by Shéa MacLeod
I stared at the big hand he offered and looked back to Edward, giving a direct cut to the man, as they say in romance novels. I gestured with my head. “Who are they?”
Edward smiled fondly up at the three immense statues in the middle of the chamber, illuminated merrily in the firelight. Seated upon three massive thrones were three equally impressive females. The central figure rose close to the ceiling, while the other two flanked her at not quite thirty feet each, if I had to guess. They were so immense I almost couldn’t believe I was seeing them. “In the middle is the Celtic goddess Cerridwen, to the right you have the Egyptian goddess Bast, to the left you have the Norse goddess Freya. Three very important personifications of the goddess, each in their own way. They’re not the original statues, of course, time has a way with destruction. These three are only about two hundred years old.”
Edward stepped aside with Jordan, giving me a moment to reflect. Theresa and Dane worshipped a god and goddess, yet I’d not studied their beliefs or composed any of my own. I was twenty-four years old and nowhere near understanding the bigger picture or believing in an all-powerful being controlling my existence. I wandered over to the statues for a better look.
I traced my fingers over the deep carving of “Bast” at the feet of the figure on the left, each letter bigger than my hand. The throne upon which she sat was a rough block of stone with a squared back; what parts of it could be seen were covered in brightly colored hieroglyphs. The goddess sat demurely, bare feet planted on the floor and her knees lightly touching, long legs flanked by a pair of regal, golden colored cats with shiny eyes of emerald. One hand rested in her lap and the other was firmly anchored to the base of an upright Ankh on the opposite leg. Her face was a working mixture of predator and mother with flawless features feline in shape, and skin the color of mocha. The goddess’ eyes were yellow and slit like a cat’s. She wore an ivory tunic over a tiny waist and curvy body, topped by generous cleavage and bare shoulders. Her headdress was an elaborate carving very close to the color of her skin, tiny braids falling in a halo around her shoulders. Two splashes of bright green graced her in the shape of a headband and costume necklace. Rising from above the headband were two dainty cat ears, perked like Addie’s when she listens to me speak.
Before I had a chance to move on to the next statue, Edward was beside me. I jumped, unaware he’d come so close. When he smiled, his eyes crinkled with years of laugh lines. I would bet he was a cool grandpa. “This is where I leave you, Vale,” he told me, patting my shoulder. “Jordan will take care of you. He’s staying overnight to teach you the ropes and get you settled in.”
“Well, that was awful kind of him,” I answered, sweetly mocking, and I batted my thick, black eyelashes in the sour man’s direction. He frowned at me, crossing overly-muscular arms across his large pectoral muscles. I could hear his plain black T-shirt screaming in agony.
“Behave yourself and listen to what he has to say,” Edward warned, wagging his finger. He paused, standing in the open doorway, and his face went serious. “I almost forgot. This is very important, so listen carefully.” He put a warm hand on each of my shoulders. “If there’s ever an emergency, you are to call me or another coworker. The location of this temple is unknown to the people of this village. Its exact location is protected at all costs. If you need help, for whatever reason, you are not to call emergency services.” He dropped the deep tone and smiled. “Of course, this is quite possibly the safest place to be in Quicksilver, as you can very well see.” He chuckled, gesturing to the fortifications on the door.
For as large and bulky a door, it made not a sound when it closed. Jordan stepped up to it, methodically locking each of the five locks. There were three deadbolts with three different keys, a sliding bar, and a hook and eye; the last two of which must have been undone when Edward and I arrived.
“When you’ve entered the Temple for the night, you lock each one,” Jordan grunted as he worked. His back was to me, his blonde hair shaggy and loose around his thick neck. When he turned, he latched cold, gray eyes to mine. “It’s imperative that you do this.”
I stifled a laugh by pretending to cough. This guy was serious as a heart attack, with a complete lack of emotion to match. ”Just why is that?”
His eyebrow cocked defiantly at me. He clicked his key ring to the belt loop of his black jeans. “We just do. It’s policy. How long have you been in Quicksilver?”
