Dark Time

by Phaedra M. Weldon

  The name was familiar. But for some reason I couldn't—

  And then it hit me. Robert Stephens. State Representative Robert Stephens. He was the one set to replace Rhonda's uncle in congress. Only…he'd been filleted by those two rogue Travelers, Bertram and Charolette when they used part of him to make that scarecrow. They one they'd locked my mother's soul inside.

  How…how did his wife…and I remembered her being rude and snooty…become a part of the Society?

  "We don't have time for education, monster." The first guy, the guy who talked to me about Jefferson, reached over and pulled a shoulder mic closer to his face. "This is Shadow Team Two. We have the suspect in custody."

  Suspect?

  Custody?

  I moved in closer to touch TC's shoulder.

  They fired at me. All of them, all at once.

  But they hit TC because he wanted them too.

  The arcs of blue writhed and flared around him and I stepped back and put my hands up so all that light wouldn't blind me. TC's true Phantasmic form appeared briefly before he vanished. And once he was gone—I was in the open.

  MOVE!

  Inanna knocked me out of control with barely a nudge. But for me, it felt as if I'd been blown across the room and into the wall. And I had. Literally. I was OOB and white again, and sitting on the floor in the kitchen. Had I passed through the counter and chairs? I got up in time to see my body shift with Inanna at the helm. And let me tell you—that was a frightening thing to see. It wasn't me anymore. It was…

  "I think you're a monster."

  Dags's words rang in my head and stopped what was left of my heart just as the blast of the L-6 weapon struck me. Correction, make that three of the weapons. I gasped. Inanna gasped inside of me and my body shifted back to its human form. I was yanked back inside as well.

  The instant I made contact with my skin I felt the pain. It was the most intense, debilitating sensation I'd ever experienced. The closet I could describe it would be to experience someone cutting open my chest and sticking their hand inside to pull my heart out while I could do nothing to stop them. The pain fired down both shoulders and arms. I couldn't breathe and I collapsed on the floor.

  Inanna screamed in side of my head.

  "Is she dead?"

  "No she's a monster. She can't die."

  "No sir…I think she is dying."

  Someone touched me and I felt pressure on my chest. "Sir there's no pulse."

  "Is she supposed to have one?"

  "Of course she is. Yevins, get her breathing. I'm calling in for a med evac."

  I had no idea what they meant. I wasn't there anymore. In fact, I was OOB again and hovering overhead and watching as they worked on me in my blood soaked clothing. They put a mask over my face…then snaked a tube down my throat.

  "It's your heart."

  I turned to look into the eyes of Azrael. He wasn't TC at that moment, nor was he the Archer. He was larger than life and had my soul folded into his arms. Into his wings.

  Because…that's what Azrael was.

  The Angel of Death.

  3

  The dreams came again. I saw Dags in front of me. His beautiful face was twisted in hate. And heard his voice echo everywhere in the dark.

  "I think you're a monster."

  What if I didn't want to be a monster? Did anyone ever ask me what I wanted? Did anyone even care? Was this what it was like to be something other than human? To be shunned and eventually hated by the ones you loved?

  Would my mom hate me one day?

  "No. I would never hate you. Though I want to bend you over my knee and give you a good spanking most of the time."

  Wait a minute. That wasn't in my dream. That was mom's voice. I waved the image of Dags away and stood up from my lonely pity party in the dark. "Mommy?"

  "You haven't called me that in a very…very long time, Zoëtrope."

  I really hated that name.

  When I finally let a bit of light into my nightmare, I realized I'd opened my eyes. The room was dim, even thought I saw florescent panels on the ceiling. They flickered and hummed like fluorescent panels do. There were clicks and whistles, a soft ticking noise. But no beeps. Not this time. When I focused on the shadow in front of me, I saw mom's face in it. She looked…old.

  I'd always known my mom was in her fifties…rapidly heading into her sixties. But her face had never really shown it. She had good skin. And I'd always hoped I never showed wrinkles either.

  But at that moment…it looked like the weight of life was pressing on her shoulders. "Ah there's my daughter. You had me worried."

  Worried about…

  "Are you in pain?"

