More silence. Lenore was not only wondering if she should give up Anshar’s presence, she was also battling a very insistent voice within her head.
I know who you’re talking to. Anshar sounded frantic. You tell them I’m here! Do you understand me, Lenore? Tell them that I’m here and we will be coming home soon.
Lenore rubbed her eyes. Being immortal: good. Being attached to Anshar: bad on every level. He had been in her brain non-stop for the past two days—along with, every time she left the confines of the office, his god-buddies who’d been scouring the streets of Plymouth—and she was exhausted. Lenore had tried everything, but she couldn’t figure how to shut any of the voices out. Threats and curses had come from Anshar, but worse than that, he’d done everything to get her back into his cell in the basement for a repeat performance of their little “hand-encounter.” Without success, thank you very much.
He’d haunted her evening hours with verbal replays of what she’d done to him and what he was going to do to her once he was free. She vacillated between breathless arousal and complete terror. Lenore was on edge every minute and told herself that she was bloody well sick of Anshar and couldn’t wait for him to leave. So for that reason, fine. She’d do this little thing for him to perhaps hasten his departure. But he’d have to stop tormenting her.
If you stay out of my head, I’ll tell them you’re here, Lenore eventually answered in mind speak, using her only leverage.
Not getting a response, she repeated. Do you hear me, god? If you stop messing in my mind, you’ll get your wish!
Downstairs, Anshar was considering. Distressing Lenore and tantalizing her with his naughty innuendos had been his only amusement while locked in this cell. He had been released from the table, but walking an eight by ten enclosure was still a long way from entertainment. Should he give up sending her images of his plans for the next time he got her alone?
Right now, Lenore was at his mercy, mentally. She had the power within to cut off his communications to her, but she had yet to figure out how it worked. If she remembered the collar, she was either too reluctant or too embarrassed to exercise its power again. He was thankful for that and pleased she hadn’t yet gotten the hang of blocking her thoughts from him.
Couples who had undergone the amulet ceremony could always be in touch with each other, but like the other gods, with practice they could apply “parental controls.” Neither your friends nor your mate needed to know everything. It sucked, but for the time being, Anshar did. And it amused him and turned him on that Lenore vacillated between being pissed off at him and physically inflamed.
He made up his mind.
Tell them that I’m here, Lenore, and I will leave you alone, except when you are doing something I can’t ignore, such as changing your clothing or showering…or perhaps pleasuring yourself…I won’t be able to control myself then. He felt it in his gut that Lenore was, once again, both furious and madly aroused.
Knock it off, pervert! I’ll tell them. Just stay out of my head!
From the basement, Anshar signed off with a big, audible, lip-smacking kiss.
Lenore wondered if the doctor was still on the phone. Dani-Lee had been waiting a long time for an answer. At this point, no communication was probably confirmation enough that she knew Anshar’s whereabouts.
“He’s here.” Lenore breathed into the phone. “He’s unharmed, and Dagon intends to release him in a few days’ time.”
There’s my good girl.
That was short lived. Shut it, asshole!
“Thank you, Lenore. You don’t know the weight that’s just been lifted,” Dani-Lee said.
Marduk interjected, “Lenore? Thank you for that.”
The new goddess felt bad. The thunder god had probably taken his first deep breath in two days. Her guilt grew higher as he continued.
“I want you to know that if you ever need help of any kind, I swear to you that my brothers will be at your disposal.”
Lenore ended the call with an abrupt peck of her finger and sat down hard. She rubbed her temples. Shit, was she confused. She should hate all those gods; had been schooled well by Dagon’s charters, knowing that once released from their invisible state, the group would use their powers to devastate the world. She had read the dossier on each one and knew the evils they had perpetuated in ancient days.