”A week.” I reached a hand up to touch Bast’s toe. It was the size of my palm.
“Are you aware that between the hours of midnight and three, you must remain inside with curtains closed and doors locked?”
Bast’s toe felt cool to the touch. I didn’t bother looking at him when I replied, “No, that’s news to me. Is it like some kind of curfew?” I’d spent the last week sleeping all night, watching TV, and making three lunchtime grocery runs. Not a soul had mentioned a curfew.
“Yes,” he said shortly, abruptly turning and heading away from me. I left the coolness of stone to follow him, tripping over my Nikes in the rush. Superpowers be damned, I was a klutz. I opened my mouth to question the curfew, but he beat me to it.
“There is one set of keys to the Temple used by the guards. We pass it on to each other at shift change,” he said over his shoulder, his footsteps echoing off the tall ceilings. “Every door in the temple has a key. You may go anywhere in the Temple except this room,” he came to a stop before a short, squat door the color of dried blood. “This room is off limits. It can not be opened by anyone but Edward.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“You evade a lot of questions,” I snapped back, already sick of him. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in consternation. Jeez, I really had to spend the night with this guy? And not even in the fun sense of the phrase.
“I don’t know why,” he bit out slowly, as if speaking to a two year old. “It’s just the rules. Now if you’re done being a pain in the ass, we’ll continue.” He resumed his overly fast pace, and I trailed behind him, wanting to do what I could just to anger him. Nobody had pushed my buttons quite so well since Macy was a pre-teen.
I couldn’t believe the silence of the building. It was like being trapped in a vault, no sounds in and surely no sounds going out. No breezes, just stagnant albeit fragrant air. ”It smells like jasmine.”
Jordan nodded, gesturing to a dark corner of the temple. “We burn incense all day in honor of the goddess. Part of your job is to keep the incense going. Generally every hour or so, head that way and light one up.”
I laughed at his wording, but he just gave me a dirty look. This guy had no sense of humor. We came to a small steel door set in the west wall, where he meticulously picked through the key ring before choosing the appropriate one and unlocked the door. Following his broad shoulders into the room, I felt a distinct change in temperature. It was much warmer.
“The temple is kept at a steady sixty degrees to preserve the statues and the paint. If you want to warm up, come in here. For no reason should you ever touch the thermostat to the temple.” He started off on a description of the various screens and computers, but I tuned him out.
There was a wall of ten television screens, all showing different parts of the temple, inside and out. One trained on each of the three goddesses; one on each of the four darkened corners of the interior, one on the windowed tower, one on the single exterior door, and a semi-arial view of the exterior temple. Very high tech and slightly intimidating. I noticed with extreme relief a computer with the lovely word GOOGLE across the screen, decorated in fine Google fashion for the fall, all colorful pencil drawn leaves.
Jordan cleared his throat. I shook off my reverie and caught him staring at me in irritation. Great, he must have asked me a question. I shuffled my feet, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Do you think you understand?” he repeated through his teeth.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Th
en, I’m leaving.” He headed for the door in a flash of black clothing. I followed on his heels.
”Edward said you were staying all night!” I argued, my long legs matching stride with his as he crossed the marble floor. Our footsteps echoed in the cavernous room, bouncing back from the walls and giving the illusion we weren’t the only ones walking. The torches flickered eerily, casting shadows everywhere.
”There’s no reason for me to be here. I am usually safe at home before midnight. I will not change that tonight.” At the exterior door, he turned the last key and pulled it open. Turning back once more, he regarded me with what could only be called arrogance. “Remember. Do not look outside. Do not open the doors no matter what you hear. Five minutes until midnight, turn off the exterior cameras.” He put a hand to an odd looking light switch beside the door. “After turning off the cameras, check the locks on this door and flick this switch. Immediately. Do you understand?”
If this man could make a grown woman feel like such a child, I pitied any children he might have. I glanced at his left hand and located the—gasp—wedding ring. God bless the soul that married him. “I’ve got it. I haven’t the faintest idea what the hell you’ve droned on about, but I’ve got it.”