  I shook my head. I heard a whump-woosh I'd never heard before so I looked around. I had one of those cannulas in my nose and reached up to pull it out. Mom took my wrist and stopped me. "No. That has to stay in. They had a face mask on you, but we need to talk."

  Talk? I looked at her and it felt like centuries since I'd last seen her. She sounded…worried. Her voice was soft and sweet, like it had been when I was a kid.

  "Hi mom." My voice was its usual scratchy self. After having lost it for nearly a year…I liked hearing it.

  "Don't you hi mom me." And there was present-day mom with a bit of saccharin. "What the hell were you thinking? Running off like that? Ripping part of your heart out to make a new arm—"

  "But it was easy."

  "By hell it was. Zoë," she sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. It stuck up from her head. "You do realize you're missing a chunk of your heart?"

  I frowned at her. "For real?"

  "Christ…yes for real. We did x-rays and you're missing a quarter piece of your left ventricle. It's a miracle you're still living."

  That was alarming. Yeah…I'd told Inanna I wanted to get rid of my heart. That it hurt. And if it wasn't going to do anything but hurt me, then someone else could have it. I thought… "I thought it was metaphorical."

  "What was?"

  I stared at her. "Using my heart for that guy's arm. I mean…Inanna said the Creation Eidolon was a part of me now so I could use anything I wanted to create anything I wanted. And I wanted to make up for what I'd done."

  She sat back and looked down at me. I felt like I was six again and said or done something I shouldn't have. Was she going to spank me? I was a grown woman. Could she?

  Mom reached out and brushed my hair from my face. "It took me nearly a day to get the tangles out of your hair. I had to dry wash it. But it's smooth again. And soft and shiny. Your white streak is bigger now."

  "Yeah…I'm not surprised. It's like a damn o'meter. The bigger it gets, the more damned I am."

  "You're not damned." Mom brushed at my cheek. "But you are in a massive amount of trouble."

  "What because I fixed a guy's arm I tore off? Geez."

  "No. Because the Society, and certain members of the APD think you killed Joe Halloran."

  I stared at her. I searched her face to see if she was kidding. She had to be kidding. "You're…joking, right? You're not joking?"

  "You've been missing. No one's seen you. Joe disappeared just after you did. You were found months later in his apartment with blood all over your clothes."

  I came up off the bed—or I sat up as far as I could with all those wires and disks taped to my arms and chest. "That's not Joe's blood! Mom—that was all Inanna's doing. She was feeding all the time—"

  "Because you gave up," TC said to my right.

  I turned to see him standing near a door. The room was soft green and I recognized it—or I recognized the layout. I'd spent time in here myself, as well as with Dags often enough. I was in the Society's infirmary. Most likely under guard.

  He came to the side of the bed. "Your heart can't take those guns anymore, Zoë. The organ's too weak. It hasn't healed properly. I'm assuming you're alive and walking because of what you are and what my sister is. If you were a normal woman—"

  "If I were a normal woman I woul
dn't have torn a man's arm off." I knew my tone was sharp. But I was getting irritated because I did not like being accused of killing someone I cared about. "Let's get back to Joe. No one's seen him at all?"

  "I've tried scrying for him," Mom said. "And Azrael's tried sensing him. It's like he's not in this plane anymore. But he's not in a plane we can access."

  "If…" I swallowed. "If he were dead, would you be able to sense him?"

  "Yes. It's not his physical body, but his spirit." TC crossed his arms over his chest. "But we have a newer problem. The Coterie."

  I looked from him to mom. "The who?"

  Mom took my hand in hers. "The Coterie are what the remaining Revenants call their high council meetings. They only call for a Coterie when there's a crisis. The last time one was called was when Sophia tried for the last time to rid the planes of her siblings."

  A strange weight settled on my shoulder. I had this feeling they were about to tell me something I really didn't want to know. "So…why have they called another one? Is something wrong?" I pushed myself up into a sitting position, wires be damned.

  Mom said, "Zoë, how much of the Dioscuri have you read?"

  "Well not a lot. I mean I know bits and pieces of it. They're worried about those files your uncle wrote?"

