
Atlantic Bridge www.atlanticbridge.com
Copyright ©2000 by Joey W. Hill
First Published by Dark Star Publications, September 2000
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Published by Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 6280 N. Crittenden Ave., Indianapolis, Indiana. Copyright 2001, Joey Hill. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
To my family and friends, who all contributed to this moment. They are the lights that guided me through the rooms of my own soul, where the best stories are born, and kept me from getting lost in the darker corners.
To the Lord and Lady, by all Their Names and by all the Paths we choose to find Them.
And a special thank you to Modean Moon and Dark Star, for giving Guardian its chance.
The rising sun speared the outline of the Western portal with long needles of light. The rays scorched the boy with fiery heat, and anxiety knotted his stomach, bringing cramps and dizziness. In a handful of moments, the sun would crest the Gateway of the Continuum, and his Trial would begin.
On the first day of the Sacred Hours, his young body had burned away all the nourishment from his last meal. The stabbing hunger pangs gave way to thirst and a relentless ache in his back and legs by nightfall. Muscle spasms attacked on the second day. Throughout the second night, he focused on the sea to keep his knees from buckling beneath him.
The waves, turned to black glass by the touch of the moon, broke and rushed forward toward the base of the portal sunk in the sand. Only at high tide would the foam crests caress the Gateway's foot. When that happened, and the waves turned sapphire in the dawn light, the boy knew he had made it. Pride surged in his chest.
The boy glanced at his mentor, and his elation vanished. Mataya had taught him that the Sacred Hours were an act of compassion offered by Those Who Are Not Seen to save the lives of improper nominees for Trial. Even those few who made it through the Sacred Hours ran the risk of permanent madness from the ordeal that followed.
Hunger, thirst and pain had earned him one of two rewards: insanity or a glimpse of the complete unknown. He grasped at anticipation of the unknown and held onto it to keep himself from falling down.
The sun's rays struck his face. It was time.
Nawat, the boy's best friend, moved from outside the ritual boundaries to stand before him. He sketched a bow, offered an awkward smile, then reached out with a sun-browned hand to slip the sash of the boy's royal blue and gold tunic. The boy raised his arms to help him remove the garment, then swayed forward as a wave of dizziness struck. Nawat gripped his shoulders, steadying him. In the clarity that the Sacred Hours had given him, the boy looked into his friend's face and saw how much Nawat loved him.
Mataya's resonant voice cut across the soft roar of the waves with the chant of opening. The portal rumbled in response and the boy's attention jerked from Nawat. His heart pounded up into his throat. Mataya's voice strengthened in its purpose, and the double panels of the gateway started to break open. Nawat's fingers tightened on his shoulder one last time and slipped away.
The Gateway of the Continuum, carved on both sides with the history of those who served Those Who Are Not Seen, stood on the boundary between tide and land, its massive frame held up by nothing but the will of Those who had created it. When it was closed, a boy could trace the carvings and daydream on one side, or frolic in the waves on the other. When it was open, as now, the boy saw into the infinite hallways of the Continuum.
Mataya, still chanting, crossed the threshold. The boy followed, his eyes straight ahead. He knew his mother stood outside the circle, her trembling body held, restrained and comforted, in his father's tense arms. Her tears would break him, where physical deprivation had failed, so he did not look. The sound of her muffled sobs put jagged edges on the lump in his throat.
The boy inhaled the sea air, heard the early morning calls of sea birds, and then the gateway rumbled shut behind him. The air of the Continuum closed over his senses, stilling his mind, centering it on what lay ahead.
He had a boy's countless wild imaginings of what the Trial would be, but now, in that stillness, the voice of the man he would become spoke. The world he had just left would never exist for him again, and he had not bothered to look back.
The unfa miliar stab of regret stopped his breath. Like a floundering swimmer, he struggled to grasp the nebulous form of his life. Memories of mud between his toes, his mother's warm touch, and a horse's sweat-stained flank beneath his thigh drifted through his mind. For one last moment, he clung to all that had been his life, and offered a word that trembled on the edge of his soul like an unshed tear.
Farewell.
As I grew up, the monster under my bed didn't go away. I just lost the ability to see it.
-Rob Steigir
The clock on the man's desk read half past one in the morning, but the child did not sleep. She pretended she did, because she did not want the man to realize she watched him. Her mother's body curled around her protectively, each even breath stirring the fine hair on the child's neck. But Molly did not feel safe. She never felt safe with the man.
He worked on his computer, his back to them. He and her mother had thought she slept, earlier. She lay on the floor, curled up in the teddy bear sleeping bag, and pretended to be a caterpillar in a cocoon, motionless, waiting for her wings to form. She listened to the soft moans of her mother and the peculiar silence of the man, as if he held his breath. Molly touched herself once where the man touched her mother and it felt odd, distantly uncomfortable, but not really. She understood how it made her mother move like waving grass beneath him. The man did not have a place like that, though, because nothing her mother touched made him moan or sigh as she did.
He shifted at his desk and her eyes narrowed to small slits. He had put on his pants, but he did not wear a shirt. The scars along his powerful back looked like places where the muscles had gotten too big and broken through. He bent over his book, and she could see the computer screen over his left shoulder.
A troll strode across the star screensaver, kicking asteroids out of its path like footballs. It stopped in the center of the screen and put furred, long-taloned fingers on its skeletal hips. "Edward," it croaked.
Molly shut her eyes as Edward's head whipped around. She opened them a long minute later and her heart ricocheted off her rib cage. He stared at her. The troll did cartwheels across the screen behind him.
The man put a finger to his lips. She pointed a trembling finger at the computer. The black eyes flamed and she burrowed deeper against her mother. The sleeping woman shifted, laying an arm around the little girl.
"Edward," the troll growled.
The man's eyes widened and his head turned back toward the screen.
"About time." The creature fixed the man with a blood red stare. "What was started must be finished. Kenn's blood demands it."
Edward tapped on the keyboard. His arms jerked back. Molly smelled burned flesh.
"This is not a prank, Edward." The troll sat down and idly swung his legs, as if he sat on a chair too big for him. "Put your hand on the screen. I'll show you."
The man lifted his arm, and the scars on his back shifted like snakes gliding over ripples of sand. When Edward's fingers made contact with the screen, the troll's talons reached out of the glass and overlapped his.
Molly wanted to shut her eyes, but the instinct for survival kept them open and watching.
"Do you see who I am?" the troll said. His claws retracted into the screen and Edward lifted his hand from the glass. "You will help me."
The man rose and turned away from the monitor. He was tall, a giant to Molly, and he laid his forearm against the top of the window frame to stare out at the courtyard below.
"Why would I?" he murmured at last. It was barely a whisper, but the monster on the screen heard it. Molly was sure it could hear the pounding of her heart.
"Because I will it," the troll snarled. "Because you obey my laws!"
Edward walked to the monitor and flipped off the disk drive. The monster opened his mouth on a roar of surprised invective, which cut to the undignified squawk of a beheaded chicken. The darkness swallowed him like the end of a macabre cartoon.
Molly watched Edward collect his textbooks and stack them, tallest to shortest, in his bookcase. He placed his pen and pencil in the clean plastic holder firmly attached to the side of his monitor. He laid his legal pad in a drawer. Then he went to a chest of drawers and withdrew a box of pre-dampened cloths.
He wiped down the desk where he had been working-the keyboard, the monitor and its casing. Molly smelled the disinfectant in the cloth, but its contact with his burned flesh did not appear to bother him as it did Molly when her mother used the wet towelettes to clean her scrapes.
When he was done, he neatly folded the cloth and laid it in the empty wastebasket. Then he walked to the nightstand. He looked at Molly and she stared up at him, but only for a second. She knew the rules of the animal kingdom. She cast her eyes down and away.
Edward opened the nightstand drawer and took out a cigarette. A flame sparked, and smoke filled her nose. He went four steps across the room and picked up his desk chair with one large hand. He brought it back to the bed, placed it before her and her mother, and straddled it.
The child swallowed on a dry throat. The shaking started in her stomach and spread out until she quivered everywhere.
Her mother shifted slightly, drawing more of the quilt over Molly. She pulled it up high, but not enough to hide the child's face.
"S'okay, sweetie," she murmured, without opening her eyes. Molly knew better.
"You're having a nightmare." Edward's breath was acrid smoke that stung her eyes and made them water. His face got closer as he tilted the chair. She whimpered. "You are having a nightmare."
She had no argument with that. Molly had learned a long time ago that she did not have to be asleep to have a nightmare.
"Close your eyes."
She did. She could feel his breath on her face, smell the smoke. Molly thought she would choke on her fear, but didn't. She stopped listening to his breathing and listened to her mother's. She tried to breathe like her, unconsciously seeking the memory of breathing together, as they had when she was safe within the womb. She might find oblivion that way, far away from what was happening in this bedroom. Things got slower, calmer. Molly felt the warmth of her mother surround her.
Abruptly, the mattress shifted, and he moved the chair. Molly did not open her eyes, but she heard him start the computer, and when a block of shadows appeared before her closed lids, she knew he was in front of the monitor again.
His whispered words rasped against her ears like dead leaves across old bones.
"Show me more."
Most Esteemed Majesty and Father: Over my strong objections, the Lords are permitting our untried Guardian to join the Sealing world's lead team. Such direct participation is not required, despite the unusual circumstances. I have grave reservations about his behavior. He acts like a willful child, and frequently does not demonstrate the spiritual leadership to which we have dedicated so much effort and training.
-Lord Trelbyn, Crown Prince, Lord of the Continuum
Ten more minutes of this, and Correen would call police security. The front desk usually got a break on Sunday nights. Impending Monday classes acted like a depressant on the more militant students, dampening their zeal to forcibly convert others to their enlightened way of thinking. Tonight, however, a restless cell of black students camped out in a corner of the student lobby and debated racial separation with increasing vehemence. The target of their invective, an overweight black student with a wealth of dreadlocks, slouched in the arms of a worn orange recliner and maintained a grim concentration on his textbook.
Poor Tad. Correen pulled her sweater from the back of her chair as cool air lifted the hair on her arms. She shifted her seat, pulling out one of the desk drawers with her toe so she could brace her sneakered foot and tip back her chair. Between the crisscrossed beams of the glass roof she saw the moon, staving off herds of dark, shifting clouds that gathered like demons around a sacrificial virgin.
A teenager, wearing the bright yellow placket shirt of the favored local pizza delivery shop, struggled through the front door with an armload of product. The black students hailed the delivery girl before she could come to the front desk, but Correen let it go, her shoulders easing down from her neck as she watched the group pull together payment. They transferred their passion to the food, even before the girl had pocketed the crumpled bills. The pizza emporium employee dragged her feet on the way out, her eyes drinking in all the sights, sounds and faces of the infamously radical students of Havenwood College.
Crisis averted. Correen closed her eyes and tried to ease into a meditative state. Her right hand moved to her knee and played the adagio sostenuto of Sonata 14, C sharp minor, opus 27, by memory, the haunting strains of "Moonlight Sonata" drifting through her mind. Counting down through the rainbow of chakra colors was easy; getting them to open was nearly impossible. There were parts of herself that coiled up like snakes every time she attempted to open the energy centers. Tonight, however, warmth seeped through the clenched teeth of her consciousness, relaxing its jaw of restraint. The warmth suggested safety and gentleness, and...
Correen opened her eyes; a man stood before her. The chair overbalanced, and she flailed for the edge of the desk. He dropped the bag off his shoulder and, faster than she could draw in a frightened breath, he leaned over the counter and grasped her bare ankle, pulling her forward, rocking the chair back to four legs. Correen put down her legs, tearing her ankle out of his hand, and backed the chair up two paces.
The man straightened to a height over six feet. "I'm sorry for disturbing you. Are you all right?"
Eyes as gold as the burnished hide of a lion studied her with a calm, masculine directness and total attention that uncomfortably tightened the muscles of her stomach. Energy radiated from him, surrounded her, pulled her to him. She shook her head to rid herself of the feeling.
"No, you are not all right?" There was a trace of amusement to his tone, but those strange eyes studied her.
"I'm fine," she snapped. "What do you want?"
"I'm Adam Al-Aziz, a new student."
"Oh, the artist." Correen drew a deep breath and scribbled something on a clipboard. "Wait here." She retreated into the back office.
"I am a religions major," the man called after her. She raised a hand in acknowledgment but did not turn. When she pulled her head out of the file drawer, he was looking around the lobby. Tad nodded to him. The new student nodded back in a friendly manner.
Correen watched him under her lashes. Broad back and shoulders-he must work out-covered by an immaculate white linen shirt tucked into new jeans. Either he had his laundry done or he was a compulsive ironer. His dark hair stopped abruptly at his collar, as though recently cut. His voice had reminded her of drums. A deep, resonant series of sounds that fell on the ears and reverberated through her entire body. When she emerged from the office, he turned back to the desk.
"This is a key to your room." She placed it and several pieces of paper on the counter before he could take them from her hand. "You're in Schweitzer Hall, here on the map." She pointed at it. "Don't go near this dorm, Malcolm X Hall."
"Why not?"
Correen cleared her throat. "Only minority students are allowed in. You can get into trouble going in there. So stay clear of it."
"It is here?" His finger traced a square on the map, a graceful motion that gave her an impression of controlled strength.
"No, that's Mahatma Hall. Malcolm X isn't marked very clearly. I'll circle it." The aristocratic brow creased beneath the dark hair that fell forward as he leaned over the map.
"Correen, I'll take him to his room," Tad called, rising from his chair.
"Why don't you carry his fucking bags while you're at it?" one student jeered from the group in the corner.
Tad advanced to the desk and deliberately placed his hands on Adam's duffel bag. "Does he need anything else, Correen?"
"No, this is it." Correen handed Adam the stack of papers when he made no move to take them. "Your dorm room door sticks so you'll need to turn the key and throw your weight against the door. This is your course schedule. Do you have a car?" He shook his head. "Then you won't need a temporary parking sticker. If you have any questions this weekend, you can talk to your Resident Adviser. RA rooms are marked in red on the dorm map." She sat down and reached for her textbook.
"Excuse me. What's your name?"
She glanced up and tried to look annoyed. "Correen Seabra."
He pocketed the key and held out his hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Correen."
Correen stared at his outstretched fingers. Tad looked away, shifting the bag to his other hand. Reluctantly, she laid her hand in the new student's palm. His fingers closed over it. Shock went through his gold eyes and she jerked back the gloved hand. "Your roommate is Rob Steigir," she said hastily. "But he won't be back until tomorrow morning."
"Roommate?" Adam frowned. "I wasn't supposed to have a roommate."
Correen leaned over the counter and caught the edge of his registration material, interjecting her head between it and his line of vision. The breath that stirred the hair on her neck smelled faintly like cinnamon. "No mistake. Your petition for your own room was denied. Two of our dorms are shut down because they didn't pass building inspection. No one has a single room, except special case students."
The new student considered this, concern drawing his black eyebrows down over the gold eyes. He shrugged and carefully folded the material, putting it in his portfolio.
"If your RA isn't in and you need anything, just call the security desk. The number is on the information I gave you."
"This is the security desk?" He reshouldered a canvas bag. She nodded.
"This desk and the lobby shut down at midnight on weekends, at ten on weeknights. There's an all-night police hotline you can call for emergencies."
She deliberately opened her book, dismissing them. Tad suppressed a smile and gestured with his head at the new student, who studied her for one more uncomfortable moment before he turned on his heel and followed his guide.
Correen forced herself to count to ten before she raised her gaze, but she found Tad and Adam only halfway to the back exit door. The unique features of the lobby had apparently distracted the new student and slowed their departure.
Unam Sanguin, as the lobby had been christened by the students of Havenwood, was an enormous common room, its glass ceiling giving the false impression that it was supported by three oak pillars of awe-inspiring size. The pillars had been added to the lobby four years ago. A tree service company, contracted to cut down a diseased oak at 1633 Moonbeam Drive, took the crew to 1838 Moonridge by accident. The eight-hundred-year-old oak shading the home of Alma Pellonia Jacobsen crashed to the ground.
Havenwood art students asked the ninety-year-old woman for the chance to turn the disaster into a memorial to her beloved tree. Each pillar was a unique, intricate carving, alive with faces, living creatures, and landscapes. The upper limbs were long-stemmed flowers, graceful human arms, and the sleek heads of dragons, snakes and swans. Once placed in their present circle, the pillars were christened Alma's Forest. Their beauty bore sharp contrast to the general deterioration of the rest of the lobby. The hardwood floor needed refinishing, but blended well with the dingy throw rugs, overstuffed chairs and torn couches collected from yard sales by enterprising students. The glass ceiling allowed moonlight to cast a perfect circle of light around the pillars. Sheets of wood, replacing glass panels shattered by the harsh snowstorms of the past winter, now broke the circle.
Despite that, the interior circle of the pillars remained the most popular spot in the lobby. Tonight a Qabalist study group had secured it.
The new student took Tad directly to the pillars. Adam Al-Aziz moved with the casual power and dignity of a wild animal, attracting the attention of everyone gathered. When he reached the first tree of Alma's Forest, he stopped and placed his hand on the pillar's carvings while Tad waited. The new student murmured something and contemplated the pillar for several moments, as though he offered it a prayer. He turned his head toward her.
Correen met his gaze, too late to look away. The flow of energy she experienced when she had first looked at him resurrected itself, locking their awareness of one another together like clasped hands.
Correen broke the contact, looking down at her book. Why did he keep staring at her, and why did she keep wanting to stare back? She refused to raise her head this time until she heard the clank of the back entrance, but the damage was done. Tonight's chance of achieving a meditative state had just left the building.
A fish does not prove he is exceptional by swimming. He proves himself to be more than a fish by walking on land.
-Mataya, the Oral Lessons
"What's wrong with Malcolm X dorm?" Adam asked.
Tad nodded toward a dark, rectangular silhouette of a building spotted with lights as they crossed the campus.
"That's Malcolm. Last semester, all the black students moved into Siddhartha Hall, threw out the white students and their stuff, renamed it Malcolm X, and said no one but blacks and other minorities could be in therein other words, no white guys. Negotiation didn't work, so the administration is 'allowing' them to explore their 'racial individuality.'"
"You don't live there."
"Naw," Tad grimaced. "Rob calls me the token black of the white dorms. The way he says it, it's okay, if you know what I mean. And it evens out. Malcolm X has one token white. Edward Brautigan is meaner than all of those guys. They haven't been able to kick him out."
"Is this ... normal?"
Tad chuckled at the man's struggle for delicate phrasing. "Havenwood isn't normal in any sense of the word. That's why it's falling apart. Have you had the 'unofficial' orientation?"
Adam shook his head.
"Okay. Let me give you what the recruiting office won't. They've told you Havenwood was founded by a Holocaust survivor, Alexander Kingston, and that he wanted a school that would teach people to be open-minded?"
Adam nodded.
"For a while, it worked. Havenwood had a reputation as one of the best liberal arts schools in the country. Then, in the sixties, they added New Age stuff-paganism, Wicca, Eastern philosophy, even voodoo. The medical school offered certification in aromatherapy, auric healing, Reiki and crystal work. That might have worked, too, if time could have stopped in the sixties." Tad shifted Adam's bag to his other hand. "In the late seventies, early eighties, people wanted to graduate into a nine-to-five job with the two-point-five-kids-house-in-the-suburbs-and-standing-membership-at-the-country-club kind of salary levels. Funding and enrollment went down, but, give him credit for guts, Mr. Kingston refused to mainstream his school. So here you have it-" Tad gestured with his free arm. "It may not have all the best faculty or facilities, but it's definitely still diverse. Most of the students couldn't be mainstreamed if they were thrown into Niagara Falls."
Tad glanced back at the grim, receding shadow of the racially segregated dorm building and resentment burned in his stomach, riling the calzone he had eaten for dinner. "I've been an outcast all my life. Too fat, too religious, too analytical, too much of a nerd ... I thought I'd fit in at Havenwood. Go figure."
"Why are you still here, then?"
Tad shrugged awkwardly. "I believe in Kingston's dream. No Martin Luther King jokes, please. My grandfather, they called him 'Preacher John.' He spent his life in the tobacco backwater areas in North Carolina and took care of anybody who needed help. It didn't matter to him what color they were or what religion, just so long as they weren't hurting anyone. I think that's the kind of philosophy Mr. Kingston wanted to teach people, that pain is the great equalizer, that we all have to take care of each other." Tad stopped. "Geez, you can't tell I'm planning to be a minister, can you? Sorry about that. I think those guys in the lobby got to me tonight."
"No apologies are necessary." Adam placed a hand on the student's shoulder. The expression in the unique eyes warmed something in Tad's chest, loosening the hold of his anger. The evening's tensions slipped off his shoulders and vanished.
"Thanks," he said, startled.
Tad unlocked a side door of Schweitzer Hall and the new student followed him into the building and up a flight of concrete stairs.
"What did you say your major is, Adam?"
"Religious studies."
"No kidding? Oh, Lord, Rob will have a field day with you. He gives all of us RePhils a hard time." Tad grinned. "They made Rob take Greek philosophy, his first year here. He came to class the last day of the semester dressed like a Greek Olympian-you know, stark naked. Dr. Halford wrapped her sweater around him and told him he could do two things for her-never take one of her classes again, and wash the sweater before returning it." Tad laughed at the expression on Adam's face and held open the door. They moved into the dimly lit third-floor hallway.
"What is his major?"
"Law, of course. He's Philip Steigir's son, Georgia's senator, if you can believe it. Don't worry, though. He's not a jerk about who he is. He won't tell you much about being a senator's kid unless you ask, but he will tell you everything you never wanted to know about Havenwood's football team."
Tad stopped before a door whose peeling frame and loose doorknob were dressed up by a dragon painted on the panel. "Correen gave you a key, right?" Adam lifted it in reply. "Okay, then. Here, let me open that for you. Correen's right, it sticks like crazy."
Tad handed back the key, and Adam pocketed it. "I'll be in the common room for a little while if you need help with anything. Just call Correen at the security desk. I also hang out in the computer lab, most nights." Tad fished out a gum wrapper and used a stub of a pencil to jot on it. "These are the extensions of my room and the lab if you need anything after the lobby's closed."
"Thank you," Adam said. "Who did this painting?"
"Oh, that's Adrian's work. You'll meet her tomorrow, I'm sure. No one can spend more than twenty-four hours on campus before she finds them." Tad shifted from one foot to the other, daring one more look into the new student's face. Adam returned the look with openness, and again Tad felt a sense of reassurance. "It was great meeting you, Adam. I hope to see you around."
"It was a pleasure to meet you."
Tad backed away, turning up the hall with a wave of his hand. He stopped at the exit and glanced back. The new student had taken the key from his pocket and was trying it in the door, studying the way it turned the lock as if it were a new invention.
Tad grinned. Oh, yeah. Rob is definitely going to have a field day with you. He made a mental note to check on Adam later in the week. Adam would need all the support he could get to survive the process of becoming Rob's roommate.
Adam stepped over the threshold of his new dorm room and closed the door behind him.
"Hello, stud," a woman's voice purred close to his ear. "I can't imagine why, but there have been no messages for you since you've been gone. Would you like me to fix you a brandy and give you a massage?"
Adam peered around the room. "Hello?"
He jumped back as a metal arm with a clawed hand swung out from the wall to open the door of a small refrigerator. The arm withdrew a can of beer and a chilled mug. The hand deftly popped the tab and poured the contents into the mug. Another arm extended from above the headboard of a bed and a wooden roller brush mounted on the arm began to whir. The voice sighed erotically.
"From your lack of a 'yes' or 'no' response, I will assume you are one of the genetic mistakes who steals beer in Rob's absence, or you are a burglar stealing the secret ingredient that makes him devastating to women. If that is the case, please take the Aqua Velva off the dresser and press the 'Escape' key on the computer."
Adam approached the PC, whose lights flashed in sync with the voice. The computer recording began to repeat itself. Adam cautiously depressed the key. The voice ceased, and the arms retracted.
A clay sculpture sat next to the keyboard. The sculpture had the muscular body of a man, but a feral, pointed face that stared up at the computer operator as though the head were tilted back by the weight of its absurdly elegant horns. The creature squatted on its haunches, its powerful arms webbed to its body with layers of feathers.
Adam glanced up. There were several news clippings taped on the wall above the desk. "Steigir Wins Reprieve in Roberson Murder Trial," "Steigir Victorious-Old Boys bow to new Georgia Senator," and "Steigir pushes Civil Rights Bill Through by Narrow Margin." Adam leaned forward to study the picture in the article, and his thigh hit an open drawer of the desk. He saw a handful of photos scattered in the drawer. The top shot revealed a young woman with light blue eyes and reddish gold hair cropped to her shoulders. Freckles sprinkled her nose, and a mischievous smile revealed a chipped front tooth.
Adam examined the rest of his new home. The two narrow beds in the room were pushed together, the sheets crumpled under a pile of wrinkled clothes. A green and black football jacket laid over them provided a table for a plate of greasy French fries. In one corner, a pyramid of empty beer cans rose from the wood floor to the ceiling, the cans stuck to one another with wads of bubble gum. A large recliner dominated a section of the room, the seat littered with comic books.
Adam frowned. He went to his bag and pulled a child's picture book out of its mouth. The colorful cover boasted that one thousand commonplace items could be found in pictures and words inside. He quickly flipped through the dog-eared pages to the item he sought. He surveyed the room again. That didn't help.
Every room was supposed to have one. He had been told it was so. Hadn't Correen said he could call the desk from his room? Adam placed his finger on the picture in the book, focused on it, held the image in his mind, then let his gaze traverse the room, starting at the door. A moment later, a strong pull indicated he had found what he sought. Adam looked at it, then at his diagram, then back at it again. He went over to the model car and raised it. He heard a dial tone and discovered buttons on the underside. Somewhat reassured, he dialed the number on the paper.
"Hello, this is Channa-"
"Channa, this-"
"-I am not in right now, but would be happy to return your call. Leave a name and number after the beep and I will call you right back."
Adam sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his temple as he waited for the beep. "Channa, this-this is Adam ... er ... I am here, early. Please come to see me when you return from your trip. I must meet with all of you as soon as possible ... Good-bye."
He felt like a novice summoning his first demon.
Adam carefully laid down the receiver. Perhaps having a roommate was not such a bad thing. Rob might help him adjust more quickly, and time was important.
The only unknown variable was Rob. Most people had a narrow view of reality, and that narrow view would protect Adam from most mistakes. If Rob's belief in the unknown stretched higher than the average person's, however, he could quickly discover his new roommate's inexperience extended beyond college life, to the world of Earth itself.
My lady, I know your son's loneliness tears at your heart. Since the tragedy that befell Nawat, he has no desire to seek out friends. We must trust that Those Who Are Not Seen will bring him a friend when the time is right.
-Lord Mataya's response to a private note from the Queen on the Guardian's fifteenth birthday
Lanny and Rob crossed the courtyard as the campus clock tower bell toned two hours past midnight. Rob glanced at his watch.
"Another couple of weeks, and that thing will be exactly two hours behind."
Lanny smiled. "And you'll still be late for class. Oh, Rob, look at the sky. It's almost purple."
He drew her against him. "Did you like your birthday?"
She grinned. "I expected you to take me to McDonald's."
"Count yourself lucky. I used to buy my dates a cola and French fries, take them into the boondocks, and tell them to put out or get out."
"Which explains those long lines of girls walking back into town on Saturday nights."
"What a wench you are."
Before she could retort, his lips descended onto hers, his tongue gently caressing the uneven bridge of teeth at the front of her mouth. Lanny leaned against his chest, pressing her softness to him, and her hands clasped his, her fingers lightly scraping the hair across his knuckles. When he lifted his head, he had lost his breath. She smiled up at him, but a shadow tinged the smile.
"I had a wonderful birthday, Rob." She plucked the pearl earrings from her lobes and slipped them into his trouser pocket, her fingers playfully caressing his inner thigh. "And the gift is beautiful, but I want you to take them back."
"Lanny..."
She shook her head. "We've played this one before, Rob. I don't want what you can give to any girl." He stiffened, but she put her arms around him and tightly squeezed him. In a moment, he relaxed and held her.
"All right, kid," he teased, making himself shrug it off. "But they're non-refundable. I'm going to look pretty silly wearing them." He held one up to his ear for her perusal.
"No sillier than you look in those shoes." She nodded at his black and white spats and slid out of his tuxedo jacket. "Thanks for the loan of your coat. I'll see you in class in about five hours." She stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his lips, dodging a direct embrace. "Thank you," she whispered. He tried to smile, failed, and lifted his shoulders instead.
She trotted away, clutching her purse and the flower he had worn in the coat lapel. Rob shrugged into the coat, smoothed the pockets. He stopped and grinned, then bolted after her. Lanny laughed and surged into a run. She dropped her purse as she evaded him and made for the stairs of her dorm. Rob pivoted on his toe, leaped and tackled her. She giggled wildly as they rolled on the cold ground. She tossed aside his wallet and tried to slip away when he lunged for it. He caught her ankle in one hand and the wallet in the other.
"Lady, you are busted," he commented breathlessly. "State long-distance champ or not, you can't get away from a quarterback sprint." He dragged her across the grass into his arms, and his eyes ranged over her bare thighs. "God, you are beautiful."
He saw the pulse leap in her throat, but she pushed away from him and tugged down her dress. "Forget it, Steigir. Havenwood's liberal, but I doubt we could get away with a quick fuck in the courtyard."
"Where did you get such a trashy vocabulary?"
"Hanging around the football jocks. Where else?"
He made another lunge for her but she was gone, laughter drifting over her shoulder. "See you in class."
Rob watched her disappear into her dorm and waited until he saw her light come on. He glanced down, noted her purse, and picked it up. He mimicked the way a woman walked with her purse, swinging his hips and affecting a feminine posture, then grinned and dropped it off his shoulder to clutch it in his hand. It had been a good night.
He was not surprised to find the door to his room open. He was surprised to find the intruder still there, standing by the window, painting at an easel.
"Good morning."
The artist turned with a pleasant smile. The penetrating strength of the gaze startled Rob. "Good morning. If you're looking for Rob, he's not here."
Rob inclined his head. "He is now. I'm guessing you're Adam. A bit earlier than expected?"
"Yes." Adam put down his brush, wiped his hand on a cloth and crossed the room. "It is pronounced 'uh-DAHM," he corrected courteously, shaking Rob's proffered hand. "But it does look like your 'Adam.' You have had several people ask for you. One took a ... beer from your refrigerator."
"That's nothing unusual," Rob said, pleased with Adam's firm, direct grip. He sauntered to the dresser near Adam's canvas and began to strip off his suit. "I thought you were supposed to be a RePhil."
"Painting is a hobby."
Rob surveyed the canvas, stepping closer. A girl leaned back in an old chrome and vinyl swivel office chair, one sockless foot in a worn canvas sneaker propped against the edge of a battered desk. Her gauze skirt, a mottled rose tie-dye, fell away from a slender calf clad in white thermal underwear. An edge of the skirt was caught beneath the front wheel of the chair. Elbow-length pink gloves revealed by the pushed-up sleeves of her black sweater hid her hands. The sweater emphasized the painful thinness of her shoulders and collarbones with its stretched scoop neck. Her hair, blacker than her sweater, braided a path over the swell of her left breast. Adam's brush captured the pale fragility of her face, accentuating dark circles under eyes closed as if she were praying. Instead of filling in the details of the lobby Rob knew lay behind her, Adam had obliterated the background with gray paint that swirled around her like fog. It emphasized her solitude, capturing everything Rob knew about her, everything anybody knew about her. The loneliness of the painting disturbed Rob, and it disturbed him that Adam had caught the essence of Correen Seabra after no more than several hours on campus.
"I see you met Correen," Rob commented. "And you thought our weather was cold..."
Adam smiled. "She is somewhat shy."
"Shy?" Rob echoed, pulling on cut-off jeans and a paint-spattered Harvard sweatshirt. He moved to the closet doorway and grasped a bar mounted in the frame. He began to do chin-ups. "I've never heard her described as shy before. 'Course, my former roommate said there was a lot more to her than I took the time to notice. But, shit, life's too short." Rob's gaze snapped to the corner. "What the hell is that?"
A large rat posed on its haunches in front of the pyramid of beer cans, the black shiny eyes watching the sole of his foot come down, retreat, come down, retreat. At the moment of his attention, the animal leaped and landed on the top of Rob's foot, grabbing onto his bare calf with sure claws.
"Jesus Christ!" Rob writhed away from the bar, hitting the door, and shook off the animal with a frenetic kick. The shrieking ball of fur rolled under the bed. Adam dropped to his hands and knees and peered beneath the covers, raising his palm to stay Rob's lightning advance with an aluminum baseball bat.
"It's all right. That's Niko."
Rob used the bat as a prop to squat and warily stare under the bed. A pair of red baleful eyes glared back at him. "He's yours?"
"He is a friend. We're traveling companions." Adam straightened. "I'm sorry he startled you."
Rob grunted, waiting for his pulse to settle. "You don't have a snake, do you?"
"No. Why?"
"My second roommate at Havenwood was a fundamentalist Christian snake handler. I got pretty excited one morning, thinking my dick had doubled in size. Then I found out I had a python on my groin. So," Rob shook a finger at the indignant rat. "Stay out from under my covers."
Adam smiled, returned to his canvas and covered it with a cloth. "Was that the roommate who told you about Correen?"
"No, that was Giovanni Calabretta. He got expelled last semester." Rob flopped on his bed and scooped up a handful of limp French fries. Niko reappeared and scuttled up the side of his bed, freezing on the other side of the greasy mass. Rob carefully offered a French fry. He jumped as Niko seized it and stuffed it into his cheeks.
Adam sat in the desk chair. "You can ask him to move if he disturbs you."
"Well, it's not every day you meet a pet wharf rat." Rob tensed as the rat waddled forward. Niko made an abrupt leap at the plate of French fries. Both rat and plate flipped off the side of the bed and disappeared.
"Niko-"
"It's all right." Rob waved a hand, glancing with amusement behind the bed. "He's got my table manners. We'll get along fine." He shifted onto his elbows, crossing his forearms, and regarded his roommate, who was frowning at his oblivious pet.
"Do you wear those colored contacts on your eyes?"
Adam blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I guess not." Rob grinned. "Where are you from? Borneo?"
"I'm here on Havenwood's International Development scholarship."
"One of the Third World refugees, hmm?" Rob scratched at the shadow of a beard. "If indoor plumbing is a whole new concept for you, believe me, Havenwood won't be much of a change." He waved a dismissive hand at Adam's confused expression. "Just a joke. The campus is so run down, we're excited if we have running water in the morning."
Adam nodded. "Tad told me some of the history. Why was your roommate expelled?"
"Because of your new friend, Miss Seabra. Not in the sense of it being her fault, but in the sense that she was the reason it happened." Rob dropped a hand over the side of the bed and tickled the soft hairs in Niko's ears, grinning when the rat slightly turned his head to accommodate the attention without slackening his attack on the fries. "Correen likes hanging out in the audio library at night, listening to the tapes, or so Giovanni says. She stayed pretty late one night and ran into Edward Brautigan, who claims he was practicing his fencing, because the halls are so wide. Edward's a psychotic asshole, so he probably started hassling her just to see if he could scare her."
Rob noted with interest the muscle that tightened in Adam's jaw. Correen must have made a real impression.
"She probably gave him the cold shoulder, like she does everyone, and it pissed him off. He pinned her up against the wall, took out a switchblade, and told her he was going to cut off her hair, for starters. That's when Vanni came in.
"Vanni had a thing going with Correen for awhile, so he went to King Hall that night to find her. About the time he arrived, Correen freaked out and began kicking and biting. Edward got rough with her, and Vanni waded in with both fists flying. Security broke up the whole thing, but Brautigan beat the living shit out of Vanni before it was over." Rob paused. "I wish I had been there. Even though," a rueful smile crossed his face, "I'd probably have been just as expelled as Vanni if I had. Might have been worth it, though."
"So they were both expelled?"
"No," Rob said, tasting disgust in his mouth. "Brautigan's dad is a banker with a few politicians on a leash and Bradley, our dean, is an ambitious bastard, so he played up to Edward. Vanni's temper got the better of him during the meeting and he took a swing at Bradley. Bradley lost a couple incisors and quit a week later. No great loss. Unfortunately, Vanni was still expelled." Rob yawned. "So in comes this goatherd with a giant rat right out of a sci-fi flick. God, you talk a lot. Turn off the light. I've got two hours before I've got to drag my ass out of bed."
Adam frowned. "What is a 'sci-fi flick'?"
Rob lifted his head. "A science fiction movie? Movie? Science fiction?" At Adam's blank expression, Rob shrugged. "Well, don't worry about it; we'll take care of that. Turn off the lamp. That's the lighted thing. You're probably used to its looking like a candle." Rob rolled over, pulling Lanny's purse out from under him. Adam glanced at it as he doused the light.
Rob grinned sheepishly. "That was my date's. Did I mention I'm a serial killer? I take out young women, spend a lot of money on them, then cut up their bodies and take their purses. My Aunt Meredith beat me with one of those huge straw ones as a child. I don't know what drove me to insanity-the abuse or the orange and green parrot embroidered on it. No, I'm kidding. Turn the light back off, will you?"
Correen let herself into her room without turning on the lamp. She had left the curtains open, so moonlight made her a shadow in a stark black and white landscape. She laid her books on top of the bookcase, moved to the dresser and pressed "Play" on the CD player, uncapping a strain of harp music. Lighting the cone of sandalwood incense took five attempts with her stiff fingers. She dispassionately noted the shaking in her hands.
"Prozac, honey," the school nurse had advised. "You'll be much more relaxed and happy if you go on Prozac."
Her dark places belonged to her, she reminded herself. They were her camouflage in a dark world, and she would not let that be taken away by someone's manufactured reality.
She closed her eyes, laying her gloved hands on the vibrating surface of the CD player, feeling, seeing, and hearing the music. The warm darkness of the room, the soft music, and the incense she drew deeply into her lungs began to relax her muscles and move her into the state required for the work ahead.
She removed her clothing, including her gloves, folding each piece and putting it away in the correct drawer. She withdrew a flannel nightgown and laid it out on the bed, touching the soft, worn fabric with her bare fingers.
Correen drew the broom from under the bed first. The handle had been hand-carved out of a fallen branch of rowan, while dried herbs formed the sweeping end, bound with braided grass. She passed the broom over the floor in a circle around her, not touching the delicate flowers to the ground. She pushed all negative energies from the room, creating the sacred circle in which she would do her work.
She knelt and set the broom aside to pull out the altar from beneath the bed. The silken surface of the crescent-shaped section of petrified oak captured the moon's light. She moved on her knees to her trunk at the end of her bed and withdrew her box of ritual tools. Her grandmother dolls lay carefully wrapped in cloth on the top, protecting the treasures beneath.
The steel wool hair of the North doll prickled with icicles made of hanging pins, and she held a china cup in her quilted hands. Correen sat her on the north point of the altar and put a handful of earth into the bowl from a plastic bread bag. The crone of the East had straggling gray cotton hair down to her waist. Felt birds were sewn on her apron, and Correen arranged several gathered feathers in the pockets. The doll of the South wore a red flannel dress and her hand, sewn in a circle, accepted the lighted cone of incense Correen put into it. The old woman of the West wrapped her arms around a tiny bucket into which Correen placed a closed vial of seawater.
Correen raised her eyes to the moon. She lifted her arms and uncoiled the braid on her neck, running her fingers through the ropes of hair, so that they pulled loose and fell down her back. She stood, naked in the silver light, breathing in through her nose and out of her mouth, her arms by her sides. She curled her left hand in a crescent moon shape, the right hand so the ring and middle fingers came into the palm, the small finger, index and thumb pointed outward as straight as she could manage. A silver pentacle flashed at the moon from between her bare breasts.
Correen hadn't known about God until she was fourteen. Up until then, she had offered her hopes and dreams to Death. She did not know about the promise of a better afterlife; all she wanted was escape from the present life. She longed to return to the Earth, to be as unnoticed as sand upon a beach. When she discovered the Crone face of the Goddess in a book on feminist religions, she found comfort in the idea of an old woman who stared into the abyss of death and embraced it as a new beginning. All things could be survived, because all things ended, perhaps so that they could begin in a better way. More important to Correen than the promise of the new beginning was the promise of peace in the time in between.
Her doctor prescribed sewing as an exercise to keep her fingers from stiffening. She began sewing "grandmother dolls" when she discovered the Crone. She sold some at her first school to make money, but the original four, these four, she kept.
Correen hummed, rocking her body in a clockwise motion. She let energy build through her and raised her arms. She turned, stretching out bare fingers and imagining the energy spilling out, over, around, and beneath her, consecrating her space. Correen lit a candle in the small cauldron in the center of the altar, driving back the moonlight. She took out scented paper and a quill pen. The candlelight cast a shadow of the feather against the wall, a flowing frond that merged with the silhouette of her hair as she wrote.
Correen rolled the paper into a scroll, tying it with a ribbon. "I destroy this person. This person no longer exists." She held the end of the scroll to the candle, then put it in the cauldron to burn. Correen sat back and meditated on the flames, willing herself open to whatever the energies pressing close to her had to offer. She cupped her hands around the cauldron, increasing her focus. She imagined the Mother's arms around her, holding her, welcoming her into the Earth, giving her the comfort that nothing and no one else could.
An image came. One pair of golden eyes, one pair of black eyes, trapping her in their crossfire. Eyes that turned to her, delved inside and made the dull ache in her chest become a raw wound. Eyes that knew the truth about her.
Correen clapped the lid on the cauldron and extinguished the flame.
She was safe-a ghost in a dead landscape once again.
It is hard to understand their destructive nature, but you have to see that the people of this generation are like infants thrust from the womb into a rushing river, expected to swim. All comprehend their doom, but some take what comfort they can from clinging to others in the same current. Some allow themselves to be sucked to the bottom to finish it quickly. Some swim with the current, to help it run its course. Some will fight it until exhaustion forces one of the other three solutions upon them.
-Communication from Channahon Ellyn to Sealing Team member, Jaiya Marduk
"Brlonk! Brlonk! Red Alert! Red Alert!"
Rob yawned, hit the alarm, and rolled over. His bleary eyes opened wide. "Holy Don Quixote."
Adam stood in a fighting stance, a long sword held at the ready, blinking in confusion at his surroundings. He focused on Rob, then awareness grew in his gold eyes.
"Figure out where you are?" Rob ventured.
Adam brought the point of the sword to the floor. "I wasn't sure what that noise was."
"So I gathered," Rob said dryly. He stretched halfway out of his bed, wheel-barrowing over to Adam's feet to run his fingers along the edge of the plain broadsword. "Shit." He stared at the line of blood on his fingers. "You one of those medieval reenactors, or do you just have some really mean goat rustlers where you live?" He grinned as he watched his new roommate process that.
"I ... I don't think so," Adam said at last. "What's a medieval reenactor?"
"It's someone who likes to dress up like the knights of King Arthur's time, do jousting, sword fighting, chase wenches, drink lots of ale, that type of stuff."
"Oh." Adam placed the sword under the bed. "Is it time to prepare for class?"
"The proper grammar is, 'Shouldn't we be getting our asses out of bed?' and my response is, 'Hell, no, I'm going to catch another fifteen minutes.'" Rob stuffed his head under his pillow. "Showers are end of hall, take left, fourth door on your right. Oh-" He withdrew enough of his head to fix an eye on Adam. "Don't jump right in. It takes the water about five minutes to heat up. And don't drink any of it. They had a hog waste spill about ten miles down the road last week, so everybody's drinking bottled water."
Adam slipped out the door, shivering as a blast of chilly air from the darkened hall surged around him. Dim lights escaped from a few cracked doors, revealing the silhouettes of early risers.
He could not remember the last time he had indulged himself with "another fifteen minutes." He usually woke well before dawn, but the time change had unsettled his system, keeping him asleep until the blare of Rob's unusual wake-up system. It had been stupid to pull out the sword; he had been stupid to bring it. He took a steadying breath. Rob hadn't seemed particularly taken aback by the sword, so everything was fine. He couldn't let himself get unnerved by small mistakes, or they would lead to larger ones.
Adam counted doors to the showers, and pushed on the fourth. He squinted against the sudden glare of fluorescent light and a floor shellacked in white tile. He had the room to himself. He put his towel on a bench, shed his T-shirt and sweatpants, and entered the communal shower area. He reached for the first nozzle, and stood beneath the head as he turned on the ice-cold spray. The water was not quite as cold as the deep stream he used for bathing at home. He turned, giving the water access to all of him, and a flash of silver caught his eye.
A necklace hung from the knob of the shower next to him. He lifted the silver medallion, and the pentagram glistened, the wire circle embedded against a backing of smooth onyx. Its owner had infused it with a quiet, strong energy that brought to mind the smell of rain and damp earth after a summer storm. Adam's brow creased over the puzzle of someone leaving behind such an important talisman. Such things were not coincidences. He was meant to find it. He threaded it over his head to wear with his own medallion until he and its owner met.
Sleepy, chattering voices echoed through the bathroom and he peered through the slit of the curtain. A group of women in an assortment of nightwear, from cotton Tshirts to flannel gowns, shuffled into the bathroom on cold bare feet, slippers, and flip-flops.
The water temperature shot up. Adam jumped out of the scalding flow. He groped through the opening in the curtain, found his towel and wrapped it around his lean hips. Counting to three in his mind, he forced a nonchalant expression and stepped out of the stall. "Good morning."
The bathroom erupted in chaos. Women shrieked and fled in all directions-toward bathroom stalls, into the hallway, and behind the outside wall of the showers. Within seconds, all that remained of them was one sponge curler, rolling gently back and forth on the tile floor.
A hasty departure seemed to be the best course of action. Adam padded quickly across the floor in his wet feet and jerked to a halt, blocked by the arrival of another group of women.
A woman almost as tall as he was led them. She had snapping dark eyes and a tousled wave of mayonnaise-colored hair. "All right," she declared, bracing her feet apart and setting her arms akimbo. The others stopped behind her, as if she was a commander reining in a legion's charge. "We have penalties for sneaking into the women's room."
Adam attempted a smile. "I promise, I wasn't sneaking. I'm new here and-"
"The usual penalty?" she asked the air. A chorus of favorable responses rose out of the hiding places and from the girls behind her. Correen, standing by the blonde's shoulder, remained silent, her hands tucked into the pockets of a blue terry cloth robe. Her eyes grazed over the exposed parts of his body, then alighted on the pentagram.
Nails scraped the skin of Adam's lower back; fingers hooked his towel, yanking it from his waist. Adam took the duration of a heartbeat to evaluate the situation, and then his feet took off with the rest of him.
He rocketed out of the bathroom and its explosion of whistles and catcalls, and charged up the hall. He made headway of almost 100 feet, and realized he had turned the wrong way. He pivoted and shot back past the bathroom and its crowd of appreciative girls. Doors opened all along his parade route. Curious onlookers stuck their heads out to see what was going on.
Adam gave fervent thanks to the mysterious "Adrian" who had painted the dragon on the door and skidded into it, turning the knob. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it.
"Man," Rob grunted, his eyes still closed. "Everybody's sure making a lot of racket this morning." He withdrew his head from beneath the pillow and stretched lazily. "So-did you happen to run into an unfriendly tribe of Amazons?"
Rational evaluation caught up and Adam's eyes narrowed. "You knew where you were sending me."
Rob rolled over, a grin consuming his features. "I haven't the slightest-Hey, you're naked! You know," he choked through his laughter, "I didn't think you were that kind of guy, but I'm open to new experiences."
Adam opened his mouth, shut it, felt outrage, and then a tentative smile tugged at his lips. "You're teasing me."
"'Giving me a hard time' usually works better, but since you're naked, I think I'm more comfortable with your way of saying it." He rose, slapping Adam on a wet shoulder. "God, you're so serious. Now that I'm up, want to hit the showers with the guys? The view's a hell of a lot worse, but you'll make it out with your testicles."
A half-hour later, showered and dressed, Adam followed Rob down the dorm hallway. Rob pushed on the swinging door to the common room. "Let's get something to eat before we get your books."
A burst of applause and commentary erupted from the group of students parked in front of the morning news. Rob stood aside and motioned Adam forward with a flourish. Adam, red-faced, preceded his roommate with a dark scowl.
"Hey, Rob!" The blonde Amazon paused in the doorway across the room. "Make sure your roomie has clothes on. It's pretty cold and rainy today."
"Payback is hell, Alicia," Rob growled. She saluted and disappeared out the door. "That's Alicia Kingsley." Rob took on a nasal, effeminate voice. "She's Sagittarius, loooooves tropical fish and walking in the rain, and wears hot pink toenail polish with her Birkenstocks. We call her the Wildcat."
They stepped into the courtyard, where a chilly wind danced with the trees against an ominously dark gray sky.
"Great, looks like more rain."
Adam emulated his roommate, digging his hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the weather.
Rob glanced at him. "So how'd a goatherd from Nowhere get the kind of blade you were brandishing this morning?
"All boys receive a gift when they go through the ritual of manhood. It belonged to a close friend of my father's."
"Mmm. You know, I've traveled a good bit in your part of the world-it's the thing to do when you're rich and spoiled-but I can't place your accent."
"Our village is very remote, in the mountains. The dialect is different from the cities."
"You're lying."
"What?" Adam looked at him, startled.
"You're really from the thirteenth century, and you were transported here through some standing stones, and the sword is your key to the gateway back." Rob grinned. "God, you are so serious. Relax, I'm just..."
"Giving me a hard time?"
"He can be taught. Adrian! What the hell are you doing?"
Adam followed Rob's gaze across the courtyard. A slender girl sat cross-legged on a red cape beneath a small cluster of spruce trees tipped with new, bright-green growth. Her upturned face, caressed by wind, was suffused with childish delight. Her arms stretched to the sky, but at Rob's shout, she swung out her arms in an expansive hug of the air around her.
"Rob! It's so beautiful this morning!"
"And you're so fucking out of your mind this morning. Christ, you're not even wearing shoes." Rob glared down at her bare feet, peeping out beneath a long, velvet skirt. A thin blue sweater dotted with embroidered sheep accentuated her skinny upper torso. Now that they were closer, Adam saw she was a teenager. Her body was so slight that, at a distance, he had thought she was a much younger child.
Adrian turned her face toward Adam, but her eyes did not focus on him. "Who's with you?"
Rob bent to one knee. "This is Adam Al-Aziz, who thinks you're as nuts as I do. He's my new roommate. Grab on, I'll piggyback you to the caf."
Adrian adjusted her cloak tie, then curled her arms around Rob's neck. He straightened, hefting her onto his back and curling his arms under her knees.
She reached out with white, bony fingers, questing for Adam, and he immediately stepped closer. Her fingertips grazed over his hair, the bones of his face, the lashes of his eyes, his high forehead, and dropped lightly onto his shoulder.
"Shy, isn't she?" Rob remarked. Adrian shrugged.
"You look at people when you first meet them, Rob, and no one thinks it's rude or peculiar. This is how I look at them. What colors are you?"
"My eyes are gold, my hair is black." Adam smiled and caught the small freckled hand, raising it to his lips. "The pleasure is mine, m'lady."
"Don't mind him. He's one of those Satanic cult D&D people. Cafeteria?" Rob shifted his grip slightly on his burden.
Adrian nodded and cocked her head toward Adam. "I'm Adrian Kuppenheimer. Where are you from?"
"The thirteenth century," Adam responded easily. "What about you?"
Adrian laughed. "I'm a Havenwood native. I was born in the infirmary."
"So you go to school here?"
"Yep! I'm gifted. I'm a fifth level Art Lizard."
"Well then," Rob interjected, "you have more in common than you thought. Adam paints masterpieces to pass the time, you sculpt to balance your inner karma. I'm glad I went into law. Nice, solid major that produces the important things in life-money, women, and what was that last one?-oh, money."
Adrian pinched his shoulder. "Rob, you need to live for the sake of living. Otherwise, you'll be caged by your desires."
Rob twisted his head. "What kind of bullshit are you studying now?"
"Karma Yoga. And it's not bullshit."
He grinned. "I thought you hung out with Alicia's 'God Can Wear a Skirt' militants."
"They're Wiccans, Rob," Adrian reproved. "And I am, but I'm not sure if that's my path yet."
"Art Lizard?" Adam queried.
"The art classes are in the basement of Ivan Illich Hall. We call them the Caves. So, we're Lizards!" She tugged on Rob's hair and he snorted, pretending to lose his grip on her knees. Adrian squealed with proper little-sister delight and tightened her grip into a stranglehold.
Adam opened the door and Rob shouldered his burden into the cafeteria. The aroma of coffee, toast, and hash browns surrounded them.
"Hey, Steigir." A student with flaming red hair rose from a table, his impressive height, breadth and voice dwarfing his companions. "Aren't half the girls at Havenwood enough for you?"
"Shut up, Darwin," Rob shouted. "Fuck the candy and flowers. Get the girl some shoes."
Adrian slid down Rob's back and touched Adam's arm. "Please stop by my room sometime, and tell me about your painting. I'm in Mahatma Hall. Maybe we'll have a couple art theory classes together." She made an expressive face. "I wonder how El Greco ever managed without those."
Adam chuckled, and she beamed. "See you later. 'Think of the world.' Shakespeare, Julius Caesar."
She wandered away, touching people and letting them guide her as necessary to find her way to the red-haired student's table.
"You just met the patron saint of Havenwood," Rob said, guiding Adam to the breakfast buffet. "She's Alexander Kingston's granddaughter. She was born blind, and Havenwood's been her playground since the day she was born. Her dad is Taylor Kuppenheimer, our dean. Darius-or Darwin, as I call him-is her boyfriend. He's a science major, but more important, he's center for our never-bound-for-glory football team."
"You're on the team?"
"I'm quarterback, like any proper senator's son. I assume you know that."
"Which one? That you're a senator's son or captain of the football team?"
"Both. You don't strike me as the type of guy who misses much. Far too quiet." Rob turned his attention behind the counter. "Hey, Thelma, got any more eggs?"
A large woman wrapped in a snow-white apron and a hair net dumped a pan of biscuits into the buffet. "You're too late," she said, her dour, dark face shiny with the heat of the kitchen. "The chickens didn't want to lay eggs today, so we had fewer than usual."
"You've got to sweet-talk them into laying more, Thelma."
Adam hid a smile as the tray slammed down on the edge of the buffet and Rob jerked back his fingers. Thelma began to vigorously level the hill of biscuits with a pair of tongs.
"Havenwood has chickens, if you can believe it," Rob told Adam. "In the sixties, the school was entirely vegetarian except for eggs, because they adopted about fifty chickens from this group that rescued them from slaughter yards, poultry houses, and such. Makes for interesting alumni parties-'you students don't know how lucky you have it-you just haven't lived until you clean out the shit in a chicken house.' Anyway, I think we're on, like, the tenth generation of the rescued squawkers. Leisl!" Rob shouted. "We got grape jelly today?"
A woman with a face as soft as Thelma's biscuits and a fat rope of braided hair beamed at him from behind a mountain of fluffy pancakes, cooked apples and steaming grits. "Of course, hon." She handed him a plate of pancakes with a generous bowl of jelly on the side. "And who is this?"
"Don't try to reach over and kiss her hand; you'll hold up the line," Rob warned Adam. "This is Adam, my roommate. Be careful. He's an exhibitionist."
Leisl offered Adam a plate of food and a sympathetic smile. Adam scowled after Rob, but directed a polite nod to her. He caught up with Rob at the juice bar.
"Anyway," Rob continued, "Havenwood was vegetarian until about the late eighties; then the animal rights groups died off for the same reason the peace groups did-lack of interest. We went back to carnivorous slop, instead of tofu-based slop, and decided nuclear weapons protests were a major schedule conflict for the Friday night keg parties." Rob turned from the juice bar and surveyed the room. "Aha, just the place."
Adam followed him through a maze of tables, brushing leg and hip against the shoulder blades of their student occupants.
Rob placed his tray next to Alicia's. "You're pretty fast, Wildcat. Considering your personality, I assume this seat is not taken?"
"Fuck you, Rob," she responded.
Adam circled the table and placed his tray next to Correen, who sat across from the blonde. He got a momentary glimpse of black, close-fitting gloves shot with tiny silver threads before she burrowed her hands under her thighs and hunched herself tighter over the anatomy book in her lap. The weight of the neatly arranged bun at her neck made him wonder at the length of her hair.
Where did that thought come from? Adam frowned and unloaded his tray, placing it at his elbow.
"We haven't been officially introduced," said Alicia, extending a hand bedecked with rings. "I'm Alicia. Welcome to Havenwood."
Adam bowed over the hand, enclosing it in his own. "The pleasure is mine, m'lady. And may those with influence grant me the opportunity to repay your favor from this morning." She chuckled. Adam noted the ring on her middle finger, an engraved pentagram with a moonstone in the center.
He sat down. "Correen, I have something of yours."
"Have you two met?" Alicia asked.
Correen flicked an irritated glance at her. "We've met."
Adam pulled the pentagram from beneath his shirt and drew it over his head. "I saw your expression this morning when you looked at it and realized it was yours. Unfortunately," he inclined his head at Alicia, who gave him a wicked smile, "I didn't have time to leave it."
"Thank you," Correen said stiffly. Adam hesitated, the necklace dangling from his hand. She did not offer her palm. Adam laid it on the corner of her orange-plastic tray. Correen bent her head over her book again.
"So, you're both Witches?" Adam ventured, directing the question to Alicia.
Alicia looked at him. "In what way?"
"They burn witches in his village," Rob said matter-of-factly. "He's probably never seen one unbarbecued."
"Not funny, Rob," Alicia snapped.
"I meant no offense," Adam said. "I've read about the Wiccan religion, but I wasn't aware that calling you witches was offensive."
"They know about Wiccans in the backwoods of wherever the hell you're from, do they?" Rob asked.
"I studied many religions to be able to come here. Enough to know that Wicca is a religion where Those Who-God, is both male and female, the God and Goddess, or Lord and Lady. You work with the energy produced from life forces-the forests, the animals, and your own, and align your activities with the cycles of birth, life and death."
"Textbook answer. Okay." Alicia nodded. "I'm Wiccan. I won't speak for Correen."
Correen chose not to speak either, immersed in her book.
"I see you introduced him to Adrian." Alicia changed the subject. "Too bad Adrian didn't get to take a 'look' at you earlier this morning." Adam flushed.
"Why look, it's the Foul Enslaver's fawning minions!" Rob intervened. Several students, with the athletic appearance of gladiators, sauntered into the cafeteria and headed for the buffet. Rob pursed his lips and pulled a pen from the pocket of his jeans. He blew lint and several long hairs from it, and began to make rapid calculations on the table surface.
"They're members of the soccer team," Alicia clarified for Adam. "Vance Muckerman is the captain, otherwise known as the Foul Enslaver." Rob used her straw to make some invisible measurements in the air.
"What is he doing?" Adam asked.
"Don't encourage him," Alicia warned.
Adam drew his eyes away from his roommate as he packed Alicia's grits into his empty juice cup. "I'm looking for a friend who attends Havenwood," Adam said casually. "Do you know Jaiya Marduk?"
Correen's gray eyes flicked up from the book, capturing his attention, but Alicia answered. "The name doesn't sound familiar. Maybe she transferred out. There's been a lot of that since Havenwood's financial problems." Correen settled back into her book. "Rob?" Alicia prodded.
"Never heard of her. And believe me, if she's female and I don't know her, then she's not here." Rob straightened and grinned. "This is my physics experiment for the day. Professor Davison claims that for every action-" He consulted his napkin and eyeballed the length of the table. "Adam, would you mind moving four or five inches to the right, wonderful-there is an equal and opposite reaction. And what I say is," Rob pushed back his chair, dropped to his knees and looked at his creation at table level, "it depends on what you hit." His hand came down on the spoon handle and the cone of grits that he had deposited upon it shot through the air, narrowly missing Adam's ear. Adam heard the missile clopf into something behind him.
"Oh, shit," Alicia muttered.
Adam twisted around in time to see one of the 'Foul Enslaver's minions' dripping with grits, bearing down on their table with his fellows on his heels. Adam swung back and almost collided with Rob's pointing finger.
"He did it!" shouted his roommate.
"You know, you can change roommates during the first two weeks of the semester," Alicia offered.
Adam stood and turned in one fluid movement, pushing his chair a few feet away with the toe of his stiff tennis shoe. The speed of his movement and his benign smile skidded the enraged threesome to a temporary halt. Adam reached toward Correen's ear with a dramatic flourish and withdrew a small olive branch before she could jerk away. His other hand opened and a dove blinked at him. The bird plucked the branch out of his hand and spread her wings to circle their heads.
"A peace offering," Adam said softly.
With a sardonic sneer, the lead soccer player caught the bird by the wing and slung it away. The animal vanished and a napkin fluttered to the floor. Adam's arm shot down, hitting the edge of his tray. It flipped up into his other hand and he knocked his opponent on the chin, dropped the tray and caught the student as he slumped toward the floor.
"Your friend drank too much this weekend." Adam pushed him into the arms of one of his astounded companions. "You had better attend to him." He turned to Rob. "Porthos, we must away. Where are the horses?"
One of the symptoms of prolonged exposure to a Sealing world is the sense of apprehension. Every morning, I push down a nameless anxiety that compels me to stay in bed. It's difficult to find motivation to pursue my responsibilities. I questioned students and faculty about this feeling. Many have experienced it for most of their lives but they don't find it unusual. It's just "the way life is."
-Corbet, Daily Log
"What the hell was that?" Rob's voice echoed in the cold hallway outside of the cafeteria.
"A modified reference to The Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas," Adam said absently, studying his class schedule.
Rob closed his eyes, shook his head as if to clear debris. "I know who Porthos is. I mean, what was that, with the bird?"
Adam dismissed it with a shrug. "Illusion. A child's trick."
"Illusion. That was the most kick-ass thing I've ever seen. Every time I shut my mouth, you do something profound. If I shut up for an hour, will you get me a date with Channahon Ellyn?"
"What?" Adam stopped.
"Well, it was the closest thing to a miracle I could think of. You should see her-"
"I thought you had a girlfriend. The girl with the purse."
Rob grinned. "Got to keep my options open. Can you imagine any woman being able to stand me for more than a couple of months?"
"Excellent point," Adam responded. "I'm not certain I can survive you for much longer."
"Oh, don't be such a pansy." Rob flashed him a devilish look. "At least I'm not like Edward. I haven't killed a roommate yet."
"What?"
"Poor joke, sorry. Edward's first roommate killed himself about three weeks into the quarter. Hung himself in the men's showers. The rumor is, his parents had split up and he was having a hard time dealing with it." Rob grimaced. "Havenwood has about one suicide a year. Most students here are gifted whiz-kid types, misunderstood loners. The type who understands the meaning of the universe way before he understands why a girl won't go out with him. We're in the middle of nowhere, and winters are pretty gloomy. It stacks up." He attempted a smile. "Then there's the fact that Beaver Cleaver would look for a razor blade if he had to wake up to Edward's face every morning. Of course Edward doesn't have to worry about roommates now, since he's the only white guy left in Malcolm X. If he was looking for isolation, he got it."
"Beaver Cleaver?"
"Never mind. Let's get your books."
Twenty minutes later, Adam let Rob shepherd him out of the store with an armload of overpriced texts. "Where's your first class?"
"Room Six-A, MacGregor Hall."
"Yikes. The 'Moana' Lisa room. Oldest building on campus. You'll feel like you're in Noah's Ark on the thirty-ninth day. Smells like mildewed cows, especially when it rains." Rob opened the access door to the outside, and rain gusted in on a cold wind. He drew back from the mist rising from the drops ricocheting off the sidewalk. "Speak of the devil. Better make a run for it. MacGregor Hall is that brown-and-green building over there. I'll catch you tonight."
"Mona Lisa-" Adam began, but Rob was already down the hall, raising a hand in farewell. Adam shrugged and struck out across the courtyard. Rain stung his skin, and spun around him in cyclones created by the penetrating wind. Pools of water soaked his trousers up to the knee, and by the time he crossed the few hundred feet to the building, he felt frostbitten. A dirty, wet path of footprints led him into MacGregor.
A girl with a dripping silk sunflower braided into the floppy brim of a denim hat brushed past him. Her right boot shot forward on the cracked, slippery tile, her books tumbling against Adam as she instinctively caught hold of his arm with both hands.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry," she mumbled, and bent to retrieve the books off his feet.
Adam stayed her with a hand to her shoulder, knelt and placed the books in her arms. "Are you all right?"
She stared at him out of clear blue eyes and a frame of limp blonde hair that made damp tracks on her sweatshirt and the denim straps of her overalls. "You're new here."
"My name is Adam."
"I'm Melanie." She looked at the textbook he held. "Looks like we're partners in misery. Monsieur Oudinot's class. The man lives, breathes, and eats poli-sci."
Adam smiled blankly and nodded. He followed Melanie to the doorway of the classroom, and understood the reason for Rob's nickname for it. The ceiling groaned against the assault of the weather. Rain hammered the sagging roof; water stains made maps on the acoustic ceiling tiles. The lights flickered as the wind picked up force. Monsieur Oudinot, a man with thinning hair, hollow cheeks and irritated, bright eyes, glanced up from his notes as the lights nearly went out.
Adam sat beside Melanie. Correen sat in front of him, tapping her pencil on the same open anatomy book she had been reading earlier that morning. He focused on the pages, frowned and leaned forward to take a closer look. She stiffened, but did not turn her head. His gaze followed the coil of shining black hair hiding the slender column of her neck, and the bony line of her shoulders beneath the blue sweater. The silver thread of chain told him she wore her pentagram again.
What was it about her that bothered him? Something kept drawing her into his path, as if there was something she possessed that was important to his reason for being here.
"I'm sorry we disturbed your breakfast, this morning," he spoke into her ear.
Correen shrugged, closing her book on her finger. As she did so, the neckline of her sweater rolled outward from the movement of her arm against her left breast. Adam saw the curve, cradled in a lace undergarment. Though his attention lasted only a second, Correen shifted, catching his jaw with her shoulder as she leveled a hostile stare at him.
Adam flushed. "I apologize. I did not intend-"
"Please take your seats, les gens," Msr. Oudinot called, shuffling his notes. "We have much to cover. Pull out your syllabus-"
"It's fine," she snapped.
"But I was not-I did not mean to-"
She put a finger to her lips and shook her head, glancing at Melanie, who was listening to the conversation with interest. Adam leaned back in his seat, feeling ridiculously discomfited.
Someone touched his shoulder. Adam glanced up and found a bearded student in horn-rimmed glasses kneeling at his side. He forced a smile and clasped the man's offered hand.
"Well met, Corbet. It has been a long time." Concern creased Adam's brow at the tremor he felt in the narrow, cold fingers, and only deepened as he took in the man's appearance. Corbet's hair lay snarled on his shoulders. His shirt hung on his body, the fabric's straight lines broken by the knife-blade protrusions of shoulder blades. A musty odor clung to him, the smell of something forgotten.
"We were not expecting you so early, Your High-" Adam's grip tightened. "Adam," Corbet amended with a sheepish grin. "Old habits die hard. When can we look forward to seeing you?"
Adam released him. "I called Channa and left her a message. I'd like to ... get together as soon as possible."
Msr. Oudinot called out Corbet's name. Corbet shrugged, nodded courteously at Adam and left him, heading for a seat two rows down. Adam's fingers closed into a fist, holding in the chill of the other man's touch as he watched him go. He knew that all Sealing Teams could be adversely affected by their environment and that this particular team was more vulnerable than most. Even so, Corbet's appearance was a shock.
Msr. Oudinot laid down his notes, grasped either side of his podium and placed his foot on the inside step. "Mademoiselles et Messieurs," he enunciated over the drumming rain. "When we study the Congress of Vienna, it is imperative to remember that..."
Energy prickled up Adam's neck. Melanie touched his arm. "We're on page-"
Two support beams cracked. Thirty heads jerked back in unison to see the stained tile expand like a mother about to give birth. The ceiling groan turned into a shriek.
Students bolted from their seats, overturning furniture and each other to reach the door, their screams of panic adding to the wailing dirge of the collapsing roof. Adam pulled Melanie into the aisle and shoved her at the door, which brought him shoulder to shoulder with Correen. Correen looked up as the ceiling's mouth opened, emitting a roar of rain, plaster and electrical wiring. Adam spun, his arms on either side of Correen, and his head ducked down over hers.
The shove of the beast above knocked them to the floor. Correen cried out as her lip split on the metal edge of one of the aisle steps. She tasted the powder of sheet rock dust mixed with her own blood. Adam's breath sucked in against her ear as he took the impact of the falling debris. His body pressed her against the cutting edge of the stairs, and the steps bit painfully into her kidneys. They were being buried alive. Correen had a brief second to wonder what would happen to two people who died like this, coiled so close that the souls would be crushed together.
Then, it was over. It took Correen a moment to get beyond the thundering fear in her head to realize that the pressure above was no longer increasing. Vaguely she heard students screaming and calling to others, but here, it was just her and Adam, sharing an isolated, silent space.
It comforted her, trapped and nearly suffocated as she was. She knew her savior lived. She felt his heartbeat against her back and heard his thin, ragged breathing.
"Can-can you move?"
"I can, but there is-" Adam's voice faded, then returned with determined effort. "I think there is a wire loose, above us."
She wondered how he knew that, but she believed him. She lay still.
His arm, curled over the top of her head, twitched. "Are you all right?"
"Yes."
"I am sorry about-that you thought I was being unchivalrous."
Correen coughed. He lay over her, protecting her. He had saved her life, possibly at the cost of his own. Fear lanced through her at the thought. "Do you feel drowsy?"
"Some." She felt his jaw pull back in a smile. "Do you think it's a good time for a nap?"
"You mustn't lose consciousness." She slipped her fingers under his palm. "Tap my hand. And don't stop."
His fingers beat out a methodical, slow tattoo against her knuckles. Correen caught the rhythm and realized she must have a concussion. People tapped out "Jingle Bells" with their fingers, not complicated classical pieces like Debussy. No, there was the change. It was "Clair de Lune." His breath caught, and the notes drifted off. He stroked her skin instead, outlining the shape of her hand. He had long, strong fingers.
The buzz of voices came closer, and a rumbling and scratching heralded a relief of the weight bearing down on them. Correen could hear voices more clearly.
"Students-Corbet, Mary, please! You could electrocute your friends. Let the maintenance people do their job! The fire department is on their way. Stand back-Corbet, I promise-"
Rain spattered Correen's fingers; light poured in. She saw Adam's bloody fingers resting on hers, and heard two of the infirmary interns talking to him. Then his weight was lifted off her back.
Correen got her shaky knees under her. Nothing broken, nothing but a few scratches.
"I'm fine," she snapped at the intern, but she let him take her under the arm to help her out of their nest.
Sparking wires that crackled and steamed in the rain laced the fallout. Wind whistled into the room, tugging at the debris still grasping the edges of the gaping hole above. Students painted with dust and rain like streaked ghosts crowded the doorway, held back by an insistent Monsieur Oudinot, security and the dean, Taylor Kuppenheimer. Several students, including Adam, were lined up on stretchers in an informal triage in a corner.
Correen pulled free of the intern and scrambled over to Adam. A sick sense of dread lanced her stomach. He lay on his chest, his face turned toward her. His hair, soaked with blood and rain, matted his gray complexion.
Correen probed the wound at the back of his head. The skull did not feel compromised. To see his aura, she did the necessary quick meditation to calm her mind. She freed his shirt from his pants and quickly moved her hands over his back.
She saw a velvet black cloak of energy outlined by gold, the color so rich and intense it was like finding the sun in the dead of night. Correen squinted and blinked, wondering if she had been hit in the head. Everyone she had ever examined had a variety of aural colors, depending on their physical and mental state. The black and gold were constant over every part of Adam's body.
"Where the bloody hell are those ambulances?" Dr. Raymond Scott, the head doctor for the infirmary, bellowed. He squatted at her elbow. "What have you got, Correen? Best guess."
She stared at the phenomenon of Adam's energy field, and then twitched, forcing herself to ignore it and look for irregularities in the energy pattern. "I think he has three fractured ribs." She laid her hand over the place and knew she was right by touch, if not by sight. He verified her diagnosis with a quick, hands-on examination. He nodded, then instructed two students on the proper way to lift Adam on the stretcher.
Adam's fingers caught the sleeve of Correen's sweater. He pulled her down to him, wrapping his other hand around her slim forearm. "Do not let them take me to a hospital."
"They have to," she said, amazed she could find her firm, professional voice. She looked into the tawny eyes. Her calm slipped, cracking the facade. "We don't have the right equipment to take care of you." She moved to give Dr. Scott room, reluctantly pulling loose of Adam's hold.
Adam grabbed at the doctor's arm as he filled a syringe. "No. No drugs. No hospital."
His other hand groped for Correen, though his head remained turned toward Dr. Scott. She instinctively took his hand, giving comfort. His fingers tightened; his other hand clawed the lapel of Scott's coat. He lifted his shoulder, though his face went white with pain, and squarely met the doctor's eyes.
"No drugs, no hospital. Ask Corbet to bring my healer to me."
Correen teetered forward, feeling lightheaded, and clutched at the side of the stretcher for support. Adam fell back onto the cloth, unconscious.
"Take this man to the infirmary," Scott instructed. "His own physician will treat him there."
Magic is nothing more than the use of natural energy to produce results.
-Alma Jacobsen, Oral Lessons
Adam saw the infirmary ceiling first. It was off-white, stained with water spots, but solid. He turned his head and immediately wished he hadn't. He twisted to avoid throwing up on himself, and pain exploded in his side. When his vision cleared, he had finished emptying his stomach into a plastic basin. Correen put the basin aside and gently pressed a washcloth to his chin and lips. Strong hands eased him back against a pillow.
"Well," Rob said. "We were just about to throw you into a pine box and be done with it. There is a Bulldogs game tonight, you know."
Adam blinked up at him through watery eyes as Correen disappeared with the basin. Worry made Rob look older and more serious. The bed next to Adam's bore a strong resemblance to the one in their dorm room-unmade and littered with textbooks, clothing and snack wrappers.
"How long have I been here?"
"Two nights." Rob sat on the edge of his bed. "I've been making cafeteria raids for Niko, who by the way, has cravings like my pregnant Aunt Nancy. I've slept here at night." His hazel eyes twinkled; his voice lowered. "Not that anything other than my superior upper body strength was needed. Correen's been your nurse almost every hour since you got here. Her and Sitting Bull."
"Sitting Bull?"
"It is the name he chose to call me," a deep voice remarked. Mataya's head and shoulders narrowly cleared the doorway. The Native American's long black hair, shot with silver, was plaited into ribbons and beads all the way to his flat waist, which was belted with an ornately embroidered sash hung with a variety of beaded sacks. He wore a full-sleeved cotton shirt over tan leggings painted with symbols. On his left hand he wore a gold ring embedded with a large ruby. His pierced ears bore gold hoops threaded with small stones.
"Mataya." Relief washed through Adam's chest, and his mentor stepped to his side, taking his arm. "I'm glad to see you."
"I have been with you from the beginning."
Adam nodded. He had not been treated with drugs. Drugs caused loss of control, and he could never afford to lose control. Adam looked between the Indian and his roommate. "I wish I had been awake to see you two meet."
The Indian's expression became stony. He checked the bandage at Adam's ribs. "If the weight of the roof had fallen on your head, the injury would have been less severe."
"Pray, do not mother me overmuch." Adam's expression sobered abruptly. "The roof-how many-" He choked on a gasp of pain as Mataya probed the injured area.
"It is best to worry about that later, my Prin-compumana." The Indian coughed over the word.
"What does that mean?" Rob asked.
"It means-" Adam's breath caught; he shot a vicious look at the Indian. "Son of my Friend."
Correen returned with Dr. Scott. The college physician looked like a wizened teenager next to Adam's seven-foot healer. Adam managed a polite nod. Mataya's probing stoked the burning in his chest into flames. Correen's hand touched Mataya's sleeve, but the Indian nodded in reassurance.
"He will be fine. The pain is not a serious thing."
Adam tried to breathe. Correen stepped back, and his eyes followed her. Pieces of colored cloth shaped like animals were sewn to her white gloves, as if they had been designed to amuse children. He noted her drawn cheeks and shadowed eyes. He also noticed she did not wear her pentagram over her clothes, but the loose cowl neck of her soft gold sweater showed him the delicate silver chain. He blanched, and his hand groped at his chest, knocking aside Mataya's hands.
"I've got it," Rob reassured him. He reached into his collar, feeding out the chain, a braided length of precious metals, until he revealed the medallion, a silver circle engraved with runes. "I put it on when they took it off so I wouldn't lose it. Another manhood gift, I take it?"
Adam nodded.
Rob pursed his lips. "That's a pretty affluent village you're from. Do you want me to keep it until you're up and around?"
"I will wear it."
Mataya put a hand under Adam's neck, and Rob slipped the chain over his head. Adam's countenance eased as Mataya lowered him to the pillow.
"I feel like I just knighted you," Rob said with an awkward chuckle.
Adam stroked the medallion and closed his eyes. "I am grateful to you for keeping it safe."
"Anytime, Your Highness," Rob returned. Adam's eyes snapped open, while Mataya looked sharply at the student. Rob lifted his arms in a conciliatory manner. "Guys. Relax, will you? Is everyone from your corner of the planet this serious?"
Mataya straightened. "The bandage needs to be removed, Dr. Scott. We need to lift him-so..." He pantomimed lifting Adam from the bed. "Rob and I can lift him, if you will remove the bandage."
Dr. Scott moved closer to Mataya's side, looking at Adam with a brow mapped by twenty years of patients. "I don't believe we have been formally introduced," he said to Adam with a faintly British accent.
Adam attempted a smile.
Mataya laid a large hand against Adam's sweating forehead. "Dr. Scott understands and respects our ways of healing. This speaks well for him in a world where the healers act like jealous gods, punishing those who choose a different path."
Adam's gold eyes managed to sparkle through a haze of pain. "While I lie here dying, you're still lecturing."
Mataya's lips twitched. "I will drive out the spirits of pain, and then bring them back with a good beating."
The Indian took two small sacks from his belt and gave them to Correen. "Mix these, and they will become a poultice. You must infuse them with strong healing energy as you prepare them. Do you understand?"
She nodded and took the sacks. Mataya and Rob carefully lifted Adam from the bed. The movement drove Adam into unconsciousness again.
Correen hesitated, but Mataya gestured to her with a tilt of his head. "It is fine. Go ahead."
She bit her lip, nodded, and retreated to the sink. Rob shot the Indian an annoyed look as Dr. Scott leaned over his arms to cut the bandages. "Don't you have anything like sour mash in one of those baggies?"
Correen dumped the rust and blue powders together in the clay bowl Mataya had left on the counter, and fervently hoped one of the medicinals was lobelia or lady slipper, to relieve his pain. She did not recognize the texture or smell of either powder, and she watched in amazement as the two became a wet paste on contact with one another.
"Pain brings strength and wisdom," Mataya's voice reached her, placid and unaffected. "He will dream and talk to Those Who Are Not Seen."
"I think you get this stuff from late-night westerns," Rob retorted. "How is it that Sitting Bull found his way to the village of a goatherder?"
"The destruction of a people sends them far from the home of their birth. Farther than most realize."
Correen turned with the bowl in time to see Mataya favor Rob with a level glance that clearly asked for silence.
The removal of the bandages revealed purple-and-red skin over the affected ribs. Rob and Mataya lowered Adam to the bed. Correen brought the poultice to Mataya. He took the bowl from her and reached for her hand.
She stiffened and drew back from his grasp. Mataya halted in mid-motion. For an uncomfortable moment, the Indian studied her with dark, thoughtful eyes; then he dropped his arm and gestured with the bowl.
"Hands like yours often have great spiritual power." His expression softened when she shot him a look of disbelief. "You care for him. You at least know there is healing power in that. I want you to do this task. Will you remove your gloves?"
Panic sketched across her face before she could control it. Dr. Scott glanced at Rob and, without a word, the men left the room.
She wished to be a healer, just as this man before her. To do that, she had to get past these hang-ups. Wasn't that what Alma was always saying? Correen tore off the gloves, throwing them on the chair before she could think about it. Mataya's eyes lowered and her stomach dropped with them as if she had jumped out of a plane.
His gaze rose and he extended the poultice. "Rub it into his skin, over the ribs. It needs to be thick."
Correen scooped the paste onto her fingers. It adhered to her skin and made the nerve endings feel slightly numb. Gingerly, she laid it on Adam's ribs. At the first touch of his bare skin, her arm jerked spasmodically. She took several steadying breaths, not daring to look at Mataya, and spread the mixture. Mataya slid the medallion lying against Adam's chest to the side so it would not be in her way. He laid his hand on hers and began to chant.
She had experienced energy flow before, in solitary meditations in the woods. It started as a tingle, like fairies dancing through her bloodstream. At its height, it moved her in the timeless spiraling vibration of the universe. This felt like she had placed her arm under a waterfall. She staggered. Mataya caught her elbow, giving her support. She freed her arm, continuing the motion she had begun. Neither his chanting nor the flow of energy was broken by her interruption; he had apparently expected her reaction. Her lips twisted. Mataya was not relying solely on the "strong healing" he claimed she might have in her hands. Her resentment dammed the flow of his energy, and it climbed up her arm, like water backing out of a gutter drain during a heavy rainstorm. She concentrated, relaxing the limb, and the channels through her fingers opened. She tried to add a trickle of healing light of her own, like a child adding a teaspoon of vanilla to a mother's cake mix, but it earned her a gratifying nod from the Indian.
Perspiration marked the lines along Adam's brow. Mataya's earlier stroking had pushed Adam's dark hair away from his forehead. Correen thought he had worn his hair long before, from the way it fell about his face. She wondered why he had cut it. She had shaved the well-defined line of his jaw that morning. His firm lips had an appealing gentleness about them. The heat of his skin warmed her hands through the wet poultice.
Over the past two days, she had touched him countless times, and that warmth never abated. Even in sleep, when most body temperatures dropped, his remained constant. On the first night, she had tried to work with his unusual aura to help his pain, but, in the end, the unconscious patient gave a gift to the healer. Her hands had grown warm from touching him. Her hands were never warm, no matter the thickness of her gloves. She did not touch him again that night, telling herself she was afraid she had inadvertently taken from him some of the energy he needed for healing. Even so, his warmth had stayed in her knuckles and fingers until early the next morning.
It made it easier to admit what she had noticed earlier, but had discounted as fanciful imagining. Since he had given her back her pentagram, the circle of metal had radiated heat. She had hung it over the edge of the bed while studying, letting it dangle free of her body for an uncomfortable hour. When she lay back, the metal circle was noticeably warmer than her body. She could have taken it off longer, perhaps overnight, to further test the theory, but she didn't. And she didn't want to think about why she refused to take it off.
She molded the poultice to the most affected part of his ribs. Her palm circled lower, covering the full range of the bruising, and her fingers touched the edge of a scar that ran diagonally beneath his ribs to his hipbone. She sucked in a breath over the emotional pain she felt in the wound, and then shrieked as Adam's hand shot out and locked on her wrist in an iron grip.
Mataya murmured softly to his unconscious charge in the same singsong manner. Adam's grip loosened and fell away from her trembling arm. Correen swallowed her pounding heart back into her chest.
"I think that is good," Mataya said.
Correen spun away from Adam and retreated to the sink. She kept her back turned, vigorously scrubbing her hands, as Dr. Scott and Rob entered and the three men rebound Adam's ribs in a fresh bandage. When she finally turned for a paper towel to dry her hands, she found one of the men had quietly left her gloves at her elbow.
...And he seized the dragon and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, til the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.
-Revelations, the Holy Bible
Taut skin rippled over cords of muscle as the black-eyed man strode through the bicycles, fans, spring clothes and odd kitchen utensils in the storage room. He turned down the aisle farthest from the door. Blankets and trunks crammed the walkway, but he moved through easily, where another man of similar size would have been snagged by the protrusion of handlebars, straggling cords and jutting corners. His shark eyes flickered left and right. Several trunks rose from the floor and alighted like flies on the cinder block wall.
He removed a key from the pocket of his jeans and squatted over the trap door. It lifted silently on well-oiled hinges, despite the dirt on its surface that made it appear as old and untended as its surroundings.
Beneath the storage room was a cellar, overwhelmed with the odor of mildew. He dropped through the opening, landing lightly. Once his head sank below floor level, the trap door settled back into place, the trunks fitting themselves perfectly on the rectangles of dustless wood that marked their places.
Another door was carved in the cellar floor, and opening it required a more complex key. The man laid his palm over the rune etched in the corner of the panel and murmured the proper spell. Green light flared beneath his hand, illuminating the skeleton underneath the skin. He hooked the finger of his other hand under the lip of the door and lifted it.
Decay flooded the chamber, reminding the man of the smell of prey rotting in the jowls of a sated predator. He dropped five feet into the hole, landing with the assurance of long practice on the first of a series of narrow stone steps. The door closed above him.
Murky darkness cloaked the stairs. Dozens of six-legged creatures scuttled from his path as he began his descent, the unfortunate announcing his arrival with a grim crunching. He struck a match against the wall and touched the flame to the second cigarette Melanie had loaned him.
He put out the match with his fingers, exercising respect for the fire elemental. He did not need the light. When he reached the level floor, the unfinished rocky texture of the narrow, twisting stairs gave way to smoothly cut stone. He moved with the same ground-eating walk, but it was some time before he came to the main hallway, lit by torches mounted in gargoyle sculptures carved from the stone.
He paused before crossing the line between the first pair of torches, taking the time to finish the cigarette. He rarely smoked. The act confirmed he belonged to himself, a quiet communion with his own mind. It was perhaps the only thing Edward Brautigan did that he could not explain, so he simply did not think about it.
He spoke the word that allowed him passage between the torches and stepped forward three paces. He stopped, repeated the word before he crossed the invisible line between the next pair of diametrically opposed torches, and repeated the process until he reached the end of the stone hallway.
He removed his shirt and withdrew a black robe from the alcove hollowed in the stone beside the large wooden double doors. The rough fabric of the robe abraded his skin as he pulled it over muscular shoulders and drew the hood over his dark hair. He uttered the word again. The doors bowed inward, granting him entrance.
More torches ringed the chamber. Edward inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of Death. It was his own smell-what he was, what he had become. This was life for the Lord of the Underworld, a quiet ocean of black peace and putrefaction where no emotion was allowed audience.
He strode to the center of the chamber and knelt, facing an altar covered by a red cloth. "I am here."
The chamber was silent, save for the snickering whispers of flame. He stared at the stone floor, mentally tracing the lines of blood that connected the circle in a macabre game of connect-the-dots. The center of the circle pulsed with power. He was at home, comforted by its presence, exhilarated by the knowledge he was kin to it.
"You did well." The voice rasped over his skin like the passage of snakes. Edward sensed movement within the shadows behind the altar and briefly focused his gaze on the figure emerging from their embrace. "Blood was taken."
"More could have been."
The voice became a precise German accent. "Your power is measured by the control you exercise over it."
Edward met the gaze of the specter. When he turned away his eyes, they were watering. "I could have destroyed them all with a thought."
"And so you shall." The last syllable became a hiss as the creature lapsed back into its own tongue. Shadows climbed eagerly up Edward's knees. An appendage made of gray smoke rested on his massive shoulder. Edward's arm twitched at the immediate invasion of ice and pain, but he steeled himself into immobility, even though he knew it was a game. As usual, the specter waited until Edward could control his body no longer, all the muscles shuddering across the impressive back before the creature drew back his touch. Edward let out a long, steadying breath.
"You are ready," the specter observed. "The initiated are ready."
"I am concerned about Amelia. She takes risks that could draw attention to us."
The figure melted into a pool of shadows that circled Edward's feet. "We will speak of that in a moment. Who should feed the gateway for our last rite?"
Edward projected a picture in his mind, directing it at the wraith.
"Mmmm. No. There is one with more power, better suited for our purpose."
"But-" Edward focused his eyes on the shadow where he sensed its face to be, and was rewarded with a burning caress. The shadow surged over him like a mudslide, pinning him flat against the stone floor with no air to breathe.
"The son can be no greater than the father," the German accent returned. Just as suddenly, the being released him and drifted off, morphing its substance into the image of a young boy. Or half of a young boy. The other half writhed with maggots. "Which half is you?"
Edward pushed himself back to his heels with a trembling hand. "They are both me," he responded flatly. "What I wished to be, and what I truly am. And both serve you."
The boy flinched, shuddered and dissolved into shadow. It shifted restlessly, floating about Edward's head. The man waited, a soldier at unflagging attention.
"If you serve me," the voice came, "then leave off this idea. I sense only fear from her. She cannot use what she has, so she is a victim, like most of them. This other," a vision sculpted itself from the smoke before him, "is untouched. Power flows from her spiritual and physical innocence."
Edward stared at the foggy image. "I will do as you ask. But the other has appeared in my dreams, and my dreams say she is a danger to us."
"You are so apprehensive tonight. There is something more about this girl, something that concerns you more than me. I sense nothing from her but cowardice."
Edward said nothing and the vapor snaked its way around him, eliciting a painful grunt. "You will speak of it."
"I will not." Edward felt the pain but did not resist it. The beast fed on it. Whether rewarded with obedience or not, the shadow creature would exact the price of its audience. "It does not concern our plans, and," he gasped as the hold tightened, "should you kill me, there will be no one to help you complete the plan."
"You are replaceable, like all humans."
"Then kill me now." Restraint cracked and Edward showed a face full of terrible malice to the creature. "Stop playing your games with me. You are stronger, but not more clever."
The powerful hold increased and he felt his bones bend inward. A harsh choke forced its way past his clenched teeth.
Abruptly, the specter dropped him. Edward caught himself on one fist and steadied himself. The thing chuckled, playfully circling him.
The German accent thickened. "Asmodeus' Faust was nowhere near as intriguing to me as you are. I have known many humans. They grovel, they fear, they foolishly try to manipulate me and die painfully for their efforts. Those with half as much power as you possess would try to cross blades with me. But you ... you simply serve." The smoke eased into a child's body again, and sank to eye level with Edward, fetid breath caressing his skin. "Why do you serve me, human? What reward do you seek?"
Edward looked into the face of the mock child, but the effort twitched the cheek muscles under his eyes. He would not lie. He never lied. He either answered honestly or not at all.
He stood. The child left the ground as he rose, maintaining eye contact. The face sagged into an oval, and then evaporated into smoke while holding the shape of the body. Edward stared past the headless apparition to the altar. "I await your instructions, Lord."
The smoke flowed over the child's body, devouring it, and floated a few feet away, murmuring. Then it metamorphosed into an exact duplicate of Edward, speaking in his voice.
"You will do nothing until two suns before the Whore's zenith. Let yourself be seen. Rest, increase your strength. Take the one I have chosen and prepare her for sacrifice on the usual night. Make sure the others are gathered here for a fast the night before. I want all of their focus and strength to flow into our purpose." The twin image turned, surveying the tapestry along the wall behind the altar. He peeled off the mask he wore of Edward and drifted lazily on the air. "The time of kings approaches. It will happen the night the Whore and her Lover believe themselves strongest. It will be a night of beginnings, of our beginning.
"Heed me, my brothers!" The smoke flashed fire and billowed out, enfolding the room in its powerful arms. "Your gates begin to open. Her Womb will be ours to rape. Her children will be our children, as they have always longed to be."
Edward found himself in the grasp of the smoke. It was an unpleasant but not painful grip this time. It was the closest the beast came to affection.
"And you," it whispered, "will lead them out. You will throw open the gateway for their fathers to claim them."
Edward's lips twisted. "So mote it be."
The being chuckled and released him. "Let us talk of Amelia."
And still they lingered.
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
"You are always reading."
Correen looked up from her book. It had been silent for hours, except for the breathing of her patient and the sleeping Rob. Relief surged unexpectedly in her chest at the sight of his gold eyes open and alert, though narrowed against the light of her desk lamp, the room's only illumination.
Correen checked the bandage's snugness and his forehead for fever. Touching him felt good, even through her gloves.
"Do you need anything to drink?" she asked, feeling the lack of words between them. "Mataya wants you to drink water."
"I want you to sleep," he said, studying her intently. "I'm in no danger with Rob here."
Correen shrugged and tucked the sheet in alongside the bed. "I was reading The Scarlet Letter anyway, and Dr. Scott feels better if a trained person watches over you. I told him I would." She straightened. "I'll be over here if you need anything."
He laid his fingers on her wrist, and she drew away her arm. "Would you read to me? It will help me sleep."
She never resisted a patient's touch. Touch reconnected the sick person to the healthy Whole, an important part of healing. She almost inserted her hand back under his palm, realized that would look silly, so instead closed her fingers into a fist and nodded. Correen brought her chair close to the bed.
"What else do you read?" he asked.
"Almost everything."
"Including Marta Hamilton, the famous necromancer and Satanist."
Correen's head snapped up. "She was a healer before she got into that."
"Why were you hiding it behind your anatomy book?"
"Wouldn't you?" Abruptly, she rose. "You're right. You're fine with Rob here. I'm keeping you awake."
Adam raised a hand. "Please don't go. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
Correen gazed warily at him. She volunteered at the hospital all the time. Answering personal questions for patients never bothered her, because they weren't really personal. Patients wanted distraction, something that drew them outside of their suffering. It was a state of mind hard to shake, when their bodies acted like unpredictable strangers, and white walls, antiseptic smells, and crescent silver bedpans assaulted their senses.
He had saved her life, and that broke down the safe wall between patient and healer. Personal questions were now actually personal. No, it wasn't just that. If she was going to be entirely honest, she knew he had been present in her thoughts since he first walked into the lobby at Havenwood. That was her problem, however, not his. At the moment, he was a patient needing his healer to provide distraction from what she was sure was a great deal of pain, since he had refused painkillers, herbal or chemical.
Correen sank back into the chair and frayed the worn corner of the book with her finger. "My degree is in alternative healing. I study whatever I can find."
"You should talk to Mataya while he is here. I think he knows everything about using herbs to heal the sick."
She shrugged. "We talked some already. I use auras to heal and yours was difficult for me to read. I only get two colors, gold and black."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that unusual?"
"Most auras change, depending on what your emotional and physical states are, and it also depends on what level aura you're looking at. Mataya said I saw your soul aura, and he showed me how to tune into your physical and mental level auras so I could help with your healing." She squared her shoulders. "I ... I really can't do much, other than identify areas where there are problems."
"Well, you can't learn to do everything at once."
She could have let it stand, but she wouldn't let herself avoid it, on any level. "I'm in my third year," she said to the book in her lap. She cleared her throat, said it more forcefully. "I'm good with herbs, but I have trouble with energy healing. Don't worry, though. Mataya said that what he showed me should be enough to help me take care of you."
Adam looked at her with the eyes of a drowsy lion. "I wasn't worried."
Correen flushed and looked back down at her book. "He said, with your luck, it would be good for you to have someone around who knew what to do."
Adam raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging at his lips. "His opinion is probably justified. Since I left home, I'm sure it's too quiet for him."
"You've been here less than three days."
Adam grimaced. "But you see how much trouble I can be. At home I'm much worse."
At her expression, a laugh swelled through his chest. Anticipating, Correen quickly leaned forward and pressed her hands into the bandage around the cracked area of ribs, absorbing most of the vibration. "I'm sorry," she said, chagrined. "I shouldn't have made a face."
She held on again as he chuckled. "Most of healing is in the mind. Laughter makes the spirit strong, and the spirit heals the body and the mind." He rolled his eyes. "I sound like Mataya. He will speak of the spirits and their healing powers for days. If you do talk to him, you'd better have food and water."
She nodded without smiling, her mind still on his ribs. She did a quick check. "Mataya didn't seem to think the colors of your soul aura are all that unusual, but I've never seen the combination before."
Adam shrugged. "I've never given it much thought. Why are they unusual?"
"Well, at the soul level, different colors mean different things. Of course, healers differ on what they mean. Some even think that classifying them makes auric healing sound like wearing a mood ring, or doing one of those cheap stress tests they put outside of restaurants." At his blank look, she added, "Giving kind of a 'catch-all' definition to something much more complex."
"Okay. So, what is the 'catch-all' meaning of my colors?"
She bit back a smile. "Black means ... a different reality. I guess it means you see the world differently. It's kind of undefined-the unknown. Gold is close to God, or serving the will of God."
He looked down at her hands. "Will your hands make it difficult to be a healer?"
She folded them on her book. She wished he would not stare at them, and, as if he had heard her thought, his eyes flicked up to her face. She wasn't sure if his gaze there made her feel any easier.
"My hands are small-they didn't grow correctly after..." Correen shifted uncomfortably. "They didn't grow correctly. They might be good for midwifery. I can use the aura for most diagnoses, and many types of alternative healing don't require the use of hands." She studied the pattern of the bedspread lying over his knees. One leg twitched, itching at the lack of activity. "What things do you do to keep Mataya busy?"
Adam rubbed a hand over his jaw. He stopped on its smoothness, looked at her quizzically.
"I shave patients at the hospital where I volunteer. It makes them feel more like themselves."
Adam smiled. "Thank you. It does." He dropped his hand back across his chest, his lips curved slightly and eyes warm upon her. "Mataya has cared for me since I was a baby. Like most boys, I didn't believe in death. If I found a river, I swam, or if I found a cliff, I climbed to the top. If I discovered a cave, I knew I would find hidden treasure." A rueful smile crossed his face and Correen watched the shadows etch the line of his jaw. "Of course, I nearly drowned in the river, usually fell off the cliff, and got lost in the cave. Mataya claims every strand of his gray hair is my doing."
"He has a lot of gray."
Adam's eyes narrowed. "Not so much."
Correen tightened her lips against another smile. When he shifted, she saw the light sheen of perspiration on his temple. Her eyes dropped, and she noted the faint quiver in his hand. "Tell me about one of your adventures?"
He shot her an even glance, indicating he recognized her tactic, but he relented. "Mataya taught me that all living beings are our brothers and sisters. One day, I had a terrible fight with my brother. I decided I no longer wished to live with my family. I wished to be part of the Bear family, so I ran away."
Correen leaned forward, elbows on the book. "What happened?"
"I found my four-footed family. A mother and her two cubs. I went into their cave without fear, and the mother bear did me no harm, maybe because I had complete faith in what Mataya told me. Or perhaps it is because the bear knew I was a baby like her babies. Mataya found me curled up against her hide with the cubs, taking a morning nap. Unfortunately, the bear did not perceive Mataya as a family member, and she chased him out of the cave and up a tree."
Correen's hands supported him again as he tried to suppress laughter. Tears of pain appeared in his eyes, but he shook his head at her look of concern.
"Mataya clung to the top branches as she shook the tree, and listed all the ways he was going to murder me when he got down."
"How long was it before he was able to get down?"
Adam grimaced. "Almost sundown. I ran home and found my father. He and his ... friends went to the cave and distracted the bear. For the next two weeks, Mataya would not even look at me. If I came near him, he would growl, make menacing gestures, and stomp away. Not only did I get to be a member of the Bear family for a short time, I also got two weeks of vacation from my lessons."
A tiny smile crept over Correen's lips. She saw his eyes register it, and grow still on her face. A now-familiar tingling washed through her stomach. Maybe it came from the semi-darkness of the room, which made them feel physically so close, or her overpowering awareness of his eyes, and his almost bare body beneath the covers. Or maybe it was the intimacy of protectiveness, her awareness of her responsibility to take care of him.
Adam closed his eyes and Correen leaned forward, touching his hand like a shy deer. "Why don't you try to sleep? I'll read to you later."
The tawny eyes reappeared and their attention felt like a caress on her face. Her cheeks warmed.
"I'm not sleepy," he said, settling his head deeper into the pillows. "Your reading would help a great deal, if it's not too much trouble."
"It's not." She sat back and flipped to her page. "Have you read The Scarlet Letter before? I'm at the part where Hester and John meet in the woods."
"'And still they lingered,'" Adam quoted. He shrugged at her startled look. "I've read many books."
Correen looked at her page and began to read aloud. She forced herself to become immersed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's lyrical words, and modulated her tone to weave them into a soothing cocoon of comfort around her patient. Occasionally, she paused. Each time, his eyes opened, and he smiled at her with them, encouraging her to continue. Eventually, she no longer forced herself to focus on the story; it surrounded both of them, and his attentiveness was as unobtrusive and comforting as a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her self-consciousness vanished, and, as Hester found her sense of herself in solitude, Correen touched the hand of her own identity in Adam's company.
She stopped once to get him a glass of water and herself a soda from the machine down the hall. While he sipped from the bendable straw, she held his head, and the ends of his hair tickled her wrist. She pressed her glove against his face, drying the sweat. She had done it hundreds of times for patients; the gloves were serviceable in that way. But suddenly it was an intimate gesture, her palm pressed to the side of his face. His eyes were closed, and as she passed her hand down his jaw line, his breathing became even. She felt the settling of the body when it gives itself to sleep. His head tilted against her hand. She touched her fingertips to his brow and drew away her hand, her heart tight in her chest.
Babies falling asleep from her touch always made her feel this way, as if she had been given a small miracle. She wondered why the trust of a grown man gave her the same sense, but then decided she did not want to dwell upon it. She slipped off her sneakers and curled her feet on the edge of the bed, tipping back her chair, and returned to the known world of Hester.
Just past two in the morning, his hand moved over her cold toes. Correen's glance lifted and his eyes were open. He tugged at the blanket.
"Lift," he instructed. Uncomprehending, she complied, and he pulled the blanket over her feet, gathering the fabric around her ankles. He accomplished all of it without touching her, but butterflies jumped in her chest. Again, he closed his eyes and slept. After a deliberate swallow of her soda, Correen delved back into the book.
