by Alexie Aaron
“This is nothing more than an ancient myth about your original soul bearer,” Soren scoffed.
“It worked,” Victor said and showed them the proof from his cell phone.
“It looks more like it would level the city,” Nicholai said. “Why the hell did you try that in Hell? The ceiling is too low.”
“We were training. I didn’t think I’d get another chance.”
Soren looked at Victor. “From the height you’re speaking about, it’s a suicide mission.”
“We wouldn’t do it unless Surtr was walking through the door,” Victor insisted. “Then if we die, it would be better than dying as the world burns. She’s strong and more resilient than I had previously estimated. Angelo, when you saw her as a warrior, I thought you were just thinking with your loins. But after working with her, I see that she rivals many of our greatest warriors.”
“You’re not going soft on her?” Nicholai asked.
“No. I’m just giving you my honest evaluation.”
“What happened in Hell? Why did you return?”
“Lucifer attacked Mia mentally. He took out all his anger on her in the realm of his mind, almost destroyed her.”
“How is she now?”
“Altair took her to Roumain. He’s done the best he could. He says she’s fit to fight. Other things, not so much.”
“What did that animal do to her?” Angelo said.
Nicholai put his hand on Angelo’s arm. “That’s none of our business. She wouldn’t want us to be discussing her this way.”
Soren looked at the three powerful birdmen before him. All were connected by feather and by a hybrid. Each had different motivations. How could they best use this to benefit the fight ahead of them? “Victor, I want you to take over Nicholai’s squadron. Angelo, you ready the rest to move the children away from the frost giants if they break through Ted and Baxter’s barrier. Nicholai, you’ll replace Victor at Mia’s side. She trusts you and your experience.”
“What about the doomsday spiral?” Victor asked.
“Nicholai, you’ll make the call on the field of battle.”
“Yes, Soren.”
Victor scowled.
Nicholai turned to Victor and said, “You prepared her and that’s important. No one here is going to fault you for thinking ahead.”
~
Mia and Ed unloaded the feed for a horse who had become very comfortable with island living. Mia had taken each boy on a short flight and warned them they couldn’t ride Moonlight unless she or a winged person was with them. Adam loved the horse. His beautiful brown eyes drank in every movement of the mare.
Judy uprooted some carrots and, when no one was looking, was fussing over Moonlight.
Ted watched Mia. She would be fine for hours, but then she would get silent. She wasn’t really communicating.
“Mia, I want you to return to Quentin’s with me,” Ted told her.
“I don’t want to leave the boys.”
“You can come back, but I really think you need to talk to Baxter. I know you’re trying to put whatever horror you experienced behind you but…”
“It’s not working,” Mia finished. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid to talk about it because…”
“You don’t have to talk to me. I’m not going to press you. But if Roumain was concerned enough to show up in our bedroom, then you’re in trouble.”
“It wasn’t exactly the threesome I had in mind,” Mia said, her joke falling flat. “Let me talk to the boys.”
Mia walked with them into the chapel. “This is my favorite room in the castle.”
“Mine is the library,” Brian said.
“Maze,” Varden said.
“That’s not in the castle. It’s outside, bird boy.”
“Brian, try to be more patient with Varden. He looks up to you.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I seem to say the wrong things a lot.”
“We all have a lot of pressure on us.”
“But we’re Martins; we can take it,” Brian said.
“Heroes,” Varden chirped.
I know you two have been brave boys, and Aunt Judy tells me both of you have been so well-behaved. I’m so very proud of you. Will you be okay if I leave you again?”
“Why?
Mia hugged her boys before she said, “I had a very bad experience that I need help dealing with. Uncle Quentin’s friend Baxter may be able to help me, but I have to go there.”
Varden climbed into Mia’s lap and hugged her.
“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know, overnight at the most. I would like to return tonight, but it would be late, and you know how I am at navigating.”
“You could end up at the North Pole!” Brian said.
“Santa!” Varden said, excited.
Mia laughed. “I’d hate to be put on the naughty list for dropping in unannounced.”
“You go and talk with Baxter, and I’ll teach Varden and Adam all about being a cowboy.”
“Not on the horse,” Mia warned.
“Not on the horse,” Brian repeated. “I was going to draw pictures.”
“Save me one. I haven’t had a Brian original for some time. Your dad and Murphy get all the paintings.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Brian said. He hugged her hard. Varden hugged her harder. Then it became a competition, and Mia couldn’t have been more pleased.
Chapter Twenty-six
“I didn’t know what exactly was going on,” Mia said. “The first time seemed a fluke, and then each time after, it seemed like he was opening up to me. I didn’t know if he was lonely… I guess he was setting me up for the fall.”
“No,” Baxter said. “I do think his original intent was to abuse you while you sat there in the colosseum. Quentin’s father used to punish him this way using his thoughts. With no physical marks, the socials never got involved. He would beat Quentin in his thought, and he wouldn’t have a bruise on him. Lucifer may have been surprised when you showed that you could travel with him. I think he was making a connection. It went sour when he remembered your connection with Michael.”
