“That’s good,” she whispered in his upturned ear.
He kissed up her neck to her earlobe and could tell this pleased her even more without verbal encouragement. He focused on her ear, kissing it, warming it with his breath, using his tongue to stimulate it.
ADDED TO that which her Guardian had transferred, the energy of the “eargasm” helped Maeve do the complicated combination of spells. She focused her mind. The light divided into two spheres. She concentrated on the first ball of energy, forming it into the tight, dense call spell, and then the second one into the more broad recognition spell. She thought the ritual words with each one, engraving them in luminescence. She pushed the two balls away and out of her magic center.
One vanished into the world to search for Billy’s perfect match.
The other one did not have as far to go and she felt it settle in Billy’s chest. She felt his interest in her diminish, as he recognized that Maeve was not the match he wanted.
She stepped back, away from him. They both dropped their arms at the same time and stood facing each other.
“That’s it?” Billy asked.
“That’s it,” Maeve replied.
It was done, but no one had any way of knowing where the match was or how long it would take her to get to Billy. He’d have trouble with dating until she got here. Of course, he knew all that and had asked for the spell anyway.
Billy slipped his boots back on and tucked his pants into them. He stepped back through the window, more careful this time that his dirty shoes didn’t soil the window seat cushion. On the outside, he looked back and thanked Maeve as he worked his shirt back over his head. “I’ll get right to work on that mini scent garden,” he shouted over his shoulder as he jogged away.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Maeve spun to face the two men in her life, but before she could fire her inquiry concerning their prior whispering, her Guardian gestured toward the computer and asked a question. “Did you read this?”
She wondered at the sound. His voice was an enigma; completely bizarre and yet somehow pleasant, like music made from street noise. It halted all thought. Whatever she planned to ask him disappeared in the shadow of his tune. She knew she had spoken with him a million times, but every time it struck her as if this was the first she’d heard it.
“The email? I was gonna delete it, but Billy distracted me. Don’t worry about it. The Daughters attract more than our fair share of crazies. I don’t think you’re a demon out to drink my baby’s blood.”
“I love the One and would gladly give my life to keep Her from the smallest discomfort. Who sends the Holy Mother this electronic letter?” he demanded.
Were there two or three voices that came from his mouth? It was so oddly disturbing and lulling at the same time. She felt compelled to answer him truthfully. The Guardian was a man that could not be easily deceived. “I don’t know him. Maybe Aaron could tell you who wrote the email. I didn’t recognize the sender’s address.”
“I already told him that I’ve never heard the name Paion and the email originated from one of those anonymous sites where you can send emails secretly. I can’t read the header and tell where it came from. I’m not saying nobody can; I’m just saying I can’t.”
“A Paion has never contacted a Daughter of Ishtar, when it did not end in violence and death. Your kind and theirs are enemies. They have life and yet it is not enough for them. They are greedy men who would take the Mes from women and use them for evil. We thought we buried their like ages ago, but they resurface. Now they try to turn you against us.”
Maeve thought of a dozen questions based on the Guardian’s little speech. Was Paion a title or name or group? Why did he call her a Daughter of Ishtar? How long had they been enemies? Were the Mes not just a piece of mythology to explain the shift in the ancient Sumerian civilization from one city to another? It was the most words she ever heard him say at one time. She wondered if she would be able to remember the lecture or if that, like the quality of his voice, would disappear from her memory.
“So you know the sender?” she asked.
The Guardian closed the laptop with one hand, without turning it off.
“They dare to call me Akhkharu!”
Anger radiated off him and as Maeve and Aaron looked on, it poured from his palm into the computer. The laptop popped and sparks went out in all directions, like a jumping jack in the driveway on July 4th. When he pulled his hand away, the Guardian’s palm left an imprint in the hard plastic shell.
“I apologize, Holy Mother, for my outburst.”
Maeve looked into her Guardian’s beautiful faceted crystalline eyes and heard his song.
What were they just talking about?
And what the hell had happened to her laptop?
When Nathalia woke lonely darkness surrounded her. Part of her was glad that Eiran wasn’t there. She refused to acknowledge the other part, that was pointedly not glad. She gently tested her home power supply and feeling it there, breathed a sigh of relief.
She hadn’t meant to drain the Capacitors and felt sick that she endangered them. She didn’t know why her ability used so much more energy than usual. She determined she’d learn how to access Eiran’s power source.
Eiran had, being unable to speak in a way she could understand, shown her pictures of the technique in her mind. Nathalia sat cross legged on her marble bed and tried. She pictured the woman, their shared ancestor that lay dead beneath her. Nathalia did not remember her as a body, but as a living person. She used the image given to her by Eiran, of the woman dancing in the sunlight with him, her son, as a small boy. The woman laughed, truly alive. Nathalia felt the warmth of the sun on her own face even though there wasn’t even any moonlight tonight. She called her lifeline to the surface and traced it back to that mother. She felt the energy, foreign but familiar, gathering in her head, making her feel tingly and warm. She grasped a thread and used it, Eiran?
No answer.