Toward the deepest part of night, right before dawn, his hand moved again, this time in sleep. His long, strong fingers curled through the blanket under the arch of her right foot. Correen looked at his hand, clutched Hester to her heart like a protective shield, but did not move her foot.
She lay her head on the chair's headrest and watched him. Her head nodded farther to the right, and finally her knees relaxed in slumber, her feet seeking out the warmth under his thigh. The book fell from her grasp, unneeded, and she gave herself to dreams.
There are three sources of magic-you, whatever sustains your spirit, and whatever sustains your body.
-Alma, the Oral Lessons
"Rob?" Adam rubbed his eyes. The furniture and his roommate were taking shape in the dim light of early morning. Correen had disappeared.
Rob, dressed in sweatpants and a black T-shirt, sat on the next bed to tie his shoelaces.
"What happened to the other students?"
"Carol Patterson was killed. Bryan Marcosi's back was broken, and they think he's paralyzed. Everyone else was okay except for some broken bones and a concussion or two."
"I am sorry."
Rob looked toward the window, his features cloaked by darkness. "I played one-on-one with Bryan once. He was a real jerk." He chuckled bitterly. "Doesn't seem to matter, though. Like on the news, when they talk to neighbors. 'He was a great guy, always helping people, everybody liked him'-you'd think no crappy people ever die ... Shit, people die. Who the fuck ...?" Rob drew a shaky breath. "I'm outta here. Be back after a couple miles."
Rob's rhythmic trot faded down the hall. Adam stared at the ceiling, recalling the moments before the cave-in, when Melanie leaned toward him and the prickling on his neck had distracted him.
It came from the sudden lack of energy in the room, like the stillness of the body before a sneeze. When executing a powerful spell, the magic user sucked in all surrounding energy and used it for proper execution, giving those familiar with the effect the sense that time had stopped.
Adam turned his head toward the window. The sky's gray color was washed with gold. He did not have the strength to ward himself; the early hour and Those Who Are Not Seen would have to protect him on his short journey. He moderated his breathing and his heart slowed to match the rhythm of the All. He piloted his consciousness through the dizzy, ascending sensation of leaving his physical body. The infirmary disappeared. His astral self stepped onto the gray, amorphous platform of the lowest level of the astral plane.
Discontented beings floated around him, seeking to cause trouble to travelers without proper training. As an initiate, he had survived their frightening array of tricks, but thanks to the thorough teachings of Master Jessae, they rolled from his path, as harmless as fog.
"No event is ever lost in the mind of Those Who Are Not Seen," Master Jessae said, standing in the castle ruins. "Our soldiers complain of pain in limbs that are gone. They are not gone. The outline of their shape remains, just as the energy of the leaf that flutters to the ground remains connected to the stem. We and everything that exists are snails, leaving a silver trail of life or death that can be picked up by the trained mage's mind. Practice hard, and one day you will sit in this ruin and see the family that lived here. You will hear their soldiers practice arms, their children laugh. I have told you that the more mundane and peaceful the event, the more skill that is needed to recall it. Violence and grief leave an imprint like a shout to the trained consciousness. But do not be lulled into thinking that recalling a violent event is easy. The event itself is easy, but when your consciousness is open, you are connecting to life, on all planes of existence. Many unhappy creatures are attracted to sites of death and sadness. They feed on them."
The unhappy creatures followed him. Adam squatted in their midst, focused on his intent and they settled nearby like dour, amorphous gargoyles. He recreated the classroom by recalling the one thing he remembered so well that it appeared first beneath his outstretched hand. He lifted his fingers from the nape of Correen's neck as the remainder of the classroom materialized around him. His gaze passed over students sleepily reviewing notes and talking, a girl reading a letter, chewing on the stem of her glasses, then halted on a man bending by Melanie's chair while Adam spoke to Corbet.
The student was built like a mastiff, all shoulders and deep chest. He murmured into Melanie's ear, his lips brushing the curve. She looked at him with childish uncertainty; then she produced two cigarettes out of her purse. He took them from her and made for the door at an unhurried pace, sparing her no further attention than he would have given a vending machine. His languid movements craved fins and sleek silver skin. The man reached the door a breath before the roof erupted. An avalanche crashed through Adam's astral body as he watched the powerful student tilt his head downward to light the cigarette.
Adam's head jerked around at a high-pitched scream of pain. Another student's shoulders and head disappeared beneath a support beam, leaving a pair of jean-clad legs splayed at an obscene angle. The girl reading the letter dropped under the same beam, her glasses shattered into diamond dust across her cheekbones, the letter still clutched in her hand.
Adam looked back to the doorway. The student that had borrowed Melanie's cigarettes leaned against the hallway wall, unnoticed by frantic students and faculty. Eyes flat and dead as a shark's, so dark Adam could not tell the difference between the iris and the pupil, focused on everything and on nothing. He flicked his butt in a graceful arc over the heads of the medics, and then disappeared into the crowd.
The room wavered, warning Adam that his weakened physical state limited his ability to hold the vision. He needed to do one more thing, though, because his heart told him it needed to be done, and on this level of existence, intuition was law.
Adam moved to Bryan Marcosi's side through scattered haystacks of hot wires, rotted wood supports and plaster. Bryan wore a new pair of basketball shoes, stark white against the patched, faded jeans. His legs would never bend and feint toward a basketball goal again. He would never feel a lover's hands stroking his hips to pull them toward another willing body. He might never spend time on a beach or in a quiet forest, completely alone. Adam felt the pain of loss toward a stranger and knew what Rob had been trying to say.
He said a prayer to Those Who Are Not Seen for Bryan's journey, and then moved to Carol's side. His ethereal foot stepped through the electric wire burning against her skin. She had slim fingers with intricate veins, faded nail polish, and a callus on the middle finger. She had a paper cut on her index finger and wore a red and green woven bracelet, faded and stretched, around her wrist. A gold cross on a delicate chain hung from her neck. Adam placed a hand over her head, sending a prayer to her Virgin Mary and Jesus to protect her way to the next life.
A quick, scuttling movement caught his eye. He sprang to his feet, searching. He spun toward the door, sensing a presence, and came chest to chest with the dark-eyed student. It was not the student, though-it was his form, but the eyes pulsed blood-red power. The being's arms shot out toward Adam, and Adam catapulted himself out of the plane. He slammed into his physical body with enough force to knock a square wooden block through a round peg hole.
He gasped for air, fire spreading through his tightly bound rib cage. One of the more powerful lower life forms on the astral plane must have followed him to his vision. His weakened physical state and lack of psychic protection had made him vulnerable, had drawn the being to him.
Adam gritted his teeth at his own foolishness. With a grunt, he managed to stretch out an arm, intending to retrieve the water Correen had left him on the night stand. He froze.
A knotted piece of rope sat on top of the Hawthorne book, touched by the first beams of sunlight. A strand of his hair had been tied in each of the nine knots. A pair of medical scissors lay next to it, like the ones used to cut his bandages.
Someone had stood over him while he was in his vision, vulnerable as an apprentice. Or, the curse was left last night, after he had fallen asleep. The image came to him unbidden, Correen bending over him, the scissors in her hand...
"You are well?" Mataya stood at the foot of the bed.
Adam jumped, eliciting another painful grunt. "Perhaps the Lords should have sent someone else for this task." Mataya moved to check the bandage. Adam caught his wrist. "Not now. I am not a babe who needs your coddling."
The Indian drew himself to his full height. "Nor did I come to minister to a sulking child. You are like an eagle, pining in your cage, given freedom for the first time. For the first moon you are enchanted with the spread of your wings. Then, you begin to complain about having to forage for food and protect yourself from enemies. Perhaps you are right." Mataya studied him with shrewd dark eyes. "Perhaps you would be happier in your cage, with the Lords throwing you dead mice and petting your glossy feathers."
"I'm too old to fall into your traps."
"I had thought so."
Adam stared at him, then a grudging smile twisted his lips. He gestured abruptly at the night stand. "What do you make of this?"
Mataya lifted a brow. "While you slept?"
Adam nodded. "It's just a primitive curse. If I correctly recall its nature, the creator concentrates his venom on his enemy as he ties each knot. It is supposed to be hidden somewhere near the enemy, where it slowly chokes the life out of him."
"Would your roommate or the girl do this?"
Adam considered. "I don't know either of them well. But I don't see Rob doing something like this. And Correen wouldn't."
"Why? She has great healing power, but she can't open herself enough to use it. Something holds her back. She may not be a servant of Light."
"She has magical ability?" Adam asked, surprised. "I have felt nothing from her."
Mataya frowned. "With your permission, I should complete your healing before someone comes."
Adam slowed his breathing to open himself to Mataya's efforts. "The Healer's Guild should teach us to perform these healings on ourselves. I thought about experimenting last night, but Correen was here."
"Mmm." Mataya opened a sack at his belt and tapped the rust-colored powder within into a fine smoke over Adam's bare chest. "She is a very beautiful girl."
"You're too old for her."
"So old I might confuse my spells and give you leprosy."
Adam smiled. Mataya murmured the words of healing, his strong, gentle fingers touching the broken ribs. Adam felt the special signature of Mataya's power reach through his skin, sealing the cracks in his bones.
Mataya had been disturbed by his inability to detect Correen's latent power, and Adam understood why. While many magic users could detect the presence of other magic, Adam could identify the user, as easily as a dog recognized another dog's mark. When he was younger, the apprentices of the Magic Guild would move a stone across the courtyard, or heal a horse's lame foot, and then ask him to guess which of them had done it. At first, he had basked in the attention. When the boys tired of the game, they did not ask him to be part of any others. He made himself believe his royal status constrained them. He was older now, and knew better.
Mataya straightened. "It is done. You will be sore, and you will tire more quickly than you will like, but the ribs are strong enough for you to move as before." He tucked his medicines into his belt. "Your brother is very unhappy about this situation."
"Unhappy that I am in this world, that I was injured, or that the roof did not knock what little brain he believes I have out of my head?"
Mataya made a noncommittal noise. "He continues to counsel isolationism to the other Lords. Some are listening, some not."
"How can he continue to counsel isolation? Our charge is to protect the worlds of the Continuum, and to help those that are Sealing. He knows that."
Mataya stared fixedly at a knot in the wall over Adam's head. "He is suggesting that the charge is an ancient one. He thinks Those Who Are Not Seen are turning in a new direction."
"They would bring me visions if They desired a new direction."
"In your absence, your brother finds ears willing to hear that the Lords are more accurate translators of Their Will than the Guardian, especially such an unusually young and rebellious Guardian." Adam's gaze shot up to Mataya's face. "Do you wish me to take a message to them or will you come back with me yourself?"
Adam pulled himself up on his pillows. "Is that why you told me this? Do you still think I'm a child, that I'm going to tire of this and return to being what you and the Lords wish me to be? What message can I send that won't be interpreted in whatever manner all of you choose?"
Mataya's face turned to gray granite. He left the room without a word.
"By the Continuum," Adam swore. Mataya had offered Adam's father the knife that cut his umbilical cord from his mother's body. He was Adam's teacher and surrogate parent, and a loyal friend. Adam flopped back on his pillows. "What am I doing here?"
When Correen entered the infirmary, Adam had sponged off in the sink, combed back his hair so it clung damply to his collar, and managed to get into a loose pair of jeans and an open white shirt, which revealed the gray bandage around his ribs. He struggled to put on his shoes.
"Are you supposed to be up?" she said sharply.
"Yes," he said, frustrated with his stiffness. He explained Mataya's directives.
"That's not possible."
"Mataya is a great healer. Come and see, if it will make you feel better."
To his surprise she did, her brow furrowed in unsettled concentration as she ran hands clad in lavender gloves over the affected ribs. He inhaled a faint whiff of perfume from her hair that smelled like wildflowers.
"The break is gone, though there's still a lot of bruising in the muscles. That isn't possible. I must be reading it wrong. Am I?"
Adam stared into her gray eyes, inches from his. He saw the movement of her lips, felt the press of her fingertips on his ribs, and forgot her question. She stepped back and caught the heel of her shoe on his foot. He grasped her waist with both hands, steadying her.
"I always seem to be saving you from a nasty fall," Adam managed. He was not a child, but suddenly he felt like an awkward adolescent.
Correen backed out of his grasp and bumped the night table. The curse fell on the floor, over the toe of her shoe. She snatched it up. "What-?" She picked up the scissors and began to cut through the knots. "Who left this thing?"
"I don't know." Adam watched her closely. "You know what this is." Adam met her gaze, showing her the question was not in his eyes. It was more comfortable to tell himself he was doing it to win her trust than to think of the real reason, that he actually did not believe she would try to hurt him. "How do you know about curses like these?"
"A couple have been left in the infirmary before." Coreen broke the last knot and, with a disgusted look, tossed the thing in the trash. She gathered up the loose locks of his hair and dumped them in a bedpan, pulling a book of matches from the purse she had left on the desk. "I shouldn't have left you alone." Her fingers shook, and the match sparked feebly.
Adam rose. "May I help?"
She hesitated, her lips pressed together. He suspected she was torn between wanting to do it herself and saving herself the embarrassment of demonstrating how long it would take her to do it. She laid the book in his palm, careful not to touch his fingers. He struck a match, dropped it into the bedpan, and watched his hair burn to ash. No one knew why he was at Havenwood, except those he could trust. If curses had been left before, then this one was not targeted specifically at him.
She took the bedpan, pushed him into a chair, and guided his foot into his shoe.
"Correen, I can do that."
"I'm sure you can," she responded, tying the laces. "But you're probably a little sore."
He laid a hand on her forearm. She didn't look up, but she stopped what she was doing. He lightly touched her jaw, then applied firmer pressure until she looked at him. "It wasn't your fault. Who do you think is leaving them?"
She rose and moved away to her desk. "Dr. Scott's theory is that, when people are studying different religions, like voodoo, and Wicca, or alchemy, they come across spells and curses and want to try them out, for a joke."
"Cursing the sick is a practical joke?"
"You're here on the International Development scholarship, aren't you?" At his nod, she withdrew a stack of folders from the cabinet. She yanked a file out of the group. "We have students who think it's a joke to tie a roommate's ankle to a bedpost and set off the fire alarm. She broke her leg. Or"-she picked up another file-"they think it's hilarious to let a drunken friend jump off the diving board into the gym pool. It's been drained for two years. He broke his back."
"Correen-"
"Last semester," she continued, holding up a hand, "a group of students pulled a sofa outside Siddhartha Hall and went through a case of beer while they waited to see if Shannon Clarkson would jump off the dorm roof. She did, our third suicide this winter. They were so drunk that, when they finally called the police, they told the dispatcher 'Somebody needs to come clean this bitch's brain off the pavement.'"
Adam crossed the room. She stared at the stack of folders, her gray eyes hard and glassy. Her palms pressed on the stack, as if she thought she could soothe the patients of the past by holding their charts together, if nothing else. He touched her cheek with his knuckles. She raised her head.
"Correen, it wasn't your fault. I'm fine, and you took good care of me. Besides which, the curse isn't that strong. True laughter can dispel it."
"And when was the last time you heard anybody truly laugh?"
The question pushed him back a step. She fed the folders into the drawer; her fingers trembled. Adam watched her narrow back. He tried to imagine her with the scissors, cutting his hair and creating the curse. Once again, he reminded himself that he felt drawn to her in a way that he did not fully understand. She did study magic and necromancy, but it did not mean she turned the knowledge to evil uses. He needed to learn more about her.
He drew a deep breath. "You've done so much for me. Perhaps, this Friday-"
"No." She faced him, her gray eyes suddenly as remote as they had been alive with pain a moment before. "I'm grateful you saved my life. Nothing I've done comes close to matching that. You owe me nothing." She took a breath, as if she planned to say more, then shook her head and turned back to her filing, dismissing him. As pleasing as it was to see the tapered line of her waist and hip, and the slender neck, he was ready for a change.
"So, perhaps you owe me dinner."
Correen spun about.
"I'm just teasing. I'm not trying to make you angry."
"I guess you could say I do owe you something," she ground out. "I should be so terribly grateful for my life, I'd go out with you. But I'm not going to. All right? You can think of me whatever way you want for being like that, but you'll get over it, I promise."
"Correen-"
She tucked her head over another stack of files on the desk and did not look up.
What had made her into such a closed, aching shell, a woman who loved the story of Hester and John enough to read it over and over again?
Adam touched her hand. She drew away her hand and refused to look up. "Go away."
He tapped on the top of her folders, in between her two hands. She pulled the first folder from beneath his palm to file it, so he started over. He tapped for several minutes, and when she turned back from the cabinet, she did not take the next folder. Though her head was still bowed, her brow was lined in concentration.
"Peer Gynt. Grieg," she murmured. She looked at him, and her eyes were no longer as remote, or angry.
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I know that I'm not very ... attractive to women." A peculiar look came into her eyes and Adam rushed on, embarrassed. "I'm not sure how this is done. Correen, you don't owe me anything. But I would like to get to know you better."
Her shoulders rose and fell. "That was pretty good."
Adam's mouth lifted. "Yes?"
"Yes," she said warily. "Friday, six o'clock would be good. I want my roommate to go with us, and you can ask Rob if he'll go, too."
He found his voice with some difficulty. "I will come to your room at six on Friday."
She returned to her filing. Adam collected his bundle of clothes and textbooks. He crossed the room, took one long look at her profile and her economical, precise movements as she turned from table to cabinet, cabinet to table. Several wisps of hair had escaped from the bun on her neck.
"Thank you, Correen."
She nodded without looking.
Adam stepped into the hallway. He shut the door behind him, and uneasiness filled him. He did not allow himself to be distracted from his responsibilities, ever. Those Who Are Not Seen had to be guiding him, for this would be the worst possible time for him to be attracted to a woman. And if they were guiding him, she was involved.
Regardless of his intentions or hers, however, for the first time in his life, he was going on a date.
The fabric of this society is unraveling. Each day, more threads fall loose from the stitches of family which form the cloth of community. Children wander, bewildered, among a family composed of two divorces, three marriages and a separation ... The young are interred in daycare centers and the old into rest homes by a generation that works too hard at accomplishing nothing. Ask this worn-out generation what drives them to abandon their families in the quest for more money, more time, etc., and they cannot give you a clear answer. It is as if a separate force is driving them to alienation and ultimate destruction.
-Analysis of the Earth Sealing, Martin Watchtower
"You know, you don't have a file in the school mainframe yet," Rob said, staring at his monitor.
"It was stolen by the evil time traveler who pursues me from the thirteenth century. He seeks to steal the powers of my medallion."
Rob's busily typing fingers came to a full stop. He peered over his shoulder. Adam calmly worked brown paint into his canvas with his fingertips. Rob waggled a finger at him. "Stay out of my sci-fi shit. You're too young and impressionable to be reading that stuff."
"What about this one?" Adam backed up to the bookcase and touched a clean wrist bone to a spine that read Love's Fury.
"Do you ever sleep?"
"I was disturbed by one of your television programs."
"You know, when Dr. Scott suggested 'lying around and watching TV' when you got tired, I don't think he realized he was talking to somebody who lived on Fantasy Island all his life. Try the radio next time."
"It was about a child ... assaulted by her father."
"God dammit." Rob shook his head. "Sleeping with your daughter used to be just another thing that defined a Southern male. Now everybody's doing it." Rob crossed his eyes at Adam's incredulous expression. His new roommate's face relaxed into a disparaging look.
"You are teasing-giving me a hard time."
"You've got that expression down."
"I need it quite often around you." Adam inclined his head at the computer. "Do all students have access to the school files?"
"Only those who know how to get past the security." Rob rolled his chair past Adam to the bookcase, retrieving Love's Fury. "I don't read romance novels for entertainment. I read it to know what women like."
"Hmm. On page fifty-six ... Bolt rapes Alessandra in a drunken stupor, because he believes she is a prostitute. On page two-oh-one, she offers herself to his sworn enemy to save his life, so once Bolt is free, he beats her for dishonoring him."
Adam added a different shade of brown to his index finger and massaged the paint into the canvas. Rob quickly paged through the book.
"However..." Adam looked at him. "In the end they-what's the expression?-live happily ever after, forgiving each other everything. That's what women like?"
"Fucking incredible," Rob murmured, staring at the pages.
"Rob?"
"Yeah, I'm here. You know the old saying, don't believe everything you read? Well, maybe you don't know it. If I backhanded Lanny, I'd be wearing my balls as nostril plugs, and rightly so. Only total assholes knock women around. But women do get into the whole pursuit routine. Horses!" Rob snapped his fingers. "Have you ever watched horses mate?"
Adam shrugged. "Of course. Why?"
"Well then, here's an analogy you can understand." Rob grinned, rolling back to the computer. "The mare does all the coy stuff with her tail and her eyes and prances around, but then when the stallion's all worked up, she'll walk away like she's not interested. It's his part to come after her and say 'I want you,' and then she sort of puts up a fuss but it's not a real fuss. Same with people. The hero doesn't let the heroine walk away. He grabs her, pulls her around and plants one on her-kissing her, for you foreign folks."
"Pages thirty-six, forty-five, eighty-nine, one-oh-five..." Adam paused, his eyes shifting in thought. "And two-eleven. Is that what you and Lanny were doing in the courtyard Sunday night?"
"You saw us?"
"I was working by the window."
Rob considered. "Well, yeah, it's like that, I guess. We were playing, but on some level I have to be able to catch her to be worthy of her."
"It all sounds logical." Adam frowned. "But something seems wrong with it."
"That's just because you're from Goatville, Nowhere, my friend. Women here are different. I mean, they wouldn't buy millions of copies of that crap unless they liked what's in them."
"You have a strange sense of things, Rob."
"You think I'm strange?" Rob picked up the long-horned, troll-like figure from his desk and waved its macabre grinning face before his roommate. "We had a computer virus that screamed through the entire school system last year. Not only did it trash all the programming and applications, it rewrote all the religious texts we store for study purposes-you know, the Bible, Book of the Dead, the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Torah, Dead Sea Scrolls, all that kind of stuff. Anyhow, the guy who designed the virus was a fucking genius."
Rob put down the creature, swiveled in his chair and clicked open a notepad on the screen. "I cut and pasted a few of his choicer gems. I figure I can use them in my Christmas cards this year." Rob threw a rakish grin over his shoulder, and it broadened at his roommate's perplexed look. "'And even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear all evil, for I know that God has left me' ... 'Forgive them, for they know not what they have done' is now 'Fuck 'em, make them pay for what they've done.' He took stuff like 'thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me' and put in some pretty hot passages concerning the Virgin Mary. They blow the hell out of the Immaculate Conception theory."
"Why does this make whoever did it a genius?"
Rob crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his fingers under his armpits. "Because there were literally thousands of those changes in all of the religious texts, not just the Bible, though he vented his spleen primarily on the New Testament. Each change would have had to be individually programmed. And if that wasn't enough of a feat," Rob nodded toward the sculpture on his desk, "he stuck in a graphics program that caused replicas of this little guy to run all over everyone's screen like rabid cockroaches."
Adam studied the sculpture and his eyes flickered to the monitor. "Did they fix it?"
"Mostly, but these guys still pop up every once in a while. Completely random, too. I've tried to track their 'sightings' with some other computer guys, and there's no pattern as to whose machine they appear on or at what times. And the New Testament is a lost cause. Every time they try to reload it, it's rewritten exactly the same way within a day's time. They've had to go back to stocking hard copies in the library."
Rob leaned back in his chair, bracing his feet on the wheeled legs. "It's a hard thing to fix. Every virus is arranged in a certain way, with a certain signature. Anti-virus software can only be written to detect known virus signatures or viruses that act according to the characteristics we attribute to viruses. If this virus circumvents those characteristics, then the software won't detect it."
Adam looked at him blankly. Rob chuckled.
"Sorry about that. It's kind of like a disease-you have to have the disease at least once for someone to come up with something to cure it." Rob returned to his programming.
A few moments later, Adam cleared his throat. "Rob? I would like to ask a favor."
"Shoot." Rob smiled at the ensuing silence. "I'm saying, 'tell me.'"
"Oh. I asked Correen on a ... date. She wants you and her roommate to go. Will you?"
"You mean she said yes?" Rob rolled his eyes. "He's been here a week. He's bested Muckhead's boys, survived a cave-in, and gotten one of Havenwood's most frigid women to go out with him. Man, I'd like to know what the hell you did to melt her frost."
Adam wiped his hands on an old T-shirt. "Don't speak of her like that, please." He turned from the canvas and met Rob's surprised gaze. While his steady golden eyes did not convey anger, heat simmered behind the irises that left Rob with an impression of flammability.
"Sorry. I didn't know you felt that way about her." At Adam's uncomfortable shrug, Rob waved a hand. "No reason to turn this into a pissing contest, Don Quixote. Just stop doing all this impressive shit. It's making me look bad."
A smile tugged at Adam's lips, restoring the equilibrium between the two men. Rob chewed on the new development. Adam held old-fashioned views toward women. But Rob would bet money his roommate's reaction had been more than a gallant defense of women in general. It was an instinctive defense of one particular woman.
"What is a pissing contest?" Adam asked.
A knock on the panel of the open door interrupted Rob's laugh. The woman in the doorway entirely swallowed his reaction, replacing it with a speechless moment of pure male appreciation. Her body was beautifully proportioned, but strong, too, her arms contoured with a pleasing muscle definition that Rob could appreciate both as man and as athlete. The black jeans that clung to the curves of her hips and long legs enhanced his reaction. Auburn hair tumbled over her shoulders in silky waves, held back from her face by two combs of carved antique brass. Brilliant green eyes framed by long, curling black lashes focused on Adam with warmth and recognition, and some disquiet. The delicate column of her throat rippled with a nervous swallow.
"Channa! You've come to tell me your life is meaningless without me!" Rob grinned wolfishly at her.
The woman turned her regard to him, and a faint trace of amusement glittered off the emerald irises. "I came to see Adam."
"Of course. In fact, if the President of the United States walked in and asked to see Adam, I wouldn't be surprised, oh no, not me." Rob glanced at Adam. "You would, of course, warn me, so I could clean up the place? I'd want to make a few finger sandwiches ... wouldn't want the Pres to be-" He stopped, confronted with the mutually distracted expressions of the other two people. Rob rose and pulled his jacket off the chair. "I think I'll leave you two alone. I suddenly need to go someplace where I don't feel like Tonto to the Lone Ranger."
Rob gave Channahon Ellyn a friendly nod and exited "Stage Left," giving his mysterious and enviable roommate a private audience with undisputedly the most beautiful woman at Havenwood.
For a moment Adam just looked at her. While she had been beautiful last time he saw her, the experiences he now saw in her eyes had enhanced her beauty tenfold.
"Is this how you greet a friend you haven't seen in three years?" she said lightly.
Adam held up his paint-covered hands. "A woman as beautiful as you would not desire your hand kissed by the likes of me."
She moved with the fluid, aristocratic grace of a lioness, crossing the room to stand before him. It was an apt comparison, since their destinies intertwined at a personal and spiritual level. Channa hesitated, then touched a bruise on his forehead. "I came as quickly as I could when Corbet found me. The coven was on a sabbatical in the mountains, getting ready for the Renaissance Festival. He told me you were all right, but I'm glad to see it for myself." She slid her arms around his back, her long fingers brushing his skin. "And it wasn't my hand I intended you to kiss."
It startled him; then a slight smile touched his mouth.
"What is it?" she asked.
Adam shook his head with amusement. "I was just remembering the first time I met you. Remember?"
Channa nodded, her eyes sparkling. "Your mother was introducing me to your father."
"You curtsied and politely informed him that he had mismatched the buttons of his dress tunic."
"I saved him the embarrassment of finding out later. Your mother was busy with her other guests or she would have noticed it first."
"I know. It's just..." Adam studied her open, forthright expression, enhanced by her incredible beauty. "I'd forgotten how well you handle awkward moments."
Her expression softened. He saw his own uncertainty and fears mirrored in the emerald green eyes. He lowered his lips to hers, knowing that having initiated the first move, she was waiting for him to take control of the second. Her mouth opened under his and he had to suppress the physical urge to put his hands upon her.
A noise made him break off the kiss. Correen was halfway out the door. A textbook, one he had apparently left in the infirmary, lay on the dresser.
Channa released him. "Is it that awful to kiss me?" Though she injected a teasing note into her voice, Adam heard the strain behind the words.
He pushed down his chagrin and brought his attention back to the woman in his arms. "Quite the contrary." He pulled her to him, trying to use his clean wrists. "I-I saw some people walk by and make a crude gesture at us. It angered me."
She put gentle fingers on his lips. "Don't let it bother you. People here don't see lovemaking as we do."
The knife of guilt twisted and he released her, reaching for a cloth to wipe his hands again.
"So, how's the translation spell working?" Channa cleared her throat over the awkward transition, leaning her hips against Rob's desk chair and crossing her arms.
"It's very impressive. I'm able to understand everything but some informal language ... slang."
She smiled. "You should have been around when we used the translation stones. You had to keep them in contact with your skin or everything would suddenly become gibberish. I lost mine once, and it took the Chandler three days to bespell a new one for me. I had to pretend I had an extremely contagious strand of laryngitis."
"Channa, I need to meet with the team, immediately, in the grove. Tonight, if possible."
The banter left her green eyes. The warrior nature asserted itself in the taut line of her body. "I received your message when I got back this afternoon. What's going on? My understanding was you're just visiting our world to observe a Sealing Team at work."
"The Lords purposefully concealed my reason for coming. I can discuss it when we are in the grove."
"Continuum matters in this world are under my jurisdiction here. I believe that gives me the right to know what's going on before we discuss it with the others."
"The situation is bad," Adam said, his tone sharpening. "Every precaution must be taken. The grove is protected."
Some of the anger abated in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I know you're probably not used to having your authority questioned. But ... I don't mean to act distrustful, but the people in my team know only the wildest stories about you." A wry smile twisted her lips. "And as much as I've seen you over the past several years, I may be beginning to believe some of them. They are good people. The more you can share your intentions, the better."
"I understand." And, actually, the only time my directives aren't challenged is when I'm issuing them to an empty room.
Channa visibly pushed down her concern at receiving so little information, and he watched her shrug and look for something else to talk about. Her eyes focused on the painting leaning against the wall. She stepped closer to see it better.
Adam followed her gaze, his eyes automatically appraising the light and form, and lingering over the subject matter.
"I see you've been making friends." She looked at him with a steady glance.
"Correen may have some information relevant to what we will discuss. I'm taking her on a date Friday with Rob and her roommate."
"Alicia Kingsley," Channa supplied. She ran an elegant finger over the edge of Rob's keyboard, studying with apparent interest the fantasy warrior-women screen saver. "You'll be Correen's companion for the evening?"
"Until I leave her at her door," Adam said, meeting her gaze with a forthright stare.
"Then I'll see you later tonight."
"Channa." He caught her sleeve and would have taken her hand, but he held back the affection. How could he say the truth, that he had greater concerns on his mind than their relationship, or the lack thereof? That he needed the skills that had won her leadership of Earth's most important Sealing Team, not her skills as a lover or companion?
She sighed through her nose, looking at his hand on her arm. "It's to be the same as always for us, my lord? All business, no time to sort out the rest?"
She knows my mind so well. We've always been so alike, raised for the same purpose. Only where I was chosen, she earned it, fought for it. Adam bent his head to the hand she placed against his cheek and pressed a kiss to her palm, watching her thoughtful green eyes warm to a resigned smile.
"Is this anyone at the school?" Carefully he reconstructed the student he had seen in his vision and projected it to her mind.
"Edward Brautigan." Channa withdrew her touch.
"Hello?" Melanie peered timidly around the edge of the door.
Adam forced a smile. "Are you looking for Rob?"
"Not really. I came to see you, see how you were doing, that is."
"Seems you have a fan club, Adam." Channa lifted an amused, perfect brow.
Melanie blushed. "You're busy, so I'll just..."
"It's okay." Channa waved her in before Adam could say otherwise. "Adam and I are old friends. I was on my way out. Glad to hear you're feeling better, Adam. I'll call you later." She hesitated, then raised up to him. They exchanged a brief brushing of lips during which Channa kept her eyes lowered.
He had handled this badly, so preoccupied with his main reason for being at Havenwood that he forgot there were other factors to plan and consider. Channa departed without a backward glance.
"I'm sorry. I came at a bad time-" Melanie began.
"It's all right. Reunions can be difficult. Here." He brushed comic books off the recliner and gestured her into the chair, taking a seat on the bed next to Niko. The rat was a gray ball of fur, snoring loudly with all four broomstick feet in the air.
Melanie gripped the folders in her hands. Adam noticed she chewed her nails. "I found out what classes you were taking and sat in on them for you. The notes and the assignments are in the folders. You lucked out. They canceled Oudinot's class for the week."
The folder had a slick and colorful surface printed with a tropical fish design. "Alicia would like this, I think," Adam observed in the silence.
Melanie gave a nervous laugh. "Does she like fish? I live off campus so I don't hang out with folks much." She stood abruptly and handed him the folder. "I won't bore you to death, but if you need anything else..."
"You're not boring me." Adam gestured her back to the seat. "You're very kind to a stranger. Why do you live off campus?"
Melanie stared at him. "You saved my life. That's kindness to a stranger." She perched on the chair, as if she conveyed her willingness to depart with her tense posture. "I ... I have a daughter. I do stuff with her."
"And your ... handfast?"
"What?"
"Husband," Adam corrected himself.
"I don't have one of them. He and I were dumb high-school kids. We broke up pretty much after it happened. He didn't have much interest in her, and I couldn't handle raising the both of them. Mom and Dad threw me out, but I had a friend at Havenwood who got me into their single-parent program."
"Was it Edward who got you into Havenwood?"
One leg suddenly jerked, dumping her own folders to the floor. Adam retrieved them, placing them on the bed. "Would you like something to eat or drink? Rob keeps a refrigerator filled with drinks for everyone." Adam opened the door of the small fridge.
"No, no, don't bother. I try not to eat after six because I'm on a diet. After seeing Channa, I'll probably go home and eat a pizza." She grimaced.
Adam looked at her body, which made her high color deepen. "You're not as slender as Channa, but you've borne a child, and she hasn't." He brought her a soda and knelt by her chair. "You are raising a child alone, without your family, and you are educating yourself. You didn't plan for your love, but you accepted responsibility for it." He figured out the pop tab, and the soda hissed. "I don't know you well, Melanie, but you seem to be an exceptional person and a desirable woman."
Tears welled up in her eyes. "Thanks. Um ... to answer your question, Edward wasn't the friend." She looked away, blinking. "I mean, he is a friend, in a way. He's an on-again, off-again sort of thing. I guess he's like a lot of guys. He sees me when nothing else is going for him." She choked on a chuckle. "I'm not dating anyone, if that's what you're trying to get at. I mean, I really don't want to see anyone but Edward, but everyone says I should, so maybe, you know, if you're suggesting something ... oh, geez, I'm losing it."
Adam put the soda in her hands, squeezing his hand around them briefly before returning to his seat. "Melanie, I-do you smoke?"
"No. You probably saw me giving Edward-" She shrugged, fingering the top of the soda. "You do stupid things sometimes, when you like someone. He smokes, but only every once in a while, so he doesn't usually carry them. I got in the habit of carrying them for him, so he would ask me for them when he needed one. But I don't smoke, if you're worried about that. I know a lot of guys that don't like to go out with girls that do."
Adam took her hand, linking his fingers with hers. Such intimacy did not come easily in their society, but the pain in her screamed for touch, and he could not deny it. More and more, Havenwood seemed like a place of disconnected souls, no real community, just individuals alone with pain. Their lack of faith in themselves, and in one another, amazed him.
"I was not asking you about Edward to court-date you. I-"
"Oh, God, you must think-"
"Wait." A smile creased his firm lips. "I do need friends. I hope I've found one."
Melanie's eyes crinkled at the corners, and he saw she was older than most of the students, perhaps in her mid-twenties. "Is this one of those 'let's be friends' routines?"
Adam's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what you mean."
She waved her free hand. "Never mind. You don't strike me as the type of guy who would have a routine." Melanie considered him for a silent moment, and Adam openly returned the gaze. "I have one good friend. My five-year-old daughter. I guess I have room for another, and, to be honest, a good friend is a lot harder to find than a date, even for me."
Adam smiled and raised his own drink. "To friendship, then."
She lifted her soda in a wistful salute. "Here's hoping it lasts longer than the spin cycle on a dryer. Most good things don't."
Buddhists believe in a kingdom in the Himalayas where a great tribe of warriors live, training to ride forth and do battle against the greatest evil. These warriors prepare for battle with meditation. All thoughts, fears, and feelings, good or bad, are faced, acknowledged and accepted, and then released ... It is a common thread among the religions of this world, the intimation that the greatest danger we face is understanding ourselves.
-Martin Watchtower, Religious Analysis of Sealing World
The shadow slid across the glass doorway and paused, slowly flattening into a black line as the man approached. A cold wind whistled around the back wall of the building, but Adam sweated under Rob's borrowed flannel. He put his hand on the door handle and sensed they were all there, waiting. Waiting for him.
His jaw tightened. The padlock dropped open, and the chain clattered against the glass. He would give them warning. He had long ago tired of overhearing others' opinions of him.
Adam relocked the door and strode down the corridor that opened into the lobby and Alma's Forest. His new sneakers squeaked and echoed on the dusty tile.
Channa had placed a warding on the circle of pillars. Her energy was a warm wind, ruffling the hair on his temple as he crossed the boundary. Adam felt the strong energy presence of those within the circle, and Something more, telling him that Those Who Are Not Seen attended to their purpose tonight.
He identified the members of the Sealing team from the reports he had reviewed. Martin Watchtower had the receding hairline and distracted, but highly intelligent, expression perfectly suited to his assumed persona of associate professor of antiquities and theology. In actuality, he was a monk, dedicated to the Order of Cirulon as an infant. He had spent most his life pursuing study and religious contemplation. Upon reaching the age of twenty, all members of his order were required to use their talents in the active service of their religion. He had offered his skills to the Sealing Council.
Shireva Assuras also posed as a professor. She taught forensic pathology to the pre-med students out of a lab on the far end of campus. She was a recreator, able to recall past events from the physical objects associated with them. Had she been the one to recreate the classroom cave-in on the astral plane, Adam could have smelled the faint smoke from Edward Brautigan's cigarette and felt the pain and fear of everyone in the room as if their feelings were his own. Advanced recreationism bore a heavy price, but Shireva was one of the best, despite her size of just under five feet tall.
Corbet wore the same clothes he had on the day the roof collapsed, but they were washed and his hair and beard were more carefully groomed. He shifted from foot to foot, restless. Corbet posed as a student, as did Channa, but he was a Master Scholar, an essential component of the Sealing team.
"I expected the Wise Mother to be here tonight," Adam murmured to Channa.
The team leader shook her head. "She wished to be, but she's caring for a dying friend and can't leave her. She asked you to forgive her absence, and she'll receive you at her home at your earliest convenience."
Adam nodded. He could have used the Wise Mother's supportive presence, but Those Who Are Not Seen apparently willed him to meet this task alone.
He took a seat on the floor. Channa sat to his right and the others followed suit, creating a loose ring. Adam cleared his throat and rested his hands on his knees in a relaxed pose.
"Thank you all for coming. I wish I were here for the reason you were told, to observe your exceptional work, but I am not. The Lords are calling you home."
He waited, forcing himself to pause and not charge forward into it with a babble of nervous words. He wanted to gauge their reaction, because this was the least of the shocking news he brought to them
Not surprisingly, Channa recovered first. "We've been here only a year and a half. We've barely laid the foundation to our work."
"Are they pulling out all the Continuum teams?" Shireva asked.
Adam nodded. "All Earth teams except this one have already returned to our world."
"Did Lord Trelbyn finally win the Council to his isolationist viewpoint?" Martin asked. "Are the Lords abandoning this world to the Sealing?"
"My brother's voice is strong in Council, but not as strong as you believe-yet. The Lords are bringing you home to protect you. There is more-"
"Protect us?" Channa snorted. "We're in danger every time we go into a Sealing world. What kind of-"
"There were six of you." It was the hardest thing Adam had to say to her, and he wanted to have it out and done with. He steepled his fingers, studying the tile floor inside their circle. "A short time ago, Jaiya Marduk's father came to Havenwood as a surprise for her birthday. Since he has traveled between worlds before, he was permitted. The school officials told him no one named Jaiya Marduk attended Havenwood. She was not in the school's record system, the professors she had mentioned did not know her, and her roommate did not recognize her name."
"Who is she?" Channa asked.
Adam's gaze lifted, flitting from Corbet's attentive face directly across from him to the intent team leader on his right. "Jaiya Marduk has been a member of the Havenwood Sealing Team since shortly after it was sent here, almost eighteen Earth months ago. She was one of the three priestesses sent to do the Spiritual Awakening work."
Color left Channa's face. Her features might have turned to stone before him. She swallowed. "Three? Jaiya, myself, and ...?"
"Sephira Roth." Adam finished. "They were both enrolled as students, like you. Jaiya's father thought he had misunderstood where she was assigned, so he returned to our world and checked with the Lord Council. The Lord Council confirmed Jaiya's assignment, then had all Earth teams checked for any missing members. Only this one was incomplete. Your weekly reports stopped mentioning Sephira before what is known as Halloween, and Jaiya at winter solstice."
Corbet shook his head. "How could we just ... forget two people like that?"
"Are you saying everyone at Havenwood has forgotten them, too?" Shireva interjected.
"It appears so."
Channa stared at him, but her eyes had no focus. Adam ached for her. He wished he had risked telling her before she had to deal with it in front of her team, but his reasons for waiting were valid. He had to stay focused. There were bigger issues than her pain.
"As you know," he proceeded carefully, "the level of Sealing around the gateways to this world has doubled over the past eleven month cycles, despite all the efforts the Sealing teams have dedicated to slowing it. This rapid acceleration has swayed some of the more moderate Lords to my brother's counsel." He nodded at Martin. "I believe they are on the verge of leaving Earth to its fate."
"But haven't they been reading our reports? We've gotten good response from-"
"The Havenwood entry point has shown the greatest reaction to the increased rate," Adam interrupted Shireva, not unkindly. "And, as you all know, it is the hub doorway, linking all the others."
Adam wished Channa would speak, even if it was in belligerent opposition. Her silence, and the tangle of emotions he felt from her, was as potent as a physical attack.
"No disrespect, m'lord, but why were you sent?" Corbet scratched at his chin. "Anyone could have been sent to tell us to come home." His nail caught the scab of a shaving nick just above his beard and it welled with a drop of bright blood.
"Because I, like you, know that Sealing work is sanctioned by Those Who Are Not Seen, and I don't wish to see Earth abandoned before its time. If Earth's Sealing accelerated at this rate by ... comprehensible means, I might agree that it's time to consider its closure Their Will. But its acceleration is directly connected to Jaiya and Sephira's disappearance."
Channa's gaze snapped to him. "What do you mean?" When he hesitated, her eyes hardened to jade. "Does the script the Lord Council put in your mouth forbid you to tell us?"
So she did know of the politics that governed his relationship with the Lord Council, more than she had revealed at their earlier meeting. Adam could not summon any anger at her dissembling, or her tone. Pain was in her eyes, the set of her mouth, in the faint tremble of her hands.
"Priestess," Adam said quietly. "I am here to help, not to oppose you." He looked at them all. "I dreamed it. And that," he glanced at Corbet, "is the other part of why I was sent. The dream was sent to me, and I felt Those Who Are Not Seen wanted me here, though I don't know what part I have in this."
"So," Shireva said thoughtfully, "does your dream imply that our forgetfulness and their disappearance were caused by magical means?"
"The dream had very little detail to it. A strange thing in itself. Often, Those Who Are Not Seen show me only parts of things for reasons of Their own. But, in this case, I think that Those Who Are Not Seen struggled past some other force. A force strong enough to prevent them from communicating anything more than the idea that Jaiya and Sephira are linked to the acceleration."
His words stunned them to momentary silence. Cold fingers touched the circle. Adam felt their uneasiness shudder through the warding Channa had set, and he automatically steadied it with his own energy. "So you see, the Lords, political as they can be, truly have your welfare in mind. They want you safe."
The others nodded, belief finally in their expressions. Adam looked to Channa, and saw something in her eyes that compelled him to lay his hand over hers.
She lurched to her feet, her green eyes as deep as ocean caves. "Why was I not told the moment they were discovered missing? We could have been-"
"Channa-"
She sliced a silencing hand at Shireva. "This does not concern the rest of you."
"Of course it does," Corbet protested. "It-"
"It does not!" The hoarse shout, part wail of pain, part expression of rage, froze the team in place. She spun away, her fists clenching. "By the Continuum, I am sorry-"
"Channa." Adam rose and laid his hands on her shoulders. From his greater height, he saw the hitching rise of her chest as she fought her emotions. "You're right." He spoke softly, wishing the lobby did not carry the echo of his words to the other members. "Your loss of Cathar did not involve them. But it does not involve this situation, either."
Adam wanted to give her comfort, hold her, but the strangeness which time had put between them held him back. He also suspected she would later despise herself for capitulating to the need for reassurances. He would do her better service to treat her as the highly respected leader she was, not as a friend in anguish, caught in the blood and guilt of the past.
"Channa, I need your help."
She turned in his grasp, making him relinquish it. "No, you don't," she spat. "You're sending us home, sending me home." Her bone white face stretched taut over the emotions spilling out of her eyes. Her voice faltered. "Not that I blame them for that."
Her pain wrenched his heart. "On the contrary," he managed calmly. "I opposed the Lord Council's decision to bring you home."
He turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with her, facing the team. Every eye was on them.
"Each of you can go home. I will not risk any of you against your will. However, if you choose to stay, I'll welcome your help. I don't know what we face. I do not know this world. You do. And you know-you did know-both of these women very well."
He looked at Channa. "And it's not only that. You are the lead Sealing Team in this world because you are the best. I need Scholars, a good Recreator, and the best leader the Sealing Teams have to offer. I have all of that in this room. And," he added in the pregnant silence, "perhaps, if we recover Jaiya and Sephira, and that slows the Sealing, the Lords won't abandon Earth just yet."
"There's never just one thing at stake," Channa murmured. She uncurled her fingers and looked at her team, her mouth a hard slash. "I'll stay. My team leaves tonight." She shook her head as Shireva opened her mouth. "No arguments. I've never pulled rank before. I'm doing it now. You're all going."
"If the Lords and Prince Adam can't make that choice for us, Channa, you can't, either." Corbet's eyes were gray, the granite of a barren mountain. "I love each of you like family. I'd die for you. I might even kill for you. That's the way Sealing Teams are, the way they have to be, to do what we do. If Jaiya and Sephira were part of that family, then every person in this room has the right to be part of getting them back."
Channa opened her mouth, then closed it. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm letting ... other things cloud my judgment. You're all free to make your own choices, though I'll be honest and say I wish you weren't."
Adam waited until he received a nod from each member, then he took a seat in the circle, beckoning Channa down with him. "All right. Where do we start?"
"Why they were taken seems to be the most important question," Corbet suggested. He swung his legs out of an Indian-style posture to lock his arms around his knees and rock back and forth. "I don't think it had anything to do with us. We've followed all the rules to protect our identity, and even if someone suspected something, I don't think the climate exists, even at Havenwood, to believe in who we are, or why we're here."
Shireva shrugged. "But, if the forgetfulness was caused by a magical force, this society is incapable of that level of energy manipulation, as far as we know. It could be an enemy from another world."
Adam leaned forward. "As yet, I haven't detected a magical presence powerful enough to hold a spell of this magnitude in place."
"You may not be able to, my lord," Martin said. "We've discovered that some magical abilities, like your ability to detect magic, aren't as reliable in this world, because humans keeps themselves so alienated from the natural world. There's a lot of..."
"Static interference," Corbet suggested. Martin gestured in assent.
Channa nodded. "Up here, close to the mountains, we haven't had as much difficulty connecting with the forces we need to do our work. It's why we're here, why the central doorway to the Continuum is here. Havenwood is on one of Earth's strongest power spots. But something is draining it, has been since the Sealing accelerated. It's affecting everything, even the school itself-the facility is run down, funding is drying up..."
"So you have a cause and an effect," Martin pointed out. "The Sealing is accelerating; violent and unusual crimes accelerate proportionately; thus, the disappearance of the two women."
Adam shook his head. "My dream was not specific, but I received a strong sense that Jaiya and Sephira are directly connected to the acceleration, not a by-product of it."
Corbet chewed on his lip. "What did they both have in common, except being a part of us?
Adam glanced at Channa. "They were both active in the campus Wiccan coven, according to your past reports."
Channa cocked her head. "Why did you ask me earlier about Edward Brautigan?"
Briefly, Adam told them what he had seen in his recreation of the classroom's collapse. "It's possible a being from the lower astral plane simply used a body of a student from the vision to play a trick upon me. I was careless."
"Too coincidental." Channa shook her head. "Edward has a history of abusive behavior toward women. He beat up his girlfriend pretty badly in an alley outside of a local nightclub right before we arrived at Havenwood. Nine witnesses, but she said it wasn't him. No charges were filed. The school had to let him stay. And you know about the incident with Correen Seabra."
Shireva pursed her lips. "Two women missing and a man with a history of abuse toward women, and all four women involved are Wiccan."
"How so?"
"Edward's girlfriend came to the coven's cowan meetings for awhile," Channa said. "Cowan meetings are open forums about the coven's work for those who are interested. She's already Wiccan, practicing on her own. Some of the women made her feel uncomfortable about Edward, so she dropped out. You've met her. Melanie Rawles."
Adam grimaced at the picture of the girl with wistful eyes being beaten in an alley.
"Alicia thinks Correen practices a modified form of Wicca, drawing from several different religions," Channa continued, "but for now Correen has also chosen to remain a solitary practitioner. She doesn't participate in any of our gatherings." She frowned. "You said Jaiya and Sephira were part of our actual coven?"
"According to your reports."
"But that doesn't make any sense. We maintain a constant number of thirteen members. I remember, we replaced two earlier in the year, but it wasn't them, it was two women who were transferring because they lost their financial aid."
"What were their names?" Corbet asked.
"They were-" Channa stopped, her hand going briefly to her temple. "They were ... who was it-"
She cried out abruptly, both hands going to her head. Adam caught her hands, saw the veins at her temples pulsing with pain. Shireva scrambled across the circle to catch her as she toppled.
"Channa, stop trying to think about it. Right now. Let it go. Your heart's racing like a fire engine."
The team leader fought their hold. Adam gripped her tighter and tried to balance her panic by reaching into her mind with a calming spell. A shadow hovered there, like a chained castle dragon, and as he entered its domain, it lashed out. Tentacles of its darkness were imbedded in the delicate tissues all around it, and Channa screamed as it struck. With shock, Adam realized her attempt to recall the erased memory had triggered a self-destruct spell that could destroy her mind.
He yanked her from Shireva's grasp. Adam shut his eyes to increase his focus and immersed the malevolent intent in her mind in an ocean of numbing energy. He saw the glistening thorn of memory with which she had pierced the shadow spell and yanked it out, annihilated it with fire. By the time the pulsing veins in her head had contracted to a normal sized channel for her blood flow and her breathing had evened out, his own breath was labored.
Channa's eyes opened. She was on the ground, stretched out and held in his arms. She squinted against the meager light.
"This is scaring the hell out of me," Shireva murmured, touching her leader's brow.
Channa slowly sat up, assisted by ready hands. "I'm okay." She cleared her throat, rubbing her temple. "I'm okay. What the hell was that?"
"I think it's safe to say that none of us should try to recall anything about Jaiya and Sephira." Martin observed.
"I've never seen anything like this," Channa said. She gave her team a stern glance. "I don't want anyone working on this alone, all right? That goes for you, too, Corbet. If you bury yourself in the library for days, I want one of us checking on you every hour."
Adam drew away his hand from Channa's back, reassured by the return of her normal self-possession. "Since magic is obviously involved, I think we should check on evidence of ritual activity in this area."
"Especially since it seems, at least on the surface, that they may have disappeared close to pagan holy days," Corbet agreed. "But I'm guessing the type of ritual activity we're looking for is more likely to be listed in the newspaper crime reports than in Havenwood's activity calendar. There's been an increase in 'pop' Satanism over the past couple of years, so I shouldn't have much trouble referencing it."
Adam raised a brow. "'Pop' Satanism?"
The scholar shrugged. "Pet kidnapping for sacrifice, black candles found in the woods and upside down crosses hung from trees. It's the type of stuff serious practitioners of Satanism wouldn't do. More like kids-rebelling-against-society things."
"Martin," Channa said. "Check the school files, see what explanation was given for Jaiya and Sephira's drop and see if it matches the date my reports dropped them, and what forwarding address was left for them."
"Jaiya and Sephira would probably have had roommates," Shireva said. "And what about belongings? Something had to have been done with them."
"Unless they're still in the rooms, and the spell keeps their roommates from noticing them," Adam said.
Shireva shuddered. "That's creepy just to think about."
"But not out of the question," Channa said emphatically. "I've never seen a spell with this range or sophistication before."
"If we don't find anything in their rooms, we should search the storage rooms," Martin suggested.
"Would the Brigade of Light and the coven be a good source of information about ritual or magical activity in the area?" Adam asked.
"I can approach some of the members of the Brigade of Light, but the coven will be a better source of information about ritual activity." Channa hesitated. "And, if we need more help, I think you should know the circle has varying levels of experience in magic and light raising. All of them have exceptional focus and visualization skills. With the right preparation, I'd trust them with anything, more than what they're doing now."
Adam nodded. "Noted. I hope we won't need to draw them into this, though."
"Me, either," she said bluntly.
"We better wrap this up or take it elsewhere." Corbet tapped his watch. "We're about an hour away from dawn."
When Adam looked at Channa, she shrugged. "I feel like we've got enough to get started. Is there anything else you feel you should tell us?"
He looked around the circle. The team members were silent, scribbling on pads or thinking loudly enough for him to see their thoughts behind their eyes.
"Contact me immediately if you need help with anything. Channa will arrange meetings between us as needed. We'll continue to observe all the Sealing Team rules of discretion, minimizing contact between us, until it becomes imperative for us to do otherwise. Channa, I leave it to you to direct the actions of your team, and just keep me informed or draw me in as you need me. I'll seek the Wise Mother's counsel and bring her up to date on what we have done. As we discussed," Adam gave Channa a steady look. "I'll be going out with Correen tonight to see if she can give me any insights into Edward Brautigan, or magic activity in the area," he added, remembering the girl's knowledge of the curse.
Channa nodded, her green eyes troubled.
"We will find them," Adam said firmly. He took her hand and Shireva's, sitting on the other side of him. "Let's do what we should have done from the beginning. Let us ask Those Who Are Not Seen to guide our paths and safely bring Jaiya and Sephira home to us."
The others joined hands, closing the circle in a physical bond of flesh and spirit. All heads bowed and silence ruled until each member had offered his or her own prayer in whatever words suited the heart. Adam waited until all heads had raised, and all eyes were again focused on him.
"Cela nai," he said quietly.
"Cela nai," came the immediate reply, the fervent wish too strong to be expressed in any language other than their own.
I acquired a new student today. I opened my front door, and a young woman crouched on my stoop, repotting my geraniums. "The roots can't breathe," she said, her first words to me. I asked her if that was why she was here. She looked at me directly and said, "Yes." She told me her name was Correen Seabra.
-Alma Jacobsen, Personal Diary
Friday nights transformed the women's showers into a hive of activity. Girls ducked into the water for a quick wash and left it running for the next group of bathers, while those who waited on them played cards, chatted, or paged through magazines. They crowded the mirrors, applying makeup, curling hair, or guiding earrings into their once, twice, thrice or more pierced ears. The large room pulsed with chatter and music blaring from several radios. Hips swayed to the tempo as feet clad in high heels occasionally tapped out the beat.
Correen sometimes accompanied Alicia to the showers on Friday nights. She sat in a quiet corner with a book and gave her roommate opinions on her appearance, when Alicia was able to pry them out of her. Tonight, however, she stood before the mirror, staring at her image and struggling to thread silver earrings into her lobes, a dainty pair Alicia had never seen her wear.
She wore a simple turquoise sweater dress that lightly clung to her petite frame. Around her slim waist, she had cinched a black sash of silk and a belt of silver links accented with small, turquoise beads. Her thick, dark locks lay in a coiled braid on her neck. She had chosen plain, close-fitting black gloves that could be tucked into the long sleeves of the dress.
The girls around her exchanged sly glances and murmured comments. Alicia knew it was all friendly speculation, but Correen didn't. Her roommate flinched at every giggle, and looked like she wanted to call the whole night off.
Alicia slipped an arm around her. "Let's ditch the guys, get a gallon of double chocolate ice cream and watch old Cary Grant movies all night."
Correen shot her a look, part wry humor, part hopeful pleading. "Don't tempt me."
"Where are you going tonight?" Sheila Forbes asked, waving wet nails through the air.
Alicia smiled. "To a neutral zone," she murmured, for Correen's reassurance, then raised her voice. "The mall."
"Who else is going?"
"Nosy bitch." Alicia grinned at her chemistry lab partner. "Adam Al-Aziz."
Whistles and catcalls erupted. Correen knocked her makeup kit into the sink and sucked her breath in between her teeth.
Sheila chuckled. "Excellent choice. There's a man who is easy on the eyes."
"Almost as easy as Rob." Marla Williford, perched on the edge of the bathroom counter, let out a nasty chuckle. "Isn't he your date, Alicia?"
The hum of conversation dropped a few decibels, picking up on the current of tension Marla had strummed.
"I need to go to the room," Correen mumbled. She clutched her bag and pushed past Alicia. Alicia glanced toward the showers. Just as she suspected, Marla's performance had not been for her benefit. Alicia carefully crossed the bathroom in her high-heeled boots and squatted before Lanny, who studiously touched up her bare calves with a razor at one of the benches.
"You know Marla Williford can't stand the fact that Rob dates you more than he does her," Alicia said in low tones.
Lanny raised her head, turbaned in a blue towel. "Forget it, Alicia. Rob does what he wants. It doesn't have anything to do with Marla, or you."
"I'm going out with Correen tonight, not Rob. Correen feels more comfortable with me along. Rob's just there to balance it."
"Alicia, don't. Like I said. He does what he wants."
"Not with me." Alicia sat beside her, draping an arm around her shoulder. "And," she drawled, putting her forehead against her friend's hair, "if you're still worried I might be overwhelmed by all those biceps and charm, it might comfort you to know that you're more my type."
Lanny's head jerked up and Alicia grinned. "If you hadn't grown up in the damn antiquated Midwest, you wouldn't be the last person at Havenwood to know it."
Lanny's surprise turned to a startled shriek of laughter when Alicia made a lecherous face. "Oh, Alicia." She hugged her friend. "I still feel horrible. But thanks."
Next crisis. Alicia found Correen in their room, sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the wall. She sidled up to her roommate. When she sat down, Alicia felt Correen's body trembling through spasmodic vibrations of the mattress. "Hey, are you all right?"
Correen shook her head, fingers clutching and unclutching her purse. "I can't do this. I've changed my mind."
"Hello!" Rob peered around the open door. "All ready?"
Well, it's her call. "Rob. We need to get the car. Correen, we'll be out front in ten minutes."
Rob winked at Adam. "She just couldn't wait to get me alone." Alicia hauled Rob out the door, catching it with her toe so it shut behind them.
Correen's troubled gaze lifted briefly from her lap. Adam wore jeans and a casual fisherman's sweater that looked great stretched over his wide shoulders and broad chest. His hair had its way over his forehead. Sheila was right. She could look at him for hours. "I'm having second thoughts."
"What is it?"
She swallowed. "I can't go out with you and make you think I'm having a good time. You won't enjoy it. It will be a waste and you'll wish you hadn't asked and ... I don't know. We just shouldn't do it."
Adam came to her side, knelt and took her misshapen hand. "You're making this hard and it doesn't need to be."
Correen jerked her hand out of his grasp, bristling defensively. "You just feel sorry for me."
"Is that what you think?"
She had to believe he was here out of pity. Correen was afraid to let it be more than that. Afraid his motives were something that were going to lower her defenses, make her vulnerable.
"You know," he said, thoughtfully, "I may have saved your life. There was no time to think of the consequences. But you had time. You cared for me and went without sleep for me. You read Hawthorne to me. You insult me, and yourself, by calling my feelings for you 'pity.'"
Correen flushed deep red. There was a fierce gentleness in his gaze, a tender anger at her foolishness she could not bear to see. She shouldered her purse and stood. He rose with her. His musky scent, so warm and so male, filled her senses as she inhaled on a deep sigh. "I need to go to the bathroom before we leave."
He studied her, dipped his head to the level of her lips when she wouldn't look up, and smiled slightly when she did.
"Please come back."
Correen nodded and pressed by him, her skirt brushing his trouser legs.
Adam drew a deep breath as the door closed behind her. Focus had never been a problem for him. Now, two lives, possibly even the fate of an entire world, might hang upon his actions, and he kept getting lost in the feelings Correen Seabra pulled from him with every gesture or word.
Get your priorities straight. You don't have time for this.
The simple arrangement of her side of the room told him much about her. Control and order, both important. Blending, not being noticed, also important. The unremarkable blue pastel bedspread and plump pillows in gray casing; the dresser, clean except for a few aligned toiletry items.
Adam glanced at the bottom edge of the spread and weighed his actions. He dropped to one knee and his brow creased at his discovery. From beneath the flap of cover, he withdrew the polished crescent of oak and the small wooden box beside it. He opened the box, keeping his ear to the sounds of the hallway.
A thick white candle had burned down in the cauldron centered on the altar. For Wiccans, white was the color of funerals, endings and death. A ritual appeared to be in progress on the altar, but he felt no energy signature from her, nor any indication that his handling of the objects disturbed the ritual's progress. Adam found that unsettling, despite Martin's assurance that it could be a side effect of the Sealing world. Curled ashes filled the censer. He touched the ashes with his forefinger. Nothing. The box held an athame with a well-honed blade, a scrying crystal, and four dolls, old women crafted of soft, pillowy fabric.
Heels tapped in the hall and he replaced the items as he had found them. He rose to his feet, dusting himself off, and listened. Someone had stopped her to get information about a class assignment. He crossed to her closet and opened the door. His height gave him a clear glimpse of a large cardboard box pushed toward the back of the top shelf and the warding symbol drawn in the bottom right-hand corner. The awkwardly rendered symbol had not been reinforced in some time. He paused. He could not ignore the guilt that clawed at his actions. What was the matter with him? She could be involved, and if she was, he must do this.
He neutralized the distracting effect of the warding and slid back the top. He found a photo album, an expensive camera and several rolls of film. A bundle of papers next to them concerned Ricardo Seabra and St. Brigit's Home for the Mentally Ill. Beneath them lay some letters, tied with a ribbon, and several drawings done by children. He flipped through the letters and saw most came from Ricardo Seabra, and one or two from Giovanni Calabretta.
Correen's feet resumed their progress down the hall. Adam replaced the top, pushed the box into the recesses of the closet, shut the door and went back to standing by the bed. He had a quick impression of items on her desk and bookcase, and an arrangement of framed photographs above them, but Correen reentered, and he had to turn his attention to her. It was, he admitted, no hardship.
"You look beautiful."
"Thank you," she said shyly. "So do you."
The compliment surprised him, and flattered him. He wondered what other new experiences awaited him tonight. He hesitated, then offered his elbow. "Shall we go?"
"Hormonal teenagers as far as the eye can see," Rob commented as the four stood just inside the mall entrance. Herds of young people foraged over the three levels, clouds of smoke and noise following them. Late shoppers cautiously skirted their perimeter.
"Your kind of place, Rob," Alicia remarked. "Have you ever been here, Adam?"
Adam shook his head and Rob paused in lighting a cigarette, ignoring Alicia's fierce frown. "Oh, man, are you in for a treat. This is a GUY'S mall. They've got this place called Wonderland, and they've got video games, and the Force-"
"Ice-skating!" Alicia interrupted without remorse. "I forgot they had it. Let's go ice-skating first, then we can eat some dinner and go to Wonderland."
"And do the Force, don't forget," he amended.
They turned eager faces to Adam. He glanced down at Correen. She looked about, her hand clenched like a rigid claw on his arm. "It's all right."
Her gray eyes searched his face, needing something he could not define. He wanted to pull her closer, to let her know she would come to no harm while he was with her. Instead, he closed his hand over hers, and discovered it was cold enough for him to feel it through her gloves.
"If you're unhappy here, we'll leave."
She looked surprised at that, but she looked at Alicia and Rob, studiously watching other shoppers. "I'm okay," she said in a quiet, firm voice. "Where's the ice-skating rink?"
The sixteen-year-old girl behind the counter at the rink was as impressed with Rob's request for a size thirteen skate as she was by his good looks. Alicia did much eye rolling and mock gagging over the display, and Adam quickly took his skates and turned away before he chuckled outright at Rob's shameless flirting. Correen sat on a bench in front of the lockers and removed her shoes.
Adam took the locker next to hers. He pulled his sweater over his head and shrugged slightly to loosen the crisp white shirt over his broad shoulders. He bent to untie his shoes and glanced over to see how she was doing. She was watching him. A hot blush rose in her cheeks and she looked toward the skating rink.
Adam closed the locker and sat beside her. He handled the left skate. "Tiny feet."
She took it from him. He watched her tie the skates to determine how to lace up his own. When she stood and turned away, testing the skates, he noticed a trio of teenage boys on the bench at the end of the aisle, staring at her elegant form like a pack of wolves measuring a grazing deer. One murmured something that resulted in snickers and crude hand gestures.
Adam began to rise, but Correen's head turned. She met the eyes of the boy who had spoken. For a moment the three smirked at her, but her look of frozen disdain did not waver. One nervously glanced away, then one of the others muttered. The stalemate broke. The wolves became a pack of beaten dogs and slunk sullenly toward the ice, tails between their legs.
Correen propped her foot onto their bench to adjust the tongue of her skate. Adam saluted her courage with an admiring nod that brought another flush to her cheeks. His eyes followed the curve of her face, softened by the stray hairs that dusted her cheek, and he felt a sudden flood of protectiveness.
Focus, by the Continuum! He rose on the narrow blades. "Now what?"
"You just walk," she said.
He followed her, his wobbling glance drawn to the sway of her hips. He was suddenly struck with the realization that even the simple thought of the young woman provoked a stronger response from him than the actual touch of Channa's body and lips pressed to his.
He was not a schoolboy. It was not like him to be distracted from his purpose by a pretty face. Was it possible that the force that made an entire school forget two students could just as easily distract him from finding out more about those disappearances? Correen had been connected to him in one manner or another since he had arrived, and too many strange things, like Edward and the curse left in the infirmary, had connections to her. He didn't see her as leader, but she could easily be serving a master.
His blade hit the slick surface of the ice and shot forward. Correen darted under his arm, her side pressed against his recently injured ribs, steadying him.
She managed an awkward smile. "At last I get to repay the favor."
Her face tilted up, and the acceleration of his heart drowned out every rational argument in his head. He covered her mouth with his, and a soul long divided had its first kiss of reunion.
Her lips parted slightly, hesitant to respond. He tightened his arm around her waist, and his hand cradled her fragile jaw, his thumb against her cheek. She smelled like perfume and soap, and under it all, a scent that was just her.
Her hands closed on his forearm. He wanted to deepen the kiss, create a magic that took them away from their present surroundings, to a place where this moment was suspended in time. Over the song in his heart, he heard the din of rationality and common sense demanding to be heard. He heeded reluctantly, and broke the contact.
He was trembling. So was she. He supported her weight with one arm around her back, his fingers pressed into the hollows of her rib cage. He gathered his composure enough to smile at her, but it was a smile that did not loosen the grip he had around her waist. "I'm not sure what to do now-apologize or kiss you again."
Correen pushed away from him, but when she drifted to the range of their arms she did not release his hand. "We skate."
"Tally ho, old man! Nice of you two to move out of the way so someone else can get on the ice." Rob slipped past them, startling Correen. Adam watched the confusion and wariness in her eyes develop into something else. His heart lurched when her face bloomed with the rare occurrence of a genuine smile.
While Adam attacked the skill of ice-skating, with Correen and Alicia helping him to maneuver around the rink, Rob did his best to topple him. His roommate sped under their arms, screeched in his ears and offered to hold his hand. Adam waited until he had developed some confidence on the blades. When Rob whizzed up behind them, intending to dodge under his arm, Adam seized Alicia's hand and Rob's chest plowed into their locked fists. His feet shot forward and he was slapped flat on his back. A pack of laughing teenagers trampled him.
"They need referees out there," Rob grumbled when they turned in their skates. Alicia and Adam exchanged an amused glance and even Correen's lips twitched suspiciously. "On to Wonderland!"
Wonderland, Adam soon discovered, was a huge, colorful pavilion set up in the middle of the mall, offering a wide variety of video and carnival games, and even a small miniature golf course. Rob brought them through the crowd to a small arena.
"This is the Force. You use a light saber, and see that floating metal ball up there? It fires laser lights at you and you have to block them with the saber, just like the movie." At Adam's blank look, Rob shook his head. "I keep forgetting. The best part of the seventies and you missed it. All right, let me demonstrate. Alicia, babe, hold my coat and I'll win you something."
"Sexist bastard." She fluttered her eyelashes and offered her erect middle finger as a coat hook. Rob ignored the open entrance to the arena and jumped over the counter after paying a freckled teen the required fee. He took up the light saber and called over his shoulder. "I'm up to Level Three."
Adam slanted a glance at Alicia. "He comes here often?"
She grinned. "He'd live here if they let him."
The ball began to turn. Piercing sound effects accompanied each jet of light blasting from the ball. Rob's expression became earnest, concentrated, and as he evaded and countered his opponent, Adam determined Rob would fare well on a tourney field. He could certainly see why his roommate was considered an admirable football player.
Alicia shook her head. "He's so good at games and so shitty at being straight." Adam raised a puzzled brow, but Rob finished his turn, struck by a shot of light before he could pursue it.
"Leesh," Rob shouted, "I made it to Level Four. What do you want?"
"I want you to grow up, you infantile jerk," she muttered. She pointed to a large neon-colored fish hanging from a chain above his head. He gave her a dubious look, then leaped up and grabbed it before the operator could reach for his hook.
"People deal with pain in different ways, Alicia," Correen murmured. "Things haven't always been easy for Rob."
Rob bounded back the counter. "Okay, Adam, it's your turn."
"I'll let Correen or Alicia try."
Rob propelled him to the counter. "Oh, no, my treat. A D&D nerd like yourself should get off on this. How many tries do you want?"
Adam hefted the saber Rob thrust into his hand and examined the laser ball. He glanced at the two women. Alicia looked amused and encouraging. Correen looked curious. "Two tries."
Rob grinned gleefully, and before Adam could shove him away, he kissed Adam's cheek. "Win me that BIG teddy bear, will ya, honey?"
The game operator raised a questioning eyebrow as Rob backed away. Adam shrugged at the boy and vaulted over the counter. He took a stance at the line indicated, taking several practice swings to loosen his arms. He nodded to the operator.
He blocked a set of ten beams before a stray shot caught his shoulder.
"Practice round," Rob called, reading his roommate's thoughts. The ball activated again.
Weapons practice was not a game in his world. Adam had seen apprentices permanently maimed by a momentary lack of attention, despite Mataya's best efforts to protect them. The carnival setting, the toy weapon in his hands, even Correen's presence, could not erase the years of discipline and rigorous drilling. He parried and blocked the lights, spinning out of the way of one shot even as he swung the saber up to block another. As the operator increased the speed of the laser flow, he adapted to the change almost immediately, moving with a deadly grace around the arena.
The operator brought a second laser ball into play, alternating the streams of light. Adam spun out of the crossfire, dodged a second hit, rolled under a third and leaped to his feet to quickly block a double shot to his abdomen. A series of bells went off and the balls darkened. A gathered crowd cheered enthusiastically, returning Adam to his surroundings.
Rob shook his head. "Fucking incredible. Hey, wait a minute!" He stopped Adam before he could leave the arena. "You're not done yet. Give him the last level," he instructed the operator. The boy grinned and began to reset the controls.
"What's that?"
"Master Level, my young apprentice," Rob intoned, covering his mouth and breathing heavily in an impression completely lost on his roommate. "That's when they blindfold you and you have to last two minutes against one ball. And before you say no, take a look at the grand prizes." With the flair of a game show host, Rob motioned to the far side of the arena. "You have an official bomber jacket that I have always wanted, hint, hint, signed by the director of the movie; a sapphire necklace donated by the mall jewelry store; and that old stuffed thing."
The "old stuffed thing" was a life-sized white unicorn with mane and tail of golden silk, liquid brown eyes and a body so painstakingly crafted the muscles in the flanks and the dainty bones of the legs were clearly visible.
Adam looked at Correen, and surprised a fleeting look of enchanted delight on her face, gone so quickly he would have missed it had he looked a moment later. His grip tightened on the light saber. If the Lord Council, Channa or any of the Sealing Team appeared at the edge of the crowd at this moment, he would not be able to defend this.
"May I borrow that?" He motioned at the sash Correen wore beneath her silver belt. Her cheeks pinkened but she removed the cloth and handed it to him. The operator fitted the official mask over his eyes and then Adam tied the scarf over it, wondering if his chivalrous gesture would destroy his concentration. Her scent filled his nose and his mind, evoking the memory of how she had felt in his arms. He took a stance behind the line, guided by the operator, and inclined his head in response to the crowd's cheers of encouragement.
Rob caught his arm. "Listen to the lasers. They make a clicking noise right before they shoot." Adam nodded. He knew the lasers emitted a slight aura of heat as well.
He tuned out all peripheral noise and indicated his readiness. The ball moved along the tracks, he heard the click and felt the slight ray of heat all at the same moment. He blocked, peddling backwards to take the next hit. He entered into a series of blocks and maneuvers based solely on instinct and the clues of heat and sound that bounced against his senses. The ball's direction changed abruptly and he leaped right, knowing by the distant gasps of the crowd he had come close to being struck. The click and heat combination came again and this time he was ready, blocking a triple series of laser blasts. Another ball rasped behind him. Rob's warning shout told him that the operator had brought a second ball into play.
Adam sprang like a mountain lion and latched blindly onto one of the supports holding the tent. He swung around it. One laser hit the center pole just below his fingers as he blocked the other with his saber. The balls retreated on their tracks and Adam dropped to the floor, ready for another attack.
The finish bells went off; the spectators erupted. Adam pulled off the scarf and removed the mask, blinking for a moment at the cheering crowd. He nodded to Alicia and Rob, acknowledging their shouted comments with an uncomfortable half-smile. Then his gaze moved to Correen.
She watched him come across the tent toward her, her gray eyes warm and curious. Before she could guess his intent, Adam swung her up in his arms, delighting the crowd.
He carried her across the arena to the unicorn, set the thoroughly nonplused girl on the animal's back and smiled at her. "Your prize, milady."
If there is a God, he is the bloodthirsty God of the Old Testament. He accepted Abel's sacrifice of a lamb and spurned Cain's offer of more humanely cultivated fruits and vegetables, proving undeniably that we are His children.
-Term paper written by Rob Steigir
"Well, Rob, I've actually had worse dates," Alicia remarked as they crossed the courtyard to the dorms.
"I'm flattered." Rob looked at the windows. "Lanny's light is off," he said, a puzzled frown on his face. "It's early for her to be asleep."
"I was under the impression she went out with Stephen Callahan tonight. Sounds like her taste is improving."
Rob drew on his cigarette and shrugged. "If the best isn't available, you take whatever's left."
Alicia shook her head. "Correen, why don't you take Adam to the Vale? The Vale is a wildlife refuge off of the west campus that belongs to Havenwood," she explained to Adam. "It's pretty on nights when there's a moon. I'm going to call it a night. Adam, it was a pleasure to get to know you better." She slanted a mischievous glance at her solemn roommate. "I'm glad I had a preview of what I could be seeing first thing in the morning." She grinned as both objects of her teasing looked mortally embarrassed. "Good night, you two. I had a good time."
She strode away. Rob puckered his lips. "Hey, Wildcat, don't I get a kiss good night?"
"You're an asshole, Rob."
"Come on, Leesh. Why don't we pick up one of your friends in a lesbian bar and we can do the menage a trois thing?"
Alicia did not respond. Rob looked back at Lanny's darkened window and started in that direction. "Well, you two are on your own for the great nature hike. I only walk in the woods if I'm going to take a piss or get laid."
Adam raised an eyebrow. "Planning to sit in front of her door?"
"Fuck you." Rob spun on his heel and backpedaled, tempering the words with a grin. "Sorry, forgot my manners. Thanks for having me along tonight, Correen. It was fun. Don't you kids stay out too late."
Correen pulled her coat tighter and glanced at Adam. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. Every movement he made reminded her of the impressive musculature beneath his clothes. She shuddered. "It's too cold for a walk, don't you think?"
"Are you cold?"
"A little."
He pulled off his sweater and tossed it over his shoulder, then gently plucked off her coat. He helped her pull the sweater over her head and thread her arms through the sleeves. Then he helped her on with her coat, coming around to her front to snug it in close to her body.
"You must be used to children," Correen said quietly.
He smiled. "I have two younger sisters. I've done this many times. In fact," he surveyed her in the oversized sweater, "you look like Fedana. She wouldn't let me do this for her now. She's thirteen. Trelbyn and I aren't allowed to be protective big brothers. She's beautiful, like you, and already she has suitors."
"Suitors?"
"Boyfriends. Are you warmer?"
"Yes." Correen slid her hands into either side of the sweater sleeves, realized she would be stretching the cuffs, and pulled her hands out again. "I would rather not, on the walk. It's late..."
"Oh." They stood in silence, staring at one another. A strand of her hair caught in the corner of her mouth and he brushed it away with his fingers, touching her lips as he did so.
"I should go in," she said softly, backing away.
"Have you seen the art rooms?"
"What?"
"It's like an art gallery. Professor Burke showed it to me yesterday. I thought you might like it."
"I don't know..."
"Please. I've enjoyed tonight, very much. I don't want you to go."
"All right," she acceded, swallowing her apprehension. She could have thought of an excuse. She could have had a headache or simply said no. But "no" did not seem to be part of her vocabulary when she was around him.
He offered her his elbow and she laid her fingers in the crook. Her hand trembled slightly, and he closed his hand over hers. He must think she was still cold. She hadn't been cold all night, even when they were ice-skating. Especially when they were ice-skating. She had shaken like an infant pulled from the comfort of her mother's womb since that kiss, but it hadn't been caused by cold. She wished she were in the dark safety of her dorm room, and wondered why she was not.
"Did you know Jaiya Marduk?"
"When you said her name that first morning, something about it was familiar. I may have had her in one of my classes." She wrinkled her forehead in thought and his hand squeezed hers, a little too hard, startling her out of her concentration.
"Sorry. It's not important. Isn't there money to fix the sidewalks?" Adam led them around a rough patch.
Correen shrugged. "Havenwood's had money problems since I've been here. We thought they were going to renovate last year, when an alumni pledged a million dollars, but then he backed out at the last minute."
"Why?"
"Nobody ever said. Havenwood's just been unlucky for the past couple years." She stopped to replace a piece of broken cement in its slot on the sidewalk, which allowed her to pull her hand free. She stuffed her hands in her coat as they walked on. "It got a lot of media attention, so enrollment and contributions had a bigger drop than usual this year. Dr. Madigan said this used to be a really wonderful place, but things like that have driven away some of the better professors, and attracted some students like..." Correen looked away, remembering her loss of control in the infirmary. "Like I told you about." She put a little more space between them on the sidewalk. "They even talked about closing the school this year, but Rob and some other students talked their parents into paying the faculty's salaries for the semester."
"His parents must care about Havenwood."
She shrugged. "His father cares about him."
The art building was an ominous predator silhouetted against the night, the trees on either side probing the dark sky with sharp fingers. Correen waited as Adam unlocked the door with her passkey and slipped past him. He relocked the door, leaving the key in the lock.
Dim security lights gave the main foyer a hazy yellow cast, but he drew her toward the narrow staircase that led into the basement. There were no yellow lights here, but he took her hand, apparently sure of his way. The touch of his fingers brought back the memory of the bruising strength of his grasp when she had touched the scar on his hipbone. She balked and he turned, looking at her. Even with him two steps below, they were at eye level. She pulled away her hand and looked back toward the light. "I don't think this is a good idea." I don't take chances. I don't trust anyone. That's how I survive.
She couldn't speak the words, though. Somehow a rose had grown amid the tangled thorns of her fear, and hurting or disappointing Adam would kill that flower. Her fingers twitched nervously. His hand retrieved hers, closing over the movement. How many times have I let him touch my hands over the past four days?
"Trust me. I will do you no harm, Correen."
He had no idea that the caress in his touch terrified her more than its strength.
She shook her head and backed up a few steps, giving her some room. "You ... sound like a King Arthur novel."
"I think you'll like this, if you like King Arthur."
He took her fingers for a third time and led her into the darkness. He stayed a close step in front of her, so that if she stumbled, she could grasp his shoulder for balance. His constant attention to her welfare unbalanced her mentally, left her flailing for solid ground to set up her defenses and repel his advances.
He guided her down two dark flights as though he had the night vision of a cat. Correen heard the click of a lighter when they reached the basement. The generous flame glinted gold against the twenty-four carat casing engraved with a regal "S." Adam flipped the switch on the wall. Fluorescent lights blinked on and buzzed like mosquitoes. They threw harsh light along the cinder block walls.
She released a shaky breath. "So, what did you want to show me?"
"Follow me."
Her flats rang crisp and hollow on the cement floor as she trailed him down the corridor. Fat, red letters boldly outlined in white on the left wall welcomed all visitors to "The Caves." Graffiti-style caricatures of lizards swung from the protrusions of the letters by long scaly tails, grinning around brushes clamped in their sharp, pointed teeth. The basement's musty smell mingled with the perfumes of aspiring artists: odors of clay, compounds for pottery glazes, glue, and paint thinner.
Adam turned into the first classroom. The fluorescent lighting had been disconnected, the power reconnected to soft yellow spotlights. People, animals, mythical beasts and other, less definable creations stood frozen in a moment of time, creating a magical clay forest of light and shadow through which the two could wander.
"When I was small, I used to play a game..." Adam stopped next to a seven-foot-tall angel who held an electric guitar in one hand and the Kama Sutra in the other. "One person turns his back on the others. When he turns, everyone must stop. I felt like that when I came into this room."
"Red Light, Green Light" she murmured, studying the angel.
Adam looked surprised. "You have this game? It seems children are the same, no matter where they live."
His eyes drifted left, and her lips quirked at the sculpture there, a child squatting before an equally curious baby bird. The child held a feather in pudgy fingers.
They passed through a door that connected the classrooms and entered the domain of metal artists. Giant renditions of common articles-screwdrivers, eyeglasses, buttons-hung from the ceiling. On the floor, more abstract meshings of metals and wires lay in the process of creation. Correen wondered if the workshop of true Creation looked much different. Their feet crunched through a snowfall of metal shavings.
Her eyes went to a bronze dragon that hovered vulture-like over a sleeping maiden on a rock veneered in Formica and surrounded by an ocean of several hues of metal.
"Adrian created that." Adam stood at her shoulder. His silent movement startled her. "Professor Burke said watching her use the scroll saw made him very nervous."
Correen ran a finger over the crest of the dragon's head. Adam stood so close behind her that if she stepped back she would lean against him. She could feel the heat around his body touch her spine through his borrowed sweater. She swallowed. "She was born blind, you know."
"How does she know what things look like?"
"She says she meditates on something, and, eventually, she sees it in her mind." She looked at the detail and emotion of the sculpture. "She says she sees the inside first, and so she creates it from the inside out."
"She's a friend of yours?"
"I overheard her talking about it with someone."
Adrian's friendship with Correen had begun as a one-sided affair. The blind girl struck up conversations with her when Correen was captive at the front desk, and showed no sign of being dissuaded when Correen failed to respond warmly, or at all. When Adrian showed up at the dorm room, she incorporated Correen in her socializing with Alicia. Then Adrian visited when Alicia was not there, claiming she would wait for the blonde to return. Adrian often lay on Alicia's bed, turned on the radio and listened to classical music while Correen studied, and Correen got used to her occasional quiet presence. No more than a few days ago, Adrian had slipped from the bed, come behind Correen, and unraveled her rich bundle of hair. She French-braided it as if she were playing dress-up with a doll. Correen had let her. The friendship that began one-sided was a sealed bargain after that.
Why couldn't they leave her alone? Did she have to wear a sign? For Adrian, it would have to be Braille, but why did they persist so?
"You listen and watch people a great deal."
Correen moved away without commenting and passed into the next room, crowded with scattered easels and unfinished canvases.
"What do you think of Edward Brautigan?" he added, following her.
She glanced at him sharply. He leaned in the doorway, his arms braced against the archway, blocking the way to the stairs. "I don't know him."
"Rob said he attacked you."
Correen moved to the next canvas. She stopped, abruptly, the hair rising on her neck. "This is yours."
It was a corridor, lined with doors, each one framed by a different elaborate archway. The doors grew smaller as the hallway progressed into infinity. In the foreground, a trail of bread crumbs came out of infinity and fell into the white border of the canvas. Her gaze fell on the butt of a cigarette, left in the tray of the easel, and flicked to a stool drawn up before the canvas.
"My name's not on it. How did you know?"
She could tell him the truth, but caution won out. She told him a partial lie. "I saw the portfolio of drawings you sent in with your preliminary paperwork. Dr. Burke looked at them at the front desk before you got here. That's why I thought you were an art major." She shrugged. "You're very good. Why aren't you an art major?"
Adam looked toward the painting, studying his work, and he lifted one shoulder.
"You don't have to tell me," Correen said softly, reading some struggle in his gold eyes.
"I want to tell you. I paint because a great deal of me belongs to other people. Painting gives me ... a focus. Something personal to ... balance myself. I can see who I am more clearly when I paint." He laughed, and she thought she finally heard his real laughter, a nervous sound, as if he thought he did something wrong by releasing it. "When I started doing it, I didn't realize how important it would become to me. Now I feel like if I stopped, I'd break. Instead of being me, I'd be the pieces of what everyone else wants. Mataya told me it's a danger of leadership, losing who you are to what others need you to be."
"You're a leader of some sort at home?" Correen moved toward the door, intending to escape some of the uneasy sense of confinement that his intimate words and their isolation caused her. He moved, and she came to a halt. Instead of answering her question, he posed one of his own.
"Is it your experience with Edward that makes you so worried about being alone with me?"
A hysterical laugh burst from her, quickly silenced. Edward was a drop in a flood that had been threatening to drown her for so long she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't spent each day flailing to keep her head above water. The twitching in her hands increased, and she couldn't still them. Adam completely blocked her view of the door as he came toward her, his face unreadable. The yellow lights flickered. She glanced up, and a sudden pop plunged the room into total darkness.
"It's all right," his voice immediately assured her. "Dr. Burke says that the fuses trip when the heating starts. He showed me how to repair it in case I came here to paint alone..."
The lighter flickered and he stood back in the doorway, only the line of his nose and jaw etched out by the flame. Correen moved backward and hit an easel, his picture. It clattered to the ground, startling her into a quick jump forward. Her foot caught in the legs and brought her to one knee, the rough wood tearing her tights.
"Are you all right?"
She looked up and the lighter in his hand showed his large frame coming out of the darkness. Time spun away and someone else bent toward her, reached for her.
"No, stay away!" Correen pedaled back, shredding the canvas. He bent to help her, and she struck upward with the heel of her hand. She would not be a victim again. Never again.
Adam grunted in pain and backed off. Correen could see nothing, not even the retreat of the tiny flame; everything disappeared in her abyss of memories.
A click from the switch box and suddenly yellow light flooded the room. Adam stood by the box, his fingers gingerly touching his left eye. He looked at her, hurt confusion in his tawny eyes. The curtain drew back from her personal stage, showing her it had all been a play, and the real world stood before her, having nothing to do with the drama.
"Oh, nooo..." She buried her face in her hands.
Maybe he'd just go, and she wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. She could stay here, an appropriate addition to a place where fetuses of the mind struggled for form and identity.
His fingers pried her twisted ones from her face as he crouched before her, tall and beautiful. Hands, as gentle as a mother's upon a baby, smoothed back her hair. She dared another look into the golden eyes, and she dwelled there, in the kindness and warmth, in the apology.
"You tried to tell me this wasn't a good idea. And I didn't listen."
She swallowed. "Please don't do this to me." She hated the tone of her voice, so weak it barely qualified as a whimper. "I can't..." She pulled away her hand and ripped off the glove.
She watched him look at the hand. She forced herself to look at it, too, to remind her why his kindness was as dangerous to her as violence.
Three nail-less fingers had hardened into knotted ropes, speckled with wart-like swellings and sleek blistered hills. Rough scar tissue covered the small finger and thumb, only slightly bent compared to the other three, like the curve of lower case F's compared to shakily drawn S's.
"This is what I look like inside." Her whole body vibrated with emotions. She snatched up his fine, long-fingered hand with her gloved, shaking one and put it against her bare palm, crisscrossed with scars. "We don't fit, you understand? I can offer you nothing. Nothing." His perfect, handsome face, the way he affected her, frightened her beyond the ability to tell him so. She dropped her hand from his.
He caught her wrist in a tender grasp and lifted her hand back to his palm. Carefully, he lowered his index finger into the jagged space between her first two fingers. His middle and fourth fingers slid down either side of her gnarled ring finger. His smallest finger, almost the size and length of her longest, came to rest outside her pinkie. His thumb encircled hers like the arm of a dancing partner. He held her hand. Really held it, like lovers crossing campus together at sunset.
Correen's attention jerked from the hands to his face. What he felt was in his eyes. Regardless of what secrets held them away from each other, this moment bound them, as Adrian's hands upon her hair had. "Don't do this to me, if you don't mean it."
A shadow crossed his eyes, and the secrets pulled them apart, saved her. He helped her to her feet, then released her and stepped back, leaving her a clear path to the doorway. "Go."
She bolted.
She did not look back, taking the stairs two at a time and nearly breaking the key he left in the upstairs door. When the wind hit her she felt a stingy trickle of tears on her cheek. She looked back at the building. A dark, tall figure watched, safeguarding her way back to her dorm. She fled before her sobs could reach his ears.
I have felt closest to peace in the shadow of the Crone. I belong to her pathways of endings and farewells. I was born there.
-Correen Seabra, Personal Survival Diary
"There it is!"
Corbet coasted his bicycle down the steep hill and brought it to a flamboyantly circular halt before a house furred in ivy. Dusty windows barely visible over a tangled forest of overgrown shrubs and sprawling old trees glinted with a dull reflection of the sun.
Adam inched down the hill on his bike and scraped to a halt next to Corbet, gratefully placing his feet on the flat pavement.
"Are you sure you know your way back?" Corbet asked. "I can come get you after I'm done at the library."
"I can find it." Adam swung his leg over the bike and leaned it against a tree.
Corbet tapped his fingers on the handlebars of his vehicle and rocked the body back and forth between his thighs. "You sure you're okay? I don't want to leave you stranded."
Adam glanced at him. There was a leaf fluttering in the forest of untended beard. Dancing leaves and fading rays of sun created shadows in a garden. A thirteen-year-old boy stumbled on a pair of lovers, the girl's laughter the only thing that covered them. Corbet sprang to his feet, keeping the girl behind him. "You little bastard! Get-oh, Your Highness. I ... I-"
Corbet had stammered something that Adam did not remember. He did remember the protective way Corbet blocked his view of the girl. The same concerned look he had then flashed at her was now fixed on him.
"You are a good friend, Corbet."
The man looked startled. "Well, thanks, Your High-Adam. It would be bad if you got hit by a car or something."
Adam ruefully considered his bike. "I miss my horse."
Corbet shrugged. "I was never a great rider. But on this baby," he fondly looked at his bicycle, "I can 'Hi Ho Silver Away!' with the best of them, and carry my books." He patted the basket in back.
"'Hi Ho Silver' ...?"
The scholar put his right foot on the pedal. "There's this show on late-night TV about a guy in a mask who rides around on a white horse named Silver and fights evildoers. Whenever he's about to charge off to save someone, he jumps on Silver. Silver rears up and the guy shouts," Corbet took a deep breath, "HI HO SILVER, AWAY!"
And like the hero he had just described, Corbet shot off, and stood up in the pedals to gain speed and mount the next hill.
Adam watched him. Corbet had taught him how to sail a small skiff one warm, lazy afternoon when Adam was nine. Adam wondered if Corbet remembered. Most people did not remember his childhood before the Trial. But he did. He liked sailing.
"A Guardian faces no greater danger than his own thoughts."
Alma Jacobsen stood before him. Had she not been ninety-two, Adam would have suspected her of leaping from one of the trees. He pressed his mouth to her bony wrist to cover the smile the image evoked. She tsked and wound her arms around his neck. Surprised, Adam answered the hug, and felt in full force the strength of the common bond they shared. For the first time since he had arrived, he felt at ease.
"Merry meet to you, Guardian," she said, using the Wiccan greeting, surprising him.
"Well met, Wise Mother."
Alma stepped back and her eyes marked the dark bruise beneath his eye. "You've grown tall since I last saw you." The wrinkles of her face rearranged into a smile. "I must be getting old. Only old women say those things. Come in and share my home."
He offered her his elbow and she hooked her cane over her arm. The wind blew wisps of her long gray hair against his shoulder, just like Correen's had when they had walked together the night before. Adam shook his head, dispelling the thought.
Alma led him through a side door into her kitchen. He stooped to avoid racks of drying herbs suspended from the ceiling. Cats blinked at him from all corners, perched on stacks of old magazines and frayed wicker-bottomed chairs. Devil's ivy flowed out of the sink, hemmed in by an assortment of dirty dishes and empty potting containers. The kitchen smelled of soil and herbs, chaos and creation.
"Mary, thank you for waiting for me. This is my friend, Adam. Adam, this is Mary."
A child stepped out of the recesses of a Schefflera, a tomcat snaking around her ankles. "Hello."
Alma pointed him into one of the mismatched antique chairs huddled around a cheap plywood table. His knee brushed through a web as he sat down, and he felt a spider of significant weight bounce off his leg.
Alma laid aside her staff. Four bundles of herbs had been precisely cut and arranged on the counter. She placed one on a square of cloth, rolled it up and tucked in the ends. Adam felt the energy as the woman charged the herbal remedy with intent.
"There you are. Tell your mother to boil this as a tea and drink a cup every two hours. Can you remember to do that?"
The solemn face nodded.
"Good. Tell her to call me if she needs anything." Alma bent closer to the child's level. "And I need you to do something very, very important for her."
"What?" the pixie voice asked. The child charmingly reminded Adam of a tree fairy.
"On the way home, I want you to think about how these herbs are going to make your mother feel better. I want you to imagine her taking you to the park. Imagine every wonderful minute of it, and wish for it as hard as you can. All right?"
"Okay," Mary said enthusiastically. "Bye, Miss Alma." She glanced at Adam, giggled and dashed away, leaving the Schefflera waving a gusty good-bye.
The old woman smiled. "Mary's mother has the flu."
Adam nodded. "Has Channa spoken to you?"
Alma's gray eyes lost their twinkle. "Yes, she has." She sat in the chair across from him. "I confess to remembering nothing about Jaiya or Sephira."
"Which means the spell extends to the town."
"Could be. But I visit the students often. Perhaps they charge the water or the food with the spell at regular intervals to keep it locked into place." She pursed her lips, studying a scratch on the table. "Channa said that, according to her reports, I trained Sephira, stood by her at her Initiation Ceremony." Alma shook her head. "It's a strange thing. A lack of memory can be as hurtful as remembering. Maybe even more so."
They sat silently for a moment. "Mother, who is Correen Seabra?"
A smile crept back into her face. "Who is she to you?"
Briefly he explained the curse in the infirmary, the girl's evasiveness to his questions, and the encounter with Edward Brautigan in the music hall.
She grunted. "Do you want her to be involved in this?"
"What?"
Alma laced her fingers over her staff and planted it in a worn indentation on the linoleum. "If she's involved, you won't have to face any of the feelings you have for her, the feelings I felt the moment you spoke her name. They're too strong to be ignored, or denied. Or called something else."
He rose and walked to the window, putting some space between him and her words. Birds and squirrels fought for room on a feeder hung from the ledge.
"You said 'Merry Meet' when I first saw you. You've adopted the ways of the Wiccans?"
She inclined her head. "To observe the law of Spiritual Respect. It was the path I felt was most closely aligned with my own."
"You seem happy here."
"I am." He felt her eyes on him, studying him, and he turned, giving her a wary half-smile and no answer to the question that hung between them.
"Come," she said abruptly, rising. "I need your help. We can put off our more pressing business for just a moment."
His brow creased with a puzzled frown, but he followed her down a shadowed hallway laid with worn brown carpet. She had transformed the white walls into bulletin boards, papered with news clippings, herbal remedies scribbled on scraps of paper, a few ribbons and photos, a childish drawing here and there. Adam suspected she tacked everything there that she wished to avoid losing in the home's general chaos. She stopped before the closed door at the end of the hall.
"My friend is in here," she said, laying her palm on the panel. "Tasha Renoir. She refuses to let her children see her make the passage to another life. I think we are too close," she sighed. "She no longer listens to me. I thought she might hear someone who knows the mysteries of our Path. Would you do me the favor of talking to her? She is in much pain, and her family is in anguish."
Adam's eyes darkened at the pain in Alma's eyes. "You know I would refuse you nothing, Wise Mother, though I don't know how wisdom so much less than your own will be of help."
Her eyes brightened with humor. "I sometimes forget I am in the presence of a prince when I see you, m'lord. However, if I don't offend you by saying so," she affectionately grasped his hand, "the moment you open your mouth, the silver that pours forth reminds me."
Adam's lips twisted. "Well, I've heard what comes out of my mouth called far worse, madam, so no offense taken."
When he broke the seal of the door, Death greeted him. Natural and patient, it waited to welcome another child home. The septic, oppressive odor of fear kept it at bay. Candles circled the bed, the light flickering off the tired, red eyes of the skeleton lying there. She turned her head toward him, her pale pink nightgown and earth-toned bed linens making her seem like a shriveled bud in the center of a browning rose.
"I am a friend of Alma's."
"Then we have something in common," Tasha rasped, flicking her tongue over cracked lips. She coughed. "He's quite something. Alma, you sly old witch."
"I am flattered you think I have the strength," Alma said dryly.
Humor trickled through the still air. Adam smiled at the women's teasing. Tasha fumbled at a bowl of crushed ice.
"May I help?" He sat on the bed and put a hand behind her shoulders, raising her while Alma placed a spoon of the ice between the cracked lips, rubbing wetness against the frayed skin. The dying woman's loose gown gaped open and Adam saw a long scar where the right breast should have been.
She tongued the ice around her mouth, watching his face. "That was the first."
"The first what?" He eased her back on the pillow and rested a hand on the far side of her hip.
"The first tumor." Her eyes were pale blue water. "It makes me think of volcano lava. I was in Hawaii with my husband, twenty years ago, when one of the volcanoes erupted. We had just gotten married. Hot lava, buried in the ground unnoticed, unremarked, then one day it comes out too fast to do anything about it and eats everything green and healthy in its path." She rolled an amused, glistening eye toward him. "But you're young and healthy. You don't need to hear about that. God, I was always afraid I'd become one of those people who talk about their aches and pains all the time."
Adam touched her hand. "I am here for you. You tell me what is in your heart."
Tasha cocked her head at Alma, sitting motionless in the shadows. "Did you bring me a confessor, Alma? I didn't think Wiccums, excuse me, Wiccans," she enunciated more clearly, "had those."
"I am not a confessor or a priest. But I am curious." Adam withdrew a slim wooden case from inside his coat and laid it aside. "What do you think about, lying here for hours in the dark?"
Tasha shrugged, snorted. "Everything. Nothing. I think about the universe and the meaning of life one minute, then the next I wonder if Thomas-that's my husband-remembered to pick up toilet paper and snacks for the kids today."
"I'm sure he misses you."
Tasha looked into the candles. The flames reflected as pinpoints of white, like small stars in the center of her pupils. "It depends, I guess. He probably misses the me I used to be, rather than this."
"It is all the same." Adam tapped her wrist, drawing her attention. "Will you permit me to see your scar?"
"All right. I don't think I can unbutton the gown myself, though."
"If you'll allow me?" At her nod, Adam slipped several pearl buttons of the flannel gown and folded the placket back from the expanse of skin where the scar replaced the missing breast.
"Why do you want to see it?"
He put the slim box in her lap and opened it, revealing a paint palette. He uncapped the tops over the individual disks of paint. "We have a custom in my world, my village, of decorating scars, to honor the lessons they teach us." He took up the brush from the side slot and slanted her a glance. "This may tickle some."
She almost smiled, but instead dropped her gaze to watch his fingers move, watch the design take shape. "How do you know what to paint?"
"Your spirit tells me."
"So you are a priest, of sorts."
"Don't look down yet." Adam tipped up her chin, a smile touching his eyes. He stroked a hand over her brow and she stared at him as if she was not sure he was real.
"I am not a priest. But I believe in Those Who Are Not Seen, the All, Light, God-whatever a thousand religions have chosen to call that which creates and destroys and helps guide the patterns of our lives." Adam dipped the brush again and returned to the image, still talking. "This All has many faces. As a Wiccan, Alma respects them as the God and Goddess. The Lord and Lady. The Lord you may know as the Green Man, the Oak King, Cernunnos, Pan, Grandfather Sky or Jesus. The Lady is Mother Earth, the Virgin Mary, Grandmother, Venus. There is a triple face to the Goddess. The face of the Maiden is young and full of new life and innocence. The face of the Mother bears life and protects it. She is the nurturer. The Crone stands on the threshold of death, knowing that once she steps across it, the cycle begins again."