Marduk, who had just been…sweet? …he had destroyed an entire ancient civilization. And Anshar? Her glib-tongued amulet donor had brutally killed his own parents, who had been protectors of the world and the Adam and Eve of the heavens. For these reasons, Marduk and Anshar had been banished to the Underworld, and their ten cohorts all had similarly gruesome pasts. Lenore went over it in her head again to solidify her hatred of the group.
Dagon had told her that the jailers of the world below—Nergal and Ereshkigal—had given the gods a second chance in the 1600s, but the deities had failed to redeem themselves. Indeed they had wreaked havoc in Merrymount, gleefully leading Thomas Morton, the one they’d been sent to save, into debauched practices. Morton had been banished, and the gods’ bodies had been taken away as punishment, relegated to the mist.
Nergal had set Dagon up to be the god-police, wanting to make sure that the group stayed invisible. Dagon had bought property, invested money and written a charter, enabling a faction of Puritans to form an association in perpetuity to keep an eye on things. Then Nergal put Dagon into a deep sleep for 380 years.
When the Quincy gods stumbled upon a way to become embodied, which they were doing now using bloodlines long undetected, Dagon had been awakened from hibernation so that he and his followers could do everything in their power to stop the evil gods from destroying the world.
So why did it all feel so wrong?
Because it’s fucking bullshit! Anshar’s voice cut in. If you believe the crap that Dagon has fed you, then you are one gullible lady. Anshar couldn’t keep his mouth shut. That is the most pitiful, piece of shit story that I’ve ever heard.
You said you’d stay out of my thoughts. Lenore was incensed that he’d usurped her privacy again.
If you think I’m going to keep quiet while you buy into Dagon’s bull crap… God’s, woman! Do you really believe that we’re the bad guys?
Lenore had had just about enough. She was due to meet Dagon to inspect a new bunch of recruits and show off her super strength while whipping them all into shape, and she had no time for this nonsense with Anshar. She’d shut him up.
Fine asshole. Answer me this. Did you or did you not kill your parents?
Total silence from the cell below.
That’s what I thought. Lenore picked up her high-priced leather handbag and locked her office door on the way out.
Chapter Five
Lenore wasn’t sure she’d forgiven Dagon for going behind her back to perform the amulet operation, but she was delighted with the god powers she was discovering. Her boss, for all his culpability, was contrite and had become newly attentive, as well as forthcoming with information. He had told her of their blood connection, which was why, he explained, she was able to receive an amulet and become immortal herself.
She and Dagon were related, though separated by many generations. It made sense—in a twisted science fiction kind of way—that his god DNA would make it possible for her to become immortal. She hadn’t exactly grown up in a household known for its normalcy, so she accepted it, and started thinking of Dagon as a doting great-grandfather.
He certainly was keeping her busy. Dagon had amassed an enormous number of trainees for their group, and Lenore spent many hours in the woods preparing them for battle and honing her own skills. As much as her new god-enhanced fighting skills kicked ass, she decided she liked the feel of misting in and out most of all. There was something freeing about evaporating your body and not having to worry about everyone’s ogling eyes.
Dagon could still see her, as she could now see him in a similar state. She knew that Anshar and the other gods had the same advantage, a
nd it leveled the playing field.
Super powers came easily. Always agile and well trained in warrior arts, she now had strength and speed to back up her skills. None of her underlings could touch her, and that included Matthew, who she cheerfully beat to the curb daily in retaliation for his unauthorized fondling. If Dagon didn’t like the idiot so much, Lenore would have gladly plucked the arrogant, human male’s eyes out.
The only thing she wasn’t getting the hang of was the mind-lock, privacy thing.
She’d finally managed to kick Dagon out of her head. He had spent several hours teaching her the different frequencies or pathways of her mind waves, and how she could open or close them one at a time, a few at a pop, or all of them at once. And yet, she couldn’t find a way to keep Anshar at bay. It annoyed her that within the confines of the house, he was in her head all of the time, everywhere.
And she knew that once he was free, even the ten-mile distance that could separate her brain from Dagon and other gods apparently wouldn’t apply with a mate because of the amulet they shared. Pain in the gluteus maximus.