She got up and noticed her nudity with irritation.
A new moon offered no help, but even in this blackness Nathalia could see. In fact, she thought that perhaps it was a little easier to see because less details distracted her in the dark. A little sensory deprivation was exactly what she needed after being bombarded for goddess knows how long.
Making her way out the door and down the hall without needing to touch the walls to navigate was good; her fingers were much too sensitive. She wanted out of here and less data accumulation would help that happen. The air changed and she knew she’d reached the main room off which the mothers’ tombs branched.
From her exploration she knew there was no getting away, no stairway up, no exit out. Not by the usual means anyway. In the darkness she could see the room differently now. There were two segments of the wall that looked unusual. They were magical, but no kind Nathalia could recognize. Behind the one on her right she could just make out glowing human shapes. They looked like walking light bulbs behind a thick black curtain.
She chose the other one, the one on her left. She could tell even less about it than the first one, but that way subtly called to her. Nathalia approached slowly, but could not by will alone, resist entirely. She stopped just a foot in front and put her hand out to touch the veil between rooms.
She barely felt it, but it felt and recognized her. She could sense the complexity of the spell, so unlike anything she’d ever known. Her touch caused rippling circles that bounced back when they reached the edge. She studied the waves. However made, this was both the doorway and the doorman, contrived and cast to let certain people through and keep other ones out.
Nathalia pushed and found the veil accepted her. She stepped through. Immense peace washed over her in waves. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the calming sensation. Eiran shared her telepathic abilities. He too could make people feel what he felt. Anger had always been much easier for Nathalia to share than happiness, but that was because hers had been a life of fear, not joy.
She o
pened her eyes. At first all she saw was Eiran. He sat cross legged on the dirt floor only a few feet from her. She couldn’t be sure he knew she was there. Circulating all of that positive energy must have taken a great deal of concentration. He sweat from the effort. She tried not to disturb him and decided to have a look around.
The irregularly shaped room lay deep underground. Carvings covered every inch. Nathalia recognized it as the prison where Eiran watched those who must be kept. Set into the stone walls every few feet there were what looked like clear plastic pods. If this was the prison, these prisoners did not look like the monstrous Akhkharu of her dreams. A few of the pods held giant men, all beautiful, sleeping peacefully. Most of them were grotesque burned human remains in varying levels of decay, charred mummies protected from climate change by their clear poly-coffins. She began to imagine the violence and pain that must have caused this type of burn damage.
As soon as she did, she felt Eiran up the output of joy to counter the effects of her repulsion. His brother had said that her fear and agitation invigorated Eiran’s prisoners and made it harder for him to control them. Nathalia fought her emotions and resolved not to let them get the better of her again in this room.
Inside some of the poly-pods there were just piles of ash. She examined one like this closely with her increased senses. She sensed that this ash was a person. Alive and growing. Disturbed by the living ashes, she set her mind to studying the walls and their decorations.
There were no words here, no cuneiforms, only detailed scenes. No violence or upheaval depicted, just harmonious happy scenes. These must help Eiran propagate his positive feelings in much the same way a mural or picturesque view might melt away a day’s stress. A real sense of family and community occupied the scenes.
Nathalia looked closely at one of particular detail and stunning beauty. Two young lovers stood facing each other, hands clasped, in the midst of several concentric circles. Looked like a Daughters’ wedding ceremony to Nathalia. Located on the shores of a large body of water, the sun shone and the wind blew. It must have been a gentle breeze, because the water was smooth like polished metal, but the bride’s hair and gown were carved to indicate movement. Everything in the scene reflected in the water, down to the tiny dark dot on the sun’s surface.
At first Nathalia thought it was a blemish in the otherwise perfect wedding day portrait, but when she saw it on the carving of the sun itself, as well as in the reflection, she knew. These two lovers married during the transit of Venus between the sun and earth. It occurred in a pattern that repeated every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart. Nathalia recognized it because the rare but predictable astronomical phenomena was especially important to her. During Venus’ last transit, she had taken the position of Abbess with the Daughters of Women. It was a time of power for women, and the next one was very soon.
It made her wonder about the bride. Who was she, to have all this pomp and ceremony on such a day? For a woman to have this kind of importance during antiquity was shocking. Nathalia looked closer. The bride was tall, much taller than the other women shown, and lean. There was a familiarity to her profile, but the hair blew across the face, obscuring it. Nathalia moved to the next scene and then the next, not wanting to believe what she saw. The same couple dominated each one. The woman pictured gave Eiran the positive memories he needed to calm the prisoners. Eiran was the male lover in every one; these were his happy memories of young love. Nathalia stared into a particularly detailed portrayal of the woman’s face.
It was her own.
Nathalia was the subject of all these portraits, not having posed for any of them.
She let out a small gasp. Eiran and she had known and loved each other. She couldn’t remember these scenes, but surely they had actually happened.