“After three, turn on the cameras and flick the switch the other way.” He passed me the key ring, and was gone.
Chapter 2
Sitting before the screens in the surveillance room, I kicked my sneakers up on the desk and clicked the mouse to wake up the computer. It was about eleven thirty and I was starting to feel uneasy. After I’d locked the doors behind Jordan, I took it upon myself to locate the bathroom, replenish the jasmine on the altar, and make my way to the internet.
The air felt charged, even as closed off as it was in the temple. I couldn’t place the source of worry, but it hung in the room, caressing my skin like a lover. I made the motions of checking my email, finding advertisements guaranteed to increase my penis size, a lengthy list of names and numbers from my dad, and an update from Macy on her new girlfriend.
At ten ’til twelve, after glancing at the exterior screens over and over between mouse clicks, I finally gave in and flipped the switch. Both screens went dark.
I hurried through the main room, lit only by the spotlights illuminating the three central giants. The torches had at some point gone out, and I attributed that to the absence of the man who’d lit them with a flick of his hand. At the door, I checked each lock thoroughly, ensuring them fully functional. I turned to the switch on the wall.
It reminded me of a kill switch you might find on an amusement park ride. With a shrug, I gripped it and pulled down.
The sound was terrifying. I jumped a foot in the air, whirling to the source high above my head. It was almost too dark to make anything out, but I could tell something was moving to block the ambient starlight coming through the windows of the tower. With a heavy thud, the whirring sound stopped and the silence in the temple seemed deeper than before. If my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, the tower windows were covered by large doors.
“What the hell,” I breathed into the stillness. Standing so near the door, I could hear the wind picking up outside, an unearthly howl moving through the night. The familiar ping of raindrops echoed from the ceiling high above me and a grumble of thunder made me jump. Goose bumps ran rampant on my skin beneath the cotton sleeves of my hoodie. The hair on the back of my neck stood like an army ready for battle as I stared at the heavy door that separated me from the outside.
At the obvious sound of a dog braying, as creepy as the sound of coyotes on the prowl, I backed away from the door, startled. I felt warmth on my back, light pouring over me, and turned to find I’d made it to the central goddess, the one Edward had referred to as Cerridwen.
She certainly was magnificent. Her throne was carved to resemble tree trunks, laced with green ivy and flowers of white petals. A black cloak covered her, the hood draped down her back, the front curling down to the ground at her bare feet. A small “v” of space showed a tasteful green gown beneath the ties of the cloak. The dress was shot through with gold embroidered vines, and it draped elegantly over her knees. Her hair was black, tinged with gray, and one long braid was tossed carelessly over her left shoulder, imperfect.
She cradled an ebony cauldron between her knees and clutched a brown book to her chest with one arm. The other hand pressed gently to the head of a pure white wolf sitting demurely beside her right leg, body pressed to her. His snout was long, his eyes black as the night sky. Cerridwen had a mature beauty, her cheekbones broad and her smile holding the secrets of the universe. Her eyes were as dark as her pet’s, and knowing.
I curled up beside one of her feet, my back to the cauldron, and closed my eyes on the howling of the wind, picking up with a vengeance outside.
It was hard not to think of home. The smell of Mom’s meatloaf and Dad’s absent minded voice yelling, “Peach, I can’t find my glasses!” Theresa’s secret smile and head shake as she plucked them from the coffee table where he left them only an hour before, depositing them on the desk beside him. We would watch Jeopardy before dinner, the four of us, and then chatter about the day while we ate. Dane would update us on his progress in his most recent book, Theresa would tell us about the crazy things her students said in class, and I’d keep the frustration of idiot Wal-Mart customers to myself. Macy would throw a fit every time she guessed a Jeopardy question wrong.
I thought of the nights Macy would slip into my bed when I was a teenager, during bad weather or scary dreams, and the strawberry smell of her hair pressed under my chin. She’d curl her little body into mine, her hands gripping just one of my own. I used to press my other hand to her collar bone and count her heartbeats, an amazingly life-affirming feeling.