“I didn’t help by reminding him I wasn’t Michael,” Mia said.
“Don’t make excuses for him. His intent was to punish you, to break you down, and enslave you. Altair taking you to Roumain probably saved you. His mental abilities far outclass most archangels. Mia, I have to ask you to go back into Lucifer’s thought.”
Mia gripped the chair arm. Baxter could see her knuckles go white.
“I’m going with you.”
Mia cried out and started sobbing.
“I know you don’t want me to see you that way, but the thought is still open in your mind. We must shut the door together. Otherwise, he can creep in and…”
“Make me do things,” Mia said in a small voice.
“Mia, I believe the only way he got this far with you is because he lured you in. He found a wonderful playmate. First, there were serene scenes of domestic bliss that he may have contemplated at some time in his solitary moments.”
“I think he forgot himself when he showed me the Nile,” Mia said.
“Could be.” Baxter got up and closed the door. “I’m going to lock this because sometimes Quentin just walks in. He’s not used to me having any other patients but him.”
He drew up a chair and sat in front of Mia. He took off his glasses. “I may have to be firm with you and I apologize, but there is no other way. I’m going to give you a safe word. Use it if something happens so horrible that you feel that you are going to shatter. How about acorn?”
“Acorn,” Mia repeated.
“I want you, first, to invite me into a happy thought.”
Mia stared at Baxter and nodded. He walked into her thought.
Mia was sitting on a dock with her legs dangling in the water. She got up and took Baxter’s hand. “This is Wolf Lake. Up there is a rental cottage, and Ted and the children are asleep. I’m happy because I’m feeling like I
can pull my life together at this point, and you’re my first guest.”
“I’m happy to be your guest. We will return through here. Roumain did fine in rescuing you, but he took you out and left the torture chamber door open. When we leave your thoughts, this is the thought we will leave open.”
“I understand.”
Baxter put his hands on Mia’s shoulders and asked, “Take me into the open thought?”
Mia opened her eyes wide, and Baxter walked into Lucifer’s private torture chamber.
Mia wasn’t there. He saw the blood-spattered walls and the remains of her braid hanging on the hook, but the room had been abandoned.
“Mia?” he called.
A hand moved through the far wall and encouraged him to enter. He moved through the wall into Mia’s waking nightmare, the thought she couldn’t reconcile. He watched a multitude of Mias and Lucifers engaged in horrific acts. They were overlapped and confused. He felt a tap on his shoulder. Mia stood behind him. “He keeps reliving them, and I can’t get him to stop. He’s here now,” she hissed.
Baxter saw Lucifer walk out of the shadows and over to Mia. He knew she was there. He expected her to be there. However, he didn’t see Baxter.
“Mia, you can change the thought,” Baxter told her.
“Take off your clothes.”
“No, Lucifer, I will not.”
“But look how much fun we had. You begged me to do that to you, and that, and that was my favorite. You’re a vile creature, an animal, a whore.”
“No, Lucifer, I am not.”
“Why then did you let me rip you apart?”
“Mia, take control of this,” Baxter instructed.
“I’m sorry, Lucifer, but that’s not me on that bed with you.”
Lucifer turned and looked.
“You are torturing yourself. Look at how you begged to have you do that to you. Look at the biting, the clawing. Why did you treat yourself that way?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“What happened?” Mia asked. “Why did you start this thought?”
“I hate Michael. I wanted to destroy him. But he was gone, so I destroyed his beloved pet instead.”
“Did that give you joy?”
“No. So I had to change you. I brought up every disgusting thing you’ve ever thought about and made you beg for me to do it to you.”
“But they weren’t my thoughts. Sex isn’t disgusting to me. Those are your thoughts, not mine.”
“Good girl,” Baxter said.
“Take me to the Nile again. Remember…. me sitting with a womb full of your child. The white dress…”
Baxter saw the thought change. Mia and Lucifer were now sitting aboard a Nile sailing cruiser. She was dressed in a white dress which barely covered her large pregnant belly. Lucifer sat next to her on the lounge chair. He was looking prosperous and dapper. “I always wanted a wife. Be my wife for just a moment,” he pleaded.
Mia nodded and stroked her belly. “Our child is coming soon…”
“Stop it!” Lucifer screamed. He looked around, and the couple on the bed was gone.
“You said, ‘I always wanted a wife. Be my wife for just a moment.’ The sun was hot, but we were under an awning. You looked at me with such pride. Running your hand over my stomach, feeling our son kick inside.”
“You’re not a mother, you’re a whore!” he cried.
Another Mia appeared sitting on the bed. She held a child to her breast, and he was feeding. “Your child, your wife, your thought.”
Lucifer dropped to his knees. “My wife, my child, my thought.”
“Mia, close your eyes,” Baxter instructed.
She did, and they were sitting on the dock. She closed her eyes again, and they were back in Baxter’s office. Mia sighed.
They stared at each other in silence.