And speaking of putting miles between herself and Anshar, Lenore needed to take a trip to her childhood home and see if her mother and grandmother were okay. She hadn’t visited them since her transformation and, even though they were used to her prolonged absences, she wanted to see if they would suspect anything was different about her.
She drove to the little weather-worn cottage that her family had owned for several generations. Sitting a few streets back from the ocean in Plymouth, it was in an older neighborhood where houses were being systematically torn down and replaced with McMansions. Her family had been offered a lot of money for their small parcel with a view but had steadfastly refused to sell. This home represented her family’s slice of the American dream, and they’d be damned if some fast-talking new money would steal it away.
Lenore pulled up and surveyed the property with a critical eye. She’d have to spend some time here soon and clean up the yard. It had been a hard winter, and neither her mother nor grandmother had bothered to pick up dead branches or rake sand from the flower beds. One more thing on her to-do list.
“Mom? Gram?” Lenore took off her shoes as she entered the opposite of a state-of-the-art kitchen. The counter tops were aged pink Formica, the cabinets anodized white metal, and the refrigerator really did say Norge.
“Lenore?”
She followed her grandmother’s voice out to the back sun room, a comfy spot where the family spent most of their time, and her heart sank as she caught sight of the two females. Great. Full “witchy” regalia today. “Have a seat, honey. We were just deciding between the gazing globe or the rolls. Which do you think?”
Lenore eyeballed the line of petrified bread perched atop the wainscoting trim that ran the perimeter of the room and shuddered. The rolls had been there since she was a small child and were used in aleuromancy, which was a form of divination using flour. Just what she needed! Lenore stooped to kiss both her gram and her mom, each looking at her expectantly.
“What’s the occasion?” she dared ask.
“Well, dear, we’ve both been feeling that something momentous is about to occur. Something involving you, so it’s perfect that you’re here, and you should be the one who gets to choose.”
Ah. Lenore’s people were feeling something funky about her…something other than her normal charter-driven, protect the world from rogue gods job, of which they were fully aware. That answered her earlier question.
Over her lifetime, Lenore had seen the gazing globe consulted many times and, much to her amusement and her matriarchs’ disappointment, nothing was ever revealed in a timely enough fashion to be of help. So, to avoid further disappointment in that area, Lenore chose the rolls. She went on tip-toe by the far window and coaxed one rock-hard bun into her hand. She passed it to her grandmother with all due gravity.
Great. Lenore’s head was invaded from several miles away. You’re related to witches.
Bastard. How was he in her head, anyway?
Did you escape? Lenore asked.
Nope, Anshar answered. Dagon took my obedient puppy self out for a little walk with his magic behavioral collar firmly in place around my neck.
Lenore, assuaged, chose to ignore Anshar as soon as she was sure he was still prisoner. Besides. His comment had pissed her off. Who was he to judge her bloodlines?
This place and these women had been Lenore’s life for as long as she could remember. The only one in her family who hadn’t pushed the witch-agenda had been her great-gram, who had died three years ago at the advanced age of eighty nine, only one year after passing the baton of Dagon’s enterprise over to Lenore. The charter mantle had bypassed the two generations between because, well, Mom and Gram fancied themselves diviners and didn’t want to get involved in the messy world of god-hunting, or god-waiting, as they snickeringly called it, when year after year no immortals ever showed up.
Witches, or witch wannabe’s, were not uncommon in Plymouth, and Lenore’s folks had never been altogether quiet about their Wiccan beliefs. Lenore’s upbringing had been nothing short of mortifying when witchy demonstrations would take the place of common sense. Her mother would sometimes show up at school in robes or now and then hurl curses at the children who teased her daughter on the playground.
Lenore had never been invited to classmate’s houses, nor had anyone ever dared to approach hers, except on Halloween when it was routinely TP’d and egged.