His voice was low, but its strength filled the room, soothed.
"The interaction of the Lord and Lady throughout the year remind us of the cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth. We see it in all things-in the trees that burst with life in the spring; that cast their seeds in the wind in summer. The leaves of the trees turn brighter in fall, then fall to the ground and die in winter to fertilize the earth. Out of that earth, the seeds sprout and bear life again."
He put down the brush and took both her hands in his. "We all go through seasons, and the opportunity to share all seasons with one person, a friend or a lover, is a precious gift. Your husband could not possibly value your company any less now. He has seen you as Maiden and Mother. You must let him, and your children, embrace you in your Crone being, or they will not believe in new beginnings for themselves."
Her lips trembled. "It's so hard. I lie here..." She swallowed noisily. "Right before you came in, I thought about how I used to be a candy striper, years ago, at the hospital where I was until Alma kidnapped me the other night. The most significant thing I remember about it was that I came into a room one night and a woman was sitting in a chair crying, tubes coming out of her from everywhere. I thought she was very old, but she might have been like me." She glanced at Adam. "I'm forty-two.
"I couldn't understand her, just pieces of words, but I sat there rubbing her shoulder, saying comforting, probably stupid things. She was lonely and thought nobody loved her." Alma moved out of the shadows and used the corner of her broomstick skirt to gently sponge the moisture gathering in the sunken pit of Tasha's cheek. "I put my arms around her and told her I loved her. She was so scared..."
Adam tightened his fingers around the bones of her hand. "Is that what frightens you?"
"I keep thinking of that old woman, and ... I don't want my children to see their mother die this way. I'm so scared of leaving them, of leaving my husband, but not because of that. I'm-" Her hitching breaths, little sobs, turned into harsh coughs that vaulted her upper body from the bed. Adam held her from behind, giving his young strength to her body, even as Alma held a towel for the blood that came from her lips. "I'm afraid," she wheezed, holding onto Alma's wrists and looking into her eyes. "Afraid of leaving a picture of me like this in their hearts. There won't be room to remember me any other way!"
"Ssshhh, hush, it is all right..." Adam wrapped both arms about her and held her close, stroking her sparse hair. "It is all right." He turned her so she could look at him. "You have offered your children and husband these many faces throughout your life with them. They will remember this face of death, for it is a natural part of the cycle of life, but they will also remember your faces of life and creation and laughter, because that is the way of the human spirit, to always remember the Circle. Look down now."
Tasha dropped her gaze. Her scar was part of an explosion of color, a meandering green vine bearing large-petaled flowers, supporting a butterfly and the tiny fairy offering him nectar from the mouth of one of the flowers. It was whimsical, joyous.
She touched the drying paint, felt the strength and faith that had charged the brush strokes, and looked at him. His golden eyes were tender and warm, and she did not see the fear she saw so often in the eyes of her visitors.
"Bless you," Tasha whispered.
"Cela nai," Adam responded.
Adam stared pensively out the kitchen window as Alma phoned Tasha's daughter, telling her Tasha wanted to go home to be with her family. When she hung up, she crossed the room to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
"Tasha trusted you immediately, my lord," Alma said. "A stranger no older than her son, and she let you touch her as intimately as a lover."
Adam looked at her, confused.
Her eyes glittered. "Don't you see, my lord? You are born a Guardian. Those Who Are Not Seen use the Trial only as a confirmation of that role.
"The Lords did you a great disservice, one that your father and Mataya never should have allowed to happen. A person cannot grow up until he is allowed to interact with others. You are Guardian, and nothing will change that. You have the right to be a man as well."
"I'm the type of guy that understands the meaning of the universe before he understands why a girl won't go with him to the dance," Adam murmured. He answered her question with a self-conscious shrug. "Something Rob told me."
Alma cocked her head. "My point being, don't block your feelings for Correen. If there is no time or place for love, then why fight evil at all?"
He rubbed a hand over his face. "I will think on it. But there are other things I must think about first. If this world Seals, will you come back to us?"
"After Those Who Are Not Seen decided that you would take my place, this is where I chose to make my home. It is too difficult for a former Guardian to live in our world. I will remain here. But all the talent given me is yours to command in Their Name."
Adam took her hand, pressing firmly on the fingers wrapped in soft, loose flesh. "I respect your decision. But if this world Seals, I hope you'll reconsider. I would miss you greatly."
The skin around her eyes crinkled. "It's no wonder the girl moons about you." She freed her hand to touch his face. "You're a rogue."
"'Moons'?" he asked, color rising in his cheeks.
She laughed. "An old-fashioned expression for daydreaming about a lover. Correen was daydreaming over the top of her herbs this morning, touching her lips the way women do when they remember someone pressed against them. When I asked her about it, she turned almost as rosy as you are now. Of course, she could have been thinking of someone else."
"You are teasing me now."
"A little." Her expression sobered. "My prince, I do want you to understand something about Correen, something that may bear on more serious matters."
"Meaning?"
"I suspect she has healing abilities we have never encountered, even in our own world."
"Does she understand this?"
Her lips twisted. "No. She studies constantly-she would put the best student at our Guilds to shame. But she cannot heal using the power inside of her, a power I believe is truly exceptional."
"When she was tending me, she mentioned she had difficulties with the energy work."
"It's more than that. She can open her power centers, can even feel the energy, but she isn't able to tap into the subconscious levels, the astral levels to work with it."
Alma tapped the top of her staff. "On the dramatic level, Correen visualizes the initiation to the astral plane as an actual physical being, which she calls the Gatekeeper. She can't get past this Gatekeeper."
"She won't let go of something she fears. So she's blocked herself from the collective energy, the main source of healing."
"Well spoken." Alma nodded. "Correen is almost a microcosm of the fate facing her world."
Adam gazed thoughtfully at the scratched counter. Advanced healers drew from sources of wisdom and power on the higher levels of consciousness, levels barred to those who had not attained the correct level of knowledge, or who harbored emotions that made them unfit to heal others. Alma's kitchen clock chimed, and he came out of the contemplation.
"I must go. The Lords want my latest report, and I must meet the others back at the lab."
"The Lords have been known to get long-winded." Alma counseled what he already knew from painfully tedious experience. There was a slight smile in her eyes that told him he had her empathy. She placed a hand on his, staying him. "Will you think on what I have said about Correen? Not just the healing, but your feelings for her?"
"You know I will." Adam covered the sparse hand with his own. "I would never discard any advice you give to me. But if she has nothing to do with Jaiya and Sephira, then I have no reason to seek her company. And if she does," his eyes darkened ominously, "then there can be nothing between us. I'm afraid there was no reason for us to discuss my feelings for her."
Alma hid a smile as she sent him to the door and bade him good journey. He strode down her path with the grace and confidence of a warrior, but his shoulders were as tense as a clenched fist.
"You're right. There's no reason at all, my lord," she murmured. "You've already given her your heart."
The blind rarely stumble, for they must be aware of their surroundings. It is those who can see that fall over the objects that lie directly in their path.
-Mataya, the Oral Lessons with Adam Al-Aziz
Shadows are fine, willowy representations of what lies behind them. You must look at the object, not the shadow, to see the true self.
-Alma Jacobsen, the Oral Lessons with Correen Seabra
"Every door has a key; be it for the highest good, bring its secret to me." Corbet scratched his bearded chin. The researcher's version of '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.' He almost giggled at the thought, choked it down to a nervous laugh and ran a hand over his tired eyes.
"Every door has a key-"
"Be it for the highest good, bring its secret to me." A voice finished for him.
Corbet glanced around. He had placed himself at the end of a corridor of stacks, and gradually built a fortress out of the sources he pulled. A cluster of books on the shelf across from him shifted to the left, revealing an oval face framed by an enormous pair of pink flamingo earrings and matching pink rimmed glasses.
"I've got a better slogan for you. If all else fails, ask a librarian."
Corbet grinned sheepishly. "So that's what you do."
"Imagine that," she remarked dryly, propping her elbows on the shelf. "Just consider me a voice-activated terminal."
"If you hadn't put your arms up there, I could have."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Okay," Corbet relented. "I'm looking for information on criminal occult activity at Havenwood or in the Kingston area during the last ten years."
She did not bat an eye. "Won't find any."
"Great." Corbet sighed. He rubbed a hand over his face again, massaging his eyes. Why did he always feel exhausted, but never sleepy? Maybe a side effect of the spell gripping the school. A hand came down on his wrist and he started out of the chair, upsetting the pad and pen on his lap.
"You've had a little too much sugar, I think," the librarian said. She handed him the pad and pen, and gathered up the wrappers around him, pocketing them in her denim overalls. "Whose class is this for, anyway?"
"Independent project, religious theme. Belle Madigan is my advisor."
"Hmm, okay. I'll warn you, though. The administration is touchy about this subject. You won't find anything on illegal occult activity at Havenwood because the files are locked away."
Corbet's eyes narrowed; the exhaustion backed off. He eyed her expectantly.
"Why do I suddenly feel like a raccoon treed by a hound?"
Corbet bared his teeth. "Just tell me what you know, and no blood will be shed." I hope.
Adam hesitated in the common room. He rolled down his shirt sleeves, lingering over the task of buttoning and straightening the cuffs, then changed his mind and rolled them up again. He heard a chuckle and saw Alicia watching him. She lay on her back on the carpet, her long legs up against the wall and ankles crossed, a textbook on her stomach. She swung her feet down and sat upright, leaning back on her arms. "Did you try to convince Rob that Georgia is still part of the Union?"
Adam passed his hand over the deep purple bruise on his cheekbone. "I'm not certain what that means," he responded uncertainly, "but, no. Correen did this."
Shock crossed her features, quickly replaced by a menacing frown. "What did you do to her?"
"I acted dishonorably." As the scowl deepened, he added hastily, "Not in a physical manner, but in another way. I need to apologize. That is, I know I want to apologize, but there's more..."
"She's in our room, studying." She laughed. "Don't look so surprised. I like you, Adam. I think you're sincere. And," she cocked her head, "my roommate likes you. So go un-fuck whatever you fucked up."
Not sure if that was reassuring, Adam nevertheless smiled. He had bridged the moat. Now he must face the dragon. He went down the dim corridor and knocked on Correen's door.
"Alicia's not here," came the immediate reply.
"Correen, it's Adam. May I see you?"
The door opened a crack, held fast by a hand gloved in plain white. Correen wore a terry cloth robe and looked at him with shadowed, tired eyes. "What do you want?"
"To talk."
She did not answer, or move. Her expression was distant, wary. Adam put his hand on the doorframe, shielding them from passersby with his wide back. "Correen, I want..."
He wanted to hold her until she learned to relax in his arms, fitting her soft body to his. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to see a smile fill her eyes and stay there. He wanted to be a part of her life, a part that mattered to her. The realization shocked him and he lost the thread of words he meant to say.
He took a deep breath. "Could we take that walk now?"
A muscle twitched along her jaw. "No," she said quietly.
The door clicked shut in his face. He ran his hand behind his neck. What was he doing here? Why was this so important? He had an hour before he was to meet Channa to go over Martin's findings in the archives. He should be resting, reserving his strength, checking in with the Lords, doing anything other than being here.
He stalked to the common room, and stopped. He had been raised on his intuition. In the role he served, the compulsions of the heart and mind, however inexplicable, invariably meant something, gave clues to deeper truths. He was not irresponsible or impulsive by nature. There had to be an important reason his attention drew so irresistibly to this woman. So he had told himself, again and again, to the point of tedium.
With a growl, he spun around and strode down the hall. The Trial was easier than this.
He raised his hand to knock, then thought of a better idea. He paused, recapturing the tune in his head as he had heard Rob play it on his music machine. Adam had liked the song. It made him think of her. He tapped it on the door panel with his fingers. He ignored the comments of the passing students, absorbed in remembering. After two full choruses he could remember no more and sighed. He spread his palm flat against the panel, touching the closest part of her he could reach.
He dropped his hand and turned.
She opened the door. "I didn't recognize that one."
Indecision melted from Adam at the sight of her face. "Nat King Cole. 'Unforgettable.'"
The Vale poised on the brink of spring, the trees fingered with green buds. Birds twittered from branch to branch, foraging for nesting material. The cool twilight air frosted their breath and wafted away in short billows over their shoulders as they walked. Correen did not speak much and neither did Adam, the silence carrying a hundred thoughts between them. Their passage flushed a brown rabbit out of hiding, and the soft furred creature bounded over a tree, disappearing again.
Adam looked at her, but her eyes remained on the rabbit's path. "I shouldn't have let you leave like that, last night. I'm sorry."
"I'm the one who should say I'm sorry." She touched the bruise on his face; warmth speared through his body. "I have some herb mixtures that bring swelling down. Maybe-"
"You are beautiful," he said.
"I'm not as beautiful as Channahon Ellyn." She stepped out of the shelter afforded by his body and continued down the path.
Correen shied away from what lay between them as much as he did, Adam realized. Channa was an issue between them, but Correen had brought her into it this time, probably trying to block the surge of feelings he had been just as creatively trying to suppress. He increased his pace to catch up with her.
She turned onto an overgrown side path. They had to traverse single file. He suppressed a smile at her ingenuity. She was like the brown rabbit, resourceful and elusive, yet able to warm a human heart with a soft glance from liquid eyes. The trail grew less marked and her pace slowed, allowing him to come up behind her. She looked around, avoiding the complete turn that would have brought them intimately close.
"There's a clearing over there. It should hook up with the main trail again." She cut off the path, sloshing through the tangled winter foliage of dead vines and packed leaves being pushed aside by new growth. He followed and put out a steadying hand as she clambered over a fallen tree. The odor of winter decay, of an animal who had succumbed to the lure of a permanent winter sleep, filled his nose. Correen dropped to the ground on the other side of the tree, took a step and pitched onto her knees.
"Are you all right?" Adam started over the tree but froze, one foot braced on the trunk. He followed her horrified gaze. A human arm, hooked by her foot and pulled loose from a blanket of earth, lay exposed, milk-white, the decaying flesh stained with mud.
He swung over the tree, barely giving her time to scramble out of his way. He squatted, staring at the arm. A tremor ran through his hand as he delicately laid it on the limb. Confirmation came through his fingers, hitting him in the breastbone like a blunt object shattering the rib cage. He withdrew his hand, the fingers reactively fisting. He strove for calm, trying a breathing exercise. It drew in the stench of the corpse. He gave it up and settled on action.
He passed his fingers over the disturbed earth along the line of the tree, focusing. He pulled away clots of dirt a handful at a time, as if uncovering a precious relic, and a moment later the disintegrating, but recognizable face of Jaiya Marduk stared up at him, her face not yet decomposed enough to hide the expression of tortured fear frozen upon it.
Adam rose to his feet. He started for Correen's clearing, following the strengthening thread of the power signature surviving on Jaiya Marduk's body. He stopped at the outer edge. The fading daylight gave it a surreal look, like a memory rather than a physical feature before him. A rock squatted in the center of the clearing, longer than Adam was tall and waist-high, its forbidding rectangular angles cut roughly by wind and weather, but leveled on top by the sharp, sure strokes of a chisel. Perhaps at one time it had been intended as a romantic resting spot for hiking lovers. It was certainly long enough for someone to stretch out on its surface.
He knelt by the mute stone, tracing a dark stain sheltered by a crag in the rock. A single hemp rope fiber tangled with a long blonde hair was caught in the same crevice.
No romantic resting place, this. As if the surrounding vegetation agreed, it had left a wide circle of bare ground around the silent grey monolith.
"What are you doing?" Correen asked.
Adam spun around, startled, and she leaped back from his shoulder.
How had he forgotten her presence? So absorbed, he hadn't even noted her reaction to finding Jaiya's body, or if she had even had a reaction. She looked surprisingly calm now, if a little pale, and that seemed more from his startled response than from what lay near them. He could only deal with one variable at a time, though. He brought forth the power within him, and drove its force through his gaze into hers.
"Start walking back to the school. In a hundred paces, you'll remember that we were walking together, but you left me to walk alone. You will remember nothing more."
Correen staggered before the strength of the persuasion spell. She shook her head, shook it again, backed up a little, then threw up her head like a startled deer. "What are you talking about?"
A neophyte in the service of dark magic usually enjoyed the protection and sense of her master's powers, both to get addicted to the illusion of invincibility and to keep others stronger than herself from divining the master's secrets through her. Correen had just resisted a spell Channa could not have deflected, and Adam had seen firsthand her inability to handle magical energy. She had not known the location of the body, but he had not read the shock in her face he expected, though he admitted her expression was hard to read most of the time. Perhaps he stood before a neophyte not privy to the master's plan, such as the location of this ritual and the sacrifice that had been made for it. Not so long ago, perhaps the same neophyte broke a rule and was punished by another of her master's servants-Edward-in what looked like a moment of bored cruelty.
"Who warded you?" he demanded. He took two quick strides and clamped his hands onto her shoulders. Panic flooded her gaze and he tightened his hold. She drove her knee between his braced legs.
It dropped him to one knee, but Mataya's training had done worse to him. He did not let go. He slung her to her back and straddled her, pinning her hips. He locked her arms to the muddy forest floor with his knees and nailed her shoulders with his hands.
"Noooo..." Correen moaned, bucking against him. Her fingers gouged at his calves, and she flung her head to the left, teeth snapping. He flipped her thrashing body to her stomach. Her chin hit the ground. Blood seeped out of the corner of her mouth. He felt sick. He twisted her arms efficiently behind her and cuffed her wrists in one hand so she could not move them.
"Tell me!" he ordered, trying to will his hands not to shake. He had shared his childhood with Jaiya, and she rotted in the ground twenty feet away. The woman beneath him was part of it. His feelings had blinded him. "Who is warding you!"
"I am," she whimpered.
"You're lying." The fingers of his other hand tightened on her neck, cutting off a deep breath that might have been a prelude to a scream. He knew the strength in his hands, knew he would leave bruises. A moment ago, he'd have fought anyone to the death who would cause this woman pain. Nausea pushed into his throat. "I do not want to hurt you, but you will tell me who warded you!"
Her eyes rolled back in her head. The wind touched the packed leaves around them, and they rose at its call, spiraling up from the forest floor. The wraiths touched him, plucked at his clothes, whispered to Adam. Release her.
His hand retracted from her neck. He stumbled off her, staring at the motionless woman as the creatures crawled enthusiastically over his back and shoulders.
The manifestation had Correen's signature in every flowing, wisp-like movement. Alma had been right about Correen's potential. The girl's power could not be denied. It protected her even without her awareness. Very few mages Adam knew could protect themselves while unconscious.
"Correen," he said raggedly. He fell to his knees beside her, rolled her slack, lifeless body over into his arms. Alma had warned him, told him she was not involved, as much as told him that he was letting his fear of his own feelings make her a part of something she was not. The moment Correen's magic had risen in her defense, he had felt it, known its nature, and knew it was not connected to the horror that had been committed here. Now she paid the price of his fear.
"Correen," he repeated, touching her face. The ice cold of her skin leaped into him, chilling more than his vital organs. Her empty eyes were lifeless, unresponsive, her body sunk into a protective torpor that his words and touch could not break.
He stripped off his coat, knocking off the wraiths without ceremony, and pulled the wool around her. He smoothed back her hair. "Correen, you are safe. You are all right. No one," his voice faltered before the expressionless gray eyes, "no one will harm you."
He could not reach past her warding to see if a dim light of awareness was there. He swallowed. His fear had driven her to this place, his calm could bring her back. He just had to get her out of a place surrounded by death and fear.
Adam lifted the unresisting girl, and took her to the clearing's edge. He propped her against a tree and returned to Jaiya's body. Grief rose up, darkening his vision, choking him. He dropped to his knees beside her and gently recovered her exposed face and arm. Had this been Sephira's fate as well? Would they find her the same way, in some shallow grave, rotting and forgotten?
No, not forgotten. That was why he was here. They were not forgotten, and if Sephira was alive, they would find her, and punish those who had done this. Until this moment, the question of justice had not entered Adam's mind. His intent, the intent of the team, was to find the two women and determine how their disappearance connected to the Sealing acceleration. But looking at the shallow grave, seeing the imprint of Jaiya's terrified face in his mind against all the memories he had of her, Adam's hand closed into a hard fist. Justice would be part of their intent as well.
He forced his fingers to relax and raised a palm, feeling the energy of the breeze that moved among the trees and grasses of the Vale. He called to it, asked for its help. The wind came. It gusted through the area, sweeping debris and leaves over the evidence of their presence, erasing footprints. He probed briefly for anything another magic user might detect and then nodded, satisfied. He would return with the team. But first he must undo the harm his ignorance had caused.
How many times would he have to learn the lesson, that being human and fallible was something he could not indulge? The cost was too great. But how could he avoid it? As Alma said, he was human.
He bent, raised Correen in the cradle of his arms and began the long walk back to the Havenwood campus.
Miss Seabra,
I know how difficult this situation is for you. While your brother does not recognize you consciously, he connects you to the awful events that led to his present state, and we believe this is why he becomes so violent and agitated when you visit. Knowing how much you love him, I recommend, for his sake and your own, that you curtail your visits to the observatory over the garden, where you can see him, but he cannot see you.
-Letter from Dr. Gautier, St. Bridgit's Home
The circle of light grew larger, the black receding to the edges of her vision as if she came out of a tunnel. Correen breathed in the warm, familiar scents of her room. The sage growing by her bed, the incense that could not completely cover the musty odor of the old carpet. There were some unfamiliar things, too. Skin and hard muscle warm beneath the laundered cotton that pressed against her cheek. Her face lay against his chest, her head tilting with the rise and fall of his breath. She sat on his lap, his thighs spread beneath her backside to hold her comfortably within the protective expanse of his arms.
Correen cracked her eyelids and saw an open hand lying on the curve of her hip, covered by the warm bundling of her flannel nightgown and terry cloth robe. Adam's hand pressed against her as he replaced the phone in its cradle. To keep her balance, she tightened her grip on the open collar of his shirt, noting that her hand fastened there voluntarily, her bare knuckles rubbing against dark chest hair and exposed skin. Her other hand hooked into his shirt at his ribs along his back.
She tilted her head. Adam's gold eyes softened with an unmistakable wave of relief so strong it passed through his body and trembled through hers.
The silence held. He was probably at a loss for words as much as she was. This went far beyond an awkward moment that could be laughed off and forgotten. There was a body in the woods. He had attacked her, but he had also brought her here. He had hurt her, but in her unconscious, most trusting state, she had clutched onto him like a child to a parent.
"I was hoping that bringing you back here would work." Adam's color rose, as if he knew the words were out of place and more than inadequate. A true icebreaker, Correen thought, nothing smooth, just a shattering of the ice into smaller, more manageable pieces. She swallowed, shook her head. She wasn't up to it yet.
"When my sister, Fedana, was six," Adam continued uncertainly, shifting her in his arms, "she wandered into the woods when her nurse nodded off over her diary in the sunshine of our courtyard. When the nurse woke, she immediately roused the household, but Fedana wasn't found until hours later, well after dark."
"She must have been terrified," Correen rasped. His startled eyes struck her face, skittered away. He nodded, looking at the wall, his jaw muscle working. She put one hand to her throat and felt the bruises his fingers had left.
"My mother and father were, too. They found Fedana hiding in the roots of a tree. She didn't speak, just stared off, as if in a trance. She didn't respond to our touch, our voices. My father wrapped his cloak around her and my mother carried her home. Together, they dressed her in her nightclothes, sat on their bed and spoke to her, played with her hands and feet as if she was an infant. They had us play around her. Close to dawn, she began to cry, and became herself again."
He looked down at her. She stared in his eyes and this time he did not look away.
"I hoped it would work the same for you. I thank God it did."
Correen shifted, pushing herself up. She made an awkward turn so her feet were on the floor, and felt him pull several strands of her hair free from his borrowed wristwatch. She rose to her feet and swayed. He stood behind her, and she sensed his tension, his readiness to catch her. She moved to Alicia's vanilla-colored wood rocker in the corner, and sank onto its bright blue crocheted cushion. "What happened out there?"
He breathed a sigh through his nose, loud in the room's tense silence. He joined his hands behind his back, taking a military position. Alicia's clock ticked on the dresser, completed a rotation before he spoke.
"I came to Havenwood looking for two people. We-you found one of them this afternoon. I treated you the way I did because I thought you were involved in her death."
"Wha-what?" Correen was glad she was sitting. "How could you think-" She remembered the bare arm, the expression of horror lingering on the dead woman's face.
"I never, not for a moment, thought you participated directly. I thought you served someone who did."
"Why would you think that?"
"Several things. You study magic-"
"A lot of people on this campus do."
"But not all of them study Marta Hamilton. Then there was the curse that appeared by my bed in the infirmary, and Edward's attack on you-we think he's involved. And your personality..."
"What about my personality?"
"You're very closed off-secretive, even." Adam looked at the floor, staring at it hard. "I know I'm ... fucking this up, as Rob would say, but-"
"So, you decide I'm in league with a murderer?" Correen tried to rise, but her legs quivered. She settled for a glare she hoped would scorch his eyebrows. "There are a lot of people with secrets around here. It's called a 'private life.' It doesn't make us criminals." I thought you liked me. I thought you were real. I let myself think of you as a friend. As maybe more than a friend.
The anger made her lightheaded. She looked out the window, fighting for calm. Two students played with a football in the courtyard, a girl and a boy, wrestling, love play. "You attacked me," she quavered. "I could call the police and have you arrested for assault." Her voice strengthened. She tore the shield out of her armory and plunged it into the ground before her. "I have the marks to prove it. I'll tell them about the body in the woods and tell them you know who she is."
Adam sat on the bed and leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. Hands that she remembered on her shoulders, on her throat. She moved back her chair and he straightened, shame tightening his features. She instantly wanted to comfort him. It appalled her.
"I knew from the moment I met you that you were not involved with Jaiya's death."
"And did you just forget that in the woods?" she snarled, defensive, frightened by how defenseless she knew she really was.
He looked at the hem of her bathrobe. "You're right. I had flimsy reasons for suspecting you. Someone warned me my fear of my feelings for you would interfere with my judgment. In the woods, I convinced myself I had been blinded by emotions. And I was, but only then. The moment I felt your magic protecting you, I knew there was no harm in you, no duplicity." He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and glanced out the window at the two students.
His eyes looked so tired. Deep lines cut into his forehead that she had not noticed before, lines that had appeared there often, too often for someone so young. The laughter of the couple outside rose on the air and thoughts crowded into his eyes, taking him away from her, and the room.
"What?" Correen asked, despite herself.
Pain flooded his features, as if silence had been an anesthetic. The clock completed two rotations this time. "I was remembering ... I was at weapons practice with some other boys. Jaiya ran up behind one of her friends and jumped on his back, tumbling them both to the ground. The swordmaster got angry at the interruption, but she just laughed and ran away ... She liked riding horses; she hated to sit still. She had a terrible temper. She was a devout priestess-"
Adam cleared his throat and rose, his broad back outlined by the setting sun.
"I'm here to find whoever did this to her. I can't tell you anymore, not now. Do what you must."
Her anger had come from his betrayal, not his violence. With a sense of shock, she realized she had not truly believed he ever intended to hurt her, even at the worst moment in the woods. Her panic, her desperation, had come from the prospect of having to endure another betrayal, knowing what that might do to her.
She rose from the chair; her legs supported her this time. Her fingers touched his back and he turned, startled, his expression questioning her actions. "Are you all right?"
The words struck home, setting off ripples of sorrow in the golden gaze, leaving a bleak shore that twisted in her heart.
Each moment they spent together was another thread, weaving into a pattern that soon would become the fabric of a shared destiny. While that frightened her more than anything, she was suddenly too weary to fight it or deny how much he affected her.
She put her arms around his wide shoulders. His arms came around her waist and he pulled her closer, burying his face in the strands of her snarled hair.
"I have seen death before," he murmured. He stood like a statue in her arms, as if breathing or movement would shatter them both. "But it was brave death on a battlefield, still ugly, but different. To see someone, a friend, who died alone, helpless and surrounded by evil, to know you were not there in time ... I see that-obscenity that's left-next to all the things I remember about her, and I feel as if my hope and faith are draining." He pressed his nose against her shoulder, hard, drew a deep, steadying breath, and raised his head, stepping out of her arms. He kept hold of one of the bare hands that slipped from his shoulder, though.
Adam considered her, and Correen watched the outline of the setting sun disappear behind his shoulders, its warmth passing through and mingling with his own, warming her. "Looking at you makes me feel that maybe there will be hope again." There was no gallant blitheness to his words, just a simple fact, offered as truth.
His words poured into her heart like a waterfall in the desert and she had nothing to absorb the feelings. She stepped away from, pulling her hand loose, and tightened the belt of her robe. "When you can tell me more, I'll listen. I won't do anything until then."
Adam executed a slight bow. "Thank you for your trust. May I ask one last thing?"
"I'm not sure."
He drew in a breath, close to a chuckle. "Promise not to regret this moment."
He had saved her from an early demise in her political science class, kissed her like no one ever had before, escorted her on her first real date, and tried to strangle her. He had taken her feelings out of the cool shelter of her fortressed heart and had thrown them into the full glare of the sun, where her exposed parts would burn until nothing remained. All in the space of five days. God's seven days to create the world weren't looking quite so metaphorical anymore.
"I don't know," Correen replied, hugging herself. Her chin came up. "I just don't know."
The fate of the world has never moved a person to heroics the way that the life of a single loved one can.
-Channa, Personal Diary
"Here, Your High-Adam. Let me." Corbet reached around the prince and drew the buckle end of the seatbelt from his hands, snapping it into place. "See? You need me along after all."
"It's not that we don't need you." Adam shook his head. "I didn't want you to leave the library, if you had research left to do. This isn't going to be pleasant, and you aren't required to do field work."
"I've been wanting more field experience. And I've found all I'm going to at the library anyway." He reached into the second seat at the same time he gassed the dusty and dented car out of the school parking lot. "These notes and some clippings were all I found, and I wouldn't have gotten that much without the Havenwood librarian."
"I can read them." Adam reached for the legal pad that surfed with the motion of the car as Corbet divided his attention between it and directing the vehicle. A horn blared; Corbet jerked the car back into the correct lane.
"That won't do you much good, even with your translation spell. They're in shorthand."
Corbet hit the brakes and made a sharp turn, throwing Adam against the door. Adam discreetly locked his fingers around the door handle.
"Dr. Samuel Kenn was Havenwood's computer science professor, but he also taught theology. There's a picture of him in that folder under your feet. It looks like a police mug shot, but it's actually the yearbook photo. About three years ago, his twelve-year-old son Isaac was killed in a freak accidenta lightning strike. Dr. Kenn's a widower, lost his wife to cancer. At the time Isaac was killed, Dr. Kenn advised a student group called the Amateur Magickers that studied alchemy and practical magic. After the death of Kenn's son, the group's focus drifted to necromancy."
Adam scooped the folder out of the floorboard from beneath a light covering of candy bar wrappers. The photocopy of Dr. Kenn showed a face drawn severely over prominently chiseled German bones and dark eyes drowning in pain. Adam could see the grief, a grief so strong it balanced on the edge of madness. Kenn sprouted a three-day growth of beard beneath the bloodshot eyes, and his hair was unkempt.
"Pets started turning up dead, ritually mutilated," Corbet continued. "The police traced the activity to the Amateur Magickers. Kenn claimed to have nothing to do with it, but the Havenwood trustees asked Kenn to leave for the good of the school's image." Corbet flipped a page, keeping the wheel steady with a knee. A truck passed close enough to rock the car and Adam closed his eyes.
"Dr. Kenn remained in Kingston. The Amateur Magickers met with him off campus, as an independent group. That's where it looks like it ends, but a few months later, the local paper runs Kenn's obituary. A small memorial service was held at Dr. Burke's home, because Burke is married to Kenn's sister. That's from the librarian. Her name wasn't in the obituary as surviving family, because she wouldn't publicly claim him. I'd say we definitely need to talk to her."
Adam nodded. "Is there anything that links Kenn to Sephira or Jaiya?"
"The Amateur Magickers. Kenn died before our team even got started here. However..." Corbet grinned maniacally. "Check out that copy of the Amateur Magickers' yearbook picture. I think you'll recognize one of them."
Adam looked at the black and white picture of nine women and men. They wore magicians' top hats with their normal school garb of assorted jeans and Tshirts. Even with the poor reprint quality of the copy, Adam noted the cold diffidence of the unsmiling figure on the far right fringe of the group. Adam's eyes glinted. "Edward Brautigan."
"You got it. As Martin was going to tell you last night, there aren't any files on any of the other members. The virus could have eaten the active files, but they'd at least be in the current archives if they've ever been here. Someone deliberately removed them, possibly Bradley. The librarian said our dean, Arthur Bradley, had removed everything from the archives about Kenn, and he didn't return the information when he left."
Adam bit off a cry of warning as Corbet hit the curb, rolled the car off and accelerated without a break in conversation. "So how can we find out more about them?" Adam managed.
"A good hacker could get us into the police files on Kenn and the Amateur Magickers."
"A computer hacker?" Adam squeaked as they whipped around a telephone pole.
Corbet glanced at him sideways. "Are you all right?"
"If you ride horses like this, I'm not surprised they don't like you."
"Sorry, Your Highness," Corbet said, chagrined, slowing down and merely rubbing his tires on the curb at the next turn. "I forget you're not quite used to this yet."
"What's a computer hacker?"
"A hacker can break into a computer system. The trick is to find one. Since that's illegal, they don't advertise."
Adam braced himself on the dashboard as they screeched to a halt in front of Alma's house. Alma waved from the window and the sheet she used as a curtain dropped back into place.
Corbet drummed his fingers on the wheel. "Maybe you or Channa should do some kind of spell, like influence a cop's mind to make him turn over the files."
"Spells of influence are supposed to be used only when lives are directly at risk." Adam thought uncomfortably of Correen and looked away.
Alma headed toward the car, garbed in hiking trousers and a baggy sweater, her staff in her hand. Adam got out and opened the passenger door of the back seat. When he got in the front seat, he kept his attention on refastening his seatbelt. "Corbet, didn't you study ethics in the use of magic when you went through the Guild Schools?"
Corbet nodded a greeting to Alma before answering. "I apprenticed to a Scholar in my home village, and he recommended me to the Scholars' Guild. They never put me through the other schools."
"I was under the impression that all Sealing Team members were-"
"At least fourth-level magic users." Corbet shrugged. "They are. But I was the exception. They needed a good researcher. They felt that the other members of the team were so strong, another magic user wouldn't be needed. What's the problem?"
"We are facing a tremendously powerful force," Adam said carefully, weighing his words. "Exposing someone to it who doesn't have firsthand experience on how magical energy works is like-" Adam let the sentence hang, held back by the expression of wounded pride on Corbet's face.
"Don't worry, Corbet," Alma said helpfully, filling the tense gap. "Just stay alert and close to one of us, in case something happens."
Adam readjusted his seatbelt so it fit securely across his chest and checked to make sure Alma had done the same. "We should go."
Corbet drove to the Vale in silence. He bypassed the main parking lot and bumped onto a service road where trees hid the car. Channa, Shireva and Martin stepped into the glare of the headlights. Corbet cut off the lights and the moon restored their forms in silvery outline. Adam got out and opened Alma's door.
"He shouldn't be here," the old woman murmured, taking his offered hand.
"I know," Adam said. "But we're not likely to run into any trouble tonight. The harm has already been done here. No sense in damaging Corbet's feelings as well."
On that grim note, Adam nodded to the others and took the lead. He wasted no time in conversation that would delay the dreaded task. He followed the short trail that ran parallel to the parking lot. It led to the uneven, naturally hewn steps that wound down to the floor of the Vale. He and Corbet paused to give Alma an arm, letting the others go ahead. The way was slow, and after managing a few of the steps, Alma stopped.
"Chivalrous, but impractical." She handed Corbet her staff. "I'll follow you there."
A quick scan of the area convinced her that they were alone. Her form melted and spread, and suddenly she was aloft, hawk feathers gleaming against the crescent moon. Adam resumed his descent. He came up short a couple steps later, realizing Corbet had not moved. The scholar stared up at the flying hawk, mouth agape. She dove in and ruffled her talons across his hair.
He bolted down the stairs after Adam. "How does she do that?"
Adam smiled, some of his tension easing at Corbet's slack-jawed wonder. "Do you want the scholarly explanation, or is that a rhetorical question?"
Corbet shot him an arch glance, reminding Adam of the time, long ago, when Corbet had seen him as "Trelly's little brother" and had not hesitated to cuff him upside the head. "I want to know how she does it."
"Every living being is composed of 'creation energy.' All living things have this creation energy, and, since it comes from one source, one Body, we're all connected, physically and spiritually. That means everyone has the puzzle pieces to become any other living thing."
"So anyone can do that?" Corbet tripped, craning his neck. Adam unobtrusively placed his hand near his companion's elbow as they navigated the stairs.
"Everyone has the potential, but not everyone has the capability. Magic users are like students. Some are more gifted in one area than another. The art must be mastered. Alma is a gifted shapeshifter, much as Shireva's talent is recreating."
"What about someone like you? Do you have a 'special' ability?"
"For me, it's not that simple." They reached the bottom of the stairs and Adam took lead of the group, Corbet falling in to his right. "Those Who Are Not Seen do not reveal immediately why a person is chosen for my role, and when they do reveal things, it's not everything at once. It may take all of my life to know everything that Those Who Are Not Seen will have me do, or the scope of the gifts they've given me."
"Has anyone like you ever documented their Trial so they can compare notes with other Trials?" Corbet glanced up at the hawk circling them. "And how come she's an old human but a younger bird? Why not just turn into an animal when you get old and live forever?"
Adam chuckled. "History of the Trials is oral tradition, mandated by Those Who Are Not Seen. As for the other questions," the golden eyes glinted, "I think we need to enroll you into the Guild schools you missed."
"But ... oh. I guess you're right. Now's not the time for a Magic One-oh-One course." Corbet stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets.
Adam glanced as the hawk passed over. "The mechanics of magic are simple, Corbet. You won't have any problem grasping them. Understanding Those Who Are Not Seen is the real challenge. The Trial is a large part of who I am. I was given many things instantly that other people must strive to discover in themselves all their lives. However, I didn't stop being human, and fallible. I wonder all the time why I was so deserving, and if I'll prove equal to the gift."
"It sounds like being in love."
Adam looked away. "So it may be."
Corbet scratched at his beard. "Do you remember..." His fingers scratched a little harder and a welt appeared on his cheek. "...when you saw me..." He stumbled. Adam caught him.
"Are you all right?"
The scholar colored as Channa, Martin and Shireva caught up to them. "It's okay, guys. I've just been doing too many all-nighters and too much junk food. I think it's catching up with me."
Adam tightened his fingers on Corbet's arm. "Perhaps you should stay and rest here, while we go ahead," Channa suggested. "You and Martin really don't have to be here for this."
Corbet pulled his arm out of Adam's grasp. "I'm fine now. It's gone. Martin and I talked about this. It's right for us to be here." He vigorously nodded at Channa. "Really, I'm all right."
A ghost of a smile touched the priestess's lips. "I think you're going to need a refresher course on Other World training. Particularly the part on how to avoid bad dietary habits."
"Guess that means smuggling a carton of candy bars back through the Continuum is out of the question?" he rejoined. Shireva shot him a warning glance, and Corbet sobered. "Oh, I'm sorry, Your Highness. I wasn't serious. I mean, none of us would ever think about breaking the Law of Continuum Travel like that."
Adam blinked. "I have no reason to question the motives of any member of this team, Corbet. Laughter breaks no Laws I know." He glanced down at his feet. "I've wondered myself if the Lords would notice if I returned to our world in these shoes."
Shireva smiled with the others, and the tension eased again. Corbet's lips twitched. "Trust me, Your Highness. High tops would clash with your ceremonial robes."
Channa shook her head. "I have led three teams. This one never takes itself seriously."
"Because you take yourself too seriously," Corbet teased, and linked an arm through hers. "Let's go. What was I trying to remember? Something about the castle gardens?"
"I accidentally stumbled on him there one evening," Adam informed the others. "He was in a compromising position with a girl."
"A nice way to say I was naked as a newborn and mad as hell to find him there." Corbet stuck his tongue in his cheek at their nervous laughter. "I didn't know whether to thrash you for looking or bribe you to keep quiet."
"You did not have much on you to bribe me with."
Corbet chuckled. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe I should have promised you a ride on my snotty horse, get you out of the castle somehow. They were so uptight about you going anywhere, not like when we were younger and you'd tag along with Trelly and me."
"Things change," Adam said softly. He examined the way ahead, then turned off the main path, heading down a deer trail.
He was right. The boy Corbet vaguely remembered no longer existed. The thoughts that moved behind Adam's eyes dealt with things with which Corbet had no experience and limited understanding at best. Until now, much of the magical work had been confined to the priestesses of the team. Corbet had spent his time doing what he knew how to do. Maybe he had gotten a little too focused. He sloshed through soggy leaves toward a murder wrought by magic and sacrifice, and would have no insights to offer into it. His jaw hardened resolutely. When he returned to their world, he would reenter the Guild Schools. He'd serve the next Sealing team better.
Channa's hand slipped off Corbet's arm and she directed him forward, so that he walked between her and Adam. Martin and Shireva brought up the rear.
Corbet craned his neck to find Alma. He threw up an arm as the hawk swooped in on him. Talons curled around his arm and powerful wings swept the hair from his brow.
"Wow," the scholar breathed, treating his new bundle as if she was rare porcelain.
A gust of wind passed on either side of Corbet. He looked down, balancing the Alma-bird, and saw the trail being remade, the wet mud sucked back into the depressions caused by their footprints, the leaves resettling into packed compost. Adam's fingers moved slightly at his left side in a sweeping motion similar to the wind. Before Corbet could think, the hawk left his arm and hopped to the ground. Too quickly, the metamorphosis was complete and Alma stood beside him.
"That was just incredible," Corbet told her, wanting to ask a thousand questions.
Alma smiled, a tight and shadowed gesture that sent a trickle of uneasiness through Corbet. A few minutes later, that trickle strengthened into a static current through his nerves. They were getting closer. Even though Corbet could not sense energy flow as the others could, in his gut he felt the wrongness of the clearing ahead. He could also see it in the posture of his companions. Channa's red hair swung over her jacket as she turned her head in all directions, wary. Adam's shoulders looked frozen, like marble.
Corbet stopped and Martin and Shireva moved past him. He understood it suddenly, Adam's reluctance to bring him. He was going to be like an infant, playing in a nest of vipers. He would only burden his friends with the need to protect him should something happen related to magic. He had no notion of what he was going to see. Adam was right to have tried to leave him behind.
Adam stopped as well, letting the rest of the group go ahead. "Come, Corbet," he called quietly. "Take my arm and feel what I'm about to do. See what I'm talking about."
Corbet approached hesitantly, but Adam nodded reassurance. Corbet touched the other man's arm, and Adam closed his eyes.
He breathed deeply, and Corbet felt the air draw in against their bodies. The trees sighed, their branches dipping toward him. Corbet felt the power flood into Adam, while his own body braced like a stone in a strong current. The power was familiar, friendly, open to Adam, as much a part of the prince as he was part of It. Adam slowly raised his arm, and called forth the protection. The power shifted, drifting out over the clearing. It paused at the outskirts. That is why we are here. It will be handled. Adam's thoughts reverberated in Corbet's head. Satisfied, the energy force moved on and closed in a circle around the area.
Adam turned East and spoke, tracing a symbol in the air. He turned South, then West, then North, speaking a different invocation each time. Corbet moved with him, maintaining the contact, trying not to be a distraction. He suspected Adam's powers of concentration to be far above concerns like that, though. The protection cloaking the area strengthened. When Adam bowed his head for a silent prayer of thanks to the power that aided them, Corbet joined him. The ritual site was divided from the rest of the forest. Corbet unzipped his jacket, feeling warmer.
"The innocent won't stumble on us by accident now," Adam stated, "because the warding will turn them away without them realizing they avoided the area."
"And we'll be warned if the not-so-innocent come around." Corbet surmised. He felt better, more included and less impotent in the events unfolding, and he realized wryly that Adam had deliberately relinked him to the team. He was definitely not the awkward boy Corbet remembered.
Corbet wondered what thoughts lay behind the golden eyes. What does he see when he looks upon me? Probably a twenty-eight-year-old scholar strung out on caffeine and chocolate, who drives badly and doesn't know any more about magic than a trickster pulling animals out of top hats. But Corbet knew he was a damn good Scholar. He pulled out of a slouch and met his gaze.
"Adam, I ... enjoyed teaching you how to sail."
A pained look crossed Adam's face, but he inclined his head with royal graciousness. "I appreciated your teaching me, Corbet. It was one of the best summers of my life."
Winter was too far gone to mask the stench of a rotting corpse. As he and Adam followed the others into the clearing, Corbet noted the trampled brambles and foliage where the team members had cut a wide berth around the fallen tree to enter the clearing. They knew from Adam's description what waited for them, and they unconsciously gave themselves a safer distance to confront it in the first moments. The exception was Shireva, who knelt at the graveside, already carefully digging out the corpse with a spade. Adam knelt by her side, pressing his knees into the wet ground. He took the extra shovel and obeyed her murmured instructions.
Channa stood in the center of the clearing, her feet braced apart and face unreadable as she watched them. Martin leaned against a stark maple, his pallor greener than the moss that grew along its trunk. Alma waited, leaning on her staff, but her eyes were hard and alert.
Corbet drew in a breath through his nose, let it out slowly, then turned and looked. He was closer than the others, really no more than six feet from Adam and Shireva, so he saw the body as the shallow blanket of soil was removed. There appeared to be nothing significant about the arrangement of the girl; she had simply been put out of sight when her murderer was through with her. They uncovered her shoulders and chest, revealing that she had been stripped. She was naked except for the soil not yet brushed away. What had looked like a dark line of soil turned out to be a wound. Her throat had been slit.
At Shireva's quiet request, Channa and Martin drew battery-powered lights out of their backpacks and fastened them on the branches of the trees to enhance the filtered moonlight.
It was funny, Corbet thought. Seeing a dead person was like meeting a lottery winner. You couldn't believe it could be someone like yourself. The face was bloated and blue. The hair had been blonde and short, the eye color impossible to determine since the eyes had long since nourished the beasts of the soil. The hair, eye sockets, nose, and mouth were crusted with blood. Corbet scratched at a callus at the base of his middle finger, hard.
Martin looked even more gray and sick as he backed off. Shireva, no stranger to examining the dead, took a short whiskbroom from the backpack. "Remove the dirt with your hands, carefully," she instructed Adam. "Something doesn't feel right at her abdomen."
Adam obeyed, and the others waited, and watched. Her mouth a tight line, Shireva swept the lighter areas free of dirt as he extracted the soil blanket.
"By the Continuum," Channa whispered, the first to realize what she saw. She turned away, her hand covering her mouth. Martin bolted for the bushes, second to understand. Shireva, done for the moment, squatted back on her heels and simply stared, unable to look away. Alma's eyes closed, her face crumpling in horror and sorrow.
Corbet could not take his eyes away. Her breasts and legs had been mutilated repeatedly with ritual symbols, so that she looked as if she was covered with badly done, fading tattoos. Her abdomen was torn down to the apex of her thighs, the organs pulled out, hanging obscenely. A Christian cross protruded from her vagina.
Adam placed a hand on the dead woman's temple. "Jaiya." He looked up at Corbet, while he stroked back stiff, brittle hair, combing it through his fingertips. "I took a court etiquette class with her once. I remember, Master Philicoctetes caught me trying to look under a girl's dress by dropping my quill under her desk."
Neither man smiled, but Corbet nodded, hearing his words. He looked at Adam, because it was easier to pretend, for one more moment, that what lay next to him wasn't there.
Adam's words reeled them in. Martin emerged from the bushes, wiping his mouth. Alma sank down on the trunk of the tree. Channa drew close to Alma. Corbet, indeed, the whole team, understood the pain and grief tearing at their leader. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but of course Channa would have none of it, shaking her head and moving away.
Corbet swallowed, because he had to drag his eyes over the body to get back to Adam's face. Damn it, he had to face it, face her. He was a researcher. He might see things the others didn't. Corbet edged around the fallen tree, coming to stand behind her head, where he was not in Shireva or Adam's way, but forcing himself to look down on her fully.
Adam continued. "He made me lift my tunic, and beat me with the flat of his blade in front of the class." He looked at the corpse. "And while his back was turned, you winked at me. You stood up and lifted your skirt up to your chin. I remember I might have cried and shamed myself if you had not done that." A choked sound escaped from Shireva's tightly pressed lips, and her hand convulsed on the broom handle.
Adam met Corbet's eyes. Corbet saw something in them, a kindling fire.
"Somebody did this to you," Adam said, continuing to talk to her, though his eyes held Corbet's a moment longer. Then his gaze moved to the others. "You probably fought at first, but they overpowered you, by magic or brute force. They brought you here for this ritual. They warded the area as we did so no one could hear your screams. You died here, surrounded by evil and hatred, alone..." His voice was terrible, commanding the silence of the forest.
"She was one of us, a part of who we are, and they took all of that, including your memories of her."
Channa nodded, her eyes almost as bright with fury as his. Martin and Shireva joined hands tightly over the fallen tree. Alma put her hand on Jaiya's bare leg.
Corbet dropped to his knees at Jaiya's head, emotion clogging his throat. He splayed his knees on either side of her matted skull. His blunt fingers, marked by small nicks and cuts, the blooding of a researcher, settled on either bare shoulder. He felt the curious lightheadedness return and saw something in his memory, a woman wearing a man's tunic. The tunic had kept slipping off that shoulder that his fingers now closed over, a shoulder with bones too close to the surface of decaying skin.
Her skin was cold and leaden. He placed his hand over eye sockets that might have held blue eyes ... that were blue, blue as the flowers he had planted outside their home. She told him they were gone too much to tend them properly. But the flowers had been a tribute to her eyes, and, like everything he did for her, to the fact she had chosen him, a mere scholar. She could have sought out the attention of someone like Adam. But she had not. She had loved him.
It was then that Corbet noticed it, though it had been there all the time. Right before his unseeing eyes. There was a white band of pigment around his middle finger, where a ring used to be, just above the itchy callus.
The wave of dizziness came, but he fought it off with teeth bared, recognizing it at last as a mortal enemy, not caring about the risk to himself of doing so. He felt the callus at the base of his finger where the ring had rested. The same callus he had been worrying for weeks, somehow knowing that something was missing. Now he knew. His wedding band had rested there.
She had given it to him. The blue-eyed girl with whom he had lain in the castle gardens many years ago. The girl who was gentle and kind and beautiful and who was everything in his life. The truth rolled over Corbet, and she lay there before his eyes, and he knew her, the spell destroyed by love. He heard screaming. Terrible, painful screaming. But it seemed so loud, too loud, and Corbet suddenly realized it came from him.
Adam and Channa lunged at him at the same moment and enfolded him in their embrace, but he could not stop ... even when Alma, her eyes filled with timeless pain, placed her hand on his head. He fell into oblivion, his hands locked onto the lifeless body of Jaiya Marduk. The woman he had called Wife in this world, Handfast in the world that was their home, and Beloved in his heart.
What stands out as a gross abnormality in a healthy world is camouflaged here. Life adapts to these circumstances, and I am amazed at how often some measure of personal happiness is successfully achieved.
-Channahon Ellyn, Weekly Report to Lord Council
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the moon, resting on the arms of the trees that ringed the clearing. Then a face blotted out the moon, the features blurred by her concussion and the hood over his head. She struggled to sit up; the jagged edges of the rock beneath her bit into her bare skin. She strained against manacles that spread-eagled her to the rock, their grip so tight she could barely feel her fingers. She opened her mouth to scream and gagged as a rope yanked her head over the edge of the rock, baring her jugular to the moon's caressing light. She looked into another sneering, contemptuous face and closed her eyes as his saliva struck her cheek. She had no breath left but she spat anyway, heaving enough air from her lungs to return the favor. It came back down on her, but her spit glanced off his cheek. His grip tightened. Black spots appeared before her eyes.
"Those Who Are Not Seen. I am yours. I have served you well and will serve you well again ... Oh, Corbet..."
Another man chanted, sprinkling something on her. A knife bit into her arm, and she choked on a cry of pain. A sea of voices swelled with singing, chanting. What were they saying? ... Shireva could pull enough information out of her mind to save Sephira, if she just made sure enough was there. Sephira still had a chance. A chance she and the others did not. That chant. What language was that? The knife pressed on her stomach. She heard herself moaning, a sound that rattled past the rope on her larynx. The face above her kept grinning. Her saliva dried on his cheek.
Latin. She didn't know the language, but the translation spell helped her identify it as Latin. Listen, oh Those that have protected me, help me listen. The chant speed increased. The words ... she repeated them in her mind, over and over as the knife drew more blood. They switched to a language she could understand and the knife rose high in the air. The light of the moon flashed on the blade. Oh, Great Lord...
"NOOOO!!!!"
Shireva huddled over the body, hyperventilating, her hand over what used to be Jaiya's womb. Channa pulled away the hand, breaking contact, and the woman fell back onto the earth, seeking pad and pencil. Adam snatched them up, thrust them at Martin. The monk wrote as Shireva spat out words. Even as she spoke, she scrabbled back toward Jaiya's body.
Channa caught her. "Enough for now."
"No!" Shireva pulled away. "She knew it would be me. I have to finish." The Recreator put her palm on the mutilated womb and plunged back into Jaiya's nightmare.
Dying took a long time. Jaiya's head lolled limply over the edge of the stone. Everything was a red haze, except the moon. Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes and over her eyebrows. She could not follow the chants. They built the power higher and higher, toward the climax that would be her end. She could feel the power they called spiraling around the altar. She had helped raise power in Circle. This was different, a call to a Presence. An offering to a Presence. It fed ... the rope constricted, pulling her head back farther, stretching out her neck. They were summoning someone, summoning-help me leave them something ... preparing to summon, gathering power for it ... desecrating the Mother to make way for the kings, armies on the march ... lack of life, no life, no death ... the next life, my love, please ... oh, how I'll miss you ... I wish-we'll be there...
Somehow, Jaiya opened her eyes and looked into the blurred face of her killer. "You are as much a part of the Circle as I," she rasped. "You will serve me in the next life."
Good-bye, Corbet.
Shireva regained consciousness. She was cradled in the arms of her team leader. "Did you get it?" she croaked at Martin.
"Yes." The monk was ashen, his fingers trembling as he scribbled on the pad.
She struggled to her feet, bracing her hand on Channa's thigh. The world tottered dizzily. Channa caught her on one side, Adam on the other.
"Perhaps," Adam suggested, "you might sit for a few minutes."
"No, someone needs to check out the altar."
"I'll do it." Channa pushed her into the prince's grasp.
"You can't feel it like I can."
"I'll do it," the priestess said harshly. "You've had it for tonight. And if you haven't, I have. Sit."
Adam, in perfect agreement with Channa, pressed Shireva down on the dead tree with her back to the body. Unfortunately, this faced her toward Alma and Corbet, sitting nearby on a spread blanket. Corbet hunched over his lap, staring at nothing. Alma had her arm around him, stroking his back. "I thought-"
"He wouldn't go," Adam said. "And I couldn't bring myself to make him." He squatted before Shireva, blocking her view of them, and rubbed her ice-cold hands between his warmer ones. "Shireva, you are not Jaiya. You were simply sharing her memories. You are Shireva."
She nodded. Shireva was a stronger Recreator than most, and usually didn't need the ritual "awakening," but Adam sensed that she needed the comfort of the routine. He repeated the words several times, in several ways, and she clung to his voice, her expression reflecting her gradual centering back in the present and on his physical grip on her.
"All right, I'm done." Martin's pen skittered off the page, the hard press of the tip catching the paper and making a crackling sound. "Are you all right? Is she all right?" Martin sat next to Shireva, companionably pressing a leg against hers.
"I'm okay, Martin. Let me see what you've got."
Martin handed Shireva the pad, briefly gripping her fingers. "I know Latin, but I didn't understand much of the translation."
"Martin," Shireva said with some exasperation, glancing at the notebook. "You didn't translate it on the page."
He retrieved the pad. "Sorry about that." Adam stood, and saw Channa pause at the altar stone to listen. Alma raised her head, directing her attention to them. Corbet continued to stare at the ground.
"Freedom is black and red ... the black school has forged the key ... then, kings on the march again, and something about turning the world on its axis, back toward its true course."
"The black school?" Shireva frowned. "Maybe Malcolm X dorm?"
"Where Edward Brautigan lives." Adam squatted next to Shireva. "Maybe that's why he wasn't evicted by the black students. Alma had suggested that the school or the students might be the key to the disappearances."
Martin nodded. "I think she's right. What I was going to tell you last night, before ... this, was that we pulled eleven students with a common profile out of the archives: women, no family on record, dropped or transferred out without a forwarding address over the past two years. Two of them identified Wicca as their preferred religious path, and five attended at least one cowan meeting, according to Channa's logs."
"Did you get any information from the names?" Adam asked Shireva.
She shook her head. "Just vague images, like photos. It's difficult for me to pick up images from a typed name entered into a database. I need something with which the person has had personal contact."
"I can't find any information on their roommates, or Jaiya's or Sephira's," Martin continued, "and they couldn't all have managed a room to themselves over the entire enrollment period. There's no drop-out pattern, either. When I cross-checked Jaiya and Sephira against the inactive school files, their drop date was weeks before Channa stopped mentioning them in her daily report, so the drop date is fabricated. Unfortunately, all of these things are strong indications that these women were taken in the same manner as Sephira and Jaiya."
And met the same fate as Jaiya. Adam watched Channa close her eyes and delve into the memory of the stone, her palm flat on the bloodstains.
Shireva rubbed a clammy hand across her forehead. "Jaiya was killed on winter solstice, I'm sure of that. The moon was full. We were lucky. Maggots can consume most of a body in a week's time, but since the winter has been particularly harsh, a lot of her memory was intact. We were almost too late."
"We would have been, if not for you," Adam said.
Shireva's face crumpled. "She was lying there, being tortured, knowing she was going to die, and she still tried to listen and see everything she could to help me read her body."
"Adam." Channa waved at him.
He left Shireva with a reassuring touch and Martin's arm around her, and joined Channa at the altar.
She pointed to the stone. "I don't have Shireva's range, but I think Jaiya's sacrifice was the last time work was done here. That's probably why they left the body. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only sacrifice. I get impressions of at least three others, two human, one cat. I get some images of other rituals, maybe not involving sacrifice, but the same feeling to them. They're not very clear." Channa knelt by the altar.
"Their closure for this ritual was sloppy. The energy wasn't grounded. However, what they lacked for style they made up for in raw power. These bastards or something they called put enough power into this stone to fuel ten lightning storms. The altar still has a residue charge."
"I can tell a few things just by using my eyes." Her finger traced a dried crimson line. "This is below where they cut Jaiya's throat. Martin," she called over her shoulder. "Take a scraping on this. Shireva will determine if it's just Jaiya's blood or if it belongs to anyone else," she said to Adam. "You said Correen found the body?"
"She did."
Her brows drew together. "That's curious. There was enough of a ward left to strongly discourage hikers."
"Correen was upset at the time." Adam made a neutral gesture.
"Whatever was bothering her was stronger than the ward?" Martin asked, kneeling next to Channa.
"Or she was immune to it," Channa said. She gave Adam a searching glance, then rose. "It's past midnight. If Shireva agrees, I think we should take Jaiya back to the grove. She can do an autopsy after I do the Ritual of Parting with Jaiya's family."
"I wonder why Corbet remembers her if we still can't?" Martin sealed the sample and looked toward the vacant-eyed scholar.
Channa looked at Adam. "Probably because love is the strongest magic of all. You knew."
"I knew." He shrugged. "The Corbet I know has always been exceptionally calm. I once saw a stray arrow from the practice range bury itself in a wall, so close to his head that a lock of his hair was pinned by the tip. He didn't even flinch, though there was time to see it coming. He could pick up an injured insect and examine it without bruising a wing. When I saw how changed he was, I knew the spell was a temporary cage."
"Then, if he and Jaiya had been living here together, rather than posing as unmarried students, the spell probably wouldn't have contained his memory this long," Martin observed. "Of course, based on the profiles of possible victims, she probably wouldn't have been kidnaped at all. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I wanted to return him to his family before he knew," Adam said. "It was difficult for me to be around him, knowing what I did. I didn't feel it something that the team needed to carry."
"You keep your own counsel too often," Channa said, her tone brittle. Adam held her accusing gaze. A lock of her brilliant hair whispered out of her scarf and caressed her cheek.
"I'll help Shireva." Martin backed away, leaving them.
"It's the Lords, isn't it?" Her look of accusation deflated and she put her palm on the altar, a gesture to both steady herself and ram the truth home. "I've lost three people. They don't feel I can..." Her fist clenched. "I won't blame them for that. I'm to blame..."
"Channa, you said it yourself. Whoever this is, they were powerful enough to make an entire school forget Jaiya and Sephira. How could you have resisted that?" He reached for her, but she backed away, shaking her head.
"You don't understand. I have to be the one to tell them their daughter, their sister, their wife is dead. They will want to see her body. I will have to see them see her body." Her pain underlined every word. "I am responsible."
He'd had enough of watching her hurt and doing nothing. His hand shot out, and she pulled back, startled, but not quickly enough. His fingers pulled at her shirt beneath the coat and jerked the cloth from the right breast, revealing the ugly scar that began deep between her breasts and cut across the top curve of her bosom all the way to her collarbone. His hands were rough, but his voice was raw, gentle in its earnestness.
"I was not with you when Cathar was killed," he said, his fingers on the wound that had only physically healed. "I heard how you plunged into that mob to save her, how you were beaten and left for dead. Channa, you will do anything to protect your team. We all know that. And where you fail, only Those Who Are Not Seen could succeed. There's no doubt of that in anyone's mind but yours."
Less certain of the wisdom of his action now in the face of her closed, aching face, he withdrew his hand. Channa turned her back on him, her fingertips brushing the altar. Adam watched her for a moment, the quick rise and fall of her shoulders. He stepped close behind her, coiled his fingers around hers, and drew them away from the cursed, bloodstained stone. "When you are ready, you should help us leave this place, priestess." He pressed his jaw against her hair, tightly, willing the energy of his admiration and affection into her heart. At last, her temple slipped beneath his skin as she nodded.
"You and I have a lot to talk about, sometime soon," she murmured.
It was a different issue, far removed from this painful moment, but it stabbed him nevertheless. He closed his eyes and tightened his grip. "I have wanted-"
"Ssh-" She placed a hand on his mouth. "Not now. Whatever is happening, or not happening between us, it needs to be discussed another time. I can wait, my lord."
He laid a hand against her cheek, brushing his knuckles along the tracks of tears that had struggled out of her tired green eyes.
Shireva and Martin had placed Jaiya's body on a brown army blanket. Adam knelt next to her lifeless form. He looked past the horror of her corpse and visualized soft bread dough. Martin jumped back as the body visibly relaxed. Channa knelt in his vacated place and curled Jaiya's fingers around a sprig of oak with green buds peeping from the tip. "Carry the strength of the oak into the next plane." The priestess straightened, raising her arms to the sky in formal posture.
Alma, her hand interlaced with Corbet's, drew close. Shireva took Martin's hand and stood by Channa, her fingers touching the woman's hip. Adam took Corbet's limp and unresponsive hand in one hand and touched the priestess' waist with the other. The scholar stared, glassy-eyed, at the trees over Channa's head. Alma hooked her gnarled fingers in Martin's, completing the circle.
No words, no summons was necessary. Adam, as well as those in the circle, knew the Ritual of Mourning, as they knew the Rituals of Birth, of Motherhood, of Adulthood. All part of life, no matter how unnatural the cause.
Channa removed her scarf, freeing her hair to the wind, and began to sing the Song of Parting. Adam did not stop her. This moment was personal, transcending the Law of Spiritual Respect. Ellissa ma Naen had set forth the rules when Adam's people had first begun to enter Other Worlds. The Law of Spiritual Respect mandated that they were allowed to worship Those Who Are Not Seen only by the names and rituals available to them in the known rituals of the Other World. Ellissa's intent among others, Adam was sure, had been to prevent the destructiveness that could stem from missionary zeal and distract the teams from their primary purpose. He did not see that this moment would dishonor Ellissa's intent.
The Song of Parting was a song of sounds, not of words. Channa's beautiful voice, trained but filled with the emotion of her involvement, was startling against the forest's silence and the obscenity at their feet, but the notes were the timeless cadences of life and death, sorrow and joy. The notes drew the members of the circle closer together and opened each of their hearts, releasing their voices to sing with her and to bid Jaiya farewell in each person's own way. Shireva bent and sprinkled a handful of earth across the dead woman's heart, linking her with the substance of life. The others followed suit.
"The world that bears our body, reclaims it, even as the soul flies on to its next life," Adam spoke the ritual words in a voice that resonated against the watchful sky and Channa's song.
Channa finished the opening to the Song of Parting and began the verses. As the others repeated the verses after her, a warmth and rhythm moved through the linked circle of humanity. Energy was drawn from the earth beneath their feet, the whispering roar of the pine trees above them, and the slice of moon, pouring jewels on the landscape around them.
O Those Who Are Not Seen By Our Eyes
But Who live in our hearts, our breath, our thoughts
Your daughters and sons speak!
Your daughters and sons cry!
For their sister is no more.
She travels toward you on a river of our tears.
Her flight was too early
O Great Ones! Give us the strength of your eternal laws
Our hearts are filled with rage.
We beg your sword of justice be in our hands.
Aaaaiiiiieeee!!
Channa flung her head back, her bared teeth struck by shafts of moonlight. The circle began to move in the steps of the Mourning Dance, known to them all since their first childhood experience with death. Tears burned in Adam's throat as he remembered the laughing girl whose remains lay before him. He looked neither left nor right, for each sorrow was only for Those Who Are Not Seen to witness. He gripped Corbet and Channa tightly, reassuring them that the evil that lay before them was not the law of life. He felt some response in the limp hand on his right and grasped it tighter, as though the pressure of his fingers could speak to Corbet-you are all right. We are going to take care of you, my friend, my brother. We will not let the pain take you away from us.
The circle at last came to an unsteady halt, individual chests heaving with exertion. Channa waited, her eyes closed, until rasping breath and the songs they had sung faded, carried off on the breeze with Jaiya's soul.
Adam saw the others look at one another, and at him, with new eyes. He looked upon them with a closer sense of binding as well. He pulled Channa in toward him, his lips grazing her ear. "You are magnificent," he murmured.
Reluctantly, the rest of the group unclasped their hands, breaking the circle. Adam opened the warded circle he had placed around the camp and cloaked the signs of their visit. Martin helped Shireva wrap up Jaiya's remains.
"What if they come back?" the monk asked, breaking the silence at last.
Channa shook her head. "They won't be back."
Adam lifted Jaiya's body off the ground. His spell to relax rigor mortis and the covering of blankets gave her the appearance of a sleeping woman in his arms. He held her close and let the others precede him out of the clearing.
A hand came down on his shoulder. Adam looked at Corbet's ravaged gray eyes, eyes that clung to Jaiya's face. The scholar's hands slid under her, under Adam's grip. The tired, dead anguish in Corbet's gaze became a living thing, a clawing, burning beast that ripped at Adam's heart with its strength. In that moment, standing so close, sharing the woman between them, Adam got a pale sense of the agony that could come from the loss of a love so strong.
He gave Jaiya up to Corbet, and the scholar gathered her to him, curling his arms beneath her covered knees, under her shoulder blades, his palms resting on curves of what used to be thigh and breast. He drew her in to his chest, tucking her head under his bearded chin. His voice was a raw winter wind, echoing with desolation.
"I will carry her."
Friendship is a childhood indulgence.
-Prince Adam Al-Aziz, Age 14
Adam and Channa summoned the gateway from Alma's Forest, and Corbet carried Jaiya through it. Channa went with him to perform the formal Ritual of Parting that was required of her. Alma accompanied them.
Adam was glad that the old woman would be close for the team leader. As Channa's Chosen Consort, some responsibility fell on his shoulders to provide her comfort and support, but the need for him in this world was greater. Neither of them would deter the other from duty. It was as they had been raised, and it was this mutual understanding that caused their parents to urge them to become betrothed. Adam watched her disappear through the gateway. An almost forgotten image of red hair spilling over her bare shoulders flashed through his mind, but it was rudely pushed aside by black hair, braided primly and lying against a neck that was too thin.
Adam had no wish to be alone to reflect on the day's events, but it must be faced. They all needed sleep, if they were to be any good to Jaiya at all. Or Sephira. Martin sniffled into a handkerchief. Adam turned, put a hand on Shireva's shoulder, and placed his other palm on Martin's arm.
"Trelbyn told me once that a solid blow to the head with a horse's hoof is the only sure way to sleep, the night you lose a comrade-in-arms," he offered quietly. "But he told me that if a willing horse could not be found, pick a good memory. You do not have that. But, if you'll permit me..."
He closed his eyes and brought forth the memory, pulling the energy from the earth beneath his feet to offer it to their minds.
Jaiya and Corbet's hands were bound at the wrists with a garland of wildflowers so thick the blooms covered their intertwined fingers. "Speak the words you have written to him," the priest said.
Jaiya took a step closer to the man who would be her husband, and nothing could have outshone the love in her eyes except for the answering fire in his. "If this is the last day I have to live," she said, abandoning the trained voice of a priestess for the slightly trembling voice of a woman overcome by her emotions, "it will be enough. I have found a love that brings me happiness and peace of mind, that will bear me through any sorrow or injustice, that will bring me contentment throughout my life..." She stepped even closer, and the wildflowers were crushed between them. Jaiya laid her hand on his neck and pressed her lips to his ear. "Thank you for choosing me, my love."
Adam opened his eyes. "It is a short memory," he admitted, "But I did not want-"
Shireva reached up and embraced him. It startled him, but Adam recovered enough to return the hug, holding her even more tightly after a moment, taking some of the comfort the human touch offered. When she stepped back, her face was streaked with tears.
"Will you be all right, Your Highness?" Martin asked, unabashedly wiping at the moisture that had collected in his own eyes.
Adam nodded. "Go and get some sleep, both of you."
Martin inclined his head. He offered Shireva an arm, and she took it. The two left the lobby leaned into one another, drawing silent comfort in the way that long familiarity made possible.
Adam turned and surveyed the empty grove, the closed gateway, the dark, interior circle, and desolation drew a long, shaky sigh from him. He swallowed. The first moment had to be the worst. He went out the side door. A waxing moon lit his way, but he did not follow it to his room. He dropped down on a bench, vaguely aware that the wood beneath him was ice cold. It didn't matter. In fact, he welcomed it, the invasion of real, concrete sensations-a cold night, a shining moon, the smell of grass.
He stared off at Malcolm X, a few lights on, but its overall structure dark and shadowed, unyielding of its secrets. The Black School. Something was wrong with the theory, but his mind was too mired in grief to understand where the error lay.
Mataya always said that the surest way to get past the paralyzing pitfalls of despair or inertia was to absorb them, accept them as part of yourself. Why was it that Mataya's wisdom sounded wise only when it wasn't needed?
Perhaps he needed to add another opinion to the recipe. Adam's father had counseled him to take in hard feelings a little at a time. Step into it, feel it a moment or two, then step back.
Adam turned his gaze and the angle of his body toward the women's wing of his own dorm, trying to determine which window was Correen's. Close to where he would have guessed, he located a window framed by simple white lace curtains. The curtains bore her signature like a light perfume, and the garish stickers of brightly colored fish that swam across the glass marked the contrast between the two women who shared the room. Adam closed his eyes, clearing his mind, using the window as a focus. His thoughts drifted, and he imagined sleeping in the room with her, hearing her even breathing, feeling the small shifts of her body alongside his.
Shame cut the meditation short. His betrothed had just left him, her heart torn with pain and guilt. What was wrong with him?
Adam had not consciously willed her into his thoughts, but there she was, her shadow at the window, as if she had been waiting for him all along. His lips twisted over a strangled sound, a chuckle. A slender arm pushed back the curtain. Correen looked out over the courtyard, her eyes lifting upward briefly to acknowledge the moon.
When she lowered her gaze and saw him, he rose and walked toward her. Their gazes held, as intimate and exclusive as the holding of hands. She dipped and raised the window as Adam approached.
"You'll be cold," he admonished.
"You look tired," she said softly, at the same time.
It made him smile, and that brought tears to his eyes. The horror of Jaiya's body lay hidden in the shadows of his mind, and the beauty and wonder of hers reflected painfully on it.
He realized abruptly that he was just staring at her and snapped back to attention. "I'm fine. You look beautiful."
She fiddled with the curtain sash. "Alicia's sleeping," she said irrelevantly.
"But you are not."
Correen shook her head.
"What did you do today?"
"Studied, mainly," she said. "I went to a piano concert in the auditorium after my self-defense class..." She shook her head at herself, probably at both of them. "I thought about our walk." She crossed her forearms on the window ledge and fixed her gaze on him.
Adam slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers and stared at the ground. "We took her home."
"And home is?"
He lifted his head. "The thirteenth century?"
Correen straightened. "I need to do some studying before class."
"Wait." Adam arrested her in a stretch to close the window and she peered at him around her upper arm. His gaze was drawn briefly, despite his most chivalrous intentions, to the way the garment stretched over her upper torso. She flushed, dropping her arms.
He could not make her forget Jaiya, and something kept drawing them together. Adam had vowed that never would there be a question in his own heart of his discipline to his duty, no matter how often his brother or the Lord Council questioned it. He might be experiencing an ill-opportuned romantic attraction to the girl, but if he pushed his confusion about that aside, the feeling gnawing at his gut told him that her involvement was necessary. Crucial.
"I want to tell you where my home is," he decided. "May I see you tomorrow?"
Correen tucked a loose lock of hair back behind her ear with a gloved hand. White cotton gloves that stopped at the wrist. "I don't know. Alicia wants me to go with her someplace. She didn't say where."
Adam nodded. "Then maybe-"
"Oh, I almost forgot. I have something for you," she said abruptly. With a flash of hair and pale blue cloth, she vanished. Adam waited, listening to the faint roll of a drawer being opened and closed, a murmur as someone spoke-Alicia, drawn from sleep-and Correen's unintelligible reply. She reappeared, holding something cupped close to her body. She brought her hands together and swung them outward and apart, over his head.
The white item floated free and descended toward him in slow spirals. Adam reached up. It flirted past his fingers and to the ground. He followed it, bent and scooped it up. Adam examined it. Amazement grasped his features and his gaze shot back up to her.
Correen was gone, the window closed and the curtain back in place.
Adam held the gift up to the moonlight. It was an origami swan, as delicate and perfect a creation as the flesh and blood animal it emulated. The delicate rice paper had been etched with lines to give the appearance of feathers lying against the pale body of the bird.
Why had she made it for him? Had she just wanted to change the subject, so she gave him something she had handy? She had said she wanted to know about Jaiya, but then she backed away from it. No, not from it. From him. The feelings between them frightened and unsettled her, too.
How should he treat their relationship? Should he consider all her actions in relation to his reasons for being at Havenwood, or could there in fact be a personal note to it, intertwined with a larger purpose?
Adam shook his head. There was another reason to avoid personal entanglements; they produced physical headaches.
She gave the swan as a gift of kindness, and he would cherish it as such, given as it was on a night that had been altogether lacking in such.
A movement caught the corner of his vision, a furtive motion, not the casual passing of a student out late. Adam's weariness disappeared instantly.
He held his pose, lifting the swan as if to examine it in a different angle of moonlight. The spy stood in the breezeway between the administration building and the cafeteria, behind the large grouping of uncut shrubs that shrouded the chained cafeteria side doors. When Adam turned, the person stepped back into the shadows of the building.
Adam tucked the swan in his shirt pocket and strode toward the breezeway, but not quite toward it, as if headed for Mahatma Hall and intending to cut a diagonal line across the breezeway to get there. He began to whistle, his peripheral vision targeted on the patch of shadows like a rifle periscope. He stopped to retie a shoelace that didn't need it, rose and continued walking.
He strode onto the concrete walkway and spun on the ball of his foot, plunging into the shadows in a move worthy of Rob's admiration. He locked his arms around a sour smelling bag of bones and loose flesh.
The woman squalled her rage and attacked him with the surprising ferocity of a feral cat, tumbling him onto his back. The back of Adam's head smacked the edge of the concrete. Through the gray haze, he glimpsed an ancient face and eyes glittering with madness.
"The time of the four kings approaches," the hag hissed, her breath hot with decay, as if her insides were rotting. "They'll eat your soul." Claws honed to razor points slashed at Adam's face. One split his eyelid and blood flooded his vision. Adam caught at her hands, struggling through the concussion. She slipped from his grasp, and he lunged blindly after her. He caught a smooth, crisp pant leg, and her kick caught him square in the chest.
There wasn't much strength to it, but he was off balance, and it tipped him back into the shrubs. He scrambled out of their grasp, furious, mopping the blood out of his eye with his shirtfront.
He spun, spun again. Adam cursed. She had vanished, as if she had taken flight on black vulture wings.
He stopped at the restroom and cleaned the blood off his face, but the gash on his eyelid and the swelling that went with it could not be hidden. Adam shook his head at his reflection and wondered wryly what new injuries his face would suffer tomorrow.
He hoped Rob slept, so he could answer the inevitable questions after a few hours of sleep, but, as usual, Rob was up and at his computer, a book cradled on the keyboard. One hand absently moved the mouse back and forth as he read.
He glanced over his shoulder and then came full around in his chair. "Jesus, what the hell happened? Don't tell me you went back for a second round with the effervescent Miss Seabra."
Adam wilted onto the bed with a half smile at the thought. Niko shimmied up the side and scuttled onto his chest. Adam's hand found the rodent and squeezed him, before it dropped back over his head.
"I'm fine," he assured his roommate. "I did see Correen tonight, but I did this when I stumbled and fell on the walkway."
Rob studied him with cool hazel eyes. "Yeah, I've noticed you're a real klutz."
"How was your day?" Adam asked courteously.
Rob tilted his chair back, and was a moment before answering. "Oh, the usual. I got laid six or seven times, gave the president a few tips on the Middle East situation, read a few comics. I made plans for us for tomorrow, if you're interested."
Adam peered out from under his forearm. "What does 'got laid' mean?"
Rob pulled a book out of a bag crumpled next to his chair and tossed it over to Adam. It landed with a thump on the mattress. Niko yanked his tail from beneath the object and glared balefully. "Sorry, Rat-man."
"The Complete Oxford Dictionary of American Slang?"
"Yeah, we've moved into the candy-and-flowers stage. I'm bringing you gifts. Look up 'laid.'"
Adam turned on his side, dumping Niko in the space between his knees and stomach. He paged through the paperback. His eyebrow raised. "Six or seven times? I'd say you had more free time today than I did. What plans did you make for me?"
"First, that's not the type of thing you work into your schedule. You work your schedule around it. Second, I figure it's about as true as your falling down and having a sharp point of a flat sidewalk poke you in the eye. You know what else is weird about you? You never study. You're never here. You don't strike me as the type of person who doesn't do his homework."
"I study when you are not in the room," Adam said.
"You are so full of shit."
Adam tensed, but Rob relented abruptly, waving an affable hand. "Forget it. We're not married or anything. Even though, I will mention that I did stay home with your furry kid while you were out stumbling over flat surfaces. Is there anything he won't eat?"
"Nothing I know of. What plans did you make for me?"
Rob grinned. "There's a friendly little softball game in Lafayette Park, tomorrow afternoon."
"I wish I could go, Rob, but..."
"You can't back out of this one. Everyone will be there. Adrian, Tad, Darwin, Alicia, Lanny, and, unfortunately, Edward. We can thank Melanie for that one, of course. She talked the asshole into coming. If I know Edward, and I know me, we'll end up on opposite teams. I'd like to give you the opportunity to help me kick his ass. And, before you try to weasel out of it, Alicia's trying to get Correen to go." Rob grinned. "Not that you would find that the least bit interesting."
"Do Edward and Melanie still date?"
"I'm not sure what goes on between those two. Nobody does." Rob tugged a cigarette out of the pack next to the keyboard. "Got my lighter? Yeah, they still date. Melanie's got a heart of gold, but the brain of a cocker spaniel."
Adam lifted a hand to scratch Niko's ears. The rat flattened down to a furry pancake, humming with pleasure. "What's between you and Edward? It seems like more than what happened with Giovanni."
Rob lifted one shoulder. The computer beeped. "Hold on a minute, let me get this." He tapped several keys, smacked the return button with his thumb and blew ashes dislodged from his cigarette beyond the range of the board, before they fell to the surface of the keys. Adam waited and watched his roommate's capable handling of the machine. His brow creased thoughtfully. Rob turned in the chair.
"Okay, I guess there's a little more to me and Edward, but the only reason I'm going to tell you this is because of Correen, all right?"
Adam frowned. "What does Correen have to do with it?"
"I'll get to that." Rob hooked a leg over the top of the chair and leaned back against the edge of his desk. "You know how some animals will drive away other animals that don't smell right? Well, Edward is like that. There's something wrong with him, something you just can't put your finger on, but you can feel it."
Rob shrugged. "I'm Edward's first and last living roommate. We were bunked together my first quarter here. Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and get the oddest feeling he'd been watching me sleep. Just sitting there for hours, smoking his goddamned cigarettes, staring at me. I could have dealt with that, but he ... well, I may not always be the nicest guy to the women I date, but it's the kind of insensitivity where they can tell me to go fuck myself and be done with it." Rob shifted. "There's something ... sick about the way Edward feels about women."
"How so?" Adam coughed and Rob rose, going to the window. He cracked it and stood there, holding the cigarette to the small opening so the smoke would not fill the room. Rob studied Adam for a few moments, apparently weighing some things in his mind. Adam waited, his gold eyes never wavering from his roommate's face.
"I want you to know something. I've pretty much been aware from the very first minute you moved in here that you've been pumping me for information, while you tell me jack shit about yourself."
Adam straightened, bringing his legs to the floor. "Rob-"
"No," Rob shook his head. "I don't want to hear a load of the bullshit you've been feeding me. I'm just telling you so you know, what I tell you, I tell you because I want to, even knowing that. I hate talking about this, but I'm going to, because despite what I say about Ms. Ice Princess, I like her, and I think you do, too. When you're ready to tell me what you're really going after, I'll be ready to listen. But until then, don't feed me crap." Rob broke the contact, flicking some ash out the window and following its descent with his gaze, leaving Adam at a loss for words. His roommate did not leave him the gap, regardless.
"My first year at Havenwood, I had a girlfriend back home, Eleanore. She came up to visit me for a week. After a couple days she begged to go to class with me, because she didn't like being alone in the room with Edward. As soon as I left, he'd start saying all sorts of weird-ass shit to her, like he knew it was close to her time of the month because he could smell her blood." Rob's hazel eyes turned back to Adam, became brittle with anger. "If she tried to leave the room, he'd block her way until she'd get so scared, she'd yell at him or start to cry. Then he'd just walk back to his desk, like she wasn't even there. If she went somewhere else on campus, he'd follow and sit nearby, staring. I confronted him about it, told him to knock it off or I'd beat the shit out of him, and the psycho acted like he didn't know what I was talking about."
Rob tossed the cigarette out the window and returned to the chair, straddling it. He crossed his arms on the top and propped his chin on his forearm, staring at the footboard of Adam's bed. "The last night she was here, we had the room to ourselves. Edward left for the weekend." He exhaled deeply, shaking his head. "This is going to sound way out there, but I've gone over it a million times, and it figures the same way every time.
"That night I dreamed that I was surrounded by thick, gray fog, and I couldn't breathe. It was like being submerged in cotton, gray cotton all around you, and you're trying to inhale it like air, but you can't. I was drowning in this fog. When I finally reached the point where you're so fucking scared that some tiny part of your brain tells you to wake up, because this is just a dream, and everything will be all right if you just wake up ... I couldn't. I couldn't wake up. I knew I was dreaming, but I was trapped in it. Then all of a sudden, the fog was gone and I heard this terrible screaming, and it was Eleanore." Rob twisted, looked for another cigarette, so his words came muffled over his shoulder. "I've never heard someone scream when they're completely terrified. It has a whole different sound to it. She was yelling at me to help her, to get something off her. Someone had laid a dead cat in her arms like she was cradling a baby. They had pulled out the intestines, and tied them around her ankles and wrists."
Adam drew in a breath and Rob's head swung back around, holding his gaze with angry, troubled eyes. "I had a photo of Eleanore with her cat, in that mirror over there. The dead cat was a gray tabby, just like hers.
"I did everything to prove it was Edward, but his parents said he was with them all weekend. I told Bradley they were lying, and, big surprise, he told me Edward's parents were considering a defamation suit if I didn't let it go. I didn't have much choice, but I'll tell you one thing," Rob thumped a pointed finger against the top of the chair for emphasis, "if women ever start disappearing or showing up dead around here, I'd loose the police on his ass in a minute. I'd make up evidence if I had to, and that's pretty fucked up when you're planning to be a lawyer."
"And you feel Correen ties into this, how?"
Rob twisted the unlit cigarette in his hand. "This is a gut thing, all right? No," he waved at Adam as he picked up the dictionary. "Intuition. Edward has a twisted view of women. But he has a particular interest in Correen."
Cold fingers clutched in Adam's abdomen. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
Rob shook his head. "I don't know. I just know. The thing in the music hall, for one thing. Ever since Eleanore, I keep a close eye on him. Hell, I've even broken into his school files on-line to monitor everything I can about him. He watches Correen a lot. And she's aware of it. She has a particular aversion to him. You can see it whenever they're within a hundred yards of each other."
Adam nodded at the computer. "And what did you find in his file?"
"It's disgustingly clean. High school grades, name, address, social security number, and parents with so much clout they could get the president to do the funky chicken on national television. There wasn't even a note about my complaint." Rob produced a piece of squashed bubble gum out of his jeans pocket and rolled it over the surface of the bed to Niko. The rat sniffed at it suspiciously.
"Have you checked it since then?"
"No. What would be the point? With parents like that, he could blow up one of the classrooms and not even rate a wrist slap with a wooden ruler." Rob glanced at Adam's startled face. "Hey, did I say something wrong?"
"No," Adam shook his head. "Perhaps you should check it again."
"Why are you so curious?"
Adam shrugged. "What happened to Eleanore?"
"What happens to most women who think they've fallen in love with me. She realized I was a jerk and threw me over for a Georgia Tech engineering major. The worst thing his roommate probably ever did to her was surprise her in her cute cotton thong undies. By the way, I recognize a diversion when I hear one. Nice try."
Adam made a dismissive gesture. "I have my reasons," he admitted.
"Reasons you won't discuss." Rob snorted. "Never mind. If I re-check it, and there's any dirt, I'll demand payment in the form of honest answers, so be prepared to spill your guts. And that's all the soul baring I'm going to do tonight. All right?"
Adam inclined his head. "Thank you for telling me, Rob." At his roommate's uncomfortable shrug, he tapped the cover of the dictionary. "And thank you for this."
"Think nothing of it, m'boy. It's what Southern hospitality is all about. Which reminds me, there's a regional slang listing in there, so you may want to bone up on the Southern vernacular. It is the most civilized of all languages."
"Hmmp." Adam hesitated, then lay back on the bed, closing his eyes. After a moment of studying him, Rob turned back to his legal text.
A light rap at the door fifteen minutes later brought Rob's attention out of it. Adam breathed rhythmically, his arm thrown over his forehead. Rob rose to open the door.
"Well, now, little lady, what can I do for you?" he murmured.
Lanny slipped in, obeying the finger on his lips as she saw Adam on the bed. Rob caught her in a tight hug and she returned it, giggling softly as he lifted her briefly off her feet. She took the chair at Adam's desk and brought it close to Rob's.
"What happened to him?" she whispered, gesturing at Adam's marked face.
"Rough sex. Correen's an animal. Who knew?"
Lanny grimaced at him. "Can you be serious for a minute? I need to talk to you about something important. Darius asked me to help him with something on Sunday."
Rob scowled. "I thought you said you weren't going to do that anymore."
"That is not what I said. I said I doubted he would need me again. As it turns out, he does. He also needs a technogeek. The doors of the target are locked electronically and we need to break the computer codes and download a database." She straightened one leg so she could dig in the pocket of her jeans. "Here's what our helping hand on the inside knows about the system. We'll need thirty minutes. I know how you love a challenge." Her eyes danced and she bent forward, tickling his knees.
"Back," Rob pulled them out of her reach and slapped her hands away as he perused the crumpled paper. The hazel eyes became absorbed in the information, and she sat back in her chair, content to be invisible for a few moments. Rob laid the paper on the keyboard. "What's your job this time?"
"If you agree to help, I'll be covering your back while you do the computer work. Four others will be renovating, so to speak. Darius and one other guy were supposed to pull out a couple of the worst ones to turn over to his outside contact group for the press conference, but Darius's partner came down with pneumonia so he's going to have to do it alone. That is, unless you or anyone else on the team can find someone instantaneously trustworthy who has nerves of steel."
"Funny you should ask," Rob responded, his eyes locking with Niko's across the room. The rat stared back grumpily, one cheek ballooned up with the wad of gum. Rob grinned. "What if I say I won't do it?"
She shrugged. "We'd get someone else and go anyway."
"And your pretty ass would be in the hands of some lesser technogeek. What a manipulative bitch you are."
Hurt flared in Lanny's eyes. In one quick move she retrieved the paper, re-tucked it in her pocket and headed for the door. "Go fuck yourself, Steigir."
"Hey, I didn't mean-" Rob lunged out of his chair and caught her arm, blocking a swing that would have left him marked like a raccoon. He captured both of her arms. "I didn't mean it, Lanny. It was just a joke."
The girl glared up at him, and though she whispered for Adam's benefit, her eyes shot flame. "Don't you ever treat me like I'm one of those nameless girls you fuck when I'm not around. The ones you think I don't know about. I'm not using our relationship to get you to do this. I thought you felt the same way I do. If you don't, I don't ... we don't want your help."
"Hey, I do feel the same way. I'll do it. All right?" He bent his knees slightly so he could look into her downcast face. "C'mon, give me a break here. I'm an asshole, what can I say?"
"Yes, you are." She blinked a couple times and tossed her head back. He lifted his hand and she blocked it. "Don't touch me. Who did you have in mind to replace Darius's partner?"
"Him."
"Adam?" Her voice dropped another octave. "Rob, you've known him two weeks."
Rob shrugged and considered his sleeping roommate. "He's definitely got nerve, and he's hiding so many secrets I don't think one more will bother him much. I trust my gut on people, Lanny. You know it's good. Darius trusts it, too. He'll go with it, if I say Adam's okay."
"Maybe you should tell me what I am doing first?" Adam's eyes opened to tawny, cat-like slits.
"I knew you weren't asleep," Rob accused. "You didn't fart. All men fart when they sleep."
Lanny gave him an arch look. "Remind me not to stick around two minutes after we-"
"Enough trivial conversation," Rob motioned at her chair and she took it with a satisfied look. "Adam, Lanny's going to explain to you what the hell we're talking about."
"Well, after we have sex, Rob generally-"
Rob grabbed the back of her chair and tilted it on two legs so he could glare down into her teasing face. Lanny reached up and yanked a chest hair from the many that crawled out of his shirt collar up the base of his neck. "Ow! Jesus, woman!"
She thumped the chair back to the floor, grinning smugly. Adam had sat up, and was giving her his full attention. Lanny hesitated and looked at Rob. Rob nodded. She took a deep breath.
"Darius is part of a network that tries to shut down companies and labs that do testing on animals. There's a lab about sixty miles from here, but up until now we haven't had enough information to break into it. Someone finally got one of the caretakers to give her an after-hours tour. They do all sorts of contract work for other companies." At Adam's puzzled look, she explained. "That's when a company tries to stay clean by saying it isn't doing animal research, when in reality they're paying a company like this to do it for them. Darius is taking a team in to steal records that will show which companies are using this place and the type of things being done to the animals."
"What happens if we're caught?"
"Well, we get thrown in jail. The cops would hold you overnight, question you, and then let you out on your own cognizance until your trial date, provided you're a first offender." She studied him. "Will you do it?"
"Perhaps." Adam considered, a frown flitting across his features. "If I do this thing," he spoke to Rob, "will you give me a favor?"
Rob shot him a surprised look. "That's 'do me a favor.' Is that a condition?"
"It justifies the risk, yes."
"Oh." Rob nodded slowly. "You going to tell me what you want now, or after?"
"After."
"Of course, the blackmail factor." Rob smiled grimly. "Okay, deal."
Lanny frowned curiously at both of them, but neither man appeared to want to elaborate on the unspoken bargain, so she forged ahead doggedly. "I need to tell you a whole bunch of other stuff about this job, but before I do, you need to understand that I've taken a huge risk telling you this much. Darwin is completely clean of animal rights activity. That's why he can do this and not be suspected. You could have all of us thrown in jail, just based on this conversation. But Rob says we can trust you. Can we?"
Adam looked from her direct, uncertain gaze to his roommate's. Rob's hazel eyes were intent on him. Adam looked back at Lanny. "I will not dishonor his trust. Or yours."
Rob nodded, satisfied. "Lanny, I think you've got Darwin a new partner."
Lord Trelbyn, the enclosed is as objective a report as I can produce, based upon the feelings I have expressed about this task. He is making some errors, mainly due to inexperience, but he quickly compensates for these errors. It has been my experience that Prince Adam is a fair and just person, more self-critical than most, so I do not understand why you require my analysis of his competence. However, I remain obedient to the Lords of the Continuum, servants, like myself, to the wishes of Those Who Are Not Seen.
-Channahon Ellyn, Confidential Report to Lord Trelbyn
Adam swiveled the borrowed baseball cap around on his head, imitating Rob, with the bill shadowing his shoulder blades. He did not like it, so he swiveled it back to the front. His hair now felt like the beveled top of a jar, so he took off the hat, straightened his hair with his fingers and plunked the cap back on his head. Rob watched him, his hazel eyes twinkling.
"Christ, I feel like I'm going to play baseball with Data."
"Who?"
"Never mind. You've got to hang around the room long enough to watch more TV. Relax, will you? This is supposed to be fun. There isn't some law in your tribe against fun, is there?"
An image flashed through Adam's head. Children playing in the courtyard as he watched, hidden in the shadows. He shook his head, pushing the memories away.
"You don't talk much about yourself, do you?" Rob squinted up at him, blinking into the early morning sun that hovered above his roommate's left shoulder.
Adam squatted down beside him, making it easier for them to look at each other. Rob sat on the curb, his legs stretched out before him, a comic in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Lanny says you should stop smoking." Adam nodded at the cigarette.
"Lanny says a lot of things," Rob shrugged. "She just hasn't gotten it through her stubborn female head that I'm a drinking, smoking, womanizing asshole. Oh, I swear too. And did I mention womanizing?"
Adam's jaw tensed against a smile. "I think she knows. She loves you anyway."
"Yeah, well, therein lies the problem." Rob ground out the cigarette and slipped the butt into his pocket. "New topic."
"You don't like to talk about yourself, either. You-" Adam pulled his dictionary from his back pocket and quickly flipped through the pages. "Bullshit. A lot."
"You give them a gift, and they turn it against you. If I hadn't seen you naked, I'd swear you were a woman."
Adam chuckled and they sat in the sun for a few moments in silence. "Rob?"
"Hmm." Rob folded back a page of the comic.
"Why did you ask me to do this?"
Rob didn't take his attention from the magazine. "I don't know. Maybe it's because you're one of those sensitive types that women just looovve. I figure the more I hang out with you, the luckier I'll get."
"Oh, yes," Adam touched his eye, which still bore a purple bruise from Correen's fist. "I am a real man of the ladies."
"Ladies' man," Rob interjected, with a trace of a smile. "And there's only one major difference between you and me when it comes to women, Don Quixote."
"And that is?"
Rob looked up and grinned. "I know when to duck."
Adam's reply was lost in a screech as a van careened around the corner. Patches of rust on the van's white exterior gave it the appearance of a Jersey cow. It accelerated abruptly, wavered up the street, sidestepped to the curb and bumped its front tire up on the sidewalk. Rob and Adam leaped back as a bellow emitted from inside the van.
"Ho, Adrian, love, I said a slight turn to the right!"
Rob opened the passenger door and they confronted a student grinning beneath a tangled mop of long, orange hair. A pewter skeleton ear cuff hung from one ear studded up the inner curl with tiny Celtic crosses. Adrian sat in the driver's seat, a look of consternation on her skinny face. "I'm so sorry, Rob! Cieran's been teaching me to drive and I'm afraid I still overcompensate."
"Don't worry, little girl. What you can't see can't hurt, right? Adam'll be here as soon as he pulls his leg out from under the front tire."
"I'm fine," Adam said hastily over Adrian's gasp. He leaned past Cieran, giving him a friendly nod, and touched her white knuckled hand on the wheel.
The half-full van of softball players made room and a flurry of introductions came at Adam as Cieran and Adrian traded places. Melanie bestowed her slow, wistful smile on him. "I'm so glad you came. How are you doing on catch-up work?"
"Your notes helped, very much," Adam responded. "Where's your daughter?"
"Oh," Melanie looked away. "She and Edward don't get along too well, so she's staying with my neighbor. She has a little girl, too."
"And Edward?" Adam looked around the van.
"He's meeting us at the park."
"Well, here's a surprise for you," Rob announced as they came to an only slightly less bumpy halt in front of Lanny's dorm. Correen stood stock still and watchful on the curb, like a wild animal ready to shy at the next sudden movement. Alicia pushed herself off the bumper of a car, straightening her long sleeved cotton shirt. Lanny stood beside her, tossing a softball in the air. Adam noted them, then flicked his attention back to Correen. She wore jeans, dark blue gloves, and an oversized dark blue thermal shirt covered by a black T-shirt.
"Now, I wonder what made Correen decide to join us, hmm?" Rob inquired of the air.
Correen hesitated before the open door of the van, filled with faces and rowdy laughter. Alicia pushed her in, then squeezed in next to Adrian. Lanny graciously accepted Rob's knee. Adam rose, nodding to Correen, and gestured her to his spot on the wheel cover. She accepted but sat primly, hands folded in her lap, her braided hair a black, paved road over the curve of her right breast. Adam slid down the wall of the van, squatting next to her. "This is what Alicia wanted you to do."
Correen nodded. "You know, I could stand-" she said uncomfortably.
He grimaced at her. "Not ... a chance. Mataya would flay me alive, if he knew I made a woman stand while I sat. My father and older brother would help him."
What was it about a man acting the gentleman that could soften a woman's heart like chocolate sitting in a sun-filled room? Correen scowled irritably, ignoring the fact that his words created a warmth inside her that made the van seem less claustrophobic. The van tipped around a corner, and she grasped at the metal beneath her. Adam tapped her knee with a finger and tilted his shoulder toward her. She shook her head politely and tried to study the others in the van without looking at anyone directly, discouraging conversation with him or anyone else.
The van lurched and braked, then accelerated, throwing all occupants forward and back. Correen lost her purchase on the wheel cover and slid neatly into Adam's arms.
Adam smiled at her reassuringly. "Don't worry. This happens all the time in the romance novels that Rob reads."
Correen struggled to get out of his lap, but another group of players entered the van and two took the wheel seat, pushing Adam and Correen into a snug back corner. Adam braced his broad shoulders between the two walls and shifted his grip on her to keep his balance.
She wasn't helping by maintaining her rigid posture. It wasn't like she intended to be his arms, and now there was nowhere else to sit. Adam sighed, made an amused, exasperated face at her, picked up her hand and shook it slightly, demonstrating the tension in her forearm. Correen bit back a nervous smile. He guided her arm up and laid her hand on his shoulder. The natural place for her fingers was curled around the base of his neck, where the ends of his hair tickled her knuckles through the gloves. The long muscle that ran down the side of his throat was beneath her fingers, and she had the sudden, horrifying desire to stroke its length. Her other hand rested on his forearm, because it lay across her thighs, and her fingers curled in on themselves to keep from nervously plucking at the dark hairs on his arm.
"What do you think the deal is back there, Wildcat?" Rob murmured.
Alicia leaned over to him and Lanny, using the van noise to cover conversation. "She won't say a word about him. I know she changed her hair three times. Up, down, up. I thought we were going to be late."
"Adam's pretty tight-lipped, too. About a lot of things."
"But you're sure we can trust him?" Lanny asked when Alicia turned to a conversation with Adrian.
Rob shrugged, tightening his grip on her waist. "I trust him. I can't explain why exactly, I just do. He's a natural to work with Darwin. Adam never lets down his guard. Well," Rob qualified with a grin and a nod toward the pair, "except when he's with her. Usually he's so aware of his surroundings he could close his eyes right now and tell you what every person in this van is wearing down to stripes or checks. You remember what I told you about that day in the cafeteria, how he bounced the tray off that guy's jaw? Improvisation is second nature to him."
Lanny rolled her eyes. "He sounds like an undercover cop."
Rob shook his head. "He's not a cop. There's something different about him, but it's not a bad different. Hey, did I mention how good you feel?"
Lanny shifted her weight meaningfully on his lap. "I think you've been telling me for the past two miles."
He grinned and squeezed her. "Hey, Adam!"
Adam broke out of the world he and Correen shared. With a guilty look, she drew her hand down from his neck to a less intimate place on his shoulder, though it cramped her body more awkwardly. "Yes?" Adam asked, reaching up and drawing her hand back up, patting it into place for emphasis.
"Do you play softball where you come from?"
"No. I'm unfamiliar with the game. What does it test?"
Rob sighed. "'No, I don't know shit about the game. How the hell do you play?'"
Adam smiled and shifted, cradling Correen more securely. "Must every sentence contain this word, 'shit'?"