  "A prophecy he stumbled upon." TC cleared his throat. "For all I am and what I represent, I'm not really someone who believes in the hocus-pocus of my family's beginnings." TC pulled up a stool and sat down after unbuttoning his suit jacket. "You know about the two sisters? The twins?"

  Oh wait yeah I'd read this. "Gaia and Lilith."

  "Right. Gaia was the Seer, the one who saw the past and the future simultaneously. Before her death, Gaia told her sister Lilith that a powerful union between the Abysmal and the Ethereal would herald the cracking of the world and the rebirth of the betrayer."

  I felt like there should be a dun-dun-duuuun at the end of that sentence. But it was missing the punch line. Mom and I exchanged glances and I finished pushing myself up so I was close to eye-level with him. "You wanna explain that to me? 'Cause I don't get it. Betrayer?"

  "That's the best word we have for the translation. It's all in Babylonian and Sumerian cuneiform and the only real scholars among us are Hermes and Inanna. And she refuses to take a look at the texts to back up what Hermes found." He shifted his position. "Given what they know, the leaders in the Coterie, also Umaymah and Hermes, believe they've identified two possible candidates that could fulfill this prophecy." TC pointed at her. "You. And Dags. You're both combinations of the two planes. The product of unions."

  "What…does this mean?"

  TC held up a finger. "Originally…nothing. The two elected leaders are also two of the most notoriously slow debaters in the family. I figured they would hash this out until the end of the world comes. Usually, none of the other Revenants would be allowed to act without their blessing."

  "Azreal," Mom clasped her hands together in her lap. "Tell her."

  TC stood up and held his hands out. My ears popped and I started swallowing. The shift in the room caught my attention when I looked up at the Phantasm. We weren't in the bland infirmary anymore. We…where were we? It was definitely a bedroom, with ceiling to floor curtains behind TC and a door behind mom. But that's where the room started to fuzz. I was still seeing the actual infirmary room behind mom, but a different room behind TC. "What's happening?"

  "You know they're going to be here in about a minute." Mom didn't sound happy, but she didn't sound angry either.

  "Nona, I don't really care what a bunch of human poachers do. They can bang the door down all they want, but they won't be able to see us. They'll see an empty room. And you. But no Zoë."

  "Azrael, you can't take her. She needs medical attention. She might be more planar now than before spiritually, but her body is still human."

  "No." He held out a finger. "It's Wraith and it's Revenant, which means the essence that is my sister will work to keep her heart functional. Though now that I've seen how damaged it is, Inanna's ravenous feeding is better explained."

  I was listening to them, but I was also doing this ping-pong look from my right to my left. "Wait…so we're not at the Society House?"

  "We are and we aren't. Nona is." TC held up his right hand. "I was very much aware of their listening devices, Nona. And they had heard enough. Zoë has the ability to sense other Revenants now because she is one, and that is the only way. I can because…well…" he laughed softly. "I'm the Phantasm. But sensing another Revenant isn't what's going to defuse the other situation."

  I arched an eyebrow at that.

  Mom stood up. "Azrael, Stephens and her people are convinced Zoë did something to Joe and they're not going to stop until they either prove she's a murderer—"

  I put my hands on the bed's metal railings. "I didn't touch Joe! What is wrong with you people? Why is everyone so dead set on finding me guilty of something and not spending those same resources to find Joe?" I pointed at TC before he could respond. "And what is this other situation that needs to be defused?"

  His pause unnerved me. I was already unnerved by the fact we were technically bi-locating and I didn't notice. And I didn't know where TC and I were, as opposed to where mom was. After a few beats of him looking a bit blank, I prompted. "Well?"

  "You better tell her, or she'll hear it from Manuel."

  Oh! "Manuel's here?"

  "He's in town. But," TC said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "We've received high level intel that the Seraphim and the Society have formed a Covenant with the Coterie."

  I frowned at him, glanced at my mom, and then looked back at him. "Can…can they do that? I mean…can they all gang together?"

  "It's not a matter of can they, it's that they have."

  Even with my heart broken my thoughts went to him. Always to him. "Oh no…Dags…they're going after Dags."