Yeah, friends weren’t exactly a dime a dozen with a family like Lenore’s, so she had thanked God constantly for the office where she’d been welcome to join Great-gram at any time, feeling comfortable in the warm, red antique house, learning the ropes of the position she would someday hold.
Not that she didn’t love the two women who eyed her now intently.
“So what do I do?” she asked, taking the bun back from her grandmother who held it out. “Throw it over my shoulder and see if it breaks into the initials of the one I’ll marry, or put it on the lawn and see how many ravens come to peck at it, letting me know how many kids I’ll have?”
Show a little respect to your elders, Anshar interjected, but nevertheless sounded amused.
Like you did? Lenore snapped cattily. That shut him up.
“No need to be snippy, dear,” her mother admonished. “Just break it open and read whatever message is inside.” The women leaned forward expectantly.
“Oh sure. Right. Forgot myself for a minute.” Lenore tried cracking the bread open, but it truly was as hard as concrete. She went to the kitchen drawer for a knife, but the blade slid ineffectually off the surface. She finally settled on an ice pick and poked several holes in the thing before the biscuit crumbled into her hands. Good. There was the slip of paper. Cradling the mess, she walked back into the sunroom.
“Pluck it out, dear. Read it to us!” Her grandmother was flushed with excitement. They hadn’t had a good aleuromancy in years.
Lenore unfolded the brittle paper. She didn’t know whose hand it was written in. Certainly not any of the women she knew. She spoke the words.
Bright serpent, not dark.
Share your song.
Two will be made whole.
Two will bring salvation.
And what the hell does that mean? Was she asking Anshar’s opinion?
The two elders brought their heads together, clearly puzzled. Lenore tapped her foot. She didn’t have time for this.
“Mom, I just came by to see if you needed me to pick up anything at the store? Maybe fresh bread?” She looked where the crumbs lay in a pile on the table in front of her.
“You’re so considerate, dear, but we’ve just been out shopping. We’re all set on food so you can run along. Just give us a few days, and we’ll figure out what this means.” Her mother made a shooing gesture, and Lenore figured she was off the hook. Apparently neither one of her relatives had noticed anything unusual about her. Lenore kissed them both goodbye and hea
ded out the door but not before hearing their very disturbing last words.
“Were you picking up some interference in the room?” her grandmother asked.
“Mmm, hmm,” her mother replied. “Male interference.”
You couldn’t have stayed out of my business for five minutes? Lenore stomped back to her car, not pleased that her family might be onto something. Next time I’m with them, do me a favor and butt out!
Next time you visit them, I plan to be with you, Anshar replied with surety.
Lenore snapped. We’ll discuss this when I get back!
Does that mean you’ll visit me in the cellar?
Yes, but only to give you a piece of my mind! Lenore had endured quite enough.
Oh. I already have that, baby.
Lenore was exasperated when he suddenly vacated her mental space. He always managed to have the last word, and she was so done with that shit. It would take her approximately eight minutes to return to the office.
Back in the basement once again, after being given some fresh air, Anshar hoped Lenore would make good on her promise to visit him. He hadn’t seen her since before they were mated, and his body twitched with a need he’d never experienced in his long life. He had to have her close, and soon, or he would explode.
It was interesting that she had witch blood. Anshar was not one to doubt the power of witches, even a strain that had obviously been diluted. There had to have been a warlock in their past parentage somewhere. He wondered what Lenore was holding back in the magic skills department. What was she capable of? That could be a fun-time discovery.
Anshar leaned his back against the wall, puzzling over the words Lenore had uncovered in her dinner roll. He was quite certain he knew what one of the lines meant but was clueless about the rest. This whole thing was getting weirder and weirder.
Chapter Six
Lenore strode into the house/office, punctuating her arrival with the no-nonsense cadence of stilettos on the wood floor of the entryway. Dagon must have felt her arrival even before this telltale calling card because he’d already popped his head out of the study.
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