"Hell, no. There's a wide variety of colorful phrases in the English language. 'Shit' just rolls off the tongue easier."
"For some people, shit rolls off the tongue easier," Lanny interjected tartly. "What do you mean by 'test,' Adam?"
"In my village, games test abilities. Endurance, strength, mind..."
"Lanny, I never realized you had any complaints with how I use my tongue." Rob ducked her backhand and grinned at Adam. "Generally, we play softball because it's fun. Remember me mentioning that word? That's why they call it a game. Did you grow up in a military camp or what? What kind of sports have you played? Tests, whatever you call them?"
"Cross country," Adam responded. Lanny murmured with interest. "Wrestling, sword ... fencing, equestrian training..."
"No team sports? Basketball, football?" Rob asked with a horrified expression. Adam shook his head. "Hell, no wonder you've got that wimpy way of talking. If you don't play contact sports, you don't know how to walk-"
"Slight swagger, hand on testicles," Alicia intoned.
"Eat-"
"Sans utensils," Lanny riposted.
"Talk to women-" Rob continued, gritting his teeth.
"Hey babe, wanna check out the size of my jock strap?" Alicia returned.
"Hell, everything you need to survive," Rob favored them with a withering glare, though the van rocked with laughter.
Adam pulled out the pocket dictionary, holding it before him and Correen since his one arm curled around her back and the other rested on her knees. He found "wimp," snorted, then fanned to the "s" section. He flipped through the pages, puzzled, until she tapped his wrist.
"It means 'without' in French. It's not slang."
Rob grinned. "Are you caught up now? Don't worry! We'll teach you to play softball the All-American way. I think the Georgian way may be too dangerous for your first time out, and we don't have a good swamp anyway."
The van nose-dived to a halt ten minutes later, halfway onto the grass at Lafayette Park. Cieran threw the vehicle into reverse, backed off the curb and parked.
Adam saw Edward Brautigan immediately. He sat alone like a coiled cobra on the hood of a black sports car. Melanie popped out of the van and skipped over to him, her blonde ponytail swinging. She wrapped her arms around him in a warm hug. His response was slow, as though his limbs were not programmed for affection. He wore a pair of black jeans and a plain red T-shirt, his dark hair covered by an unmarked black baseball cap. The student looked haggard, almost ill. Melanie searched his face with a look of concern. Edward shrugged her questions off and pushed her away from him.
Another carload of students driven by Darius had followed the van, so now twenty Havenwood students crowded around the vehicles. "All right," Alicia shouted. "We need two team captains, any volunteers?"
"I'll be one," Edward grunted.
"Yo, Leesh, I'll take the other," Rob immediately offered.
"Shit," Alicia murmured to Adam. Correen moved past him to take a place with the spectators, her face tense, preoccupied. On impulse, Adam caught her braid, bringing her up short. She tugged free, scowling but less self-conscious, and hurried away. Adam flexed his fingers, rolling the hair band he had snagged over his wrist for safekeeping.
"Adam!" Rob called, motioning his roommate to his side. "We're up first. Seriously, do you know anything about this game?"
"I do not know shit," Adam responded pleasantly.
"Ain't that the truth," Rob muttered. "Lanny!"
Adam winced as the bellow hit his right ear at point blank range and Rob grinned. "Sorry about that. There you are. What were you doing over there with the other team?"
The auburn-haired girl wiggled her nose at him. "Making a date with Edward for after the game. So what do you want?"
"Wise-ass. Why don't you tell Adam the rules to this game, sport, test, whatever he wants to call it, and I'll get a batting lineup organized."
"No problem. But hey, wait a minute-" Lanny caught hold of the waistband of his jeans, hauling him back. "We're playing nice, today, you hear? You and Edward start anything, and all of us girls are going home."
Rob threw a look full of disgust at Adam. "Women! They don't understand about brawling. It's a primordial need, like-"
"Belching, throwing up in the back seat of your car, and bragging about having sex when you're eleven. I mean it, Rob."
Rob bent his knees to meet her eye to eye. "Okay," he said. His fingers snaked out and tweaked her right breast, then he was gone before she could retaliate, or so he thought. Quick as a shot, Lanny bent, scooped up a ball and bat and brought them together. The ball plowed into the small of Rob's back, eliciting a yelp.
"That," Lanny shouldered the bat and fixed a flashing eye on an impressed Adam, "is called a line drive."
Correen marked out a space for herself apart from the other students watching. Rob and his team loosened up with the bats, while Edward's team threw the ball between base and outfielders. Adam sat next to Lanny on the bench, his head bent attentively to her as she pointed to the bases and made expressive movements with her hands.
Adrian appeared before Correen, her smile almost as bright as the sun that illuminated her pixie face like a halo. "Do you mind if I sit with you for a moment?"
Correen squinted up into the sunlight. "No." She moved over on her towel, smoothing it out for the blind girl. She saw Cieran about twenty yards away, watching to make sure Adrian reached her destination. He gave Correen a little salute and returned to watching the warm-up. Correen linked her hands around her knees and watched Adam.
"So, why aren't you playing?" Adrian asked.
Correen hesitated, then laid a hand in hers. Adrian felt the misformed digits. "Alicia mentioned this, but I forgot. The other one, too?"
"Yes." Correen doubted Adrian ever forgot a single detail about anyone, but she let it pass.
"They must give you a fit when it rains."
"I have an herb salve I put on them, under the gloves. It helps."
"Really? Would it work on my mother? She has arthritis in her toes."
"I don't know. I'll write it down for her if you like."
"Okay." They sat for another quiet moment. The blind girl chuckled.
"What?"
"Darius and Rob. They said something funny."
The two men were across the field, behind the batting cage, surrounded by teammates. Correen looked back at the blind girl, intrigued. "What did they say?"
"Well, Rob said something about Darius's size and Darius told Rob that someone as puny as him wouldn't make it on the offensive line." Adrian rocked back and forth. "Men. Ninety percent testosterone, ten percent gods. Speaking of gods, what does Adam look like?"
"What?"
"What does he look like? I mean, I've given his face the once-over, but most people get a little nervous when you try to feel the rest of them." The fifteen-year-old grinned impishly and Correen almost smiled despite herself.
"Why are you asking me?"
"Why not? You see as good as anybody else."
Correen looked across the field at the man who now stood, experimentally swinging the bat, pulling the muscles across his back. He tilted his head toward Lanny as she instructed him. "He's wearing a pair of Rob's jeans, I think," Correen said slowly. "They're a little loose. And a Born to Be Republican T-shirt, long-sleeved."
"Remind me to nominate Rob for the Ugly American award. That wasn't exactly what I meant in the way of a description, though. How does he move?"
"What do you mean?" Though Correen knew what she meant. Correen's skin felt frighteningly thin, almost transparent. The desire to go back to the school, where no one would expect her to have fun or talk, clutched in her stomach. This had been mistake.
"Well," Adrian scooted closer, her shoulder brushing Correen's. "Rob moves like he feels naked without a football. Alicia strokes through the air, like a panther searching for dinner. Lanny moves like-"
"How do you know that?"
"I ask people to describe them, people who care about them. Lanny told me about Rob. Channa told me about Alicia. And Rob carts me around on his back half the time, so that gave me an idea of how he walks, too."
"Adrian, I barely know Adam," Correen said. "Why don't you ask someone like Rob? He's right over by the batting cage."
"Oh, sure. I can hear it now," Adrian's voice became more husky and Rob-like. "'He walks like a guy, Adrian. You know, like me-cool, suave, like he's hauling a cannon between his legs, heh-heh-heh.'"
Correen's lips twitched. "Oh, Adrian, why are you asking me this?"
"Because you know. I can't see, but I can hear, and I know you two like each other. Character is a big part of how someone looks. I mean, how would you describe your mother versus a stranger? That's what I mean. So what does he look like?"
"Like a guy," Correen said flatly. Since Adrian claimed to hear so well, she made the anger clear in her voice.
An uncomfortable moment later, the blind girl broke the silence with a murmured, "Well, I'll see you a little later," and rose to head back toward Cieran. Correen made sure Adrian reached him, then looked back at the field. She bit her lip. She hated being here. Why was she here?
"A man. He moves like a man," she admitted to the breeze. The way a man should move. Casual, restrained grace molded over every powerful, lion-like movement.
As if he heard her, Adam's head turned toward her. He walked across the field with that same graceful, leonine stride, the bat swinging from loose fingers. Even in play, he carried himself with unconscious dignity. He knelt before her, bracing himself on the bat.
"So how am I doing?"
"Fine, for someone who's never played softball," Correen responded tartly.
"Perhaps you should show me how it is done, since you're so wise." He tugged at her braid, unraveling it some more.
"Stop." She pulled the braid from his grasp and looked up at him, only to find his face an inch away. In the time it took her to draw in a startled, unsettled breath, Adam's lips had descended onto hers. His hand caressed her jaw, the tips of his fingers nestling into her hair. It was good she had drawn in that breath, because it was a long, breathless moment before he pulled back.
Correen stared at him. "Please stop doing this."
"When you ask because you want me to stop, I will. You're asking now because you're afraid of how it makes you feel."
"I don't feel anything."
His brow rose. "I'm not doing it right, then. I should try again." He started to lean toward her.
Correen stiffened.
"Are you playing or what?"
Knife thrust under third rib, fatal. Adam's mind echoed Mataya's stern lecture on allowing an enemy to approach from behind. He rose and faced Edward Brautigan, keeping Correen behind him.
Edward Brautigan was a handsome man, but the total lack of emotion in the opaque eyes marred his strong facial features. The muscles of his arms stretched out the sleeves of his cotton T-shirt. His hair had been shaved so close that his scalp showed through the black.
"I don't believe we've met. You're Edward?"
"Yeah." The student ignored the proffered hand. "And you're Adam. Your team's waiting."
"Yours, also."
Edward shrugged a massive shoulder. "I'll be over in a minute."
"I'll wait, and we can walk together."
Edward stepped closer, bringing them nearly chest to chest. Adam held his ground, but Correen saw the sudden tension straighten his stance, and the air around them grew a great deal more still.
"Listen, asshole," Edward said. "I don't want to get into her pants. I've got my own piece of ass, if you hadn't noticed." He jerked his head toward Melanie in the outfield. "I want to talk to her for a minute, that's all."
Adam's jaw tightened. "Do you wish to speak to him?"
Correen shrugged. She looked down, noted she was twisting grass out of the ground by the roots and quickly folded her fingers back in her lap.
Edward moved forward and Adam brought the bat up, gently blocking him.
"I do not think so." Ice laced Adam's voice. "I've bound myself to this woman with an oath of protection, which means I can't defer to her judgment. I won't leave her alone with a man who has attacked her."
The dark eyes that had been as flat and expressionless as a shark's now glittered with anger. Edward was not used to being thwarted, Adam noted with interest. The man's lips peeled back in a feral snarl. "Are you willing to die for her, asshole?"
"Are you willing to die for the right to threaten her?" The spidery red veins that fed the dark irises increased in thickness. A muscle twitched by the narrow nose. Adam seized Edward's arm, thwarting the rise of the clenched fist.
Living, writhing snakes of power raised their heads to strike. It was Adam's own power, twisted and warped into a mirror image. His own powers roared in response, uncalled, churning through the energy centers of his body. Adam jerked back.
"You got a problem here?" Rob said, appearing behind Edward's shoulder.
Adam found his focus and balanced. Edward's dark eyes burned fire in his face, but he could not tell if the other student had felt what he had. "No problems."
Edward spun on his heel and strode off to the pitcher's mound.
"You just gotta make friends wherever you go, don't you?" Rob grinned. "I was hoping you might start something so I could jump to your defense. Then Lanny couldn't say I started it."
"Are we ready?"
"Yeah. You're batting fourth."
"I'll be there in a moment."
Rob took the hint, nodded, dipped his head to Correen and trotted away.
"You can't protect me, you know." Correen squinted up at him, her mouth tight, face pale.
"I would die trying," he said, and meant it so sincerely that he saw his own intensity reflected in her eyes.
"A world without you in it would be far worse than anything that could happen to me," she whispered.
"Adam!" Rob's impatient shout resounded across the field.
Adam swallowed, hard, caught between the need to go and the overwhelming desire to stay here and follow the course of the emotions that had brought forth her words. In his mind, a page turned, and he remembered a girl in a field of lavender and gold flowers. Then the memory was gone, and Correen sat tensely before him. "You better go," she said, and he knew she wasn't worried about Rob's impatience.
"I won't be far," he promised.
A moment later, he dropped down next to Alicia on the batter's bench.
"Everything okay?" she asked. "My roommate looks green." As if on cue, Correen rose and proceeded hastily toward the park restrooms. Alicia put a hand on Adam's arm. "She'll be all right. She just has a hard time dealing with people."
"You've known her a long time?" He kept his attention on Correen, watched her push past a mother and toddler coming out and disappear behind the swinging door.
"Over a year. After our first semester as roommates, she told me she wanted to be roommates again. Then she went into the bathroom and threw up." Alicia smiled. "She must have just told you she likes you."
Adam was not amused. "Why is she in so much pain?" he demanded.
"I don't know," Alicia's face filled with sadness. "I'd love for her to tell me, so I could help. But she won't talk to me, and I think she's probably closer to me than anyone on campus. She doesn't talk to anyone. I think you're up for bat."
Adam rose, and headed for the batter's plate. Rob leaned against the cage. "So, you think you know what you're doing?"
"I believe so." Adam assumed he meant the game, though Rob's eyes were unreadable. He cleared his throat, cleared his mind. "I run the bases after I hit the ball."
"Cocky guy. He assumes he'll hit it. Later on tonight, remind me to explain what bases mean in terms of women. Looks like you're making enough progress with Miss Seabra to warrant that chat."
Adam tucked the bat beneath his arm, pulled the dictionary and flipped through to 'b.' He frowned. "Rob-"
"Go on, you're up," Rob grinned.
Adam shot him a warning glance and went to the batter's plate. Edward's dead eyes stared him down from the pitcher's mound, and Adam felt their heat scorch the path between them. He shouldered the bat, glanced back at Lanny and adjusted his stance a bit based on her instructive pantomime. He nodded at Edward.
Edward wound up and slung the pitch, his strength leaving an almost visible trail of smoke. Adam stepped back, removing his vulnerable rib cage from its path. His arm shot out and the ball clapped into the palm of his hand.
"That was overhanded," Rob barked. "I would have thought underhanded anything would be easy for you, Brautigan. Pitch it right."
Adam stood back from the plate, studied Edward a moment. Edward's power had been so strong, it had called to his own upon physical contact, but without that contact Adam had not detected its presence. It had been the same with Correen, only Correen had to use hers before he felt it. He was going to have to proceed on the assumption that he could not detect magical ability latent in others. It was a gift he had taken for granted for a long time, and he had counted on it to serve him in this world. It was a serious handicap.
Behind Edward's lifeless eyes was the key to Jaiya's death and Sephira's disappearance. Adam knew it. He was willing to stake his life on it.
He stepped back up to the plate, shouldered the bat and waited for Edward's next pitch.
There will come a time when a treeWill stand alone.Grim witness to what has passed before.The wind will carry only voices of Silence.I would like to be there.A whispering wind,Caressing the branches of that lone tree.-Personal poems of Correen Seabra
"I think I've found it," Martin called.
A muffled reply acknowledged him and, a moment later, Shireva's short steps echoed on the concrete. Martin eased the box off the shelf and heralded her appearance in the aisle with an explosive sneeze.
She smiled, offered him one of the tissues she always seemed to have handy for his allergies, and put her hand on the top of the box. Her smile disappeared.
Martin felt the heavy, close silence of the storage room fill the pit of his stomach as he recognized the look. "What do you see?"
"Someone standing where we are now and putting this up. The space is cleared already, as though it was prepared ahead of time. It's dark, and he's using a dim flashlight, so I can't see his face..." Shireva shuddered, staring at the scene as it played out in her head. "No ... he's turning and-his face is completely blocked, I can't see who it is. He's warded ... he's meeting someone at the door, a woman. She's very old, but she's ... not strong-looking exactly, she's very thin, bony, but there's a frightening strength about her, like madness."
"The woman who attacked Prince Adam," Martin guessed. He glanced toward the door to the storage room. When they had started searching, several hours ago, he had locked it to prevent any surprise visits from other students, but her words brought on a chill, and a sudden need to verify the locks.
Shireva opened the box and revealed neatly folded clothing, books stacked and small items packed in clear-topped containers. She stared at them. "You'd think a maid packed for her." Shireva drew a deep breath, then lifted a shirt to her nose and smelled it, closing her eyes again.
Martin refolded the clothes as she picked up and read each one. Since discovering Jaiya's body, the team members had discovered cautiously that recollections of the priestess no longer posed them any danger, but the recollections were still few and far between, and did not come easily. The strain in Shireva's face intensified with each item, and he had to remind himself how much she hated to be interrupted while she worked to keep from doing just that. He knew that much of what she read from the items would be mundane, day-to-day things in Jaiya's life, but behind every article had to be the face of a rotting corpse that used to be a woman, a friend. His own sleep had been little but nightmares since they had found her.
Shireva dropped one item abruptly and opened her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples.
"What?" Martin asked, surging forward.
"Nothing to be worried about," she assured him, managing a trace of her smile. "I just saw something ... intimate, that happened between her and Corbet when she was wearing that shirt. It was none of my business." She pushed back a loose lock of brown hair, blowing out a breath. "You don't invade people's private lives when it's not necessary, and from what I could see of this particular situation, it definitely wasn't necessary. But," her eyes sparkled with tired humor, "from what little I saw, I can certainly understand why it's the strongest image associated with that shirt."
"Oh." Martin accepted a stack of clothes from her. "That must be difficult at times."
"More than you know."
"Pardon?"
Shireva came up with another small box and opened it, revealing assorted make-up and toiletry items and a plastic animal that looked as if it had come as part of a fast food meal prize. "The last time I was 'intimate' with someone was before we came to this world. Of course, since your Order is celibate, my bitching about a couple years of abstinence is pretty pitiful."
"Well," Martin cleared his throat. "That's different. My choice is voluntary, yours is not ... as voluntary."
The small woman bent double as she rooted at the bottom of the box. Her response was muffled by cardboard. Martin caught her belt as she overbalanced. "What?"
"-You blush at the sight of sexy underwear in a mall, and yet," she popped up, blowing lint off her nose, "you discuss our respective sex lives, or the lack thereof, as if you're giving one of your lectures? Oh, Martin, I'm sorry, let me take some of that." She removed the tower of clothing from his lap and took a seat cross-legged before him to start reading from each new piece.
Martin folded and watched, folded and watched. He was in his thirties, and knew very well the physical ache of what Shireva missed, but perhaps because of his voluntary vow, he had a different perspective on what it was that Shireva felt. It was underscored by what they were doing, going through a dead woman's clothing, a woman for whom they had only one real memory, the reaction to her death by the man who had loved her best.
Shireva missed intimacy, the knowledge of a lover's heart, even if that knowledge was only given for as long as the body was given. When they all saw that intimacy torn away from Corbet in such a horrific manner, it had been the natural reaction of their very human spirits to need comfort, to feel the need to immerse themselves in the very thing that had been lost. Being with Shireva eased that ache for Martin, as much as anything other than time could do. Being more grounded in earthly needs, she needed more.
At length, she sighed and removed her glasses. "Big, ugly spot. Left lens." He obliged as he normally did, wiping them clean with a corner of his soft sweatshirt.
"What did you feel?"
Shireva shook her head. "Nothing really significant. I'm pretty sure she was abducted somewhere away from her room, and then someone packed everything up and stored it here." She picked up a small pack of tissues. "This one here gave me an image of her with you and me."
"What are we doing?"
"It looks like she was suffering from her first Earth cold." The edges of Shireva's mouth quivered. "You and I brought her a basket of oranges to cheer her up." Shireva reached out, wrapping her fingers around his as they both clenched the small plastic package of white tissues.
"Corbet was on the floor, his back against her bed as he worked on some research project, of course. I sat at the foot of the bed. You were standing slightly behind me. We were just talking-" Her voice broke. "The way friends do. I still can't see her face very well, but it's coming clearer."
Martin freed a tissue from the pack between their clasped hands. Shireva nodded her thanks and dabbed at her brimming brown eyes. "I thought not being able to remember her might be less painful," she said. "It feels just as rotten either way."
Martin shook his head. "The good memories that the dead leave comfort us more than we realize."
Shireva squeezed his fingers. "So do you, Martin. You're a good friend, and the absolute best assistant in the world. Let's check the last three aisles, just in case. Then we can pack this stuff back in the box and go. I don't think there's much more we're going to find here."
Martin rose to comply, and the two worked through the last aisles, shoulder to shoulder. Shireva pushed at her glasses as they slipped down her nose.
"I'll miss wearing these when I go back to Aegis," she said. "The Healer's Guild hasn't figured out a way to duplicate the technology, and of course the Lords won't approve their use, because they won't approve the machines that make them."
"My Order has no rules against bringing things back from other worlds," Martin nodded sympathetically. "Of course, our poverty vows keep us from collecting many things anyway."
Shireva grunted as she pushed a box of pots and pans back onto the lower shelf. "The Lords don't destroy them at least. They put them in storage, and when and if I go back out to another world that has that technology, I can use them again. Martin?" She sneezed as dust got up her nose.
"Bless you. Yes?"
"What will you do, if this world Seals?"
He hesitated. "I have given it a great deal of thought," he said carefully. They finished the last shelf and he followed her back to Jaiya's box.
"And?" she prodded, kneeling to ball up the last few clothes and tucking them back in the box. "Will you come back to Aegis for awhile? You know you're always welcome to stay with me and my sister. What are-aargh ... I don't know why I bother, you always redo things."
Martin grinned as she moved her hands out of his way so he could finish straightening her packing job. She continued to look at him expectantly. He drew a deep breath and stood, finished, and stretched his back. "I will stay here," he said quietly.
A full moment of incredulous silence filled the air between them. "You're joking," she said at last. Dismay swept her features. "Martin, staying in a Sealed World is suicide."
"No one really knows that." He shook his head. "No one knows what happens. If I could document even some of what occurs before..." He faltered before her expression. "Shireva, think about it. If a world does reopen once it 'renews' itself, or whatever we hypothesize, think how much help it would be to our people to know as much as possible about what happened."
"How do you propose to make sure your writings are found? Sealed worlds are closed for centuries, maybe forever. We don't really know."
"I will put every page I write in a fire-safe container and leave it wherever I think it will most likely be found." Martin's eyes glinted with an expression Shireva recognized. Usually his passion for knowledge amused her or roused her admiration. Now it frightened her.
"But Martin, you'll be alone."
The monk cocked his head. "You could stay with me. We could-" At her look of fear and horror, he stopped. "I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."
"Oh, no, Martin," Shireva stood up, chagrined. "It wasn't stupid at all. I'm so honored that you'd want me as a companion. But, I have a family in Aegis, and I..." She swallowed and squared her shoulders. "Martin, you've been to our world, but you've never experienced the Three Days, after a world Seals."
"I have read of it."
"It's not the same," she said shortly. "Everything becomes dark, and for three whole days every crevice in Aegis is haunted by wailing from the Continuum. It's called the Three Days of Mourning. The Dirge. It's like listening to someone being sealed in a coffin while they're still alive. I hope you'll change your mind, Martin."
He shrugged. "I haven't decided yet." She knew he had. Shireva muttered to herself and pulled him down into a fierce, tight hug, seeing his surprised expression a moment before she banded his lanky frame tightly in her arms.
"If this world Seals," she whispered, "I will never forget you. I will light a candle the way your Order does, every day, until I know your fate, or until I die."
His arms closed around her, and they were strong, stronger than she'd realized.
"I will not forget you, Shireva," he promised, his voice catching. "I will write of the Sealing each day as if I write a letter to you. The box will bear your name for the day this world reopens and you or one of your great, great granddaughters finds it, and perhaps she will have your gift, and see my face, my great fondness for you, as I write my letters."
He pressed his jaw a moment more against her dark hair, then he set her away from him, gently, squeezing both her hands to lessen the break.
He bent and lifted the box. Shireva lead them out of the still atmosphere of the storage room, but their grim promises followed them. In her heart Shireva banked up determined walls, sheltering the small flame of hope there. Hope that they were both wrong, and that they somehow could stop what seemed inevitable, so that she would never have to say good-bye to Martin, or to Earth.
There are so many common threads between religions here and religions in worlds unthreatened by Sealings, I think that there is another element that creates a Sealing in one world where it does not in another, an element beyond the practice or lack of practice of a religion.
-Martin Watchtower, to the Head of the Order of Cirulon
The group played two nine-inning games with one win for each side and no blood spilled, much to Rob's disgust. Since Adam had aptly proved his hand-to-eye coordination during his first turn at bat, he was quickly promoted to first baseman. Correen noted that Edward lost all interest in the game after his initial exhibit of temper. The other students attempted to draw him into their banter but he refused to respond, creating an awkwardness they resolved by ignoring him as much as possible. Blissfully, he left her alone, though she noted with an uncomfortable sense of warmth that Adam kept a sharp eye on him, quite obviously watching out for her.
She left her towel several times to snap pictures of the players and pick herbs. When the group broke to make dinner plans and Adam came across the field to her, she sat beside two rolls of film and a chain of dandelions.
"So how did I do?" He dropped down beside her.
"All right." Correen laced her gloved hands under her thighs. He picked up the chain and, after considering it a moment, slid it over her head, surprising her.
"Adam! Correen!" Rob bounded toward them. "Alicia suggested we grab some pizzas and tunes and do an all-nighter in the Vale. What do you think?"
"What is an all-nighter and tunes?"
"You know, for a lady who's bilingual, it's a mystery to me why you hang out with this bum," Rob grinned at Correen. "I'm going to save myself some time and make the decision for you. You're coming, both of you. Let's pack up our gear and go."
"Is Edward going?" Adam asked.
"Yeah, it bites. I think I preferred him anti-social." Rob spun on his heel and headed back to the van.
"Is that what you want to do?" Adam asked politely.
She shrugged. I shouldn't. "I have some studying, but I could stay a little while and then go back to the dorms."
"Good." He rose and grasped her hands, drawing her to her feet. Correen pulled away and gathered up her film. Adam picked up her towel, emblazoned with 'Hotel Carlos, Brazil.' "You have family in Brazil?"
"No."
"They live here?
"No." Friendship always bore the price of intimacy. Correen kept forgetting that, forgot that the price was too high for her to pay. She had surpassed herself today, and it was time to go home. Correen shouldered the strap of the camera case. "I've changed my mind. I probably shouldn't go to the Vale tonight. I'll just have Cieran drop me off at the dorms."
"Correen," Adam held the towel as she tried to pull it away. "Don't."
"Don't what? I need to study."
"If you don't want to talk about your family, just tell me that." She tugged harder and he yanked it back. "It's mine," he warned. "If you want it, you will have to wrestle me for it."
Correen looked up at him, startled. Her lips twitched at the dogged humor in his eyes, and her heart lurched like it would at the first descent on a roller coaster. He got to her, there was no mistaking that, but where could it go? Wouldn't it be better just to stop it right here? She could. She could just say, "I'm not interested, move on," and that would be it.
"Correen," Alicia approached them with an armload of bats. "Why don't we stop by the room and get your albums? Lanny and Cieran want to see some of your pictures."
"Oh," Correen pulled her attention away from Adam's eyes and shook her head. "I don't think so. They're not very good, Alicia."
"Oh, don't be so modest. I want to see them again, too. Hey! What are you doing?"
Adam stopped, his hand on the bats she was carrying. "I was going to help you carry them."
"Do I look unable to handle them?" She arched a magnificent golden brow.
"Not at all," Adam said. "But why should you carry them all when I'm only carrying a towel?"
Alicia shrugged. "Okay, then. Take half. So what were you two talking about before I rudely interrupted?"
"Wrestling," Adam supplied, ignoring Correen's scowl. "I was about to tell Correen about Princess Aigiarm."
"Who?"
"She was a princess that Marco Polo met on his travels. She would challenge any suitor for her hand to a wrestling match. If he won, the prize was the princess. If she won, she acquired all of his horses. No one knows if she ever married, but when she died she had over ten thousand horses. I think you may have been her in a previous life."
Alicia laughed and Correen smiled at him before she could stop herself. Adam lifted her knuckles briefly to his lips, sending tendrils of fire shooting into every nerve ending, then let her go before she could think to pull away. He then shouldered all the bats before Alicia could protest and headed for the van, humming Chopin.
Alicia snorted. "Correen, if Medusa's head was still around, I swear all those snakes would suck honey off his fingertips."
And I would want to be one of them. What have I gotten myself into? Correen grabbed Alicia's hand and pulled them into a childish sprint for the van, leaving the thought behind.
When they reached the school, Correen went to develop the day's film at Alicia's request. Rob said he was off to collect the 'necessities' for the evening. Adam took the opportunity to run a somber errand.
Shireva met him at the door of the lab and locked it after he entered. Her face was drawn, as though she had not slept since he had last seen her. Or perhaps her sleep had not given her any rest. Adam glanced at Martin and saw the same concern for her mirrored in the monk's eyes.
Bagged samples and sketches from Jaiya's body littered the counters. "I went back through the gateway to do the autopsy right after Martin and I finished in the storeroom," Shireva said. "What you're looking at are reproductions of all the symbols I found carved into Jaiya's skin. I've noted in the margins the size of each symbol, its relation to the others and where it was found. From what I can tell, there are four groups of them. These," she leaned over Adam's elbow, "are Satanic. Upside down pentagrams, skewed crosses, and goat horns."
"Satanists did this?" Adam frowned over the drawings.
Shireva pursed her lips. "Yes and no. I'm calling the symbols Satanic, but there are almost as many forms of Satanism as there are practitioners. Satanists of the LaVey school, one of the more well known forms of modern Satanism, are anti-establishment, but they do have structured rituals. Then there are people who consider themselves Satanists, but they're just giving themselves an excuse to have orgies and get high, doing it for the shock value. That looks like what we have here. These symbols were random.
"However, that's not all we have. See the symbols on this page? That's the second group. None of them are what you would classify as Satanic. They're carved at very deliberate points of the body, one on each of the seven chakra centers. They're also all the same symbol. The God and Goddess, Male and Female principle, against an upside down pentagram, flanked by sigils of the numeric symbols of the planet Mars and Saturn, which are part of this world's solar system. They were dyed red and black, the symbolic colors of Mars and Saturn. These are also the symbols I saw being carved when I felt the knife cutting Jaiya's skin." She hesitated, the shadow of that vision rising in her eyes.
"Chakra centers?" Adam prompted.
"That's what we might call marratma. The pathways of Light. Channa says the confluence of Mars and Saturn is a portent of war and destruction. She's researching when their next alignment is supposed to occur. Now, here's the interesting part. The chakra symbols were carved before she died, the Satanic ones after. I think that the chakra symbols represent the real ritual, and then the Satanic ones were done in some type of celebration frenzy when it was over. I found saliva and cocaine on her skin. I also found several bite marks. I had one of my friends at the lab, a forensic odontologist, look them over. Two were standard, young adult male, but one set was made by an old woman, with a lot of fillings and worn down molars. My guess is that a few of the members of this group are shock value Satanists, and the real brains behind this outfit let them loose after the ritual was over to throw off the police if the body were discovered. As far as drugs in Jaiya's system, the chromatography test showed faint traces of some type of sedative, probably to keep her quiet. From what I saw of the ritual, the drugs were only for the days before it happened. They wanted her fully conscious for the ceremony." Her hand jerked slightly as she pulled another drawing out from the stack and she swallowed, visibly pushing back the emotions her words were raising. She directed Adam's attention to the drawing.
"This is group three, carved on her arms and legs. It looks like some type of rune, but there are so many different runic alphabets..." Shireva took a piece of plaster out of a drawer and set it on the counter. "I did a mold of it to get an accurate drawing." She passed her fingers over the raised lines. "Channa couldn't figure it out, either. She said we need to know more about the ritual's purpose to determine what the rune means."
Adam picked up the mold. "And do you have any theories on that yet?"
"Well, everything we know about the ritual thus far points to a contempt for matriarchal religions. They used a wide range of methods to desecrate the Goddess aspect of divinity, starting with the choice of a woman for their victim."
The Recreator flipped on an overhead projector and an image of a rectangle with ten curved lines running out from it was thrown up against the painted cinder block wall. A lightning bolt cut through the rectangle. "This symbol is the fourth. We don't know what it means yet, but it was carved over her uterus, much bigger than the other symbols." Shireva glanced at Martin. "I'm going to have to be a little graphic, Martin."
He nodded. "I'll be okay."
"All right. There's a sink right over there if you need it." She turned her attention back to the image projected on the wall. Her voice settled into a monotone, broken only by a slight hoarseness which betrayed the conflict behind the professionalism.
"Her throat was cut by a blade about nine inches long, with a serrated edge. I think there were sharp points on the hand guard, because she had some light puncture wounds on the far end of the cut, where the blade was held across her throat. I did a sketch of it, here. When they slit her throat, they put pressure on her jugular to slow the blood flow, shown by the bruised skin here. You remember there was dried blood in her eyes and around her nostrils?"
Adam nodded.
"It was in her stomach and her lungs, too. My guess is they held a metal basin beneath her-there were some metal filaments in her hair-and when it held enough of her blood, they lowered her head into it and drowned her." Shireva drew a deep breath and re-threaded her pencil behind her ear. "She didn't struggle much-that's a lot of blood to lose. But you can lose as much as eighty percent of your blood and survive."
"The Amazons," Adam murmured.
Shireva nodded. "You have a good grasp of Earth's history, Your Highness. Queen Tomyris executed Cyrus the Great by drowning him in a vat of his own blood. That isn't the only feminist history lesson they reenacted." Shireva tapped her finger lightly on the tops of her sample jars. "Penthisilea, another great Amazon warrioress, was raped by Achilles after he killed her on the field of battle. He did it to show his scorn for her and her status as a virgin priestess." She took a deep breath. "Jaiya was raped post mortem, quite possibly by every male member of the ritual."
Martin bolted for the sink.
Adam closed his eyes, then immediately opened them, because darkness gave the image a stark palette to invade. He cleared his throat, tried to speak and found only dry, speechless horror.
Sephira's life depended on their focus, and Jaiya had kept herself conscious for just that reason. She was a high priestess, and had been more than capable of hypnotizing herself through torture or her own death. The courage she had called upon to resist that escape sharpened his resolve, kept him on track.
"Martin said that most of the women on his list were connected in some way to the Wiccan coven at Havenwood," Adam managed in a reasonably even tone. "If we prove they were taken, then you're saying the common link is the practice of a matriarchal religion."
"The others on the list not directly connected to Wicca may practice some other type of feminist spiritualism, or choose to remain private about their spiritual path," Martin rasped from the sink.
Shireva tucked her chapped hands under her arms, hugging herself. "One thing's for sure: we're not dealing with a bunch of crackpot occultists. They wanted us to think so, but this ritual is too complex. I think that's what scares me most of all. I'm certain that they are desecrating women or female spirituality for a reason, a goal, and I have no clue yet what it is."
"What you saw in the vision, and what happened to your memories proves they have at least one strong magic user working with them," Adam agreed. Edward's power slid through his mind. It was wild, almost uncontrolled, but undeniably strong.
Shireva gestured at a row of slides. "I picked up at least three different blood samples off the altar, including Jaiya's, but I couldn't establish an exact age on them, so we still don't have a time pattern for the rituals. Thanks to Martin's perseverance, we also discovered their hair in birds' nests in the immediate area."
Martin turned on the water in the sink with a soft whish and pumped soap into his hand from the dispenser unit. "Shireva made me climb trees," the monk said dryly.
Shireva raised a bag. "We found one human finger bone in a rat hole. It's Jaiya's. At first I thought it was chewed off by a rat or another scavenger, but see the clean line of the cut? It was sliced off, the night she died." Shireva put the object down, staring at it. "When I held it, I saw ... someone, I can't see his face, wanting something ... she refused, and kept refusing. They grabbed her hand and she pulled away. They yanked her arm over the edge of the altar..."
What little color she had left was seeping from her face. Adam put a hand on Shireva's wrist and pulled it away from the finger bone, squeezing her arm lightly. "She wore a handfast ring, didn't she?"
She lifted a shoulder. "I don't know. I can't remember. It wasn't with the body, or in the box we found."
"Did Corbet have one?" Martin asked, drying his hands.
Adam dug into the pocket of his jeans and laid the silver band on the counter. "I searched his room this morning and found it lying next to the sink in the bathroom. I suspect the spell made him overlook it all this time. I found a few articles of her clothing and some jewelry, a couple books that may have belonged to her, but nothing of significance." Adam stopped, sniffed. He glanced at Martin. "Did you just wash your hands?"
"I figured you would both appreciate it," the monk said, flushing. Adam shook his head and bent closer, smelling. "The soap you used. Where did it come from?"
Shireva pointed to the dispenser. "The custodial staff leaves it when they clean."
"The woman who attacked me had that smell. Strongly."
"And the stiff clothing you mentioned," Martin whipped out his pad. "A uniform maybe. I'll pull the files of the custodial staff."
Adam nodded and looked at the bags before him. "What are these?"
"The twenty samples I still haven't reviewed," Shireva said. "I also have samples from under her fingernails, but I sent them to the diagnostic lab I use. Oh, there is this." She lifted a plastic bag containing a dried white substance. "It's bat excrement. It was in her hair. I'm thinking she might have been held in an attic or a cave the days before the ritual. I'd just identified it before you got here, but I hadn't tried reading it yet." She put two fingers into the bag. Shireva stared into space, then her eyes narrowed and shut. Her fingers began to twitch and the bag rattled.
"Shireva-"
"I can't see anything," she said, and her voice broke with exhaustion. "Nothing. By the Continuum, I can't even read a bird." Her knees buckled and she collapsed into a dead faint. Adam, already half way around the counter, lunged and caught her, breaking her fall.
"Shireva!"
"It's all right," Adam soothed Martin. "She's simply tired."
"Let's put her here." Martin directed Adam to a small cot in the corner. The prince lifted the tiny woman easily in his arms, carried her to the cot and laid her gently upon it. Martin arranged the blanket over her.
"I want you to make sure she does not leave this bed until she's had a proper amount of sleep," Adam said.
Martin nodded emphatically. "If I have to tie her and sit on her."
"Good," Adam's lips twitched at the thought, but it was a grim humor, the only type allowed in a room filled with so much death and so many unanswered questions. "I need to go back to the dorms. I've found a computer hacker we can use, but I have to do a favor for him tomorrow night to get him. Will you be all right here? Is there anything I can do to help you check the samples so she doesn't have to?"
"We could handle the diagnostic work together," Martin said, relieved. "I'm as capable of doing that as she is. I'm going to get some sleep, myself. If you could come back early in the morning, we'll do them before she wakes up."
"I'll be here." Adam reached out, smoothed a finger over the woman's worried brow. It eased a little. "How are you handling all this, Martin?" Adam asked, not looking at the monk.
Martin took Shireva's hand, stroked the fingers. "I'm getting by, Your Highness. It's Shireva who worries me. She gets so involved in why things happen, and takes it too much to heart. She thinks we should have cared enough about Jaiya to resist the spell." The light reflected off his glasses as he turned his face to Adam. "She takes it to a larger level. She thinks, if love can't defeat evil in every instance, then what can defeat evil at all?"
"This," Adam tapped his forehead. "Wits. Courage, and the favor of Those Who Are Not Seen. Love is their gift. It doesn't resist evil or outwit it, though it can absorb it, sometimes, and transform it."
An image came to his mind; Correen, leaning out a windowsill, a paper swan fluttering from her fingertips. Her gray eyes, soft as rabbit fur, touching his like an intimate caress.
"Love gives us a reason to survive evil."
I could not find Prince Adam for his lessons today. I discovered him in my village. He was playing a game with younger children who did not know who he was. I watched him and did not know him, either. Up until this moment, I had forgotten he was a child. Then he saw me, and I saw in his eyes the fear that I would spoil it. I went away. I could not take that moment from your son.
-Mataya, Communication to His Royal Majesty
Alicia, Correen, and Adam could hear the party in the Vale several minutes before they reached it. The group had set up camp in the Pine Forest, an oasis of conifers wrapped in serene stillness, where ankle-deep pine needles muffled the footsteps of nature lovers, and the smell of pine sap delighted the senses. Adam could almost feel the trees wincing at the intrusion of rowdy students and blaring music. Dead trees hauled around a bonfire formed a semi-circle of seats. A small group of students danced beneath the whispering pines a short distance from the fire.
Edward Brautigan sat on one of the dead trees. Melanie sat cross-legged on the cold forest floor between his knees. She held her head at an odd angle as Edward stroked her hair, though he stared into the fire with the same bored, detached expression he had worn all afternoon.
"I was beginning to think we needed to send a search party." Rob waved them over. "Hey, you all right?"
Adam shrugged and nodded, summoning a light smile and forcing his mind away from the events of the past half hour. "I thought you didn't go into the woods unless..."
"Yeah, well, I'm drinking beer and I might get lucky, so both prerequisites are handled." Rob dropped his tone. "Provided I don't piss off Lanny tonight."
"Lesser miracles have happened, I'm sure."
"Wise ass. Grab some pizza."
"Correen," Cieran waved at them with a beer, "bring your pictures over here."
Alicia began to draw the girl forward, toward Cieran and the cluster of students surrounding him. Adam turned to take a seat with Rob and stopped. Surprised, he looked at the gloved hand holding his fingers. He raised his gaze to her face. Correen stared at their clasped palms as if her hand had somehow acted independently of the rest of her body. She snatched it free, spinning toward Alicia so quickly she bumped into her roommate. He saw her shoulders square as Alicia spirited her into the group.
He had thrown her the lifeline, actively pursuing her to draw out her smiles and emotions as if doing so were more important than the real reason he was here. By reaching for his hand of her own free will, for his reassurance, she proved she had taken the lifeline. If he did not break it soon, he could destroy what was left of her soul. She would not survive the casual stumbles all lovers make. He knew that as surely as he knew that he had gotten closer to her than anyone had in a very long time. And maybe he had let her do the same with him.
Rob was engaged in conversation with several other students, so Adam took his required beer and the triangle of greasy food known as pizza to the outskirts of the camp, seating himself against the trunk of a pine in a position where he could observe Edward Brautigan and sort through his own thoughts. So much in this world was noise and conversation, so little time for the silence and peace he needed to be clear about his direction.
He had accepted isolation. Adam knew that Those Who Are Not Seen chose him to carry Their energy and pursue Their purposes. As a child, that burden had been hard to bear. Their bosom had offered the reassurances his own blood parents eventually could not offer to him. He had grown up, grown stronger. He had challenged the boundaries of what others thought he was, and that compelled him to leave the security of the Continuum to do this. Now, he no longer knew if he was in control of his emotions.
Why could he not love Channa? Her strength and fire would easily bear the brunt of any missteps in a relationship. She would not lose her soul if his love did not prove worthy of hers. He could not marry Channa if his heart belonged to another. It was a serious sacrilege in his world, and even political considerations would not overrule it. He looked at the woman sitting tensely with the others. Correen smiled hesitantly at something Cieran said and pointed out a detail in one of her pictures, retracting her hand quickly so it would not become the focus of attention she seemed so certain it was.
His anger drained out of him, to be replaced by tight, raw fear. It was an even stronger fear than what he had felt, the first time he had realized what being chosen by Those Who Are Not Seen meant. It was one thing to hold the fate of a world in the palm of the hand. It was much more personal to hold the fate of an individual, someone he had held in his arms. Someone who was beginning to mean more to him than his own life.
"You are looking way too serious for this group," Rob blocked his view of the fire. He sat down next to his roommate and looked at the untouched food and beer. "I did explain that you eat pizza?"
Adam managed a smile. "I apologize for being bad company."
Rob shrugged. "Anything you'd like to get off your chest?"
Adam glanced down, puzzled. Then he understood. He laughed shortly and shook his head.
Rob bent his head over a cigarette and lit it, waving the smoke away from Adam. He flicked the lighter absently. "I want to say something to you," he said. "Let's call it Part Two of our conversation, the other day. And you don't have to say or explain anything-I just want you to hear it."
Adam studied his roommate's profile against the bonfire's flickering light. "I am listening."
"You're not here to pursue a degree. You supposedly flew in from a Third World country, but Immigration doesn't have a record of anyone fitting your description. You don't have a visa. Your school record finally showed up on line, but it's cleaner than Edward's. You strike me as the serious student type, and you haven't cracked a book since you got here." Rob flicked some ash off the end of the cigarette into the turned up cuff of his jeans and glanced sidelong at the tense prince.
"Have you been following me?"
"Hell, no. I have a life. But I have lots of friends, and I can ask them questions about people. And computers tell all."
"So," Adam stared into the forest. "Why are you telling me this?"
"You stink of trouble, but my guess is, it's the kind that you step in, not the kind you create yourself." Rob met Adam's gaze for the first time and Adam held the stare, wondering how he would deal with this situation.
"I just wanted to warn you," Rob said at last. "If it's that easy for me to find out you're not what you say you are, it will be that easy for anyone else." Rob reached over and pulled some cheese off the pizza, wadding it into a ball to tuck in the opposite corner of his mouth from the cigarette. "Jesus, how about some cheese with your grease?"
"That's it?" Adam said.
Rob shrugged. "Yeah. For now." He stood up and took a swallow of his beer. "Oh, one more thing."
"Yes."
"While you're watching your ass, let me know if you need anyone else to help you watch it." A grin pulled at Rob's lips. "Other than Miss Seabra over there."
Adam digested the meaning of the expression and stood. They were shoulder to shoulder, the light of the fire casting their silhouettes before them. "Why?"
Rob made an awkward movement with the beer bottle. "Well ... I don't trust many people with this kind of thing, but ... I mean, you can keep this between us?"
Adam nodded, hoping he could.
"Well, ever since that first day, since I saw you naked, I've had a special feeling about you."
That statement required no translation, nor did the intent expression Rob flashed over him. Adam flushed and took a step back. "Rob, I-I do not think you understand-"
Rob's poker face broke and his lips twitched uncontrollably. Adam snorted, shoved his roommate in the chest, knocking him on his backside on the paper plate full of pizza.
"Oh, that's it-" Rob rolled and grabbed Adam's unopened bottle of beer. Adam tensed to duck, but Rob paused, shaking the bottle back and forth. He grinned broadly at Adam's puzzled expression. "I love foreigners." He twisted the top free.
Before he could spring away, Adam was drenched. He backpedaled into the circle and Rob pursued, spraying him with the beer until it ran out of pressure. Cieran threw himself over Correen's photos to protect them. Rob's weapon lost its potency and Adam snatched up a bottle next to the cooler. He eyed his roommate with malevolent intent. "Foreigners adapt quickly."
"Oh, shit!" The circle dissolved into chaos and laughter as Rob took refuge behind the others. Adam followed him on the opposite side of the fire, biding his time. Melanie scrambled out of the way as he took aim. Darius glanced at the cooler.
"Adam, don't-!"
Rob grabbed Edward, throwing both of them to the side as the fire leapt up and caught the stream of beer, creating a deadly arc of flame that speared the log where Edward had been sitting. Lanny upended the cooler full of half melted ice over the log before it could leap to the flammable pine needles, while Darius and Alicia kicked dirt over the flames leading back to the fire.
Adam stood in stunned and embarrassed amazement, looking at the empty beer bottle. Rob let go of Edward and sat up, brushing leaves and dirt off himself. "What the hell kind of beer is that?"
Tad Williams carefully took the bottle from Adam. "Kerosene," he said sheepishly. "We didn't want to bring a whole can to start the fire, so we just filled a bottle with some. Hey," he slapped Adam's arm as he turned a stricken expression to him. "It's all right. No harm done. You didn't know."
Adam looked at Edward, who was getting to his feet. "I'm sorry," Adam said. "I didn't realize it would do that." Edward stared at him.
"That was a pretty good tackle, Rob," Melanie said brightly.
"It'll pass," Darius sneered.
"Passing your ass is all I do in practice, so you should know," Rob shot back. "Lanny, you better not have ruined the beer in that cooler. Forest fire is one thing, wasting good beer is another..."
Alicia pushed Adam onto a log near Correen, as the circle re-established itself. Adam watched Edward from the corner of his eye. The bored, detached expression was gone. He saw the unpredictable nature of a trapped and dangerous animal.
Alicia touched his shoulder, and Adam followed her gaze over Correen's shoulder to look at the album Cieran held, showing the pictures Correen had taken of the ball game earlier. In one picture, Rob leaned against the fence of the batting cage, his fingers coiled through the wires over Lanny's hand threaded in from the opposite side. Her attention was on a conversation with Alicia, his on the game. In another picture she captured Adrian's profile with Darius just beyond her, manning third base. There was one of Edward, standing on the pitcher's mound, staring straight into the camera.
"Looks like you didn't hold the camera steady enough in this one," Cieran said. "It's blurry."
Edward rose. Adam tensed as he squatted before Correen, his eyes puncturing hers. Cieran turned the photo so he could see it better, but Edward made no move to touch it.
"He's right. It looks like your hands weren't steady enough." His gaze dropped to her lap. "Guess it's a chronic problem."
"I think that's a really good shot of him," Melanie interjected. "I wouldn't mind a copy of it, Correen. Of course, I'd love to get one of him smiling. He never smiles."
"With that face, can you blame him?" Rob flicked his cigarette into the fire.
"Oh, look at these two," Melanie went to her knees next to Edward. He backed away. Correen's eyes followed him as long as they could without turning her head. Edward now sat at her back, but so did Adam. He placed a hand on her shoulder and, after a moment, he felt the muscles under his gently kneading fingers relax.
They moved on to other, older pictures in her photo albums. There was one of Alicia and Channa, standing shoulder to shoulder, dressed in dark robes. The moon hovered beyond them. Their unbound hair was a tapestry of red and gold, woven together by the seamstress touch of the wind.
"That was at last year's Renaissance Fair," Alicia explained to him. "Rising Star did an energy raising to influence others to heal Earth and bring people closer to Her rhythms."
"What's Rising Star?" Adam asked.
"That's the coven at Havenwood. We do a couple things each year, like the Renaissance Festival, to educate the mainstream about Wicca. We hope that most people will incorporate some of our ideas into their own belief systems, so that they'll help heal and nurture the earth instead of raping and exploiting her." She grinned. "The newspaper did an article on us last year. They made us sound like a bunch of love-and-light crunchy granola hippies. I guess it's better than implying we sacrifice babies at midnight and bullshit like that."
"So how 'bout them Bulldogs?" Rob commented.
"We have considered male sacrifice," Alicia said, crossing her eyes at him.
Adam watched Edward throughout Alicia's explanation, and the fist of apprehension in his stomach tightened. The student drank in her words as if they were entrails by which he could devour her. A chill went through Adam that had nothing to do with the night air.
"These are really good, Correen," Cieran said. "You should consider entering them in the Renaissance Fair. It's not too late. They pay money for prizes."
Correen shrugged. "Maybe. I'll ... talk to you more about it Monday. All right?"
"Great," he said, looking surprised. "That would be great. And maybe you'd think about the yearbook staff. We've been shorthanded..."
"Hey, Lanny," Alicia said. "Let's get those tunes cranked up to start some real dancing."
"Sounds good," Rob agreed. "Hey, Lan, whaddya say to a dance with the best looking guy here?"
"Well, whaddya say, Cieran?" Lanny grinned at the suddenly bashful freshman.
"Cieran's going to find it hard to dance with a broken leg."
"Ooh," she leaned over so her nose almost brushed Rob's. "Male testosterone speaks. If I were to break the leg of every girl who has had her arms around you, I could keep the hospital in Richmond in business for the next six months." She bounced off the log and trampled him on her way to collect Cieran. Rob glanced over at Adam. "No miracles tonight, I guess."
"Edward," Melanie caught his hand and tugged, "let's go dance. You haven't danced with me in ages."
He withdrew his hand and shook his head. Rob rose. "Come on, Melanie, I'll dance with you. Show you what you've been missing."
"Don't touch her."
Rob froze in mid-gesture, startled by the menace in Edward's tone. Edward stared at Melanie. "Sit down," he said.
Her knees buckled to comply, but Rob took her arm in a firmer grip. "Listen, you asshole -"
One moment Edward was on the log, the next moment he sprang. A forceful hand locked around Rob's throat and flattened him onto the ground within an inch of the leaping flames. Edward planted a foot on Rob's chest, cutting off the air to his lungs.
"Edward, don't-" Melanie clutched at his arm and he flung her off. She tripped and cried out, falling toward the fire. Alicia caught her, raking a booted foot through the flames to brace herself and swing the girl out of harm's way. In the moment that Edward's attention was diverted by Melanie's frightened cry, Adam straight-armed him in the chest, breaking his hold on Rob and knocking him backward. Rob rolled to his feet, rage turning his face as red as the fiery glint in Edward's dark eyes. Adam caught his roommate's arm. His palms were tingling from the energy he felt stoked in Edward's skin. The student was back on his feet and not even breathing heavily.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Alicia demanded, holding Melanie against her.
Edward turned and faced her. "I guess I just don't have enough of that love and light bullshit, Bitch Worshipper." Adam went rigid, his breath freezing in his throat.
"I'm more than willing to save the taxpayers the cost of frying your ass when you finally kill someone," Rob snapped. "You have exactly five seconds to get the hell out of here."
Edward snorted, unimpressed. "You're going to tell me how to treat women? Is there any woman at this school that you haven't fucked?"
"You son of a-"
"Edward," Melanie tore away from Alicia and caught Edward's shirtfront, capturing his attention. "Let's just go, all right? Please? Can we just go?"
Edward jerked out of her grasp and left the campsite, not bothering to wait for her. Melanie picked up her jacket.
"Melanie," Adam laid hold of her arm. Alicia planted herself before her and rooted like an oak. "Please don't follow him. You'll only come to harm."
She shook her head, her limp hair hiding her face. "I have to go."
"Don't be such a victim," Alicia snapped. "Rob's right. It's only a matter of time before he kills you. Is that what you want? You want your daughter to be an orphan?"
Adam touched the face beneath the hair and Melanie turned tear-filled blue eyes up to him. The pain in her eyes darkened his and when she latched onto his wrist with surprisingly strong hands, he was held by something elusive, something he felt he was close to understanding, or perhaps would never understand.
"You don't understand," she whispered, as if answering his thoughts. "He's just jealous. He doesn't know how to say things right." She looked at Rob. "There's two sides to him."
"Both bad."
"No," Melanie's eyes came back to Adam, boring into his mind, desperately trying to communicate something he suspected that she probably had never been able to get anyone to comprehend. "Everyone needs to feel like one person loves them unconditionally. Everyone. Sometimes that's the only thing that can save them."
She released him and pushed past Alicia, shaking her head as the blonde tried to exhort her to stay. "No, ssh, please don't, Leesh. I've got to go." She vanished into the forest, following Edward's path.
"I'm going after her," Alicia declared.
"No!"
Alicia, Correen, Rob, and the others around the circle blinked in surprise at the vehemence in Adam's tone. Adam steadied himself, managed to retract his grip from Alicia's arm. "She'll be all right, I think. Perhaps it's better to see her tomorrow, when she's away from him and less emotional. When we're all less emotional."
Alicia gave him a dubious look that clearly said he didn't know what he was talking about.
"He's right, Alicia," Correen spoke up. "He'll just become more violent toward her if you confront them together. Really." She reached out, squeezed her roommate's hand, did not meet Adam's penetrating glance.
"I hate feeling helpless," Alicia gritted out.
You aren't alone.
Adam's hands closed into fists, still feeling the beseeching touch of Melanie's hands, still seeing her stumbling after Edward, and the darkness of the forest swallowing her.
Love isn't a damsel in a flowing gown standing on a balcony, moonlight playing off her hair. It's an old woman, wrinkled with wisdom, whose body has borne life and hardship, whose heart has broken and mended. The soul will wither on that balcony until only a plastic shell remains, whereas the old woman's bones will nourish the earth forever.
-Alicia Kingsley, Term Paper for English Literature
By four o'clock in the morning, eight remained at the Vale party. Alicia and Lanny debated solutions to world problems with Darius and Adrian, while Rob and Tad discussed Tad's new virtual reality equipment.
Correen and Adam sat across the fire, separate from all of them. Adam thought they were like two wild animals, hidden outside the light of a circle, drawn by its glow but too cautious to cross its boundaries. Correen sat next to him, her back against the dead tree upon which he sat, her shoulder almost but not quite brushing his calf. He could have moved less than an inch and had it against her, but he did not, because he had waited patiently, watching her draw nearer and nearer, and wanted the satisfaction of seeing her close that physical gap herself. She had stayed long past the hour she said she would return to the dorms, and he had even talked her into one slow dance. Then he had procured her photo album and prodded her into explaining the history behind each photo. At times he became so absorbed in watching her speak that he almost forgot there was anyone by the fire but the two of them, and then laughter across the flames would bring him out of his focus on the life she lived through her camera.
Now he stopped on a picture of a man whose hands were covered with the blood and afterbirth of a very tiny baby, squalling in his grasp. The expression on the man's face was startling; strength gone vulnerable, tears glistening in eyes made more starkly emotional by the black and white medium. He looked at Correen. "Who is this?"
"That's Alexis. She's Antonio Calabretta's daughter. Antonio is Giovanni's cousin."
"This is Giovanni, holding her?"
Correen nodded.
Alicia came over to see the picture. "That's one of her all time best shots. Tell the story about that one, Correen. Hush a moment, guys, you've got to hear about this."
Rob and Tad paused. Correen shrugged self-consciously, color rising in her cheeks. "I just saw the baby delivered, that was all."
"Bullshit. You helped deliver it out in the boondocks with only Giovanni helping you. Come on, tell it, hon." Alicia flicked Correen's hair affectionately and reached past Adam to root in the cooler. He held up her brand of beer, already retrieved. "Oh, thanks."
"I'd like to hear about it," Rob prompted, examining the picture from his vantage point.
Adam gave in, closed the gap and nudged her with his knee, then left it there. Correen looked up at him. "I'd like to hear it, too," he offered.
She sighed, relented. "I stayed at Antonio's home in Rio over the break. One morning Giovanni suggested that he and I visit a village outside the city."
Correen glanced around at her attentive audience, and Adam watched her shoulders rise and fall in a slow, centering breath. Her tone became more relaxed, more involved in the telling of the tale. "I invited Andromeda, Antonio's wife, to go with us. She and Antonio love each other, but ... it's like watching wild horses. They're beautiful together, but when they get too close, they're savage to one another. Pregnancy had made it worse, and Giovanni thought they needed a break from each other. Or," she made a face, "that we needed a break from being around them together. Anyway, the village where we were going was supposed to have some incredible handcrafted jewelry, and Andromeda loves jewelry. We got lost outside of Rio-the roads outside of the city are awful to begin with-they twist all over the mountains, and there's no logic to how they go. After an hour, we knew we were completely lost. We had taken a rental car, because it wasn't safe to drive Tony's sports car outside the city, and the air conditioning died. The stress, the heat, all of it combined, brought on the labor. Her pains started coming short and fast, faster than anything I'd ever seen in clinic work. We didn't have time to find help. Vanni drove us into a field with a stream, ripped up his shirt and some grease cloths in the trunk. I delivered the baby, while Vanni kept Andromeda calm. When it was all over and he was holding her, I took the picture."
Correen bent over the photo and traced the baby and Vanni's face with a finger. The flickering shadows from the dying fire hid her eyes from Adam. Even without seeing them, he knew she had momentarily left the fireside, focused absolutely on what was under her hands and a hot, amazing afternoon in Brazil.
"I framed a copy of the photo for Antonio and Andromeda," she said softly. "Every baby should have something like that. Something that tells her that she was wanted from the very moment she was born, that she meant everything to someone."
The pop of a dying ember punctuated the stillness around the fire. It was a familiar stillness to Adam, something he had found only rarely in this busy world, but often in his own world. It was a moment when words were not needed, a moment when each soul was united to the others by a common truth of the heart and united with the spirits of the night and forest around them. A cricket gave an inquiring chirp just outside the fire's light.
Lanny shrieked abruptly, and Rob scrambled away, laughing. She sprang up and shook ice out of the back of her shirt. "That's it," she announced. "Get him, Alicia!"
The two girls pounced on the unfortunate, rolled him onto the forest floor, and stuffed fistfuls of leaves and dirt toward his open mouth.
"Adam, help! I'm your roommate! Your partner in arms! Your ermf meunf ferking wearves in m'merf!"
"My friend," Adam laughed open and heartily, reaching down and hugging Correen to him, his arms crossing over her chest and holding her for a brief, happy moment, "I will cross swords with a demon before I will draw the wrath of a woman upon my head."
Rob spat mud. "So if we stumble on a tribe of man-eating Amazons, it's every man for himself?"
"Precisely."
Darius raised his beer in salute. "I spend most of my time protecting your ass on the playing field. You don't pay me for overtime."
Rob elbowed Alicia off his chest with a grunt and glared at Lanny. "I'm trading you in for a more submissive model."
She stuck out her tongue.
"I think it's time to call it a night," Alicia yawned hugely. "What do you guys think?"
Darius and Tad rose, stretching and grumbling. Adam saw Lanny lift herself off Rob, but only after exchanging a teasing kiss that his roommate turned into a more heated embrace. Adam looked away when Rob's hand descended lower than it should have. He rose and began to help Alicia collect beer bottles, but a moment later Rob drifted over to him.
"Hey, Sancho," Rob put some empty bottles in the bag Adam held in his hands, "do you mind keeping yourself out of our room for about an hour?"
Adam followed Rob's appreciative glance to Lanny's form, bending to repack the cooler, and shook his head. "I'm surprised you're not tired," he said. "It's been a long night."
"Hey, hunger has nothing to do with dessert, if you catch my drift."
"I catch it."
Rob shrugged, caught up another couple of bottles. "I'm doing you a favor, Adam. Alicia's going straight to her lab. You should be able to get Correen interested in a quick fuck yourself. Hell, if I didn't have Lanny ready and willing-"
Adam stopped. Rob turned to put the bottles in the bag and froze before a gaze blazing with five generations of royal outrage.
"You go too far, my friend," Adam said after a long, tense moment. "I don't know why you treat the woman who loves you like your whore, but I don't treat Correen that way, nor will I allow you to speak of her like that. I will have your apology," Adam ground out, "for insulting Correen."
Rob scowled. "Pardon me for living in the fucking twentieth century. For your information, there is no virtue anymore, and men and women sleep with whomever they like, whenever they like. Lanny makes her own decisions. Hell, Correen probably fucked five to ten guys before she ever laid eyes on you."
Adam dropped the bag and clipped Rob's jaw one-fisted, so effectively that Rob didn't have time to block. He sat down hard in the leaves.
It was over so quickly, Adam did not think about it until it was done. He knew he needed Rob's skills to help find Jaiya's killer. He knew that. He also knew if Rob said another word about Correen, he would hit him again. Harder.
Rob sprang back to his feet, his fists clenched, and Adam tensed.
"Stop this," Correen laid a cooling hand along Adam's forearm and glanced at Rob. "I've enjoyed tonight, very much. Please don't spoil it, either of you."
Lanny came to Rob's side. "What the hell's the matter with you guys?"
"Nothing. I misjudged Sir Lancelot here. I thought he was human."
Rob whirled on his heel and stomped back across the camp.
Adam bent to retrieve the bag he had dropped, tied and shouldered it. A quick glance showed the camp packed up and almost ready to go. Rob was making overly loud, forced banter with Darius. Adam turned back to Correen. "Are you ready?"
They bid the others good night and departed alone. The first roses of dawn were blooming in the night sky. Adam stayed aware of Correen's every movement, his hand readily there if she stumbled. He slowed his pace so their strides matched comfortably, but his mind was still on his roommate's words.
She tugged at his sleeve, stopping him when they were out of range of the camp. "He didn't mean it, you know," she said. "You were just right about how he treats Lanny, and he didn't like hearing it. As soon as he cools down, he'll be fine."
Adam scowled. "Was he right? Men and women do that with whomever they wish, whenever they wish? It means no more than that?"
"To some." Her delicate chin lifted.
He made a hissing noise between his front teeth and looked away from her. "My people believe that the ability to love another physically is a living spirit within the soul. When two beings come together in love, the spirit drinks of that nectar, and grows stronger from it each time they join. It is a special magic, representing the union and oneness of all creation." He took a deep breath. "When two beings come together without love, the spirit is injected with a poison that can destroy the soul and leave the person empty and lost, unable to distinguish love from lust."
The early light caught the narrow bone tracing her throat. "You want to know how often I have been subjected to a draught of hemlock."
"I have no right to ask."
"But-"
"But I want to know." He was incapable of games with her. He needed to know.
"The spirit inside my soul, such that it is, has never experienced nectar or poison," Correen said. She began to turn away, looking embarrassed, but Adam reached for her hand. It was a gesture that would have startled her almost a week ago, but now she seemed to expect it.
He had not expected that response from her. Adam knew this world and how casually it held the act of lovemaking. He had not intended to judge her, even if Rob's words had been true. But the fact that she was untouched, that no man had lain with her, somehow that made her seem more meant for him than anything yet-the strange energy between them, his inability to stay away from her.
"I've experienced something that was not poison, but it wasn't the nectar I expected," he said, low. "I have felt the poison once, and will never repeat it. Never."
She acknowledged his fervor with a slow nod. He resumed walking, and she let her hand rest in his.
The dorms were silent pigeons puffed up in sleep, dotted with the few lights of those who had fallen asleep without darkening their rooms. They dropped off the bottles in a recycling bin, and then Adam carried the photo albums and blanket to Correen's door. She unlocked it, and he set his burdens in her desk chair.
He had not had time to examine this corner of the room on their first date. Her photography equipment and labeled folders of slides were arranged in the shelves over the desk. She stacked her books symmetrically in one corner. An ivy plant hung down from the top shelf, octopus arms grasping for the legal pad and pens aligned on the otherwise bare desk.
Her bookcase to the left of the desk was filled with texts on midwifery, herbal family planning, and ayurvedic, auric, shamanic, and herbal healing methods. There was a variety of composer biographies. On the top of the bookcase was a ceramic pancake imprinted with a child's hand, next to a framed photo of a sixteen-year-old boy. He ran toward the ocean, his head and arms flung out in childlike exuberance. The sun sitting on the water's edge held him in its grasp, rays of light framing his body.
"My brother," she said, at his elbow.
"Does he-"
"No. He lives in Brazil." Adam saw her face close over and braced himself for a verbal straight-arm, but she closed her eyes a moment and the expression eased. "I'd rather not talk about him."
Adam nodded. He looked at the centerpiece photo in the small gallery of pictures and froze. The black and white picture showed a long hallway, lined with heavy wooden doors. Halfway down the hall, a dark fluid seeped from beneath one of the doors. Mist enveloped the end of the hall, so the doors appeared to disappear into infinity.
"A while before you came," Correen said, "I dreamed about that. I set it up in the hall of the music building. It's the oldest place on campus, so the doors were closest to the way they looked in the dream. I used chocolate syrup to do the blood, just like Alfred Hitchcock did in Psycho. Something happened that night-" She hesitated, "and I forgot to develop it. When I saw your painting in the art rooms, it reminded me of it. So I developed it last night. It turned out exactly as I dreamed it."
Adam tore his eyes away from the photo to look at her. He was shaken that she had dreamed of the Continuum, and even more shaken that she had seen an image symbolizing the Sealing of her world.
He thought about the range of photos in her album. She had not participated in life at Havenwood, but she had documented it, sharing in the lives of others through her camera lens. "You see many things that most people miss."
She crossed her arms before her, tucking in her hands. "I don't really think of it that way. It's more like the pictures catch what I don't see. I thought Giovanni was ... well, I thought he and Rob were immature when I met them. Incapable of doing anything responsible. But when I delivered the baby, it was Giovanni who kept Andy calm. He held her through every contraction and helped bring his cousin's first child into the world. When I took the picture, I was taking a picture of the baby, not of him. It wasn't until I got it developed that I realized how much the picture revealed about him. The picture is really about him and who he is.
"People are like that," she murmured, gazing at the photos absently. "You could live with someone a hundred years, and there would still be a side to them you would never know unless the right situation occurred-a side they themselves probably don't know either. It makes it hard for me to understand how people who fall in love get tired of each other. I think they just get lazy, and forget to keep looking for those moments."
She fell silent and turned away, picking up the photo albums.
Adam stood frozen, staring after her. At last he understood what Alma had tried to tell him. He and Correen were strung on the same instrument, part of the same melody. He had overlooked her wisdom, so hard earned that she was barely surviving its purchase. He saw her intimate knowledge of isolation, and discovered a kinship with her that defied words.
It was a revelation on which all his battles and efforts and plans could be fought, if he just accepted it and Correen for what they were. This time, for this one moment, he did not shy from the truth.
"Correen."
She turned and his golden eyes held and caressed her. "I would very much like to dance with you, like we did in the forest."
Correen looked around the small room that held very little except them. "There's no music playing," she hedged nervously.
Adam wondered if the memory of that one slow dance they had shared in the pine forest was imprinted on her mind as it was on his. Once in her arms, he had noticed and felt nothing but her, as if stepping into an embrace had taken them into another world, cut off from any sensation other than what they provided to each other. It had apparently shaken her as much as it had him.
He crossed the room, turned off the light and came back to her. Adam stopped when he was so close, he was almost touching her. He reached up behind her and plucked a cassette at random from the shelf. "Perhaps this one?" he murmured.
She lowered her gaze to it, reading it by the early light of dawn. Her lips twitched. "Ride of the Valkries?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I don't know that one."
"It might be good for a whirling dervish," she explained.
He smiled. "You choose, then."
"I haven't agreed to dance yet." But she turned her back on him anyway. His breath stirred the hair on top of her head. The air in the room was too close, and he saw her arms tremble. Her finger slid across the titles and paused on one. Adam slid his hands around her waist. His chin nudged her hair aside and he pressed his lips to the corner between neck and shoulder. "Stop," she whispered.
He lifted his head. "Have you picked one?"
She withdrew the tape and bent her head over it. "I haven't played this in a long time."
"Follow your heart."
She turned her face and looked up into his eyes. "Right over a cliff."
His arms tightened. "I won't let you fall," he said.
Correen considered the tape again. His hands lifted from her waist and took the tape, pushing her forward one step as he took a step closer to the tape player, with her between him and it. He paused, a long finger hovering over the machine. "Yours is different from Rob's."
She pressed the eject button. He dropped the tape in and shut the door, and together they pressed Play. He folded his arms back around her waist as the first bars of a sad, haunting tune filled the room. The emotions the music brought forth surrounded them. "What is this?"
"Sonata 14, C sharp minor, Opus 27." She swallowed. "'Moonlight Sonata.'"
They swayed together. "Correen." He hesitated. There could be no lies between them. "The night we went out to the mall, when you were in the bathroom, I searched your room. I saw the altar under the bed."
She stiffened and he withdrew his arms. Correen turned and faced him, anger in her eyes.
"I'm sorry I did that. I hope after seeing Jaiya, you'll forgive me for investigating anything I thought to be connected to what happened there." He took a deep breath. "But what you might not forgive is this. I did it, also, because I wished to know who you are."
A strange look crossed her face, like humor. She glanced down at her misshapen hands, still securely wrapped in their gloves. "It's an ending ritual," she said. "I place what I am onto a page and ask that it be dust for three consecutive phases of the moon, so that I can stop being who I am."
Adam reached out an unsteady hand to her face and she turned away, giving the moonlight from the window the opportunity to reveal the tears glistening in her gray eyes. His fingers followed and he brushed her cheek with his knuckles, bringing her face back to him. His eyes deepened to golden amber, sharpened by a painful wisdom.
"I want who you are." He began to draw her closer.
Correen balked, her fear showing in her eyes. It was too much, what was between them, what she had shared with him. His hand cupped her jaw, his thumb stroking her throat up to her chin.
For them there was only one moment at a time, no promises or chances for anything more. Ironically, for that reason, Adam felt no urge to rush any part of what they were experiencing with one another.
"I just wish to dance," he said. "Whatever you have suffered before, you will never have any cause to fear me. I swear that to you." He drew her close and she tucked her head under his chin, against his chest. When his next words came, they came in rhythm with the beating of his heart against her cheek.
"I love you."
Aegian Parameter of Sealing #13: The moral structure of a society will be evident in its treatment of the defenseless, its children, elders, animals and environment.
Aegian Parameter of Sealing #14: Power and fear, want and privilege, will drive decisions concerning the worth of individual life and the quality thereof.
Comment: The humans of this world do not acknowledge the right of any being to exist independently of their usefulness to humans. The species that is least of the wise holds all the power to destroy life.
-Channahon Ellyn, Weekly Report to the Lords
Adam crouched among the pines and foliage outside Fionic Labs, staring at the sprawling, white-stucco complex behind its tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire. He blended with the darkness in black jeans, sweater and shoes, all of which Darius had provided him, along with instructions that every item of clothing worn on the raid would need to be discarded afterwards to eliminate evidence. He wasn't to wear jewelry or carry anything in his pockets. The medallion Adam wore around his neck had been on or close to his person since he was twelve. It felt strange to be without it. Adam had left the insignia in an apprehensive Niko's care.
Lanny touched his arm. "We're about to go," she said. "Are you clear on what you're doing?"
"Once we're inside, you and Rob will download the databanks. Darius and I will choose animals for your front organization to use when they call a surprise press conference tonight. If we are separated, I've memorized the layout of the interior that you gave me."
"Do you remember what to do if you get caught?" Darius murmured.
Adam nodded. The six foot four, two-hundred-fifty pound center had briefed all seven members of the team extensively on the way to the lab.
If you're caught, you're caught. Don't think it can't happen. We've planned this thing down to one of us getting an unexpected case of the hiccups, but that doesn't mean something won't go wrong. In fact, count on it. No weapons. Most of you have been on raids before, but you never get used to what you see. It can get to you. If you get discovered by someone who runs these labs, I don't want you doing anything you can't sleep with for the rest of your life. We're doing this because we respect life, so let's be consistent.
"There's the flash," Darius said. "Go, Lanny!"
She slithered off toward the fence with a snort. "It was probably Rob lighting a cigarette."
The cloudy night transformed her into a shadow flitting across the ground. When she reached the fence, she pulled bolt cutters from beneath her sweater and cut a flap at the ground level. Darius touched Adam's shoulder and moved forward.
Adam crawled quickly over the western lawn behind him. Out in the darkness, Rob also moved with two other team members. They had not spoken since the argument in the Vale. There had been no time. The brief interchanges they had were not unpleasant. Rob was affable, but distant. At the team rendezvous point, Adam had watched his roommate re-interrogate the woman who had acquired the inside information on the lab. Rob had memorized the lock mechanisms and alarm systems so well that he was able to correct the woman on some of her facts.
Rob could help him, but would he? Even at the time he had done it, Adam knew striking out at Rob was stupid. Greater things were at risk than Correen's reputation, but it hadn't stopped his knee-jerk reaction. Alma had intimated that he had no more experience than an adolescent at handling his emotions, which made it that much more logical for Adam to avoid emotional tangles, especially now, when lives were at stake. Instead, he had told Correen he loved her, committing himself.
Darius slipped into the shadows of the first building and Adam followed. Darius held up his hand and Adam froze beside him, back pressed against the rough, cold stucco. He turned his thoughts to the present. He knew why he had been assigned to Darius's side. As commander, Darius was responsible for the weakest link in the strategy. In this case, that would be the new recruit.
Adam accepted that. The Lords had forbidden him to engage in combat, so he had stayed behind when his father and brother went into battles. Nawat had served as a squire in their ranks. This might be the closest Adam came to battle. He wanted to make a good account of himself. He summoned the discipline of a lifetime and pushed Correen, Rob and everything else out of his mind, for now.
Lanny darted across the sidewalk and flattened against the service entrance door when the automated spotlights swept across concrete.
A moment later Rob skidded in beside her. He removed his black gloves. He wore rubber gloves lightly dusted with talcum powder to eliminate fingerprints. Rob slipped a thick cloth billfold out of the pack on his shoulder and selected one card out of several dozen Adam could see tucked in the pockets. He fitted the key into the computerized door lock as casually as an employee. There was a faint click as the door opened.
"Damn," Darius murmured appreciatively.
As though he heard him, Rob threw a rakish grin over his shoulder. He and Lanny slipped in, cracking the door with a doorstop. The door's hinges were silent, well oiled.
Adam's nostrils flared as the draft of air Rob and Lanny had released from within the building reached them. A fist squeezed around his stomach, shortening his breath. His eyes started to water. Something was terribly wrong behind that door.
"Hey," Darius's hand squeezed his arm. "Everyone gets the jitters first time they do this. C'mon, we've got to go."
Adam bolted forward, startling the team leader. He almost made it to the door first. They went in, and Darius pushed it back to a crack behind them for the last two members of his team.
Disturbingly bright fluorescent lighting flooded the sterile corridor lined with metal doors. Adam picked up a faint whining, like a baby crying, mixed with soft moans, grunts and snuffling behind the doors. He glanced up, startled, as the camera mounted on the wall rotated in their direction with a soft brrrr noise.
"Don't worry about it," Darius whispered. "Rob took care of the camera system. Security is seeing what was recorded before we got here. This is the cancer research wing. As good a place to start as any."
Adam nodded and followed him into one of the spotless lab rooms. Test tubes gleamed on the counters, papers were stacked neatly on a desk in the corner, and a stainless steel table in the middle of the room held a stack of towels. Cages formed two walls of the room, the largest ones on the bottom row progressing to the smallest ones three rows up. Aquariums were along the third wall.
Adam moved toward the rustling in the aquariums. His body response escalated like a homing beacon, his throat thick, his pulse slamming against his jugular. Mice, two in each aquarium, in a world of harsh light and pain instead of grass and wind. Red tumors distorted their abdomens, faces, or shoulders, making them into tiny hunchbacks. Some of them had succumbed to the gentle hands of Death, their bodies stiff, tiny paws curled into fists. Most stared at him dully through the glass. Some were healthy enough to pile against each other in the furthest corner of the aquarium as he walked past.
A whuffling noise turned him from them. In one of the large cages against the adjacent wall, a dog watched him, his tail wagging in welcome. It brought Adam to his knees before the animal. He raised an arm over his head to brace himself against the cage door, and the dog dropped to its belly, cowering and wetting. Adam murmured to him, dropping the threatening arm, and the dog tentatively nuzzled his hands through the bars. A great, heaving cough exploded from his throat. Blood and saliva flecked Adam's gloves and he reached through the bars, holding onto the dog's rib cage as the thin body shuddered.
Darius studied the tag over the cage. "Smoking tests. Probably has lung cancer." Adam stared up at him, but Darius turned away. "Come on. Stay focused. I need your help."
Adam left the dog. Cats, monkeys, guinea pigs, pigeons, a pig, and more dogs. All injected with tumors, treated with different drugs, or suffering the dog's symptoms. The power that fueled the Continuum stirred in the pit of Adam's stomach, agitated by the concentrated suffering in the room, in the whole building. He grabbed the bars of one cage as the world tilted and a cat hissed.
For all its symptoms of decay, Havenwood was too sheltered. The people of this world had cut themselves off from Those Who Are Not Seen far more completely than Adam had realized. He had witnessed a world Seal, but he had never been inside a world that was Sealing, had never seen institutionalized atrocity. The same people who would be horrified by Jaiya's mutilated corpse would accept this-donate money to allow this to happen. Adam felt like a fish flopped out on dry land. Darius had told him what to expect, but he had not actually believed it.
Though taller and more powerfully built than Adam, Darius saw something in the golden eyes that made him uneasy, an explosive force being held behind a quivering dam. "You okay?"
"I think your ... I think humans let their fears for the body destroy their souls."
Darius blew out a breath. He hated working with new people. It chipped off the hard-won thick skin that made it possible for him to do this, reminded him of his own initiation into a world he had never wanted to know existed. He took a step back and shook off the feeling. "Come on," he repeated. "We need to get moving."
Adam followed Darius in and out of rooms marked "Test Subjects." Pigs with most of their skin blasted off by burn experiments grunted in mildly sedated agony. Animals subjected to AIDS, heart disease, and innumerable types of cancer struck his senses with their suffering again and again, like mortar fire. Rabbits with ulcerated eyes from the testing of commercial cleaning products and dogs dying from a diet of laundry detergent brought bile up into his own throat.
"Adam," Darius said sharply, for the third time. Adam managed, barely, to focus his eyes on the other man, and fumbled out another roll of film for him in shaking fingers.
"What-how do you remain so calm?" Adam struggled for control, steadied his hand. Forces moved within him, the shift of tectonic plates beneath the ocean, the beginning of a tidal wave.
"You do more good if you keep your head." Darius glanced at Adam. "I got started with this back in high school." He aimed the lens, and a rabbit cringed back at the sound of the shutter. "I earned money being a kennel worker in a dog lab up at Bethesda, thanks to my brother's connections through the Navy. What's funny is, at first, I never even noticed the dogs that much." He shrugged, moved down several cages to an emaciated monkey. He was sleeping in a fetal position, his shallow breath indicating he was close to death. "We didn't have pets when I was growing up because we moved so often-my dad was a Navy Seal. I guess I had a pretty utilitarian view of animals. Sort of a 'Yeah, the dogs are being hurt, but it's for a good cause' attitude. What woke me up to it is the effect it had on me." Darius paused, held out a hand, and Adam put another roll of film in it, tucking the completed roll in his pocket.
"I was telling my girlfriend at that time about this dog in one of the labs. Half of his body had been paralyzed by nerve experiments. In order to get to his food, he'd have to lay his head in his bowl and use his nose like a shovel until some food happened to get into it. He usually ended up with his head in an empty bowl and all the food on the floor. Then he'd start moving like an inchworm across the floor, trying to pull the food into his mouth like an anteater." Adam closed his eyes and Darius stared down at the camera. "We could have taken the time to feed him by hand, but no one did. I was laughing so hard at my description of the way the dog looked I could barely talk. Then I realized my girlfriend was crying.
"The next day I went into the lab and I really looked. There were dogs who weren't getting the vet care they needed. It wasn't in the budget to have the vet come out that often, or it interfered with the experiment, or nobody thought to call and do it. You can understand how it happens-the dogs are in the lab for our welfare, not theirs, so why would we call the vet unless the dog's problem interferes with what the scientists are doing? I understood the logic, I'm a scientist, too. You can't see them as living creatures-they're tools. Morals are subjective, they interfere with science. But that's the problem, that's what morals are supposed to do-interfere with things so you don't fuck up your life or anyone else's."
Darius stopped, glanced at another cage tag. "I noticed the dogs, like that one you saw, who pissed on themselves when you touched the bars of their cage because they thought it was their turn again. Most people think the most heartbreaking ones are those that are gotten from the pound, the ones that used to be someone's pet, who still crave affection from people. They don't understand what the hell is going on and, yeah, that's hard to take. But it's the purpose-bred ones that bother me the most." He placed his hand gently on the cage of a white rabbit and the animal stared back at him dully. "They have no concept of humans as anything other than what we are to them-demons."
Darius put away the camera, rummaged and removed a pair of pliers from his pack. "I don't think people have it in them to understand that even if we find all the cures to disease by doing this, doing it this way is just wrong. It's kind of like being a guard at Auschwitz. You rationalize it, so you think you're doing what's best for your country, even though it maybe eats at your guts some, but eventually you get sucked into the power of it. No matter how good your intentions-well, you know what they say the road to hell is paved with." Darius glanced at his watch. "Use this and destroy those stereotaxic devices. I'll take the ones on the end. Our time's about up."
Adam nodded and turned his back to Darius. He laid the pliers down and broke the welding on the devices with the power charged in his hands, trying to diffuse it. Darius' words should have helped, but they hadn't.
"I think one of these rabbits and the dog you saw in the cancer ward are our best choices," Darius went down the row. "The dog looks fairly easy to handle, and I've got a pillow case for the rabbit."
"Tow One!"
Darius snatched the radio off his belt.
"Yeah, Tow One here."
"We're fucked. We got flagged by a lady with a flat tire. Not sure if we're going to make it back in time for the game."
"Do you need to bring her back to the garage?"
"Negative. She's already up and running and on her way."
Darius clicked off the speaker. "Shit," he swore. "They ran into one of the lab workers, and she slipped past them." He released the button of the radio. "Tow Two, I read you. Head for home, and I'll see you when you get there. Tow Three?"
The radio buzzed. "Yeah," Lanny's voice came over, low.
"How you doing?"
"We hit a bug, pulling that station wagon out of the ditch, but Rob's jammin' now. We'll have about a fifteen minute delay before we can call it a night."
"Actually," Rob's murmured voice could be heard over what Darius knew to be the grind of a computer, "all this excitement gave me a hard on, and I talked Lanny into a quick fuck."
Darius rolled his eyes at Adam. "Knock it off, asshole. Tow Two hit a flat; he's headed back to the garage."
"We heard." Lanny looked over her shoulder at Rob. He fed disks to the computer's drive with one hand as his other fingers flashed over the keys. The monitor's light bathed his face in a ghostly glow. He jerked his head at the cracked door and she shut it with the toe of her black sneaker. "No need for you to miss the game. Head back to the garage and we'll meet you there."
"Not a chance. I'll be by in a minute to lend a hand. Sit tight." Darius stuffed the radio back under his sweatshirt and glanced at Adam. "I'll drop you at the nearest exit."
Adam handed him his unused pliers. "I will go with you."
"You'll do exactly as you're told. I don't have time to argue with you-"
"Then do not."
Adam held the taller man's gaze and knew the expression the team leader saw would brook no refusal. In less than a moment, Darius jerked his head and slipped out the door.
Adam knew he should get out of the laboratory as fast as he could, but logic didn't hold reins on his actions anymore. A red light blinked at the end of the hall, spilling blood on the gray walls. As they ran, the din of spirits pleading for release assaulted his heart and mind.
The natural order to life was shadowed in this place, warped beyond fixing. The lab was a reflection of the human race, a race that had built a wall of supposed superiority between themselves and all other inhabitants of their world, and as a result, had built themselves a coffin. A Guardian of the Continuum, a conduit to the natural order on the other side of that wall, could not help but be unbalanced by it. The spirits of the animals sensed his presence, sensed who he was, and their clamor for his help filled every atom of consciousness. Sweat soaked Adam's body, his heart triple hammering. He almost ran past Darius instead of turning the corner with him. Adam stumbled and caught up just as Darius skidded to a halt. Lanny slipped out of the data room, her eyes bright and hard. "Here's half of them," she dumped five disks unceremoniously in Darius's hands. "Now get out of here-we'll bring the other half along, or you bring bail."
Footsteps pounded down the hall and Adam spun around. A troop of security guards raced toward them, led by a thin woman, her white smock flapping like a cloak.
"C'mon! We've got to draw them away from Rob." Darius caught Lanny's arm and dragged her into flight.
Time slowed. Adam heard the woman shout. Several of the men fumbled guns from their belts, aiming with frightened, uncertain eyes. A finger tensed too much, a shot cracked the air, and Adam lost control.
The tortured souls of Fionic Laboratories felt the release of his power and burst into his subconscious. They touched the hand of the Continuum within and screamed for Its help. Those Who Are Not Seen turned a face of rage on the laboratory. The fury surged through Adam and became his own face. Power that had taught Adam, comforted him and replaced the caress of his human mother, now rocketed through him, staggering him. It was strong enough to incinerate him in its purpose. Suppressing it was no longer an option.
Adam struggled to channel it through the tunnel of energy centers in his body, the marratma. The power exploded through every nerve. He was little more than an avenue through which They intended to make Their feelings known. Adam's palms lifted and met, and the charge bolted forth.
It scattered the fired bullets like chaff, lifted the guards off their feet and slammed them against the wall fifty feet behind them. Their guns clattered to the floor like toys.
The power swirled about him, a glorious, multicolored tornado of fire. Adam managed to turn his head toward Lanny and Darius, frozen where they stood. "Go!" he thundered.
Lanny lunged toward the computer room, but Darius caught her arm in a ruthless grip and hauled her flailing body toward the exit door at the end of the hall.
Their existence forgotten, Adam stopped fighting its power and released his will to the energy flowing through him. Those Who Are Not Seen told him Their bidding. He obeyed, not just because he was sworn to serve Them, but because Their charge answered his own desire. Adam focused the energy on the grove that stood silent and waiting in a dark lobby back at Havenwood. It was a long leap, but he had all the power of Those Who Are Not Seen boiling through his veins. He visualized all he had seen in the past hour. The horror of a dog wagging its tail and dying of lung cancer led the next surge of energy that shot forth from his body. It whipped around corners, through doors, past cage bars and enclosed every captive in the laboratory in a soft, green cocoon of light. The lights rose, passed through glass and steel, bringing their precious cargo with them, and rushed like an incoming tide back to their source.
Twenty thousand spheres of light came through doors, up the halls, through plaster and ductwork, and gathered together in the hallway before Adam, filling the corridor with shimmering light.
Adam dropped to one knee, but he kept his mind steeled to the task at hand. With a shudder akin to a deep breath before a scream, he thrust his arms downward.
The sphere exploded through the floor of the facility like a meteorite, stinging him with chunks of tile and concrete, following the path the energy plowed before it. Adam felt it rocketing through the womb of the earth to the opening the grove provided.
The power roared out of his body, the only thing holding it upright. The force of the Continuum's departure, like shrapnel ripped out of his internal organs, knocked Adam to the floor.
The hall went dark and silent. The red emergency light at the end of the hall blinked in astonishment at a crater of broken tile and the man collapsed before it. Rob stood, transfixed, at the doorway of the lab, a fistful of disks clutched in his hand.
As there are infinite points to a circle, so there are infinite points from which to understand another living being.
-Mataya
Lanny stood motionless, undetected for the moment in the sprawl of pine trees beyond the fence. Darius stood next to her. He had sent the other team members on their way. They would disperse, stripping off the black garments for the casual clothes underneath, disks tucked safely in their pockets. Only three minutes had lapsed since they had fled the building, but they could hear police sirens and the fire department approaching. In a moment he knew he would have to override her refusal to leave and knock her senseless to drag her away. He was not going to think about how Rob would react to that. He was especially not going to think about what he had seen Adam do in the lab.
Lanny hissed and bolted forward. Darius scrambled after her. Rob and Adam emerged from the side door. Rob half-carried Adam, his arm around his waist. Darius and Lanny ducked through the hole in the fence and ran across the grass. Darius hesitated a moment, then caught Rob's steely glance and took up Adam's other side. The two football players broke into a jog, as well synched off the field as on. They drove for the fence as Lanny backpedaled behind them, keeping a lookout. They made it through the fence and into the patch of pines just as the first blue light cut a swath through the air. The police car screeched into the parking lot.
Rob crouched next to Adam. "I take it the chauffeur is not bringing the car around?"
"The van's parked down the road at Papa Doc's. About a mile away, I'm afraid," Darius said.
Adam struggled to his elbows. "Rob," he rasped, "Can you three go on alone? I did not know they would try to kill you-"
"Forget it, Don Quixote." Rob shoved him back down. "Jesus, I need a cigarette. What do we do, Darwin?"
"If we wait, we're caught. If we move, we're caught."
"If you cannot escape, join the opposing army," Adam mumbled.
"You'd make a hell of a hero. Lanny, what have you got?"
She attempted a smile, traced a finger along his jaw. "We could always go home to Tara, and think about it tomorrow."
Rob stared at her, then a grin split his face and he kissed her fingers. He pulled a silver flask out of his pack. A frown creased Darius's face, but Rob waved a hand at him. "Don't lecture me about personal items on a raid now, Darwin. Help me get him to his feet. Play along, Adam. We'll have you in the arms of your pretty senorita in no time."
Darius shifted, darting a glance at Adam. Lanny looked at the ground. Adam stiffened.
"It's all right, Rob. I can walk."
"No, you can't. Not by yourself." Rob glared at the other two. "I don't know if you realize it, but this puddle of gelatin just saved your asses from being blown away. Stop treating him like he has fucking leprosy. If we don't work together, we're all screwed, isn't that right, team leader?"
Darius's square jaw line twitched and he came forward, his blue eyes brittle. "Fine. What's your plan?"
Sergeant Glenda McDaniel could feel a serious migraine developing. She tucked her clipboard under her armpit, nodding in a sympathetic manner at the stuttering security guard old enough to be her grandfather. She reached into her pocket and tried not to wince as another projectile of saliva sprinkled her uniform. Glenda swallowed the aspirin dry and grimaced, retrieving a piece of pocket lint from her tongue.
She held up a hand to the guard as one of her flatfoots approached. He was white-faced, which was not a good color for a black man.
"What have you got?"
"Body count of five; looks like they were killed by the blast. Security inside said that an intruder call had just been placed and then-"
"Boom!" The old guard spread his arms wide on a vehement explosion of spittle.
The black officer nodded. "'Boom' is right. Blew the hell out of the floor, as if bombs were planted under the building. But it's like they imploded or something-the ceilings aren't even chipped. I'd love to hear what the bomb squad will say when they see this. Watts is getting a preliminary on what's missing-Hey!" The officer interrupted himself, looking over Glenda's shoulder. "Get away from there!"
A group of college kids had wandered up and were weaving curiously among the patrol cars. Jesus, Glenda scowled. You wouldn't think we'd need a police barrier at two in the morning. The city never sleeps. She waved the clipboard and started toward them. One of the students was slumped against a redheaded behemoth who gave her an unpleasant flashback to her academy drill sergeant. At his nudge, the slouching student made a half-hearted attempt to straighten. The redhead hid a flask in his jacket. Great! A group of wasted rubbernecks!
"This is a crime scene," she informed the group. "You kids are going to have to move to the sidewalk across the street if you want a show." She flicked on her flashlight. "Is this man intoxicated?" That should spook them enough to get them out of here.
"No, ma'am ... Well, yes, ma'am." The stumbling explanation came from a tall, good looking kid with brown hair and his arm draped around a gum-snapping cheerleader type too busy craning her neck to follow the conversation. "But we're taking him home. He just broke up with his girlfriend, and we took him to Papa Doc's down the street to loosen up, have a little fun..."
Glenda impatiently waved the flashlight and clicked it off. "Well, get him home, then, and get out from underfoot. Hey, wait a minute!"
She moved closer, scrutinizing the drunken student. The breath was definitely courtesy of an expensive bourbon. Great. Rich, spoiled rubbernecks. She lifted his chin and he managed a silly grin without lifting his eyelids. "'Hello, Melly. I'm not so very drunk.'"
The kid with the cheerleader type made a choking sound. He cut it short as Glenda threw a glare his way. "I could haul his ass in for public drunkenness, but I'm not in the mood. Have you seen anyone out on the street in the past ten minutes? Anything unusual?"
"There was that car," the redhead said slowly. This one wasn't too bright, unlike her drill sergeant. "It almost hit us when it pulled away from the curb."
"I think it was one of those mini-van things," the other boy insisted.
"Yeah, but I thought it was a sports utility vehicle," the girl offered over the cracking in her mouth. "You know, one of those really cool-"
"Enough." Glenda pointed with her flashlight. "Up on that sidewalk and start heading toward the bus stop, unless you have a designated driver. If I see you here in five minutes, I'm taking him in." She put her card in the hand of the boy with the cheerleader. He appeared to be the most lucid. "If you think of anything else suspicious you might have seen tonight, give me a call at that number."
The drunken student's head lolled back and his three companions stiffened. She turned and saw the medics bringing out the five bodies, zipped in black bags.
"Whoa, man," the boy with the cheerleader type muttered, a slight tremor in his voice. "Time to cut this scene."
Glenda made certain they were safely on the curb and on their way. She turned back to the bodies.
"Sarge?" John Watts came across the lawn. "Any leads there?" He nodded after the kids.
"Naw. They've been swilling at Papa Doc's most of the night."
"Mmmm. Well, if they told you they'd seen Elvis fleeing the crime scene it wouldn't surprise me."
"Why's that?"
"Well, first off, the guards took some shots at the intruders. The bullets are lying on the floor like marbles. Didn't even penetrate the walls, as far as we can tell. It was like they were stopped in mid-air, maybe by the force of the blast. Then there's the animals."
"What about them?"
"Well, according to the lab tech on call, there's over twenty thousand animals used in this place."
"Why is that so incredible?"
Watts shrugged. "In itself, nothing. You've got cages, water, food ... hell, there's enough shit in there to fertilize the White House lawn. But there ain't no animals. They're all gone."
With a glance, you can look at a tree and know it for a tree. You have to create hundreds of lines of code to teach a computer to do this. A computer never commits the crime of assumption. We, on the other hand, slap a label on an unmarked, unopened can, based on the way it reflects its environment.
-Rob Steigir, Public Policy 210, Class Report
Adam lay on the bed in his room, trying to block out the whispered conversation between Rob, Lanny and Darius that filtered in through the slight crack in the door. He breathed deeply, focusing, drawing strength from the same source that had drained it from him.
"-fucking killed people-"
"-saved your asses-"
"-freak-"
His fingers spasmed, and the glass of water on the night stand clattered away. The conversation stilled and Rob peered around the door. He looked at the water dripping down the side of the table. "You okay, Sancho?"
"It's a complicated question. How about you?"
Rob shrugged. "Same. I'll get back to you on it." He disappeared and the voices moved farther down the hall.
The phone trilled and Adam picked up the receiver. "Yes?"
"My lord?"
"Alma. Merry meet."
"Not very, I'm afraid. You must go to the grove. The Lords are demanding to see you immediately." She paused. "Your brother said you should not expect to return here."
Lanny, Rob and Darius had retreated to the common room. Adam slipped out of the dorm and crossed campus quickly, headed for the grove. He was not concerned about his brother's threat, but he knew the longer he waited, the more time it gave Trelbyn to stir up the conservative lords. He blocked the five body bags in a quiet corner of his mind. He could not afford to appear confused or indecisive or even weary. Adam relocked the lobby door behind him. As he moved toward the grove, he spoke a changing spell. The clothes he wore shifted into close-fitting black trousers and boots, a heavy blue cloak and a white linen tunic, richly embroidered with a snarling lion down the right breast. A golden circlet materialized on his brow. He placed himself at the center of the oak pillars and turned clockwise, speaking words of praise for Those Who Are Not Seen, and then turned clockwise again, reciting the opening charm.
He turned to the east, toward a sliver of light that drew up in a straight line from the floor, then expanded outward like a roll of parchment. It encircled Adam and drew him into its embrace. The grove disappeared and he stepped into the main hallway of the Continuum. He felt no more rage from the Presence that dwelled here. He felt only the welcoming touch of a Parent and a sense of amused condescension toward those awaiting him in the Great Hall.
"Easy for you," he murmured in his own language. "You do not have to answer to them. The advantage to being a deity, I suspect."
As he approached the elaborate archway that marked the entrance to the Great Hall, the sounds of a barnyard reached him. The lowing of cattle, the call of birds, the barking and mewling of a variety of dogs and cats. He frowned and came up short as two mice scurried across his path. Adam blanched, recognizing where the events of the past hour had led, a realization that had been lost in the team's escape efforts and his attempt to recuperate his strength. He strode swiftly to the entrance of the Great Hall and was rendered speechless by what he saw there.
In terms of the world he had left behind, the Great Hall was almost the size of a football field. Directly in its center was the raised dais and multi-faceted crystal of the Continuum. It reflected the light of every torch set in the filigree wall sconces around the chamber, and sprinkled the stone walls with a glittering dust of colors. Even the shock of what else was in the room could not make Adam forget to acknowledge the concentrated power of the crystal with a reverent bow. He did, however, note that it had acquired a new adornment. Two pigeons with metal devices implanted in their heads anxiously cooed on the sacred perch.
The sounds that had met him in the passageway were now underscored by the softer scrabbling and chattering of herds of rats, mice and guinea pigs. They clustered around the feet of animals who, under normal circumstances, would have been their predators.
Adam felt a nudge against his knee. The black dog grinned up at him, tail still wagging. Adam dropped to one knee and laid a hand on the soft head. His discomfiture receded somewhat as he looked into great brown eyes. "Thank you, friend. You led the way."
He straightened and proceeded at a halting, zigzag pace across the room, the dog trailing behind him.
Leonidas, one hundred years old and the patriarch of the Lords, generally supported the Exploration Act and its idea of contact and learning between worlds. However, his worried expression was not an encouraging sign. A monkey sat on the back of his chair, parroting his somber face. Lady Marisa also supported exploration and assistance to uninitiated worlds, but only with stringent precautions. Though she inclined her head toward him with a gracious, murmured, "Your Highness," her lips were pursed tightly. She scratched a pig behind the ear with one slippered foot. The remaining four lords and lady were against Exploration, aligned with his brother's perspective.
They were half brothers. Trelbyn had the look of the father they shared-tall and broad almost to the point of burliness. His face was handsome, but marred by stern lines etched around his mouth and eyes. Adam's looks belonged to his mother, so there was nothing in their appearance that readily identified them as brothers. Or in their beliefs.
"We got your message," his brother growled. "We have not decided what to do with it," he gestured around the room at all of the animals, "or you, yet."
"My lord, please." Leonidas placed a hand on Trelbyn's arm. "Your Highness, an explanation is in order."
Adam nodded. "I sent you a report on my progress-"
"Or the lack thereof-" Trelbyn muttered.
"The answers are not obvious, brother." Adam turned and took his place in one of the eight chairs arranged in a circle around the crystal dais. Trelbyn complied with protocol, going to his throne, across from Adam's, but he stood before it, legs spread and arms crossed. Cats stroked his powerful calves and meowed plaintively.