She felt the gentle pull again and couldn’t help moving forward. Eiran still had not moved from his position on the floor. She passed him closely. The summons was so soft, like a child’s whisper, that she knew it couldn’t be dangerous. She stopped right in front of the least revolting prisoner, a very peaceful looking exemplar. She leaned forward to get a better look at him, placing her palm on the wall just to the side of him, above her. Her palm caught on something and she felt a sharp pain there.
Nathalia pulled her hand away quickly, but not fast enough. A drop of her blood ran along a groove and back into a tiny hole in the wall. Her tolerance to pain, thanks to Michael, was very high, but her newly found senses changed that. She could feel the damaged cells, skin and muscle pulling to get back together. She looked down at her hand in time to see a slice on her palm seal itself.
The sound of gears and mechanisms working deep in the walls behind the prisoners startled her. Movement inside the clear plastic pod caught her attention. The beautiful giant looked right at her in amazement. He put his hand up on the glass and indicated she should do the same. He was so alone in there and she felt for him. Without thinking she put her bloody palm against the plastic in the same place as his.
As soon as contact was made, the polymer disappeared. With nothing between them, the newly freed man had her bloody hand in his. He stared at it like a starved man might stare at a hamburger. He stepped forward out of the niche in the wall. When his feet hit dirt, he finally smiled.
Nathalia smiled back. She couldn’t help it. There was something attractive about this man, but she had trouble telling what he actually looked like. Big like Eiran, but larger with bulkier muscles. He had long dark hair on his head and face, but no details were clear. He must be using the camouflage. He brought her palm to his face and took a little taste of the blood there. As he lapped up the blood, Nathalia couldn’t help but feel…aroused. His raspy tongue scraped away the last bit as she imagined how that rough part of him would feel on other areas of her anatomy.
Then his smile changed into a cruel grimace. Like something out of a horror movie, his incisors lengthened into sharp points. She tried to back away, but he still had her hand clasped. Nathalia felt the dread rising within her and she fought it down. Surely Eiran would save her from this. She glanced back at him and Eiran stood on his feet now, but his eyes were still closed. He shook like a man with a great weight on his shoulders. When she turned back to her captor, fear overwhelmed her.
His eyes turned red. No pupil, no iris, just two red orbs. Holding her healed hand tightly with one, the vampire wrapped his other around her waist and pulled her tight against him. Nathalia became acutely aware that they were both naked. He hungered for her body all right, but she didn’t think sex was all he thirsted for.
“Feels right, doesn’t it my sweet?” He said, his voice thick and drunk sounding. “I would claim you if you will give me your name.” The last four words held a kind of compulsion and she almost tried to say her name aloud, before she remembered she couldn’t speak.
NO! Eiran’s voice rang out the warning in her head. She took it for what it was worth and clamped down any thoughts of her own name. The warning seemed to have come at a very high price to Eiran. He dropped to one knee.
The dark man held her against himself and bit down on her neck, slicing through more layers than Nathalia would have thought possible. She struggled a bit, but stopped to prevent tearing her skin more. She felt the repulsion at the sound of his suckling and was afraid. Really afraid.
The ground shook and the charred imprisoned men came out of their comatose state. They banged on their pods and focused their attentions on Nathalia. Eiran was losing his control over them because of the fear she radiated. They seemed to feed on it.
Dirt rained down on her a moment longer, before Nathalia actually heard her heart sputter and stop beating. The vampire drained her completely. He jerked her head back using her hair and forced her to watch as he sliced through his own neck with his elongated fingernail. She clamped her mouth shut tightly as he pushed her head to the wound. She would not be made vampire. She would rather die. Again.
She refused long enough for the gash on his
throat to heal. This inflamed him. He growled and again the other prisoners pushed against their confinement. She went limp and wondered why it took so long to think of her self-defense training. He let her fall, but held fast to her arm with both hands.
He snapped her forearm in two and began to suck at the marrow, since there was no blood left. Nathalia would have screamed, so intense was the pain, but she had no voice. She felt the sunlight break the horizon and so did the vampire.
Time was up.
They both knew it.
He looked down at her and smiled. He spoke inside her head, I told you someday I would feast on your blood again and make dessert of your bones. He dropped her mangled arm and scampered up the wall to an opening, carefully avoiding the light beaming in through strategically placed skylights and holes in the cave walls. He ran.
Once again, Eiran gathered up Nathalia from a crumpled heap on the floor. She welcomed Eiran’s warm chest and arms. She relaxed in the arms of death and listened to his sweet song. There was a burning heat on her arm and then there was joy. She and Eiran were as air and they were together. It was more than together; they were one.
JOLIE WAS screaming and had been for several minutes before she even realized she was awake. JD was beside her, shaking her. “It’s just a bad dream.” She looked at him with blank eyes as if she didn’t know who he was. “It’s me; it’s JD. You had a nightmare. Come here.”
She allowed him to pull her back down into bed under the soft covers. She put her head on his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. He stroked her hair and whispered to her in the dark that everything was okay.
Jolie didn’t think everything was okay. A monster stalked them. It would kill. A lot. But none of those deaths would satiate it. It thought of only one thing: finding the weapon before Nathalia did and using it to kill.
The Dying Art of Magic Page 4