She only rejoined herself because he was moving to call 911. She didn’t want that complication. Even in her altered state she knew that the authorities would cause her problems. They would try to stop her, and she couldn’t allow that. She knew that she would try this again and again. So, she climbed back inside her body and told him to calm down.
It was only then that she felt the fear. Only then did she realize the magnitude of what had happened. Her autonomic nervous system had completely shut down. No heartbeat, no breathing, no oxygen enriched blood pumping through her. She shook for an hour after that and even allowed her date to take her to the ER for a check-up.
Alisha looked confident, but inside she was still a little afraid. She didn’t have as much control over her ethereal self as she led everyone to believe. She could give herself a task before her pilgrimage, but couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t take several detours before coming back.
Finding the sisterhood was truly a gift from the Great Mother. They understood her skill and cultivated it. They created a safe environment in which she could use it in very controlled conditions. Even now they wheeled in the medical machines, some of which were invented just for her particular situation.
As soon as they finished hooking her up to the various life support systems Alisha pulled the power from the Capacitors and began separation. The Primos looked on with anxiety as the external pacemaker beeped to life. The giant machine stimulated her heart, pressuring it to beat by means of a small electrical pulse through a wire in Alisha’s chest. The lung machine hissed in and out through a small tube put down her trachea. It pumped oxygen to her lungs.
Now they waited. No one knew how long she would be incapacitated nor how much collected power she would use. Alisha understood that if she used too much and endangered the Capacitors, after everything had been done to boost them, she would be cut off from the supply. Either she would snap back to her body, or they would be separated and she would die.
Her ethereal self cared nothing of such matters and simply flew off in the direction that attracted her the most.
Oh, joy! She’d never gone to the middle east before.
EIRAN SLEPT. She felt him slide out of her consciousness a few moments ago. Feeling isolation, she was certain he had not truly slept in a while. Now they both fed and the hunger wasn’t pressing, he felt safe leaving her to feel the full force of her change. It felt good. Strong. Interesting.
She decided it was time to take that shower. No, a bath. As soon as she flipped on the light in the floor to ceiling marble marvel that was the bathroom of a Four Seasons luxury suite, she became obsessed with her reflection.
Nathalia looked at herself in the mirror for the first time since her death. She didn’t even know how long ago it had been. She looked different enough for it to have been years ago when she lived among friends, sisters, in the Austin, Texas compound of the Daughters of Women.
Her eyes were now mostly blue, but still sparkled like a jewel cut with millions of facets. She slid her fingers into her hairline and back toward the elaborate knot Eiran had put there and, just like that, her hands slipped right through and her hair fell delicately on her shoulders.
Ahhh…a sigh of relief washed across her mind. Nathalia smiled.
Her body glowed slightly. Not the scary way the succubus had, but in a kissed by the sun way. She looked more animated than she could remember ever looking. She brimmed with life, with prana. It shimmered below the surface of her skin, now darker than ever with all the tanning she and Eiran had been doing.
She leaned in and put her face very close to the mirror. She opened her mouth now for her own viewing. With her own fingers she traced her full lips, now even fuller from all of their kissing and oral pleasure, and then probed inside. She felt with her fingers, the inside of her lips and then inside her mouth, along her cheeks and teeth and tongue, feeling what Eiran had with his dick.
How messed up am I? she thought.
Just the perfect amount, came the answer.
She strode over to the giant marble tub, away from the distracting mirror, and turned on the water. She watched the stream flow over and through her fingers, enjoying it hotter than she ever had before as she thought about her question.
She was pretty messed up, she decided. She had to be to have enjoyed that episode with a man so much. She had considered herself a lesbian for years. But that was before Eiran. That was when Michael had laid claim to her. Michael, always cruel, used her body with no consideration for her feelings. She never got any pleasure when he acted that way.
Are you sure about that?
First came the question and then the image of herself laying on her stomach with Michael on top of her. She always tried not to show that it stung as he slid the blade across her back. She bit down hard on any reaction. Perhaps you suppressed your true reaction so well that you didn’t allow yourself to feel the pleasure.
Shaking her head looked more sure than she felt. Panic reflected in her eyes. For a second she saw herself as a teen cutting herself. The slice stung just as much as when Michael did it, but it was followed by satisfaction.
Perhaps his was the wrong hand holding the blade.
She thought about Eiran’s body, built for aggression. His was all male, designed by nature for thrusting and penetrating, all hard muscles. She ached for him to be deep inside her when she thought of him that way. Nathalia imagined Eiran with a knife on her. Would the memory and sensations have been different with him in control rather than Michael?
And if it were you in control instead? Suddenly she was on top, the knife in her hand pressed against Eiran’s chest. The feeling that passed over her could be described as nothing if not pleasure. She played with the image, explored the possibility. How would it feel to press the blade into his flesh? She imagined it and watched as the blood welled up from the cut. Bending her head, she latched onto the wound.
How amazing would her blood taste?
Her? The image shifted and Maeve replaced Eiran below her. A very pregnant Maeve bled from multiple gashes. Unable to control her imaginary urges, Nathalia leaned down to lap up the flow of prana from a particularly tempting cut under Maeve’s breast.