"Our investigation requires the services of what is known as a computer hacker," Adam laid his hands casually on the carved arms of his throne. "The man I share a room with at the college is one. I haven't involved him yet, but I agreed to help him with this task," he nodded at the animals, "if he agreed to help me with mine." Briefly, he explained the laboratory raid and the events that lead to the transportation of the animals to the Great Hall, hesitating briefly over the deaths of the guards. Their faces right before they hit the wall, the body bags being brought out, swam in his vision again and he swallowed, trying to speak calmly, holding in the depth of his reaction. "Killing them wasn't my intent, but I don't think I could have prevented it."
"You could have not been there," Trelbyn pointed out.
Adam touched the head of the black dog, sitting quietly at his knee. "You're right," he admitted. "It would have saved their lives. But Lanny and Darius might be dead. At the time, I saw the lab raid as a reasonable way to get Rob's help."
"And there was no alternative to acquiring this 'roommate's' services other than risking capture by their authorities and risking your life?" Lord Malachi demanded.
An infant rhesus monkey launched itself from Trelbyn's throne and landed solidly against his shoulder.
"Can nothing be done about these animals!" Trelbyn snarled, stumbling among the coil of felines.
Adam lifted his index finger slightly off the throne arm, and twenty thousand animals collapsed into sleep. The dog eased into a prone position across his booted feet. "Better, my lord?"
The members of the Lord Council shifted. Even his brother's expression slipped, momentarily revealing his own discomfort at Adam's easy display of power.
"I asked myself if there were other ways to accomplish my objective. Perhaps there were," Adam said quietly. For the rest of his life, five souls would badger him, asking him if the Continuum had been brought to life by his anger, Their energy providing the match while he provided tinder. But, like many other things-Jaiya's lifeless face, Corbet's pain-his personal struggle with that question would have to wait.
"I did what I thought was right, and then it was past time to retreat. Rob had vouched for my help."
"What about your responsibilities to the Sealing Team and the women of your own world who have vanished?" Lord Malachi snapped.
"Let us address the real issue," Trelbyn said. "You do not have the experience to conduct this investigation properly. You are too valuable to be wandering around other worlds, taking foolish chances based on your emotions."
Adam tensed. "What are you implying, Trelbyn?"
"This investigation would be conducted in a more professional manner if you were not developing feelings for these Other Worlders, particularly one woman."
Adam rose to his feet, carefully moving the dog. "You have been watching me."
"Your Highness," Leonidas made a placating gesture. "This was your first undertaking outside our Hall, and, while your knowledge of what goes on here is exceptional, your knowledge of Other Worlders is not. We felt it important to have someone oversee your steps, but we did not approach her about doing so until after you had introduced yourself to the team-"
"Who?"
"I do not think it is wise-"
"Who!" Adam snarled. The Council members visibly shrank away. Even Trelbyn flinched. His hand unconsciously went to his sword. The prince closed his eyes so he would not see it, and fought for his temper. The name dropped into the void before his eyes.
"Channa," Marisa murmured.
"Why not put her in charge at the beginning?" Adam said tonelessly. His eyes snapped open. "Why couldn't you be truthful with me?"
"I'll tell you why." Trelbyn's arms knotted over his broad chest. "You threw a tantrum when you thought we were going to make you stay here and serve only as a consultant to Channa. The Council was afraid you would be insulted if they gave you second in command. From the very beginning, this Council should have had the courage to order you to stay in these halls, where you belong."
Years of royal training kept Adam's stance straight, his expression dignified and aloof. Inside, he choked on helpless fury. The averted eyes of the other Council members told him he was hearing truth.
"I see," he said.
You are not helpless, a soft Voice reminded him. We chose you.
It does not matter whose leash I am on, as long as it is still a leash. The Voice vanished before the vicious lash, and Adam winced at the pain of regret, as he had when he struck out at Mataya for the same reason. Why must he always reach this point, when he felt like a lion in a cage, with no way to make others understand except by irrational bursts of anger that conveyed only petulance?
A hoarse scream split the charged air of the Great Hall, saving him from a reply.
The Lords leapt to their feet. Trelbyn spun toward the Crystal, but Marisa was there first.
"Someone has made an unlawful entry," she said, peering at the stone. She glanced at Adam. "From the world you just left."
Trelbyn snorted in disgust and flung himself into his chair. "Well, my lord, let us see what your ineptitude has brought to us."
Barely had he spoken than the dark shadow creatures that guarded the Continuum slipped into the room. Even as Guardian, Adam knew little about the Servants of the Continuum. They seemed to have no solid form and no desires other than guarding the hallways. They brought their captives up on the dais and the creatures became translucent, forming prison walls through which the prisoners could not see or hear, though the Lords could see them. Rob and Lanny sat back to back, staring at the wall of flickering lights that enclosed them.
"You know them, my lord?" Leonidas asked.
"My roommate, Rob, and his girlfriend, Lanny. They must have followed me."
"Really?" Trelbyn's eyes opened in mock surprise. "You think so?"
"Trelbyn," Marisa reproved. "This is Prince Adam's first assignment. We expected he would make some errors in judgment."
"I am not disputing that, my lady." Trelbyn inclined his head to Adam. "Pardon my sarcasm. This situation weighs on me and causes me to be hard on your inexperience. But-" he waved his hand toward the dais, "this justifies my concerns about initiating contact with Other Worlds. One of our people is missing, one of them has been brutally murdered, and now we must deal with this situation. What problems are we creating with Exploration? Are we Those Who Are Not Seen, to decide that others must be brought into an awareness of other worlds or saved from their own foolishness? I tell you all again-the wisest thing would be to remove our people from Other Worlds and reduce our role to supervisors of the doorways and Sealed passages. We endanger all we hold dear by doing otherwise.
"Look at this world-" He gestured disdainfully at Rob and Lanny. "A world that would torture other species for medical benefit because the animals cannot speak their language or defend themselves. A world that murdered one of our own in a rite of pure evil. A world that is destroying itself because it cannot control its addiction to what it perceives as progress." Several of the Lords nodded. Lady Marisa and Lord Leonidas looked thoughtfully at the floor.
"This world is Sealing," Adam agreed, "but look at what only a year or more of work has done. It has resulted in the formation of dozens of groups like the Brigade of Light. They are babies desperate for the milk from their Mother's breast." Adam drew a deep breath, keeping an eye on Rob and Lanny. Rob explored the small space, touching the creatures, while Lanny stood in the middle of the cage, her hands clasping and unclasping, her face pale and mouth working.
"When everything else is stripped away, it comes down to this," Adam said. "We can only follow our hearts. Compassion, if not always the practical choice, is the choice that brings favor in the sight of Those Who Are Not Seen."
Marisa nodded. Trelbyn shook his head. "Showing compassion is easy, my lord. No one can argue your intent. But it does not always make it the right choice. Let us do the hard thing. Accept our failures, and pull our people out."
"Accept our failures? We do not know if Sephira is dead or alive-should we just abandon her? Would any of you like to explain that to her family?" Adam strode up the dais, and stood next to the prison. "The man we are following, Edward Brautigan, possesses powers equal to my own."
He paused while an uneasy murmur ran through the Lords. Trelbyn's frown deepened. "It is something his world has no experience in handling, let alone resisting. Do we turn our backs on that as well? You ask, my brother, what gives us the right to act as gods, saving worlds from their shortcomings. That sword has another edge-what gives us the right to abandon a world that only we may be able to save?" Adam crossed his arms, unconsciously imitating his brother's original stance, and surveyed them all.
"We are not here to debate the issue of the Exploration Act. My brother tends to bring us back to that subject as if all roads lead to it." Trelbyn flushed, but Adam raised a hand. "Forgive my sarcasm, brother, but I'm also frustrated. I have made errors, but not errors serious enough to warrant slapping me back into the gilded cage of this hall. The decision to remove these animals from their imprisonment was not entirely my own."
"You lost control," Trelbyn sneered.
"Nay, brother. I never had it." Adam's aristocratic brow lifted. "It's not my responsibility to keep Those Who Are Not Seen on a tether. If I am at fault, it is for giving the Continuum a channel to react to what was happening at that foul place." He looked at the sleeping dog. "And I can not regret that."
Adam raised his eyes to Leonidas. "I can conduct this investigation. The only qualification I lack is experience with Other Worlders and I already depend on Channa to guide me through that. I am the only person who is capable of withstanding Edward's strength."
"What is she doing?"
The question came from Lord Malachi. All heads swivelled toward the enclosure. Lanny folded to her knees and rocked herself. Rob's lips moved, talking to her, but as they watched, her mouth opened in an unmistakable cry of distress. She struck out with a flurry of blows at the transparent creatures that formed their cage, and kept striking. Blood burst from her knuckles and spread across the surface of the unmoved creatures. Rob pulled her hands from the wall. She fought him like a wild animal.
Leonidas released the sound barrier and Rob's voice thundered above the unearthly screeches coming from her throat. "-Bastards! Let us out of here! Right now!"
"No!" Trelbyn ordered.
Adam ignored him, communicating with the creatures by touch. The shadow creatures responded, peeling away like the skin of a fruit. They melted into the dais.
The prince knelt by his friends. "Lanny," he placed a hand still warm with magic on her brow. "You are safe."
Slowly, the folds of skin around her eyes relaxed and her lids raised. He touched her bloody knuckles. "I am sorry," he said. "We were trying to protect you."
Her fear overcame the calming power of his touch and she shrank from him. Rob shouldered Adam aside and curled his arms around Lanny, lifting her to her feet. She leaned on him, regaining her composure, as he rubbed her shaking arms and glared around the hall, coming back to Adam. "Who the hell are you, and where the fuck are we?"
"This is intolerable," Trelbyn snapped at Leonidas. "They can understand our language here. They must be re-quarantined immediately." He turned, raising his hand. Adam came off the dais and caught the arm in mid-air as Rob took a defensive posture in front of Lanny, ready to do battle if necessary.
"You will not," Adam said. He turned to Leonidas. "I accept full responsibility for these people. They will help me if they understand our purpose. While we debate politics, we grow closer to the next equinox, and that is possibly the date when another woman will be sacrificed. I explained to you why these animals are here-it was the will of Those Who Are Not Seen. What they need now are healers and transportation into a protected area. Give me another week. If you are not satisfied with my progress," he drew a deep breath, spat it out, "I will turn the whole investigation over to Channa and return 'where I belong.'"
Trelbyn glowered at Adam. "I demand an immediate end to this foolishness. Prince Adam should return home, and these two should have all evidence of this event erased from their minds."
"Well, you at least are totally forgettable," Rob snapped.
"Rob," Adam warned. He kept his eyes on Leonidas. "I can do this. Have faith in me."
The patriarch held his gaze, tapped his fingers on his throne. "Lord Trelbyn," Leonidas spoke at last. "You are our best battle tactician. If you sense a need to retreat, I give great weight to that advice. However," he stopped Adam's protest, "you know battle. Your brother knows magic. Those Who Are Not Seen did not mandate his active participation in the problems of Earth, but neither have They spoken against it." Adam nodded. "Therefore, I believe it is in the best interests of both of our worlds that he resolve this situation. We cannot justify abandoning Sephira at this point in time. Decisions on the wisdom of Exploration should not be discussed during an emotional and dangerous time such as this."
The other Lords nodded. The logic of the elder Lord's words was sound to them. Trelbyn inclined his head reluctantly.
"Prince Adam," Leonidas said. "I give you your week. As for these beings," the old man fixed his gaze on the two pigeons scrabbling for purchase on the treasured crystal. "We will have healers attend to them as you say and determine where they might be released."
"If I may suggest, milord," Adam said. "Crystal Sanctuary for the curable ones." He glanced down at the dog. "This one can stay with Fedana, my sister. I do not know if he can be healed, but she will love him well until Those Who Are Not Seen claim him."
Leonidas nodded. "We are done here. We will convene in one week to rule on this again. Keep us informed, Your Highness. And be careful." The command was equal parts concern and warning, and Adam inclined his head, acknowledging both messages.
The Lords filed out with nods or silence for the prince, vanishing up the hallway that returned them to their world. Trelbyn lingered last, throwing a glance at Rob and Lanny. "You risk much, Your Highness. Full responsibility, indeed. Until we have to come and clean up the mess."
"Brother, the Council has decided. We will speak of it again in a week."
Trelbyn snorted and turned on his heel, striding out of the hall.
"What a winning personality," Rob remarked caustically. "So what's 'responsibility' mean? You're our baby-sitter?"
"No," Adam said. He turned to face them both. "If you endanger the Continuum with your knowledge of it, I am sworn to prevent you, even if I must kill you both."
Mom had some interesting advice for me as a kid: "Just be who you are and the people who are your real friends will hang around." She forgot to mention that when you're a senator's kid, those who aren't your friends also tend to hang around. She should have said, "Wait until your life has become hell, then look around. The last person left in the room is either good old Lucifer, ready to take you out for a drink, or your real friend..." So, Doc, when are you taking me out for a martini?
-Psychotherapist recording on Rob Steigir, age 17
When they emerged from the grove, Adam strode to the phone at the lobby desk and dialed. Channa's expectant voice answered. "Hello?"
"This is Adam. I want everyone in the grove right now, including Correen Seabra. Can you arrange it?"
"Yes. My lord-"
"I will expect you immediately." Adam laid the receiver in the cradle and turned to Rob and Lanny. "I will explain everything that has happened. The others will be here in a few moments." He gestured to the grove. "We meet there." He spun on his heel and retreated into the darkened recesses of the lobby.
"Hey-"
"There will be time for questions then." He disappeared around the corner of the dark hall that led to the administrative offices.
Lanny tugged on Rob's arm, leading him toward the door, but he shook his head and moved them toward the grove.
"Where are you going?" she demanded in a whisper. "Let's get out of here and call the police!"
"And tell them what?" Rob raised a brow. "There's this guy with the abilities of a superhero who killed five guys at a lab raid, tonight, and we know about it because we were there? Oh yeah, and the lobby at Havenwood is a portal to another cosmic dimension."
"There's a panel in one of these pillars," she said desperately. "It's an optical illusion, leading to a bunch of crazy people dressed up in robes. And Adam has super psychokinetic ability."
Rob looked at her. "Okay, I'm losing it." Lanny slid down one of the pillars to the floor. He sat down and laid an arm around her shoulders. Rob lifted her hand and rubbed a gentle finger over her torn knuckles.
"Guess following him through that ... whatever it was, wasn't one of my best ideas. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well," A nervous smile touched her trembling lips. "It never came up. You never asked to do it in an elevator or anything like that."
"That explains why we always take the stairs."
Lanny pulled her hands away, burying her head in her knees and curling her arms over her hair. "Rob, stop it! What the hell is going on? Where did he go?"
"Probably somewhere to give us the chance to decide whether or not we want to bolt." Rob stared through the darkness.
"So why aren't we bolting?"
"Well," the student shrugged. "I want to know what's going on, don't you? If he was going to kill us, he would have done it in that place, where there wouldn't be bodies to explain."
Lanny whitened. "Thanks. That was encouraging. He said he would kill us if he had to, and after seeing what he did at the lab..." She shuddered. "It doesn't make any sense. I liked him-we all liked him. Alicia thinks Correen is in love with him, if you can believe that."
Rob recaptured her hand and squeezed it. "I don't think it's an act, Lanny. I think he is that likable. But maybe ... well, okay, this is stretching it, but bear with me." He settled his shoulders against the pillar and looked at the one directly across from them, tracing the pattern of a carved dragon's neck with his eyes rather than meeting her gaze.
"When I was growing up, I never knew why kids wanted to play with me. I'd find out their parents were bribing them to play with me, so they could get close to my dad, and the kid didn't really like me much. Teachers treated me differently, letting me get away with stuff. The first time a girl agreed to go out with me, I was thrilled. Then I overheard her telling her friends how she had a date with Philip Steigir's son. It was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, for reasons that aren't important at the moment." He waved away the questions in her face.
"I broke the date in the most publicly vindictive way I could. She was probably in therapy for years. I transferred out and went to a private school with other congressional brats who jerked off by scaring the bejeezus out of people who were afraid to say no to us. It got old pretty fast, especially the night I pulled the Speaker's kid off some waitress he was trying to rape." He fumbled for a cigarette.
"You can't smoke in the lobby," Lanny said automatically. Her hand went to her mouth, stifling a nervous chuckle. Rob grinned.
"I think I dropped them somewhere anyway." He sobered. "Just say, being able to do what Adam can do is like being a senator's son, several hundred times magnified. You could lie to people and pretend to be something you're not, which is miserable, or let them know who you are up front and watch them run shrieking the other way. Or deal with them fawning all over you. Did you see that group of assholes we just left? Except for the guy with an attitude problem, all of them were walking on eggshells around him, and those are the guys in charge."
Lanny looked down, a frown marring her brow. Rob took one of her hands. "Want to know what I think? We've probably seen more of who Adam really is in one week than anyone in his own world ever has."
"So how do you overlook what ... he can do?"
"Well, I outweigh you by about 70 pounds, and, though you're no cream puff, I can overpower and kill you. Darius could make a can of Spam out of Adrian. You're not scared of us."
"But you wouldn't do that. I know you..." She stopped. Rob nodded, satisfied.
Lanny crossed her arms under her breasts and cocked her head at him, eyes bright with speculation. "You know," she said, "as long as we've been dating, that's the first time you've ever told me anything really personal about yourself."
Rob glanced at her, startled. Her eyes mellowed to a soft warmth. "Shit, I wish I had my cigarettes," he muttered.
The door clanged shut. Lanny and Rob rose as Martin and Shireva emerged from the hallway. They hesitated when they saw the other two. Adam appeared from the administrative offices, wearing a sweater and jeans. "You are among friends," he said. All present gave him dubious looks, but held their silence.
Channa entered the lobby from the front parking lot. She strode directly to him, her shoulders squared, and startled them all by dropping to one knee.
"Your pardon, my lord," she murmured in the language they shared. "For my deceit."
Her fingertips rested lightly on the floor and Adam stood for a moment, watching her, struggling with several emotions. Finally, he squatted to her level, taking her hands. "I do not accept your apology," he said gently, as her face raised to his. "But I will accept one from Channa, my friend."
She bowed her head again. "You are too kind."
"It is not your shame to bear, Priestess." He guided her gaze up again with a light finger to her jaw. He managed a tight smile. "You came blind into a battle already in progress." He clasped her fingers firmly, meeting her beautiful green eyes. "Let's not talk of it again. Come, sit on my right."
He released her and saw Correen and Alicia hesitating outside the grove boundary. He lifted a brow.
"I took the liberty of bringing Alicia," Channa explained. "She will help us."
The prince accepted her judgment with a nod. As she drew them into the circle and bade them sit, Adam took in every detail of Correen's appearance. Her hair was caught in a wooden clasp on her neck and braided. She wore an oversized men's sweatshirt for warmth over a mauve turtleneck and black skirt. And, of course, she wore gloves, soft pink creations with painted wooden beads sewn into the fabric.
He lowered himself to the floor cross-legged across the circle from her. "Priestess, will you ask Those ... the Lord and Lady, to guide us with their wisdom tonight, while I ward the circle?"
"With your permission," Channa inclined her head toward Alicia. "I give my sister the honor."
"I have no objection to that."
Alicia looked at Channa, and when she received the priestess' nod, she seemed to regain her confidence. She asked everyone to join hands.
Correen hesitantly laid her gnarled hand in Martin's palm and he smiled at her. She did not bow her head, but kept her eyes on Adam as Alicia blessed the Circle.
O Mother, Great Goddess
Warrior and healer
Sister and Lover
With gentle hands of wind
And fire sword of justice
Guide our path.
Show us the way to peace.
Show us the way to Earth, your bosom
Show us the way to the Waters of love and happiness
Blessed Be.
Adam closed his eyes as she spoke, drawing a curtain of protection around the circle to safeguard its occupants, and around the building to dissuade anyone from passing too close to the windowed lobby and noticing them inside. The air in the sacred space became warmer and charged with intent, noticeable even to those not versed in circle casting. Rob and Lanny exchanged an uncomfortable glance.
Alicia hesitated, accustomed to a normal infusion of human energy, but unfamiliar with the heated rush of power that flowed over her. She swallowed as Channa squeezed her hand and began to call quarters:
"Spirits of the East
"The winds of wisdom must be in our ears
"Attend us now if you will."
"Spirits of the South
"A cleansing fire must wipe away all but truth
"Attend us now if you will."
"Spirits of the West
"Waves of justice must crush those who oppose the purpose of this Circle
"Attend us now if you will."
"Spirits of the North
"Blessed Earth, help us protect you
"Attend us now if you will."
"So mote it be."
"Would any of you like to commend our actions tonight to the God of your path?" Adam asked.
Lanny looked startled, then nodded at his encouraging glance and bowed her head. Her lips moved, and the others waited in courtesy until her head lifted again. She looked calmer. Adam glanced at Rob. He shook his head.
Adam fanned out his fingers and rested them on the tile floor.
"We come from a world called Aegis," he began simply. "It lies through a gateway in this grove. To us, Aegis means the same thing as Earth does to you; it is our home. However, Channa tells me that it means 'shield' in one of your world's languages."
"Greek," she responded.
"It is an appropriate translation. The people of my world, Aegis," Adam continued, "are charged with the protection and administration of the Continuum. Our present society has evolved around that responsibility. The Continuum is like a hallway, lined with an infinite number of doors, each door leading to another world, or time, or dimension of existence." He nodded to Correen, answering the surprise on her face.
"Six hundred years ago, a woman in our world experienced a vision. Nia Imana, our first Guardian, saw a pair of doors standing without support in the middle of a field. The visions persisted, and she left her home and family to search for the doors. After a long journey that stole her youth and the health of her body, she was shown the doors. There were four sets of them, one for each direction of the compass. Each of these doors is a different entrance to the Continuum. Those Who Are Not Seen, which is the name we give to the Divine, showed Nia Imana the secrets and truths of the Continuum's existence. She was taught how to access these doors and the worlds along the hallways. She was also taught to recognize a Sealing." He paused, trying to choose the easiest explanation for something beyond their experience.
"The Presence that creates and encompasses all life, that engineers the patterns and designs of individual existence, has as many names as there are doors in the Continuum. God, Lord and Lady, and Those Who Are Not Seen, are only three. We are all part of It, like cells in a body. When cells grow cancerous and start destroying the body, the body must cut that part away. That is a Sealing. We notice it first when the outline of a doorway begins to blur. The more the society deteriorates, the dimmer the opening becomes. Eventually, the door Seals. We do not know what happens to the world then. Perhaps the inhabitants in that world die or kill each other and, after a long period of renewal, the door reopens. We have not been the Continuum's protectors long enough to know.
"There have been times," Adam said, "when the Sealing was not gradual. A cataclysmic event occurs that is so destructive and immediate, the Sealing cannot happen quickly enough to prevent its effect from exploding through the door into the main hallway, where it can harm other worlds. Those Who Are Not Seen have structured the Continuum so that the harmful effect of that type of impact is drawn through our world before it can reach any others."
"Somewhat like a security system that locks down all entrances when one is breached," Channa clarified.
Adam turned his attention to Lanny and Rob. "One of the functions of the Crystal you saw in the Great Hall is to funnel the impact of an event like that toward our world."
He acknowledged the startled reaction of the Sealing team. "Lanny and Rob found their way into the Continuum. I will explain the details of that later.
"Those Who Are Not Seen also taught Nia Imana how to Seal a world manually if there is an overwhelming certainty of such a thing happening," he resumed, "and if there is time. This has happened twice in our history. Alma Jacobsen did the second manual Sealing."
"You mean, Ms. Jacobsen is ... one of you?" Lanny flushed when his golden eyes moved to her. Adam nodded.
"In the beginning, only a Guardian had the power to do the manual Sealing, but the first time left the Guardian broken in body and mind. Those Who Are Not Seen were compassionate and influenced the dreams of her successor, Bay Donevel. She appointed a council of seven lords. Their original role was only to support her with their own strength and energy should she have to do a manual Sealing. However," a grim smile touched his mouth, "Those Who Are Not Seen, for all their understanding of the rhythms of life, cannot always predict the turns of human nature. Until recently, all Guardians chosen by Those Who Are Not Seen have been women born of simple farming families. In upbringing and background, Guardians have been more spiritual than political.
"Over the years, responsibility for the Lords' appointment was transferred to the King's Council. The Lords took more decision-making power in political matters regarding the Continuum. This worked well, as long as the Lords respected the wisdom the Guardians brought from Those Who Are Not Seen. After the first manual Sealing, the Seventeenth Generation Lord Council passed the Exploration Act. We began active exploration of the Continuum. Teams were trained to go into inhabitable worlds and learn about them."
"Like a sci-fi TV series," Rob observed.
"Rob," Lanny hissed, pinching his leg.
Adam suppressed a smile. "We believed if a world was monitored for the early signs of a Sealing, the worlds at risk could be guided to reconnect to the Divine within the framework of their existing morals and religions."
"In a deteriorating world, people are disconnected from the energy of Those Who Are Not Seen," Channa explained. "We teach people to become aware of the energy flows and to use them to heal themselves and others. When those who can direct energy meet and focus it on places and beings that need healing, those places and beings become healthier, more aware, and they become reconnected. A domino effect occurs."
"However," Adam picked up the story, "over the past hundred years, more conservative Lords have assumed leadership. Reluctance on the part of the Guardians to become involved in politics has resulted in more power to the Lords and loss of confidence in the Guardian's voice. Some Lords feel the Exploration Act was a mistake. They want to end all interaction between the worlds of the Continuum. Some even feel aid to a Sealing world should be denied."
"So," Rob cleared his throat. "We're a Sealing world."
Adam nodded.
"The door is over halfway Sealed," Shireva said softly.
"We've been at Havenwood for the past year and a half, working through the coven to form the Brigade of Light," Channa looked at Alicia, who had helped her form the group. "The Brigade is part of the larger plan of reversing the Sealing. The Brigade of Light channels divine energy for the weak spots through the expression of the members' individual faiths; be it praying, drumming, chanting, singing, dancing, et cetera." She smiled at the intent blonde. "When we met every seasonal change to do a mass healing for the planet, we've been sending the energy to those places with the most need."
Alicia blew out a breath through her nose. "Is it working?"
"It was. We had teams forming Brigades of Light in other countries. The Lords pulled them out." Channa's green eyes flashed. "We should have been here fifty years ago, but the Lords refused to believe it was happening so fast. Some of them felt we had reached some arbitrary quota on worlds to help." She shook her head. "I am sorry, my lord. That wasn't relevant."
"I am as much at fault as they are, Channa," Adam raised a hand. "I should have pressed them harder."
"Why work through the coven?" Lanny asked. "Why not just introduce your own religion, or work through another faith?"
"We choose the faiths available to us where we work, the ones that work best with our purpose," Channa said. "It is the Law of Spiritual Respect, laid out by the Guardian Ellissa ma Naen. The Law says that when we are in an Other World, we may worship only through the religions available to us in the Other World. By doing this, we do not take the risk of introducing a faith unnatural to the particular rhythms of your world."
Adam nodded. Right now, they were just listening. When they started to digest what was happening to their world, he knew how it would feel. He gave them something to hold onto, some hope. "Over the past fifty years, the Lords have been compelled, first by Alma and then myself, to commit more resources to Earth. The best Sealing Teams our world has to offer have been sent." A shadow clouded his eyes as he thought of Jaiya.
"All of our children are trained in battle arts," he swallowed. "Many are enrolled in guilds to develop whichever of their natural talents can best be used to help protect the Continuum. Corbet, who is not with us tonight, is an honored master of the Scholars' Guild. The Scholars' Guild teaches the skills necessary to analyze different cultures and communicate with them. Shireva has undergone the training at the Scholars' Guild to supplement her skills from the Mages' Guild. She is a gifted Recreator. She can pick up memories from places and objects by reading the energy imprints left there. Nothing in the mind of Those Who Are Not Seen is forgotten. It simply must be recalled into our own minds, and she is adept at doing that."
"Channa," he nodded at the emerald-eyed woman, "is a High Priestess, which means she is a master in the Priesthood of Aegis, which teaches acceptance and use of the Laws of Those Who Are Not Seen. She is also a graduate of the Warrior Guild, where those who show aptitude in basic battle training are trained as strategists and warriors. She has led two Sealing teams and one Exploration Team.
"And Martin," the monk inclined his head, "is not from our world or yours. He is a monk of the Order of Cirulon, a monastic sect whose purpose is to archive the way of life of different cultures. His world has been aware of the ability to travel between worlds for some time, but when our paths crossed, we developed a partnership. Their monks can join our teams to document cultures for their libraries. We receive unlimited access to those libraries to help us with our work. Martin has lived in your world for eight years, and joined this Sealing Team to assist them with his knowledge of your culture. In fact, it is his work that convinced the Lords to commit more resources here."
"Things looked that bad on paper, hmm?" Rob asked. Martin grimaced in acknowledgment.
"And what about you?" Alicia asked. "Why are you here with the Sealing Team?"
Adam made a temple of his fingers. "Two members of this team disappeared here. One of them was murdered." The prince launched into a description of the memory loss at the school, the state in which Jaiya's body was found, and the involvement of Edward Brautigan. He saw Alicia look at Correen, surprised, when he spoke of how Correen had found Jaiya.
When he finished, there were several moments of silence. He watched each of the four wrestle with disbelief, shock, and the fear that everything he said was true.
"So, do you think we're doomed?" Rob asked at length, with a brittle chuckle.
Channa reached over Alicia and touched his hand. "No," she said. "We think, with time, we can reverse the Sealing."
"But you might not have time if your Lords say you can't help Sealing worlds anymore," Alicia pointed out.
"Will you let them do that?" Lanny demanded. "I mean, if all this is true and you're Guardian, you can stop them, right?"
"The Guardian who revealed the Exploration Act experienced a Sealing as a child, before she became Guardian. Some Lords think it was her emotional reaction to that which created the Exploration Act, rather than the Will of Those Who Are Not Seen," Adam said slowly. "I have borne Witness, as Guardian, to one natural Sealing." His lip curled. "If natural is the proper term for the spiritual starvation of a world. I was called to the Great Hall, the chamber you and Rob saw..."
His mind shot to the memory, recalling every detail, details that had not dimmed with time.
He knew the Sealing was coming. The life currents that ran through the Continuum hallway were the blood that ran through his veins.
He entered the Continuum through the Western portal. The Great Hallway had the silence of the tomb. Alma had warned him of it, and the former Guardian had looked older than ever he had seen her when she had spoken of it.
He stepped upon the dais, and bowed slightly to the crystal before he placed his hands upon it. Almost instantly, he jerked his hands away. The colors of the crystal darkened into storm clouds, laced by sinister green lights.
A scraping on the floor spun him around. The shadow creatures of the Continuum were drifting in, lining the walls. They climbed on top of one another, shrouding the room. The torchlight found no reflection in their murky skin. Still they came, curving around the upper corner of the wall and stretching out over the ceiling, clinging to it like bats, so all he could see was blackness and fire.
Adam turned back to the crystal. Alma had told him the crystal would feel like cold death. Those Who Are Not Seen were grieving, and They demanded that he share their grief. He was Their Servant. He stepped forward and placed his hands on the crystal. Before he could lose courage, Adam spoke the word that animated the golden petals at the base of the crystal. They unfurled and clamped onto his wrists as he offered himself completely to the mercy of Those who demanded his presence there.
He was not certain when it began. He was suddenly part of the terror and despair of the world his people could no longer help. It was as if he had always been there. Those Who Are Not Seen opened his soul to those who had chosen paths that led to this severance from their spiritual life-force. Violence and brutality beat against his senses until he struggled against his bonds. They would not release him until the Sealing was done, he knew that, but he could not help it. Voices that were part of the song of the Continuum were plunged into hopeless darkness, and it was more than he could absorb. Madness took over and he thrashed until blood ran from his wrists. His fingers scraped uselessly against the hard crystal.
The portal of the Sealing world vanished from the Hallway. The other portals shifted over the space, as if the doorway and the lives that still existed behind it had never been. When the gateway closed, the worst part of a Sealing began.
It started as the faintest of moaning breezes that swept through the Hallway, encircling the dais and drifting out the Western Gate, into the hills and mountains of Aegis. The inhabitants of his world were ready. Their mourning veils were drawn over their faces. Their animals were locked securely in barns. The keening of Those Who Are Not Seen increased, rising to a wail, surrounding and paralyzing all who lived in Aegis.
Adam's body stood taut as an animal in a trap, his voice raised in the same cry. He was one with Those who mourned. The torment went on, suffocating his world with grief, hours and hours of it. The sun rose and set, rose and set, and there was no relief, nothing like the exhaustion at the end of a long cry. He reached that point of exhaustion, but still the torment went on, until the third sun sank below the horizon outside the Western portal.
He fell to the floor when the petals released him. He could not raise his head or speak his anguish. Mataya, his head anointed in ashes of mourning, came and lifted the seventeen-year-old boy-man in his arms and bore him back to the castle.
Adam drew a deep, shuddering breath and opened his eyes. He followed Correen's gaze to his hands. His nails had bitten into his skin and his palms held small pools of blood.
"As bad as your world is at this moment, I have never felt anything as horrible as that Sealing. Alma told me having to force a manual Sealing is far worse." Adam stopped, cleared his throat and continued more calmly. Channa stared at the floor before her, her body quivering.
"You can see how the Lords might believe that the Exploration Act was prompted by emotion. But a Guardian does not confuse desire with the intent of Those Who Are Not Seen. Their voices are as clear in our heads as when we speak to one another here."
He bowed slightly to Lanny. "If the Lords forbid aid to Sealing worlds, they will have to oppose me. I can do no less as Guardian."
Channa made a soft sound in the back of her throat. Adam looked at her and nodded. The resolve in his face was a mirror of the fierce satisfaction in hers.
"You realize this undermines everything I was raised to believe," Lanny gave a sick-hearted laugh. "'God will abandon you when things go down the tubes' isn't exactly what I was taught in Sunday school."
"It's not like that," Channa assured her. "We are part of the Body of Those Who Are Not Seen, and the more we open ourselves up to the flow of Their life force, Their blood, the closer we are bound to Them. The Sealing is Their way of cauterizing a wound. If those in a Sealed world learn to look into their hearts, I believe the Sealing reverses, just as a healed limb becomes functional again."
"Has a Sealed world ever reopened?" Alicia asked.
"One, we think." Martin said. "About thirty years ago, a portal 'appeared' along the hallway where there had not been one. There was no human life, but there was an evolving animal and plant life. There were also patterns in the landscape that suggested human-like habitation structures were once there. Our hypothesis is that this was a Sealed world and the destructive life-force destroyed itself, and eventually the portal reopened."
"Well, that makes me feel better," Rob said sarcastically.
"What about the responsibility thing?" Lanny asked Adam. "I mean, would you really-"
"Would I or could I?" the prince shrugged. "The Continuum works through me and has the power to do many things, including kill, as you have seen, so, yes, I could kill you. I would, if you deliberately chose to endanger the Continuum and the people in this circle. But I don't believe you would do that. My taking responsibility for you was intended to reassure people who know nothing of you, not to frighten you."
"Well, you managed to scare the hell out of me. This is-" She blew out a breath and looked up at the glass dome. "So strange."
Rob squared his shoulders. "But if it's true, and we're not all having the same collective nightmare, then you came here to help us." He nodded at Adam, encompassing the Sealing team members with a gesture. "Maybe if we help you find out where your two people are, your Lords will ease up and let you go on helping us. Being a congressional brat, I know a lot about the 'you scratch our back, we'll scratch yours' maxim."
Adam looked at the three others. Lanny nodded imperceptibly. Correen looked out the window, where the trees lifted branches against a gray pre-dawn sky.
Alicia spoke for all of them.
"So," she said. "How can we help?"
It was dawn when the circle opened. Rob promised to access the police files on Dr. Samuel Kenn immediately and the Social Security files of the women on Martin's list.
"All you had to do was ask, Don Quixote," Rob shrugged. "You didn't need to go to the lab. But I'm glad you did. We could have lost a hell of a center." Lanny bared her teeth at him.
"I'm going to go ahead and fill the coven in completely, as we did here," Channa said. "If Wiccans are being targeted for the sacrifices, I want them to be on guard. Most of them have been initiated onto the astral plane, so this isn't going to seem as outlandish to them as it did to Rob or Lanny. And," she added, "I trust them. They've sworn to hold confidences in the Circle sacrosanct."
"All right," Adam agreed, relying on her judgment again. She squeezed his arm, and he put his hand briefly over hers. The night's events had brought him closer to her than he had been for a long time. It reminded him just how similar they were, in their goals and beliefs, in their hopes for their own world and others.
Channa looked at Alicia. "Will you help me tell them? Shireva is going to work with Martin to finish the analysis on Jaiya."
"Whatever you need me to do, I'll do."
Lanny cleared her throat. "The things you've given Rob and me to do really have more to do with Rob and his computer. I work in the office in the afternoons. I could probably pull out Edward's file so we could take a look at it."
"I've already looked up his computer file, Lan," Rob said.
"There's a hard-copy file," she shook her head. "Dean Bradley pulled it and put it in his office. Mrs. O'Kelly always makes a copy of a file when someone checks it out in case they lose it. He didn't give it back when he left, so she still has the copy in her cabinet. I know her file combination." She shrugged. "The worst that could happen is, I'll get expelled, right? Or can Edward do what you can do?"
"He can." Adam pointed a warning finger at Rob. "Do not provoke him."
"Yes, Dad," Rob drawled. "Why didn't you ever tell me about the file, Lanny?"
She tugged his hair. "I was afraid you'd do something dumb and get expelled."
"Women. They think they know so much," Rob snorted, ignoring Adam's ironic look. "By the way, I think I know who attacked you in the courtyard. The Havenwood Harpy, Mrs. Blanchard. She's on the custodial staff. The woman's completely gone," Rob made an expressive motion with his hand, like an airplane taking off. "You talk to her, and she'll either quote Scripture or the Malleus Malefickle thing to you."
Alicia choked on a laugh. "That's 'Maleficarum,' Rob." At Lanny's blank look she explained, "It's the manual the Catholic Church put out as the 'proper' way to identify and interrogate, a.k.a. torture, a witch during medieval times."
Adam frowned. "Martin pulled the files of all the custodial staff, but she was not in there."
"She's not on the official payroll," Lanny said. "She's homeless and doesn't have a social security number, so Bradley paid her in cash."
"She's a loose cannon, though." Rob frowned. "If she were involved with your bad guys, she'd be intoning sacrifice rituals to Kuppenheimer at the annual Staff-Professor Team-Building Seminar. I wouldn't think they'd risk her."
"Why is she allowed to stay here, if she is so unstable?" Adam asked.
"Mrs. O'Kelly said that Dean Bradley felt sorry for her," Lanny said. "She has no family, no money, nowhere to go but a state asylum, so he gave her a room on campus and the job."
"Bradley having an attack of charity?" Rob stuck his tongue in his cheek. "I'd check and see if Mrs. O'Kelly's holding a file on her." Adam nodded in agreement. "By the way, Don-that first day in the cafeteria, the dove. That wasn't sleight of hand, was it?"
Adam smiled. "Actually, it was. I made the acquaintance of a peddler one afternoon when I slipped away from the castle. He showed me a few tricks."
"It's always good to have a second profession-you never know when the Lords will have a layoff." Rob nodded, then crossed his arms, lifting a brow. "The castle?"
Adam inclined his head. "I'm second in line to the throne of Aegis, after my brother Trelbyn, who currently serves as one of the Council of Lords. He's the one you called 'totally forgettable.'"
Channa choked on a startled chuckle, and Adam slanted a grin at her.
"A prince," Rob snorted. "So, why did the Lords choose you to be Guardian? If they're so keen to keep all the control, it seems strange they'd choose someone in power."
"The Lords do not choose a Guardian. Those Who Are Not Seen do, through a special Trial."
"You were chosen by God," Lanny stated, unsuccessfully masking her disbelief. Adam nodded.
"I guess you could put it that way."
"Prince Adam is exceptional," Shireva jumped to his defense. "He's the first man and the first of royal blood ever selected. He's also the youngest ever chosen to be Guardian. He went through Trial when he was only a boy."
"The Lords exercised a great deal of authority over my actions as I grew up," Adam acknowledged, directing his words back to Rob and moving the subject out of controversial waters. "There were ... certain things that happened to isolate me from my own people and give the Lords a great deal of popular and political control."
Things that still woke him up in the middle of the night, his heart pounding, thinking he had destroyed everything he loved in one moment of lost control, like the lab. He couldn't think about that, about any of it. The list of what he couldn't afford to think about was growing far too long.
"I think," he said stiffly, "it's important for all of you to know that the Lords permitted me to come, not because they believed I could help, but because they knew that Channa would protect me from taking any undue risks until I got over my 'phase' of wanting to be useful."
"My lord," Channa said softly.
He raised a hand, stopping her. "I knew that, but I came here because I am Guardian and a prince of my world. As a prince, I felt that if we could find Jaiya and Sephira quickly and resolve this problem, the Lords wouldn't use this world as the excuse to pull all the Sealing Teams. As a Guardian," his gold eyes darkened, "I want to know more about the magical forces surrounding Jaiya and Sephira's disappearance. I think those forces are a threat, not only to your world, but to the Continuum as well."
"But," Adam took a deep breath, "I'm also human. I wanted to prove myself, teach the Lords that their 'pet' might be more useful to them off of a leash. This was my way of breaking free." Adam met Rob's gaze. "I accept being Guardian. It's who I am, who I was meant to be. But since I've been here, I've realized I'm more than that. I'm a person that likes having friends. I enjoy games, and ice skating." His gaze flicked to Correen. "It terrifies me, because I might let the fate of your world, of my world, of the whole Continuum, slip through my fingers while I'm enjoying a slice of pizza."
The silence in the hall made it possible for him to hear his blood pounding in his ears. Channa and Shireva wore matching expressions of consternation. Martin's eyes were thoughtful behind his glasses. Had he destroyed their confidence in him? Adam had taught himself, consciously or not, to appear invincible. But he wasn't invincible. I can die. I can hurt. Adam's eyes moved from Rob to Correen. I am lonely. Could he still do what he was born to do, if he allowed himself to ease that loneliness?
Rob cleared his throat. "Well, I'm actually kind of pissed."
Adam's head snapped toward him. "What-"
"Well," Rob spread his hands, "all these years I thought it was my job to save the world; now, I find out you've been out there all along, taking care of it-Hell, I could have been out partying, every night!"
Alicia choked on a bark of startled laughter, and Martin's face creased in a soft smile. Adam stared at his roommate, then his own face eased into a rueful grin. Rob smacked his arm with a friendly punch that Adam was sure would leave a bruise. "I need a couple hours of shut-eye before I hit the Net. Lanny?"
"I'm with you."
Alicia propped an elbow on Channa's shoulder. "Should we go wake up the coven?"
"Yes, I think that's probably wise." Channa touched a hand to her arm, stepped away to Adam, exchanged a long glance with him, then abruptly pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I'll call you once we've talked to the coven."
He nodded and she bade him a whispered good night, taking Alicia with her. Martin and Shireva followed them and their footsteps died away.
When the doors clanked shut, leaving an echoing hush in the building, only one person remained. The person whose opinion mattered most of all.
"The Manicheans believed that, at the beginning of time, the evil powers of Darkness seized a spark from the Divine realm of Light. They hid it in one of their creations, man, to prevent its recapture. As a result, man's darkness is permeated by a divine light. The Manicheans called it the living self or luminous self, a predecessor of the astral body. In the New Testament, it is called pneuma, the breath or spirit. While on the surface this appears a fanciful myth, it is not difficult to believe that the people of this world are creatures of darkness drawn toward their own destruction, held back from it by the thin thread of a divine spark."
-Martin Watchtower, Private Journal
They stood at opposite ends of the grove circle, two actors given the entire stage, a wall of darkness between them.
"So that's it then," she said.
Adam nodded.
Correen looked at him. She started at the crown of his dark head, sliding down the aristocratic planes of his face, over the fascinating golden eyes watching her. His jaw had a day's growth of beard, a startling mark of mortality. She could sense tension from him, though she could not explain what in his face gave it away to her. He took a seat on the floor again and sat as he had all night, with his back straight and shoulders set. His broad chest rose and fell evenly beneath his sweater. He was exhausted, though that also did not show on his face. For most of her life, Correen had watched people instead of living with them. The reward was her ability to read people. Now she was able to understand a person that she suspected few others could. Where would she choose to go with it?
"I think I'll like your hair better when it grows long again." Her voice remained steady, though her throat grew tight and her heart began pounding the moment she spoke the words. She crossed the wall of darkness. His eyes remained on her face, his head tilting upward slightly as she stopped before him. She drew off one glove and raised her trembling hand. One lock of dark hair slipped over her bare fingers, and she drew his dark head toward her stomach. He remained stiff, unsure, until she slipped her other arm around his shoulders and brought her cheek down on his hair. A great sigh nearly pushed her back a pace and he closed his arms over her back. He murmured something and she lifted her head. "What?"
"I said, I'll grow it out for you. I'll keep it braided, as is our custom, except when I am alone with you, the woman I love."
She blushed. "How long was it?"
"It almost reached my waist, like Mataya's."
"You cut it all off," she said, dismayed. He smiled and drew her closer, pressing his nose into the soft skin of her midriff, inhaling the powders and perfumes she used.
"Mataya was pleased. He said I was too vain about it. I gave it to my sister."
"What?"
Adam grinned. "My sister, Fedana, is struggling to master the spells of a first-level priestess. She burned her hair. When I cut my hair to come here, I gave it to her to weave into hers until it grows back."
He stood up and looked down his nose at her with a slight smile. "I would wish you taller, maybe."
"I would prefer you shorter," she retorted.
His large hand rose and cradled her jaw, stroking the soft shadows of skin under her eyes. "What are you thinking?"
"I don't know," she admitted. She blew a lock of black hair out of her eyes and looked up into his face. "Adam-"
A look of pleasure flashed across his face and she paused for a brief, involuntary moment of enjoyment before she spoke the words in her heart. "You don't know much about me, about who I am or what I feel, or think." Correen dropped her gaze to his throat. "Your feelings, or what you think you feel about me, are overwhelming. They frighten me sometimes, and while they feel good, I don't know what I'm feeling for you..." Pain gripped her heart. "I can give you nothing," she said carefully. "I can promise you nothing. Sometimes ... sometimes it's all I can do to get myself through a day without getting lost and I don't know..." She broke off, the beast of old nightmares digging its claws cruelly into her heart. Correen dared a glance upward and found him looking at her, not with the anger she had expected, but with gentleness and compassion. Adam drew her over to one of the couches in the lobby and they sat, facing one another.
"Mataya once told me to go sit on the edge of a ravine that overlooked my home valley," Adam said. "He told me to record everything I saw or heard during one full cycle of the sun." Adam enfolded her bare hand in his, his fingers sliding over the bumps and curves. "I must have recorded a thousand things. Birds finding food, playing games in the air, a badger stomping by, a snake checking on me, a child's laughter on the wind, two lovers meeting in what they thought was a secluded glade, the movement of clouds, a rainstorm ... I brought my parchment to him that evening. My mind was full of amazement at all I had seen and heard. I couldn't wait to show it to him, and talk to him about all of it. He tossed it into his cooking fire without looking at it."
Correen drew in a breath and Adam smiled. "He pointed at it and said, 'That is how most people live.'"
Adam slid his hands up either side of her arms. "Correen, I want to learn about you slowly. I want to play with you, if we are ever given the time to do so. I want to see your world; I want you to see mine. You do not have to give me everything you are at once. Let's do it one day at a time. I want your pain, I want your happiness-give me each part of who you are when you are ready to give me those gifts."
"Is that the way love is done?" she asked, her voice almost inaudible.
"I don't know. I've never been in love until now." He leaned forward, serious and intent, and his fingertip touched her collarbone. He stroked lightly down the fabric of the sweatshirt, over the line of her breastbone, stopping at its base. "Whose shirt is this?"
He played no games. He simply asked. There was a warm possessiveness in those tawny eyes.
"It was Giovanni's," she responded.
The finger drew under the curve of one breast, outlining it under the fabric, and her breath sucked in sharply. "Is there a relationship between the two of you that would prevent ours?"
Not as long as you keep doing that. She caught hold of his hand and he turned it so her wrist was in his grasp. He gently tugged, and brought her across the couch. His arm encircled her waist and he shifted, and she was sitting cradled between his thighs, his arms around her.
"Don't you ever get tired?" she asked.
The prince smiled. "Not of being with you."
"That's because you've known me a week," she said, unimpressed.
"You're right," he agreed. "My attention span is short. Once I've spent two weeks with you, I'll be bored. Are you purposefully changing the subject?"
"No," she shook her head. He had her bare hand and was again caressing it, his long fingers touching the knuckles, moving up her wrist and back with slow, fluid strokes that had nerve endings all over her body singing. "Giovanni was the first man I ever ... was involved with. He was kind, but I wasn't ready to be close to someone. I couldn't." She knew the pain crossed her face because she saw the concern darken his eyes. "It was too hard to open up to him ... but with you it's easy." She narrowed her eyes. "Is that another of your 'talents'?"
His hand stilled on hers. "Except for that moment in the forest, which I will regret forever, I swear you have opened up to me of your own free will."
Correen nodded, then shuddered as he pressed his lips to the pulse in her wrist. "May I ask who did this to you?" He rubbed his jaw against her fingers and she balled them into a protective fist, pulling her hand back toward her.
Correen shook her head and struggled out of his lap, feeling his hands lightly graze her hips as he helped her to her feet. She moved away a few steps.
"You and Channa," she blurted out. "No." She changed her mind, held up the gloved hand, placing the ungloved one against her leg, in shadows. "Don't. I don't have the right to know." She couldn't afford to keep asking questions that would bind her closer to him. Already her actions had taken her closer than she could handle.
"I think you do." Adam rose from the couch and advanced toward her.
"I don't want to have the right." She took a couple steps back and closed her eyes, struggling. Her heart was a millstone, pulling her into waters far over her head.
"You do have the right," he said, closing his hands on her shoulders. "Don't run from me. I know you have the right to ask. When you know it, ask again. But until then, know this. It is an issue I must resolve. Channa is aware of us. I can see it in her eyes, and she told the Lords of us as well."
Correen nodded, but she did not look at him. She reached for the coat she had left on the arm of the couch. "You didn't assign me a task, tonight."
His hands lifted her hair free of the collar, caressing the soft strands that had fallen out of the braid. He stroked the pale skin of her neck and bent and placed his lips there. Correen's eyes closed and his arm slid around her waist, holding her as she hesitantly gave in to desire and leaned back against him.
"I asked you to come so you'd know who I am. I didn't want to draw you into this if you didn't wish to become involved."
"You mean, in case who you are is too difficult for me to handle." Correen turned to face him, stepping out of reach of his arms. "I don't know who you are. You can't tell me something like that. Like you said, one day at a time. I may wake up tomorrow and change my mind about wanting to find out. But those two people," she stuffed her fists into her pockets, "that has nothing to do with you and me. I can help. I can get you into Edward's room."
She went to the security desk and bent beneath it, coming up with a heavy ring of keys and a notebook. She bent over the notebook, squinting in the dim light. A flash burst in the corner of her eye and she looked, startled. Adam held the gold lighter close to the page. She shook her head. "Does Rob mind lending you all of his things?"
"He did not lend it to me. They were in the pockets of these pants."
"Jeans," she corrected. "He's grown pretty attached to you."
"It confuses me," Adam admitted. "But then, sometimes people connect quickly because connections have been there a very long time, through many lives. The connection awakens each time their paths cross." He stopped, staring at her.
"What?"
"Nothing," his brow furrowed, "I wondered ... I thought I remembered you ... from somewhere."
"We've never met. Unless you saw me in town before you came to the school your first day."
"No." Adam shook his head. She stopped on an entry in the notebook.
"Here. Edward checked out tonight around ten. Hey, wait a minute. I just thought of something." She disappeared into the back office and Adam heard several drawers opening and closing. She tottered out a moment later, bearing three logbooks.
"You should have asked me to help," he reproved.
"I'm not as fragile as you think I am," she said, dropping the books on the counter. "These are the records for the equinox and solstice months." She flipped one open and handed him June. "Look for a checkout time on Edward sometime near the seasonal change."
"Why would he leave a trail this obvious?"
"Why wouldn't he?" she asked. "He would attract more attention if he didn't show up for his classes and didn't log out. This says he's gone for three days for a job interview. That's pretty routine for a senior."
"If he has left three days before the equinox, he would have time to acquire his sacrifice and prepare for the ritual, spiritually and physically," Adam guessed. "That may be why he looked ill at the baseball game. He may practice fasting before a ritual."
"He was here during the autumn change." Correen frowned down at an entry
"If he scrambled the drop dates on Jaiya and Sephira, then perhaps he did the same for himself."
"Or maybe it's something else." She slipped the ring of keys around her wrist and quickly stacked up the logbooks, preparing to lug them back into the office. He came around the desk and took them.
"Show me where they go."
She held on. "I can do it myself."
"I'm certain. But I like to do things for you."
"Do you treat Channa like this?"
"She doesn't need me to-" He broke off. "I didn't mean that the way it sounds."
Correen's gray eyes turned the color of storm clouds. "You meant it as you said it." She yanked the logbooks out of his grasp. She opened her mouth, closed it, then disappeared into the office and returned with another stack.
He touched her arm. "Correen, I apologize. I did not mean..."
She pulled her arm away and swung to face him. "I am not a dog you adopted at a shelter. I'm not something you'll look at in a year and say, 'Oh, look how much stronger and happier she is, now that I've come into her life.' The things that make me who I am, can't be changed. I know, I've tried. I don't want you to carry things for me. I don't want you to make my life easier." Her eyes were hard with anguish, the planes of her face so rigid with anger and pain she could barely move her lips to speak. "There is comfort in a hard life," she whispered, her voice shaking. "You never lose the fitness to deal with hard things. You let someone make things easier and you forget how to face hard things, and in my life, I always have to be ready." Her gaze flicked down to her bare hand, resting on the books. She spun on her heel and left him. He waited where he was, letting her create a space for herself. Correen went to the couch. She picked up the glove and stared at it as if she had never seen it before. Her soft words carried clearly to him over the echoing lobby.
"I never forget these." She yanked it on, wincing slightly. She marched back to him but stayed on the opposite side of the desk. Correen slapped open the top logbook without looking at him.
Adam's heart ached for her pain and indecision and the fact that he was causing it. It's not that you need my help, and Channa doesn't. It's that I want to help you, to take care of you. That's the way love makes me feel. Channa has never made me feel that way. I doubt I have ever made her feel that way about me.
"Adam." She lifted her head, and fear was in her eyes. Their argument was forgotten.
"What is it?" He came around the desk and stood next to her shoulder. He looked down at her finger, marking Edward's name in the book.
"The winter solstice was on the full moon. I've checked five different months. Edward left school a few days before every full moon."
"But Shireva found evidence of only three sacrifices."
"At that site. Think how many girls are on Martin's list. Oh, Adam, it's got to be the full moons." She circled the desk and disappeared into the back. He heard her going through the other books and several moments later, she reappeared. Her white face told him before she spoke.
"The next sacrifice doesn't have three days. Whoever she is, she's only got two."
Malcolm X was dark and silent. Adam followed Correen up the back staircase and into a dim hallway. The light had burned out on their end, giving them some shadows for cover. She withdrew the keys and would have placed one in the lock on Edward's room, but Adam closed his hand over hers.
He reached out with his senses, probing the currents of energy on the other side for any unusual patterns and hoping it was something he would be able to detect.
"If there is anything of value to us here, it may be warded," he murmured. "Be cautious."
She nodded and moved inside the shield of his broad shoulders to turn the lock.
It was a monastic cell. Edward had not pulled the two single beds together. Both were made up with a simple brown wool blanket pulled taut under a flattened pillow. The top two shelves of his bookcase held his schoolbooks, arranged by height. Three sharpened pencils and two pens were laid alongside several notebooks stacked on his desk. The arrangement reminded Adam of Correen's room.
There were no posters, no personal items, no books on the shelves other than textbooks. No snacks or refrigerator for drinks. There was, however, a leather scourge hanging on the wall. Adam lifted the straps and noted the stains. "Blood."
"Why here?" Correen came to his shoulder. "Surely he wouldn't be so cautious in all other respects..."
"It's his blood. He may use it to prepare himself for ritual. Jaiya was not flogged."
Adam went to the dresser. He found standard items of student dress in the drawers, folded with an exact measure of space between each stack. He looked between each garment, careful not to disturb the arrangement. At the bottom of the stack of shirts the slick surface of a photo touched his fingers. He withdrew a picture of Melanie sitting naked on a bed, her knees drawn up, elbows crossed over her knees as she smiled her sad, gentle smile. The lighting and tone of the photo was familiar. He reached back into the stack and touched plastic. He withdrew a bag. It held blonde hair and fingernail clippings in it. Correen came to his shoulder, looked at the photo and stiffened.
"Your work," Adam confirmed. He fingered the bag. "Did you find anything in the desk?"
"Nothing." She took the photo. "She was in a photography class with me. She asked me if I would do it. I knew it was for Edward, but it made her happy, so I did it."
Adam looked at the plastic bag. "Why would he have these?"
Correen shrugged. "Maybe it makes him feel in control, like he has power over her."
"You think she stays with him because he has used these items to bind her to him?"
"No." She looked up at him. "I think he keeps those because she makes him feel things he doesn't want to feel. Maybe this way he always feels like he can control her if he wants to."
Adam remembered Edward stroking Melanie's hair at the fire. It was an act out of character with everything else he had observed about him. In order to bind a person with a ritual requiring body parts or sheddings, the sheddings had to be fairly recent. From the amount of hair in the bag, he assumed Edward added to it regularly.
Correen opened the closet. "Adam."
Adam crossed the room. There was only one item in the closet, other than the equally spaced hung shirts and the shoes lined up on the floor. A wooden box was on the top shelf. Correen reached for the box. She caught his shoulder to stretch herself several more inches and pulled it down.
She slid the lid to the side. A doll lay on a velvet surface. Her dress was made of odd bits of cloth and her hair was sectioned into four different colors-blonde, dark brown, black and a burnished auburn.
Adam reached in and plucked the figure out. He fingered the hair. His gaze lifted to Correen's face, focusing on the line of jaw where a lock of hair, shorter than the others, hung loose from her braid. "How did this happen?" He said it more harshly than he intended. His fingers touched the short length of hair.
Correen's eyes flickered. "It was earlier, a couple weeks before the music building incident. He came up behind me in the infirmary. I didn't hear him."
"And you told no one," Adam struggled with the desire to shake her. "Did he hurt you in any other manner?" His knuckles stroked the lock of hair behind her ear and then his fingers rested against the column of her throat, feeling her pulse.
She shook her head. "He didn't say anything. He just pushed me up against a wall, put a cloth against my mouth so I couldn't scream, cut a lock of my hair and left." Her voice quavered but she swallowed and mastered it, lifting her chin in a manner he was beginning to recognize.
He nodded. The image rose in his mind. A dream of hallways that compelled her to the music building. Edward standing over an altar, ready to rip open her womb with a blade of moonlit steel. Adam did not trust himself to speak, so he examined the fragments of cloth that made up the doll's dress. He lifted the skirt. The limbs were marked the same as Jaiya's body. The reproductive organs had been drawn grotesquely with a black marker.
"Do you know what this is?"
"A poppet?"
He nodded. "Edward put a personal object on it to increase the power of his influence over the owner. My guess is this made a person go where she would be isolated, where she could be caught."
Correen fingered her shortened lock. "My dream."
"It should have taken something more to get a priestess of Jaiya's strength to fall under this spell," Adam nodded. His fingers felt along the back of the doll. A tiny row of snaps held the body together. Adam opened them and Correen reached in with a misshapen finger, prodding the white cotton batting. She drew out a painted fingernail. Adam's jaw tensed. They laid the doll down on Edward's desk. She pulled out a piece of medical gauze with several drops of blood. Correen dropped it, backing away and holding her head.
"What?"
"I saw ... something. A woman, hurt ... she came into the infirmary. She had-" Correen gasped in pain and collapsed into the chair.
"Do not try-"
"No!" Correen snapped. She put her face down against her knees. "I will remember. She fell while playing volleyball. Edward tripped her, by accident supposedly. He was standing by the door when I sponged off the knee. I told her to hold the gauze to it to stop the bleeding..." She broke off, her eyes tearing. "That was Jaiya."
"Yes." Adam's voice choked on his anger. By the Continuum, Jaiya. He was determined to have you ... as determined as he is to have Correen.
Correen massaged her temple. Adam took over the task, his strong fingers instinctively finding the arteries and soothing their erratic pumping.
"Did you know," she managed. "Malaysian princes had a servant whose sole responsibility was eating any type of body waste they produced-blood, hair, that type of thing, so that people couldn't get hold of it and put spells on them?"
"We'll add that position to the Sealing Team." Adam turned back to the doll. Correen lurched out of the chair, joining him. He widened the opening in the doll's back and she searched the batting again with her smaller hands.
"There's something hard in here." She withdrew some stuffing and untangled it from its prize, then pushed the filler back into the doll. She held a silver ring. Adam took it from her. The ring was three tones of intricately braided metal.
"What does the inscription say?" Correen put her fingers over his, turning the ring.
"'All I refuse, you I choose. Corbet.' It's her wedding ring."
"Edward?" The knock startled a short shriek from Correen. Adam put the doll in the box and slid it under the desk.
"Edward?" The whisper came again. "It's me, Judas. Shit, the door isn't even locked..."
Adam swung Correen toward the bed. Before she could react, he had her stretched out with him over her, his broad back shielding their faces from view. He brought his lips down over hers and pulled one of her legs up and over his own as the door swung inward. The student squinted through the dim light at the large form on the bed and saw the feminine leg draped over the hip. "Whoops. Sorry, Edward. I thought we were working out this morning. Catch you later."
The man on the bed flipped his hand in angry dismissal and the boy beat a hasty retreat.
Adam heard the door close but gave in to his desire to deepen the kiss a moment more, drawn into the softness of her lips. Correen's mouth opened under his and he delved into it, his arms tightening around her, his body intensely aware of every curve of hers beneath his, and of the leg he still held around his hip.
Thank you, Giovanni Calabretta. Correen was alive and in his arms, thanks to a man he had never met, but he would not forget the debt he owed him.
At last, Adam lifted his head. "My apologies. There was no time to suggest my idea."
"No problem," she said thickly. Adam helped her up, noting the quiver in her hand, and she straightened her clothes, not looking at him. She crossed her arms across her body and blew a wisp of hair out of her face. Adam hid a smile. "Let's get done and get out of here," she said crossly.
Adam nodded and retrieved the box with the doll. He paused, considering their options. Correen nudged at him, producing a small camera from the voluminous pocket of her coat. He lifted the skirt and she adjusted the lighting on the machine before clicking off several close-ups of the symbols. "I never go anywhere without it," she explained.
"We will take it with us."
She shook her head. "We can't, can we? He'll know someone's been here."
"I do not care."
She laid a hand on his arm. "Since the black is mine and the blonde is Jaiya's, then it's likely these are women he's already taken or tried to get and failed. And if he were going to use Melanie, he'd have done it by now. Her hair color doesn't appear to be on the doll, anyway."
The explanation was sound, but he intensely disliked the idea of leaving any part of Correen in Edward's keeping.
Correen smoothed the bed as he returned the doll to the closet. Adam turned, watched her run her hands over the place where their bodies had been. Her touch slowed, lingered, and he felt something tighten in his chest. He closed the closet door and came up behind her, touching her neck with a light hand.
"What about Judas?" she murmured. "He could tip Edward off that someone was in his room."
Adam dropped his hand. "Where would he have gone to 'work out'?"
"The gym. We can cut through Walesa Hall to get there more quickly."
He followed her out of Malcolm X and she cut across the courtyard. They ducked into Walesa and Adam nearly collided with Darius, coming out of his room at the front of the hall.
"What are you doing here?" he said sharply, taking a step back.
"We were going to the gym," Correen said casually. She glanced between the football player and Adam, measuring the tension. "You're up early. Did Alicia come and get Adrian for the coven meeting?"
Darius pulled his gaze from Adam's unreadable expression and glanced down at her, puzzled.
"Who's Adrian?"
Mourning dove croons at first touch of dawn's breath.Trees shadow my eyes, majestic.Sun warms my face.We were not driven out of EdenWe are destroying it.-Adrian Kuppenheimer
Darius had led seven raids total, three since they started dating. Each one felt like the first. Adrian was glad her parents agreed to let her live in a dorm room, this year, because her nervous stomach would have been impossible to hide from their sharp eyes. They had worried enough when she and Darius started dating. Her father had interrogated Darius in a manner the twenty-one year-old science student likened good-naturedly to the Spanish Inquisition.
Her father didn't need to worry. She and Darius had decided to wait on sex. Well, Darius had decided. Darius said he did not want to lose her by making her give too much, too soon. It was hard for both of them at times, knowing the freedom that a dorm room could give, but for now their love remained chivalrous. That's what Darius called it. Adrian liked that, dwelled on that when her hormones raged and wanted her to dwell instead on the muscular planes of his chest, the smooth curves of his biceps, the soft brush of his hair against her jaw when he nuzzled her neck and engulfed her in his strength.
Adam had drawn a sketch of them at the bonfire. Darius told her that he was depicted as an unshaven giant in a metal-studded leather jerkin, a rogue warrior with long red locks. She stood before him, a diminutive sorceress, clad in black flowing robes and silver jewels.
Smiling made her feel better. Adrian laid out the newspapers and paints she needed and headed for the storeroom. Last spring she had fashioned gargoyles out of the viscous clay from one of the Vale's creeks and then stored them, not sure what she wanted to do with them at the time. Over the past few days, she had begun to envision them as part of a larger work, a disturbing sculpture in which their faces were pressed through a wall, their bodies hung on the other side, as though they had attempted passage through and gotten frozen. It was kind of scary, but she wanted to give it to Adam as appreciation for the sketch.
Adrian descended the short set of basement stairs, running her hand lightly along the cinder-block wall. She reached the door and unlocked it, pushed against rusted hinges with a grunt. The heavy door squeaked inward, releasing the mildew smell of the room beyond. It always reminded her vaguely of a dungeon.
Adrian moved slowly down the corridor, her hand out to prevent collision with bike handlebars or protruding sports equipment. She shuffled slightly to feel for straggling cords from stored appliances. When she reached the back, she turned down the last aisle. She counted the cinder blocks in the wall, her fingers marking the cracks. Eleven, twelve ... she stopped and turned toward the shelves. Her sensitive hands encountered the rough wool of a folded blanket. She frowned. Had she miscounted? More likely, a student had moved her belongings over to make room for his own, ignoring the sign she left.
The owner of the blanket had left a gift to make up for his insensitivity, however. Her fingers slid along the wool and she got the impression of a day in the Vale, bright sunshine, laughter, and the press of another body.
While all of her senses had sharpened to compensate for her blindness, her psychic senses had expanded more than any of them. Or maybe they had been greater to begin with, and her blindness just made it more noticeable.
Adrian had always been able to pick up impressions of events and emotions that belonged to an item or a place. It wasn't until she met Channa that she learned that she was using the law of vibration. Vibrations from events were eternal, emanating outward, interacting with other vibrations like circles in a pond. Channa was teaching her to reach out with her "third eye", the pineal gland, to supplement and sharpen her vague pictures of past events, and even more exciting, pictures of the present. Adrian focused, trying to "see" where her belongings were. Her foot caught the edge of a tennis racket and she stumbled, landing on her knees on the wooden floor.
"Turnips," she muttered. "You can always tell a blind bat by the lumps on her knees." As she struggled to her feet, she realized the floor had shifted slightly. Curious, she dropped back down. Her fingernails caught in a groove.
Adrian stood up and jumped. The floor sounded hollow. "It's a door," she murmured. Now, when did Havenwood get two levels of storage? She used her staff to lever under the lip of the door and overbalanced when it opened easily without a sound.
A smell wafted up-damp earth and stone, and something else, something that caused the hair to prickle on her neck. Adrian saw an image in her mind, of two shadowed figures going down the stairs, a man carrying a woman. The woman had never returned.
The wind kicked up outside the dorm, whistling through the broken holes in the basement windows. Adrian started, dropping her staff. She lunged and caught it before it clattered through the opening, which plunged her face into the air below the level of the trap door.
She inhaled suffering and fear, and almost choked. Adrian scrambled away, using her staff to propel her back, and heard the door drop close. She really had found Havenwood's dungeon. She fought for calm, wrapping her fingers in the beaded strips of cloth woven around the handle of the staff.
The decoration was new. Adam's Indian healer had made the elaborate handle grip. She had come to visit Adam in the infirmary and ended up visiting with Mataya while the patient slept. She thought of the wisdom and tranquility she had felt from him. Her heart steadied, and she was able to focus.
Someone was in the storage room with her. Watching her.
Her stomach dropped to her knees. Adrian wanted to pretend it was her imagination, but the hair on her arms knew the truth. She placed the end of her staff on the floor before her, stood, and began to walk down the aisle. She tried to use the third eye as Channa had taught her, but she gave it up after a moment. She just wanted out of here.
One step, two steps, three steps. Adrian felt left and right with the staff, extending her reach so she knew what was on the lowest shelves. One more step, there, an opening!
Adrian dropped to the ground and darted under the shelf to the next aisle. She scrambled to her feet, knocking a box of kitchenware out of her way that spilled to the ground and clattered loudly. The noise planted another weapon in her head and she used it as she flew down the aisle, flailing her cane about her in a deadly arc. "Help!" she screamed.
She never heard her attacker move, because she came to him. Adrian tucked her staff in to run through the storage room door and collided with a hard body. An arm snaked around her throat, his other arm flipping her to her back against his chest, and pinioning her waist. Her captor choked her scream off by tightening the grip over her windpipe, a pressure that increased until white spots swam in her black vision. Adrian fought for consciousness, fought the arm around her throat with clawing hands and kicking legs, but the pressure held. She slipped into a faint.
Edward released her throat and caught her before she fell.
Correen sped off with Darius in tow to rendezvous with the others at Shireva's lab. Adam went back to Edward's room and got the doll and Melanie's hair and fingernails. If Edward held his pattern, he would be gone for the next several days. Adam no longer cared whether or not Edward discovered its loss. They had to find the man before he returned. Adrian's life depended on it.
Adam braced a hand on the doorframe of the closet and fingered the brown lock of hair in the doll's head. Now that he knew its owner, her image came quickly to his mind. He remembered Adrian's fingers gently touching his face, her impish look as she had spoken of "seeing" all of him. Somewhere, she was in a terrifying world made even more frightening by her physical darkness. He saw himself kneeling by a shallow grave in the forest, and the body he turned over had her narrow face, her brown hair clotted with the earth that reclaimed her. He hit the doorframe with his fist. No! It wasn't going to happen that way. Not this time.
A folded piece of paper fluttered free and descended to the floor, alighting there like a moth. Adam sat the poppet down on the desk and retrieved the paper. His eyes narrowed and he leaned into the closet, peering around the edge of the frame. Another paper was wedged in the narrow inside panel between the frame and the inner wall. He hit his fist on the closet frame again, this time in triumph.
When he arrived at the lab, Darius' raised voice met him at the door.
"If I can't remember this person, why can all of you?"
"Because we were in a protected circle," Adam answered. He entered the lab and handed Shireva the doll and plastic bag. Darius was looking upset, and Adam wondered if he and Correen should have made up a cover story and left him at the dorm. His gaze shifted to the Brazilian girl, standing near Darius. No. His feelings for her had given him a new perspective. He imagined what it would be to be like Corbet, but denied the opportunity to help find the one he loved, even if he did not know her at the time. Darius had a right to be here, even if it complicated matters.
"But that wouldn't make sense," Martin pointed out. "The whole school was affected, but there were students absent when Jaiya vanished."
"Maybe it's intermittent," Lanny suggested. "Like a series of shots, one every hour or so over a week period, until they've got 100% coverage." She nodded to Adam. "Channa and Alicia convened the coven to explain things to them. They'll be here as soon as they can. Rob will be here in about ten minutes. He said to tell you that none of the eleven women on Martin's list have had any activity against their Social Security numbers since they left Havenwood, and no tax returns filed. Most important, no activity against their credit cards. He tapped into some mailing lists of the New Age mags and found the women who had no connection with the Havenwood coven. It looks like all the women on Martin's list are Wiccan."
"We stopped at Adrian's room," Correen said. "There was clay arranged, like she was going to work on something, but it was almost dried up."
"I think I know where they took her." Adam pulled the papers out of his sweater and unfolded them on the counter.
The others crowded around the counter. Lanny stood next to Adam's side, and he noticed she let her shoulder brush against his. "Looks like a section of the old salt mine system that runs all over the place under Kingston," she said, frowning down at it. "What are those symbols?"
"Runes. It's an alphabet I don't know. Martin?"
Martin adjusted his glasses and peered at the map symbols. "I don't know this alphabet either, my lord. Perhaps Channa will."
"Havenwood appears to rest over this section of the tunnels, but the only marked entrances are far out here." Adam traced it with his finger.
Darius shook his head. "I'm trying to keep a grip here, but I think I'm either having an incredibly fucked up dream, or you've all been sniffing the same glue. The SC's would know where the entrances are."
"Who?" Martin looked up.
"The Spelunker Club. Troy Cartland's president; he lives in Mahatma Hall. Ms. Pinto-the librarian-she caves, too."
"I'll go find them," Lanny anticipated Adam. "You mind if I take the map?" He shook his head and she picked it up. Darius grabbed the other end.
"I can go do it," he insisted. "I know Troy."
"I do, too," She pried his fingers off. "You need to stay here and pick up as much of this as you can, Darius. You're behind in a race that's just beginning." He blew out a frustrated breath as she took off and Adam glanced at Correen.
"I told him almost everything you told us in the circle tonight," Correen murmured. "Including the part about Adrian being a mutual friend that he should know."
Adam nodded. "Darius-"
"Adam," Rob charged through the door, printouts coiled around his body and flapping in his wake like a white cape. "The reason you can't find anything on the whereabouts of the Amateur Magickers is because almost all of them are dead."
He laid his printouts on the counter. Adam's gaze fell on the top page, a police photo. Seven bodies lay outside a drawn pentagram, in various contortions as if they had been crushed in the fist of a giant and thrown to the floor of the cave. Their blood darkened the rock's gray surface to black.
"Where is this?"
"Directly under Havenwood. Some of an old salt mine's biggest caverns are right under the college. After this happened, all of the known entrances were blasted closed." Rob shot Adam a curious glance.
"I found a map of these caves in Edward's room," Adam explained. "We sent Lanny to talk to the-" He looked quizzically at a stone-faced Darius, and the redhead relented.
"Spelunker Club," he gritted out.
Adam nodded. "-About entrances."
"Troy may know of entrances that weren't blasted," Rob agreed. "It might not be a total waste. This is Samuel Kenn," his finger touched one body. He paged through the printouts to a close-up. One arm had been torn from the torso and lay several feet away. "The others are his Amateur Magickers. The only ones missing are Edward and a guy named Shawn Mendini. They both had an airtight alibi that night. In fact," Rob glanced at Correen. "You provided Edward's."
Adam's gaze snapped up. Correen looked puzzled for a moment, then the memory dawned. "He came to the infirmary that afternoon with a bad blow to the head. He said he had been going up a steep grade in the Vale when his bike flipped backwards on him. We had to take him to the hospital because he had a concussion and passed out. He didn't wake up until after midnight."
"You stayed with him in the hospital room the whole time?" Martin asked.
"Yes." Correen's gaze shifted back to the photo without meeting Adam's.
Rob frowned before Adam could pursue her cryptic answer. "I've never seen Edward go bike riding. In fact, you rarely see Edward at all, except in class. Shawn's alibi was that he was so whacked out of his head on heroin in his bedroom that there was no way he could have gone to the bathroom by himself, let alone to this little social gathering. Besides which, his mother corroborated his story. She's an invalid and has to rely on him to help her when her nurse isn't there. They still live in Kingston.
"But," Rob crossed his arms, "here's where it gets really interesting. The school files of the Amateur Magickers were confiscated by the police, and the whole thing was covered up. Havenwood is a primary source of income in this itsy-bitsy town, whether the residents like to admit it or not, so the police decided not to get everybody riled up about cult activity. The local paper was willing, so the bigger papers didn't have a story to pick up. The families of the deceased were more than happy to keep it quiet."
"Now that is total bullshit." Darius shook his head. "Reporters would sell their firstborn to cover 'small-town-America-gone-bad' stories."
"But if the bad guys could influence the minds of all the Havenwood faculty and students," Rob reminded him, "it would have been a snap for them to influence the decisions of the police and the school administration."
"With less effort," Shireva returned to them, holding the doll. "Since it only had to enhance what they probably wanted to do anyway."
Darius snorted, but Shireva bent to the photo. "It looks like you have some symbols marked on the outer edges of the pentagram, but I can't make them out. If we had time to blow up the image, I could tell-"
"Put it on a slide," Correen interjected. "It could be done in about an hour."
Adam looked across the table at her. "If you could do it in a half hour, it would be better."
She nodded. Rob pulled the pages free of the printout and Adam passed them to her, their fingers brushing. Correen's gaze flickered briefly up to Adam's. In the corner of his eye, Adam saw cool introspection steal into Shireva's expression. Correen gestured to Shireva. "If you don't mind, Dr. Assuras, I'll use your restroom before I run over to the photo lab."
Shireva nodded shortly. "Help yourself."
"Dr. Assuras, where's your PC?" Rob asked. "I can break up the image into sections and print it out. It should help."
"Shireva," she corrected. "And I only have a PC in the administration building. I don't have one in the lab. No funding for an extra one with a phone line."
"Even the janitors have a dumb tube hooked to mainframe." Rob shook his head. "Bureaucrats."
"Everyone is connected?" Adam asked sharply. Rob's head came up from the printouts and he stared at Adam.
"That's it," Rob hit the edge of the counter and Adam nodded. "The terminals. Jesus, it was right in front of us."
"But how? What kind of magical spell runs through a computer terminal?" Shireva asked. Rob shook his head.
"You're making it too complicated. Are you familiar with subliminal advertising?" Rob scoffed at Adam's perplexed look. "What am I saying? You'd be pissing on trees in the courtyard if I hadn't explained indoor plumbing to you. Say you're watching a movie and a bag of popcorn keeps flashing on the screen and it says 'buy popcorn.' Now, imagine that 'blip' ad is so fast, your conscious mind doesn't detect it, but your unconscious mind does. That's subliminal advertising. All of a sudden you want popcorn and you think it's your own idea."
"People eating popcorn isn't the same thing as erasing the memories of four hundred people," Shireva objected.
"The military already has subliminal technology strong enough to make you kill your parents," Darius said, his brow creasing. Adam nodded at him and the student scowled.
"People log onto Havenwood's computers every day for messages," Rob said. "Class schedules, club meetings, hell, the cafeteria lunch menu."
"That doesn't explain Alma, though," Martin said.
"Unfortunately, it does," Rob sighed. "She wanted access to the school's news and event calendar, so last year I linked her up through a used PC she bought at a rummage sale."
"Martin, go with Correen to her photo lab. Shireva," Adam shrugged back into the jacket he had borrowed from Rob. "Wait here with Darius for the others. I want to go see Shawn Mendini. Even if he wasn't there the night of Samuel Kenn's death, he might be able to help us. Whatever the doctor did must be connected to this, since Edward is involved in both incidents. Do we know anything about Shawn?"
"I'm going with you," Rob stated first, then pulled a sheet from the bottom of the printouts. "The police have been tracking his movements since Kenn's death. No reported involvement in cult activities since it happened. He's been through drug rehab and works at one of the grocery stores as an assistant manager. He's clean, to all appearances. But if he's even remotely involved, and we go visit him, it could tip off the guys that have Adrian."
"We only have two days to find Adrian. If Shawn is still involved, I'll prevent him from being a threat to us." Adam freed the collar of the coat and turned for the door.
"How?" Darius asked sharply. Adam stopped, looked at him steadily. The student swore under his breath. "What, five bodies aren't enough for you? What makes you so different from the guys you claim killed that girl?"
"Come on, Darwin, he didn't say-"
"Shut up, Rob," Darius snapped. "I can't believe you're buying into this bullshit. The one thing I know-" Darius pointed a finger at Adam, "You killed people last night, whoever, whatever the hell you are. Yeah, maybe they were going to shoot us, but maybe they weren't. Those were seven-dollar-an-hour rent-a-cops with families and kids, not some forces-of-darkness bullshit. Now you're going to off some poor kid who took one too many acid trips and is trying to straighten his life out? Maybe you're the one who needs to be behind bars!"
The reaction took Adam quickly, and by the time the heat had surged into his eyes in a warning fire, Darius found his considerable bulk slammed against the wall, his face inches from eyes shooting the flames of a desert sun. Shireva's gasp went unheard.
"We don't have time for this," Adam snarled. "You think those men's deaths don't bother me? That you are the only one suffering because of them? You know the responsibilities of being a leader. When you led us into that lab, you knew harm might come to any of us. No," he tightened his grip, "I'm not blaming you for my actions, but you know the risks. Every day," Adam ground out, "I pray to Those Who Are Not Seen to keep decisions like that from my path, but when the choice comes, I pray that it is Their Will and not my own that guides my actions."
Darius' face struggled between rage and guilt, but Adam had no time for mercy. Adrian had no time for mercy.
"You think because I am not sunk into a stupor of guilt that I feel nothing for them. I don't have time to feel anything right now. That will come later, in a nightmare when I'm sleeping, or when I'm watching a sunrise and I suddenly remember those who aren't seeing it because of my actions. But right now, the woman you love is in danger. I'm giving her everything I have because I don't want her to become another dead body I have to remember."
Adam dropped the larger man abruptly. "You can help us find her, or you can go back to your room and nurse your own guilt. It's your choice." He turned away.
"You bastard-" Darius grabbed Adam's shoulder and swung him around even as Shireva cried out a warning. Adam let his arms fall to his sides and took the punch fully across the jaw, staggering back against the counter.
"To hell with it, and all of you," Darius shouted, his voice shaking. He spun on his heel. "I'm going to go call the police and you do your damnedest to stop me."
Rob looked after Darius. "Er ... Adam?"
Adam straightened, felt his jaw gingerly. He leaned over the sink, spat out a tooth and a mouthful of blood.
"Mataya would have had something to say about that," he murmured.
"Yeah," Rob muttered. "Get the hell off the track when the train's coming through. Do you want me to-"
"Are you ready to listen now?" Adam interrupted.
Rob, Shireva, and Martin turned, surprised. Darius was back in the doorway.
"What did you mean," the freckles on the bridge of his nose stood out against his white skin, "the woman I love?"
"Exactly what I said," Adam said. "You and Adrian are bound to one another." He took a paper towel from the roll Martin offered. "If you follow the customs of this world, you're carrying a picture in your wallet of a girl you won't recognize. It's Adrian. Rob tells me you've been together for over a year."
Darius yanked out the wallet, flipping it open. He stopped. Adam watched. The mask of resentment and denial faded, replaced by uncertainty and fear. Darius looked up at Rob. He held the picture in fingers that trembled. "You're right," he said. "I can't believe this. Rob-"
"Yeah," Rob took the picture and slipped it back into the wallet. "It's all real. I know you hate it, conservative-Baptist-radical-animal-rights-terrorist that you are." His center looked left and right wildly, panic settling into his features, and Rob took his arm. "Take it easy, Darwin."
"Take some deep breaths." Correen had come from the bathroom unnoticed. She eased Darius down onto a stool. "Focus on your breathing. Don't think about what you just heard for a moment. It's all right. Rob, could you please bring that other chair over?"
Correen tried to take the wallet from his shaking fingers, but Darius' fingers clamped down on it. "No! I have to hold onto that-what if-"
"That's fine," she soothed. "Put it back in your pocket, where it won't be lost."
Darius pulled his hands away and leaned forward, raking his fingers over his face and hair, taking deep breaths while Correen rubbed his back.
"Jesus Christ..." He shook his head after a moment and looked at Adam. "Why did you let me hit you?"
"You seemed to need the release." Adam shrugged. Rob glanced into the sink.
"You needed more room for your molars anyway."
Correen immediately peered into the sink, then at the bloody cloth in Adam's hand. "I can't leave you alone for a moment without you getting hurt."
"When you're with me, ceilings fall on my head," he reminded her.
Rob chuckled. "What?" Adam asked, startled.
"Nothing," Rob grinned. "I've just never heard either of you ... joke."
Adam looked at Correen, and his curiosity was mirrored by the puzzled expression in her eyes. "I was not joking," they said at the same time.
Darius choked and Rob gripped his shoulder. "You okay, Darwin?"
"No," the redhead shook his head. "But I can still laugh, so that's something. You really believe all this shit?"
"Yes, I do. Hell, look at Adam. Based on what you've seen him do, do you really think that boy is from Kansas? For what it's worth," Rob shifted, blocking out all the other people in the room with his wide shoulders, therefore missing the surprise that his next words raised in Adam's golden eyes. "You can believe in him."
"This is real?" Darius looked down at the wallet.
Rob's eyes hardened to gray granite. "It's real. She means everything to you, Darwin. And she's the closest thing to a little sister I've got. So let's quit dicking around and work on getting her back in one piece, okay?"
Darius looked around him, to Adam. "I wish you had never come here," he said bitterly.
"I wish there had never been cause," Adam returned, without malice. "Now," he looked at Rob. "Let's go see Shawn Mendini.
They are fatally attracted to tragedy, because it is the only way they have left to feel a strong sense of connection to others. Destruction is invited into the unconscious mind to achieve intimacy with life, because they no longer trust happiness.
-Jaiya Marduk, Sealing Progress Report
Shawn Mendini was in his backyard under a 1957 Chevrolet when Adam and Rob knelt down on either side of his legs.
"Beauty car," Rob said in a reverent tone.
"Huh?" Shawn scooted out. Too many drugs had permanently lifted health from Shawn Mendini's face. His blue eyes peered out at them from wasted, pale features that were old and tired. "Thanks," he said, standing up. He wiped his hands on an old T-shirt. "What can I do for you guys?" He pointed his screwdriver at Rob. "Hey, you're Rob Steigir." He grinned, crooked teeth nearly devouring the rest of his face. "That last game against West Tech was friggin' great. Hell of a pass, there at the end!"
"You still go to Havenwood's games?"
"Oh, yeah. Not much else to do in this town. I try not to miss any unless I have too much car shit going on the side. So what brings you here-you need a little amateur work done on that Beemer convertible of yours?"
Rob passed a hand over the flank of the Chevy. "This doesn't look like amateur work to me, but, no, that's not why we're here. We're trying to find out some information about a group called the Amateur Magickers."
Shawn went still. His face turned whiter. "Hey, man," he lifted his hands in front of him. "They're dead and gone. Let them rest in peace."
"They're not dead and gone, unfortunately," Adam said. "We think someone is trying to resurrect them."
"So, what's that to me, or to you guys, for that matter?" Shawn glanced back at his house. A curtain fluttered and Adam saw an older woman draw back from their regard.
Adam felt the fear in Shawn. He laid a hand on the man's wrist and drew his attention back to him. "How do you feel about the Amateur Magickers, Shawn?"
Shawn Mendini found he could not easily look away from the intense golden regard of the stranger. There was no accusation resting in the lines of that aristocratic face, no deception hidden in the set of his mouth. The expression was honest and pure compassion, something he had not seen turned his way in a long time. He swallowed, hard.
"A baby," he blurted out. "They made me kill a baby."
The tawny eyes flickered.
"I was stoned and I thought it was a doll. I thought they were just pretending. They gave me a knife and told me to cut off his head and I did it, thinking it was a doll ... Jesus..." He dropped the screwdriver and Adam caught it before it hit the ground. "Jesus Christ, I never told anyone that, even the shrinks at rehab. It wasn't so much I was scared of jail. Mom would have been left alone, and I'd already let her down so much. And ... geez, that's kind of bullshit, too. I couldn't look in the mirror, knowing I had done it. I wouldn't have been able to stand seeing it in other people's faces."
Adam glanced at Rob, standing rigid and silent.
"What was it they were trying to do?" he asked Shawn.
Shawn rubbed shaking fingers over his chest, wiping away grease that had already been wiped on the shirt. "Wha-what?"
"What were they trying to do when they sacrificed the baby?"
"Nothing, that time. That was just my friggin' initiation, if you can believe it. Why are you guys-why do you want to know this?"
"It's important." Adam handed him his screwdriver. "It might help make up for some of the harm you've done."
Tears welled up in Shawn's eyes and he stared down at the tool in his hand. "I'll help you," he whispered. "But don't give me that shit. You and I both know nothing will ever undo something like that." He threw his head back up. "Okay. The professor didn't know about the baby. Dr. Kenn was too busy figuring out how to bring his son back from the dead."
"The one killed by lightning," Rob recalled.
"Isaac." Shawn tapped the point of the screwdriver into his hand. "But then there was Brooks McQuade. You remember Brooks McQuade, Rob?"
Rob shrugged. "He always wore black, like some kind of beatnik. He was a creative writing major, wasn't he? I remember he made extra money by making up birthday cards for people."
"Poetry." Shawn stared at the line of trees at the back of his unkempt yard. "He could compose right out of his head, like a friggin' William Shakespeare. He did sappy greeting card shit for other people. He did black magic rituals for us. He wrote chants that sent us higher than any drugs I ever did." The skinny young man sat down and slid back under the car, staring up at the engine. "It's cooler under here. Hope you guys don't mind."
"No," Adam said, taking a seat on the ground comfortably, as if he had all day. Inside, his nerves were stretched tight. Rob lit a cigarette and leaned on the front panel of the car. "What kind of rituals did Brooks write?"
"I was the newest member of the group, but the guys told me he wrote a lot of rituals that taught them to let loose, act wild like animals. We'd jerk off on drugs and booze at the end. But the professor didn't know about any of that." Shawn ran the tip of the screwdriver over the bottom of the car, tracing the pipes that interlaced above his head. "I think Brooks was just getting us ready for what he really wanted us to do."
"And what was that?" Adam coughed and Rob moved to his other side, downwind.
"You can't laugh at this, man," Shawn's voice trembled. "It isn't bullshit. I saw them do it."
"I won't laugh at you," Adam promised.
Shawn swallowed. "Most of the guys were into it for the kicks, you know. That's kind of why I did it. It was a little on the dangerous side, and gave me a major hard on. But Brooks, Edward and the Doc were different."
"Edward Brautigan."
"Yeah, psycho son of a bitch. Edward followed Dr. Kenn around like a puppy. Anything the Doc wanted, he would do. The Doc wasn't usually at the rituals. I figured it was because he was our sponsor. You know how sponsors flake out and let the group go their own way? The professor asked Brooks and Edward to teach us how to raise power, do the rituals, and learn the proper 'detachment.'" Shawn shuddered. "Brooks really got into that last part. One of the guys told me he made them kill their pets at one of the rituals, and then practice stabbing the body over and over to get used to the way the knife felt going in and out. The professor had this old book. I don't remember much about it, except Jesus was in it, something about four kings, and a place called the Black School. Brooks really got into it. I don't know what all that shit was about, but because of it, Brooks decided that we should try to raise a demon."
"Shawn?" A woman's querulous voice floated through the gray screen of the back door. "Shawn, it's time for my lunch."
"I'll be right there, Ma," he called, pulling his head from beneath the car.
"I want macaroni and cheese," she whined.
"Okay!" he said. "It's all right, Ma. I'll be there in a minute." Shawn shrugged. "She doesn't like it when strangers come around. Can't say I blame her."
"Shawn," Adam prodded gently. "You were going to tell us-"
"I'm getting there," he snapped. "Jesus H. Christ, you think this is fucking easy?" He placed his hand on the car's underbelly and closed his eyes. His watch clinked an unsteady staccato against the pipes.
"You were there the night they were killed," Adam realized abruptly. Rob stiffened against the car.
"Oh, man," the blue eyes opened, filled with pain. "Please don't make me go through that again. There's a police report, it tells you what happened."
"It said you weren't there. But you were. You are the only living eyewitness. We must know."
Rob tossed the cigarette and knelt next to Adam, peering beneath the car to get Shawn's full attention. "Shawn, let's put it straight to you. You know Adrian Kuppenheimer?"
Shawn's head jerked up, stopping a fraction from the metal above his head. "Everybody knows Adrian."
Rob nodded, his hazel eyes hard. "We think Edward's got her, and we also think in about 48 hours he's going to kill her if we don't figure out what he's trying to do. Help us out."
Shawn twisted the screwdriver around his hands, digging it into his callused skin. "God, I never wanted to do this again." He stared at them both. "But I guess I haven't left that cave since it happened, you know? Just let me give Ma some lunch."
Adam watched Shawn pull a pot out of a sink full of dirty dishes and upend a box of macaroni and cheese into it.
"Brooks and Edward were always like two roosters in a henhouse," he said.
"I think you boil the water first," Rob suggested.
"Naw, she likes it soggy. Her teeth are bad. We haven't had the money to get her dentures." Shawn turned on the stove and the kitchen filled with the smell of old food inside the burner dish. "Edward had something weird about him, a natural juice for the rituals and power raising. Brooks helped us tap into the energy reservoir and get the vibes flowing, but Edward didn't need it. We had to turn the engine over and let it run a bit, but Edward was like a fucking race car-he could go from zero-to-120 in a blink."
Icy apprehension prickled along Adam's skin. Suddenly, he didn't want to hear, didn't want to put it all together. A frown creased his brow at the unexpected thought, then he pushed it aside and focused on Shawn.
"It was strange-Edward never told the Doc about all the shit we did when he wasn't around-the drugs, the pets, that kind of thing-even though I'm sure he knew Kenn would have freaked. But when Brooks told us what he wanted to do, Edward ran right to him and told him about Brooks' plan to raise a demon. Kenn got upset and told Brooks the only reason he should be reading that book was to help mankind learn from its mistakes. That was when Brooks found out the professor was going to use the group to help raise his son from the dead and bottle his spirit." Shawn choked back a sickly giggle. "One hell of a genie fantasy..."
"How was he going to raise his son from the dead?"
Shawn shook his head. "I don't know how. I know it had to do with computers. Maybe he was going to build a robot and do a Frankenstein sort of thing. He told us he had written out the entire ritual on disk. Brooks broke into the Doc's lab with me watching his back. He made some changes. Then Brooks brought me to the ritual to take Edward's place in the circle and told the professor Edward had blown it off." Shawn grimaced. "I figured he had killed Edward. Edward never would have blown off anything the professor needed."
He stared down at the simmering water. "We did it in those old caves under Havenwood. The professor had his computer plugged up to a generator and was using this projector-type thing to put the screen up on the wall, so we could follow along with the ritual."
"Datasho," Rob said automatically.
"Yeah. I didn't want to be there. The baby thing had happened three days before and freaked me out, but Brooks wouldn't give me stuff to get high until I agreed to do the ritual, and then only after it was done. That's how I know I saw what I saw. I was straight, but, Jesus, I wanted it all to be just a bad trip." Shawn stopped, staring into space. One shoulder jerked. Adam went to him, laid a hand on it, stilled it, and guided him into a kitchen chair.
"What happened, Shawn?"
Eyes as haunted as a living corpse swung to Rob. "They did it," the boy rasped. "Brooks was leading the ritual. Dr. Kenn didn't realize until we were in the middle of it that some of the words were wrong. Then It came."
Rob shivered at the feral madness in the young man's face and glanced out the window at the sun. It was hard and brassy, like an accusing eye. The smell of burning food was turning his stomach and he walked to the screen door, breathing the air outside.
"It talked them out of the protected circle, even the professor, and It took them." Shawn's face became gray and his voice squeaked. "One minute, they were all there. The next minute, they were in pieces everywhere. Dr. Kenn looked like a cannonball had blown through him. The words were still scrolling down the wall, but there was blood running all over them ... these voices were in my head, telling me to run, run out of the circle..."
The veins in Shawn's neck quivered. "You know how sometimes things happen for a reason? I was wasted out of my mind most of the time I was with the AM's, but I remembered one thing from Dr. Kenn's visits. He taught us what he called formal ritual practices. It was boring stuff and hard work compared to what we were doing when he wasn't there, but he said we would need to know it. He said never leave a circle when a ritual was in progress. I laughed at him. I was wasted and I giggled like a hyena. But that night I kept hearing Dr. Kenn's voice in my head. Don't leave the circle until the ritual's done ... I fell down and held onto the fucking ground, the dirt of that cave, and I screamed and I thought of that baby and finally I just kept singing Rolling Stone songs until it got quiet..."
Shawn buried his head under his arms at the kitchen table and sobbed. Adam reached out, laid his hand on the boy's head and stroked the limp hair. Rob spun at the sound of sizzling water and pulled the macaroni off the burner.
Shawn raised a tear-streaked face. "I'm going to hell, aren't I?"
"You are in hell," Adam said gently. "You will be until the day that baby's soul releases you." The prince squeezed his arm. "There is no crime that cannot be paid for and forgiven, over time, even if it takes several lifetimes."
Rob set down the spoon with a sharp clatter and Adam glanced at him.
"I kept thinking I could just kill myself and get it over with," Shawn murmured, not noticing. "But what if It's waiting for me on the other side?"
"What happened to it?" Adam pulled his attention back to him.
"I don't know..." Shawn choked on a despairing laugh. "I think it got trapped in my dreams because I can't close my eyes without seeing it. One minute it was there, then..." He paused, thinking. "The professor was still alive, he was struggling past me, reaching for something. He hit something on the computer, then that thing grabbed him and ripped his arm off, tossing it across the floor like a tennis racket. Ah, God," Shawn rocked himself, "all that time, I was singing 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction.'"
"Shawn," Adam said. "Do you know anything about the group's activities now?"
"There is no group," he said. "Edward and I haven't spoken since, and everybody else is dead. Christ," he swallowed, "I wish I had died with the rest of them."
"Because you didn't," Adam said, "you were here to help us. Shawn?"
The boy turned a face streaked with tears and oil toward him. The grime had settled into the deep grooves that horror had permanently carved there. He had raked back his hair during his recital and Adam saw it was thinning.
He leaned forward, touched that old face on a boy's body and directed Shawn's attention to a small yellow flower, growing out of a crack in the cement just outside the kitchen screen door. "Look at it, Shawn."
"It's a flower," he swabbed at his eyes.
"Look at it," Adam repeated. Rob, stirring cheese sauce, glanced at the flower as Shawn squinted at it. "You see how perfect it is, how beautiful? It exists without your permission or mine, yet it brings beauty and wonder into our lives."
"Yeah?"
"Your guilt has not turned the whole world black, Shawn. Just your soul. Fill your soul with things of beauty, such as this, such as caring for your mother, such as helping people in need like us, and the terror will begin to retreat into the shadows, where it belongs. Look for forgiveness where you need it most, and where it's hardest to get it-in your own heart."
"What are you thinking?" Adam asked his silent roommate as they walked to the car. Rob's shoulders were as rigid as the cracked concrete path beneath their feet.
"You let that son of a bitch off easy," he commented.
"No," Adam shook his head. "He's a harm to no one now. It's not my place to punish or judge him. He's been destroyed by what he has done. Those Who Are Not Seen will take care of him."
"Well, it sounds like Those That Ain't Seen were Those That Weren't Around when that baby was murdered."
"People must prevent the evil other people do," Adam said.
"That's not very reassuring."
"Yours is not a very reassuring world, my friend." Adam softened his words. "You left money on the counter for him."
Rob had the grace to flush, but he shrugged it off. "It might help his mother go to the dentist. She wasn't involved in this stuff."
They got into the car and Adam stared at the overgrown shrubbery grasping at the windows and doors of the Mendini house. "The computer virus you told me about when I first came here. Was it close to the date Dr. Kenn died?"
Rob stopped, hand on the ignition key, thinking. "Jesus Christ. It was the same damn day. I didn't catch that. But why would Kenn have gone to the trouble of linking into the school mainframe below ground?"
"Perhaps he needed information from the school's files to complete the ritual."
"But he had been fired from Havenwood. Who would have given him permission to do the wiring?"
Adam gave him an ironic look. "He was a ... computer expert."
"So he might have done the work himself, combined with a little breaking and entering. Wouldn't be hard at Havenwood." Rob pursed his lips. "You're thinking that maybe Dr. Kenn and Brooks overloaded the system with their technomagic ritual and blew up Havenwood's network."
"It is one explanation."
"I wonder..." Rob shifted to watch a woman across the street washing her car. She bent over the bucket in pleasingly brief shorts, but Adam suspected Rob's attention was habit more than true appreciation. His hazel eyes were deep in thought.
"Do you remember the ugly little troll over my keyboard?"
Adam nodded.
"Adrian made it for me." Rob's fingers curled into a fist on his knee and Adam instinctively retrieved his cigarettes from the console. Surprisingly, his roommate waved them off. "No, I don't want them right now. Like I told you, ever since the day the system crashed, students have reported occasional 'sightings' of that debonair little tyke on their computer screens. It's been a major challenge to the computer geeks at Havenwood, trying to run him down." Rob cleared his throat. "If you're right, it means the virus was part of the program McQuade and Kenn wrote. If the virus signature is still in there..." Adam sat bolt upright.
"The ritual is still in the computer."
"It's amazing, he can be taught," Rob teased. The prince sat back, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
"Finding it would be a task for an exceptional computer hacker," Adam said, all golden-eyed innocence. "Which of Havenwood's 'computer geeks' do you suggest?"
Rob shot him a menacing look. "There are computer geeks and there are computer geeks, my backward friend, and then there are masters of the technological astral plane. Much more advanced than your geek class. Not only can I be worshiped in the technical kingdom, I can be revered as an incredibly suave and sophisticated guy in the mundane world. I carry no pocket protectors, no taped glasses, nothing but the most powerful weapon of all-" He tapped his temple. "-Behind irresistible packaging."
"Rob," Adam settled down in his seat, lips tucked tightly together. "You are full of shit."