“It’s gone,” Mia said. “Fading like a dream does. Just bits and pieces.”
“It has no more power because, even in Lucifer’s mind, the thought no longer exists.”
“I thought we couldn’t control what other people think of us?” Mia questioned.
“In this case, he really wanted you as his wife on that boat floating on the Nile. You gave him the child and the scene of pure domestic bliss. That’s what Abigor interrupted initially.”
“How is this going to bite me in the butt?” Mia asked.
Baxter rubbed his chin. “I don’t know that it will. I would avoid looking Lucifer in the eyes at all costs.”
“How do you see me after that?” Mia asked.
“Pretty much as you are. You told me when we started this something that Enos said to you…”
“He said, ‘You are two women. One a mighty warrior who singlehandedly killed a Nephilim, and the other a Little Nell who needs to be rescued,’” Mia said.
“Yes. This is how I see you.”
“Thank you for rescuing Little Nell,” Mia said.
“Mia, the talent to travel in thoughts, within thoughts, is very rare. If you ever want to explore this again, I would love to travel with you.”
“When this crisis is over, I would love to see how far we can go.”
“I’ll bring the breadcrumbs,” Baxter said. He put his glasses back on.
Mia impulsively hugged him. “I know I’m not supposed to do this, but you have no idea what you saved me from.”
Baxter steeled himself. He drew away. “It’s okay this time. Next time, I’m going to make you scrub the lab’s stairway with your toothbrush.”
“Yikes.”
Mia found Ted on the lakeside patio. He was staring out into the water, but Mia sensed he wasn’t seeing the white-capped waves as they punished the shoreline. She slipped her hand in his and leaned against him.
“Did he help you?” Ted asked quietly.
“Baxter helped me to find my way out of a horrific, crippling nightmare. Lucifer is a very powerful, sadistic entity, whom I ignorantly thought I could hold my own with. My bravado was my undoing.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“I can.”
“I don’t want you to if it will bring all the horror back,” Ted said.
“I want to tell you what I can now that the intensity has waned.”
He walked to a bench and sat her down next to him. “You have my full attention.”
“No numbers?” Mia teased.
“No numbers.”
“Lucifer plays these dangerous mind games where he invites you into his thoughts. It’s almost like a mini pocket dimension, but there are memories attached. I thought, if I could get to know him better, it would make it easier to understand what he expected of me. It was just a trap. He uses his thoughts to punish. If he hits you, you feel it, but it doesn’t show on your body because it never actually happened, but you still feel the pain.”
“Like me watching a guy get nailed in the package on television but I still feel it.”
“I don’t know, since I’ve been robbed of said package. But I do want to push when someone gives birth on TV.”
Mia stopped a moment to pick the right words before she continued, “In the thought, because I’m a sensitive, it’s real pain, real humiliation, and worse. He’s crazy. He associates me with Michael, and he hates him with every ounce of his being. He just about broke me. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill Abigor because he didn’t save me from him. Murphy had Abigor on the ground defenseless for me. I could have killed Abigor, taken his 100 legions, and destroyed Lucifer with them.”
“What stopped you?”
“You. I’m not that person because of you. There is nothing that beast could do to me to strip me of the humanity I have because of you loving me. He can’t take the happiness you’ve given me away. It’s not just the kids; it’s the teasing, the conversations, the wonderment, and the sex. You help me to see myself in a different light. I’m not a victim. I may have a lot of challenges, but I can take them on because I know that if I fail, you’ll be there to pick me u
p and hold me until I’m ready to start again. I don’t have to play games with you, put on airs, lie, and perform. I can just be Mia, the woman who fell in love with Ted.”
Ted picked Mia up and put her on his lap. He hugged her, and the two just looked out at the lake, enjoying a break from saving the world.
“I really am the best man for you.”
“So I’ve been told,” Mia said.
“Do you want to know why I’m the best man for you?” Ted asked.
“I have to admit to being curious.”
“It’s because I’m a scientist and not a wizard.”
Mia turned and looked up at him. “That you’re going to have to explain.”
“Take all the men at Angelo’s dinner party. What do they have in common?”
“Well, there are two geniuses, two priests, two ghost hunters, two birdmen, two gay guys… so you could say twos, except for Quentin and Baxter… Wait! They are villains. The answer is two.”
Ted laughed at Mia’s unique logic. “I’ll give you a half credit for cuteness.”
“Half credit?”
“What about Lazar? And what, for example, does Father Simon have in common with Victor?”
“What do they all have in common besides being handsome and male?”
“You, and you should really get your eyes examined.”
“So you being a man of science…” Mia led.
“As a mechanical genius, I can see that you’re the center cog. Without you, there would be no industry. As an amateur astronomer, you’re the sun in the solar system that is our group. By being who and what you are, you have pulled together the brightest, strongest, and bravest men in the world.”
“Well, I’m really something…”
“In math, you’re a constantly changing equation that I love to solve. You make me smarter. Cid and I work better when you’re around to lift an eyebrow or rescue me from the ceiling. Without you, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.”