Sitting at the feet of a massive stone goddess, I counted my own heartbeats, each light and quick beneath my bare palm, like the flutter of a bird’s wings. I crossed my legs, using the cadence to enter a meditative state, tuning out the world.
At three, the uneasiness wore off like a bad perfume, along with the steady pour of rain. Three hours had drug on in a haze of eerie sounds from beyond the walls and leaving the warmth of the statue to light a stick of jasmine incense every hour, still clinging to the half-trance I’d found. I’d chewed a rough patch into my bottom lip. I raised my head from Cerridwen’s leg, eying the door warily. I touched her, and could swear it felt like skin. “Well, Cerri, I don’t know what the hell that was about, but it wasn’t any fun.”
I slid from Cerridwen’s throne, my feet slapping to the floor. The tower windows made just as much noise opening as they did when they closed, the kind of sounds the Hydra must have made when Hercules killed it. I could see clouds and stars outside the distant windows.
I hadn’t paid any attention to Freya, sitting seductively to the left of Cerridwen. To be honest, caught in the warmth of the central goddess through the wee hours of the morning, I’d forgotten she was there.
Boy oh boy, was she there in all her feminine glory. She was colored the lightest of the three women, her porcelain skin almost shining in the spotlight. Her head was tilted, hands lifted to brush her fingers through her strawberry blonde hair, the waves of which cascaded from her fingertips halfway to the floor. Bright blue eyes dominated her elfish face, gazing out with an authority that didn’t mesh with her child-like appearance. Her chest was bare, her breasts perfect round globes with obscenely painted nipples, like blush on her skin. A white cloth draped her lap, keeping her opened knees just this side of indecent. A cloak of white feathers draped down her back, a falcon’s head resting on her own. The only other ornament on her body was a ruby and amber necklace. A metallic colored blob between her feet proved to be a suit of mail, a sword stuck into the pedestal beside it.
The three of them made quite a trio: demure, sarcastic, and saucy. With another glance at Cerridwen, I headed for the office to wile away another hour.
At four o’clock on the dot, I watched my relie
f come walking up the lawn to the exterior door. It occurred to me I’d wasted the entire night instead of getting to know the various areas of the temple. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a quiz.
The jarring buzz of the doorbell followed as I watched him press the button to the right of the entrance. Grabbing the five pound key ring, I headed to let him in, vowing to explore tomorrow.
He was stunning. His hair was a mass of rich brown that slanted sideways into his eyes and brushed the collar of his black polo. I was thrown by his eyes, black as the night around him, but twinkling with good humor. He wasn’t much taller than I, putting us almost eye to eye, and his long, lean body was something I’d be writing home about. The air behind him smelled like ozone, and I couldn’t tell if the storm was coming or going.
Lifting his hand, he displayed a white paper bag. “I brought coffee and doughnuts,” he offered, his voice strong but not too deep. When he smiled, his teeth were white and straight in his tanned face.
I laughed, putting a hand to my forehead in mock swoon. “Oh, god, I think I might be in love!”
With a sheepish grin, he stepped into the temple and closed the door behind him. I started the ritual of locking the doors, still trying to learn which key did what. “It’s an apology,” he told me. Finishing the door, I turned to him with a confused look, keys dangling from my hand.
“Apology? I’ve never even met you.”
“An apology for having to deal with Jordan last night,” he replied, motioning with his head for me to follow him to the computer room. I dropped back just a tad and my eyes widened at the masterpiece that was his luscious bottom. His blue jeans were like a second skin. I even liked his silly brown cowboy boots.
“Ah yes, Jordan. I pity anyone who crosses his path.” I fell into the second rolling chair as he sat and began dispersing jelly filled doughnuts. He must have been psychic, because they’re my favorite. Of course, he could literally be psychic, if the employees of the temple were any indication. The first drink of coffee warmed my insides, banishing any worries left over from the night.