"I'll check in with Shireva and see if Lanny came up with something on the caves," Rob said as they pulled out of Shawn's neighborhood.
"We need to find a phone," Adam said absently.
"Say no more." Rob reached under the seat and flipped open a cellular phone. He pulled over to the side of the road.
"Hello, Dr.-Shireva, this is Rob. Has Lanny come back? Can you put her on? Oh, okay, hold on." Rob snapped the phone into a bracket on his instrument panel and hit the speaker button. "Channa needs to talk to you. Lanny's found a way into the caves."
"Adam," Channa's voice filled the car.
"Yes?" Adam instinctively leaned forward, shoulders tensing at the strain evident in her voice.
"Based on what Correen figured out about the full moons, I went back through my reports to look at the Sealing acceleration rate. It jumped three to five days after each full moon, starting twelve moons ago."
"So you think they're contributing to the Sealing rate increase?"
"More than that," she drew in a breath and the hair rose on his arms as Adam heard the air tremble in her throat. "There are hair follicles from fifteen different women on the doll you found. Jaiya's memories said Sephira still had a chance, and Jaiya was taken after Sephira. If they didn't sacrifice her for some reason and you subtract her and Correen and assume Edward was successful with all the others..."
"The ritual to sacrifice Adrian will complete a year's circle of thirteen moons." Adam's hand fisted on his knee.
"It explains why Adrian doesn't fit the orphan pattern. She's last. They won't care who knows she's gone in a couple days. Based on Shireva's analysis of the ritual, these sacrifices aren't individual acts. They're building toward something. My guess is Adrian is the sacrifice that will release all the power they've been building. You remember the red and black symbolism, Mars and Saturn?"
Adam glanced at Rob, listening as intently. "Yes?"
"The confluence of Mars and Saturn is a portent of war and destruction. The next one is the night of the full moon."
"Surprise, surprise," Rob murmured.
Channa's voice shook slightly on the last syllable and there was a pause. Adam imagined she stood on the other side of the phone line, centering herself. He placed his hand on the phone instinctively, as if he could calm her. A moment later, she spoke again.
"If you take all these factors, the number of sacrifices, the present acceleration rate, the alignment of Mars and Saturn, et cetera, whatever their purpose is, I feel almost certain that this last ritual, if they're successful, will precipitate a complete Seal on this world."
Cold apprehension ran through Adam's spine and out to his nerve endings, holding him in shock for several moments. Adam understood now what had shaken the indefatigable warrior priestess to the core. Unfortunately, he also knew her intelligence and intuition were not often off base.
"Channa, if you tell the Lords this, they will order you home, now."
"I cannot deliberately hide information from the Lords." She sounded as if she were swallowing something distasteful. "And I can't sacrifice you to a Sealing world. You are the Guardian, and without you-"
"I do not intend to hide information from the Lords," he responded. "But I will be the one to talk to them."
"What if they say the risk is too great, and that we must return?"
"I will refuse."
Channa spoke after a moment's pause. "Okay, then. I've gotten the bad news out of the way. The other thing I wanted to tell you is one of the coven is Dr. Burke's advisee, and his niece. She says he has a complete library of Kenn's writings at his house. She called Dr. Burke and he's willing to let us see them."
"Good. Look for an old book in which Jesus, four kings or a Black School are mentioned. Shawn Mendini said it was significant to the last ritual. Also, translate the map runes before you go. We'll go to the caves and then meet you back at Alma's," Adam paused, then met Rob's gaze. "Once we have Adrian." Rob nodded, his lips compressed. He reached for the cigarettes.
"Shouldn't I go with you to the caves?" Channa asked.
"No. Finding out why Adrian was taken is as crucial as finding her. We have less than two days."
"The Lords do not wish you to risk yourself unnecessarily."
"Their wishes are no longer your concern." Adam spoke harshly. "Do you understand?"
"I understand, but let me try one more time, as a priestess of Aegis. Wouldn't it be better for both of us to go, since we don't know what we may be facing? If it is stronger than you, some extra help wouldn't hurt."
"Perhaps," Adam conceded. "But if it's stronger than me, it may be better if you and I are in different places."
"All right then. I'll talk to you soon. Be careful."
"Channa ...?"
"Yes?"
Adam blew out a breath. "I can't bear the thought of leaving her alone in the dark another moment. Not if we know where she is."
"Understood," came after a long pause. "May Those Who Are Not Seen be with you. May all politicians be plagued with a curse of warts."
Adam chuckled. "I agree." He traced the side of the phone unconsciously. "May Those Who Are Not Seen be with you also. I can't remember all the lines to the Renewal ritual without you."
"You always have been lazy about memorization," her voice said softly. "Who will you take with you?"
"Shireva and Martin."
"All right. Alicia and I will meet you back at Alma's. Here's Lanny."
Rob picked up the phone to talk to Lanny. Adam sat back against the seat, practicing some of the same centering exercises he had just imagined Channa doing. He had just made a declaration of war against the Lord Council and their hold over him. I will refuse them. It was a path from which there was no turning back.
Rob turned over the ignition of the car. Adam jumped, caught in a half doze. "Ms. Pinto knew about three access tunnels at Mill Pond. That's a place about five miles south of Havenwood. Mill Pond belongs to Susan Kenn Burke, willed to her by her brother. Two of the entranceways were blasted shut, but Ms. Pinto said they could have overlooked Rathole Tunnel."
"A peculiar name."
"It has a peculiar story to go with it. About ten years ago, Kenn let the Spelunker Club explore the tunnels. The first and last time they used this particular access they were attacked by about a thousand rats. Ms. Pinto says there's a good chance it was overlooked. She marked the approximate location on the map, but she didn't understand the directions laid out by the runes so she said she might be a little off target. You said Channa could translate them, right?"
"If she can't, no one can. Channa is fluent in several runic alphabets."
"I was planning on taking Rune Reading 101 right after Tarot Cards, myself."
"Mmm."
Rob studied Adam's closed features. "What are you thinking about? You missed a prime opportunity to give me one of those disapproving aristocratic stares of yours."
"I do not give you disapproving aristocratic stares."
Rob snorted. "Yes, you do. Your blood's so blue you probably piss topaz."
The aristocratic look came and Rob grinned. "Okay, what are you thinking, Don?"
The prince looked over at his roommate. Rob's knee bumped a light staccato against the car door as he flicked ashes out the crack in the window. "I think I'm going to have lung cancer before we get to Havenwood." Rob shot him a disparaging glance.
"I'm on the Mel Gibson health plan. Smoke a lot of cigarettes and OD on vitamins. It works for him."
"Who-?"
Rob rolled his eyes. "Where've you been all your life? Some other world or something? Mel Gibson is a famous actor that women go ape-shit over. Are you going to answer the fucking question?"
Adam laughed. "I'm not often asked how I feel, unless..." He reached his arms over his head and caught the back of his seat, stretching exhausted muscles. "Unless someone is looking for a weakness, or a favor. What is it you want?"
"How about I stop the car and kick your ass across the highway for saying something that stupid?"
"Okay," Adam chuckled, glad he read his roommate as well as Rob seemed to understand him. "I am thinking the Lords will want ... my head on a tray?"
"Platter."
"-Before the end of the day. More importantly, we must find some way to stop this ritual, or it may finish the Sealing on your world." Wry humor seeped into Adam's tone. "On top of that, Channa and I must eventually confront what Correen means to me. And," all humor died out of his tawny eyes, "I am very, very afraid that the next body we find in the woods will be Adrian's."
Rob downshifted and left a Porsche diminished in the rearview mirror. "The first time I met Adrian, she came up behind me in the cafeteria and jumped on my back. I had never even seen the little brat. She just clung like a baby possum, giggled, and said, 'You've got great muscles, like a tree. But don't worry, I don't think you're sexy or anything. You just feel ... brotherly.' Then she snuggled down and said in this imperious way, 'My next class is Historical Perspectives in Sculpting.' Aarrgh!" Rob flicked his cigarette butt out the window, and the wheels squealed in protest as he used the breakdown lane to pass a hay truck. The left lane was filled with oncoming traffic. Adam watched the Havenwood exit sign knock a chip of paint off the BMW's window post.
"I can't think about her. It makes me crazy. So," Rob grimaced, "you really care enough about Correen that you're listing it on your to-do list along with saving the world?"
"Yes," Adam smiled. "How did you feel about Lanny when you first met her?"
"That's not the point. I've dated Lanny for over a year, but I'm not ready to commit to the point of swearing off something that looks as good as Channa."
Adam snorted. "You're lying. You're not ready to commit, but it has nothing to do with other women. You are afraid of something."
"I've got a terrific idea. Why don't you concentrate on magic rituals and the undead and stop psychoanalyzing me." Rob shot him a stern glance.
"Perhaps I should call that your 'Senator Look.'"
"What?"
"My blood's not the only kind that runs blue in this automobile."
"Car, not 'automobile.' Jesus H. Christ."
"Where are we going?" Adam held onto the door handle as Rob made an abrupt turn into a parking lot.
"Drive-through. If you're trying to make a joke, that means you're punchy as hell. You were dozing while I was on the phone. Unless I miss my guess, the last time you ate was the pizza you smeared on me. Am I right?" Rob did not wait for his reply. "It's eating me alive, doing this Dick Tracy shit when Adrian's AWOL, but you aren't going to be up to shit unless someone reminds you to refuel. We're going to get you a sandwich, some fries and a candy bar and then we'll go spelunking-and before you argue, it's still a three mile walk from here to the college."
"Rob, we do not have time for food preparation..."
"Relax. I'm about to introduce you to the wonderful world of fast food. You'll wonder how you ever did without it in Aegis."
Adam settled back in his seat. "One day I will introduce you to Aegis."
"If any of us live to see that day, it will be a pleasure. But they better have French fries."
I define what Wicca means to me in my terms, not by what I've read in books. Being Wiccan, practicing Wicca, is honoring that which sustains your life and gives it meaning. It means recognizing the cycles and patterns of life in the world around you and recognizing how the path of your life and spirit follows them. It is finding happiness and peace as part of the Whole.
-Alicia Kingsley, Cowan Meeting Discussion
"Martin is translating the map with Channa at the library," Shireva informed Adam when he and Rob arrived back at the lab. "As soon as he gets here, we can go."
"That includes me." Lanny propped a foot on the counter and tightened the laces on her running shoes. "I can't go into a cave, but I can watch your backs on the outside."
Adam shook his head. "You're unfamiliar with magic, and you're not trained for combat."
"You're not leaving me behind, either," Darius said before she could respond. "If Adrian is who you say she is, you have no right to leave me here. I can protect Rob from ten maniacs on the football field, so I think I can handle whatever combat comes our way, and so can Rob."
Rob cleared his throat. "Should I be the brave one and say the women should stay behind? Except for Shireva of course," he parried the razor-sharp look the professor cut in his direction.
"It's time to stop this," Correen, sitting quietly at the counter, now stood and touched Adam's sleeve. He looked down into her serious gray eyes. "Last night you gave us the choice. We, all of us," she gestured at the others, "choose to help you. You may not think we understand what that means, but we do. So stop protecting us, and let's go get Adrian."
He didn't want her anywhere near danger, any of them in fact, but she was right, and there was no arguing it. A reluctant smile lifted Adam's mouth as he remembered his father once saying that his mother was never more infuriating than when she was right.
"I examined the slide Correen brought me," Shireva interrupted.
Adam turned his attention from Correen. "And?"
"The symbols are pretty standard markings for the elements. The sigils with Mars and Saturn over the chakra centers, the rune we have yet to decipher on Jaiya's arms and legs, and the symbol over her womb all are missing. They weren't part of Kenn's ritual."
"Maybe Brooks put all his money on changing the words of the ritual," Rob suggested. "He couldn't have changed the symbols without making the professor suspicious."
"Or the purpose of Jaiya's ritual was something different," Shireva pointed out. "Edward may have a different agenda than Brooks or the professor."
"Adam?"
The note of concern in Correen's voice drew all attention in the room to the prince. Adam turned toward the window, his attention elsewhere, and raised his face to the light. He took several steps toward it and stopped. His hand reached out and touched something in the air, just short of the window. His reflection in the panes of glass showed him staring inward, entranced.
Shireva caught Correen's arm as she moved forward. "Don't. It's a Memory."
"What?" Rob raised a brow.
"Guardians have ... flashbacks to their Trials. I've seen it happen to Alma. They come upon her without warning, no matter where she is or what she's doing."
"What 'Trial'?" Darius asked. "And can we snap him out of it? How long does it last?"
"The Trial is the test undergone by candidates for Guardian of the Continuum," Shireva responded evenly. "And, no, you can't 'snap' him out of it. Those Who Are Not Seen determine the length of the Memory."
"So it's like a vision quest," Rob surmised, pressing a placating hand on Darius' shoulder, shooting him a warning glance.
"Somewhat," Martin spoke, standing inside the doorway with the map in hand, his sharp gray eyes focused on Adam. "It's the same state of mind. The theory is that all knowledge exists in the Divine Mind, and it flows through our minds because we're part of the Great Mind that created us. However, we're not aware of all knowledge at one time. It would be too much to handle. Our brain and senses filter out a lot of information, but under the right conditions, like a Trial, the filtering process can be slowed down, or turned off. In those moments, divine knowledge becomes available."
Shireva's grip on Correen's arm tightened slightly as a shudder ran through Adam's back.
"He's fine," Martin assured her. "Guardians don't know how much of the Divine Mind they experience during Trial, because they can't recall most of it right after the experience. The Memories come throughout their lives, even after they are no longer Guardian. He's dreaming, basically."
Shireva considered the prince. "He must have more episodes than most," she murmured.
"Why do you say that?" Rob asked.
Correen shrugged off Shireva's hand and took her seat at the counter again, her eyes fixed on Adam. She crossed her arms and curled her gloved hands into tense fists against her ribs.
Shireva glanced at Martin. The monk cocked his head. "I don't see what it could hurt. At this point I think they're entitled to as much information as we can give them." Shireva nodded.
"Most Guardians are in Trial for three days, on average," the monk said. "A couple candidates have even been 'under' for a week. Time is no concern to Those Who Are Not Seen. They could give you everything they know in a single moment or nothing during an eternity. But His Highness," he nodded at Adam, "was in Trial for three of your months. Those who knew him then say his eyes were blue, like his mother's, before the Trial."
Darius made a disturbed noise, but Rob waved him to silence.
Correen heard every word, but her eyes clung to Adam's silhouetted figure. Her body twitched, startled, when Shireva spoke directly behind her, almost in her ear.
"Legend says that Those Who Are Not Seen did more than appoint him Guardian-they made him one of Their own."
Adam looked at his hands. They were his hands as a young boy, scratched by the forest, raw with new blisters from learning how to handle a sword. He was in a cave. Stalactites and stalagmites as large as men surrounded him. He had an eerie feeling, as if he walked in the jaw of a predator. One of the teeth moved. No, evolved. Where there had been a protruding gray stone tooth, a figure now stood. It was himself, as he would look as a man. He whirled at the screech of a chisel. The air sculpted Alma out of the stone before him, her staff grasped in her hand.
A wind rose, as if the cave sucked in a breath from the cold world outside. Adam shivered. The dark tunnel reverberated with thunder. He wanted to run, but he was here at the command of Those Who Are Not Seen. He stood fast, though his heart pounded against his chest.
The water burst in and he peddled backward, despite his resolve. A wave rushed forward and crashed down on him, filling the interior of the cave and flinging him against a stalagmite. It changed beneath his grip.
Adam stared into dark, dead eyes. He tore his hands from the stone and let the water take him, boiling him past stones transforming into more people and beings he vaguely recognized but could not name. As he passed by his own likeness again, the adult Adam came to life, turning his head and watching him. Then it looked at the stone figure of Edward Brautigan. Adam saw the two likenesses charge toward one another. He reached out his hand, but his cry was lost in the water. He was swallowed into the dark maw of the tunnels.
Adam snapped out of the vision in a crouch. He half expected to be dripping on the tile floor, but he was dry. He lifted his palm and saw the hard places the early calluses had become. A hand touched his shoulder and he reached up without looking, knowing it was Correen, and tightened his hand reassuringly over her fingers.
"Is he back?" Rob whispered to Shireva.
"I am back," Adam affirmed, rising. He lifted Correen's hand, pressed his lips to the back of it in an easy, unconscious gesture. "I apologize. It happens sometimes."
"Did They tell you anything to help us find Adrian?" Lanny asked hesitantly.
Adam shook his head. "I don't think so, but it may help us later. Those Who Are Not Seen are rarely without good Purpose. Martin," he collected the scattered fragments of his attention enough to register the monk's appearance and summoned a vague smile, which the monk returned in full measure.
"The translation's a bit cryptic, but the map's ready if you are, Your Highness."
"Adam," Adam corrected him. "And I am ready." He glanced at Correen, opened his mouth.
"Not a chance," she responded.
"Old ground, Don," Rob supported her. "Let's go."
Adam inclined his head. "Absolutely."
I love running. I love the feeling of being able to stretch all the way out, like a horse, and eat up the ground with my body. I don't know why I don't like enclosed spaces. Caves are the worst to me. I can't imagine anything more like shutting yourself into a coffin than going into a cave.
-Lanny Coulton Havenwood Entrance Application Analyzing Worst Fear
Martin turned the van around in the middle of the paved road and rolled back up to the missed entrance of Mill Pond. The access road was choked with foliage that crawled out of the undredged ditches. Adam glanced out the window at a wood sign lying in the mud and brackish water: "Mill Pond: Fishing with Permit Only."
Branches clawed at the van's flanks, screeching their dismay when the vehicle broke away into the clearing that held Mill Pond. The water was a pit of black mud wept over by naked willows and brittle pines. As they disembarked from the van, wind with winter still hidden in its folds bit at them.
"Something's very wrong here," Martin said unnecessarily. His words carried easily to Adam. No bird or beast spoke from the foliage. The trees barely moved in the wind, as if fearful of being noticed.
Shireva stirred the syrupy water gingerly with the toe of her shoe. "No minnows. Not even a water bug. There's nothing alive here. It's as if everything natural has fled."
Correen snapped a lifeless twig off one of the tree skeletons. "And those that couldn't leave, left the only way they knew how," she murmured.
Martin held up the map. "Channa's translation of the runes says there should be a trail leading off the west bank of the pond."
Adam looked at the unrelenting wall of vines and overgrown shrubbery that circled the clearing. Shireva produced a compass. "We can head west and look for other landmarks," she suggested.
Adam nodded and he followed her out of the clearing, through the point of least resistance into the heavy undergrowth of the woods. The others dropped in behind them.
For a while, no one spoke as they tramped through the knee-high grass and dead saplings. Though their attention and energy were absorbed by dodging thick clumps of brambles and skewed tepees of fallen branches, breaking through spider webs long abandoned, and stepping over rotten trees that had fallen to the forest floor, Adam knew it wasn't that which kept them all quiet. The wind rasping through the forest warned them to silence, kept him tense and alert, all his senses straining to detect the danger he felt watching. He had the disturbing certainty that finding the source of the danger was as much its goal as it was theirs.
The nonexistent trail sloped downhill, slowing the pace. Adam kept his weight on his heels, fingers catching passing tree limbs to maintain balance.
"We shouldn't have any trouble once we get there," Rob remarked.
"Why is that?" Darius grunted as his jeans caught on a rope of thorns.
"Because Edward will think a herd of elephants is stampeding him and he'll run for his life."
Adam glanced back over his shoulder and his roommate shot him a cocky, reassuring grin. Lanny sidestepped a writhing pit of briars in front of Rob and a sharp click rent the air. Before the scent of danger could steal the smile from his face, Rob yanked the girl back so hard she knocked them both to the ground. Twigs and leaves erupted where she had stood, spat forth from the thwarted teeth of a steel leg-hold trap.
Lanny stared at her foot, her toes resting no more than a finger's width from the grin of the sinister contraption. She cinched in her legs even farther as Adam knelt by the trap. He looked at Rob. "If that's how fast you move on the football field, I'm surprised anyone could catch you."
Rob didn't answer, his face grim, eyes hard in a way that Adam had never seen. Lanny tried to get to her feet, clawing up his shoulder, but her knees shook so hard, she staggered drunkenly. Rob rose and scooped her into his arms in one motion. "Rob, I'm fine," she protested, an embarrassed flush rising in her cheeks.
"I know. Humor me a moment." Rob turned away from them all, his head bending over hers. Adam saw her arms loop around his damp neck. The muscles in Rob's back tightened with his grip on her. Adam felt the wisp of a gloved fingertip touch his palm and caught it briefly between two of his own fingers.
Lanny murmured something and Rob responded, finally letting her legs slide to the forest floor.
"How in the hell did you know?" Darius pulled the trap free with a dead branch.
Rob shrugged self-consciously, the habitual patting of his jeans for cigarettes culminating into a muttered curse. "They make that click before they spring," he sighed. "My buddies and I used to hang out in the Ware County swamps. We'd set off the bear traps that hunters left." Rob scratched his neck, brushing away some dirt. "We'd stick branches as thick as-" He looked down at Lanny's legs, shapely in her jeans. He swallowed. "Those monsters would snap them in two like a pretzel."
"If someone's taken the time to ambush this area," Martin observed, "then we're going in the right direction."
"Or Dr. Kenn allowed trapping on his land. This thing is pretty rusted out," Darius indicated the trap. "Probably slowed it down a bit." Lanny nodded, white-faced.
Rob passed his knuckles lightly down her jaw line to turn her eyes from it. "Why don't we go single file, walk in each other's footsteps?" he suggested to Adam. "I can take the lead and poke around as we go. This jungle isn't much different from the swamps back home. That's how we used to avoid sinkholes and sand traps."
Adam nodded and gestured the others to fall behind his roommate. He brought up the rear. Lanny's close brush with disaster kept their attention on the placement of their feet and what lay on the trail ahead. Lanny's fingertips rested on the back of Rob's shirt. Shireva watched the runner's sneakered feet and placed hers in their impressions. The more shortsighted Martin had a light hand on the small woman's shoulder. Darius strode awkwardly in his wake, shortening his long strides to accommodate the slower pace. He glanced back several times to make sure Correen was having no difficulty following his path. The concerned gesture warmed Adam's feelings toward the science student, though he recognized the veiled insult, since he was behind Correen and more capable of keeping a watchful eye on her.
The sun climbed, replacing the chill with humidity, as if the elements strove to make the area as inhospitable as possible, regardless of the temperature. Rob finally picked up a recognizable trail that headed west. It poured them like a spout into a dank, shadowed ravine. The high wall that rose to their left was wigged in dried ivy that rasped against their clothes. They hugged to it to keep their balance. The sun passed out of sight, bringing back a clammy coldness, and drawing them up in a huddle to consult the map when Martin called a stop. "The Way to Hell is the Way to Ascension," his words split the still air like the crack of an ax into a casket. "That's the rune translation for this ravine on the map."
"If that's the way they've described this place, seems to me we're right on target." Lanny rubbed the goose pimples on her arms and glanced about the lifeless pit. "Ms. Pinto said Rathole Tunnel would be in a ravine."
Adam looked up the line of the ravine and Darius did the same. "We could go up top and see if we can't see it from there," Darius squinted. "Some of us could go down farther, see if it's at the bottom."
"It's not at the top or bottom," Correen said unexpectedly. "It's right above us." She squatted and scooped up a rock. She took several steps back, cocked her arm and pitched it, high.
It broke through the ivy twenty feet above their heads and did not return, the indignant rasp of the vines the only sound of impact, followed by a short thump and rolling noise. "There's your entrance."
Adam studied the track of the stone as Rob whistled low. "You had your beta-carotene today, didn't you? Mind if I ask how you saw that?"
Correen went to the wall of earth and rock before them and knelt where it met the path. The young woman pushed at what appeared to be a rotting clump of gray leaves. She cupped her hands beneath it, revealing it as the carcass of an animal, the body sunken into bones. "I believe it's a rat. Since the Spelunker Club was attacked by them right inside the mouth, it made sense that one might have fallen and been killed. I looked above it and saw the vines moving where that opening is, though we're sheltered from the wind here. It was a lucky guess."
Darius crossed his freckled arms over his chest, hooking his thumbs under his armpits. "You've got some incredible powers of observation."
Correen shrugged and looked down, toeing the path uncomfortably. She reminded Adam of a chameleon changing its skin to blend with the landscape and disappear, after she had surprised a passing hiker with a more vivid version of herself.
"Martin, did you bring the rope from the van?" He saved her from further attention.
"Right here." Martin dropped the coil to his elbow. "I suggest we go to the top of the ravine and secure it to something up there, then climb down to the opening."
"Sounds good. Anything to get out of this pit," Lanny said.
"I feel like I'm in the womb of a creature as food for her unborn child," Shireva agreed.
"Christ, thanks for that image," Rob muttered. "Sometimes you guys remind me of a sect of Stephen King flower children."
Lanny chuckled and caught hold of his belt, letting his momentum pull her up the trail after the others. "Correen, you're a regular Dick Tracy," she added.
"I prefer Miss Marple," Correen murmured. She waited until Shireva and Martin had passed her, then started up the trail after them, but Adam caught her arm. She sidled back down the slight incline, looking at him curiously, and then skidded into his arms as his grip tightened and he pulled, setting her off balance and into the direction gravity dictated.
Adam took her chin in his fingers and kissed her. She leaned against him, the unnatural stillness of their surroundings flooded by the natural energy that flowed between them. The moment could have lasted a lifetime, or only a second, but she was nothing but sensation, only aware of where his body touched hers. When he raised his head, he looked deeply embarrassed.
"It's been six hours since I kissed you," he cleared his throat.
"Six hours and twelve minutes," she responded. Carefully, as she would touch an animal whose actions she could not predict, she laid her knuckles alongside his jaw. You look so tired, she almost whispered. But she did not. The suspicious glances Shireva had been giving her were a lancing reminder that he belonged to another. Another world, another life, another woman.
She was a child of this world. A dying, Sealing world whose poison had infected her enough to make her continue to deny her feelings for him like a survival instinct, feelings that he embraced so easily. In her world, instantaneous, pure love was a flower that had been scoffed into extinction. In a few days Adam would vanish from her life. She had passed the point where she could prepare or protect herself against it. But she knew how much pain she could bear.
Correen turned and headed up the trail, shuddering at and savoring the light brush of his hands along her hips to ensure she made it safely back out of the ravine.
Martin was securing the rope around one of the scrubby pines that followed the crown of the ravine. She left Adam's side at Shireva's glance and leaned over the edge. Where they had stood below was much farther down than it had appeared from ground level. The monk dropped the rope over and it snaked down among the grasping vines.
"I'll go down first," Shireva said, shrugging out of her coat. "And before you say anything, Your Highness, you're too valuable to risk losing by a stray shot. When we come face to face with Edward or whoever is behind all of this, we better have you around to deal with them."
Adam tightened his jaw, gave a curt nod. Shireva stuck a flashlight in her belt. "Torch?"
Rob handed her one of the branches he and Darius had collected and wrapped in rags doused in kerosene. Rob patted his pockets, then slanted a glance at Adam. "Lighter?"
"Oh." The prince reached into his borrowed jeans and handed over the gold cigarette lighter. Correen compressed her lips against a smile as Rob passed it to Shireva.
"Guaranteed to light the first strike every time, worth all $500 that my chain-smoking grandmother paid for it. It's an heirloom. Don't drop it, or I'll be pissed and you'll be rat sorbet."
"I hope I won't need it," Shireva said. "I know a few spells for repelling animals."
Rob grinned. "I know a few for repelling women. We'll swap sometime."
Shireva wrapped the rope and moved to the edge. Adam took hold of a part of the tied end to steady it. She took a deep breath. "Talk to you in a moment."
"If you are in any trouble, we'll be there," Adam promised.
She nodded.
Correen's eyes narrowed in concern on Adam, as he watched the woman's head vanish below the edge of the wall. "You okay, Don?" Rob murmured behind his rigid shoulder.
Adam's breath hissed out between his teeth. "I am sick of watching others risk their lives so my value may be preserved."
"She's right, though."
Adam jerked his attention to him. Rob added his grip companionably to the rope. "It's like the president. Technically, his life isn't more valuable than a secret service guy's; but his knowledge and power are. What you have and what you can do for others is important enough to these folks that they'll die to preserve it, and they expect you to do your part and be there to protect them when that knowledge and power is needed. The bitch of it is waiting for the opportunity to prove your usefulness when they're working to protect you every day."
Correen dropped to her stomach and watched Shireva walk herself down the side of the steep face. The climber gasped as her next step took her waist deep into the side of the ravine. Shireva floated a moment in the mouth of the opening, then she twisted her wrist under the rope and used her other hand to grope for the outline of the cave entrance with a dexterity the Brazilian girl could envy.
Shireva touched a shoe tip to the bottom lip of the mouth and levered herself into the cave with a hand on either side. Correen saw a brief filter of light as Shireva turned on the flashlight, and then the woman's head emerged.
"It's a tunnel," Shireva affirmed, calling up to them as softly as she could. "No rats."
Rob descended next, then Darius. Correen set her teeth, trying to loosen the sudden tension in her stomach.
Adam took the map Martin offered. "Remember, if you think we're in trouble, don't come after us. You and Lanny get out of here immediately and call Channa."
Lanny came to the edge next to Correen and looked over. Rob caught the upper lip of the cave and leaned out backwards, looking up at her with a reassuring grin. Adam came up behind her, squeezed her shoulder. "I will take care of him," he promised. Lanny managed a weak smile and Adam turned his attention to Correen. "Would you like to go first?"
She shrugged. "I need to rig a stirrup or chair loop and have you and Martin lower me down," she said. Her misshapen hands curled into defensive fists at her sides, but she did not realize it until he lifted one of the hands, pried open the fingers and kissed the palm briefly, a reassurance more than an intimacy.
"We'll go together," Adam said. "Unless you'd consider waiting here?" She shot him a sharp look and he shrugged a shoulder. "It was worth one more try." He took up the rope and presented his back to her.
Martin waited patiently by the tree to steady their passage. The monk glanced at her, at the prince, and then off into the space behind them. Correen grimaced. "You can't hold my weight and climb down," she attempted.
Adam's eyes coursed over her, both a caress and a statement. Her pulse quickened against her throat. "You need to eat much more to be in danger of that. I promise you'll be safe."
It wasn't his competency she questioned. It was treating her like a lover in front of those who knew him to be betrothed to another woman, but Correen bit the inside of her lip, knowing it was not time for that argument. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on either side of his neck, feeling the strong architecture of bone, muscle and tissue beneath her gloved fingertips. She braced herself against its foundation and he responded by dipping and catching her up under her knees as she made an awkward hop. He hitched her up his back once, settling her comfortably in the groove provided by his lower back.
She folded her arms over the line of his collarbone and his hair brushed her cheek. He turned his head, bringing them almost eye to eye. "Ready?" he murmured.
She nodded, moving her cheek over the dark mane, the point of her chin grazing the rough line of his jaw. His skin carried faint traces of soap from a hasty clean up earlier in the day, overlaid by sweat and the odor that was peculiar to him. Correen imagined it must be the smell of his home.
"Did Mataya teach you to climb?" she asked, her lips not-so-inadvertently brushing his ear, though she hoped he would think so.
Adam passed the rope over his wrist and between his knees and backed up to the edge of the ravine. He leaned out into open space, the ground lurching and suspending them for the breathless moment that begins a descent. It drove away any thought from her mind but survival. "I've never done this before," he commented.
Her arms and legs tightened over his body, and she felt the skin by Adam's temple pull with his smile. "I was hoping you might react that way."
"You-" she swallowed her retort with a gasp as the edge of the ravine collapsed beneath them. Rob yelped below as earth and rock tumbled off the wall. Correen clung to Adam's neck, feeling the muscles of his back stretch tight as he held their combined weight on the strength of his arms alone. Gravity pulled them back in to the deep furrow of freshly exposed dirt. His stomach muscles contracted under her calves as he brought his legs up. He steadied his posture and began to descend again. Correen tried to loosen her trembling arms, surprised he wasn't wheezing for air.
"All right?" he asked, clearing his throat.
"You seem-" Correen cleared her own, trying to shake out the quavering of her voice. "You seem used to carrying someone piggyback."
His chuckle reverberated against her palms. "I didn't know that's what your people call it. I used to carry my sister Fedana everywhere like this. Do you like children?"
"I don't think I want to discuss it at the moment," she snapped.
Hands touched her legs. Shireva, Rob and Darius drew them into the tunnel mouth, looking more dirty and disheveled than when last seen above. "You're all well?" Adam asked. His gaze darted over them all in quick assessment. Correen slid off his back and stumbled into Rob. Her knees had not stopped shaking.
Rob nodded, steadying her. "Just got a bit of dirt in my mouth," he spat for emphasis. "I had to be quiet for a whole two minutes. Lanny will hate she missed it."
Shireva gestured at the broken line of cobwebs lacing the entrance. "It was an unbroken sheet when I came through." She plucked at a few sticky strands on her clothes for emphasis. "If Adrian's here, they brought her in another way."
"Good. Maybe they won't expect anyone from this direction," Adam said. The cave was cool and damp, but with an unpleasant, cloying odor, like herbs forgotten and left in a cloth to mold and rot. The tunnel's narrow throat offered no light to define what conditions they might be facing. The low ceiling foretold an uncomfortable exploration for the three men who stood over six feet.
"People do this for fun?" Darius murmured. Correen found herself in complete agreement with him.
"I'll take the lead," Adam said. Shireva offered her flashlight, but he shook his head. "I won't need it."
"It's dark in there," Shireva stated, unnecessarily, and gestured with the flashlight again.
Adam gave her a strange look, stooped and walked several steps into the tunnel. He turned a corner and disappeared, then returned, shrugging. "I can see fine."
Rob followed his footsteps, vanishing from view in the same manner. He returned, blinking. "You can't see for shit in there."
"Perhaps your people can't see in the dark as we can," Adam offered. Shireva stepped close to him and looked up into his extraordinary eyes, studying his pupils with a scientist's interest.
"No, Your Highness," she said. "The structure of our eyes is no different. It's you. You can see in the dark."
"Do you hear something?" Correen asked.
The companions stilled. The barest trace of a shriek, like a woman's cry, reached them. Adam placed a hand against the arch of the tunnel. Rob came to his side, his hazel eyes worried and intent. Then they cleared with relief. "Bats," he pronounced.
"The bat droppings," Shireva said.
Adam nodded and turned back to the others. "According to Martin's map, there are seven large caverns directly under Havenwood. We'll go toward them. It's the most likely place they would have taken Adrian."
"And the most likely place to find whatever entrance they did use to bring her here." Darius suggested. "If you don't mind me saying so, I think it might be good for us to hand out all the flashlights, in case we get separated. And if anybody loses sight of the person in front of them, he or she should immediately stop everyone for a nose count." He cleared his throat uncomfortably at Adam's assessing glance.
Adam inclined his head. "Good idea. Darius, I think you should protect our rear. If you do not mind."
The large student nodded back, just as deliberately. "I don't mind."
Adam glanced at Correen and then gestured to the others. He ducked into the tunnel. Shireva thrust herself into the narrow passageway, her shoulder rudely pressing against Correen's chest and bringing her up short. Correen backed off, waited a moment, then followed, Rob and Darius dropping in behind.
The tunnel went down, down and down, getting steeper as the shrieking of the bats grew louder. Correen spread her arms to either side of the narrow tunnel, using it to steady her descent, wondering if, at any moment, the path would tip up to a vertical ninety degrees and drop them like a laundry chute. The dim glow of Rob's flashlight behind her guided her steps, but did nothing to diminish her apprehension. The corner turned sharply and the shrieking stopped. The silence was much less reassuring, and made their immediate surroundings more tomblike. Shireva stopped, indicating Adam had brought them to a halt. The passage echoed their breathing, seeming to breathe itself.
"I don't like this," Rob muttered. Correen agreed. She glanced back at him. He was in a Neanderthal crouch, his head and shoulders pressed to the ceiling of the tunnel. She shuddered, a sudden, unpleasant wave of Lanny's claustrophobia sweeping over her. Shireva hissed, breaking its hold, and Correen jumped. She turned and followed the other woman.
Adam's pace increased, despite the treacherous descent. When the passageway leveled out and widened for a blissful moment, forking into three prongs, he took the middle passage without a pause to consider the map. Correen heard Darius murmur the question to Rob, but did not hear the reply. She could see only pieces of Adam because of the dim flashlight and the interference of Shireva's body. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of an intent golden eye, focusing on something none of the rest of them seemed to be seeing, but his pace did not slacken for explanation.
Abruptly, the tunnel shrank down to the point that they had to proceed on hands and knees. Darius got his wide shoulders stuck in a hairpin curve and the group halted, waiting in oppressive silence until the broad shouldered man wriggled through.
The sweet, sickly odor wafted up again, stronger now, and Correen's stomach roiled. If Darius should collapse, she would be stuck forever, unless she could turn and push his body before her all the way to the surface and light and air. Bottleneck would never have the same meaning for her again. Correen fought the urge to press against Shireva's back, to make her go faster.
The tunnel height increased enough that they could get off their knees, but the men had to proceed in ape fashion still. Fortunately, each time the close quarters and Adam's inexplicable pace reached the point where Correen thought she would lose a grip on her composure, the tunnel would widen out again and give them a moment of relief. When it finally ballooned into a wide cavern, Correen let out a relieved breath. She could see Adam again.
He put a hand to his lips, counseling silence. He gestured to Rob. His eyes turned to her, scanned her face in the brief moment before Rob doused the flashlight. Correen closed her eyes, fighting a wave of panic. She had never been claustrophobic before, but then she had never felt like she was being buried alive before. When she crossed campus at night, she had never realized how much light the night aboveground held. This was total absence of light. She had to get out of here now. She'd just tell them she'd meet them up above. She was sure she could find her way back.
Adam's hand touched her arm, and the reassurance of his touch flooded her, took away the panic. Adrian was down here somewhere, frightened, and completely alone. Or maybe not alone, and that thought was worse. She, on the other hand, had friends around her, and Adam was here. Correen took a deep breath, calmer, but Adam still drew her in behind him as they crossed the cavern and entered the next narrow tunnel. From the muffled whisper exchanged between Shireva and Rob, Correen suspected that the Recreator had been compelled to fall in between the two other men. Adam placed her palm on the back of his shirt, and she felt the solid network of muscles under his skin. Rob's hand brushed her shoulder and fastened onto her braid. The companions formed a human chain, trusting their way to the man who could see where they could not.
The angle became steep again and the turns sharper. They were spiraling down into the earth and Adam again forged ahead as if he were being urged on by whatever lay ahead. They had been in the tunnels no more than thirty to forty-five minutes, but it felt like hours. Something waited for them, ahead in the darkness. Correen sensed it, and it wasn't Adrian.
Adam stopped, momentarily sandwiching her between the two men fore and aft. For once, the close contact was not unwelcome. The prince's voice breathed in her ear, his lips warm against her skin. "There's light ahead."
Correen put a hand up against the side of his throat, holding him there. "How did you know how to get here?" she whispered.
"The 'wrong feeling' at the pond. I picked it up in here and followed it." He dipped his head and nuzzled her palm with his lips. Correen closed her fingers over her tingling skin. She turned away and passed his message on to Rob. She inhaled the sharp odor of cigarettes and Georgia marsh that brought a reassuring image of him to her mind. She was beginning to realize how Adrian recognized each of them. Correen prayed she'd have the chance to share that thought with the gentle, precocious girl who had insisted on being her friend.
The tunnel height increased again, until even Darius could walk comfortably. The shadowy filtered light ahead that silhouetted Adam relieved Correen, though she knew that relief would probably be short lived. Darkness provided cover.
The meager shaft of light shaped itself into a jagged opening. Several moments before they reached it, Adam dropped to his stomach and inched forward. The others followed his lead.
The tunnel floor jutted through the opening, forming a crude balcony, with room for three abreast. Rob let Shireva inch past him to come up on Adam's left side, as Correen took his right.
Below them spread a large cavern, which Adam assumed was one of the seven central chambers on the map. Torches mounted in iron wall sconces lit the room. The walls had been coated with black paint, still wet.
Adam's nostrils flared at the sweet, rotten odor and knew it wasn't paint. A pentagram had been carved in the rock floor, the grooves filled with blood as well. Stakes driven into three of the five points he could see from his position had the remains of various animals impaled upon them. The fire from the torches cast quivering shadows behind the silent sentinels, as if they were the souls of the impaled victims, still writhing in torment.
Adam inched forward to peer below the lip of the overhang, bidding both women to stay back with a gesture. Rob's hands encircled his ankles and Correen's hand rested on his belt, but he barely noticed it. He sent a prayer to Those Who Are Not Seen and looked upon the center of the consecrated circle.
Adrian was there, as he had feared, but alive, as he had hoped. The girl sat in the center of the pentagram, her legs folded in a lotus position, her back straight, much like the first time he had seen her. Her face was tilted upward, and he saw blood crusted on her temple. Without the encumbrance of the rock between them, he could hear her singing softly, almost a broken whisper. Her fragile fingers clenched on her folded knees. He backed away from the edge, and the buckle on his belt scraped the stone.
Adrian's singing abruptly ceased. "Who's there?" Fear shook her voice.
"Adrian," Darius murmured.
"Rob!" Correen hissed.
Rob reacted too late. Darius slammed him into the rock wall without benefit of the gear they both normally wore in skirmishes. Correen wisely shrank back and Adam spun to his back to find himself about to be trampled by two hundred and fifty pounds of confused and maddened center. He managed to spring halfway to his feet and catch the bull around the chest. His weight and strength slowed the charge. Swearing and therefore recovered, Rob plowed into Darius' legs and brought them down in a twisted heap on Shireva.
Correen rolled to her stomach and peered back over the edge. Adrian was on her feet, her hands opening and closing. Tears ran down the girl's anguished face and Correen could not hold her silence.
"Adrian," Correen whispered. "Adrian, it's us."
The young girl cocked her head, nodded, began to sing again. She sank back to the floor, rocking to her song. Correen ducked as Darius' thrashing arm whipped past her head.
"Dammit, Darius," Rob growled. "You can't do shit for her like this." He fended off an elbow as Adam caught the other arm. The two men swung, each fist connecting solidly with the nearer side of Darius's skull. Alone, each blow would have knocked an average-sized man to his knees. For Darius, it served the intended purpose. He shook his head, clearing away stars.
"You cannot go to her," Adam repeated in a fierce whisper, for the third time. "The circle is warded. You will be killed."
"Adam?" Correen murmured urgently. "Something's wrong with her."
Rob and Darius inched up with Adam, and Correen and Shireva relinquished their spots to the men. Shireva's hands abruptly pressed into Correen's back. As one, the three men flattened to the tongue of rock.
A man and a woman entered the chamber. The man wore a suit under an open ceremonial robe. An elegant cross suspended upside down from an expensive gold chain lay against the surface of his crisp white shirt. He wore a horned headdress over hair pulled into a ponytail too youthful for the lined, middle-aged face. The woman was as old as Alma, but hard and muscular looking like a wolf. She had on baggy jeans and a red T-shirt, and sported a tangled snarl of charms and pendants, hung from her neck by black silk cords. An abundance of steel gray hair with black and white streaks hung loosely around her heavy, masculine face, the remainder carelessly tied at her neck with a leather tie. Her gaze darted around the chamber and Adam recognized the glittering, mad eyes.
Adrian chanted her song madly, her tempo and volume increasing by the moment. The woman laughed and Adam stiffened. It was Alicia's voice, distorted by malice.
"We should cut out its tongue. Then its voice will be as useless as its eyes," Amelia Blanchard scoffed.
"The lamb is frightened." Darius' voice emitted from the horned man. Darius tensed. Rob caught his arm in warning. "Besides, the master would be put out, should she die of shock or blood loss before the right time."
"Stop it!" Adrian shrieked. "I know you're not my friends-what do you want?"
"We are your friends, Adrian," Amelia purred in the Alicia voice. "You hear us as we truly are." She moved and Adrian turned, following the sound of her footsteps. "All this time, you thought we were your friends. Soon you'll know all of our secrets. You'll be the most important part of it."
"You're not Alicia," she said faintly.
"You don't want me to be, but you know I am," the voice dropped to a hiss and filled the air around the girl's ear, though the woman stood outside the circle. "On the full moon, Darius and I will pull out your intestines and eat them as you die."
Adrian sprang away from the voice. Her feet left the center of the circle. Her hoarse scream of pain cut through Amelia's laughter, but a roar from above swallowed the cackling.
Darius leaped from the ledge. His target stood on the far right side of the circle, near the overhang, but not near enough. Only extraordinary athletic ability bolstered by murderous rage helped him clear the circle's perimeter. Fear ran fast across the face of the man who had mocked his voice, but not fast enough. Darius crashed down on him. Before the horned headdress rolled to a stop, Darius yanked the man to his feet by his tie and shoved him head first into the stone wall. Pieces of granite fell away as the man collapsed.
The woman spun toward the hallway from which she had come. Adam swung over the edge, using a neutralizing spell to get him through the circle's perimeter, and cut her off. She raised her hands and muttered dramatically. Adam charged her, slamming into her body. The fire spell seared his back. He clipped her temple with ruthless efficiency, and she crumpled to the ground. The flames evaporated in the air around him.
Darius prowled the perimeter of the circle, calling to Adrian. Every point of entry sent him reeling back with pain. Adrian had collapsed in the center of the pentagram, moaning.
Shireva drove a rock spike and dropped a rope. Rob took Darius' route and swung out to the far side of the circle. Adam gestured and he nodded, taking up watch at the entrance to the cavern.
Adam probed the circle's defense and was relieved to discover it was an uncomplicated warding, meant only to keep the girl trapped inside. It had the power to injure only those unprepared to deal with it. He stepped through the boundary, holding up a warning hand to Darius. The hair on his arms rose in reaction to the binding, a touch like worms writhing across his skin. He knelt at the girl's side. "Adrian-"
Adrian whimpered and curled into a tighter ball, hiding her head under her arms. "I can't be brave anymore," she cried. "Mom-help-me-I-want-Dad-Darius-Darius-" Adam caught her hand and she shrieked. Before she could jerk away, he placed her fingers on his cheek. "Adrian," he said steadily. "It is me. We are truly here for you. Those two people who were tricking you are gone. Feel me. They did not let you touch them, did they?"
The other hand came away from her face. Her birdlike arm trembled like a twig. She shot upwards, and her hands clawed at his face, not to hurt, but to feel. "Adam?"
He turned his head and kissed her palm. "It is I, sweet one."
"Oh my God," she launched herself into his arms, and he held the frail body close as she sobbed. Adam stood, bringing her with him, coiled in his arms like a lamb.
"Darius is here." He handed her over into the man's waiting arms, a heartbreakingly gentle embrace. Darius' blue eyes devoured her every feature and Adam had to turn away, wishing fiercely he could have given the same gift to Corbet, knowing there was no point in wishing for it, but wishing all the same. He would not have to see that broken look on Darius' face that he had seen on Corbet's, a look worse than death. That had to be enough, but it wasn't, not nearly. He turned back. Darius' body was shaking and Adam placed a steady hand on him. "We must get her out of here. Shireva-"
"I know the way back," the woman affirmed from above, anticipating him.
"Here!" Rob left his post at the door. "You go up, Darwin, and we'll haul her up."
Darius reluctantly transferred her into Rob's arms. He quickly pulled himself to the ledge as Rob took his turn under Adrian's rough flurry of poking and pinching to assure herself of who he was. Adam put her in a sling he quickly fashioned from the rope and Darius, Shireva, and Correen brought her up.
"Get them back to the van, Shireva," Adam commanded. "I'll distract any pursuit and see what else lies down here."
"I'm with you," Rob said. The prince opened his mouth in protest. Correen thudded to the cave floor, narrowly missing the circle's perimeter even with the rope. She slipped out of the sling and flexed sore fingers.
"Me, too," she stated.
Adam froze. Voices were approaching the cavern. He waved up at Shireva and Darius. "Go," he hissed.
Shireva yanked up the rope and they vanished from sight, Adrian's hair fluttering over Darius's shoulder. Adam stared at a second tunnel opening, at the rear of the marked circle.
"Take my hands," Adam ordered. "And come with me."
If this world doesn't make you crazy, you're already insane.
-Sephira Roth, Daily Log
They charged through the circle. Adam's hold protected his two friends, but from their faces he knew they felt some of the binding's effect, probably some nausea. It made him feel like that, too, but not for magical reasons. They passed through, plunged into the tunnel, turned the corner, and were brought up short by a wall of rock.
"Shit, trapped like rabbits," Rob muttered.
Edward Brautigan entered the main chamber as their feet skidded to a halt in the alcove. He was frowning. Amelia and Arthur had been given strict orders. Check on the sacrifice and return immediately. The problem with this pack of wolves was, they played too much with their prey. A fatal error in the wild, where one misstep could lead to-
"Fuck!" swore his companion, a young black man barely out of his teens with a face as classically sculpted as a Grecian statue. Edward's eyes darted over the chamber and the two prone bodies there. Arthur. Amelia. The sacrifice was gone.
"Edward, that little girl couldn't have-"
Edward raised a palm, bidding him silent. The boy stuttered to a halt. Edward's black eyes coursed over the cavern. He could feel energy dancing around the prone form of Amelia. It meant she had exercised her meager powers probably only moments ago. He closed his eyes and reached out with his senses, running a check on their immediate surroundings.
Adam's hands tightened on Correen and Rob's shoulders. In unconscious pantomime of the man on the other side of the rock, he shut his eyes and cast a net of protection over the three of them, rendering them as unremarkable as the gasps of air they tried to breathe in as quietly as possible. The protection fell into place just as the intrusion of Edward's probe crept around the corner. Rob shuddered in surprise under his hand. Adam's grip tightened on his friends in reassurance, and drew more energy from them to strengthen his shield.
In all his life, he had never met a power equal to his own. Was he strong enough to handle Edward? His own abilities were perhaps the one thing he had never had to doubt, but that was because there had never been anyone around to challenge them, to force him to exercise them to their limits. What if he gave everything he had, and it was not enough? Even if Adam was equal to Edward's powers, would he have enough control over the untapped reservoirs of his own to overwhelm him? And what if there were something in this world even stronger than both of them, directing Edward's actions?
The probe passed, satisfied. Adam held his tight grip on his friends and the spell in place. Correen and Rob crouched in tense poses, visibly straining with all their senses to determine what was going on in the chamber beyond the alcove. Adam wished fervently they had gone with the others. He almost wished he had submitted to his brother's will and stayed in his safe world within the Continuum walls. His brother was so used to battle, to having the lives of others dependent on his decisions; perhaps it was this, this fear, that his brother had wished to spare him. Perhaps it was not that Trelbyn lacked faith in him, but that he was simply a big brother, trying to protect Adam from harm, from the scarring that came when you made a mistake or failed and people's lives were lost as a result.
The thought did not alleviate Adam's doubts or worries, but it did shed a different light on Trelbyn. The warm hope of the thought gave Adam back his focus, reminded him of Mataya's lessons. In battle, the war is just that one engagement. Think of the whole war, of all left to accomplish and lose, and you will lose that battle. Adam sharpened his attention on the events in the cave and left the rest to be fought out in his subconscious another day. Though they couldn't see the two men on the other side of the wall, the events occurring were easy to piece together from the noises.
Edward sighed and knelt by Arthur's body. Not dead, but hospitalization would be required. He curled his fingers into a fist and crushed the windpipe in one sharp, short blow to the throat. He ignored his companion's gasp of surprise. Dean Arthur Bradley had served his purpose.
Edward rose and crossed the circle's path unaffected, since it was his casting, and knelt below the lip of the ledge that overlooked the room. The chamber was kept meticulously clean, but dirt was here, on the floor. The bitch's rescuers had come from above, from the entrance to the tunnel he should have sealed when they stopped using it months ago. It would be a difficult escape route, especially if they were carrying a weak and hysterical sacrifice victim. It would slow them down.
"They just left," Edward said. "Get the others. Try to cut them off below the old ravine wall entrance. If there are too many of them, do nothing. In two days none of what they know will matter anyway. Tell Marcus to come get Amelia and revive her."
"The Master won't like that you let the sacrifice get away," the black man said. "Maybe I should-"
Edward's brow lifted. The boy scratched at his neck. "-Go to the Master-" The itching spread down his shoulder blades. "-And ask him-" Now he rubbed his chest. "If that's what-" A red mottled rash appeared on his elegant face. "-He wants. Jesus Christ!" His hands went to his groin, digging at the sudden burning there.
"An interesting name for you to invoke, Judas," Edward observed. The man scrubbed at his model perfect face, leaving angry welts. "If you intend to talk to the Master, you must learn not to fidget. He's very particular about that."
"Quit it, make it stop! Damn it, Edward-"
Edward turned away, releasing him.
"If you are done telling me how to handle things, Judas, you can go get the others and do as I've ordered. If you lose them, I'll tell the Master it was because of your delay." Edward stared at the circle with his dead, empty, joyless expression. "Leave."
What an asshole, Rob pantomimed. Adam stiffened. Correen, crouched near the wall, was casting a very human shaped shadow on the expanse of rock framed by the alcove's entrance. Edward's footsteps came closer. To motion her back would be more risky than having her stay where she was, but if she moved a muscle, the shadow would give her away. Do not move, he willed silently. He could not warn her, since none of his abilities seemed to affect her in any way. Why had he not made sure she went into the alcove first anyway, so that he would have been between her and danger?
Adam listened to Edward pace the circle's perimeter, coming even closer to their hiding place. The muscles of Rob's leg tightened in anticipation against his own rigid calf. Rob, obeying a lifetime of Southern breeding, reached out to pull Correen back behind them. Adam seized his wrist. Correen turned her head toward them. Edward's footsteps stopped.
Do not move, Adam mouthed to her. He inclined his head at the opening. Rob's face whitened as he saw her shadow and recognized his error. Long seconds passed as Adam waited, frustrated, more blind than Adrian with a wall of rock and his two friends separating him from Edward and his intent.
A soft murmuring commenced. Adam strained to make out the words. Edward's voice fell silent and his feet paced closer and stopped. The murmuring began again.
Adam, with Correen's eyes on him, made a circle of his fingers and then broke it apart. Her eyes flickered, acknowledging the gesture.
Edward came to a halt at the southern point of the circle, in front of the alcove. If he turned, he would be staring straight at them. He wore a red robe, embellished with a replica of the strange bug creature that had been drawn over Jaiya's womb.
He rose his arms to either side of his head like a tuning fork, and chanted the closure for that point on the circle. Then he moved on to the eastern part of the circle without turning. They could feel the circle's warding dissipate, like a brush of chill air in their minds. Edward's shadow passed over the mouth of the tunnel for another heart-stopping moment, and then precise footsteps heralded his departure from the chamber.
Rob expelled a cautious breath. "What I would have given to jump out and see the look on his face." The words were cocky, but his voice shook slightly.
"You wouldn't have had much time to enjoy it." Adam turned to examine the contents of the alcove. It was a ritual supply room, of sorts. Jars of herbs, roots and ground plants, animal parts, a human skull. In one crate there was a handful of sinister-looking butcher knives wrapped in towels with a scourge spread over them like a spider.
"I don't mean to interrupt your rummage sale," Rob interjected, "but he was going to have someone come back to get the wicked witch of the west there. Plus he was sending the cavalry after Adrian."
"Shireva should have enough of a head start to be out of the caves before they get there," Adam said. "And remember, Martin and Lanny are guarding their retreat."
"That's what worries me." Rob frowned and Adam lifted his head, meeting the anxious hazel eyes steadily.
"I know, Rob," he said softly. "But we can't afford to miss this chance to find out what they intend to do here. If they lose Adrian, they will only find someone else to take her place. One task at a time." He put a brief, reassuring hand on his roommate's shoulder. "But we will take care of all of them. All right?"
It was a reassurance Adam knew he could not guarantee, but it was the logic he was forcing upon himself. Rob struggled with it, the hazel eyes shifting with a hundred contingencies, but then he swallowed it down and nodded, turning away. "Okay. But let's haul ass about it, all right?"
"Gladly." Adam delved back into the box, grimly pushing away all images of what might happen if Judas and his cavalry got to the opening before the others did.
Rob peered out of the alcove. "I guess we now know why Bradley took Edward's file."
"And Amelia probably left the fetishes in the infirmary," Correen murmured. "But it doesn't explain why she did it."
"I don't know what that means, but I'd say the fact that she's a sweet little old psychopath would be explanation enough," Rob offered.
Adam squatted down to reach the bottom shelf. The long cardboard box there held empty jars, separated by rolls of cloth to prevent breakage. He began to straighten, then something about the cloth caught his eye. A tag. He withdrew it and discovered it was a pair of women's underwear. He pulled out the other articles, a turtleneck, a short sleeved dress of heavy cotton, imprinted with a rust and green fall leaf pattern. As he pulled it free of the box, a glitter of silver fell from within it.
Correen bent and picked the object up. A dainty strand of silver swung from her fingers. Adam reached out, pooled the fall of chain in his hand. Channa wore a waist chain of the same design, as did all graduates of the priestess order of Aegis.
"Jaiya's?" Rob asked.
"Or Sephira's." Correen relinquished it to him and Adam pocketed it. He retrieved a flattened pair of canvas sneakers and a wrinkled pair of socks, and the rest of the box held nothing but jars. Correen knelt at his shoulder with a towel she had taken from one of the packets of butcher knives and efficiently took the clothes from him, folding and stacking them on the towel, and then tying it up like a sack.
Adam watched her, and when she looked up, her serious gray eyes saw into him, saw his tension. She placed a hand up against his face. "I'll take it," she said. "You need to keep your hands free more than I do."
Adam nodded, pushing another set of images from his head. He wondered briefly how it would feel to be drunk for the first time in his life, on that day when he could hold them back no longer and they all decided to come back and haunt him.
He led them from their hiding place and looked between the tunnel Edward had taken and the tunnel above the pentagram.
"I'm all for getting the hell out of here and hopping a plane to Tahiti," Rob suggested brightly.
Adam shot him a weak smile. "You are so hard on for dates, what else did you have to do tonight?"
"Hard 'up'," Rob corrected. "Remind me to explain the difference to you, if we live through the next five minutes. Or maybe," he quirked a brow at Correen, "you'd like that honor." The girl gave him a prim look of admonishment, and Rob grinned, but it was a hard gesture, containing none of his normal humor. "Okay, Don Quixote," he cleared his throat, his eyes on the bundle in Correen's hand. "Let's find out what the son of a bitch is up to. That's why we're here."
Correen followed them out the corridor Edward had taken. Adam's shoulders were tense, his eyes sharp as he focused his entire attention on anticipating what might lie ahead of them. His nostrils were flared like an animal's, and she wondered if his sense of smell was as extraordinary as his sight. He was a blend of human and something else, and she wondered how long he would deny both parts of himself, in the struggle to figure out who he was. She sensed he feared the part of himself that was something else, because he had been taught to do so, through experience or the reactions of others, but he also denied his humanity, thinking himself too much of the indefinable thing to be allowed human frailty or joys. She thought there was something inside him that was neither human nor other, something that was entirely him, and that part was up to the task of integrating the two parts of himself. She hoped he would embrace it before events forced him to confront all that he was.
In contrast to the beginning of their quest, now he slowed their pace so that their sneakered feet made almost no sound. His watchfulness communicated itself to his two companions, and every shuffle against an unexpected bump in the tunnel floor resounded like the screech of an alarm. Correen picked up her feet.
They began to descend again. The tunnel evolved into a hallway, the stone straightening its lines into smooth, polished walls. The ceiling lifted into an archway. When the ground leveled, the rock and dirt faded into a mosaic tile pattern that snaked around a corner ahead of them and disappeared. Adam brought them to a halt with a lifted hand and went forward, peering around the corner. His body stiffened. As if in a trance, he stepped out into the center of the hallway and stood, staring.
Rob glanced at Correen, raised a brow. She nodded and they followed him, coming out into the hall to flank him. Correen froze in the same parody of amazement.
The tunnel rock had not been sanded down and polished to conform to the hallway of the passage behind them. This stone exploded with terror and death. Screaming human faces stretched from the stone, arms and legs lunging out to escape the sucking grasp of an army of nightmares. Berserkers held up torn limbs and stepped on the still-writhing bodies of their victims. The clawed hands of trolls dug into men's chests and dripped with gore as their helpless victims stared at them, dying, unable to fight or get away. Giants ripped open children, still clutched in the arms of their screaming mothers.
There was more, so much more, but Correen's stomach was heaving already. She blinked watering eyes and took her focus off the details, looking at the whole of it. The sculpture stretched from the floor, all along the wall, across the arched ceiling and back to the floor onto the other side, a rainbow arc of death and suffering. Stone arms and legs dangled and grasped for purchase on the support beams added to the tunnel. Torches held by grinning brass gargoyles cast shadows that deepened the anguish in hopeless faces and darkened the evil glittering in the eyes of the legion of monsters that brought mankind to its knees.
The corridor was long enough to encompass thousands of the creatures and their victims---men, women, children, animals...
"Judgment Day," Rob murmured, making her start. Adam touched her arm in reassurance without taking his hard, thoughtful gaze off what lay before them. Correen closed her eyes, counted for calm, then opened them again. She tugged at Adam's arm and he glanced at her. She pointed up.
In the battle that raged at the apex of the arch, a man rode horseback among the struggles going on around him. The strategic placement of the torches illuminated a halo around his head, but his sword dripped with stone blood. His handsome smile drew attention to his eyes, but once there, the beauty ended. The eyes were cruel and powerful. Even carved of stone they sent a chill up Correen's spine. The artist had been terrifyingly inspired.
Adam nodded, drew her attention to the left, to another rider. This one had the muscular body of a man and the head of a crow. His sculpted dark feathers followed the line of his spine down his bare back. He had a dove impaled on an arrow, her wings still helplessly beating. On the opposite side of the hallway, a hairy, squat gargoyle commanded that portion of the demon army. His clawed legs jutted out from either side of his horse in a manner that would have been comic, except that he held a human woman before him, and raped her against the horse's neck. She struggled to get away, to reclaim the child that had fallen from her arms and lay on the ground, staring up at the descending sharp hooves of the stallion.
Up, left and right. As one, Correen and Adam looked to the end of the hallway. It dead-ended into a pair of tall doors, and there was another rider carved on it, too far to note the details. Rob moved forward and Adam's hand came up against his chest. "There's a ward between each pair of torches." His voice was remote, but strung with tension. His chin tilted slightly and his gold eyes followed what they could not see. "It doesn't go above the gargoyles. Let me climb on your shoulders."
Rob bent and cupped his hands. Adam hoisted himself up and stepped onto his shoulders. He focused on the slender curve of a woman's arm a couple yards away, just beyond his grasp. "Let go of my legs, Rob."
"What if they can't hold your weight?" Correen reached out, put pressure against Rob's arm, holding him still.
"It can't hurt me as much as it would the two of you."
You would suffer hours of excruciating pain while your insides slowly cooked. I would have enough freedom left to kill myself. Adam kept that thought to himself, but he could not give her the reassuring smile he would have liked to offer. He did not think anyone could smile in this hallway. As an artist, he should have been overwhelmed by the accomplishment, but he felt like a scientist looking at an atomic bomb.
Rob let him go and Adam jumped. He heard Correen's gasp and Rob's hissed expletive, but he caught the woman's arm and let his momentum carry him forward to the next offered hand.
Rigorous training had made him strong and agile, but lack of sleep and proper food, and the classroom cave-in had taken some of his resilience. He had to keep his legs raised as he moved, for the line of the ward was just beneath his feet. His stomach muscles quivered at the effort and he sustained them with the thought that if he fell, Rob and Correen would be left alone to face whatever was down here. Why had he not forced them to go with the others?
Adam's fingers missed a child's wrist, and he choked on his rasping breath. He had not released the leg behind him, so he brought his legs up even higher and swung in a circle, then came back and caught the child's arm, as lithe in appearance as a chimp while his muscles screamed in protest.
He wove up the corridor, driving all other thoughts from his head, but when he finally dropped seven feet to the floor, just past the last set of torches, he was breathing heavily.
The fourth horseman had been carved on the left-hand panel of the double doors. He bore a likeness to the Christian Satan, with horns, lion-like tail and cloven hooves. He threw his head back in a grisly howl. A human infant was speared on his pitchfork. In his other hand he held a sword. A muscular woman stood opposed to him on the facing door. Her hair was pulled back and the set expression on her hard, beautiful face startled Adam, reminding him of Channa. She held a shield before her to take the strike of his weapon. Her tunic had been ripped away from her left breast and the sculptor had used red clay to mark the free flow of blood from her heart. A mortal wound. Serpents grew from the Satan-like horseman's arms and snapped at her. The undecipherable runic symbol that had been carved in four places on Jaiya's body had been carved here as well, four again, above, below and behind the combatants. Adam probed the magic sealing on the door. Unlike most magics, it freely told him what it required for entry.
"Well?" Rob called. The hallway echoed eerily with his whisper, and a shudder ran up Adam's spine.
"It needs a true name to open the door." Adam responded.
Rob raised a questioning eyebrow at Correen.
"Supposedly, a true name is the name you give yourself when your soul is created," she explained softly. "Before it is put into a physical body. That name is buried in your unconscious until you reach a certain level of self awareness and can look back through all the lives you've lived and rediscover it." She grimaced. "It makes a very good protection. Not to mention, it's scary to think someone with that kind of power is part of this."
"So what are we going to-" Rob heard a soft rumble and turned. Adam pushed the door inward. Rob looked back at Correen and cleared his throat. "Well, pardon me, ma'am, I forgot who was traveling with us."
Correen could not summon a smile at the joke, but she didn't see any trace of humor in Rob's expression as he said it. Adam stared down the hallway in their direction, focusing on what might or might not still lie between them.
"The wards are down now," he called softly. "You can come through."
Rob glanced at her. "I guess this is one time when 'after you' wouldn't be very gentleman-like."
Correen took his strong, larger hand in her own. "If he says it's safe, it's safe," she said, meeting his surprised hazel eyes. "You know he won't take any chances on our getting hurt. But let's walk together."
Despite her reassuring words, Correen could not suppress a tremor down her spine as they moved down the hall toward Adam. The eyes of the assembled army followed them. She suppressed the urge to turn around and make sure they were not climbing down the walls, blocking their only hope of retreat.
"I never realized hell had a foyer," Rob murmured. His hand was cold in hers, the palm slightly damp. They walked shoulder to shoulder, as close as they could. When they reached Adam, his gaze shifted from slightly beyond them and Correen realized he had been watching the sculpture, too. He pushed the door wider and guided them into the chamber.
Thirteen mounted torches lighted a chamber that had been designed for rituals. A circle had been chiseled in the stone floor, creating a shallow gully filled with congealed black blood. The undeciphered rune that had marked the four points of Jaiya's body and surrounded the combatants on the double doors also marked the four directions outside the circle's boundary. Thirteen swords of varying sizes were mounted on the stone walls, one between each set of torches. An altar draped in red cloth was positioned at the western point of the circle. The cloth was emblazoned with the centipede-like creature severed by a lightning bolt Adam recalled from Shireva's drawings. A chill raised the hair on his arms as he saw a jeweled dagger with a serrated edge lying on one corner. Two wicked points gleamed on the handguard. Bowls for offerings surrounded an ancient-looking book that sat open on a raised pedestal in the center of the table. A heavy tapestry covered the wall from ceiling to floor behind the altar.
Adam crossed the room, pausing briefly to note the circle was not warded in any way, then squatted in front of the altar, staring at the centipede symbol. "Do you know what that is?"
Correen stood at his shoulder. She shook her head and watched his eyes focus on the book. His face stilled in the way she was beginning to recognize when he checked for the presence of magic. He straightened, took a step back. "The book is protected, heavily. I can't dismantle it in the time we have."
"I'll take a picture of the open pages from here," She pulled out her pocket camera and fitted the zoom to it.
"Adam," Rob called.
They both turned and Rob stood next to a computer in a hollow niche in the wall. "It's the model Kenn was using, in the police photograph. I don't think anyone's worked it in a while. There's dust an inch thick on the screen."
However, Rob kept his distance, waiting, and after a moment, Adam shook his head. The symbols etched around the circle were painted randomly on the outer casing of the monitor, like decoration, but it was as strongly protected as the book on the altar.
"I didn't know Edward was the sentimental type," Rob muttered. He took up watch at the door.
Correen turned back to the altar. After shooting the book, she clicked off a couple pictures of the tapestry. It had been done in a medieval art style, the figures childlike and similar in expression, but bursting with color. It was a continuation of the battle scene in the hallway. The humans and animals who had fought against the goblins were defeated and dead, represented by a small, gruesome pile of bodies set alight by the beasts who danced in revelry around them. The four horsemen met in a circle in the foreground of the tapestry. Crowns rested on their head and they toasted one another with goblets of blood. Chains ran from their saddles to the throat, arms and legs of the beautiful and mighty war leader who had fought them. She was naked and on her hands and knees behind them. Ghouls and goblins taunted and molested her as she bled from a dozen wounds.
Adam returned from his circuitous investigation of the chamber. "I don't know what this means," Correen murmured, staring at the tapestry, "but it feels awful." She flushed, feeling silly for the simplicity of the statement, but when she dared to look at him, she saw that he was gazing at the tapestry with the same apprehension in his face that she could feel in her stomach.
"The artist intended this work as symbolic inspiration. We are looking at whatever it is Edward intends to do," he said.
"Company," Rob hissed, bounding across the room.
"Behind the tapestry," Adam ordered. "Don't touch the altar." They skirted around it. He caught up a corner of the heavy cloth and motioned them in behind it.
"They'll see our feet," Correen pointed out the three-inch gap at the bottom where the tapestry ended.
"Just like a woman to criticize," Rob thrust her behind the curtain first. "You got a better idea?"
Correen crab-stepped her way down the length of the tapestry to make room for the two men to squeeze in behind her. She almost screamed in shock as she ran into a solid object covered in cloth. She yanked at the cloth, praying the fabric was as black as it appeared. She pushed a corner past Rob and handed it to Adam.
The cloth fell down over three pairs of shoes as the doors swung open. Of one mind, the three pressed hard against the stone wall, willing the tapestry smooth and unmoving. Correen barely breathed for fear the heavy fabric would move in response, though she was certain it weighed several hundred pounds. She turned her cheek to the wall to avoid the unlikely possibility and felt something soft brush her face.
The moist, decaying smell of earth and the cloying, sweet odor of sacrificial blood had assaulted her since they had entered the tunnels. What filled her nose now was different. It was the rank odor of an unwashed and dying human being. It reminded her of the lowest echelon of the homeless, those hapless beings with dead eyes who brushed up against her in the street and conversed with the voices in their heads. The soft thing brushing her upper lip like errant strands of a spider web was a lock of hair.
Correen fought for calm, knowing the safety of the two men at her side took precedence over her terror at what was keeping her company behind the tapestry.
"I'll bet he's in there kissing the Master's ass right now," a sharp young voice spoke.
"He's going to be kissing his ass good-bye if Judas doesn't catch her or if he can't find another sacrifice."
"Why don't we use this one?"
"You weren't here when we got her. Edward nabbed this one, but Amelia had one of her visions, a.k.a. she lost touch with reality. She brought in another Bitch Worshipper on her own. The Master decided on hers, probably to knock Edward down a peg or two."
"It didn't help much," the younger voice sneered.
"Anyway," the older voice assumed a supercilious air. "We've used her for some practice rites. Her mind's gone. We'll use her blood to prep the site of the final ritual, but she doesn't have the juice left for center stage."
A well-manicured hand wearing a single, elegant wedding band, a strange reminder of the world above, curled around the edge of the tapestry. His other hand groped in the darkness. His fingertips brushed Correen's sleeve. She bit the inside of her mouth and shrank back. Rob's hand closed on her arm and she felt the tension, his strength ready to unleash in her defense.
"Here, got it." The man grunted from the exertion of holding back the heavy cloth and shook the chain he had caught. "Come out of there, zombie woman."
The high, thin voice giggled. "It's the living dead, man."
The solid object beside Correen moved, bumped forward into the tapestry, stepped back, turned to the right, bumped face first into Correen and was brought up short by the chain.
The man let out a frustrated sigh. Correen had to scream. She bit her lip as Rob's fingers dug into her elbow. The thing turned to the left and shuffled away. Correen leaned on Rob's strength, grateful for his touch. Her knees were having difficulty holding her up. What she saw next almost made her wish she had fainted.
The light beyond the tapestry outlined the back of the creature and sharpened it into focus as it staggered into the light and was yanked into profile by the chain looped around its throat. It was a woman. A woman with snarled and shaggy chestnut brown hair. She was naked and had a small skeletal body draped with loose gray flesh. She was covered with scars at different stages of healing, from ridged, hard circles of tissue to open cuts with weeping infections. Many of the scars were symbols, roughly executed because of the resistance of flesh to an unsharpened knife. They were on her shoulders, on the slope of her breasts, at her throat, above the brown triangle of hair at her thighs, and at her forehead. She stood stiffly, her glassy eyes staring straight ahead. Her mouth hung open and a dried trace of saliva marked the slope of a small, slack chin.
"Man, I'm glad we're getting rid of her," the boy said. "Those eyes give me the creeps."
"You should try fucking her," the other responded. The hand reached out and roughly squeezed a nipple. The woman flinched but did not draw away. "Don't look so shocked, Brian. The Master said he didn't care what we did with her, as long as her blood was alive. She'll do anything. Watch." The hands spun her toward the wall, his wedding band catching the torchlight. He shoved her down on all fours, pushing her head grotesquely up against the wall. The lifeless eyes stared into Correen's horrified ones.
"Shit," Brian's voice piped with excitement. "Are you going to dog-"
A sharp crack sounded.
"What-ugh." The chain dropped limply to the woman's shoulder. A heavy object outside Correen's line of vision hit the floor.
Adam appeared beside the girl and Rob and Correen blanched. Simultaneously, they looked to the right, where the prince had been.
"Holy transporter beam," Rob murmured. Correen squirmed out from behind the tapestry. Brian was unconscious on the floor. The man with the well-manicured hands was dead. His chest faced the floor. His wide-eyed countenance stared at the ceiling, his neck snapped in one unrestrained burst of strength. Correen stepped toward Adam but Rob caught her arm. She glanced up at him and he shook his head, his eyes taking measure of the prince.
Adam put his hand gently beneath the chained girl's arm and brought her to her feet. He placed his hands on the collar around her neck. Sparks flickered under his palms, and the collar dropped to the floor. The girl blinked, her eyes fixed on nothing but air. Rob shed his jacket and placed the garment over her shoulders. Adam's stone-like gaze felt like fire on his body.
Correen held up the bag she still carried. "Let's get her into her own clothes." Though they risked discovery as the seconds ticked away, neither man objected. Rob and Adam helped steady the woman as Correen turned and bent the slack limbs. Correen stepped back to make sure everything was in place. The cotton dress hung on her sparse frame. She put Rob's jacket back on her.
Adam placed a hand on the gaunt cheek, cradling the girl's face. He looked at her a long moment, then slowly his gaze rose to Rob.
In that moment, Rob understood why the Lords had shrunk in fear when Adam had raised his voice. There was something different and wild in the golden eyes, as though a god rather than a man stood before them.
"What makes this world worth saving?" he snarled.
Correen moved before Rob could stop her again. She simply moved in, took Adam in her arms. Adam's amber eyes did not leave Rob's face. His body remained rigid in her grasp. The god wanted an answer, and it better be a damn good one, or Rob sensed the flood of Noah's time was going to be a mild rain shower.
Rob looked at Sephira, felt his own anger rise at what he saw, what he had seen them do. Then he looked at Correen, who held Adam in her arms without fear. They were as much a part of this as Adam, and Adam asked him because he knew a friend would give him a level answer. A friend. Rob's apprehension died away. He gave Adam the only answer that he could.
"We live in this world," he said.
Adam blinked, blinked again. The fire died, flooded by a rim of moisture. He brushed it away impatiently and drew several long breaths, then put his hands on the back of Correen's head, holding her to his chest a moment before dropping a kiss on her hair and stepping back from her. He turned, looking to the floor, to the man he had killed. It looked like it startled him, as if he had not remembered doing it. Rob watched him digest it, then his jaw tightened.
"I should not have done that," Adam said.
"I agree," Correen said clearly. "You should have made him suffer more."
"And let us help," Rob added.
Correen turned back to Sephira. She reached behind the taller girl's neck and freed her ragged hair from the collar of Rob's jacket. "There," she said, "it's going to be all right now."
The door to the chamber crashed open. Edward Brautigan stood at the threshold.
You will never fight an enemy as dangerous as yourself.
-Mataya, Oral Lessons
Adam spun toward the door. With a perilous sense of deja vu, Rob felt the barely banked fury in Adam rise like volcanic lava and erupt. The impact hurled Edward into the stone wall and knocked a brazier from its mounting.
Adam wheeled, scooped, and flung Sephira onto Rob's shoulder. "Go!" he ordered. "Now! MOVE!"
Rob knew when it was time to obey and ask questions later. He charged for the door with Correen on his heels. Edward staggered to his feet. His gaze pinned Correen, and the dark coal of his eyes burst into flame at the sight of her. She cast a desperate glance over her shoulder at Adam and hesitated in the line of fire between the two men.
"Go!" Adam snapped. "I will be there."
Rob shifted Sephira and yanked Correen past Edward. The earth exploded where she had stood. Rob dragged them out of sight around the bend of the tunnel. Adam hoped Edward had not reerected the wards. If he had, Adam had just sent his friends to their deaths.
One thing at a time. Edward turned to pursue, and Adam punched him with another blast of energy that drove his opponent to his knees. He leaped back up immediately, though, and faced the prince.
"You will die here," Edward said, tearing off his ritual robe and flinging it to the floor.
"There has been enough death here already," Adam retorted. The rock beneath his feet dissolved and became a cauldron of hot embers. Adam leaped away, reached into the stone with his senses, and balanced the unnatural change. Edward hissed between his teeth and circled him. Adam straightened and watched, all stillness, every muscle ready to move.
What would Rob have called this? A pissing contest. Adam's fingers curled into fists. He was more than willing to play games if it gave Rob and Correen time to escape. He thought again of Sephira, and he felt as if he had the power of All he knew in his body. He could consume everything warped and diseased in this world, purify it with fire. Starting with the monster in front of him. Adam's eyes narrowed over slitted pupils and his lips curled back in a snarl that lacked only fangs.
The floor before him shattered into shrapnel. Adam raised his arms and visualized a shield covering him, and the rocks rebounded harmlessly. A simple exercise in the use of elemental magic. Edward was testing him, trying to throw him off guard.
Mataya had taught Adam that underestimating an opponent was one of the many ways to be defeated. He lowered his arms. Edward stood directly before him. Adam had not learned the lesson well enough. Edward struck his chest with a flattened palm and Adam shot backwards, thudding to the ground and skidding inside the boundaries of the marked circle. Edward began to chant. Adam shook off the concussion and rolled over the perimeter as the ward came up, one much more deadly than the one that had bound Adrian. Edward was not underestimating him at all.
The searing hold burned into Adam's left leg. He snatched it from the circle's grip and slammed a protection spell over himself as the swords on the wall rushed at him from thirteen directions. They hit the ward and clattered across the ground, all save one that imbedded itself into the weave of the spell and dissolved into metallic liquid.
Adam scrambled to his feet. The energy balance shifted again. Edward drew the power of the room to him, summoning the force to crush the prince's shields. Adam plowed into him, grinding him against the rock wall. Edward abandoned magic and drove his elbow into Adam's side where the tender ribs still healed. Adam backed off and swung a fist into Edward's jaw. The blow carried them both to the floor. Edward growled and seized Adam's shoulders. He thrust a knee into Adam's stomach, trying to flip him over to break his spine. The prince squirmed free in mid-air and sprang to his feet. Edward leaped up and spun to face him. The dead eyes blazed with hellfire.
Now we get to it.
Edward yanked a weapon out of the back waistband of his jeans, and lunged at Adam. Adam danced back two steps and drew his sword out of the air with the blinding flash of a conjuring spell. Edward feinted and when Adam jumped back, he seized a short sword from the floor. They circled. Adam identified Edward's other weapon as something similar to a mace, a chain connecting two sticks that he swung in a rapid arc.
Edward plunged forward and Adam brought up his blade, protecting his body. Too late, he realized he gave his opponent exactly what he wanted. The lower baton swung low and wrapped around Adam's sword wrist. Edward moved inside his guard, and the baton swung up and cracked Adam's wrist bone.
The prince had no time to nurse it. Adrenaline and survival kicked in. He dropped his sword and caught the chain between the two sticks with his good hand. He yanked the weapon from Edward's grip and reduced it to ash and shapeless metal in the air. He ducked and recovered his own sword as his enemy's short blade sizzled over his head.
They stalked one another and fought their way into the corridor of Judgment Day and then back into the chamber again. Adam blocked another thrust from the short sword, ignoring the scream of pain from his wrist, and caught a blow from Edward's free hand in his fist. He imagined the arm and the body attached to it turning to immovable stone. Instead, he felt a countering rush of liquid power. It knocked the stone spell aside and raced hungrily for Adam's touch.
Golden eyes met black. Adam opened himself to receive the charge instead of blocking it, not certain if he acted on the influence of strategy or fatal curiosity. The two powers collided and locked together. The earth quivered. The stone walls rumbled a warning.
Edward increased his weight against Adam's blade as the two men strained against one another. Their faces were close and Adam stared into the dead, pitiless eyes, as empty as Sephira's. "You reduced her to nothing," he panted.
"She is nothing," Edward snarled. "None of them can do what I-what we-can do. They don't understand us. They fear us." His body jerked and the black eyes became blood red. "They fear you."
The power changed. It broke over Adam's protections like a tidal wave swallowing a dam. It oozed around his power with sucking, mind-numbing strength. Adam tried to break out of Edward's grip but his arms were mired. Their weapons became tentacles and claws, gross extensions of their already mutating limbs. Edward's head expanded and twisted, grew horns and a long, sibilant tongue that whipped at Adam's face. "This is your mirror," his enemy hissed. "How everyone sees you."
Adam jerked against Edward's restraint like a wounded bird, his breath coming hard and fast. The head changed again and he was held in Mataya's grasp. "You think that I do not know what you are?" the Indian asked. "I tried to keep you from becoming the monster you wish to be."
Adam's skin rippled and split. He cried out in horror. More tentacles pushed out of his wrists.
"Too late," Mataya said sadly. He gestured with a tilt of his head and Adam's gaze snapped to the circle's center. An iron cage waited there.
"No!" The prince roared. Suddenly, Edward's face was there again, grinning with fangs as long as fingers. He clutched Adam's writhing, deformed body in clawed and furred arms. The rumbling of the cave grew to a roar. It was the sound of a crowd urging bloodshed between two savage gladiators, a thunder for blood that could bring down the stadium. He had to break free. Energy shot through Adam's body, wild and uncontrolled, surging toward the monster that held him, the mirror to his own dark side that he had to shatter no matter the cost.
Lightning struck and cracks appeared in the cavern walls. The floor swayed like a rope bridge. The men broke apart, but the shock wave from their struggle was beyond recall. With a roar, the cavern ceiling erupted.
When the first rumblings shook the ground beneath their feet, Rob and Correen stopped. Rob shifted Sephira on his shoulder and glanced at Correen. "What the hell is that?"
Not entirely sure of her intent, Correen put her hand against the tunnel wall. "He's in trouble," she said, anguish in her gray eyes. The walls groaned and dust sprinkled their heads as a crack opened in the rock above them.
"So are we," Rob grabbed her arm. "Run!"
They raced down the tunnel toward the chamber where they had found Adrian and the crack chased them, a snake zigzagging and breaking chunks of rock loose wherever its path took it. Correen's heart hurt in her chest as she ran. Somewhere behind them, where she could not see him, Adam was fighting for his life, and losing. She felt it.
She skidded to an abrupt halt and tore the gloves off her hands. She laid her palms on the tunnel wall. The rock is a living, breathing part of the earth-its veins and arteries, its bones. She opened herself to its sentient cries of pain. The energy gathered eagerly in the power centers of her body and came to a boil without conscious command, as it always did when she encountered sickness.
Correen closed her eyes, shutting out Rob's shouted questions. Muscles quivered in her face, her neck tightened as she strained to move the force from within to without. It uncoiled sluggishly, drained down to her fingertips and wafted out, as empty of power as stagnant air. As usual.
A rock hit her shoulder, hard, and she staggered. Rob gripped her arm again. "Come on!"
Correen shook him off with a most un-Correen-like snarl and slapped her palms back to the rock. Rob did not understand. If Adam died here, nothing would matter. The aura of power widening the crack over their heads was Adam's, but it was diseased and out of control, his gentle touch gone cruel and bruising. She redirected all the power churning in her body through the heart chakra, refusing to let it dilute, fighting the sense of futility interfering with its course, focusing on the thread that was Adam in the trembling rock.
It clogged in that chakra and refused to go further. Correen suppressed a scream of frustration. In her mind's eye she saw the Gatekeeper to the astral plane turn toward her, awaiting her advance or retreat. The source of all healing energy, the River of Healing, could be drawn upon for smaller tasks just by visualizing and channeling the energy, but for this task, she needed direct contact to give her own energy the locomotion it needed. She had never been able to access it for any task, large or small. And even if she could reach it, it would avail her nothing if it was the Crone's intent to claim the one Correen sought to heal.
Correen pushed that thought aside. In her mind, the gateway to the astral plane had always appeared to her as a high stone wall, allowing no glimpse of the treasures beyond. Correen had tried to melt the wall, or transform it into waving grass, with no success. She heard Alma's voice: "Magic is the projection of energy to accomplish something. It comes from what sustains you-your earth, yourself and whatever you see as Divinity." Her hands trembled and the crack above her head grew limbs.
Adam's existence sustained her, and he had resurrected something in her she had thought long dead. An image of Adam's beautiful, noble face, twisted by Edward's evil, rose in her mind. An eternal look of horror frozen on a golden-eyed corpse, buried and forgotten in a pile of rock.
"No!" she shrieked. On the murky plane of her mind, Correen's hands hit the ground before her. Her arms became sleek black limbs, tipped by cloven hooves that flashed like sword blades. She charged, leaping from the planes within herself to the astral plane, passing through the Gatekeeper's body. Claws instead of fingers shot out of the sleeves of his robe and impaled her. She screamed and tore herself out of the protection of her outer spirit, leaving it in the Gatekeeper's nightmarish hands. Her soul lunged, naked and vulnerable, into the astral plane.
The moment of climactic elation-she had done it-vanished in a sea of tortured faces, specters that surrounded her, snapped at her soul and whispered horrors in her ears that overwhelmed her with hopelessness.
Correen shoved them away, clinging to the sweet song of healing she could hear faintly through their din. One of the beings leaped onto her back and sank its teeth into her shoulder. She howled, but kept staggering forward under its weight. She had suffered pain like this before, and much worse. Then, she had wanted to die. Now her lips curled back in a snarl, daring it to be worse.
The beasts of the lower astral plane obliged. More flung themselves on her, trying to bring her down, block her way. Correen fell and rose, several times, until she could not get back to her feet. She crawled, blocking out the pain, the whispered threats and hopeless nightmares, and focused as she had never focused before on the call of the River.
She collapsed to her stomach. The lower being on her shoulder overbalanced and tumbled off, disappearing into the mist with a hideous scream ... and a splash.
Correen wriggled forward, reached through the wall of mist, and plunged her hands directly into the River of Healing.
A cold, sucking grasp, heavier than water, clutched her hands. She felt the River identify her, measure her worth. Her heart beat once in anguish over the possible outcome, then the flood's energy pushed at her hands, waiting for entrance. A strangled cry of triumph came from her lips and she pulled it into her.
The moment was a boat of joy floating on the River Styx. The River of Healing sought to overturn the boat, cleanse the sick parts of her soul, but Correen fought the River's will. She had not sacrificed her eternal soul for this. For a desperate second, her fear and the strength the lower beings had drained from her almost lost her the battle. She blocked out the River's seductive touch, called up Adam's face, his touch, his smile. She engraved that picture in her mind, and forced the River's focus to that image with an inner burst of strength that almost tore the roots of her soul from the soil of her physical existence. Go to him.
The River receded back from the touch of her hands and Correen clutched at it, trying to bring it back. A rushing filled her consciousness and she looked up. The River crested over her. Correen kept her head up and let it crash down, flooding her body with power. It rushed through her open chakras like liquid fire and exploded out of her palms, pressed against the tunnel wall. With eyes watching from the astral plane, she saw the River's power race into the crack and pull the rock back together, healing the fissure as an afterthought. Its needle point shot ahead of the seam, intent on a different destination, the picture in her mind.
The muscles of Correen's throat constricted like rope and bent outward before Rob's incredulous eyes. He jerked his flashlight beam up and reflected the bright color as blood spurted from the meeting point between her palms and the rock. It streamed down her arms as if her hands covered an erupting volcano mouth. Rob swore, dumped Sephira against the wall and sprang to Correen's side. His powerful hands closed over the fragile bones of her shoulders to yank her from contact with the tunnel wall.
His eyes widened at the energy he felt, so strong it stopped him. Life and power flowed out of her skin and ran over his fingers. Old scars on his hands vanished.
Correen guided the magic with all her senses, keeping Adam's face before her, struggling to take the power to him. She knew the magic she channeled was stolen, her entrance on the plane a trespass, but she bore the consequences, resisting all protection the River might give her from the lower beings who, overcoming their initial fear of the River, were closing back in. Her body served as a smooth, unbroken conduit for the electric flow of healing power, a flow so pure it burned her within, even as the beasts attacked and tore at her without.
The pain could be borne, but not ignored. A high, keening cry went on and on somewhere, and someone shouted at her, pulled at her. She was equal parts healing light and tortuous hellfire. Every atom of her physical being screamed out in warning as the hellfire began to consume them one by one. Correen ignored the tiny screams, refusing to stop until she was sure she had done what she came to do. Images flashed through her mind and her head fell back on her shoulders, the keening cry escalating to a death scream.
On the astral plane, her strength gave out and the River of Healing vanished. The gray mist of beings yanked her into their midst and pinned her down with deadly claws and tearing fangs. Correen visualized Adam's face one last time, and hoped he still lived.
The mist shuddered and shrieked, and Correen threw up her arms as talons glowing with silver moonlight descended. They ripped the last shadows from her and she stared up into the golden eyes of a lion. A maned head ducked and a shoulder thrust into her knees, sliding her onto his back. Correen felt powerful muscles beneath her thighs and buried her face in the gorgeous, thick mane. The smell of the hair was Adam's, the rolling grace of muscle and tendon the same as that she remembered from dancing in his arms, from being held in his lap on the couch, from being enveloped in his embrace.
The Gatekeeper stood aside at the lion's commanding roar and relinquished the outer shell of her spirit, like an ungracious usher thrusting her coat at her.
Correen had no time to be shocked by her irreverent thought. The lion's mighty haunches gathered and sailed them over the threshold of the astral plane. He stumbled and rolled, and Correen catapulted from his back. Her body and soul slammed back together, catapulting her body away from the wall and solidly into Rob's chest. The propulsion sent them both sprawling. Correen gasped for air as he scrambled out from under her.
"Jesus!" Rob scrambled over to her and caught her wrists, slippery with blood. Sleek ribbons of tendons met his horrified gaze. The skin covering her palms was gone. "Jesus, shit, Mother, Mary," Rob ripped off his T-shirt and tore it into two pieces, wrapping one tightly about each hand as he glanced at the ceiling. The rumbling had stopped. Sephira lay in the uncomfortable position in which he had left her when he leaped to Correen's aid. Correen moaned something and Rob lifted her upper body off the rocky cavern floor. "What the hell were you doing?"
"Saving my life."
Rob spun. Adam came out of the darkness, dirty and bloody, but alive, his eyes heralding his appearance like twin flames.
Correen stared at him in amazement, her jaw working uselessly. "I thought," she rasped at last, "I had failed."
Love and anger fought for mastery over his expression when his gaze fell on her hands. Adam knelt next to them, took up her right hand and pressed his lips gently to it, smearing her blood across his upper lip. He took her from Rob, meeting his eyes briefly, and held her slight frame inside his splayed knees, against his chest.
"Do not ever do that again," he growled in her hair.
Correen wondered if the trembling was his or hers. It was his. She stroked him with her knuckles, trying to comfort him. "I'm okay," she whispered. You're okay, so I'm okay.
"You were not ready," he said. "If I came to you even a moment later, you would be dead."
"That was you?" Rob laid a hand on them both, apparently reassuring himself they were really all alive. "Remind me to get you on the football team next semester. That put Darwin to shame. What the hell happened? Where's Edward?"
"Edward escaped," Adam said grimly. "The cave almost collapsed and buried us, but Correen stopped it." He managed to smile at the girl's shocked expression. Her limp hand fell on his wrist. Enough residue of healing energy was left in her palms that his broken bone sealed almost immediately at her touch. Adam flexed the joint, impressed, but the movement of his fingers darkened his eyes, and he turned a haunted expression to the shadows of the passage he had left behind.
"So what now, Don?" Rob asked softly.
Adam brought his attention back to them, his golden eyes hard.
"We go back to Alma's, meet with the others, figure out what to do." He took a deep breath. "Kenn didn't banish it. Whatever the Amateur Magickers called up is still here, and its power is great enough to destroy your world."
Why is it that no one recognizes the most corruptible of powers is the one that walks closest to Divinity? It is too easy for such a person to assume that he has the wisdom of Those he serves. What proof has my brother offered that he truly serves the purposes of Those Who Are Not Seen rather than his own? Even if my brother's intent is good, what control do any of us have over a Guardian who chooses to put his or her words in Their mouths to serve his or her own personal desires?
-Continuation of confidential communications between Lord Trelbyn and His Majesty of Aegis
Lord Trelbyn traced the pattern of baleful mustard-yellow light that trickled through the Crystal. It looked like pus oozing through a rainbow. His blunt fingers, scarred and sculpted by battle, were incongruous against the delicate lines of the stone, but his touch, reverent and respectful, softened the contrast.
"The Sealing has accelerated again," he said gruffly.
Leonidas bent, squinting to draw the Crystal into focus. "That may explain why His Highness has called us together tonight."
Trelbyn's brows shifted on the bridge of his forehead like caterpillars grasping a knotted branch. "I do not like it. Channa would have a better grasp of the current situation." Lord Malachi grunted in agreement.
"Where a Sealing is concerned, our Guardian has the better understanding," Lady Marisa entered from the western passage. She caught up her skirts in a fluid movement to descend the stairs. "Is he not our direct link with Those Who Are Not Seen?"
"We have had this discussion before, and I am sorry to say we are still opposed, Lady Marisa." Trelbyn's hand stroked the silken surface and colors rippled beneath his touch. "When I touch this Crystal, who is to say that I do not hear and experience the same rhythms as my brother? Adam knows little about his own world and almost nothing about the others with which we interact. I am tied into the political needs of our world and the Continuum. He knows only these hallways. He has hidden here most of his life."
"Hidden?" The woman shot him a sharp glance. "A Guardian is duty bound to serve Those Who Are Not Seen. If they command him to spend his hours in Their study, that could hardly be called hiding. As to his political acumen," she cocked her head, "I think you underestimate Adam. If we had things your way, Those Who Are Not Seen would also become Those Who Are Not Heard."
Leonidas raised an aged palm. "Let us remember, we work as friends here, even in our differences."
Trelbyn bowed slightly in deference to the older man. "I do not make idle judgments, milady," he said. "The man is my half brother, and I bear him no ill will, despite our differences in opinion. But because he is my half brother, I beg you to accept that I have a better grasp of his personal character. My brother has, in truth, hidden in these hallways many times. I am not accusing him of cowardice," he warded off the sparks in her slanted eyes.
"My brother's adolescence was far from easy. The ways of Those Who Are Not Seen are sometimes beyond any of our understanding. We must try to interpret and act on their signs in the manner we hope most benefits the Continuum. They gave us a young Guardian, who has shown a frequent, reckless disregard for his own value. He has never actively participated in the politics that govern our world-"
"When has he been made welcome to do so?" Lady Marisa retorted.
"-Or others." Trelbyn scowled. "I believe these are signs from Those Who Are Not Seen." He paused to nod in greeting as the remaining two Lords and Lady entered. They assumed their seats in the circle and Trelbyn resumed. "The Lord Council was formed to support the Guardian, should a manual Sealing need to occur. Since then, our responsibilities have grown much wider. Perhaps it has all been a journey, and it is the intent of Those Who Are Not Seen that we assume all responsibilities and interpretations of Their actions. My brother's unpredictable behavior may be the catalyst pushing us in that direction."
"But then why would Those Who Are Not Seen have chosen a new Guardian at all?" Marisa pointed out. "Why not simply send a vision to Alma, and tell her to turn over her responsibilities to the Lords?"
Trelbyn shrugged. "I do not know," he admitted. "Perhaps it is a test of the mettle of our Council."
Marisa looked at Leonidas appealingly, but the oldest member of the Lords was staring at his gnarled hands, now folded over the head of his staff. Lord Tarranine nodded at Trelbyn's left. Marisa knew him to be wholly in agreement with the war leader. Lord Belden and Lady Riesa were uncertain of which side to take in this conflict, though their sentiments lay more with Trelbyn than with her viewpoint.
"There is a time," Trelbyn said, "that every god asks its subjects to think for themselves. Much as a child must have a parent's guidance only for a certain time. After he has reached a certain maturity, he must take those uncomfortable steps to break from a parent's care."
"I do not understand your motives, Lord Trelbyn." She turned away with a swish of skirts and ceremonial robes. "As strongly as you feel this is the intent of Those Who Are Not Seen, I feel it is not. And if anyone can tell us Their thoughts on this matter, it is a Guardian."
"How do we know he would tell us if this was Their wish?" Trelbyn asked.
Marisa spun about. Even Lord Malachi gasped. Leonidas' head jerked up. "Lord Trelbyn, the idea that a Guardian would lie about the words of Those Who Are Not Seen..."
"Is blasphemy. The highest treason!" Trelbyn gestured dramatically. "But the Guardian is human, is he not? He is not a god, he is not one of Those Who Are Not Seen, and my brother has not demonstrated good judgment or trustworthiness on numerous occasions. What exempts him from lying? That we all believe he won't?"
"I have had enough of this." The veins in Lady Marisa's throat corded and pulsed with the effort to keep her voice even. "Prince Adam may be unusual for a Guardian, but Those Who Are Not Seen chose him. There is no greater honor or demand on a person than this role. He stayed in Trial for a full season, without food or water, suckled by the body of the Continuum. You truly believe someone who has walked so close to Their fire would betray it?"
Trelbyn waited for the echo of her words to die in the domed chamber. "If it was to Their purposes, Lady, yes I do," he said softly.
Lady Marisa stared at him. "If you are so sure that we are fated to replace the Guardian, you might tell me when They will give us the power to Seal a world without the Guardian's aid. None of us were chosen to undergo the Trial. The former Guardian endorsed our appointment by the King's Council. That indirect support is the only evidence that we have the blessing of Those Who Are Not Seen."
"I concede the Trial, m'lady." Trelbyn took a seat on his throne. He met her flashing eyes with steady assurance. The only sign of strain on his face was the deepening of the plowed lines on either side of his mouth. "But have the Lords ever had need to initiate a Sealing on their own? How do we know we cannot? Look at this 'Earth'," he gestured at the baleful light floating in the Crystal's facets. "If anything cataclysmic occurs, which according to Adam's reports is likely, we shall have no choice but to Seal it manually, very soon. What if our Guardian, caught up in the emotions he has developed for this woman, and these people, will not Seal it, despite the threat to the rest of the Continuum? What if we have to do it without him?"
"My Lord Trelbyn," Leonidas tapped the edge of his staff against the chair arm of Trelbyn's throne. "You tread in waters where men have drowned."
"With all due reverence, my lord," Trelbyn inclined his head. "I feel we must ask questions others fear to ask." He drew a deep breath and met the eyes of the woman across from him. "Such as this one. My lady, my brother's spiritualism makes him an appealing and charismatic man. Are you certain your loyalty to him is based upon an impartial assessment of his behavior?"
The sudden frigid silence seemed to penetrate even Trelbyn's self-possession. He shifted slightly and cleared his throat as Marisa stared at him with eyes sharpened to steel points. The muscles of her face turned to granite, so that she spoke through clenched teeth.
"That remark, m'lord, is so insulting to me, as your wife and the mother of your children, that I would call you out against a champion if you and he were not the same."
A dry, humorless chuckle broke the tension.
"You will be sleeping with your precious goats for awhile, my brother."
A smile curved Marisa's lips. Her startled husband spun. Adam leaned against the arch of Trelbyn's throne.
"You approach us with sorcery, brother?" Trelbyn snapped.
"You accuse me of false prophecy, brother?" Adam returned. The prince brought them all within the frosty embrace of his hard, glittering eyes. "I did not approach with sorcery. Apparently Those Who Are Not Seen felt it important I hear your words uncensored, since you seem loathe to speak them before me."
Trelbyn shrugged. "I would have waited to have this discussion with you present, but you frequently remind me how tiresome my opinion is. I felt it more courteous to spare you the diatribe."
Adam skirted the throne and took the center of the chamber, moving with the leonine grace that captured the attention of everyone in the room. Trelbyn's eyes locked with Marisa. She recalled his words of the night before, when they had fought this same argument in their bedchamber. "A lion should live in the wild, not run the affairs of domestic creatures," he had shouted. "Its wild ways push the animals of barn and hearth into sure destruction."
Adam executed a gallant bow in her direction. "It seems you have been serving as my champion, m'lady. It would burden me not at all to return the favor and drub this stubborn stump of a husband for his insult to your integrity. Though I admit," his aristocratic brow lifted, "if the combat is wrestling, you will profit by wagering against me, for I have never bested him. I have, however, trounced him in sword fighting."
