolate. “Things are going to be so much better now.”
Megan stood on shaky legs. “Something’s wrong.”
Gina and Sarita rose from their chairs and followed Megan to stand before Rebecca.
“Homage. My sisters are paying me homage.”
“As they should,” the whispers added. “All should respect you. All should fear you.”
Damn, but it felt good to be the strongest member of the group for once. Her abilities finally outweighed all of theirs. They owed her their reverence—she would repay them with her benevolence. “I come with a gift for you—for each of you.” Her laugh rang through the room like the toll of church bells. “Oh, how pleased you’ll be.”
“Rebs?” Megan put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Wrong?” Rebecca shrugged her away. “How could anything be wrong?” So full of life and energy, she literally floated a few inches off the floor.
“You’re scaring me.” Megan glanced over her shoulder at Sarita and Gina. “You’ve gone kinda Exorcist on us.”
“I feel so wonderful.” Why couldn’t Megan understand the change? Why couldn’t she accept that Rebecca had ascended?
“Jealousy,” the Ancients called. “The Amazon is jealous.”
Just as Rebecca had been jealous of Megan, envious of her strength, her beauty and her abilities.
“How are you doing that?” Megan stared at the floor beneath Rebecca’s hovering feet and shook her head. “This isn’t right, Rebs.” She gave Sarita and Gina a concerned frown.
Rebecca didn’t like her tone. “You’re being insolent.”
Megan’s head whipped back around to face her. “Insolent? You think I’m insolent? You’re definitely not yourself. Hell, you sound just like Rhiannon.”
“How dare you? How dare you compare me to that second-rate excuse for an Ancient!”
A burst of wind knocked Megan back a few feet.
Rebecca reined in her temper, snuffing the wind with a quick blink of her eyes. “I’ll be so much more than she ever was.”
The three Amazons watched her with accusing eyes.
She had to swallow to keep from displaying her temper, reminding herself these were her sisters, that she was here to give them a gift. Her calm helped harness her powers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I came here to help you.”
Megan narrowed her eyes. “If that’s an example of your help, then I have to say, ‘No, thanks.’ Where in the hell did you get those powers?”
It was hard not to retaliate against Megan’s impertinence, but Rebecca wasn’t like the other goddesses. She wasn’t like so many of the Ancients. She was compassionate. She wouldn’t take her displeasure out on creatures less fortunate. “I’ve come to restore what was stolen from you. Sparks never told you, but being an Amazon means you can’t be a mother. But now that I’ve become what I am, I give you back the power to bear life.”
; Taking a deep breath, she reached out with her mind, extended her hands palm-out and touched each of their wombs with her new powers. Orange light flashed from her palms, seeking out her sisters. No longer would these women be denied the one thing Rebecca had always wanted from life. No longer would an Amazon be damned to never know the joy of holding a child of her own in her arms. No longer would these brave warriors have to sacrifice such an essential part of being a woman.
All three Amazons gasped as the healing energy sizzled through them.
Rebecca smiled. “See? See what I’ve given back to you?” Tears blurred her vision but she blinked them away. They made her feel too human. “When you find your soul mate, you can bear his child. I’ve given you what I can’t have, what I can never have.”
Did goddesses cry? They had to. How could anyone contain this type of energy, this swell of emotion? She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted the world to know all that she felt. Thunder rumbled close enough to rattle the windows of the suite.
A gentle hand touched her arm. “Are you all right, Rebecca?”
Her gaze caught Sarita’s as the small woman stood bravely at her side. “I’m…fine.”
But that was a lie. She was overflowing with the cries of humanity and the whispers of the Ancients. She couldn’t control them, and she couldn’t tune them out. A streak of lightning flashed just outside the motel. “I’m…fine.”
Suddenly, Gina and Megan were also at her side.
“What happened, Rebs?” Megan asked, her voice softer than usual.
How could she answer them? How could she explain all that had happened? How could she make them understand her new life?
“They are nothing more than human. They do not matter. They cannot matter. You are a goddess.”
The revelation hit her in a rush of guilt and grief. She had become what she despised. “I’m no better than Helen.”
No! I’m not like her! I’m not!
Yet there she stood, lording her powers over the Amazons and plotting and planning what she could do, would do, to exercise her dominance.
“I don’t want this!” She brushed aside her sisters and strode to the door. “Not this!”