  "No," TC said. "They're not going after Dags. Apparently, leaving him alone is part of the deal."

  I looked at both of them. "I don't understand. They think Dags and I are part of some dumb prophecy…" And then I started to suspect something…bad. "Oh…no…"

  The deal is," TC sighed. "The Seraphim promised support for the Revenants as well as the Society, which means no more attacks by Powers on any level, as long as they work together to deliver you to the Seraphim." He leaned in close to me. "The Coterie declared a Purge against you, Zoë."

  "A purge?"

  "It means," Mom began as she reached a hand out to touch mine, only it moved through me. "They plan on separating you and Inanna. Permanently."

  "But that would kill us."

  TC snorted. "That's the idea."

  4

  Unfortunately the dual connection between where we were and the Society's infirmary disappeared and TC and I were left alone. Well, not fully alone. After TC informed me we were in one of Jason's safe houses, Manuel came through the door. I attempted to get out of bed to hug him, but my body wasn't willing to go that far yet. Luckily Manuel caught me in his arms and squeezed me tight.

  It is good to see you alive, Zoë. Morgan's voice was actually a pleasant relief. Since…Dags's rejection…Inanna had been the only voice in my head, other than my own. It didn't seem to matter that she'd been oddly quiet since I woke up.

  Manuel made sure I was sitting on the bed before he stepped back and then knelt down in front of me. He'd been young when the First Born Morgan took him. Her previous host, Elizabeth, had been one of Jason's lovers, and when I thought about it, the whole thing seemed kind of incestuous. I mean…Jason and Elizabeth were two different humans, not bound by familial ties.

  But Morgan and Mephistopheles were siblings.

  In a manner of speaking.

  I'd always wondered how planar creatures procreated. Like…did they all have a mother? And if they did, was she everyone's mother? And importantly, had she had all those children the usual way or was she like Zeus where kids popped out of her forehead? Huh…I had to w
onder where my brain was sometimes. Or where it wasn't.

  Jason didn't continue the romantic relationship after Morgan / Elizabeth bonded with Manuel. Elizabeth was still there, inside of Manuel as part of him, the same way Daniel was still a part of Inanna. Which meant he was in here with me…but he was always on the peripheral of my senses. A whisper. A smell. A sigh. Small things I knew were him. Sometimes thoughts, or a random feeling of judgement I knew wasn't my own. But I hadn't seen him, or spoken to him since the one time after Daniel's body died and I invited Inanna inside.

  "Zoë? Are you with me?" Manuel took my hands in his. His skin was warm, not like the legends of vampires. He was a living, breathing young man. Human, but something else. He would remain young as long as Morgan remained bonded to his soul, and he would always have her experience and her calming voice.

  He would never be alone.

  "Yeah I'm here. I'm just…" I shrugged, unsure what else to say.

  "I'm sorry…for what Dags said to you. I'm sorry you had to go through heartbreak alone like that. But I'm sure he said what he felt he needed to say."

  That didn't help the way his words made me feel, and I think Manuel realized it because he shook his head and sighed. I squeezed his hands. "It's okay. It's been…what, two months now?"

  "Yeah…

  TC sighed. "Zoë…you do realize what the Coterie will do if they're able to catch you?"

  "Well I think the term purge is self-explanatory. And no I don't want you to go into detail. I figure they want to use that nasty spell on me. The one Maureen Lafferty was using…the exorcism thing."

  "Yes."

  "Isn't it in the Grimoire? I mean, does anyone in this new clique even know the spell?"

  Manuel shook his head. "Jason said that's the point they've been arguing. The deal is to leave the Guardian alone. This is what the Seraphim wants. Half of them want to grab the Guardian and the others believe if you make a Covenant, you honor it."

  "But…how are they going to do this Purge without knowing the spell?"

  Manuel shrugged. "That's the conundrum that's working in our favor at the moment. At least the Coterie aren't acting. The Society, or Ms Stephens…she's another matter. And I suspect, just like Jason does, that she doesn't want to leave the Guardian untouched. She would prefer to get her hands on the book, or at least get him back under their control. Letting him leave like that wasn't her choice."