Marisa inclined her head graciously, but could not summon another smile as the two brothers squared off. She saw worry in Leonidas' face and hoped this meeting would not bring to a head all the tensions that had been growing worse between the Lords and their Guardian. Trelbyn was like a bull, waiting for the aggressive movement that would give him leave to charge. Tread carefully, Prince Adam.
She was weary of it all. The issue had gone on far too many days in this chamber, and too many nights between her and Trelbyn. He slept in his library at night and disappeared onto the practice fields by day. Though she would have had to resort to torture to make him admit it, she knew Trelbyn's last remark came from nothing more than the emotional drain of it. Marisa was lonely for the brilliant, hardheaded man she had married. By the way his gaze flickered over her, she knew he was also ready to resolve the conflict between them. She prayed Adam's words would placate her husband's fears and quiet the Council's concerns, including her own.
Adam took a seat on the stairs that led up to the Crystal's dais and proceeded to explain the day's events. He had worn the blue trousers and white cotton shirt of the world in which he was living, and made no apology for his dismissal of the required ceremonial robes. He also did not offer an immediate explanation for the stained and dirty appearance of the clothes.
Marisa did not understand Adam, but she trusted that Those Who Are Not Seen did. She believed that the Lords should stand fast in their traditional loyalty to the one chosen to be so close to Them. Perhaps it was easier to do that, rather than to stand on the precipice of tradition as her husband did. It was ironic that he conservatively opposed Exploration but challenged the Lords on the unshakable tradition of the Guardian, whereas she chose to cling to the old beliefs but supported limited Exploration. Such were the vagaries of human nature.
"Our intent," Adam finished, "is to stop the thirteenth sacrifice and thwart the ritual's purpose." He rose. "Do you have any questions?"
Trelbyn molded his fingers over the curved arms of his throne. "We have many questions, my lord, and quite a few of them have to do with whether or not we can risk your returning to the Other World to assist in such a dangerous endeavor."
Adam raised a brow. "I am here to report our status. I am not here for your instruction, or your approval."
Lord Trelbyn had the grace to look startled. Marisa saw he wasn't the only one. Even Leonidas looked somewhat taken aback.
"Let me ask you this, Trel," Adam relented a fraction. "Why have you led our armies into battle when you knew, as Crown Prince, that you had a responsibility to your own safety for the good of all our people?" The Guardian took a seat at the foot of his brother's throne, as though it was just the two of them, and they were boys again. "I will tell you why, my stubborn brother. It is your responsibility to ensure victory to our world when it is at war. You do this by putting your best soldiers on the field, and you are the best in Aegis. This is a field where I am the best, and I am clear on what my responsibilities are."
Trelbyn leaned forward and Marisa saw some of the feeling she knew Trelbyn still had for his brother surface. "Adamai," the war leader said quietly. "I know you have gotten close to some of the people in this world. But is it possible that it is kindest to let this world die? Think of people in our own world who have contracted a disease they can no longer combat, a disease that merely holds them in a grip of pain. We give them the sleeping draught of death, at their request, rather than make them prolong their life. Are we prolonging the life of this world when it is time for it to die?"
The prince looked up into his brother's eyes. "What you or I think is not the point, brother. It never has been." Adam rose and surveyed them all, and his voice took on a different tone, one that Marisa had never heard before. He was commanding them, not persuading. "Your role is to provide me guidance. Those Who Are Not Seen tell me what Their Will is."
"How do you know it is not your will you impose upon Their Voices?"
Marisa closed her eyes. He had to ask the question, foolish, impossible man. Adam and Trelbyn had spent almost twenty years in the same home, and Trelbyn had never seen what she had known the first moment Adam had taken her hand for a formal kiss of introduction. The Guardian of the Continuum, bestowed with the favor of the gods, had been raised as a prince. He had as much pride and capacity for wrath as any member of his royal family, and Trelbyn had just pushed him to the point where the dam could break. She cracked an eyelid and saw Adam, standing chest to chest with Trelbyn.
The war leader was marked by battle and time, his power to command as obvious as the intelligence in his eyes. The Guardian was less obvious in his power, but only to those who chose not to look. Marisa could see a potential that would break even a war leader like her husband into pieces if Adam grasped it. It was a power and strength that had nothing to do with what had been bestowed on Adam by Those Who Are Not Seen. So many people saw the Guardian, and missed the man.
Adam smiled, and it frightened Marisa.
"If you truly understood what it is to be Guardian, brother," he said softly, "you would know just how foolish your words are." Something died in the golden eyes and Adam's expression became flat. "Your problem is not lack of confidence in the role of Guardian. It is lack of confidence in me." He stared around the chamber. "Have any of you anything to ask me that is not a condemnation of my competence or an accusation?"
Trelbyn lifted a massive shoulder before any other lord could speak. "I believe you have said all that is needed. My lord. You will follow your conscience, as you always have. We will do the same."
Adam nodded and spun on his heel, departing the chamber without another word or backward glance. Marisa watched the darkened hall swallow his broad-shouldered figure. Adam's history as Guardian had always been as the phantom hermit of these corridors. With a feeling of dread, she knew that, this time, it had been a grave mistake for him to walk back into their embrace.
Trelbyn sat back in his throne and deliberately steepled his fingers. He looked toward the Crystal, where the yellow sickness could be seen clearly.
"It seems that we have a very difficult decision to make over the next two days." He nodded at Marisa. "May Those Who Are Not Seen guide us all."
On that, they were in perfect agreement.
The past failures of the Black School came about not because it lacked the knowledge to unleash the four kings, but because its members lacked the strength. What held the gate for over 2000 years was the strong integrity and sense of responsibility assumed by the human race. That integrity has eroded tragically. I fear the human desire to defeat evil has become overshadowed. Evil's most irresistible ally has tripled among the ranks of men. Apathy-acceptance of the state of helplessness.
-Notes of Dr. Samuel Kenn
Alma lowered Correen's hands into a basin of warm water and swished them. "You are a very foolish, courageous woman," the old Guardian said kindly. The strips of T-shirt began to loosen as the water softened the dried blood.
"It worked, Alma," the girl marveled. "I can do it."
The older woman grunted. "I have told you many times. It's not a matter of potential. Your potential takes my breath away. The fact that you thrust that potential out of your body by force of will alone is a tribute to what is there. But until you have confronted your Gatekeeper, the power to heal will not heed your call. Adam's ability to hold off the Gatekeeper's wrath and take you back to your body kept your soul from being ripped to shreds and possessed by the beings of the lower planes."
When Correen had fought to save Adam on the astral plane, that purpose had dimmed her awareness of what was happening to her and around her. The quiet comfort of Alma's bedroom and her words brought the images of the lower beings from the shadows of her mind. A shudder rippled over Correen's skin like the touch of their claws and she looked away, hiding the fear that rose in her face from the memory.
The front door closed and Alma cocked her head, listening. "Alicia and Channa. It sounds as if Prince Adam is with them."
"Alma, why-?"
The woman glanced up from her work when Correen stopped. "Yes, child?"
"I don't wish to offend you," Correen mumbled, looking at the salve being smeared on her palms. "But why can't you ... do as I ...?" she turned red with mortification.
"Correen," Alma raised her chin. "There is no shame in having an ability. You need have no fear of offending me. I am not a healer. I have never been called by the River of Healing. There are certain things all of us can do to heal ourselves or others, if we are so inspired to learn." She motioned to the salve. "But Healers have a special knowledge, one that can not be taught. Those Who Are Not Seen have offered you the gift-you must conquer your own demons to answer it."
Alma brushed a gnarled hand against the smooth skin of Correen's cheek. The crone smiled at the medicinal she left there. "You have become very special to me, little dove."
Pain misted in Correen's eyes. She turned her head against the woman's palm and pressed her lips there. Alma brushed her cheek once more, gave Correen another soft smile, then took her hand away and wrapped Correen's hands in light gauze.
"We had better join the others," she said at last. "Adam will have much to discuss with us."
Correen nodded and got to her feet. Her hands prevented her from assisting Alma, but she watched as the old woman tucked a second quilt over Sephira's body. Rob had laid the priestess on the old woman's bed after Alma and Lanny had bathed her and dressed her in a warm cotton nightgown. Alma had surrounded the bed with warmth and life, plants bursting with spring buds, lighted candles of rich colors. Gentle harp music wafted out of a tape player sitting on the night table draped in antique lace.
"It's all I can do for you, this moment, dear one," Alma murmured, smoothing the wet hair from the woman's brow.
Sephira stared at the ceiling, blinking. Nothing moved in the green eyes. "Will they be able to heal her in Aegis?" Correen asked.
"If they can find her," Alma murmured. Her bird eyes glittered, brighter and harder than usual. "When the soul runs from a body still living, coaxing it back is not easy."
Correen nodded, pushing the sharp edges of a painful memory back into the recesses of her heart. Rather than meet Alma's penetrating gaze, she reached out and touched the thin, lifeless hand that Alma had laid on top of the quilt. She could feel the sickness in Sephira's body like a living entity, reaching out to her, sensing her capacity, but she could not help. She could not help anyone again until she faced her Gatekeeper. Correen swallowed and turned away from its unspoken plea, her heart aching.
Alma's living room mirrored her kitchen, cluttered with overstuffed garage sale furniture draped with old quilts and afghans. Stacks of books, old tabloids and dozens of plants and herbs, some potted, some in small flats, crammed every space between the furniture. Miraculously, everyone had found a spot. Rob slept sitting up on the couch, his head resting on the back, his long legs stretched out before him. His arms were folded across his chest, his fingers tucked under his armpits. An orange spider had dropped from the Ficus plant above him and hung poised before his face, swinging back and forth with each breath. Lanny lay on her stomach beneath the tent of his legs, scribbling furiously on a note pad and paging through a folder of papers. Shireva spoke to her, leaning down from her spot on a stack of magazines. Martin peered over her shoulder and Alicia sat at Lanny's hip on the other side of Rob's legs. Adam and Channa were in deep discussion at a scratched card table piled high with jars of powdered herbs and a stack of gardening magazines.
Noticeably absent from the group of companions were Darius and Adrian.
Adam, Rob and Correen had emerged cautiously from the ravine, Edward's mandate to the luckless Judas in their heads. Martin had re-anchored the rope with a metal spike and left it coiled just inside the tunnel entrance, allowing them an easier descent into the ravine. It was a reassuring sign that the others had made it out of the tunnel unmolested, but Correen knew the worry would not disappear from Adam's eyes until he saw them all safe.
When they reached the pond clearing, the van was still there, and Shireva and Martin jumped out to help them. Shireva's hand flew to her mouth at Sephira's appearance. "By the Continuum, what have they done to her?"
"We don't have time," Adam said, not unkindly. Rob placed the woman into the van, giving her to Martin to hold securely. "We must go."
Shireva took a deep breath. "Lanny's not with you?"
Rob stepped out of the van. "What?"
"Darius refused to wait," she said hastily. "He insisted on taking Adrian to a hospital. We couldn't prevent him from leaving, so I ran him back to the school as fast as I could. He said he'd walk otherwise. Lanny insisted on staying at the ravine to keep a lookout for you, so you would know what was going on."
"And you left her here?" Rob said. Shireva stepped back at the expression in his eyes. Adam's gaze darted over the clearing.
"I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't let Darius go-"
"We don't have time to argue," Adam interrupted. "We must find her. Take Sephira and Correen back to Alma. Rob and I will-"
"There she is!" Correen pointed. "Rob, over there!"
Lanny broke out of the bushes on the far side of the pond. She staggered, fell to her knees, then scrambled to her feet. In that brief moment of time, Rob had made it to her side, but she kept going, dragging him with her back to the van.
"They're behind me," she gasped. "Let's move!"
Adam scooped Correen into his arms and deposited her into the second seat. Shireva leaped behind the steering wheel. In less than a second she had spun the van around. Mud and grass spat from beneath the back tires. She downshifted and the van shot down the bumpy access road. Martin steadied Sephira, wrapping his arms around her. Adam held onto Correen so she would not have to use her hands to control her movements. The girl looked back. A small group erupted from the copse of trees where Lanny had burst into the clearing. Judas led the pack.
Shireva turned onto the main road without stopping, ignoring the blaring horn of the sports car that narrowly missed them. Rob held Lanny away from him, inventorying the muddy, torn clothes and scratched legs. The girl trembled with exhaustion, her shirt soaked with sweat. "You have the sense of a gnat," he managed.
"Some gratitude," she panted. "You guys never would have made it."
"What happened?" Adam asked.
"That group of thugs was waiting to ambush you. I made enough noise to make them think you were already ahead of them. They came chasing after me." Lanny hiccuped a chuckle. "I had to make it sound like I was different people shouting at each other to 'go this way!,' 'hurry up', and 'where are we?'" She rubbed her hands over her dirty knees. "I'm glad you guys came when you did, though. I didn't have anything left. I've never run such a good marathon in my life. I wish I'd had a stopwatch."
"You have the sense of a mentally retarded gnat," Rob growled and pulled her close.
"And the legs of Jesse Owens," Correen added. Lanny's eyes smiled at her, the only part of her visible over Rob's broad shoulder.
Correen almost smiled at the memory, then actually did so when Alicia nodded at her with a thumbs up sign. Correen let out a sigh of relief. When they had arrived at Alma's, Alicia had called in and agreed to check on Adrian at the hospital. Her signal indicated all was well.
Correen's gaze flicked back to Adam. She tried not to notice Channa's supple, long-fingered hand resting on Adam's wrist. The easy, careless touch of a lover. She forced herself to look away from them. Channa was beautiful and kind, and touched with the power of divinity, much like Adam. In a few days, Adam would be gone from Correen's life. She had taught herself to be disciplined and logical about emotion. If ever there was a time not to be consumed by personal worries, this was it. Still, Correen wanted to go slap that lovely hand away from his arm, though nothing in the world gave her the right to do so. A few more days and it would be all right. Everything would be ordered in her universe again. Gray. Lifeless.
Adam paused in his conversation and turned his head, seeing her standing in the doorway. His eyes held a strange, intense hardness, but when they found her, they softened. He spoke a few words to Channa. She nodded and withdrew her hand. He rose, coming across the room toward Correen.
"Are you all right-is she all right?" he asked both of them at once.
Alma smiled. "She's fine. Her hands will heal, though it will take time and the scarring will be severe."
"They were so elegant before this happened," Correen said, embarrassed.
Alma gave her an admonishing look. "I will go get us a tray of tea." She headed for the kitchen, motioning Channa to her.
Adam shook his head. "Only Alma would suggest tea to discuss human sacrifice and the fate of your world."
"Let's just hope she doesn't forget the cookies." Correen looked at her hands.
He stepped closer. Without apparent thought for anyone watching, he drew her to him by her shoulders. "Are you well?"
She nodded, lifting her eyes to the proud, noble features. He resembled a soldier coming from a battle where the victory had been overshadowed by the cost. "Are you okay?"
He squeezed her. "I hope we'll have the time to enjoy this thing between us some day soon."
Her fingers tightened on his arm. The price was a lancing shot of pain that rocketed through her body. She had saved this incredible person. This incredible man.
"Time is what we have now," she swallowed. "And that's enough for me."
His fingers caressed her temple, stroking through her hair to rest on the delicate line of her jaw. "You are allowed to ask for more than that. You deserve much more than that."
"Here we are." Alma brought in the tray of tea. Correen slipped around him, escaping the discussion. She locked gazes with Channa, who bore a plate of cookies in one hand and an extra chair in the other. The priestess inclined her head graciously, but it was a wooden gesture and Correen saw the anguish in her green eyes. For the first time, Correen gave a thought to how Sephira's appearance would have affected the priestess, the guilt and fury she must be suffering, and how she would hold it at arm's length to do what needed to be done.
Correen flushed scarlet with shame. She turned away and stumbled over Lanny's legs, bumping into Rob's knee and waking him before she managed to change direction and land on the couch next to him.
Martin brought in a couple more chairs so the nine companions could sit in a circle and face one another. The prince took a place between Alma and Channa and waved away the offer of cookies from the old woman, his lips twitching. "What do we have?" he asked without preamble, nodding at Lanny and Shireva.
Lanny held up the file. "Mrs. O'Kelly's file on Edward that I promised," she said. "Shireva and I have been going over it, and the part about Edward's parents being very influential is true. His parents sent him away to a military school when he was nine years old, right after their home in Newport was burned down with his newborn sister in it.
"In the admission notes from the military school, Edward's mother said he was wild and undisciplined and constantly getting into trouble. She was afraid if he wasn't taken in hand he would end up in prison." Lanny referred to her steno pad. "'Mrs. Brautigan feels Edward is a difficult child. He believes his parents hate him, so it is easier if he is kept at school over all holidays.' What's interesting is the school director apparently had a separate conversation with Edward's father, who was opposed to sending Edward to military school. He had picked out an upper crust private school in New Hampshire, but Edward's mother insisted on the military school in New Mexico. What else is strange is that Edward's records at the military school are pretty much perfect. He never gave his professors any trouble. In his third year, he even got an award for 'Exemplary Deportment, Conduct and Adhering to the Honor Code.' Teamwork is the only area in which he got poor marks. 'Shows little to no sense of camaraderie with his fellow students. An irreversible isolationist.'"
"Which, in contrast, is one of the entrance requirements for acceptance at Havenwood," Alicia remarked with dry humor.
"The story doesn't end there," Lanny said. "During his fourth year at the academy, he was involved in a bad accident. One of the school's munitions buildings blew up. It killed about forty kids. The cause of the explosion was a lit cigarette. Edward was the only one to walk away from it alive. He was sent home with third degree burns and a medical leave of absence, which, if you can believe it, his mother fought. When they brought him home for the summer, Mr. Brautigan lined him up for enrollment in that New Hampshire private school. But, somehow, after two months, his mother was able to turn the tables again and had Edward committed to an asylum." Lanny glanced around the room at her intent audience. "An asylum for the criminally insane."
"By the Continuum," Martin murmured. "How could any mother-"
"Before you ask that," Rob interjected, "what if you suspected your son killed your daughter and arranged for the murder of forty kids?"
"That's quite a leap," Shireva objected.
"Not for our world. And not based on what we know about Edward."
Adam's gold eyes darkened. Lanny flipped through several more pages.
"Apparently, money buys anything, because he was checked in though he was a minor and there was no type of legal justification for committing him. He stayed there two years. Then Dad checked Mom into a private hospital, had her declared mentally incompetent, and brought Edward home."
"The son finds revenge at last," Shireva said quietly.
Lanny nodded. "So it would seem. He spent the next three years with his father in Reynolda, California. As far as we can tell from this, he led an uneventful high school life. He applied to Havenwood and the rest we know."
"Reynolda," Rob murmured. "Why does that sound familiar?" He glanced at Alicia. "You're the Californian."
The blonde frowned, thinking. It was Channa who spoke, surprising the others. "I believe you're thinking of the Reynolda Reaper."
Rob struck his knee in acknowledgment. "How did you know that?"
The team leader shrugged. "A Sealing Team does research on the causes of a Sealing and its symptoms. Studies of serial murderers are part of that, particularly the ones dealing with ritualistic murder."
"Want to let the rest of us in on it?" Lanny prodded.
Rob held up a hand, stalling her. "Edward would have been at Havenwood for two years when they found the bodies."
"Forensics put the last victim at two and a half years of decomposition," Shireva confirmed.
"Rob," Lanny reminded.
"Sorry. The Reynolda Reaper murdered fifty-five women taken within a 300-square mile radius of Reynolda. He buried the bodies on a farm. Two kids making out in a haystack got discovered by the old lady who lived on the farm and she chased them into a marsh with a shotgun. They came upon a very unusual cypress swamp, if you get my drift."
"The victims were ritualistically tortured," Shireva picked up the story. "It was concluded that the culprit was one person, a solitary practitioner of a cult that honored human sacrifice. He, or she, was never caught."
"If I recall correctly," Rob said, "the FBI tried to pin it on the old woman, but she was infirm as well as delusional. She couldn't even drive a car. She insisted her property was visited every night by a terrible monster who fed on human flesh. I can't believe I forgot about it. The media kept it going for months on TV and even won a freedom of the press suit to show the corpses."
"So you're saying that Edward burned down his house, killed his sister, blew up that arsenal, and then went home to become a serial killer?" Lanny shot him a skeptical look.
"I know, it sounds like a bad Anti-Christ movie."
"Holy Mother," Alicia murmured. "If it is true, we've been going to school with a monster." She looked at Channa. "Do you remember last year when Melanie thought Edward was getting interested in Wicca? He started to go to some of the Wiccan Blue Ridge festivals with her. He was scoping out victims. That's probably where he picked up the students on the list that didn't have connections to the Havenwood coven."
Adam rose from his chair and paced away from the circle, deep in thought.
"How could someone that deranged be around us, and us not suspect anything about them?" Lanny asked.
"You're kidding, right?" Alicia snorted. "He beats up his girlfriend, he's an anti-social loner, his roommate supposedly committed suicide his first quarter here. Havenwood is full of dysfunctional people. An insane maniac blends right in."
"He's not insane."
All heads swung toward Adam, except for Correen, who had been watching him since he rose from his chair. The prince stared out the window at the tangle of grasses in Alma's yard, but his eyes focused on something much different, and darker.
"At a young age, perhaps seven or eight, Edward discovered he had gifts, abilities that he did not understand. He began to exercise these abilities, and they frightened his parents. Perhaps they were concerned about embarrassment, about having a son who was some type of ... freak.
"They tried to repress it, told him not to use his gifts, to hide this part of who he was and be ashamed of it. Another child was born. He reacted as any child would to a sibling who seemed more normal, more loved. Except Edward had the power to kill with his anger and frustration, and because he was young and untrained, he had no control. He was sent away by a grieving mother who knew too much, more than the father. She banished him to a place of discipline, telling him he had to learn control to earn the right to come home and be part of their family.
"He missed his mother, so he tried to do everything right. But then he realized his mother would never let him come home, that his crimes against her were too great. He had to make her let him come home, so he could prove to her that he could be good. He blew up the arsenal and let himself be injured so he would be sent home. Perhaps he confronted his mother and she recognized what he had done. She had him..." Adam swallowed and the line from his neck to his shoulder knotted slightly; "committed, thinking that he could be controlled in a prison environment.
"The love for the mother became hatred. Edward learned control, at last, not to please her, but to destroy everything that had rejected him. He discovered the black arts and sought comfort in the structure of ritual. He created a god that would love him for the evil beast he assumed he was. A god that encouraged him to punish those who had locked him in a cage.
"He honored his chosen god with sacrifice because it fed the anger in him. Because the root of his anger is his mother, women are his target. He fought from her womb expecting unconditional love, and she rejected who he was. When Edward came here, maybe the clamor for blood eased for awhile, because Dr. Kenn made him feel accepted. But then Kenn was killed, killed because he trusted Brooks too much, and Edward too little."
Adam fell silent, but he did not turn from the window, nor did the taut line of his shoulders ease. Channa glanced at Alma. The former Guardian's expression was unreadable, but her eyes were filled with pain.
Silence blanketed the room. Those uncertain of what was happening were held by the hard tension surrounding the man at the window. Correen rose and went to him. The muscles in Adam's back were so tight beneath her light touch he might have been a statue, gazing forever out the window at the cycles of nature moving before his eyes. She moved around him and laid her hands on his arm, letting him feel the salve, and the throbbing life of the raw tendons.
"Sometimes," she said, so quietly that only he could hear her, "a person who has been abused gets angry and kills twenty people in a fast food restaurant. Another person gets angry for the same reason and starts a battered women's shelter."
Adam's eyes shifted to her, and the haunted expression broke her heart. She raised her fingers to his face, no longer thinking about Channa or anyone else's reaction.
"Don't you see? Power can't make you evil. Only your own heart can do that. The power in Edward is a nightmare. The power in you is a blessing. Don't make it more than that."
Adam's expression eased. He nodded, a trace of a smile fighting its way out of the darkness within him. Correen took her hands away and, spell broken, she felt the eyes of everyone in the room. She backed up, ran into a stack of newspapers, and retreated to the wall behind Alma's chair.
Adam cleared his throat and faced the others. "Edward is not the leader of this group," he said quietly. "Whatever McQuade summoned is the real power behind all of this. When Dr. Kenn got to the computer that night, I think he was doing the only thing he could to help. It was too late to send the creature back to the astral plane, so he locked it into the computer."
Rob straightened, eyes narrowing. "That's technologically impossible."
"It is not spiritually impossible, and spirit overrules matter. Think about what we saw below ground. What Channa found in Kenn's writings supports the idea." Adam nodded at the priestess.
Channa gestured to Alicia and the blonde explained. "We didn't find an old book, obviously, but we found lots of notes about it. The Black School isn't a reference to Malcolm X or African-Americans at all; it's a medieval legend. Supposedly, the Black School was a secret society that met underground around the time of the Inquisition. Catholic propaganda asserted that wizards went to the School for Satan's instruction on how to be more powerful mages. One person from each class had to pay everyone's tuition with his soul."
"And I thought Havenwood was steep," Rob said. "So how does that figure in?"
"I studied the picture Correen took of the book on the altar," Martin said. "It's most likely an original script, passed down through generations of adherents to the Black School, though how it came to be here I have no idea. The page she photographed described how certain students of the School formed a sub-group, if you will, and their goal was to develop the ritual that would release Lucifer's four demon kings."
"Excuse me?" Lanny asked.
"During the Inquisition," Shireva picked up the explanation, "a monk laid out the hierarchy of Satan's minions. He claimed that there were 2400 legions under Satan, divided into four groups, aligned with the elements. Lucifer's top four generals were made kings to rule over each quadrant. Zimimar of the North, Gorson of the South, Amaymon of the East and Goap of the West. There's a story in Kenn's writings that claims these four posed as Romans and threatened to destroy the world during the time of Christ. In a great battle, Jesus imprisoned them with the help of his disciples and a circle of thirteen witches. They were locked away in a hole 'deeper even than Satan's reach.'"
"Let me guess," Rob said. "The four kings look a lot like the four guys in the Judgment Day nightmare we saw."
Channa nodded. "Zimimar's parting words were that mankind should look for them again when their world was ready to embrace its true fathers and urinate on their mother, the Great Whore."
"I can't imagine why this story would appeal to Edward," Alicia said dryly.
"Okay, it makes a good story as to Edward's motives, but this crap about the computers-you don't really believe that's what's going on, right?" Rob raised a brow in Adam's direction.
"Divinity can manifest itself in any form, based on its believers," Adam explained. "God may look like an old man in a cloud of white light to you, or like Mother Earth to another. It is the same for Evil. We create the face of Darkness. But the Dark itself exists independently of us, just as Light does. Both are within us and outside of us. What was released the night of Kenn's death could be using Edward's belief in the four kings to get his aid in releasing something just as terrible."
"Or what was released could be one of the kings and the whole story is true," Channa said.
"Either way," Rob gave them a shrewd look. "You don't get all dressed up for the ball and not go. They're going to get someone else to replace Adrian."
Adam nodded. "I believe they will still use the chamber where we found Sephira. It is a virgin site, specially prepared for this final closing ritual. It's where they perceive the Being to be most powerful."
"But it's blocked."
"Only the tunnel we used. I believe that Edward brought Adrian underground by another door. Unfortunately, Niko lost Edward's trail the night he took Adrian so we do not know where it is."
"Niko was following Edward?"
"Niko is more than he appears. I will go to the hospital in the morning, after Adrian has rested, and find out if she remembers where the other door is."
"What if Edward erased her mind, or she's too hysterical to remember?" Lanny asked. "Or what if there's one of those self-destruct spells you were talking about in her brain?"
Adam hesitated. "I'll be able to work around it."
Alma glanced at him sharply.
"More importantly, what if Darwin tries to kick your ass the moment you walk through the door?" Rob pointed out.
"Your Highness," Martin spoke. "If it would help, I'll come with you. Darius has taken several of my classes. He and I have gotten to be friends while working on some of his research projects. I might be able to ease some of his concerns."
Adam nodded. "That would be helpful."
"Correen and I will go with you, too, as Adrian's friends," Alicia piped up.
"Okay," Rob nodded. "But how are we going to keep them from kidnapping someone else?"
Adam hesitated. "We're not."
"Pardon me?" Rob stared at him.
Adam's gaze swept the circle. "Channa and I discussed it. There's no way we can stop them from taking another, other than what Channa has already done to protect the coven."
"So let's just go down there and destroy the ritual site."
The prince shook his head. "When magic tools and rituals are stripped away, there's still the most powerful instrument of all-your own belief. If Edward doesn't have that chamber to use, he'll simply move it elsewhere. Somewhere we don't know about and may not find in time."
"So why don't we just take out Edward?"
"He won't surface before the ritual. Rob, I know how you feel."
"You don't bloody well act like it."
The muscles in Adam's throat contracted. "I do know," he said. "And I don't like it any more than you do. But the most important thing is to stop this ritual from happening. If we do that, we save whomever they've taken for it, as well as your world. If we don't, then the victim will be no worse off than anyone else.
"Under the plan Channa and I discussed, I'm going to go back to the chamber on the night of the full moon and try to stop Edward when he starts his ritual." Adam glanced at the team leader. "That's also the night of the Renaissance Festival and the Brigade of Light's ritual. Channa will alter it. If I fail, the Brigade of Light and the coven will lend her and the rest of the Sealing Team power should they have to go into battle against the demon kings, or whatever manifests itself."
"I'll help prepare the coven," Alma offered, "with your permission, Channa."
"You have no need of it," Channa inclined her head. "Shireva, I'd like your help to organize the Brigade as well." The Recreator nodded.
"If Edward does go ahead with it in the same spot, you're crazy if you think he won't be watching for you down there," Rob ground out. "You won't have a chance in hell of getting in without getting caught first. You've already said you can't sense his magic."
"It's the only plan we have. I'm open to other suggestions."
Rob uncrossed his arms. "Goddamit. Fuck. Fine." He blew out a frustrated breath. "Edward may be using Kenn's original ritual as a guideline for the final thing. Like I told you, if those hobgoblins are in there, it's probably still in the computer system. I'll go into the mainframe and take a look around for it. Maybe it will help us come up with an alternative plan-one less likely to get us all killed."
"I think it's best if you have me or Adam with you when you look for it," Channa said.
"Oh, come on. If there's something in the computer, and that's a really big 'if' in my opinion, then it's not going to jump out of the screen at me."
"It was able to possess Edward when I fought him," Adam reminded him. "It may have a limited physical range."
"But it is limited, thank the Goddess," Channa said. "Otherwise it would have wreaked a lot more havoc than it already has."
Rob grinned diabolically. "Don't worry. If there's a boogeyman in the machine, I'll sick Fido on its ass."
"Fido?" Alicia echoed.
Lanny rolled her eyes. "It's Rob's virus."
"Would a virus kill it?" Correen asked.
"No," Shireva shook her head. "In that form, it's not alive or dead."
"But it might be driven out of its physical host and back to where it came from," Martin said thoughtfully.
The conversation dissolved into murmured arrangements between smaller groups and speculation on what lay ahead. Adam studied all of them, assessed their state of mind.
"If no one has anything else ...?" he said after a moment or two. They all looked toward him, and then at each other. His own gaze flickered over Rob. His roommate waved a curt hand. "Then I suggest we all get a few hours' sleep before we go forward," Adam said. "And I strongly suggest we all sleep here."
"I have enough bedrooms for all of you, as long as you don't mind sharing rooms," Alma said.
Rob rose and stretched, his arms almost touching the ceiling. "At this point, short of a drawer in a morgue, I'll sleep anywhere. Lanny and I can share, if she's willing. Now that I know you're a heathen, Alma, I know it won't offend your Christian sensibilities."
Alma wrinkled her nose. "If Lanny has chosen to share her bed with the likes of you, then that's her cross to bear."
Lanny chuckled. "You get the side closest to the door, Rob. All this talk of demons has given me the creepy crawlies."
Channa turned to Adam as Alma shepherded the others down the hallway to her guestrooms. "I'll take a short nap; then Alma and I will take Sephira to Aegis. She'll be safe that way, no matter what happens." Bitter anger crossed her face. "As safe as she can be in her current state. We'll work with the coven and the coordinator of the Brigade of Light in the morning, while you go to the hospital."
Adam nodded. "I'll send Niko with a message, informing the Lords of our plans."
"Do you think that's wise, not talking to them directly?"
Adam shrugged unhappily. "I anger and confuse them, no matter what I do. It's time that they trust my judgment. How strong is the core coven?"
The priestess considered the question. "We have five who can control and direct their energy well, but as I said before, they're all accomplished at raising and channeling magic. They've never been tested under these circumstances, of course, but I think they'll do well." She hesitated. "I had a thought."
"Yes?"
Channa looked after the others. "We're twelve without Adrian. Thirteen would be better. I want someone to take her place to balance the coven."
"Correen."
Channa nodded. "If she's willing, I can organize the women to take her through initiation before the Renaissance ritual. While an initiation isn't strictly necessary, it will help align her energy with that of the others."
Alma rejoined them. "And doing so suggests hope, which is a powerful magic itself. Unlike the Brigade, they will know what they may be facing. The ritual will strengthen the bonds between them and they will be that much stronger for what will come."
Adam nodded. "I'll ask her. Where is she?"
"She is settling the others," the old woman said. "It seemed wiser than letting her watch you two. She was thinking too much."
Adam dropped his hand from where it rested naturally on one of Channa's arms. "I hadn't thought."
Alma shrugged. "She's insecure in what she feels for you." She glanced at Channa. "This is known to you?"
Channa looked up at Adam and nodded. "For some time," she murmured. "It was in your eyes the first time I saw you again."
Alma took the teacups to the kitchen. Adam studied the proud, stunning features, the intelligent eyes and the wraith of humor lingering about Channa's lips. "I am sorry," he said, sincerely.
Sadness filled her eyes and she moved into his arms, hugging him, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. "We tried. And the trying was a very pleasant thing."
He smiled against her hair, held her more tightly to him. "You are a true friend," Adam said, feeling it more at this moment than he ever had before, and suddenly deeply gratified for it.
Channa leaned back. "It's you who have become a good friend. And it's the right choice." A shadow crossed her gaze. "After seeing Corbet, strange as it sounds, I think that kind of love is something worth waiting for, something more important than almost anything else. Neither of us should settle for less."
Adam looked hard into her green eyes, asking without words, speaking without words. Channa nodded, pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, then turned and walked away. Their hands remained clasped until they could hold onto each other no longer. Adam caressed her fingertips as her hand slipped from his palm. Channa left the room without looking back, the set of her shoulders saying much.
It is not good that prevails. It is the human spirit prevailing despite the failure of good.
-Channahon Ellyn, Personal Notes
"Here," Alma pushed a worn afghan into Adam's arms. "Go rest."
"I should-"
"Sleep," she commanded. A frown crossed her face. "I have a feeling that we won't find easy rest for some time after the full moon's work is done. I'll wake you if Niko comes early."
Her uneasiness matched his own. Adam laid the afghan aside and took both her hands in his. They felt brittle, old, and terribly fragile. "Alma, I must ask something of you. I wish I didn't have to, but I need to know if you think you can do it."
She tightened her fingers on his. "I am yours to command, my prince."
"I would not presume to command wisdom so much greater than my own," he demurred, "but I want you in the grove during the Renaissance ritual. If something goes wrong with Channa or me, someone will need to Seal the gateway manually." Her dark eyes stilled and they locked gazes, both far too aware of the cost of a manual Sealing. "Part of the message Niko takes to the Lords," Adam continued quietly, "is that they should prepare themselves to lend you their strength should you have need of it."
"I pray to All that I know that it will not come to that," she said, after a long silence. Her fingers tightened on his. "But you will have everything Those Who Are Not Seen grant me. I have spent enough time baking cookies for hungry students. I am beginning to feel like a pottering old grandmother."
"You are a pottering old grandmother." His hand cradled the fragile bones and he wished suddenly that he had spent more time with this woman, so much more time.
"I have walked with those who have left this life and I do not fear joining them," Alma said, freeing her hands and touching his cheek. "Those Who Are Not Seen do not make choices for us. You cannot, either. Be at peace, my lord."
Adam hesitated, nodded. "Then I should sleep. Which bedroom?"
"I will put you in my weaving room, with Correen."
Adam stopped short, raising a brow. "Alma, we don't ... I haven't..." He felt foolish when a flush rose in his cheeks before her knowing glance, the hint of a smile in her wise eyes. He cleared his throat. "I'll sleep here."
"Do you love her?"
"Yes." He dropped onto the couch and swiped a frustrated hand over his face. "Alma, what would you have me do? I want nothing more than to hold her, but she's like an infant tarak. They die if so much as a human fingertip touches them before they reach maturity."
"I think you'll find Correen a little more resilient than that," Alma said dryly.
Adam spread his hands out in a helpless gesture, shaking his head.
"I want to give her everything I am. I want to cherish her and protect her as a man who loves her should, but nothing is certain right now. I will not, can not do anything to harm her."
Alma looked at the couch. "Is it so easy to stay away from her?"
"No, it is not easy," Adam retorted. "When she's near me, her smell drives me to distraction. When she's not near me, her face stays in my head, no matter what I'm thinking about, and I can put my hand on my arm where she last touched me and still feel the pressure of her fingertips. Gods!" he stood and paced away from her.
"What does she smell like?"
"What?" he snapped. He glanced back at Alma, contrite.
"What does she smell like?"
"Some type of lavender mixed with rose," he snarled at his reflection in the window. "She has a mole behind her right ear. She twitches the smallest finger of her left hand when she reads. She likes bread smeared with peanut butter and raisins for breakfast." He glared at her, and Alma burst out laughing.
"What an awful combination."
"Truly." Adam came back to the couch and ran a hand over his neck, kneading the knot he found there. "Alma, the Lords have doubted me since the moment Those Who Are Not Seen chose me. Even with Their Voices in my heart and head, I have had to fight to believe in myself. What if a moment of doubt makes me hesitate and lives are lost? The fate of this world rests in my hands, in our hands, but I found time to stop on your garden path and pick her a flower." He retrieved it from his jeans pocket where he had stuffed it, disgusted with his lack of focus, and it lay in his palm, a bruised wildflower, the leaves wilted against its stem. Alma's eyes softened with pity, and she covered the hand with her own.
"My lord, it is precisely because things are so uncertain now that you should not hold your feelings back from her. Take it from one who has lived long enough to know," a smile touched her eyes that was not quite a smile, "the world never stops being uncertain. Love is the anchor in the storms, and it is your sail during fair seas. It is what keeps you from going mad in the face of all that uncertainty."
"I keep having this thought," he brooded, staring at the flower, "that what I feel for her is something more important than everything else. And that makes no sense. No," he shook his head, "that's not it. It's more..."
"It's your intuition, telling you that love is the gift from Those Who Are Not Seen that gives meaning to everything else."
Alma tightened her fingers over his and power flared between their palms, warm and humid, like a tropical rainforest, bursting with life. He lifted his hand and the revived flower stretched out its petals, a drop of dew sliding onto his palm.
"I don't know," he said at last, heavily. "There is so much I know, Alma, but about this, I know nothing, and it makes me feel like a complete fool."
Alma chuckled. "My lord, that is the one thing you need not worry about. Everyone feels that way when they fall in love."
He shot her a disparaging look. "You and Mataya always have something wise to say about everything, but none of it is as easy as it sounds, is it?"
"You see? You're wiser than you know." Alma ruffled his hair and took up her staff. "I think you need to meet another of my guests before you turn in."
"How many rooms does this house have?"
Alma locked fingers like talons around his arm and tugged, none too gently. Adam grinned.
He followed her through the kitchen and she surprised him by leading him out the back door and into the cool air of her backyard. A rough stone path wound its way among a clutter of bushes, budding saplings, mosses and leafy evergreens. The birds chirped in the trees over his head, like noisy apartment dwellers on a busy city street at twilight. Adam stayed close to Alma's elbow on the uneven path, but she picked along like a mountain goat. At the end of the yard was a tool shed of weather beaten gray wood. Alma stopped outside its cracked door.
"You must be quiet."
Adam nodded. His curious eyes probed the sliver of darkness that led within.
"Hello, noble one," Alma crooned. "We are coming to see you. Do not worry. My friend is a prince, like you, so you will like one another, I am sure. Do not fear for your lady-he worries about an old woman walking down a path she has traveled many times; he will surely revere your precious one."
Alma pulled the door wider and Adam slipped in behind her. The inside of the shed smelled like earth and animals. When she reached around him and pulled the door back to a crack, her walking stick fell out of the crook of her arm. Adam dipped to catch it. He found himself looking at a graceful snow-white head and polished black bill. A warning hiss came from it and the head rose slowly over his, a white serpent preparing to strike.
"Stay still." Alma's bony claw on his shoulder kept him on one knee. Adam suppressed the instinct to draw back as a pair of mighty wings stretched out before him, nearly six feet from tip to tip and poised to bludgeon. The lordly one trumpeted a challenge and cocked his head. Adam remained motionless in his position of harmless obeisance and the swan slowly refolded his wings, his bright eyes never leaving the prince. Finally, he shifted his weight; one, two, one, two, turned, and strutted to the back of the shed with a dignified waggle of tail feathers.
Alma's breath touched Adam's ear. "You should stay on your knees, my lord. I think he will be more comfortable having you below his height."
"Typical royalty," he whispered. His eyes, unaffected by the dim light, rested in awe on the two trumpeter swans.
The male stood, still watchful and preening, next to a nest of shredded cardboard, cotton, cloth and a variety of other natural fibers. His Lady rested upon it.
Her gleaming feathers lay perfectly molded against her soft, sleek body. Her long, graceful neck crested over her delicate head resting on her breast. At his regard, the head lifted and turned. Adam bit back a murmur of dismay. Her right eye was gone, and part of her cheek as well, replaced by mottled gray skin. She shifted and the graceful head bobbled forward grotesquely. With a clumsy lunge, she came to her feet-foot. The other one was a stump half as long. She stretched out one wing and leaned into it, balancing herself as she turned. Her mate pressed his body to hers as she staggered. Adam saw a mass of gray scar tissue where the other wing should have been. She settled again, leaning against her lord as he bugled at her in soft adoration.
"What-" Adam turned anguished eyes to Alma.
"Come," she motioned to the door. "Good-bye, noble lord, lady. My friend has enjoyed meeting you." She slipped out of the shed and Adam followed, replacing the door as it was before. Alma motioned him to a wooden bench dusted with dry leaves. She sat down on its edge, bracing the walking stick between her knees.
"A friend of mine invited me to Cape Hatteras some time ago for Winter Solstice. Beautiful, wild place." The old woman paused and Adam felt the emanation of the memory touch him with the roar of waves and the smell of the sea.
"At the first light of dawn, we heard shots. Then we heard him. Two ladies, old as the Crone, and we ran like maidens toward that cry." Alma's eyes met his. "It was the blood-sport time, and someone had shot her when she took flight from the water. My noble lord had gone quite mad. The hunter's dog was trying to retrieve her. His lordship was fighting off the dog and trying to keep her from sinking below the water. He'd streak over the water to beat the dog about the head, then a wall of water would rise about him as he'd spin back and catch her up with his neck. The hunter was drawing a bead on him when I splashed into the marsh." Alma's hand clutched her staff a little tighter. "My friend stood before the hunter, daring him to shoot again.
"I shouted at the dog and drove him back to the shore. His lordship forgot the dog immediately, forgot everything but trying to keep her afloat. When I looked into his eyes, I knew that we would lose both of them if we lost her. I got my arm around her, and he struck at me."
She raised the sleeve of her sweater and Adam traced the deep pockmark with gentle fingers. "Had I not been so intent, I fear I would have let her go. I headed to shore. I was on one side of her; he was on the other. Both of us were holding her up, even as he tried to attack me and I tried to protect myself. The hunter had used grapeshot, so instead of one hole from a bullet, there were numerous wounds. We had to remove her leg, her wing, and her eye, as you saw."
Alma rested her chin on her hands on the staff like a young girl, looking toward the shed. "He never left her, all during her recovery. I watched him learn how to help her to her feet, or foot, as it was. When we brought them food, he would take it from the ground and feed it to her. I think he would have foraged for her, to prove he could take care of her, but whenever he left her sight, she'd make a cry too sad for him to bear. At night I would sit in a rocker on the porch where he kept guard over her. One night, when her pain had been bad and she finally settled into sleep, he laid his head along my arm."
A tear rolled down the withered cheek. Adam reached out a hand and she gripped it.
"My friend had no permanent place for them. I decided to bring them back here. In arranging for their transportation, I made a terrible mistake. I knew the trailer we rented would be difficult for him, so I decided to give them both an herbal sleeping potion. He ate his first. When his lady saw him topple over, her head stretched to the stars and she screamed in a voice of anguish the like I've never heard. She thought he was dead. By the Womb, my prince, she started to die right there before our eyes. The potion was supposed to last for ten hours and, the Light forgive me, I would have used the Dark Ways to revive him if I had to. When I woke him, her breathing was shallow and she was almost gone. She felt him near, calling to her, and she gave her heart back to her body."
Alma unfolded her shaking hands. "Since the day I met Correen Seabra, I have seen the spirit of that swan spreading her wings behind her eyes."
Adam glanced up, startled.
"She has survived something that most of us could not," Alma continued. "She has never spoken of it to me, but it is there. She is carrying a Pandora's box in her heart. If you open it, you will be her gateway to life or death. But I think you may be the only one who can open that box and help her heal. Only you and Correen know for certain."
Adam shook his head, looked toward the shed. "I don't know..."
"You have wondered why you cannot sense her abilities the way you can with others. Perhaps it has nothing to do with this world. Perhaps Those Who Are Not Seen do not give those meant to be lovers unfair advantages over one another. And I do believe you are meant to be with one another."
Adam looked to the ground, but her hand caught his chin. He raised his eyes to her face, surprised by the intensity he saw there.
"Alma," he took a deep breath and let some of the tension her words were causing escape. "Why is this so important to you? Why now? I understand you want me to be at peace, and for Correen to be happy, but this doesn't seem like the time to make a hasty decision."
"It's not hasty, my lord," she said sharply, and her bird eyes hardened like a hawk's, able to see the movement of a mouse on a forest floor hundreds of yards below her flight. "Will you sit there and tell me you think what Correen and you feel for one another is a case of puppy love that started a week ago?"
The image flashed through Adam's head again, a young girl with Correen's mouth and gray eyes sitting naked in a field of purple wildflowers, stretching out her hand to him. The Memory had come upon him as an impression the night he asked Correen if they had met before, but now its image came sharp and clear in his mind, and its truth reflected in his face.
"No," he said quietly. "But Alma..." He hesitated, struggling to find words for feelings that not only were new to him, but were also much larger than words could shape. "I didn't realize I was lonely until I met her," he admitted. "Those Who Are Not Seen have always been with me, since my Trial. They understand everything about who I am, and though I don't always understand Them, I feel Their love for me. I didn't know this emptiness inside me is something to be filled." He looked away from the understanding in her eyes. "I just thought it was part of who I am, but I don't think I've thought about who I am, to myself, for a long time. No one has ever looked at me the way she looks at me. In her eyes, in her touch, I am Adam, who happens to be prince of Aegis, and Guardian of the Continuum, but who is also a man that loves her. Perhaps first and foremost I'm the man that loves her, and that makes being the other things a tribute to that love, as if everything is for her, and includes her."
Adam stopped, hearing his own words, and Alma tapped her staff on the ground between them. "There you have it, milord," she nodded. "You understand what I was trying to say, but more importantly, you now see why it is so important to me that you give your hearts freely to one another."
Her composure slipped and Adam was startled to see fear in eyes where he had never seen it before. He saw her true age in the deep grooves around her mouth. "The cost of this battle will be dear," she said. "Many of us will lose more than we gain. You will need every source of energy and strength you have to defeat this enemy, and I know of no greater or stronger magic than love." She looked toward the shed. "With love, you can survive the unthinkable, and still turn it into a life worth living. Without it, you might survive, but that's just breathing, and life is so much more than that."
Adam followed her gaze and her line of thought, and nodded. He rose, but she caught his hand, drawing his attention back to her intent face.
"I have stood where you are," Alma said. "And I have watched you grow into your role as Guardian." She tightened her fingers so hard her nails pressed into his flesh. "You won't fail as Guardian if you accept your love for Correen. You will honor it, because your love for her was the choice of Those Who Are Not Seen, just as you were their choice for Guardian."
The most memorable moments of love are the hard ones. Happy times run together like a river, but the rocks and rapids you survive together are the landmarks that you remember.
-Correen Seabra, Personal Survival Diary
Adam shifted the blankets in his arms and opened the door to the second bedroom. Alma's wooden loom stood in the corner, threaded with an unfinished tapestry. Cones of hand-spun yarn stacked in the corner filled the room with the aroma of the fruit dyes. The bed was a heavy mattress on a wooden frame, close to the ground. Correen lay upon it, her face toward the wall.
She heard him close the door softly and move across the room. He laid his blanket over the line of her hip and shoulder, and his fingers touched the nape of her neck, sending a shiver up her spine when he pulled the blanket up. He slid to the floor, bracing his back against the bed, and propped his head on the mattress.
"Did you tell Channa that you love her, too?"
Her words came out raw and painful, and she winced at the sound of it. His body turned and his hand closed on her arm, tugging her over onto her back. His face was clearly outlined by the almost full moon that had found its way through the large oaks shading Alma's house and she lingered on the smile playing about his lips, the tender light in his golden eyes.
"Not in that way, no. Channa and I were betrothed as children, but we are no longer."
"Since when?"
"We agreed to end it tonight, but it really ended the moment I walked in the lobby and saw you."
Correen studied him, peering into his face to determine the truth. His gaze did not waver and he did not speak; as always, Adam gave her time to make her own decision.
"Who were the two-you mentioned that day?" She savored the handsome turn of his head, his puzzled look. She helped him out. "When we spoke of hemlock."
"Oh." Adam turned his body more toward her and leaned his dark head on the knuckles of his fist, his arm resting on the bed next to her. "Channa was the one I referred to as neither poison nor nectar. The other was a girl at my father's court, Camille."
She raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.
"I was young and," he grimaced, "ruled by my body. I thought she was the most beautiful girl at court, of course. I couldn't believe my good fortune when her friend told me she would dance with me, if I would ask. Unfortunately, I couldn't dance. Her friend guessed my dilemma and a few moments later Camille curtsied before me and asked if she might attend to my dance lessons."
Correen wondered if the moon moved behind a cloud, for a shadow darkened his expression.
"What happened?"
"She took me out into the gardens to give me the lesson and we ended up," he averted his gaze, enchanting her, "learning something else." Adam gave a hollow chuckle. "The next day, to the Royal Gardener's intense displeasure, I brought her flowers from the place where we had lain. I entered her solar before she knew I was there."
Correen watched his eyes replay the memory. "Adam?"
"She was capering about in an imitation of my dancing and collecting tribute from her friends. They had wagered that she would not be brave enough to lie with something like me. They made several crude jokes about how any children I conceived upon her would look."
"Oh, Adam." Correen brushed her knuckles against his cheek and he glanced back at her, chuckling self-consciously.
"It was a long time ago, and hardly significant enough to cause any sadness in your beautiful eyes."
"I would have killed her," she said fiercely.
He nodded absently, reached out and caught a lock of her hair. It was the shortened curl, the one Edward had cut. His pupils were round and dark, like the averted face of a full moon. Adam shifted, leaned forward, and pressed his lips to hers. A light kiss, just tasting her, a nibble at the amazing feast that lay between them, and it rippled through her body. When he leaned back, no more than a blink later, Correen's heart was racing as though he had taken her in a much more fervent embrace.
"You're wrong," she cleared her throat. "About things that happened a long time ago not mattering."
"How so?"
It struck Correen that every conversation they had was like this. She always found herself talking more than she ever talked to anyone, and he always listened to her with an attentiveness that made her feel as though there was nothing more important to him than hearing what she had to say. Of course, he was a spiritual leader, like a priest. He was trained to do it, she shouldn't see it as anything special on her behalf. But did he look at all his subjects like this, with an expression that possessed and caressed her all at once?
Correen rested her chin on her crossed forearms and took a moment to retrieve her train of thought. "Have you ever seen wooden nesting dolls?" He raised a quizzical brow and she explained. "Figures of wood, all exactly alike, except each one is smaller than the next. They go inside each other, so you open one after the other, always finding a smaller version of the same inside it, until you reach the smallest one, which is solid wood."
He tilted his head, nodded. "I've seen things like that before."
If they survived the next few days, he wouldn't stay, because he lived in a totally different world. He would find out that she wasn't all he thought she was. Then he'd turn back to Channa and it would destroy her. The familiar pain gripped her heart and Correen turned to its embrace. She needed to hold onto it, because it was her only protection, her only certainty.
"Correen?"
She jumped. His lips pulled up at the corners in a manner that set butterflies to flight in her stomach. "The dolls?"
"We're like those dolls," she whispered. "We have to make peace with what happened to us in the past to be happy."
The prince's eyes changed at her words, and what Correen saw there went straight to her heart. Adam shook his head, attempting another smile. "I think you give that boy's memories too much weight." He touched her cheek and turned away, resting his back against the bed again.
Correen studied his profile, watched him slide down, the broad shoulders shifting, so he could prop the back of his head on the mattress. Seeing his profile from the moonlight filtering through the window reminded her how he had stood, looking out the window of Alma's living room, describing what life must have been like for one with Edward's powers. Camille proved that life was lonely in any world where a boy's powers far exceeded what that world understood.
His wounds had not driven him into hibernation, though. Or had they? She had focused on the confusing way he made her feel, his determination to save their world, her respect for his immediate assumption of any risk required. Edward's face rose again in her mind and the realization lanced through Correen like a sharp sword.
The same objective drove all three of them. Adam tried to earn it by performing miracles, and took on responsibility for the entire world. She struggled to be a healer, even though she could not lower her guard enough to allow her own self to be healed. And Edward. He would kill, and kill, and kill some more, just to say, it doesn't matter that I don't have it, I don't want it anymore.
Three people molded by the same desire, deep in their hearts where no one ever stopped hearing the lonely cry of a child's most basic wish-love me for who I am.
Correen swung her legs around and slid down onto the floor next to Adam. She hesitated, then laid her head on his shoulder. His arm slipped around her, cradling her against him. It erased her thoughts and left her suspended in a moment of wonder. Comfort and touch given without hesitation or thought, for the small price of reaching out. It made her feel ... cherished.
Correen lifted her hand and slid her fingertips along the curve of his jaw. She resolved never to wear gloves again when she could touch him.
"When I put my hands on the tunnel wall," she said softly, "I felt you. I felt your energy ... your life wrapped around Edward's. It felt like being in the middle of a fierce storm. It was dangerous, but wild and beautiful, and it touched that place inside of me that wants to embrace a hurricane, become part of its strength, its unpredictability. Do you know that place?" Her eyes rose to his. "It's like the touch of ... God or Goddess, the touch of the Earth, of everything within us and around us that is divine, and noble, and savage-" She broke off. "Why are you looking at me that way?"
"Correen," he whispered. "You need to talk more often."
"Wha-"
His arms closed about her and brought her against his chest. His lips caught hold of her words, swallowed them whole. The hurricane was suddenly around them both, and within her.
Adam broke the kiss and framed her face in his hands. Correen heard his words, part request, part demand, spoken not from his mouth, but from his heart, singing to her through his eyes. Eyes that had gone to rich amber, kissed by the light of the moon coming through the window. He wanted her. He wanted to be inside her, to turn this fragile belonging between them into outright possession. She would have offered herself to him simply to take what she could of his flesh for her memories. She was a fool. He would give her all of himself only in exchange for the same.
Correen stood on the edge of a chasm. If she stepped off, she would have to believe he would be there to break her fall at the bottom. She would have to trust him, she who had never trusted anyone.
"Yes," she whispered.
Adam pressed his lips to her wrist, hard, then rose, lifting her in his arms with the easy strength that took her breath. He carried her to the window, and lowered her feet to the floor.
The moonlight tipped his hair in silver, and the fingertips of the oaks stroking the windowpane shadowed his intent face. As she watched, he drew his medallion from over his head and took her left hand gently in his right. Adam bound their hands together in the coils of chain, handling her injury carefully so that the cool medallion rested lightly between their palms.
He stood looking at her, searching her face for a long moment. His fingers twitched slightly on hers, and he swallowed twice. She had never seen him act nervous when it was just the two of them. His next words told her why he was nervous now.
"I pledge myself to you as handfast. I will protect and provide for you. If you are sick, I will nurse you and comfort you. If you are unhappy, I will devote myself to your happiness. I will bear you up as you bear our children, if Those Who Are Not Seen bless us with them. I will devote my life to you and protect you with my life. Through every trial or obstacle you must face, I pledge to be with you."
His eyes had become her universe, his voice everything she knew or understood. Correen clung to his hands, not even noticing the pain.
"If you will have me," he continued, "I will be yours in this life and all the others Those Who Are Not Seen grant us. I will love you forever, throughout each life, my heart bound to you only." He went to his knees before her, holding his hands to hers so the binding did not pull on her torn palm. "Will you take me?"
He was marrying her, their witnesses a silent stand of oaks and the presiding light of the Moon. Adam had no intention of leaving her behind. He meant to keep her in his life forever. In a world where pure, chivalrous love had become something wished for in books or sneered at as pretension, he had offered it to her as her right. He had given her everything about himself before asking for the same in return.
Her voice had no strength, a bare whisper in the folds of darkness around them. Correen wasn't sure if questions were part of the ceremony, but his heart was laid open to her and she had no fear of doing the wrong thing. "May my brother come with me to your world?"
"I take your family as my own," he said, without hesitation.
Their hands hung together in the air between them, bound by the most fragile of chains, a binding he had provided. Using the fingers of her free hand, Correen tugged off the pentagram he had discovered in the showers on his first day at Havenwood, a scarce handful of days before this incredible moment. She laid it on top of his medallion and wound the slender chain around their wrists. Then she rested her free hand on his shoulder, just level with her breast. She brought the gray silk of her dove colored eyes into the clasp of a lion's gaze.
"I will be your wife, your handfast," she said with quiet determination. Her voice quivered and it translated into a trembling throughout her whole body, overcome with the emotion of this moment. She could not think of anything from her heart as beautiful as his words, so she spoke her own version of the words of love handed down two thousand years, offered by another woman who had jumped from a similar chasm.
"Wherever you go, I will follow; wherever you lodge I will lodge; your people will be my people and your ... gods my gods. Where you die," her eyes grew fierce, "that is where, and when, I will die, and ... the Crone will reclaim our bodies, our souls never to part."
She could not promise him happiness. She was not certain if she was capable of that. Correen only knew, if he wanted her as much as she wanted him, she must give herself to this binding and let the rest be in the hands of Those in whom they both believed.
Adam rose to his feet and her eyes followed his face as it rose above her. He reached toward the window, where Alma had left a potted rose. A new bud was about to open and he paused a moment, looking at it. Correen knew the pause was to ask the plant's permission before he took the unopened flower. His long, elegant fingers removed it gently. He prodded the bud open and crumbled the newborn petals over their bound hands. "May Those Who Are Not Seen find favor in this marriage."
"Blessed Be," she whispered. His eyes darkened and he shifted his free hand to her shoulder, pulling her in toward him. Adam leaned down and his mouth took hers, and he kissed her as her husband. His arm slid off her shoulder, down her back, and he brought her fully into his embrace, so that she felt his strength and finally understood what melting in someone's arms meant.
Adam lifted his head, brushing his lips over her nose, and he put some space between them, unwinding the two chains from their wrists and fingers while she trembled under his touch. The golden eyes never left hers. He kissed her pentagram, then placed it over his head, dropping it beneath his shirt. She dipped her head and he threaded the medallion's chain over it. She felt the Guardian's insignia settle into place between her breasts, warm, heavy metal.
Adam backed her up two steps and lifted her under the arms, so she stood on the bed. The one effortless motion startled her again. His physical strength was subtle, disguised by his casual movements, his grace and courteous manner, but it overwhelmed her, making her feel protected and helpless at the same time.
His middle and index fingers caught the chain where it lay on her collarbone and slid down its length, until he reached the medallion itself, lying in folds of clothing and the curves of flesh. Adam slipped the first button of her cotton shirt through the eyelet, and paused. He pulled the fabric back and savored the inch or two of flesh with his eyes in a way that made heat ripple over her newly exposed skin. His fingers dipped into the opening, setting off a shiver of sensation when his knuckles brushed her skin. He found the front clasp of her bra and released it.
He had hardly touched her and yet Correen shook so badly she found she had to tighten her grip on his shoulders to keep her balance. She winced. She had forgotten her hands.
Adam had not. He loosened her fingers so her palms barely rested on his broad shoulders. "I will not let you fall," he promised, his words resonating through the darkness of the room, filling her senses. Correen nodded. He looked up into her face, then pushed his hands into her hair roughly, bringing her lips down to his for a kiss. She swayed, and one of his arms curved around her backside, holding her against him. Her woman's center pressed against the hard muscles of his stomach, bringing an inarticulate, passionate noise from her against his lips.
It was too much to bear, this feeling of pressure rising between them. Correen suddenly wished he would push her back onto the bed and take her, sheathe himself in one single thrust that would join them forever, make it permanent so she would not doubt, or have to face the wildness that was growing in her. She wanted to turn her kiss into a ravaging of his lips and neck with her teeth. It was as if he had unlocked a dark beast inside her and invited it to come forth, reaching a vulnerable hand toward its slavering jaws. Her mouth stretched with fangs, her hands became talons. A sensuous writhing passed through her body, and she rubbed against him. She was not this person. Correen broke away, fell back toward the wall. Adam caught her wrists, but she shook her head and tried to push away.
"Correen," he held her wrists rigid, keeping her from pushing her raw palms against him. "Correen, listen to me. No, listen. Correen."
She stopped, caught by the edge of command he interjected into his tone. Adam's eyes held her still as he slid his hands up her arms, up the nape of her neck and over her shoulders. His hands descended, molded her breasts and slipped inside the shirt, encircling her back again. And again. Calming her. Correen felt the heat and power in his palms, matching the fire racing through her blood.
"You are going to be fine," he said softly. "I am not going to let it take you. You understand?" His golden eyes burned in the darkness.
She didn't know how he knew. Correen hadn't known herself what she feared until he gave voice to it. Perhaps that was the secret to what had drawn them together from the first. The half that was missing, the half that had the answers to the questions that plagued the other. The half that had the strengths the other did not. Together, they became a whole person, capable of facing the world, free at last to see the beauty of a sunrise without being overwhelmed by the tearing agony of seeing its dark side.
Her shoulders relaxed and she attempted a smile. He saw it, and his eyes grew soft with love for her. Correen put a hesitant finger on the button of his shirt. He smiled then, and in deference to the state of her hands, he unbuttoned the garment, pulling out of it with a graceful shrugging of shoulder muscles. Her eyes followed the line of his collarbone, down the broad expanse of his chest covered by a curling mat of black hair. Correen reached out and ran her fingertips from the point of his shoulder, over the vein that arched over the biceps muscle, down the crevice of the elbow, bypassing the woven hair on the forearm for the water-soft skin beneath. She made the jump over to the abdomen, and the stomach muscles contracted. He was ticklish. Her fingers lingered over each sectioned muscle, until he caught her wrists, eyes glinting with humor and reproof, and laid her hands back on his shoulders.
Adam tugged her shirt from her shoulders and pushed away the brassiere so her breasts felt the touch of cool air and his hot gaze. The nipples tightened in reaction to both. His arm curved around her again and his fingers splayed and pressed against the left cheek of her backside. He brought her closer. His nose caressed the tip of her breast, nuzzling at her. He moved a whiskered cheek against skin so delicate it blushed in immediate response. His lashes fanned his cheekbones as he took the nipple in his mouth and suckled on it like a newborn.
Correen's hands clutched in his thick mane. The pain anchored her in a roaring wave of moist heat his mouth seared throughout her body. She gazed down at him, and felt a curious mixture of lust and love. It suddenly made sense to her how the Goddess suckled the son in the winter and took him as her Lord in the spring. Adam was suddenly all things to her, defined and limited by nothing in the storm of emotions sweeping through her. If she could count on more than this one night, she would beg each morning to begin with this ritual, to feel the exquisite bliss of being both nurturer and nurtured.
Correen murmured his name hoarsely and his head lifted to meet her lips with his own. His hand came up and held the back of her head to deepen the kiss. She learned every contour and texture inside his mouth before he drew back, his broad chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Adam put her hand on his shoulder and bent to remove her pants and the undergarments beneath. It bared her completely to him, and a nervous apprehension trickled through her when he stepped back to look.
Adam's amber eyes passed down the column of her throat, caressed the skin over her aroused breasts with scorching heat, drifted over her flat stomach, her too prominent rib cage, the slightly rounded hips, the soft, curling moss over her womb. He raised his gaze back to her eyes, and her fears receded again. She was beautiful to him. She could see it.
Correen lifted an arm, leaving her other wrist in his grasp for balance. She drew off the band tying her braid and then, trusting to gravity, she pulled away from him and began to unravel it. She pulled apart the strands and shook it out, at last facing him from beneath a glorious waterfall of rich black hair that fell just above her hips. She straightened her head and shoulders, rested her arms at her sides, closing nothing from him.
"For you only, my lord."
The words set off a rainbow of sparks in his eyes. Adam closed the distance between them before the universe could blink. He lifted her even as he kissed her, laying her on her back on the bed's soft quilt. He left her for just a moment to turn and pull off his jeans. Correen reached out a hand and trailed her fingers over his hip, sliding down the curve of one muscular buttock. When he faced her again, she found what he revealed to be as beautiful to her as the rest of him. He put his knee on the bed beside her, and she stopped him a moment, looking up at him from her back.
She lowered her gaze and reached out. He closed his eyes. Correen jumped as the organ moved violently in reaction, and her gaze shot up to his to apologize for hurting him. He smiled, igniting the light of love and discovery between them, shook his head. Adam took her hand, guided it to him, and held still as her fingers closed over the shaft, and rubbed the broad tip. A tremor went through him, giving her a sense of her own power over him. She released him and went lower, cupping the amazingly egg-like sacs. Correen leaned forward and touched her lips to him, a silent and grateful homage to his maleness, then laid back on the bed, open to him in any way he wished to have her.
They had ceased to have any names-in this room, they were children of darkness and sensation, atoms of the divine whirlwind of light that was life. She was ready to be swept up in it, as long as the dance was made with him locked within her. Thank you for this moment. Anything I've endured has been worth it...
Adam stretched out over her, slowly lowering his weight on her. They savored the first time their bodies had experienced such bare closeness. Correen closed her eyes with the wonder of it, and her thighs naturally opened to cradle his hips between them. Her fingers moved over the curves and valleys of shoulder and lower back and came to rest on his buttocks. Her nails scraped the light covering of dark hair there and he surged forward, the tip of him touching her. Her hips raised in immediate answer and invitation, her lips opening to swallow air that had become too scarce.
For the first time, he hesitated. Adam cradled her face in his hands, his golden eyes roving over her every feature. "I would rather die than hurt you," he whispered.
Correen curled her arms around his shoulders. "I would rather die than have you stop." She closed her eyes, pressing her face against his neck, smelling his maleness, his sweat, his home, and everything about who he was. "Come into me," she said. "Please."
His fingers curled into her hair and he brought her head back for a kiss at the same moment he slid with restrained but unwavering power into her. The thin web of her virginity broke, bringing a moment of pain that was overwhelmed by the rest of her body's welcome. She had no fear of this, so the pain had no power over the moment and all it meant. Adam's eyes darkened, so rich in color they vibrated with light, and he brought his mouth down onto hers again. He softened his possession of it, his tongue outlining her teeth, tracing her lips, nibbling. He withdrew and slowly surged back in, his arms trembling with the effort of restraint.
It was a gentle dance, and she learned the way of it as he led. Correen's body began to move with his, her hips surging up like a cresting wave to meet each thrust of his, but when her body urged a faster pace, his weight and control kept their movements slow. A sensation spread from their point of joining into her stomach and coiled tightly there, bringing a return of the strange, wild feeling.
Darkness began to cloud the edges of her vision, isolating his face, making it her only anchor point. Her legs and arms locked onto him with the destructive strength of a drowning swimmer. Correen could not stop her hips from moving, and now he did increase the pace, just enough to make her arch her throat and groan with the guttural noise of an animal. Adam's arm curled around her back, bringing her breast to his lips, and she cried out.
"Hold on," he murmured against her, his breath hot and moist against her nipple. "I won't let go, Correen. I swear."
It echoed in her head. He filled her and scorched her, again and again, branding her with his love over and over until the fire burst into flame. A pure wave of frenzied pleasure erupted from her womb and consumed her. Correen's eyes widened and a long, low moan ripped from her. Her back bowed, raising her body up harder against him, and her muscles clenched around him. Adam cried out softly against her skin and the life of his loins seared a pathway to hers, intensifying the climax between them.
He turned his head and swallowed their cries in a deep, shuddering kiss. Correen never wanted any of it to stop, it was too much, she never wanted to feel it again. She wanted to die. She wanted to live as she never had before. She bit his lips, tasted his blood, and cried out his name, the hard, now uncontrolled movement of his passion-gripped body shoving her over a final pinnacle. Darkness turned to light, and cut free, she rolled through clouds, tiny aftershocks rippling through her body like flashes of heat lightning.
When the world finally stopped spiraling, Correen became aware of the rough texture of his chest hair pressed against her smooth skin; of his breath warming her ear and caressing her neck; of the sweat of his back, clenched beneath her fingers. Her whole being lay open to him, spread out and exposed, vulnerable. Her shields were gone, and the direction of the wind changed.
It whistled through the mausoleum of her heart, bringing warmth, thawing the emotions she had frozen there. Correen's trembling tensed into convulsive jerks. She touched his neck, slid her hand down the curve from his throat to the shoulder, pressing on the bone there, hard. "So precious," she whispered. Adam raised his head to look at her. His weight on her chest pressed her down, trapped her. Correen gasped for air and pushed at him, pain slicing into her hands. Adam immediately shifted off her, though his grip remained at her waist. "Correen-"
His words faded as darkness returned. The wildness had been released, the Pandora's box shattered beyond repair. The demons of the past had been freed. An ache grew in the pit of Correen's stomach and spread through her body like blood seeping from the wound stabbed into the dam of her defenses. "Nooo..." she moaned.
Correen curled into a ball around Adam's hand, sliding her body under the shelter of his like a wounded animal, even as she recoiled at his touch. "I can't bear it," she whimpered. "Please, noooo..." The chasm yawned before her.
Adam scooped her into his arms along with the blanket and cradled her in his lap. Correen cringed away from him but he banded her to him with unshakable strength. He pressed his temple to her thrashing forehead.
"Let it go, my love," he said. "I am here. I AM HERE. I AM HERE."
Deep in the part of her mind that could still think, she remembered she had to trust him. Correen relied on the courage she didn't believe she possessed and dropped the mental fists of her defense.
The pain swooped down on her, crashing against her senses with the punishing weight of a living grave. She went down, down, Persephone forced to the gates of Hell. A horrible keening screeched out of the waves of blood and tears, a terrifying siren's call. Survival instinct took over and she forgot Adam, forgot everything but the need to survive the unsurvivable agony of ten years of suppressed emotions.
Channa and Alicia burst into the bedroom, Alma on their heels. Adam barely spared them a glance as he fought Correen's clawed hands away from her face and locked them back over his own arms. "Help her!" he pleaded over her unearthly shrieks.
"Help me! Help me!" Correen screamed, her nails ripping ribbons of flesh from his arms, tearing the fragile skin of her hands anew. "Why won't someone help me? ... Oh, God ... Ricardo-run, run, RUN!!! Stop, please, oh please God, stop hurting me, stop hurting me!!"
Alma and Alicia surrounded her, holding onto as much of her as they could reach. They whispered their love and nearness into her unhearing ears, while Adam fought rage and anguish. Who had done this to her? Why couldn't he have seen it, known about it, to protect her? Her body convulsed with a pain that seemed strong enough to rip her to pieces, and it was as if his heart were being torn. Nothing that had ever happened in his life was as unbearable as seeing her pain.
Channa put her knee on the bed and wrapped her arms around his wide chest from behind, giving him her own strength to support Correen. The four of them surrounded her, held her soul above the flood of horror that crashed all the barriers a child had erected and tried to drown the woman she had become. Her tortured keening shattered into great, choking sobs. Blood from her soaked hands marked them all as she clutched their skin. Tears poured out of tightly shut eyes, which held in her darkness.
"I wanted to play the piano!" Correen wailed. "I wanted his love ... Oh Ricardo, why did you run? You ran too far and I'll never get you back! Oh God-I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, YOU BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU FOR TAKING HIM AWAY FROM ME!"
She choked on her saliva, sputtered and coughed. Adam caught her face, called her name, shouted it. Alicia rubbed her back, trying to calm her down, her face a mask of her friend's anguish.
"I'm here," Adam said, over and over and over, until at last he thought she saw him. A moment later he knew for sure. Correen collapsed against him, fighting no more, new tears washing from her eyes, this time cleaning the tears of pain and rage away.
She cried. And kept crying, as Adam held her, rocked her, murmured to her. She clung to his voice, to his presence, to the heart he had given her, the heart that henceforth would be the heart she relied on to exist.
As she quieted, Adam shifted his grip and Channa slipped off the bed, stepping back respectfully. He rubbed Correen's shoulders, pressing his cheek on top of her dark head. Adam closed his eyes tightly and his tears baptized her, granting her a new life under his protection and love.
"I love you, Correen," he whispered, no longer aware of the others. "You made it. I'll be here every time it comes for you, until it tires of tormenting you and fades away. I love you. I love you."
The women withdrew soundlessly, each bestowing a comforting touch or press of lips on each of them. Correen still cried, but it was a soft, mewling lullaby, syncopated with the beat of his heart against her cheek. Adam held her, rocked her, spoke softly to her, until her breathing evened out and she fell asleep, her hands still clutched on his arm.
Adam turned her like a bird on a perch, and spooned around her. The arm she clutched wrapped around her waist, and he tangled his other hand in her hair. He stayed awake a while longer, wanting to be sure she slept peacefully, but exhaustion claimed him, and they soon found peace in dreamlessness together.
No matter how long you spend with someone, no matter how many of their habits and moods you can predict, basing love on familiarity would be a fragile comfort, tested each time change rips us open. Love has to be beyond familiarity. It has to rest on trust, and faith that the love is meant to be. I think true love may be impossible.
-Correen Seabra, Personal Survival Diary
Correen floated, turning over and over on a soft wave of air that bore her toward consciousness. Her eyelids came open with effort, red and gummy from crying. It was that, as much as the whisper of the quilts against her naked body, which brought back what had happened a few hours before. Her hands were wrapped in clean white bandages, no traces of blood on the blankets on which they lay. Alma had cozened her in her slumber.
Adam sat on a chair by the window, his feet propped on the sill, his body bathed by moonlight. His arms were crossed against his bare chest as he stared at the view. She remembered his chest hair against her cheek, a soft field of down. Regret and loss stabbed at her. How could someone as beautiful and strong as this man not be repelled by her weakness and her pain? Correen could see in his eyes he understood where she had been-he had been there, too, during his life. He had survived and risen above it, intact and whole. She walked the cliff's edge of sanity every day.
Correen sat up and he turned his head, his gold eyes like a touch of sun to her shivering heart.
"Good morning," he said, his face spreading the sensation with a smile.
"It's dark."
"It's three o'clock in the morning." He rose and Rob's jeans rode low on his lean hips. Her eyes slid from their slow, cat-like movement to the smooth ripples that played under the skin and fur of his chest. He stopped before her and she lifted her gaze to his face.
Correen cleared her throat, hoarse from more than crying. "You should really think about doing some shopping."
The prince's aristocratic brow arched, then his gaze left her pale, soft face with its tight, apprehensive lips to the delicate line of her collarbone and the slope of breasts hidden by quilts. Her dark hair fell around her like ebony strands of silk.
Adam found himself without voice. It was not just her beauty-it was her. Everything about her drew him in a way impossible to explain to himself. The miracle was that she responded to him in the same way, when she was not clouding her mind with fears, like now.
He caught her by her wrists and tugged her to her knees, so he could draw her body up to his. The blanket fell away and her breasts moved against his flesh, renewing memories of their lovemaking. Adam bent his head and tasted her mouth. His hands caressed her shoulder blades, the small of her back, and held her hips against him. Correen's arms twined around his neck and he groaned as her embrace bound her more tightly to him. He put his hands on either side of her face and pulled away to look into her eyes, the troubled gray of storm clouds. "I love you," he whispered harshly.
A soft cry escaped her as she caught him to her anew. Adam smiled against her hair. "You worry too much," he murmured. The image of tentacles taunted his mind, reminding him of his own fears. He plunged his hands into her hair, gripping it hard to feel the sensation of his fingers. He expected her to protest his rough treatment, but instead she pulled him closer and ran her hands down the planes of his back, her questing fingers shyly caressing him under the loose waistband of the jeans. Desire stabbed him from her simple touch and Adam knew he wanted her again, now.
The enraged cry of a trumpeter swan thundered through the room, followed by an angry screech. Adam froze at the noise and let out an oath, bolting for the door. Correen went after him, throwing on a robe Alma had left hanging on the prong of the loom.
They rushed up the hall to the kitchen as doors opened on the corridor. Lanny and Alicia appeared in different states of dishabille, shouting questions. Correen waved her hands, reflecting the same confusion, and scampered after Adam, skidding into his back as he came to an abrupt halt in the doorway to the kitchen.
"Calm down, you ill-mannered lizard," Alma commanded in a piercing tone. She danced before the majestic swan, blocking his attempts to launch a strike as she brandished a broom toward the air. "Don't fuss at me. You know better than to materialize so close to his lordship's shed. You're lucky he chased you in here, else no one would have been around to protect you, now would they?"
Flying above Alma's head-Correen blinked twice to be certain she was seeing what she was seeing-was a gold and green dragon, small as a cat, but complete with scales, smoking nostrils and a long tail, which he snapped like a whip over Alma's shoulder. The sinuous tail wreaked havoc with her gray bun and the tiny bits of flame he shot over her head sparked in the snarled strands. The swan's snowy neck straightened to its six foot height and the princely bird hissed like a venomous cobra.
"Niko!" Adam bellowed. The dragon spun in the air, then shot toward him. The swan came roaring after Niko, giant wings flapping with the power to knock a man senseless. Alma moved, but the butcher-block table piled with herbs slowed her. Correen put herself between Adam and the enraged bird and flung her arms around his serpentine neck. Adam lunged after her, but checked himself as he saw the bird do the same. The powerful wing strokes pulled back to balance rather than to bludgeon. The feathers whispered against her hair, tangling in it, creating a poetry-inspiring tapestry of white and black.
"No, gentle one," Correen crooned. "All is well. No one has hurt your lady. He means her no harm. No one will hurt her."
The bird settled down, eyeing the dragon narrowly. Niko coiled on Adam's shoulder, spitting defiance like a sullen badger. Adam thumped his head with a cautioning finger, and he subsided with an ill look.
His lordship made a soft cry, cocked his head, and stepped back out of Correen's embrace. He arched his neck to examine them all, then his head bobbed forward and he snatched a long strand of Correen's hair. He threw Niko a baleful look and marched from the kitchen, his prize and rebuke wafting from his beak like a black pennant.
Alicia blew out a breath and shot Alma a look. "I guess dragons and giant swans fighting in the kitchen are typical in your world."
Alma chuckled. "Metamorphosing dragons are as plentiful around the castle as monkeys at Indian ruins."
"Well, someone has to live at the castle," Adam snorted.
Alma smiled. "His Majesty, Adam's father, is somewhat partial to a cottage in the gardens," she explained to the others. "He leaves the castle for guests, and dragons."
Correen approached the dragon, barely hearing her. Niko regarded her with bright, probing eyes. She reached out a hand, gasping when he lowered his head so she could touch his scales. "You're real," she breathed.
Adam had come from a world where kings lived in castles, even though they might prefer cottages, and dragons were plentiful. Fairy tales had sustained Correen through some of the worst moments of her life, and those tales had not been tales at all. Correen closed her eyes, feeling the tiny scales layered like jewels on Niko's neck. When she opened her eyes, the gleam of their purple-green-gold color glistened off tears. "You're real," she whispered again.
Niko emitted a curious, gentle growl. Adam gripped her shoulder, uncertain of her mood. "My brother, Lord Trelbyn," he said quietly, "has sent us the message that Those Who Are Not Seen will guide my steps as well as theirs and Their Will shall prevail."
"No offense to your Lords," Alicia said, sliding into a chair at the kitchen table and knuckling her eyes, "but something along the lines of 'we'll send the cavalry' would have been more apropos, to my way of thinking."
"It is somewhat cryptic of Lord Trelbyn," Alma agreed.
"How did he tell you that?" Lanny asked. She laid her fingers on the dragon's left flank. Niko purred at the attention, shifting to let her scratch beneath the scales.
Adam gave the dragon a disgusted look. "We communicate ... telepathically, I guess you would call it."
"Like the Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey!" Correen exclaimed. Lanny and Alicia glanced at her, surprised, and Correen flushed as they took in her state of dress and exchanged a knowing look.
"Where's Rob?" Lanny asked, hiding a smile as Correen retreated down the hall, mumbling something about getting dressed.
Alma brought down several coffee cups from a dusty cabinet. "He went with Channa to the school." The old woman lifted an amused brow. "He said if he needed her to guard him while he sat in front of a computer, she'd probably need him to guard her while she packed up her 'female things.'"
Adam broke out of his contemplation. "He's obviously never seen Channa use a sword."
"That might change," Alma observed drily. She set the cups on the counter. "She's gathering the things from her room relevant to the team's work here. She's going to send them across the gateway, just in case." She nodded at Alicia. "She said she'd call here when she's ready, so you two and Shireva can go talk to the coven and the Brigade of Light coordinator."
Lanny cleared her throat. "I'm going to go throw on my clothes. Can't crash sacrifices and chase demons in this get-up." She turned on her heel and left them, her shoulders rigid.
"I hate that asshole," Alicia murmured, going after her.
Alma sighed. "A Sealing world creates some very difficult relationships." She turned a knowing eye on Adam, an expression he missed with his concern focused on Lanny's retreating form.
"Where are Shireva and Martin?" he asked absently.
"Shireva and Martin went back to the lab so Shireva could do the same."
A moment of guilt gnawed at him, but then Adam recalled Correen's intent face in moonlit darkness. Their joining had been magic, too strong for it to be anything but the Will of Those Who Are Not Seen. He refused to let his own worries mark the gift that Correen had given him.
Alma found her coffee filters, crushed under a cluster of empty jars, and shook the dirt off one. "Have you tried coffee yet, my lord?"
Lanny had closed the door after her, but after a moment's reflection, Alicia entered without knocking. Her heart twisted in her chest. Lanny sat on the edge of the bed, Rob's discarded shirt in her hand, tears running off her nose into the soft cotton.
"I should have known he'd take off," Lanny stared at the floor as Alicia sank down next to her and slid an arm around her shoulders. "He's the only man in the world who's wide awake after ... you know."
Alicia snorted, ruffled her hair. "As low an opinion as I have of Rob, I seriously doubt he went running off at one o'clock in the morning to talk Channa into bed with him. Given a choice between working on a computer or chasing a woman, he'll-"
Lanny's shoulders buckled. Alicia gave it up and folded her in her arms. She laid her blonde head over the auburn one.
"Why do you keep putting yourself through this?" she asked tightly. "He's not worth it. There are a million guys that are better for you."
Lanny straightened, wiping her eyes on the T-shirt. "I love him so much, Leesh. And I know he loves me. That's what makes it so hard."
Alicia shook her head. "He doesn't-"
Lanny caught her hand. "No, Leesh, he does. When..." She looked away, her color rising slightly. "When we make love, I look up at him and see this ... total openness in his eyes. It's like I look into his soul and can see everything he feels for me. When we're ... finished, he has this way of holding onto me, so tight I can hardly breathe, like he's afraid I'll disappear." She shrugged, brought her face back to Alicia. "I don't usually talk about that kind of thing, but it's how I know."
"I know. You aren't as corrupt as the rest of us." Alicia managed a smile. "You know, people lie all the time when they have sex."
"Yeah," Lanny said softly. "They say they love each other when they don't. But Rob never says it at all. That's how I know, because it's the one time he can't hide it from me. You know, there was this one time we were at a party-there must have been a hundred people there. He was off in the crowd somewhere and I said his name ... sometimes, I think I actually just thought it, and suddenly he was there, saying 'what?' I'm the same way with him. There's no time of the day that I'm not ... aware of him. He's connected to me, and I'm connected to him, whether he can deal with it yet or not. Can you imagine going through life without that once you've had it?" Lanny forced a smile. "Even my dad likes him, and Dad's never liked anyone I've dated."
"You think your dad would like him, if he saw you like this over him?"
"No," Lanny admitted, "but what I mean is-Rob went to visit Dad with me last year, and they really hit it off. Not like Rob does with everyone, but with something special. When I mentioned it to Dad, he said, 'Well, it's because we both love you, honey.' Just like that, like it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world."
"To everyone but Rob." Alicia sighed. "I don't want to tear down what you believe. Truly I don't." She pushed the hair back from Lanny's tearstained cheek. "But think about this. How many women at Havenwood have we seen playing this same game? 'He just has a hard time expressing himself'; 'I know he loves me, I just have to heal his wounds.' Et cetera."
Alicia watched the red-rimmed eyes refill with tears and hated herself, but she hated what Rob was doing to this intelligent, spirited woman even more. "I don't want to hurt you, Lan. I've been at this school as long as he has, and during that time I've watched him wear out two girlfriends exactly the same way. He reaches the point where they're so crazy about him they start demanding commitment. That's when he bolts. You two are reaching that point. I can see it in your faces, and in the way you talk to each other. You want more and he can't give it to you. If you don't end it, he's going to. If he's true to form, he'll do it by sleeping with someone else right under your nose."
"Someone like Channa?" Lanny said tremulously. She held up a hand, blocking Alicia's answer. "He doesn't chase other women because he wants them. It's a defense mechanism, Leesh. It's because-"
"Stop this!" Alicia gave her hand a light shake. "You're acting just like Melanie. 'He beats me because he loves me.' 'He treats me like shit because he loves me.' If they're so goddamned afraid of love, take it away from them and let them see how really frightening the world gets when they don't have it." Alicia took a deep breath, calming herself. "Rob has a good heart, I'll admit that. I've seen him do a lot of caring things for a lot of people. But in romantic relationships he is a complete and total bastard. You deserve to feel good." Alicia squeezed her fingers. "Lanny, Stephen Callahan would kill to get involved with you. You like him, I know you do."
"He's a nice guy," Lanny admitted. She managed a chuckle. "He came by my room and picked on me Monday because he had to face Rob over a scrimmage line. Rob nearly pounded him head first through the turf. He told me to make up my mind soon or our next date would be his funeral. Oh, Alicia," she sighed and rose. "I don't know. And I guess if we're still around in about a week I'll be thrilled to agonize over it." She laughed shortly. "You don't choose a time like this to decide whether or not to end a relationship, or start a new one. Do you see my pants?"
Alicia allowed her stern expression to soften into a rueful smile and rose, discovering Lanny's jeans beneath her. "Here."
Lanny nodded her thanks and emitted a determined sniffle. "I've never told you how Rob and I met, have I?"
Alicia shook her head.
Lanny turned to the mirror and combed her fingers through her hair. She grimaced and dug a hair band from her pocket. "During my first week at Havenwood, I was running hurdles. I caught my foot on one. It happened so fast I had no time to throw up my hands, and I landed smack on my face. This guy came bolting over from the football field to help. The pain was awful." Lanny smiled. "When the nurse got there, we were on the ground and I was practically sitting in his lap. He had stuffed his sweaty football shirt against my mouth to stop the blood. He told me girls did a lot of things to get his attention, but I had blown them off the scale."
Alicia shook her head. "Rob."
"It made me laugh, which I'm sure is what he intended." Lanny chuckled, displaying her uneven front tooth. "And those gorgeous eyes and that bare chest were doing a pretty good job distracting me, too. When the nurse said they were going to have to take me to the hospital, he told her he would go with me. Just like that, he decided to be my protector. He wouldn't let me walk. He carried me to her car and into the hospital, didn't let go of me until the doctor had to examine me. I've never felt so safe, or cherished.
"That's the thing with Rob," Lanny's voice quavered. She swallowed and her face in the mirror's reflection regained composure. "That's the way he always makes me feel when we're together, until we cross a certain line. I think he'd stay with me forever and give me all the things most women want-as long as I don't ask him for a declaration of love."
Or faithfulness. But Alicia couldn't bring herself to say it.
"So what's that except a bunch of words?" Lanny turned from the mirror. "I just need to ease off of him, stop harping on it so much, and we'll be all right."
Alicia bit her lip, restrained an urge to throttle. "I'll agree with you on one point," she said dryly.
"What's that?"
"I'll be delighted to pound more sense in your head about it next week, if we're still around."
Lanny laughed, her natural good humor returning. "Ain't that the truth? I'm sorry, Leesh. We do have bigger things going on. I just haven't had enough sleep and it's making me weepy. Of course, for all the good I can do you guys, I could have just stayed in bed. I don't know jack about computers, and twenty-one years of being a practicing Methodist hasn't really prepared me for rituals." She winked at the blonde. "I did organize a great spaghetti dinner fundraiser for them once."
"You know how to pray, don't you?" Alicia asked.
"Every time I face one of Dr. Montgomery's term papers."
"Well, that's all you need to do at the Renaissance Festival ritual. Prayers all go to the same place, they just take different roads to get there. If you focus on your intent, you channel energy. And the more energy we can raise for Channa, the better."
"Speaking of which?" Lanny tucked her oversized T-shirt into her jeans. "When are you going to tell her how you feel about her?"
"This is a one-sided session," Alicia admonished. "I came in here to tell you how to run your life, not let you tell me how to run mine."
Lanny laughed. She considered her friend with a critical eye, feeling slightly strange about looking at another woman that way, but her embarrassment turned to amusement when a light blush stained Alicia's cheeks at the frank perusal. Lanny grinned. "You should tell her. She'd be crazy not to want you."
"I don't know," Alicia shook her head, looked down at her knees in a rare, vulnerable gesture that went straight to Lanny's heart. "She's like Adam. Not superior to us, that's not what I want to say-but she's different from us."
"You know, I'll bet she's more like us than you realize. Rob made me see that about Adam. Who knows, maybe she loves you, too."
"But she and Adam were involved. They may not have the taboos that we do, but personal preference is something you can't get around."
Lanny crossed her arms. "Well, you won't know until you tell her how you feel. Have you ever thought they might not separate love the way we do? Here you're either homo, hetero or bi. Maybe to them, you're simply in love."
"If that's the case," Alicia followed her out into a hallway filled with the aroma of fresh coffee, "I'll know she's straight out of the pages of one of Rob's fantasy novels."
"So what's wrong with a good fantasy?" Lanny linked her arm with her own and nudged her taller friend's hip playfully.
Adam hung up the phone as they entered the kitchen. He began to button the cuffs of the loose cotton shirt he had donned. Correen and Alma sipped coffee at the table, where Niko lapped milk out of a saucer, back in his guise of a rat.
"Channa is ready to meet with the coven," Adam directed his words to Alicia. "She and Shireva have already spoken to the Brigade of Light coordinator. That was her, calling from the all-night diner where he works. She didn't tell him everything that would happen, but she did tell him that the coven would be altering the words of the ritual to raise a special level of energy to counterbalance the worsening state of the Earth."
"Good plan. Keep it simple. It's not exactly a lie, so it shouldn't take anything away from the energy," Alicia nodded.
"So what happens if we're raising all this energy, but you're able to stop Edward and his ritual?" Lanny asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee at the stove. She met Adam's glance with a half smile and a toast of the coffee cup, and he surprised her with a gentle brush of knuckles against her face and a sympathetic smile of his own.
"We'll have a nice warm and fuzzy light raising like we normally do and one hell of a private party afterward," Alicia snorted.
"So where was Rob-with Channa?" Lanny asked, too casually.
Adam shook his head. "No, he told Channa he was going to nap in her room until she got back from the diner and then they would work on the school computer."
Lanny lowered her coffee cup. "Have you called her room?"
"No, but-"
"Lan," Alicia said kindly. "I told you. I don't really think-"
Lanny shook her head, cutting her off with a sharp hand gesture. "Rob doesn't sleep alone. Ever." She kept her eyes on Adam. "After Gio was expelled, he slept in my room every night. Have you ever found him asleep?"
Adam frowned. "No, I haven't. He sleeps after I'm there."
"That's why he's always wired, and why he can fall asleep anywhere, like he did when Shireva and I were studying Edward's file. I'll bet he's gone to the school offices to look for that program on the mainframe." Fear tightened a grip in her chest at the look on Adam's face. "He doesn't believe he's in any danger," she said doggedly. "He thinks the weird stuff on the computer is some kind of souped-up video game type virus cooked up by someone like him. He thinks you're all overreacting, being overprotective."
Correen brought their coats from the hall closet, but Lanny ignored the windbreaker in Alicia's outstretched hand. "He's right, isn't he? I mean, it's dangerous, but ... I thought the worst that could happen would be him getting arrested for breaking into a school office. And that would be pretty bad ... I mean, his law career..."
Adam shrugged into Rob's jacket. "Alicia, stay here with Alma, wait for Channa and take care of the coven as you planned. Correen..." At her sharp look and the determined yank she put on the lapels of her coat, he swallowed what he was about to say. "Let's go."
"Adam." Lanny latched onto his sleeve with hard fingers.
Adam took her by the elbow and propelled her toward the door. "I hope Rob is right and I'm wrong," he said grimly, "but if I'm not, and Rob finds what I think he may find in that program..." He held back what he was going to say at the fear that crossed her face and simply pushed open the door. "We need to be there."
My mother was the first person to hold my hand to help me cross the street. That's enough religion for me.
-Response to optional question on religious preference, Havenwood entrance application, Rob Steigir
The twenty-four karat gold lighter flared and caught the wick of the candle he had snitched from Channa's room. Rob tucked the lighter back into his pocket and used the candle's flame to ignite his cigarette. The light was meager, but since he had just broken into the school's main offices with Lanny's key, he didn't feel turning on a square mile of fluorescent lighting would be in anyone's best interests.
Of course when Channa found out he had gone off without her or Adam, he might want police protection. She was better off thinking he was taking a nap, waiting for her. It would give her more time to do the things she needed to do, and maybe it would teach these guys he didn't need a chaperone.
Adam and the rest of them seemed to think the "Other Worlders" were babies wandering around a jungle. Rob had lived in this jungle a lot longer than they had. He had been in some pretty bad situations and struggled out of them without the help of chants or charms.
Adam and Channa were too quick to discount mundane causes. Which was understandable, since it was obvious so little technology existed in their world. Rob hadn't heard anything about Shawn, Dr. Kenn or Edward and their diabolical plots that couldn't have been accomplished by existing technology or a psychotic personality. No boogie-man-ghost-in-the-machine was needed to explain it.
Granted, Adam's ability to throw a squadron of security guards against a wall was a little outside the realm of smoke and mirrors, though not totally outside the arena of substance abuse. Rob might have labeled it that if he hadn't seen Adam do it without laying a finger on any one of them. But telekinesis was a documented phenomenon.
Not that Channa's supervision would have been so bad. The woman should have made herself some money and posed for a T&A mag while she was here. That really would have improved the quality of life on Earth. Rob grinned at the thought, and how he imagined the priestess would respond to the suggestion.
Of course, she wasn't Lanny. She didn't have the sprawl of freckles across her nose, freckles that annoyed Lanny every time she looked in a mirror. She tried different creams to get rid of them, and pretended they didn't bother her at all, baring her teeth at him when he picked on her about it. He liked her teeth, especially the broken one in front. The image of her lithe form sailing over the hurdles, smooth muscles moving under tanned, freckled skin, passed through his mind.
Rob executed a dramatic turn and swung his leg over the back of the chair in front of the glowing computer terminal. "Well, hon," he murmured. "I brought the candlelight and the magic fingers." He cracked his knuckles. "So let's get down to it."
He typed out the security codes that would give him access to the interior workings of the school's network. "You don't mind if I call you 'hon,' do you? Didn't know if you were one of those feminist types. Oh that's right, you're a computer. You don't say things like, 'why don't you tell me you love me?'"
He slipped in his disk marked "Plumber's Helper," the customized programs that were his hacker's tools. "That's the problem with women," Rob said to the sympathetically blinking screen. "I take Lanny where she wants to go, I spend money on her, I make no promises, and, if I do say so myself, I'm a pretty decent lay, and she gets pissed off because I won't say I love her. Why do women need to hear that shit? I could make a million on it. The amazing 'Say What You Want to Hear' Stud doll. Simply pull on his dick and hear 'I love you, honey.' 'I'll never leave you, honey,' or 'Of course I'm faithful, sweetheart, why would I look at anyone else when I have you?'"
Rob curled his lip in disgust and activated the memory scan program. Very little activity was clogging up the system at this hour. If Kenn's program was out there, still producing nasty little gargoyles, now would be the best time to see that happening. Rob glanced at his watch. At four o' clock the system back-up would begin, and then there would be so much static he wouldn't be able to detect anything useful.
He drew on his cigarette. His eyes flicked back and forth, registering the messages and blinking lights. Lanny wanted him to quit smoking. Of course. When they started thinking they could tell you what to do, and always looked disappointed, like you could never do anything right, that was it. That was the time to leave them. Rob's jaw tightened. But she was hard to leave. Hell, just leaving her to come here had been difficult.
The blanket had been folded under her arm so her small breasts pushed over it. Her short auburn curls drifted over one smooth cheek. He had bent over her, brushed the hair away and dropped a kiss on her throat. She murmured in her sleep and rolled on her back, so accustomed to his habit of making love to her in the middle of the night her body automatically accepted him before she was conscious. He hadn't had the time, and he did not want to risk waking her up, but she was too irresistible. He lowered his head over one of those perfect small breasts. With a feather light touch, he drew it into his mouth. He stroked it with his tongue, not to wake or rouse her, just to enjoy the sensation, the feel of the skin. Her hand rose to curl in his hair.
"C'mon, computer," he muttered. "Give. I gave up getting laid twice tonight." He sent out a repeat search.
All right, let's stop thinking about women. What would have happened if Kenn had lived and successfully put his son in the computer? Sick, but incredibly brilliant. If Rob found the program and fixed the changes Brooks had made, would it work? Would it bring someone back from the dead, if only for a few minutes? Rob shook off the thought. He'd read enough fantasy novels to know you don't call anyone up from the dead, no matter who it is. It was like his aversion to anal sex-it was meant to be an exit, not an entrance.
He had a good idea why the program had not worked the way McQuade had intended. Every good program had some hidden application programming interfaces-API's to the computer geeks of the world-and as complex as the program was, it would have had a bunch of them. McQuade would not have even known they were there. When he changed the program, the API's were not adjusted and something went wrong. According to Adam, something had been called up from the Other Side.
Of course, Adam wasn't exactly up to speed on what a computer could and couldn't do, and Rob sincerely doubted it could call up a demon when it couldn't usually even run more than two software applications without crashing. The Amateur Magickers were stoned out of their minds that night. The most rational explanation was that Edward sneaked in and chopped them all up.
The tiny probes sent out from the seat of the R.S. Enterprise returned to base empty handed again. Well, almost empty-handed; Rob cleared out a few dead-ends-insomniacs checking interschool mail, and a couple of the standard programs that ran all the time to keep applications running. Rob had already searched for deleted files, though he knew Kenn's directory had long since been removed from mainframe. He doubted the program had ever been somewhere so obvious anyhow.
He sat back, sighed, and steepled his fingers, frowning.
One of the hobgoblins skipped across the screen, stopped to pass gas at him, then skipped gaily out of sight. Rob sat bolt upright and his fingers flew over the keys. As the goblin trotted out of sight, he saw two memory addresses flicker slightly, then become still. They were side by side, linked somehow, and one of them was a monster, taking up a full eight megs. Did Kenn hide it under the umbrella of another application? The name on the address was FNZO. FNZO?
Rob crushed out the cigarette and went after the two addresses, leaning forward in the seat, his fingers picking up tempo.
"Damn!"
They vanished, literally, and an error message blinked on his memory scan program. They had run around it and left it reeling on its heels. Rob stared at the screen. Memory didn't change addresses like that. Unless Kenn was a complete fucking genius and had created an intelligent program that could elude detection.
Rob reset the scanning program, his eyes snapping like the candle flame, and added a couple more filters. The screen activity slowed again.
Rob leaned forward to light another cigarette. "C'mon, you stupid son of a bitch," he growled. "Where the hell are you?"
WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT ME.
Rob froze, the tip of his cigarette immersed in the candle flame. The screen flickered and erased the sentence, which had rolled out across the top of the monitor in bold white lettering. The screen went dark, and two red lines appeared. The ends of the lines pulled up in a happy face smile, then the black rolled up like a shade from inside their crescent to reveal blood red eyes. They blinked at him.
BOO.
"Jesus Christ," Rob shot out of his chair, sending it spinning. The eyes dissolved and two goblins took their place. One leered at Rob malevolently, then shit on his companion.
Rob recovered his chair, never taking his eyes off the screen. What the hell was going on? Was there some kind of triggering mechanism on Kenn's program that he had tripped? Some new type of ICE or other security program must have been attached to it, but he had designed his stuff to take into account all of the latest technology. That didn't matter. He shook his head impatiently. Time for theorizing later. He had it. His memory scan had recorded the new memory address and now he tagged it, so even if it changed again, he'd have a chance at hanging on to it long enough to do a memory dump.