The blood of her unborn would be even better. The simple suggestion didn’t repulse Nathalia as it should. She considered cutting the belly, pulling the baby from its safe liquid cocoon. Pure blood, completely untouched by the outside world. Delicious.
Nathalia jumped into the tub, wanting to wash that disgusting scene off. She had never felt violent toward Maeve or any other woman or child. What was happening to her? She dunked her head under the water. Maybe she could wash her mind in this bath too.
As her hair floated all around her face, Nathalia felt someone in her head. It wasn’t Eiran, but she couldn’t be certain it wasn’t her that thought, It’s the violence you crave, not the love. Ereshkigal rejected it, but the darkness is in you. You desire someone much stronger than the man that calls you ‘my love.’
She tried to shake it off, but the thought lingered in her mind, soaking into her brain until she worried that the voice was right. She heard it once again before she managed to block it out, You will kill them both. You will use the darkness and violence to form the world into what you want. You will be Earth’s angry Goddess.
EIRAN, HOLDING Nathalia in his arms like a baby, jumped from the roof of the Four Seasons, Cairo. He allowed them to fall for a few seconds before spreading his wings and flying. It was the bright hours of the late afternoon, but no one would see them. He made sure. It was a simple matter to keep his presence masked from humans. He had been doing it forever.
Nathalia lay quite comfortably. She carried the prisoner now. The ashes of the Akhkharu formed a dark colored mud patty inside an ostrich egg sized polymer pod. The egg would be placed in one of the recesses of the wall of the prison. It would grow and stretch to accommodate the prisoner as he grew. The moisture darkening the ash was blood.
My blood. Nephilim blood i
s very useful in healing wounds and sharing it with a wounded comrade creates a bond. That bond insures that he can speak to me if he needs and I can speak to him, instructing him in the ways of living in the light. It means I can determine when it is time to give each prisoner another chance at choosing the right. Eiran spoke concerning her thoughts, but his own were focused on her body. He enjoyed every second of their contact. It was no effort at all to hold her this way, her back in one arm and her knees thrown over the other. She had never allowed him to carry her this way when she was alive before. She had been the warrior, the instructor. He enjoyed this softer side. Though Nathalia would be disturbed to think of herself as soft.
But I thought that sharing blood made us Akhkharu. Nathalia could feel how he enjoyed holding her and let him. He seemed almost sad since their afternoon delight at the hotel. She didn’t know why, but tried hard not to add to that sadness. She kept her thoughts and heart upbeat, showering him with the afterglow of their time together, keeping her struggle alone in the bathroom to herself.
It is only the consuming of blood that corrupts us. Blood freely exchanged, directly into a wound indicates trust, because an open vein is a great temptation and can only be resisted by the strongest of us.
It only took a short time to fly across the Red Sea and into Saudi Arabia where the prison and mothers tomb lay under the desert sand. They passed over a caravan of camels and then another, both headed northeast. It reminded Nathalia of Jolie and her dreams. Jolie always saw a camel when she had a prophetic dream about Nathalia. It was her dream symbol because the camel reflected a person with many responsibilities who carries them on her shoulders. Nathalia held onto her emotions, like a camel stored water.
The dreams proved accurate at predicting Nathalia’s death. The great stone man Jolie had seen crouching over Nathalia’s bloody body was most certainly the man carrying her forever alive body right now. There was one physical difference between the real Eiran and the one in the dream.
Eiran didn’t have a tattoo. Nathalia fingered the spot over his heart where Jolie had said it would be. It should have been two humps, like rolling hills. Jolie hadn’t realized it was the symbol for camel, but Nathalia did.
They dropped through the ceiling of the main room of the mothers’ tomb. This place was not physically comfortable, but Nathalia felt relieved to be back. This place had become her home. Eiran gently put Nathalia’s feet on the ground and held her while she steadied herself. She handed him the prisoner egg. He took it and walked briskly away, leaving her to face her destiny. Her eyes kept darting to the doorway she had to go through. The Igigi were just seconds away. So, this is it, huh?
“Wait,” he called out. She turned to him and he immediately kissed her in a way that left her knees week. It was slow, as if he was memorizing the details of her mouth, and it was needy, as if this might be their last.
Eiran put his palm on the back of her neck, his fingers slipping into the impossibly soft hair on the back of her head. He gently massaged there, but his real purpose was to hold her to him. His other hand moved up her outer thigh, over her hip and around her waist. He pulled her tight and rested his hand on the small of her back where it curved out into her buttocks. He tasted of love, a lifetimes worth, and Nephilim live a long life.
When he pulled back, he stayed locked in that embrace, but he held her gaze. Nathalia put her hand over his heart, where her tattoo should be and the memories immediately flooded her mind. She knew they belonged together, no matter how corrupted her feelings toward men had become through her life with Michael. Eiran would have saved her from all that pain if he had known she needed him.
She knew now that she did need him. She always had. It was amazing to know that she would have forever to get to know this man. He could never be taken from her. Eiran had given her the gift of eternal life. How do you effectively express gratitude for something like that? It was out of the scope of her experience. It was out of the scope of human experience. She showered him with her feelings; she could hardly keep them inside.
What is wrong, Eiran?
It is time for us each to go to our duties, but I needed to see you look at me this way again before… Eiran turned from her and crossed to his own doorway. The one that led to the prison was his destination.
Before what? Nathalia stared at him as he picked up the prisoner pod where it had fallen into the sand, and then, without looking back, walked through the gisig and left her. She heard him in her mind as she stepped through the veil and went to meet the Igigi, but he spoke in the ancient tongue.
ALISHA’S VOICE sounded raspy and rough after the trauma of having a tube shoved down it and then removed. All her strength was gone as she told the anxious Primos what she had found on her ethereal pilgrimage. She was weak, not only from her physical experience, but because she had been wrong about Nathalia. Wrong about Maeve.
The words stuck in her sore throat, “I couldn’t find her.”
The disappointment could be felt in that room. Everyone wanted Nathalia to be alive. Even Maeve, who had most to lose by Nathalia being found, was crushed. Maeve wanted to be wrong. She pressed for further evidence, knowing it would be misconstrued as rubbing it in. “Did you find her body? My Guardian said that she was being taken to a sacred place to be laid to rest with Holy Mothers’.”
“I think I was there. I thought I’d found her twice, but both times magic kept me out. Once at The Four Seasons in Cairo and then in some sort of underground catacomb. Both times there was a magical barrier, almost like a doorway, that I couldn’t go through. At the hotel it was just one of the rooms I couldn’t get in. I didn’t think to look through the windows on the outside of the building. I should have, but I…got distracted.”
Alisha stopped. She gestured and her friend handed her a glass of water. She took a long sip of that cool moisture from the straw. She did need a drink, but she was also stalling. She didn’t like to tell people about the limitations of her magic, but there had been special circumstances that could be important.
“There was something happening there.” Her voice sounded a little more normal. “Every couple I found in that hotel was having sex, and every woman, even the ones who were alone, including the maid on the 8th floor, was having an orgasm.”
“Well, I know where Leonard and I are going for our anniversary trip. He’s always wanted to see the pyramids and now there’s a real reason to go.” Libby’s joke only received minor laughs and they were mostly out of sympathy for their librarian’s feeble state. Alisha was glad to see that Maeve, for one, was taking this very seriously.
“How soon can you leave?” Maeve asked her bookkeeper.
Libby didn’t look shocked. She sat in one of the few chairs, looking much older than any of them had ever seen her look. The reading she had done on the stones where Nathalia died had taken a huge toll. “Whenever my Abbess wishes.”
Maeve knew Libby was trying to show everyone her devotion to Maeve and her position, temporary or not. Maeve put her hand on Libby’s shoulder. “I meant how soon will you be recovered?”
Libby closed her eyes, as if she was looking inside and evaluating the damage. “Two weeks. Maybe sooner if Camilla could help.”
Ingrid, their Ingenium Primo, spoke up, “I could mix up a drink to help too.”
“Good. Okay, it’s settled. Libby, go see Camilla and then get to bed. As soon as you’re ready, I want you to go and see if you can get the same room. What number was it, Alisha?” Maeve barely paused for Alisha to answer, 821, before going on. “I’m asking you as the Renuntio Primo to do a reading on everything in that room. I also want you to facilitate our purchase of that vase we saw on the news. I want you to lay your hands on it at any cost. There’s a branch of the sisterhood there that might be able to help you acquire it.”
THE DOCTOR drove across the desert sand a little slower than he should. The excavators and archaeologists of the hidden city had reached the door they were looking for. The Master had given them str
ict instructions that it was not to be unsealed without his presence. No one was to enter without the Akhkharu on pain of death. When he threatened, it was the pain, not the death, that the doctor worried about.
He was in no hurry to see the Master. It was still daylight and he’d be feeding. The doctor shuddered to think about the last time he interrupted the Akhkharu feeding. The Akhkharu rarely consumed any large amounts of blood, instead allowing his “children” to slaughter and devour the dozen women brought to him every day. He fed on the physical violence the vampire woman and werewolf inflicted.
The doctor shook his head. Yes, he had some women tortured in his time, but that was only to break them, bend them, so that their abilities could be put to use. Master wasted them at an alarming rate. Not just any women either. The Akhkharu preferred women with talent, women with witch backgrounds, the kind the doctor hated to see squandered.
When the Master had made his…nutritional needs known, the doctor questioned his intelligence. The Nephilim protected these women. The doctor had obtained one here and there, never more than one or two a year, and had only started torturing them when he was certain to trap anyone who came to save them. The Akhkharu laughed at him and his caution.
“Those who would interfere have gone to the ‘heart of independent land’ in search of their mates. Now that the One is about to be born, they know that the women best suited for conversion will be drawn to her. They are of no concern to me here.”
The doctor had foolishly pushed further, asking, “They’ll be attracted to the women in need. You will bring a justice circle. Surely they are of concern to you?”
The Akhkharu, who refused to give the doctor a name to use other than Master, drug him by his arm outside. It was the middle of the day and though it hurt him to do it, the Akhkharu stood in the sunlight.
The Dying Art of Magic Page 13