I AM EVERYWHERE.
Rob got his chair back, and set his hands to the keyboard. This ICE had an incredibly intelligent interface program, that was all, and he had set it off. His fingers flew over the keys.
The goblins crawled out of the keyboard and grabbed at his hands. Rob let out a surprised yell and scrabbled back. The chair cartwheeled out from under him and his cigarette bounced against his shirt. One of the goblins, clinging to his collar, caught it and took a drag. Rob stared at it, his mind frozen. The goblin snickered and belched hot fire into his face. Rob threw up his hands, knocking the creature away.
The pain and the impact he expected to feel were not there. He lowered his hands. No goblins. The chair was pulled up neatly in front of the computer screen, dark but for one sentence:
RUN HOME TO DADDY, MOMMA'S BOY.
A picture materialized, far beyond the graphics capabilities of the terminal. A woman was tortured on a sacrificial altar by hooded specters. Her screams burst into the office from a sound system the computer did not have. The face of the woman distorted grotesquely. Suddenly, it was an older woman, her head jerked back at a horrible angle as one of the goblins raised a knife. The woman was Rob's mother.
Rob lunged at the screen and his fingers made contact with the glass. An explosion thundered in his ears, laced with deep, maniacal laughter. It figured. He was going to die with the disgustingly ultimate cliché of every horror movie he had ever seen ringing in his head. Rob soared through the air, back toward a wall that would crush every bone in his body.
Instead, he slammed into a chest as unyielding as the power that vibrated from it. Arms as welcome to him as any woman's he had ever known steadied him. Rob slid to the floor and looked up into Adam's face. "Just in time, Don. That's one hell of a windmill, whatever it is."
"Your problem, my friend, is you forget whose task it is to fight the windmills."
"My other son."
Adam's head jerked up as the cold, commanding voice reverberated through the room. The office door slammed shut. The plastic covers over the fluorescent lighting shattered and the glass tube bulbs beneath exploded. Lanny dove for Rob and covered his face with her back.
Adam twitched the glass from his shoulders. As he moved toward the computer screen, it turned blue. An image of Baphomet, the Satanic goat, trotted on screen. He twirled the heads of Jaiya and Sephira around his hooves like obscene yo-yos.
The prince's eyes narrowed, glittering amber. "I know who my father is, and you are not fit for his chamber pot."
The goat's eyes popped out of his head and turned into goblins who relieved him of the heads and rolled them from the screen. The goat sat down in lotus position. "So sure of that, are we? Which of his other children do you most resemble?"
"Is this the best you can do?" Adam retorted. "Taking advantage of my fears?" He sauntered closer to the screen, blocking the beast's view of the others with his wide shoulders. Rob struggled to his feet with Lanny's help. Correen held her breath beside them, all her attention riveted on Adam.
He placed his knuckles on either side of the keyboard and leaned toward the monitor. Rob tensed. Correen's fists clenched on the desk where she stood. "You will take no more victims. The kings will rot in their prison, and you will rejoin them."
The goat bleeped off the screen, plunging them into darkness. Rob could still see the faint outline of Adam's shoulders. Lanny straightened. Glass pinged daintily to the floor. Correen drew one rasping breath, two breaths...
With a roar, the screen exploded in a machine gun spray of glass. Rob spun away from the impact with the two women. A sibilant snarl reverberated through the room and he whirled full circle.
Rob had always thought monsters in horror movies looked fake, computer images poorly pasted into familiar settings. In real life, it still looked absurdly unexpected against a backdrop of the things he knew, file cabinets and faded wallpaper. But there was nothing fake about the long, flat head of the horned serpent, and the ten feet of thick neck covered with a choked garden of tinier versions of itself that emerged from the maw of the computer. The snake's mouth opened wide on a venomous hiss and saliva splattered across Rob's shirt. It dove toward them.
Adam leaped on the mutated cross between Satan and a mythological sea snake. A faint blue aura pulsed around his fingers and raced up his straining shoulders. The smaller snakes growing from the serpent's flesh twisted and sank tiny fangs into him, making sucking noises like cats relishing cream. Adam snarled in pain, but refused to let go, immersed in a game of tug-of-war that wasn't going to give any of them much time.
Rob scrambled forward, ignoring Lanny's scream of protest, and darted under the thing's neck, shying away from snapping jaws. He snagged his laptop, jerked the cord out of the wall, and backpedaled. A cluster of snakes on the monster's underbelly followed the movement of the loose cord with bobbing heads, like playful kittens.
"Rob, leave it!" Adam shouted.
Rob snorted. He was pretty damn attached to his laptop, but not that attached. There was another active monitor here, hidden at the back of the office between two filing cabinets. After the virus, Mrs. O'Kelly had complained about having to move her considerable bulk across the office every ten minutes when she needed to cross-reference the computer's data with hard copy material. The damn demon might just be the agent of its own destruction.
Okay, so Adam and Channa had been right. But if the thing was locked into the computer, maybe it had to obey some of the rules Rob knew. The big program and the little program. The big one had to be the demon, and the little one was the umbilical cord, Kenn's program.
System back-up would start in two minutes. To manifest, the demon was using a hell of a lot of system resources. It would have to write something to disk to keep it going and the program was the only thing it didn't have to hang onto two-fisted, or in this case, two-fanged.
Rob touched the keys of the other computer. The beast's head jerked up, smacking Adam against the ceiling like an annoying bug. The prince dropped like a stone and the demon whipped toward Rob.
Rob dove beneath the flimsy table. Fire roared past him, and Lanny screamed somewhere beyond it. A horrible, keening shriek followed and Rob scrambled forward, recognizing his cubbyhole for the death trap it was. He shouted, startled, and threw up his hands against a splatter of mucus-like blood.
Adam had somehow regained his feet, son-of-a-bitch Lancelot hero that he was. His sword glittered in his hand. Just a little interdimensional time travel to go get it. No problem. He held the tense posture of a follow through stroke, his sword point connected to a pool of the mucus on the floor. The serpent's head thrashed back and forth, connected only by a strip of skin to the neck. It righted itself and the skin mended. Ten more eyes bubbled up across the warty snout, all blazing with fury at Adam. Now it was really pissed. Adam whacked at the throat again and this time the serpent shrieked in rage.
Rob spun toward the computer and forced himself not to look. His fingers flew over the keyboard. Adam yelled in pain and he hit the wrong key, sending him down the wrong pathway.
"Shit!" Steigir, get a grip. Tune it all out or everyone in this room is going to be demon chips and dip. Adam assumes you're doing something helpful. Do it.
There it was. The system back-up kicked in. Just as he thought, the demon was writing Kenn's program to disk in order to slim down. So the asshole knew how to multi-task. Rob scrolled through the program in file format. He dumped a copy of it out onto a floppy, yanked it out and pocketed it. He whirled around to his laptop and jammed another floppy in, calling up a very special program. A program that would get him expelled and end his law career, if he lived through the next five minutes.
Lanny had accused him of being able to program through a hurricane, once he was lost in the code. Now he deliberately used the focus, immersing himself in the task. Vaguely, he realized a file cabinet had just missed his skull. The clash of metal and screams were a dull drone of background noise. The urgent call of his name, repeated several times, snapped him back to consciousness.
"Rob, hurry!" It was Correen, her voice raised in a near hysterical shriek. He couldn't look, couldn't afford to be distracted, but if Ms. Ice Queen was yelling like a fishwife, things were bad. Rob pulled out the disk and turned back to the school computer, shoving it into the drive. He had written it, perfected it. Now he gave Fido a mission.
Everything about Adam and the people and land he served had conformed in one manner or another to all the fantasy books Rob had ever read. One day he hoped Adam would explain that, but for the moment, everything was faith and dumb luck. He hoped one essential element was true. If you know something's name, you can destroy it.
The half-second for the command prompt to come up was the longest half second of his life. Lanny and Correen cried out together and Rob's head snapped around. The serpent held Adam locked in his coils five feet off the floor. A hundred tiny snake appendages gorged themselves on his blood. The main head swung toward Rob, inspiring an ominous sense of deja vu.
Rob met its many-eyed gaze directly, his hand hovering over the board. He tapped the Enter key, oh-so-gently.
"Fido ... Kill."
The head plunged toward him and he scrambled out of the chair, his laptop under his arm. Rob darted around a phalanx of file cabinets, knowing it was a dead end into a wall, but having no where else to go. How many feet of range could the thing have? How big was the file room?
The computer behind him shattered. The table hit his shoulder and sent him sprawling. Rob rolled to his back. He could get in one good punch on the blasted thing's nose before it rent him limb from limb. Maybe it was like a shark, it would go away if you hit it on the schnoz hard enough. Right. C'mon you damn virus. Work!
The head screamed down at him like a Stealth bomber. It appeared to be moving much slower, probably because he was about to die. Rob hated himself for it, but his eyes snapped closed. He should have looked at Lanny. He didn't think there was anything else on the other side but life as flower fertilizer. The last moment needed to be good.
The beast made a strange, throttled noise, hot, strangled breath blasting Rob's face. Rob cracked open an eye. The leg of the computer table projected from the thing's throat, right above a sword point.
Correen and Lanny were shoulder to shoulder, practically straddling the serpent. The grotesque head bobbed around. The two women scrambled back as it grew arms out of the neck and plucked out the two shafts. It cocked its head and its lips lifted in a horrible grin. The arms hefted the sword and chair leg in either palm like javelins, and now several hundred eyes focused on them with lethal intent.
The thing is unbeatable. Damn it, he's not taking Lanny with him. Rob struggled to his feet and managed an awkward, ineffectual lunge at the creature's throat.
He fell flat on his chest in the debris. The creature had vanished.
Rob raised his head. No matter what else happened in the next two seconds, he wanted to be sure Lanny was alive.
She was. She had been knocked on her ass near the door and looked slightly dazed. Rob unclipped the mainframe connection from the crushed computer, weighed the risks and plugged it into his laptop, hitting the reboot to connect to the school's computers. Then he vaulted from the floor to help her up.
"That," he said, "is what I call good timing. You all right?" He looped her arm over his neck and pulled her all the way to her feet.
"Fine," she grimaced. "I think I may have sprained an ankle, but that's nothing I haven't experienced before. Go check on Adam."
Rob dropped a kiss on top of her head, letting her cling a moment because it felt good. He checked the status on his laptop, retrieved Adam's weapon from the floor and circled around the front counter. Correen was already with him, of course. Rob tried to keep his expression nonchalant. It wasn't easy.
The long-sleeved linen shirt Adam wore was covered with unattractive green and gold secretions from the demon's manifestation, but that was rapidly being consumed by the prince's own blood. It soaked the shirt and dripped into an ever-widening puddle on the floor. Correen had removed her belt and was tightening it around his biceps. Rob stripped off his and handed it to her even as she reached out her hand for it.
He squatted next to Adam and braced on the point of the sword. "You know," Rob coughed, "based on your lifestyle, you've made an excellent choice in girlfriends."
Adam managed a wan smile. "Where is it?" he rasped. Black bruises covered his neck.
"Hold on a minute and I'll tell you." Since he could hardly grip the man's shoulder, Rob settled for an inane pat on the leg. Correen's bandaged hand came down on his wrist.
"We need to get him to Alma, now, before he loses any more blood," she said.
"As soon as Rob tells me where it is," Adam interjected.
"He needs to go now," she ignored him.
"I'm right here," Adam caught her arm. "I will go when we know where it is."
Correen gave him a stony look and turned pleading eyes to Rob.
"I'll hurry," Rob promised. He retrieved the laptop. Lanny had made it over and now helped Correen use strips from her overshirt to reinforce the tourniquets on Adam's arms and wrap the bites on his chest. Rob stretched the mainframe cord so he could place the laptop on a desk and keep an eye on all of them. He opened Fido's tracking program. The system immediately responded with a high pitched bark and opened a view on the virus's path. Rob's fist clenched triumphantly on the scratched wood surface of the counter.
Fido snapped at the demon program's heels. True to its design, the virus destroyed everything in its path, so the program could not double back. Eventually the program would run out of places to go and the virus would incinerate it. The program turned in his direction and Rob pulled the mainframe cable. It was bad enough that he was gutting the school's entire system; it was not going to get his laptop as well. "We've got him, Don. He's on the run, and the virus should send him back to where he belongs within the next fifteen minutes. Eighty percent of our troubles are over."
Adam nodded. His head fell forward in a faint.
"Rob!"
"I'm coming," Rob shoved his laptop into its case and came around the desk, handing off the sword to Correen and the computer to Lanny. He bent and lifted his roommate onto his shoulders. "God," he groaned. "Where's Darwin when I need him?"
Adam's fingers clutched in his shirt. "My sword..."
"Don't worry, Correen's got it," Rob said. "I'll throw it in the trunk of my car."
"Rob," Adam turned his head so his cheek lay on the other man's shoulder in an awkward, upside down position. "That sword has a name. Its hilt is embedded with a Crown Jewel of Aegis. It bears the crest of my Guardianship. It is not a ... duffel bag."
Adam's head lolled forward and consciousness deserted him again. Rob grinned. "The snake didn't get any of his blue blood," he reassured Correen. "He's going to be fine."
Blood is the life-force. It contains the physical matter that helps us live, and there are mysterious binding qualities to blood. Even the smallest child knows this when he bravely pricks his finger and presses it to a friend's. He initiates the same ritual that has been carried out between friends, warriors and lovers for thousands of years ... You cannot choose your birth family-they are the curse or gift given to you by the greater wisdom of Those Who Are Not Seen. When you willingly join your blood to one not of your family, you create a serious spiritual binding. It is our unconscious knowledge of this that makes a blood binding honored in so many different cultures.
-Mataya, the Oral Lessons
Rob called ahead on his car phone, so Alma stood at the door when they pulled up before her house. The wrinkles on the old woman's face deepened when she saw the blood soaking Rob's shoulders.
"On the mattress in the front room," she directed tersely. "Correen, I have a bugleweed poultice on the stove, bring it. Rob, Lanny, hold him up." She pulled Adam's shirt over his head. Gashes not caused by the snakes had clotted, and the cloth caught on them. Rob winced, but the prince was fading in and out of consciousness and did not appear to notice. Correen brought in the pot of brewing poultice as he lowered Adam back to the pallet.
Alma's gnarled fingers scooped up some of the warm mixture and began to smear it liberally over the open snake bites. Rob made way for Correen to work on the right arm. The blood fought the herbal mixture, bubbling up through the lumpy medicinal, but Alma's herbal knowledge proved superior. The gooey concoction held firm, and the blood stopped, creating a perfect congealed red circle over each bite area, reminding Rob absurdly of cherry-centered oatmeal cookies.
"When I finish purging the poison," Alma said, her attention never leaving her charge, "we will need to give him blood to replace what he has lost, to return his strength. I can give him some, but I will need one of you to give him more."
"We have no way of type-matching the blood," Correen objected.
"We will not need to do that. You'll find supplies to handle the blood transfusion laid out in my bedroom in the back." Correen was halfway down the hall before Alma finished.
The crone looked at Lanny and Rob. "Adam does not have time to heal slowly. You know this. We must do whatever we can to help him regain his strength. I need your help. It is nothing that should conflict with your religious beliefs, or the lack thereof." She flicked a knowing glance at Rob. "Will you help?" Rob nodded, and Lanny hesitantly inclined her head.
"Lay your hands upon him, like so," Alma demonstrated. Rob placed his palms on Adam's abdomen. Lanny put hers on his thighs.
"Now, it is a simple thing. Just as when you were children, wish as hard as you can for him to be better and healthy, with no poison in his system. Imagine that you are lending him part of your strength and health, and see that pouring into his veins as a white light, driving out the venom. You must focus on it very hard, omitting all other thoughts and worries. All right?" They nodded again. Alma closed her eyes to concentrate.
Rob felt the change in the air almost immediately, as though the molecules paused when the woman reached out to the healing energy she required. The room grew warm. Alma's hands lifted, moved as if she were rolling a ball of dough. Lanny drew in a breath and Rob saw a golden gleam of light that grew from a speck between the aged palms into a sphere the size of a baseball. Alma lowered it over the prince's skull. A beam of brilliant indigo blue light flickered out of the ball and slipped into the crown of his head. As Alma passed her hands over his forehead, another lance of color emitted from the globe, a royal purple. The throat accepted a stream the color of a robin's egg. When she passed over the heart, an explosion of rich forest green spread through the prince's chest and covered the bites on his arms.
Alma continued her path all the way to his feet and three more threads connected-the thick orange of a mango skin at his abdomen right below Rob's palms, the red of a cardinal at the groin and finally a yellow at the knees that rivaled the sphere in brilliance. The ribbons of a rainbow connected Adam to the light of the small healing sun Alma cradled in her hands. She spread her palms wide, and the gold stretched out over the rainbow and fell like a curtain on all sides of him, bathing him and their hands in the multicolored lights. Rob remembered the sensation, when he had touched Correen in the caves. Just as he had in the school offices, he pushed aside his questions and doubts and focused, picturing the poison fleeing Adam's body in one cleansing wash of white light, propelled by the health and strength of his own body.
The salve dried up, cracked and crumbled off the skin. The snakebites closed, and healed. Alma brought her hands together, palm against palm, reabsorbing the sphere. The rainbow lights faded into the skin of her patient. Adam's eyes flickered open. He smiled at them all weakly, but with a great deal more of the gentle patience and aristocratic dignity they were used to seeing. A palpable wave of relief swept through Rob and loosened the tight feeling in his chest.
Correen stood at Alma's elbow with a tense face and instruments of a different type of healing-needles, blood bags and plastic tubing. Adam caught Alma's sleeve and whispered to her. She shot a peculiar look at Rob.
"What?" he asked.
"With your permission, he wants your blood."
"You can't do that," Correen said. "Alma, we can't do this. If he's given the wrong type blood, the lungs could shut down, the body cells could shrink and rupture. He could die in any number of ways. We don't have the equipment here to deal with any of that. We don't even know if the blood types of humans in our world can match yours."
Alma gave her an arch look. "I have spent over a year teaching you not to be overly dependent on Western ways of healing, and now you run back to their embrace."
Correen stared at her. "I don't want him to die," she said. Her voice cracked over her emotions. "Don't make fun of me right now."
A pained look crossed Alma's face. She reached across and touched Correen's hand, murmuring, but the girl drew away, shaking her head. "It's not important. Tell me what we're going to do, and let's do it before he ... let's do it."
Rob looked down at his roommate. "Anything you need from me is yours, Don. But why me?"
Adam cleared his throat and managed a hoarse rasping. Rob leaned forward.
"Because," the Guardian said, "I have never met anyone brave enough to do what you did back there." His voice squeaked. Rob came closer, allowing Adam to drop to a whisper. "I would be honored to have blood from so great a heart running through my veins."
Rob blinked, several times. Lanny's hand pressed into his shoulder. "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity there, Don," he said. "And you know, if you get my blood, you might start acting like me. Chasing women, smoking, shooting off your mouth to the Lords and all that."
The man on the pallet smiled as Correen tied off his arm in the manner required for the transfusion. "Perhaps I need more of those qualities-except for the womanizing," he added, with a humorous look at the unsmiling Correen. He interrupted her movements, lifting his upper body from the pallet. She made a sound of protest but he shook his head, grasping Rob's shoulder to hold himself upright. Rob steadied him and the two men regarded one another eye to eye.
"When I came into that room," Adam croaked, "I thought your life was forfeit. It would have been too much to bear, to lose my best friend so soon after I have found him."
Rob swallowed. As a Southern male, he wasn't really trained for displays of affection from men, beyond the male rituals of punching and slapping that occurred in football, or the hug from an aging relative. Now Adam's arms circled him and he felt Adam's heart beating against his own chest. To hell with it. Rob embraced his friend. He was glad they were both alive.
"Sentimental wuss." He eased the prince back on the pallet and Correen pounced on him, helping him out of his jacket so he could roll up his sleeve. Rob glanced over at Alma, crouched and serious as a screech owl. "You said ... if I have any diseases or anything, he'll be okay?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Correen's gaze flickered between him and Lanny. Rob shrugged uncomfortably. "Lanny knows I could have something, though not exactly why. Guess there's no choice but to say it."
Correen nodded and turned to Alma. "Rob was a heroin addict ... an IV drug user. He's in his fourth clean year."
Alma raised an eyebrow at him. "It will make no difference," she said quietly.
Rob glanced at Lanny. She returned the look with a peculiar expression, neither good nor bad. "So that's why you don't take painkillers for your knees," she said.
Rob shrugged and abandoned the subject. He slanted a strained grin at Correen as the girl tugged back his sleeve. "Are you sure you weren't meant to be a nurse, instead of a doctor? I distinctly remember the same brand of pushiness when I got my appendix out."
Correen didn't reply. She pulled off the plastic cover of the syringe with her mouth and spit it to the side. Veins stood out like slender cords against the well-developed biceps of his arm. Her finger touched old scar tissue. Some of the humor died out of Rob's eyes. "This vein here is a good one," he tapped it.
She nodded. He took a deep breath as the needle went in. Correen connected him to the IV bag. She inserted the needle in Adam's arm with a little more hesitancy. The prince lifted his free arm to brush her cheek. She ducked her head, shrugging him away. Adam looked back at Rob. Lanny stood behind him, stroking his hair.
Women, Rob mouthed.
Adam's smile grew broader. Then he closed his eyes. His body tensed. Correen looked up at Alma.
"He's fine," the woman said. "Do you want to know how this works?" Correen nodded.
"Blood, like everything, is energy. Aegian healers alter the state of that energy so it is accepted by the immune system of the patient. In this manner, they have learned how to make the body itself type-match the blood. Adam had the Healers Guild teach him how to do it and then experimented with it until he determined how a patient could do it to himself. That is what he is doing now. It takes great effort, but it can be done."
Adam's body trembled with the exertion. He was soaked with sweat. Correen stroked his arm below the entry point of the hypodermic.
"So taking care of the needs of a million worlds got too slow?" Rob watched his roommate's face, fascinated.
"No," Alma said. "A friend of Adam's was gravely injured."
Adam's eyes twitched open and rested on her. Too involved in the process of transmuting the blood from Rob's body, he did not speak, but his tawny eyes did.
Alma avoided the eye contact. "Adam wanted to give blood to help his friend, and a healer explained how it could be done. Later on, he was interested in learning more and attended the Healer's Guild long enough to learn many rudiments of their craft."
"Did the friend live?" Rob asked.
Adam's fingers clamped on the older woman's elbow in blatant warning.
"Stop pinching off Alma's blood supply, her arm is going to fall off," Rob thumped Adam.
"He lived," Adam rasped.
"So your blood saved him."
"No," Adam shook his head and his eyes went to the ceiling. "Nawat said he would rather die than accept my blood."
"Well, what a putz," Rob said after a moment. Adam choked on a surprised chuckle. Correen steadied the hypodermic.
"FNZO," the prince croaked.
"What?"
"On the way here, you told Lanny the file name was FNZO. How did you know that was the demon?"
"Because it moved when the goblin moved. And it was an easy code to crack." Rob shrugged. "Take the letter in the alphabet after each one. G-O-A-P. The demon of the west. It's funny that he made the same mistake most people make when setting a password. Most people choose something too easy-kids, spouse, dog's name. Anyhow, I guess that means our bogeyman is one of the four kings."
Adam nodded, closed his eyes again.
"When the blood transfer is complete, my lord, you will need to rest for about two hours for complete recovery," Alma said.
Adam shook his head. "We go to the hospital to see Adrian in an hour, no more."
"I have some good articles on managing stress on the job," Rob offered. "You know, delegation, how to cut down on the things in your in-basket, that sort of thing." He grinned at the puzzled look in Adam's eyes. "God, I'm going to hate it if you ever really learn English."
"It was too easy," Adam said.
"Wha-What?" Correen started up at the sound of his voice rumbling in her ear. They lay on the mattress in Alma's weaving room. She had dozed off with her cheek pressed to his shoulder.
"It's all right," He drew her back down. "I'm sorry I woke you."
"You're the one who's supposed to be resting," she accused.
"I am. But this thing that happened in the school office, it was too easy."
Correen turned her gaze to his arms, raising an eloquent brow.
"It was not easy for us," he waved that away. "But still, at his full strength, the demon simply would have killed us, and nothing would have stopped him. Being in the computers must have weakened him, or he is reserving his strength for the final ritual."
Correen laid her bandaged palm flat on his bare chest. "Rob said the virus annihilated everything in the system. Goap is no longer there. Rest."
He obediently closed his eyes. "You're beginning to nag like a wife. A beautiful wife, but a wife nonetheless. Are you ready for your initiation with Channa this afternoon?"
Her fingers pressed against his lips and he kissed them, capturing one briefly in his mouth before she drew it back. She was too nervous about the initiation. Correen did not want to discuss that.
"Who told you that you weren't attractive?"
"What?" He opened his eyes, the golden irises rotating down to look at her.
"When you asked me out the first time, you told me that women didn't find you appealing. Who told you that?"
He shook his head. "No one. It's the way women react to me in my own world."
"What about Channa?"
Adam shrugged. "Channa and I have known each other a long time. She overlooks the 'packaging,' as Rob would say."
Correen pursed her lips. "I see. And me?"
"You," he lifted one of her misshapen hands and gently kissed each finger. "Also look past appearances."
"What about Francesca Martin?"
"Who?"
"Francesca Martin. She lives in our dorm." Correen's hand settled back on his chest, her fingers stroking the hair there. "The second day you were here, she and her roommate, Pamela Andrews, spent an hour telling Alicia how 'gorgeous' you are. I believe it went something like this." Her voice raised to a higher pitch. Her expression altered in a comical manner that took him by surprise. "Oh, Alicia, didn't you think he was to die for? Those muscles-all over him, his stomach, his back, his arms and oh, my God, his chest hair-" Her fingers tickled him. His hand captured hers, stilling their movement. A flush rose in his cheeks. Correen was not done, her eyes gleaming with something akin to mischief, tempered by a more serious intent. "I believe there was a great deal of giggling at that point, since Francesca and Pam are freshmen. Alicia was getting disgusted with them, but they proceeded to discuss your lower torso attributes," her gaze drifted in that direction, "in detail. I would say they found you quite appealing."
"Why are you telling me this?" Adam eyed her.
"Because," her quiet, even voice returned and she looked up into his face, "you're the most beautiful man I've ever seen, and I want you to believe me when I say it."
He seemed to consider that, smoothing her hair over the line of her cheek. "I would like to be attractive to you," he admitted. "But," he shrugged, "however I look is the Will of Those Who Are Not Seen. I'm glad your love makes this form They created pleasing to you."
Correen suppressed a sigh. "Can you turn on your stomach?"
"What?"
"Can you lay on your stomach?" She pushed at his shoulder.
He turned and crossed his arms under his head, resting it comfortably upon them, his face turned toward her. Correen watched the play of muscle across his back. She raised her body and laid her cheek on the smooth skin between his shoulder blades. "How do you normally sleep?" At his puzzled look, she explained. "In what position, physically, do you sleep?"
"On my back." His voice resonated pleasantly within his chest. Correen laid her bandaged hand on the small of his back and rubbed the valley of his spine with her fingers. If there was a soft spot on him, she had yet to find it.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Do you snore?"
Her head bounced as he chuckled. "Not that I've heard."
She smiled against his warm skin. It was getting easier to do that around him. A terrifying thought. Her fingers inched toward the waistband of his jeans, then stopped just shy of it, a nervous finger stroking the border of skin before it. "What side of the bed do you sleep on? Do you have beds like ours?"
"We do. I haven't ever shared my bed, and in Aegis, at least at the castle, they do not divide the bed in halves with two pillows; they put six or seven at the top. So I sleep in the middle."
"Good," she said.
"You like having pillows?"
Correen closed her eyes and dared herself. Her hand nestled under the loose waistband and she tested her fingers along one of the bare curves that lay beneath. A muscle under her cheek shifted as Adam's head tilted toward her. She answered him.
"I like pillows fine." But I like the fact you're not used to sharing your bed better. She sat up, withdrawing her hand.
"Correen," he said, her name a murmured caress.
"Don't turn yet," she requested, just as quiet. She started at his shoulder, using the less sensitive tips of her fingers to trace the taut line of his shoulder, up to the corner where his neck met his collarbone, and then brushed the soft hair over his ear. Her fingers skied down the slope of his back, etching out muscle and bone that contracted in response to her touch. He watched her with half-closed eyes that increased her heart rate exponentially.
"I want to be inside of you again," he murmured. "But it's too soon, isn't it?"
She shook her head, reached for him. Adam turned on his back and caught her by the elbows. He pulled her over him so that she straddled his hips. The touch of him between her legs brought an immediate response from her body. "I want you to promise me something," he said.
"What?" She was having trouble breathing. Her hips moved against him in response to her own desire. He closed his hands over them.
"Above everything else in this world, I want your happiness, and I want you to be happy with me. So you must be honest and tell me what brings you harm or discomfort, or unhappiness. Do you understand?"
She nodded and he smiled. "Now, let me tell you why you are beautiful."
His fingers slid under her cotton shirt and Correen's breath caught as his palms slid up from the plane of her stomach, over her rib cage, and circled her bare breasts.
"I cannot pick what is most beautiful about you," he said. He drew her forward, holding her weight against his palms so she did not have to brace herself upon her hands. "But your breasts are more beautiful than any woman's I have ever seen." Before she could protest this, he drew her forward and suckled the nipple through her soft shirt. The warmth of his breath and the contrast between the texture of the cloth and the movement of his mouth was a wondrous thing. Her fingers caught in his hair and she managed his name. One hand released the breast he was not attending with his lips and descended down her back, resting in the valley of her arched spine. He drew his mouth back a little and looked at her ardent face.
"I will paint all of you," he said, "in as many different ways as I see you." His fingers slid past the waist of the skirt she had borrowed from Alma and pulled up the hem to stroke her backside. He caught the edge of her underwear and eased his fingers under it. "Put your breast in my mouth. I want to see you hold it in your hand and put it to my lips."
She obeyed. Her hands trembled from the overwhelming desire the gentle command created in her. His fingers caressed the sore part of her, carrying away some of the moisture that was gathering there. He released her breast, nuzzling the prominent nipple through the dampened T-shirt with his tongue. He turned his head and savored the taste on his fingers. He drew her down, a hand behind her neck, and gorged himself on her mouth, his tongue stroking hers. Correen thought she might die from the pleasure of it. Adam released her mouth and stared up at her, his incredibly intent golden eyes only an inch from hers. "I like the taste of you," he said.
Correen could not speak. She did not have breath left. He pulled her up his body. She raised up, catching on the headboard gingerly with her bandaged hands, which brought her hips closer to his face. She realized what he intended. "Adam, no, I-"
His hands pushed her forward so she was over his mouth and then she dissolved into particles of sensation. The thrust of his tongue demanded surrender. She was unaware of the gift she gave him with her gasps and moans, the convulsive movements of her thighs against his unshaven cheeks, and the rhythmic press of her soft bottom against his chest.
His mouth soothed her soreness even as it delved into her and did things that caused her to buck against his lips. His grip tightened, drawing her down harder against him. She moaned, not caring who heard. He moved his tongue within her as he had moved only hours before, the sensitive tissues unabraded by this assault. His mouth covered swollen flesh and she fell apart. Lightning flashed before her eyes and she arched and tensed like a plucked violin string. She cried out things to him that should have mortified her. Correen shuddered in his strong grasp and he drew the last drop of sensation from her until she collapsed limply against the headboard.
He nuzzled the fuzzy mantle to her throbbing vagina with his nose and she made an inarticulate noise. He moved her gently back down his body until she lay full upon him and he cradled her between his thighs. His hard arousal pressed against her stomach and when her fingers would have traveled to it, he caught them and drew them back against his lips.
"Let me want you," he said, pressing a kiss into her hair. "It will make next time we are joined that much more pleasurable." Adam's eyes danced with laughter and love as he looked at her face. "I will have you as my reward for defeating Goap, when reserving my strength will not be as important."
He saw in her eyes what lay unspoken between them. There might not be another time. As true as that could be, Adam had not forgotten Mataya's lesson. Falling in love with this woman was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him. He would cherish and linger over each moment granted him, refusing to dishonor the gift. Time could not rule a love like this, because no amount of time would ever be enough.
Between blind hate and mute submission I choose the third way. I am Samid. Steadfast.
-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
"Maybe Darius won't be there," Alicia suggested as she turned her jeep into the hospital parking lot. She flipped down her visor to shield her eyes from the early morning sun.
Correen pulled out a pass and leaned over Alicia's lap to wave it at the parking attendant. "Twelve hours ago, she was sitting in the center of a pentagram, waiting to be sacrificed. He's probably lying across her door like a rabid St. Bernard."
Martin chuckled. "A fitting image."
"Go, Alicia. He's waving you in."
Alicia parked the jeep in the volunteer staff parking lot and the companions unloaded. Adam took the backpack Martin offered and shouldered it, looking up at the brick six-story building before them. The next obstacle to overcome. He smiled at Correen, took a gentle hold on her hand and slipped it into the warmth of his jacket pocket.
She let him hold it through the parking lot, but once they entered the hospital lobby, she freed herself, glancing about self-consciously. She went to the main desk, bidding them all to wait for her.
Adam leaned against a column and watched her speak to the nurse at the desk as Alicia and Martin discussed the hospital. Correen did not move her hands when she spoke, as most people did. He supposed it was a habit she had cultivated since childhood, not drawing attention to them. His gaze passed down her back and lingered over her hips. His body responded instantly to what he saw. He had felt the reflection of her gaze in the side mirror of the car and knew she felt it too, a hyper-awareness of the intimacy between them. Every thought was surrounded by the energy of her presence and commitment to him. The danger they faced only intensified it, like a survival instinct. Alma had been right. His mind was sharper to its task now than it had ever been.
She returned. "Adrian's with her doctor for about the next half hour. Debbie said Darius requested that all visitors be turned away."
"Okay," Alicia bounced out of her chair. "So we need to kill thirty minutes before we take on Darius. Why don't we go visit your favorite wing?"
"I don't know. We should probably wait here-"
"Oh, most definitely." The blonde linked a hand through her elbow and forged ahead to the elevators. "I've been dying to catch up on back issues of some women's magazines, and learn how to please my man in bed while whipping up a tasty, low-fat snack."
"Your High-Adam," Martin caught his sleeve, "I'll go to Adrian's floor. If her doctor is with her, Darius may be in the waiting area, and I might be able to calm him ... before you arrive."
Adam nodded, grimacing. "Good thinking. I don't wish to use an influence spell on him, but I will if I have to. Time is short."
"I'm certain we can work it out," Martin lifted a shoulder. "Darius knows we have Adrian's best interests at heart."
"I just hope Darius knows that he knows that," Adam said wryly. "But if anyone can help him see that, it's you, Martin." The monk bowed, acknowledging the compliment. Adam offered Martin the backpack. "This may be useful if you have difficulty getting past the nurses."
Adam caught up with Alicia and Correen at the elevators. "Where are we going?" he ventured. Alicia punched the elevator button.
"Correen's home away from home." The doors opened and Alicia stepped in, followed by her more reluctant roommate. Adam hesitated, running a hand over the slots that had taken in the doors. A redheaded nurse ducked under his arm, startling him.
"Excuse me," he apologized sheepishly, stepping into the small space after her.
She smiled, illuminating a young and pretty face with twinkling brown eyes. "These things make you nervous?"
"I'm just not used to them." Adam caught at the side rail, blanching as the elevator jolted into motion. The nurse laid a hand on his forearm. "All our elevators are a little old and creaky, but they're reliable."
"You are very kind," he said politely, stepping back into Correen as an intern got on at the next floor. "I'm sorry, are you all right?"
"Fine." Correen changed positions to accommodate him, ending up between him and the nurse. Alicia hid a smile. The strategic move was lost on Adam.
"This is my floor. Nice meeting you-"
"Adam."
"Adam." The nurse dimpled. "My name is Eve."
Alicia's breath caught in her throat, making her choke. Adam and Eve turned to her in concern. Correen's eyes rolled with so much comic sarcasm that her roommate's coughing fit doubled in intensity.
Alicia waved away the nurse's concern. "Tuberculosis," she wheezed. "I'm fine. Eve, this is your floor."
"Oh, yes ... Well, nice to meet you." Correen hit the close button as the nurse stepped out and turned a bright face to Adam. "What floor-" Clunk.
Silence reigned. Alicia and the intern exchanged amused glances. Correen stared stonily at nothing. Adam watched the lights flicker on the control panel with oblivious curiosity. The doors opened and the three disembarked. Correen brushed past Adam and took the lead.
She led them to a wing barricaded by a nurse's station and an armed policewoman. "Wait here." Correen directed them to two chairs, grouped companionably in a side corner to form a tiny waiting area. "I need to make sure it's okay." She spun on her heel and marched over to the desk.
Adam frowned after her. "What's making her so uncomfortable?"
Alicia smiled and did a brief, silent imitation of the flirtatious nurse.
"She doesn't think-"
"No." Alicia nodded at the locked gate behind the nurse's station. "That's just surface. I think maybe I pushed her into showing you this, and she wasn't ready."
Correen turned away from the desk and motioned to them to join her at the gate. The buzzer sounded and she pushed open the wire fencing. Adam's arm reached above hers as he courteously swung it open for both women.
It was an older wing of the hospital. It had the tart, septic smell of the other halls, but there was an underlying odor of old wood. The decor was not renovated in soft pastels and bright, cheerful lighting. Dark, scuffed tile passed beneath their feet and the overhead lights reflected yellow off dingy beige walls. Their rubber-soled shoes squeaked loudly in the eerie silence. They turned the corner. A uniformed "GI Joe" doll stood at full attention in the center of the corridor.
Televisions and children's voices murmured along the hallway of cracked and open doors. An occasional giggle cut short as it echoed accusingly across the arched hallway. Adam glanced left and right as they walked past the GI Joe doll. He saw small figures entombed in hospital beds, bathed by the blue glow of TV sets.
"Aaaaiiiiiieeeeee!!!"
A streak of silver, a boy in a wheel chair. Tassels streamed out from the push handles, and a wooden horse's head led the charge from between the foot pedals. A few feet from them, the boy put on the brake with a loud, skidding squeak along the old tile. Correen seized the horse's head to bring the chair to a full halt. She gritted her teeth as pain shot through her hands.
"Your Majesty," she said, with a censorious glance. "Silver got away again."
The boy smiled, revealing a missing front tooth. A man's tie looped around his forehead, half covering the eye patch over his right eye. An adult-sized naval pea coat, clanking with old medals, buttons, lapel pins and costume jewelry, dwarfed his thin body. A peg leg adorned with gaily colored ribbons replaced his right leg at the knee. Adam thought he might be about fourteen. The angular bones sculpted a strong chin and high cheekbones that would fill out handsomely once the transformation to manhood was complete.
"I try to keep him under control, Cory, but you know how he is when he gets the bit in his teeth." He drew a deep breath and bellowed, "Crier!"
A girl appeared in the doorway of one of the rooms. She tripped over the hem of her oversized flannel nightgown and caught the frame of the door. Her jaw was puffy and she had a black eye, but her unswollen one peered at the boy alertly. "Yes, Toby-I mean, Your Majesty?"
"Convene the court. Lady Cory has arrived!"
She scratched her nose, advanced to his chair with a shy glance at the adults. The crier raised up on her toes and whispered in his ear. Toby gave her a gentle, teasing nudge. "Just run up and down the hall and holler 'Convene the court!'"
"Oh." And she was off like a shot, doing just that, affronting the solemn hallway with her strong, healthy lungs. "Convene the court! Convene the court!"
A strange court responded. The hall echoed with movement and voices raised in excitement. Knights in tunics fashioned from old Tshirts emerged, carrying finger painted coats-of-arms and swords forged out of long paper towel rolls. Court ladies attired in worn sequined and satin skirts hemmed with uneven scissors followed. Many bore scepters created out of bathroom plungers and decorated with construction paper jewels. Bards wore tricorn hats folded from crisp hospital cover-ups; bright silver bedpans and spoons were their instruments.
Adam stood, watching an echo of what he saw at home when his father convened his court. The children shared a noticeable bond beyond their burns, bruises and casts. Their faces, though lit with delight at the prospect of play, held a battle weariness he had seen in the eyes of soldiers who had faced armed conflict. They ranged from Toby's age down to four years old. The four-year-old hung onto the hand of a wizardress in a black dress covered with paper moons and stars. The toddler wore cellophane wings and a pointed construction paper hat that slipped over a bandaged ear. The sorceress had sprinkled bright blue glitter over the little fairy's pale cheeks, but her own face was too badly burned on one cheek to bear the adornment.
"Marianna," Correen called out to the wizardress. "I thought you were bound for service to a kingdom in the north."
"You do me honor by remembering my name, lady-"
"Pray, how could I forget the name of one of such nobility," Correen said, with a slight, respectful bow. Several of the children pressed closer to her, slipping their tousled heads under her misshapen hands.
"M'lady." Marianna inclined her head. "I was waylaid on the way to the north country by a clever servant of the Dark One. I was sent back to my original master." The childish voice wavered. "He tried to wound me with fire and I-" The blistered chin rose a fraction. "I stabbed him in the leg with a fire poker."
"A sword, a sword," several of the children called out. Marianna nodded.
"I meant that I stabbed him in the leg with my great sword, Fire Eater."
"A great sword only becomes great when wielded by one of great heart," Correen said. "I pray you will reach the North Country yet."
Marianna bowed her head. Adam glanced at Alicia.
"Marianna's grandmother lives in New York," Alicia murmured. "She's been trying to get custody from Marianna's father. I think his lawyer was able to block the petition, and she was sent back to him."
Toby moved his chair forward. "You've been gone from us for a whole week, lady," he admonished Correen. "We wish to hear of this quest which has taken you from us, and the story of your guest." He slanted a wary, measuring glance at Adam and offered his hand to Correen. She took it and he turned the chair, leading them toward a door an elaborate poster designated as "The Throne Room."
Adam and Alicia followed the herd of children into the room. What had once been a common room with art supplies, donated toys, worktables and chairs was now a hallway straight from the lore of medieval knights. Two white sheets had become painted tapestries, hung behind a chair decorated with streamers and glitter.
The unicorn Adam had won for Correen stood in a corner, beneath a sheet canopy decorated with paint, more streamers, and glitter. A child slept sloth-like on the unicorn's back, thumb stuffed in a slack mouth. Another child uncurled himself beneath the creature of myth, where he camped with pillow and hospital blanket. Adam's eyes turned to Correen. She nodded, her expression uncertain of his reaction. His eyes warmed upon her.
There's no better place for it.
Toby gestured to one of the bards, a boy on one crutch, and the child proceeded to drag the first of three chairs into the center of the room, facing them at the throne.
Adam moved to help, but Alicia stopped him with a slight shake of her head. Correen lifted her attention to the word emblazoned across the strip of concrete wall visible between the two homemade tapestries. SAMID.
"I see you've been reading the book I gave you, sire."
"We've all been reading it." Marianna took a spot behind the king's right shoulder as Toby lifted himself with well-muscled arms into the throne. A knight led his steed away.
Toby surveyed the assembled children with a sharp eye, then brought his attention back to Correen. "I read it aloud to my loyal subjects before we give ourselves to dreams."
He beckoned that they should sit. Adam folded himself into a child sized wooden chair, arranging his six-foot frame, and crossed his eyes at the cellophane-winged fairy. She emitted a timid giggle at the sight.
"Might I ask, sire?" Correen nodded at Marianna. "I mean no disrespect, for I am glad to see your former wizard, but I believe you were training a new one last I was here."
"I was and I am," Toby scratched at the peach fuzz sprouting on his chin. "Our latest Merlin has a sickness. His past follows him and interferes with his magic. Perhaps you might talk to him before you leave. The Lady Cory eases all hearts."
"Unfortunately, our time is short today, but I will talk to him before I leave," Correen promised. "What else would you have of us, Sire?"
"Several things. First, tell us of the quest that took you from us this week."
To Adam's surprise, Correen told no legends or fairy tales, but the true events of the week and the actions that had brought his world and her world together against a common foe. She raised her voice and spoke with the inflections of a trained storyteller. Now she gave freedom to her hands, unleashing them to point and sweep, curl into fists or open with a grace that mesmerized. When she rose from her chair to pantomime the rescue in the caverns, every eye was upon her. Even a latecomer to the royal audience was held by her performance. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw a boy leaning in the doorway to the throne room. His hands were stuffed into torn jeans, and a pajama shirt opened over his bandaged chest. The boy's eyes were empty of expression, reflecting only what lay before him.
"Pardon the interruption, great lady," Toby interrupted. "But you described a leg sweep, just now. Is that something our knights and squires might perchance learn?"
"Mmm," Correen glanced toward Alicia, who sat cross-legged on the floor, covered by children. "I defer to the Warrior Queen, for she knows the styles best suited to your army's endeavors."
"Indeed, and it is good to have her here again. What say you, fierce lady?" Toby waved his cardboard scepter at her.
Alicia shook her head. "Sire, most of your squires and knights have a size disadvantage. Martial arts require much practice to be an effective weapon. Your best defense is a simple, brief attack, with your goal being escape, not confrontation. Make certain you have something that can be used as a weapon in easy reach in every room. A blunt object, easy to handle and swing. A direct hit with moderate force may give you time to escape to fairer friends before you are harmed."
"Well said," Toby nodded and glanced at all his subjects to insure the lesson had sunk in. "Go on with your tale, Lady Cory."
"I am done," Correen said. "But I want to re-acquaint myself with this new wizard who stands behind me."
Every young eye turned toward the doorway. The boy flushed red. Correen moved between Adam and Alicia, touching Adam on his shoulder as she passed. The children shifted to let her pass.
"I'm not a wizard," the boy muttered. He was Toby's age, and his lanky black hair fell into his eyes, giving him the furtive look of a mongrel dog. "That's why I don't wear a stupid outfit."
Correen nodded. "So what would you rather be?"
"I don't want to be anything! Jesus, what do you want, lady? This isn't some stupid game." His hard brown eyes stared down into her quiet gray ones. He balled up his fists. "My father lost a deal with some corporate big shot, so he comes home and takes a baseball bat to my ribs. Mom finds me puking up blood and rushes me here, telling them I fell into a pile of lumber at a construction site ... That ain't something you say 'poof' with a magic wand and make go away! How the hell can you tell these guys to fight? You want them all dead? An adult could snap her in two!"
An accusing finger shot out, pinioning the fairy. The little girl moved closer to Marianna. "Aw, hell-" He turned away. Correen laid a gnarled hand on his shoulder.
"You have to believe you can survive what fate hands to you. Your soul dies when you let go of hope." She touched his face. "You know the world is no longer a place where children can depend on adults to protect them from what other adults do. Children must protect themselves. They must run if they're able, but if they can't, they must fight to live."
Every child was silent, even the small fairy. Adam felt their focus like magical energy, holding each heart and mind riveted on her words. Toby's eyes were deep and fierce.
Correen placed one of her hands in the boy's. His fingers tightened on it curiously when he felt its odd shape. From the tension in her shoulders, Adam knew Correen was in pain, but he was not sure if it was from the pressure without or within.
"Truth is the strongest magic I carry with me today," she said quietly, but there was a resolve in her tone that carried her voice to all the children. "King Tobias needs two strong wizards at his side, because my quest may take me from you after today. You are the closest thing to a family I have ever had. I want to tell all of you something I have never told anyone. And maybe," she turned slightly so she could see everyone in the room, "it will help you understand all this better."
A twelve-year-old girl sat in darkness at her piano. Rays of moonlight pierced the large bay window, starkly illuminating her pale face. She could hear water roaring gently onto the beach far below the iron and glass mansion they called her home. Her fingers whispered up and down the piano keys, following the rhythm of the waves. There was no sheet music before her-she simply listened, picked up the current that was being sung and joined in with the piano's voice, like a swimmer floating effortlessly with the current of the ocean. The moonlight cast sinuous shadows along the walls behind her, hung with a rare collection of weapons from ancient, more magical times.
While she played, her eyes never left the five-year-old a dozen paces away on a gold and green striped couch. He slept on his stomach, a fist sticky with drool pushed against his nose and lips. He was naked, the wind from the ocean doing little to cool the Brazilian heat. She had laid a cotton sheet beneath him to absorb his perspiration. Her own soaked through her light linen dress.
"Goddamn it!"
The music staggered to a halt. The little boy started fearfully out of his dreams. The girl had relaxed her vigilance, and guilt and panic flooded her chest. She gestured to her brother frantically and he slid off the couch, backside first. They ran for the door. A menacing shadow loomed through it and the child turned, screaming, into the girl's arms.
"Every time I come home, I have to hear that goddamned music!" The shadow materialized into a tall man with ice-green eyes and an expensive gray suit. He lurched unsteadily into the room. His white silk shirt, damp with sweat, bore a wine stain that looked like blood to terrified young eyes.
The girl backed away from him, dragging her brother with her. She tried to muffle his cries against her narrow chest, but his screams persisted. The man's arms shot out and he yanked the child from her grasp. "Shut up!" he roared into the scrunched-up face. The child's scream trebled into a wail of terror at the snarling, demonic visage inches from his own. The man hurled the child away from him, toward the wall. The girl intercepted, grabbing awkwardly at the flailing body as they both fell to the carpet. "Cory!" the child wailed. He pushed his head into her long, dark hair and clung tightly to her slight body. The girl curled over him as blows rained down on them, the man cursing and babbling incoherently, spittle flying from his lips.
She gagged on her fear and her anger. They had always been alone. When Ricardo was a baby, the bitch had been here. She had heard that word one night when they were fighting. When she knew what it meant, and the woman left them, it became the only word in her mind for her mother. Her stepfather fired their nanny soon after Ricardo learned to walk, and Cory had to make certain that he was always safely out of the way when their stepfather came home. When his anger was spent on her, she could creep away to her little brother. His chubby hands held her and patted her. His face smiled like an angel, and he clapped his hands when she invented games and songs to entertain him.
The man stumbled to the wet bar. Her brother pulled her to her feet and she staggered stiffly after him, toward the stairs, toward another night of inventing fairy tales to hold their world together.
Ricardo's favorite story was the one she had invented of the good witchwoman. The good witch took children through a portal into another world, where they met and played with other children and pursued adventures. With the magic the witchwoman taught them, they combated demons or outwitted trolls, rode noble unicorns or caroused with dragons. At the end of each exhausting, happy day, the witchwoman sat with them by the fire and took time to hold each child. She would brush Correen's hair and touch her face, bounce Ricardo in her lap, and listen to their adventures. She would laugh at their cleverness or gasp in fear and admiration at each of their deeds.
Correen came to a stop on the first stair. Her brother was limping. He tugged harder. When his efforts to move her proved futile, he sank his teeth into her arm like a panic-stricken animal. She barely noticed. She stared at the bone poking out of his bleeding foot.
There was no witchwoman. The only maternal love Ricardo was ever going to get was the childish semblance of such from her heart, the heart of a little girl whose brother was the only person in the world who looked at her with love. They deserved more. It was time to take it.
She pulled her hand from her brother's grasp and turned to the wall, hung with the ancient weapons. The man in the expensive suit had collected them from all over the world. She lifted a mace down from its hook. Its weight should have knocked her over, but the fear and rage in her body gave her the strength to carry it.
The man had three lines of cocaine laid out before him and was inhaling them. She charged across the floor with the propulsion of a battering ram, though the seconds seemed to her to move very slowly. When he turned, the points of the mace slammed squarely into his face. She flogged his head and shoulders with the weapon, shrieking at him in a horrible, keening voice. He thrashed out blindly and locked onto her wrist, and her tirade bit off into a short scream as the bone broke. The mace fell out of her hand.
"You bitch!" he snarled, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes and hold her fast. "You damn, fucking bitch!"
Her fury fled before the unholy fire in his green eyes. She was caught, her broken arm held so tightly in his grasp that black spots danced before her vision.
"Always watching me! Always playing that damn piano! I didn't want you! She didn't want you-should have sold you both-you play that fucking instrument-" He yanked her over to the piano. She slammed into the bench and fell to her knees. His face bent to hers and she smelled his hot breath on her face, the smell of alcohol, cigarettes, and decay. The smell of evil. His eyes clashed with her dark ones and blazed the fires of hell into her soul. "No one wants you," he growled. "No one gives a shit what I do to you. All you are is a paycheck, and you're going to do as I say. Every part of your life will be dictated by me. Without me, you aren't worth shit-got it?"
His eyes were wild and disoriented. She felt the fear that comes from the darkest part of the heart. What was about to happen to her could not be stopped. There was nothing she could do to prevent the next few minutes. A life she had believed could not be worse was about to become hell.
"You-will-never-"
He yanked on her arms and lifted the lid to the piano bench. She saw her music books---the Mozart symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt with notes like a light spring day ... Moonlight Sonata on the top, though she knew it by heart...
"Bother-me-with-"
He pulled her hands to the edge of the bench and held them there with one relentless fist tightly clasped around her two tiny wrists.
"This-damned-thing-"
He brought the bench lid down onto her fingers.
"AGAIN!!"
He screamed, "AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!" as the lid kept coming down. Blood and bone spattered over Mozart and Grieg, drowning the music that evoked beauty and laughter, passion, magic, and love.
The little boy heard his sister's screams die to whimpers and he ran. His soul exploded out of the brittle container of his body and flew away without a backward glance.
The girl ran from the scene, too. Her mind slipped away, leaving the man behind. She ran to a dark and quiet world, devoid of emotion or life, and at last she felt safe.
"My stepfather threw me into our cellar and left me in the dark for three days." Correen blinked, hard, bringing back the children and dispelling the shadows. Adam vaguely felt Alicia's fingers digging into his arm and he saw his own fingers clenched against his knees into fists.
"I don't think he meant to kill me," Correen looked at all the children, at everyone but him and Alicia. Adam understood it. This was hard for her, probably harder than anything she had ever done, and if she looked at them, saw the rage and pain they felt, the overwhelming need to comfort her, she would break and be unable to finish.
"I think he just forgot about my being there," she managed a chuckle like the soft screech of metal tearing. "A part of me died in the cellar, a part that I can never get back. I'll never be able to laugh without feeling the need to cry. I will never feel happiness without being afraid of when it will end." She turned her attention back to the boy, changed her grip so that she held the boy's larger hands within her own. Her gray eyes turned into steel.
"Real magic is nothing like a fairy tale. It's the ability to channel energy in a certain way. It's a skill, like singing or dancing, or playing the piano. You learn to use it first by learning about yourself. That's the most difficult part, especially when you're being beaten. They try to make you forget about who you are. They want you to be mindless, thinking only about survival."
Shadows of memory crossed her face. "Once you know yourself, magic may protect you. Sometimes," she gestured at the assembled group, "creating a ritual around the use of magic gives you the confidence to use it.
"My brother and I used to get through each night by playing out a story where I was a princess-warrior and he was a mage. We were trapped by a dark and handsome demon in his glass castle. We couldn't escape because it was surrounded by miles and miles of sand, a desert by the sea. Each night, we plotted adventures to elude the cruel death he had planned for us.
"My brother Ricardo was a great sorcerer." Her voice faltered. His name was almost a mortal wound. She swallowed and it was a full moment before she could go on.
Adam's body was rigid with tension. Another moment and he would have to go to her. Her pain was too much for him to see her bearing it alone.
"He could make us invisible. He created poems and chants that took away my pain when my stepfather beat me. He would put me in a dream with him, and we would run on the rainbow sands of a distant beach, hand in hand." She stopped again. The boy shifted his grip, holding onto her trembling hands, his thumbs stroking her helplessly. Correen choked on a sob.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I haven't had to remember this in a long time. The night this happened to my hands was the night my brother's power as a sorcerer was broken. His mind left him and has never returned. It was then I realized that it was our combined magic that kept us safe. I lost my happiness, my ability to play and imagine. That was my greatest link to magic. It was his, as well."
She took one of her hands away, reached into her pocket and drew forth a white clear stone, a piece of glass softened by ocean waves. "A wizard must constantly augment the strength of this circle and help to heal others, you understand?" She looked at him, hard. "He must be a powerful example. Toby thinks you are worthy of that honor; so do I. This was my brother's crystal. He used it in all of his magic. If I should fall, it should be in the hands of someone who will use it. Otherwise, I'll come back for it."
The boy looked at the stone, then raised his eyes, met Toby's. Correen's hand tightened on his, the stone curled in her palm. "The magic they do here is real," she said. "As real as the evil they face every time they leave."
His hand opened and she placed the glass into it. "You do me honor, lady," he cleared his throat, the words tripping awkwardly on his tongue. "With your story and your faith in me. I will not let either down."
"The Lady of ClearSea," Toby asserted, "is our greatest of magics." He motioned to the boy. "Mark, if you will? Your place is here on my left."
Mark looked back at the glass, at Correen, then nodded to himself. He crossed the floor, flushing at the neck when Marianna smiled at him and took his hand to create a linked force behind the king's chair.
"Do you have time, lady, to knight three new squires?"
Correen glanced at her watch. "I do, Your Majesty."
A rustling and murmur of excited voices, and three children stepped forward into the circle before the throne for inspection. All wore plain white Tshirts as tunics. One was a seven-year-old girl with dirty blonde hair, limpid blue eyes and a broken jaw, wired shut. The next was an eleven-year-old boy with eyes of chipped steel. His arms were freckled with cigarette burns. The final child was about five, a young girl with snarled red hair and a vacant, gentle look. Adam had the uncomfortable feeling that she was already half spirit, no longer interested in an earthly existence. She bore no bruises. Correen's eyes did not waver from the child's vacant stare. "Toby?"
"Her father abused her in the manner to which many great ladies are vulnerable."
Adam blanched. The rage he had felt for Sephira rose within him, fueled by his impotent fury at Correen's story.
Was his brother right? Could nothing heal this species but the cleansing force of a Sealing? But a Sealing was indiscriminate. These innocents, Correen, Rob, all of the people he had met would be destroyed with the rest.
The child's voice intruded. "Not my father," she cooed like a dove. "My father is imprisoned by a cruel and evil wizard who looks like my father." Eyes green as bottle glass wandered into focus on Toby's face. The young king hesitated, glancing at Correen, then nodded in the little one's direction. "Your pardon, m'lady. I stand corrected."
Correen drew a deep breath. "It is a special day to knight three such worthy candidates. With your permission, Your Majesty, I would like to offer the honor to our visitor, Prince Adam. As I have told you, he is a great and mighty ruler in his world and would do us all great tribute if he would bestow his favor on this brave trio."
Adam, surprised, came to his feet, carefully avoiding the inevitable entanglement with the small chair. A great and mighty prince did not end up face forward on the floor. He did not wish to disappoint his chosen lady in any way. He bowed slightly from the waist, easily assuming the demeanor that was his birthright. "The honor would be all mine, if it pleases Your Majesty."
Toby hesitated, eyes again wary, suspicious. Adam knew he was the intruder in his domain, in more ways than one.
"I bet you're the prince who brought the Lady of ClearSea to us," the cellophane-winged fairy piped up, staring up into his face.
Adam shifted his attention to her. "Pardon?"
The little girl lost her bravery and hid behind Marianna's skirts. Adam looked to Correen.
"When I first came to them," she explained, a blush rising in her cheeks, "I told them that Toby had sent a summons to me in my underwater kingdom. I swam a great distance, from the center of the earth where fire and water mingle, all the way to the surface. When I broke out of the water, I shed the dolphin form I assumed beneath the waves and took on this aspect. I had no manner of transport to them and so I began to walk, knowing it would take me many days to reach them. It was then a prince came upon me, riding a steed..." She paused. The rose color of her face deepened. Marianna took up the story. The fairy crept out, pressed herself against Correen's leg.
"A steed whose hide was as golden as the prince's own eyes," she recited. "The horse's tail and mane were flowing black silk, just as the prince's hair rippled in ebony waves down his back. He told her the wood was dangerous and though she looked far from helpless to him, he would be glad to serve as her companion. He gave her a hand onto the back of his mount. When she set hands to his waist, the steed's neck arched and he unfolded a great set of golden wings to take to the air. The prince brought her swiftly to King Tobias' lands. There she dismounted, but she held onto his hand." The little fairy posed in her interpretation of that position. A ripple of giggles passed through the children.
"'Kind sir,' she said to him then. 'How can I repay you for helping me complete my journey?'" Marianna paused. "I forget the last part."
Correen raised her eyes to Adam's.
"The prince answered," she said softly, "'Dear lady, I sought nothing but the pleasure of your company.' And he made to depart. I asked him if I would ever see him again and he said, 'Whenever you have need of me, I will be there.'"
Adam bowed, his eyes intent upon her. "And so I shall be," he said quietly.
"All right, then, sir," Toby broke the spell between them. "If you are going to knight these three worthies, you best not leave them standing about all day."
"Indeed, sire." Adam moved to do as he was bid and surveyed the three before him. Instinctively, he reached to his side and then smiled as he discovered nothing there.
"A prince without his sword will have difficulty knighting properly," Toby admonished.
Adam inclined his head. "Thank you for your instruction, Your Majesty, but I did bring my own. I simply mislaid it."
Adam lifted his right hand out to his side. Every eye followed its ascent up, up over his head. He brought his elbow down and drew his sword out of a scabbard of air. There was a collective gasp at the blade that caught the dim hallway light and flashed its imprint on all assembled faces. The steel shone along the razor fine edge of the weapon. He leveled it and the air was charged with energy.
"Speak your names for this court." His voice resounded through the hall, commanding and altogether royal.
"Mary." "Jessica." "David." They were whispers in young, awestruck voices.
"Mary, David, and Jessica," the sword touched each shoulder. Each child started in surprise at the flow of brilliant, healing energy that poured into bodies which had endured so much. "Do you swear fealty to King Tobias and the principals of this court, no matter how far your quest may take you from them?"
"I do," two voices responded. The youngest, dove-like voice asked, "What is feeltee?"
Adam smiled at Jessica. "It means loyalty. Or devotion."
"Oh. I do."
"Then rise," he commanded. "Sir David, Lady Mary and Lady Jessica, Knights of the-" Adam paused, glancing at Toby.
"Forgotten Realm," Toby provided.
"Knights of the Forgotten Realm." Adam finished off the knighting by stepping back and saluting the three with the blade. The other children erupted in a cheer, gathering around the three with hugs and well wishes. Correen responded to the little fairy's tug on her skirt and knelt. The child put her arms around Correen's neck and pressed childish lips to her ear. "He is the one," she whispered. "I knew he was."
Correen looked into the little girl's eyes and saw her own love for the prince mirrored in the round eyes. She nodded.
Toby sat outside the circle, close to Adam. The man and boy-turning-to-man eyed one another.
"She's telling the truth. She may not come back, right?" Toby said.
"I will keep her safe," Adam promised.
Toby looked up at him. There was a look of heart-rending sadness in his brown eyes. "Good," he said softly. "I'm glad she's found someone who can be as strong for her as she is for us."
"I suspect," Adam dropped to one knee, "that she has drawn much strength from you, from this place. I would offer you this sword as a token of my gratitude-"
"Don't," Toby laid his hand on the jeweled hilt. "You'll need it to protect her. And this," he gestured at his cardboard one, "is what works best in my battles."
"Do you mind if I ask ...?" Adam looked at the chair.
"My father was raping my sister," Toby said simply. "Every night. I planned his murder. I shot him, but he ran me over with the car, and paralyzed me from the waist down, took my leg and my eye out. He died with his foot on the gas, still pinning me to the garage wall." Toby gave a toothless smile. "What I did is considered premeditated murder, so they're trying to decide whether or not to send me to prison. Correen and a couple of cops who took my side worked out my staying here until they get it all figured out."
Adam nodded, silent a moment, for he could not trust his voice. "I will tell my father, the king, of you. You are a noble and effective leader."
Toby tried to smile, but he gripped the hilt fiercely. His voice bore the strength of a king commanding a knight. "Just take care of her. Bring us back the Lady of ClearSea. She's got to make it, to prove we can do it. I'd die a hundred times to keep her and that hope alive."
Adam gave him his hand and they clasped wrists, the timeless bond of brothers-in-arms. "I will have to be dead to fail her."
Correen came to his side and Toby let go of him. She held Toby in her arms and they clung together a long moment.
"Until we meet again," she said softly into his hair. She held onto his head as he buried his tears in her shoulder. When he raised his face it was composed.
"God go with you, m'lady."
"And with you."
Marianna and Mark came to either side of him. It was this threefold image of endurance that Adam took with him. A cellophane-winged fairy capered before them, the ability to laugh still within her grasp.
My first assignment from my Order was to live in a world where the dominant species believed it was God. They believed this to be true because of the vast differences between themselves and all other species in their world. Even more fascinating was that they believed God (themselves), evolved from the smallest organism on the planet, rather than existing fully evolved before everything else. It leaves evolution as an open-ended equation. What can one evolve into once one reaches god state? I expected them to have a destructive morality where they were accountable to no one but themselves, because I hypothesized that evil or good were concepts entertained only when consequences are expected from behavior. But this species believed that striving to be good and generous, and wise, was the obligation of a god. They believed worlds that worshiped gods had simply created these deities as the manifestations of their deepest aspirations for themselves; their highest evolution. To them, the idea of creating a separate God was like manufacturing a doll with all the trappings we believe to be ideal.
-Report to Monastic Order of Cirulon, Martin Watchtower
Adam squatted next to Martin in the waiting area of Adrian's wing. He nodded at the backpack. "Was our friend able to help you reach Darius?"
"Oh, he was most helpful," Martin smiled, setting aside his magazine. "The nurses are on the phone calling exterminators. That is, after they gave up searching every corner of the floor for him." Martin patted the bag. "He's safe and sound in here. Darius wasn't as cooperative. He didn't wish to speak to me. He's very afraid, and very confused. I am sorry I have failed you, your-Adam."
The prince shook his head. "Let me see if we can do this another way." Adam rose and followed Correen and Alicia past the nurses' station. The nurses were busy discussing the enormous rat they had seen and took little notice of the trio who looked confident of their destination.
Darius had given in to exhaustion. His head lay on the covers next to Adrian as she slept. When Correen and Alicia slipped in, his chin snapped up. His bleary eyes sharpened into focus. "What do you want?"
"Who is it, Darius?" Adrian was a still, pale ghost swathed in blankets on the bed.
"It's Alicia and Correen, sweetheart," the blonde answered. She gave Darius an even look. Correen sank to the mattress and took the younger girl's hand.
"How are you?"
Adrian grimaced. "I'll be fine. They're going to let me go home in the next couple hours. We told them I had a nasty fall so they gave me some antibiotics, X-rayed my head and said I had to sleep over. Thank goodness Mom and Dad are in Maryland, this weekend, visiting Aunt Gracie. The doctor had to call them, but Darius explained I was okay." Her eyelids drooped. "Those sedatives are doing crazy things."
"Adrian," Alicia knelt by Correen's side and touched Adrian's thin forearm. "I know it's hard right now to think about it, but we need to know-"
"You don't need to know shit." Darius leaned over the bed, his blue eyes cold. "I knew you weren't here just to see how she's doing. Whatever you want can wait until tomorrow, or never, for all I care."
"Darius-" Adrian protested.
"No, Adrian. They almost got you killed and-"
"They did not-Darius, you all saved me!" Adrian struggled to a sitting position and spoke with a firmness she obviously did not feel. "These are my sisters, Darius. I love them and trust them, and I trust Adam, too. I know what I believe bothers you, but that doesn't make it any less real. They didn't cause those awful people to take me for..." She swallowed, "a sacrifice. Because they were at Havenwood and knew what was going on, you were able to save my life. I..." She stuttered to a halt, her hand going to her head.
"Adrian-" Correen lunged forward, but Darius was faster. He eased her down on her pillows. He rested his forehead on hers. Her small hands gripped his shirt front, hanging on to him. The giant smoothed his hands down either plane of her limp hair.
"Please go," he whispered. "I know I'm being irrational, but I can't bear the sight of any of you right now. I nearly lost her and I wouldn't have even known it. It scared me to death. All right?"
"Darius," Adrian spoke in the tense silence, "I need you to do something for me. It's going to be hard, okay?"
His head lifted, his eyes searching her face. "What?"
Adrian touched his neck with a questing finger. "I want you to go out to the coffee shop and give me a few minutes alone with Correen, Al and Adam."
Darius spun around. Adam stood in the shadows of the dim room. "You're the last person I want around her," he snapped.
"Darius," Adrian implored. "Please. It's important. If those people are still out there, they may try to hurt someone else. I have to help them. You know I do. You would." Her hands were gentle on his freckled neck, the tips of her fingers stroking the red curls. "I have to help them. I really do. I need you to give me the space to do that. All right?"
"All I care about is you, Adrian," he said.
"That's not entirely true," she said. "What about when you do your lab stuff? You wouldn't risk your life if you only cared about me. You care about others, too. It's why I love you so much."
He put his forehead back against hers. "Fine," he said. "But let me stay."
"No," she shook her head. "This is too hard for you. I've got to be able to try and remember things for them, and I can't if I'm feeling how much you hate this and how much it's upsetting you. I need you out of the room."
"How did you know Adam was here?"
Adrian turned her head toward Adam. "I felt him. Since he touched me, in the caves, it's like I can feel him whenever he's close. Like I can with-Darius?"
Adam stepped out of his path as the giant man strode to the door. Anger and hurt was in every line of Darius's face. He jerked the door open, then stopped to glare at the prince. "You upset her, I'll-"
"Darius?" The soft voice from the bed stopped whatever the student had been about to say and he swallowed his pride to look back at the small figure on the bed.
"What?"
Adrian's voice quavered, filled with pain for both of them. "Don't go far, okay?"
The man nodded. "I won't." But the strain of saying it was in the tense, clipped syllables. He left the room without a backward glance.
Darius paced to the wall directly across from the door and turned to face it, to find that one of the women or Adam had gently closed it after him. Logic, which had not completely deserted him, told him it was to prevent passersby from overhearing suspicious tidbits of an outlandish conversation, but it still struck him personally, another barricade that had come between him and Adrian.
He turned on his heel and headed for the elevators, intending to get a cup of coffee from the soda shop downstairs. He jabbed angrily at the down arrow on the elevator. The doors opened and he stared at the empty compartment, a dusty metal floor and more walls, another set of doors shutting between them.
"I'm still a kid," Adrian had told him matter-of-factly, soon after they had first met. "I'm going to go through phases, change my mind about who I want to be and where I want to go. You, on the other hand, already know those things, pretty much." The freckles had slid up her cheeks onto her nose as her wide, thin lips lifted in a smile. "You're already old enough to know your likes and dislikes and have your bad habits in place. So why do you want to get involved with someone who's going to change who she is every day?"
The elevators buzzed angrily and Darius let go of the button, stepping back into the hallway. He had laid one hand against her neck, a neck so thin he could enclose it in one massive palm. His knuckles had dusted her collarbone and then his palm had lain over her heart, feeling its rapid tempo against the warmth of his flesh. "Because I don't think this is going to change," he had said, not knowing if he meant her heart, or their reaction to one another when they touched.
Adrian's face revealed that she had understood both sides to the message, but she grinned impishly, laying her slight hand over his huge one. "You're right about that. At fifteen, there isn't going to be much change in this area."
Darius smiled despite his exhaustion, and dropped into one of the chairs lining the hallway. He glanced down the row to see who his companions in exile might be. He hoped for someone who might want to discuss the latest football scores or his wife's appendectomy and found himself staring into Martin Watchtower's inquisitive, pleasant face across the magazine table.
"Hell," Darius muttered. He snatched up a woman's magazine and deliberately opened it.
Martin pursed his lips and looked down at his own selection. With great precision, he folded the magazine back and creased it to hold it open to the desired page. He proffered it to the man sitting across the small table from him.
"I believe there is an article in here that will help."
Darius' blue eyes lifted to the professor's, irritation imprinted on every plane of his face. Martin waved the magazine gently. "What To Do When You Don't Like Her Friends."
Darius caught the corner of the magazine and, with an effective flick, sent it sliding down the slick tile floor. It spun to a halt against a parked cart stacked with breakfast trays. The nurse at the front station glanced up at them with a warning frown.
Darius turned his back on the professor, leaning forward in his chair, elbows braced on knees. He began to read an article regarding the benefits of professional manicures versus do-it-yourself kits.
"One of the things the article suggested was to investigate common interests you may have with her friends." Martin crossed his legs, jarring the small magazine table between them. "For instance-"
The backpack Martin had left on the table toppled against Darius' arm. The annoyed science student snatched it up, intending to put it on the floor, and just as quickly dropped it. "There's something alive in there," he said.
"That's Niko," Martin murmured. He pushed back the zipper slightly, an eye to the nurse's station. A whiskered nose poked out, touched Darius' fingers and then the rat shot out of the bag and dove underneath Darius' loose sweatshirt. Martin made a futile grab for the animal, lost his balance and fell halfway over the table into Darius' lap. Darius made a choking sound.
The nurse looked up. Darius, with a slight quiver to his jaw, deliberately folded his arms over Martin's back, shielding his own bulging abdomen. He nodded politely at the nurse, and she gave him a strange look before returning to her charts.
"I assume that he's friendly," Darius said, absently patting Martin as though comforting him, "because he hasn't bitten a nipple off yet, but-" Darius abruptly squirmed, and Martin sat up, quickly thrusting the bag at him. Darius clamped it over his upper torso. "Stay still," the redhead hissed. Niko turned in a circle, his tail briefly emerging from the collar of Darius' shirt before he slithered out from under the sweatshirt back into the recesses of the sack. Once there, however, he about-faced and poked his nose out, resting the weight of his head against Darius' thigh. Darius chuckled and surreptitiously scratched the triangular head. "So they have rats in your world, hmm?"
"Of a sort. Niko is a metamorphosing dragon. He prefers this form."
Darius' fingers stilled, then resumed as Niko made an impatient sound. "I've taken three of your classes. I can't believe..." He shook his head and looked down at the rat. "I should have known. Even your animals have got to be different."
"Well, Aegis has some rats from your world, now." Martin smiled. "Part of the approximately 20,000 animals I believe that were transferred there."
Darius shot him a look of amazement. "You mean Adam-he transported them?"
Martin inclined his head. "In a manner of speaking. Never fear, their Healer's Guild will nurse the sick ones. They will all be given safe places to live out the rest of their lives."
"Does he have any-well, do you have pets?"
"My order is from a different world, and we do not have animals in the monastery, but in Aegis they do have what you would call pets. Niko, however, is a friend and helpmeet to Prince Adam, rather than a pet. I do recall the prince has a favored white horse named Rebekah."
"White horse. Figures." Darius grunted. He looked down at the magazine, then back at the closed door to Adrian's room, a bleak expression taking over his features.
Martin regarded him with compassion. "You and Adrian, are-an unusual couple. Do you mind me asking how you decided to ... become involved?"
Darius shrugged. "You remember last year, when Maurice and his group decided to hold a racism experiment in the caf?"
Martin nodded. "They were allowed to designate the tables as blue-eyed or brown-eyed, and only people matching those descriptions could sit there."
"Right. The administration said they had to make a place apart for people who didn't want to participate. So they did. It turned out that the people who sat there got the 'lesson of racism' because they were treated like pariahs for not participating."
Martin adjusted his ankle upon his knee and leaned his weight forward. "I left before that occurred, but I heard about it."
"Well, Havenwood being what it is, some of the students in the participant zone started calling out nasty things to those in the non-participant zone and in about ten minutes you had 20 people on their feet, nose to nose, snarling at one another. Adrian kept it from becoming a total blood bath." Darius smiled faintly. "Rob and I were sitting back in the non-participant area, just watching the fireworks, when here she comes, right down the middle of them. She's swinging that staff of hers like she's using it to feel her way when what she was really doing was cutting some space between them, since she rarely if ever uses the thing on campus. She stops right in front of Maurice and asks him to 'please, stop this.'"
The tall man shook his head. "Just 'stop it'. No speeches-nothing. She about-faces, says the same thing to the line behind her. You could hear grease frying in the kitchens, it got so quiet. Rob was strung tight as a wire next to me, because, you know, he sees Adrian as his kid sister. I'm ready to jump into it and keep him from getting the stuffing kicked out of him. Then Maurice leans into her face and says, 'Just because you're blind, it doesn't make you any less white to me."
Martin shook his head and Darius snorted. "I know, some people are eat up with the dumb-ass, as Rob would say. She leans right back and says in the strongest, clearest voice I've ever heard, 'I don't know what black and white are, or green or pink, for that matter, but I do know someone who stinks of hate, and hate is a void-it sucks up all the colors and leaves nothing."
Darius glanced back at the closed door, his blue eyes soft with admiration. "She said some other great things, too, but I remember that the most. When she said it, I was looking at her profile, her weight leaning forward, all that hair falling forward from her shoulder and it hit me here," he tapped a thumb against his chest, "Bam! This isn't any kid. So, when she left the caf, I took off, leaving Rob sitting there. I followed her into the courtyard. She was ahead of me and didn't hear me. She crumpled up on a bench. I noticed then her hands were shaking, and she started crying. I knew why. It's the same thing that tears me apart every time an otherwise decent, intelligent human being stands in front of me and tells me they think it's okay to vivisect animals in labs." He swallowed and looked down at his hands. "You don't expect people you like and respect, people you thought you knew pretty well, to condone something you know is wrong. It's a betrayal that pulls the rug right out from under you."
Niko ventured out a paw and scraped at Darius' jeans pocket.
"What? Oh, yeah." Darius smiled and shifted, producing an old piece of hard candy. He sobered and looked at Martin. "I didn't say anything at all to her. I just went up to her, sat down and put my arms around her, to comfort her. She didn't jump or freak out. When she cried herself out, the first words she ever said to me were, 'You smell like love.'"
"Extraordinary," Martin murmured.
"Yeah, I thought so." Darius shrugged. "So we're together. It's not the best match in the world, two people who feel the bad stuff so deeply. You need to be with someone who helps you stand back from it sometimes, but it's who I am and who she is. I love her so much." His voice broke and Martin reached out, but Darius shook his head, holding up a warning hand. He took a deep breath.
"On one level, I do understand why you guys are here, and I support your intent. But it makes me mad, too. You're the ones doing the fixing, instead of us. One thing that always bothered me about the Garden of Eden story was that we got thrown out and punished like errant kids. Now we're ruining the rest of the world. It's kind of like we always need a baby sitter to keep us out of trouble."
Martin had no answer to that. Darius sighed, looking again at Adrian's room, then he looked back, measuring the monk of the Order of Cirulon. "All right, we've got some time. Read me the damn article."
"I just can't remember any of it." Adrian blinked through tears. "I'm so sorry, Alicia. I remember waking up in the cave, and them talking to me as if they were you, but nothing before that."
Alicia brought a cold washcloth from the small bathroom and pressed it to her friend's face. "Don't worry. You're doing just fine." She hugged the younger girl and looked over her head at Correen. Correen shrugged helplessly, looked at Adam.
Adam took a deep breath, left his chair and moved to the side of the bed. Alicia backed away so he could sit next to Adrian, his hip just touching hers. He reached out and cupped the side of her face.
"You got all tense," the blind girl said. "What's wrong?"
"I can't remove the spell he placed on your memory, Adrian," Adam said carefully. "But I can go through it, past it and retrieve the part you have lost."
"Is that so bad?"
"It isn't comfortable. I'll be inside your mind. I'll need to go backwards through your memories, so you will experience it all again, as if you were there. It will only be for a few moments, but ... it will feel invasive. It's easier if you are relaxed," he added.
"Well, the drugs have taken care of that, I guess. Go ahead, do it." Adrian lay back against the pillows, her face pale, peculiar eyes looking like she studied something far away.
Adam squeezed her hand, turned to Correen and Alicia. "She will be reliving her memories. She may move. You should stay close so she does not hurt herself."
He took both her thin hands in his. "You are sure?"
"I trust you, Adam." She tightened her grip. "Just don't let go."
"Do you need to ask me anything before we start?"
She tilted her head to the side for a moment of silence. "Will you be there?"
Memory flashed back and he remembered his Trial. Emotion coiled in his chest. He had asked that of Mataya right before the Trial started. Adam nodded and responded as his mentor had. "I will not leave your side."
"Then I am ready."
Adam closed his eyes and entered her mind.
He knew the initial pressure was like a doctor inserting a probing instrument in the body. The colors in her mind changed tones. She modulated her breathing and went into a meditative state, shifting them back down again. That was good; if she tightened up too much when he was in there, he would have to push harder, make it worse on her.
It was not difficult to find the memories. They were a dark, frenetic spider of energy, sealed in by protective webs of denial. The web was interlaced with a green gummy thread, probably the spell. The spell was not meant for him; he could pass through it.
Adam lanced through it and dropped chest deep in a dark mire of terror. Adrian jerked convulsively in his grasp. They had taunted her for hours, feeding her fear. The men groped at her intimately, molesting her without taking her prized innocence. They had stripped her naked. Fury rose in him and her fear increased. He would drown them both in his emotional reaction.
Adam forced himself to ignore all of it. He slogged through the hours of torment as quickly as possible, rewinding. At last she was unconscious, then Edward carried her backwards out of the chamber, moving back into tunnels, into and up stairs, stairs, and more stairs. They came out of the trap door, into a cellar.
He winced. Edward had dropped her to the second level by her hair. Adrian was seized as she crashed into his arms. Then she wasn't, and Edward stood silently in the storeroom, watching her with frightening, impassive dark eyes. Adrian looked for her pottery, unaware of him. She left the aisle and backed to the entrance of the storeroom. She went up and up.
Adam pulled out, gasping for air. Adrian wept, shaking against Alicia and Correen's comforting holds. Adam released her hands and gathered her close.
"It's all right," he murmured. "You did fine. You can forget again."
But she wouldn't. The spell would fade with the memories. It had been cast only long enough to carry her to her early death, which, thank Those Who Are Not Seen, they had been able to prevent. Edward's evil would surface from where it lay now, a vague disturbance of her soul, and she would have to make her peace with it.
Her trembling stilled, bit by bit. Correen stroked her hair. Alicia spoke soothing words to her. Adam felt like a monster, the monster Goap had tried hard to convince him he was.
Alicia looked at him with harsh eyes, an expectant brow raised. He was glad he could give her an answer.
"Mahatma Hall. The storage room."
"Hey," Adrian sniffed bravely. "Is that a rock in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
"Wha-? Oh," Adam furrowed his brow. He withdrew the mold from his pocket.
"He didn't get it, did he?" Adrian asked. Alicia chuckled.
"What? Here," Adam put the plaster in her hand. "This is what you felt. It's a symbol we were trying to understand."
"It's a rune of some kind. Well, actually," her fingers outlined the ridges. "It's four runes."
"What?" Adam leaned forward.
"It's four symbols. Correen, there's probably a pad of hospital stationary somewhere in here." The worried lines on the young girl's face smoothed as her focus changed and she became absorbed in the task. Correen wrapped her free hand around a pencil and laid a pad on her knee. Adrian got the feel for the lay of the paper and then bore down on it, using the roll-up table Correen brought for her. One hand traced the mold as she drew with the other.
"These aren't going to be really straight, because I don't have my ruler, but it's like somebody drew a picture, then overlaid another one on top of it ... then another, then another..."
Adam looked down at four separate runes that, when overlaid, had created the one symbol she held in her hand, which still trembled. "The four kings," he murmured. He glanced at Alicia and Correen. "These are the symbols for the true names of the four kings."
"But I thought we knew their names," Alicia pointed out. "Goap, Gorson..."
"Those were the names men gave them," Correen said thoughtfully. "These could be their actual power signs, so to speak. Goap probably gave the symbols to Edward to help aid him in calling them back to their physical form."
Adam nodded and took the mold from the girl. "Adrian," he said, "you are amazing."
She shrugged and allowed Correen to help her slide back under the covers. "It's just a different way of seeing, that's all. Adam?"
"Yes?"
"Come down here, okay?"
The prince obliged, leaning close to the pixie face. Adrian reached up, found his face, and touched it.
"I had a dream about you, a few days ago. It was you, but it wasn't you on the outside. You were a lion. Wild, hmm?" Her eyes drooped and Adam stroked her face, a tender smile touching his features. "I was a maiden in distress," she murmured, "and you came to rescue me. I didn't tell Darius about the dream, because it sounded romantic, but it wasn't, you know. I was in trouble, and you came to help, because that's what you do."
She struggled to hold onto consciousness one more moment. "Thank you, so very much," she said. "From me, and from Darius. I know he wants to say it to you, but ... you know."
Adam nodded against her hand. "You love him very much, I know. He's a good man."
She smiled, her eyes half-closing again. "I don't think I can handle knowing what all this is about right now ... but is there anything that we should do..."
Adam touched his lips to her forehead. "You and Darius make peace with each other," he said. "Should we fail to change the course of events, you'll want to be together with no questions between you."
Adrian's fingers clutched the coverlets in reaction to that, but she nodded, her face much older than her years. "All right," she said. "When you go out, let Darius know I need him. Use those exact words if you don't mind."
The girl let the drugs pull her into sleep, but her last conscious whisper departed with them.
"Whatever God is, may It be with you guys."
We have all heard that some religions believe sex is only for procreation. Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear that I believe Wicca also adheres to this view. Now wait, let me explain this to you. When two people engage in physical intimacy, they are emulating the physical expression of the spiritual relationship of the God and Goddess. The level of spiritual commitment and bonding between them should be such that when they join to make love, they are creating a new being. They become one.
-Sephira Roth, address to Spring Semester cowan meeting
Slivers of light from the early afternoon sun speared through the archway of branches leading to Alma's porch. They created a forest of crisscrossed beams Correen passed through like a tree wraith, alternating between shadow and light. Somewhere, she could hear the language of Saturday afternoon in a small town; mowers making their last lap, sweat-stained husbands and fathers at the helms; the lingering call of mothers, summoning their broods from childish domains to the demands of dinner. The sounds of normal people experiencing a normal afternoon in early spring. Eat dinner, fall asleep in recliners. Have Wiccan initiations, fight demons, plan to save the world.
Correen sat down on the cool slate stones of the porch and twisted dead leaves off Alma's gerber daisies. Alma was not giving them enough light. They really needed to be on the back porch, near the swan shed. She studied the flowers, then looked down the tangled route she had taken to the house. The memory of what had happened earlier in the morning when she had walked down that path sent a shiver up her spine.
After rising with Adam, before heading for the hospital, she had forced Rob into a cursory examination in Alma's kitchen. It was an afterthought, but she wanted to ensure that he had suffered no ill effects from the demon's attack, other than the scratches she had treated before their "nap." He had grumbled over the attention, asserting loftily that "football players have callused bones."
Correen closed her eyes. She did not have much faith in calluses, now that every one of them had been ripped from her. She had felt like an open wound for the past week and was amazed it did not show in her face, that everything she touched did not leave an imprint of blood. Her bones felt so close to her skin she wouldn't be surprised if a flick of her wrist shot them through the epidermis like toothpicks through cellophane.
She was terribly aware of her own body, every nerve ending rippling, the mild soreness between her legs. She was aware of all the bodies around her, seeing them suddenly as sexual creatures, with unique attractive scents and gestures. She had felt her way across Rob's bruised ribs many times after football games, looking for any changes in heat energy that would indicate a crack. Today was the first time she had noticed the admirable rock hardness of his stomach and the pretzel shaped birthmark underneath his left nipple. As she divided her attention between her task and these discoveries, a pair of arms slipped around her waist, pulling her back against a body that intensified the awareness of her own tri-fold.
"Adam!" She flushed crimson before Rob's amused expression and struggled around to face him, her heart thudding a little harder at the look in his tawny eyes. Not giving in to his own desire to make love to her had obviously left him with an intensely heightened awareness of her, but what surprised Correen was that she so quickly desired him once again in response.
Once she had found a romance novel left in the infirmary by Dr. Scott's daughter, or so Dr. Scott had claimed. The hero and heroine had engaged in intercourse six times over fifty pages, working it in between a pirate attack, being marooned, sold into slavery, and rescued in an epic battle. She had thought it ludicrous that they would have the energy to make love once, let alone six times. She knew that life-threatening situations heightened physical desire, but the author had taken it to an absurd level.
Now here she was, and her blood surged eagerly in response to his touch. Every time her gaze locked with his, it was as if an ancient harp string resounded across the centuries, continuing a song created in their honor long, long ago. There was casual and loving possession in his glance, springing from their newborn intimate knowledge of one another. It was a look heady enough to drive the cartilage in her knees to jelly. Correen leaned back, trying to pull away. She succeeded in brushing her backside along the inside of Rob's spread thighs, which immediately caused her to rebound into Adam's close embrace.
The regal gaze shifted to his roommate and changed. Rob shifted his own gaze out of dangerous waters and claimed a tabloid from the side table, a droll grin playing about his lips.
Adam brought his attention back to Correen. "Channa's at the school. I need to discuss a few things with her before we go to the hospital. Will you be all right?" Translation: I want to let you know I am going to go talk with Channa and there is nothing that needs to concern you about that. He brushed his lips across her temple and a tremor rippled across her skin.
"Stop it," Correen said, low. She brushed glass shards from the left hip pocket of his jeans. She got a splinter and Adam lifted her hand and removed the slim offender with long, capable fingers. He brushed his lips across the open cut and, with a deliberate look, dropped lower and pressed his mouth to the racing pulse in her wrist below the line of her bandage.
She snatched her hand away. "You're rushing things. You should be resting," she said inanely. Alma's healing and Rob's blood had left the prince almost vibrant with health. "But go if you're going. Channa will be waiting for you."
"Will you be-"
"For heaven's sake, I've managed fine without you for twenty-three years!"
Adam stepped back and nodded. Correen turned away, refusing to watch him leave the kitchen through the back door. "Would you-" She snatched the magazine from Rob's limp hands, "I can't do this with you-" She stopped, took a deep breath. "Damn it!"
Correen caught up with him on the tangled path in front of the house. She spun Adam around with a rough tug on his arm that brought him up against her, a hundred-eighty plus pounds of male muscle and scent, and eyes that burned for her, at least for the moment. Correen lunged up awkwardly, unskilled at this type of expression, needing to tell him what she was feeling-needing to tell him that she was feeling and too unsure of herself to put any of it into words.
His arms held her and he leaned back against an oak, bringing her inside his thighs. "I didn't mean to rush you, I just wanted to touch you," he admitted. "What?" He bent his head closer.
Correen looked up at him, her gray eyes serious and full as the curved breast of a dove. "I want you," she faltered. "Right now." She turned four shades of rose and looked away, speaking to an overgrown, blooming tangle of wisteria. "I know it's selfish, because you said it would ... weaken you. I don't want you to think I ... don't appreciate what you did earlier, it's just-"
His silence was making her more and more uncomfortable and in a minute she was going to run. Adam tried to draw her closer, as if sensing it, and she took a step back. "I just wanted to be near you again, connected like that, and I wanted you to know it..." To her shock, tears were gathering in her eyes. "It feels like it's going to be the last time and I-"
A strange noise from him stopped her. He was grinning. Correen turned scarlet and whirled on her foot.
He caught her about the waist before she could leave him. Adam pulled her away from the house, into the lee side of the tree. Here they were screened by a heavy thicket of ivy and the cool smell of earth. He put her back against the tree and put himself against her, holding her there with the gentle but inexorable pressure of his body pressed between her legs. He cradled her head in his hands so she would look at him.
"Don't," she said plaintively, pushing at him. "You don't want me and I can't-" She never cried, and there were tears running down her face for the second time in twenty-four hours. She never should have opened herself up to him, she needed to get away...
"Correen," he called her name, softly, his touch gentle, until she gave up trying to get free and glared at him.
"By the Continuum, I swear I did not mean to hurt you." She moved her arms to cross them against her chest, but he pressed closer, rubbing against her breasts so she could only hold her arms at her sides, like a rigid sentry. Adam stroked a wisp of hair from her forehead, following the line of her tearstained cheek when she ducked her face away. "You made it sound like making love to you would be such an inconvenience and," he pressed his hips a little more firmly against her, "you might notice that I would be more than happy to do so." His eyes reflected her pain, filled with aching tenderness. The anger in her face gave way to uncertainty.
"It will be a difficult road for you and me," he murmured, leaning forward to drop kisses on her temple. His mouth moved down her neck. She trembled against him. "But know this-if you need me to prove my love to you every day, I will gladly do so. I never want you to doubt it, or how much I want you." He raised his head and stared at her. "All right?"
Correen sifted and sorted her feelings, trying to balance years of fear against the strength of the thing between them. The girl closed her arms around his shoulders. "Show me how much," she whispered. "Don't think about me. Prove to me how much you want me. Make me believe it."
He was afraid of hurting her, she could see his hesitancy. That wasn't what she wanted. Correen leaned forward into his arms, resting her weight on her forearms, and placed her lips on his neck. The kiss was a feather-light touch that caused a shudder to run through him. She tightened her hold and bit him, hard, pressing her body boldly against him. He caught her jaw and pulled it away and captured her lips, not with tenderness, but with hard need and possession. She tightened her hold on his shoulders, ignoring the pain, simply hanging on as he divested himself of the necessary clothing. He caught her under her arms and lifted her effortlessly up against the solid weight of the tree.
Adam reached under her skirt, caught his fingers in her underwear and tore them away from her body. Her gasp extended into a moan as he sheathed himself inside her.
It hurt more than she expected, but his wanting of her was inextricably intertwined with his love for her. Adam stilled within her, giving her time. His powerful back curled and he pushed up her T-shirt, holding it with one hand against her throat, her life pulsing against his palm. He took her breast into his mouth and bit the nipple, causing her to convulse against him. He withdrew slightly, then thrust into her again. Correen moaned and he pushed in again. Her fingertips dug into him, felt the muscles rippling under the broad back.
She had not thought she could climax again and it had not been the main reason she wanted him within her again. Regardless, the rippling waves came, overtook her, and she went under, no strength in her to resist them. She clung to him, felt him within her and around her, possessing her, belonging to her, and gave herself to him utterly, wishing to be so much his that his lungs would give her air and her heart would circulate his blood.
The motion of his hips pushed her legs wider with every thrust. His control slipped as her climax forced soft cries from her lips, and he came within her, shuddering in her arms. She held him, stroked him, whispered his name. If death came for her, she had found this. At this moment, for the first moment in her life, Correen had total trust in someone's love for her.
When he put her on her feet again, Adam helped her straighten her clothes. He bent and retrieved the white scrap of cloth on the ground and brought it to her with an apologetic expression.
"Did you-" A light flush crept up his neck. "Did you like it when I did that?"
"Yes," she said quietly. Her stomach dropped another six inches as she recalled exactly how it had felt. She took the underwear and tucked it discreetly in her skirt pocket.
"I was afraid it was too rough but," he shrugged boyishly. "It was how I felt and ... it was in one of Rob's romance novels. I thought you might like it. Some things in those books seem wrong, but other things seem right." He caught her by the waist, smoothly twirling her out of the glade and back onto the side path. When she would have lost her balance, he caught her in a warm, gentle hug, silencing her surprised squeak with a lingering kiss on her lips.
Correen pushed away from him and gave him a reproving glance. "I wondered how you came up with it. Your world doesn't seem overly familiar with underwear. It couldn't be something you practiced with Channa."
She cursed herself. She had not meant to throw the woman up between them, but she was off balance and needed to return to safe ground.
"Channa may have begun wearing underwear in this world," Adam said casually. At her arch glance, he suddenly looked alarmed. "But we haven't discussed it. If you'll accompany me back to the school, perhaps the subject will come up."
Correen did smile then, and he put his arm around her as they walked. After a moment she looped her own arm around his waist. They looked no different than any other pair of college students, enjoying early spring and the onset of love.
So calluses had a way of growing thin and breaking. Correen sighed and rose. She opened the door.
Salem Navarre waited just inside, seated on a battered Queen Anne whose red-velvet cushion had long ago faded to pink. "I thought I heard you. All ready, then?"
Correen nodded and the other woman smiled, leading her to the back of Alma's house, out onto the open back porch that had been transformed for the occasion. Gone were the stacks of tabloids Alma kept grouped companionably about her hot tub, and the half-empty glasses of morning juice left when she moved on to other tasks and forgot to finish her breakfast. The area had been swept clean, both physically and spiritually. Powerful energies hummed in the fragrant air. Ropes of gardenias were twisted in the latticework around the hot tub and several of the flowers floated on the water's surface. The water, too, had been scented with the fragrant blooms, and Correen wondered where Alma had gotten the summer flowers at this time of year. Somewhere beyond the wall of bushes and trees that enclosed the porch she heard a cadre of voices chanting to the steady beat of a drum. The chant was rhythmic and primitive, and a prickle of anticipation shot through her stomach.
The bushes rustled and admitted Alicia. She was an impressive figure in her blue robe, embroidered with runes, pentagrams, and the symbols personal to her practice of the Craft. Her gold hair rippled free past her shoulders. Without a word, she came forward and enfolded Correen in her lightly perfumed embrace. Correen returned the embrace less fervently. Alicia's pure impulsiveness of emotion came from the ritual preparations. Her own spirit was not in tune with them yet.
"I've wanted you to be a part of our coven since we first met. You've always been an empty spot in our circle." Alicia produced a black sash from her pocket and stood back a little, becoming more formal, though the warmth in her eyes remained. "An initiation is a rebirth, and to be reborn, first you must die. You must be in darkness, as you are in death, and as you are when you are reborn in a mother's womb." Correen's eyes closed as the blindfold was put into place. "Hold onto this chair for balance," Alicia guided the girl's bandaged, twisted fingers to the back of the carved bench next to the hot tub. She felt Salem's fingers upon her blouse, gently removing it as well as the rest of her clothes and the bandages. Correen removed her gloves herself. Alicia's robes rustled nearby.
"With salt I purify this water, asking the Earth and the Water to take back this one who is releasing all that she is to the embrace of the God and Goddess. Prepare her to accept the journey of this initiation so that she may be reborn into the nurturing waters of her Mother's womb."
Correen started as two hands clasped each of her own, but went forward willingly enough, allowing them to guide her into the steaming water. Gardenia petals tickled her legs as she sank down, seating herself carefully on a bench in the water. Alicia's hand touched her cheek. "We leave you now to resolve your fears and purify yourself for rebirth. Good journey."
Correen listened to their footsteps recede. She had not had the time until now to feel the excitement and vague apprehension of the time before the initiation. Alma had told her that all initiations were supposed to have a sense of fear, a demand for courage. Once that demand was met, the door of mysteries opened for exploration and the rest of the initiation was the simple joy of confirmation, the granting of sisterhood and brotherhood in a coven.
She knew the path she must take. Alma had been her mother, holding her hands through her first toddler steps along the path, but Alma could only take her so far. Correen had never made it to the other side, except the one time, to save Adam's life. She could not do that in the same manner again. She knew she had the capacity to heal, to help, to make whole, if only she could do it to herself first. It must be now. She would face the Gatekeeper.
"Callused bones," she told herself softly. She would not give herself the option of turning back. She was sick of fear, sick of herself. If the world would end tomorrow from this thing the Aegians called Sealing, or by the power of the demon king Goap, this was not the emotional shell in which she wished to be annihilated. She sank below the surface of the water, into dark silence. She felt the molecules of water move against her skin. They were connected to the energy of other molecules, a liquid net that molded to her, forming her shroud.
She held herself under as air grew short and her lungs started to ache. Spots appeared in her vision and her body trembled, fighting for survival. She was dead, she was leaving this body behind, detaching herself from it, floating upward, leaving her physical self behind.
Her head broke water and the path was there. It looked as it always looked. It sparkled like the proverbial yellow brick road, because it was paved in shards of glass. The tub had disappeared. She walked out of a shallow pond surrounded by a wall of thorns. A frigid wind slapped against her. Correen forced her hands to stay at her sides.
She was brought up short and looked down. Alicia sat cross-legged at the beginning of the path. She tied a black cord around Correen's left ankle.
"Neither bound nor free ye shall be," the blonde murmured, staring up at her with brilliant, unreal turquoise eyes.
Correen took a deep breath and nodded. Beyond the thorns a rhythmic chant started up. The hard syllables seemed to shake the air around her. She put her bare foot onto the path. The voices and the beating of blood through her body became the same song. The glass pierced the skin and she started back. Her clawed fingers clenched into fists. "I can do this," she muttered. "I will do this." She put her foot back down and felt the glass slice in. She knew pain, knew what it was. It was bearable, familiar.
She walked forward, hunched like a battered crone against the agony in her feet. Her nerves shrieked at her to turn back. Her coldness was gone. Sweat formed in the ridges of her spine, a bony serpent that bucked and tightened and convulsed with every step. She left a trail of blood that trickled back to the pond.
"You will not beat me this time," she snarled at the air. "I have suffered worse and survived!" Three days locked in a dark cellar, feeling the shards of bones grind against each other in useless sacks of skin that used to be her hands, not knowing if her brother was alive or dead. She had sucked water out of the air conditioner catch tray, unable to form a cup with her palms. She had fallen into feverish hallucinations and thrown up so often she could not avoid slipping in the vomit. She had instinctively caught herself on her hands, and had blacked out.
Correen staggered, grinding her foot more deeply into the glass and she howled, very nearly falling to her knees.
When she woke, she crawled up the stairs of the cellar and beat on the door with her foot. It opened. It had been unlocked all along.
"Sadistic bastard," she spat at the glass. "Oh, Mother, help me!!" She came to a halt and gave in to the sobs that choked her. "I'LL NEVER LEAVE THIS PLACE!!" She closed her eyes, despairing, and let herself fall backwards, toward the teeth of the path she followed.
She sputtered with surprise as she was jerked forward and into the air. Golden talons clutched her arms. Niko dipped his head and touched her forehead with his nose before swooping downward at an alarming rate. The talons opened and she dropped with a cry toward the earth. She landed in soft green grass. The tiny dragon gave a long, low cry and settled onto the branch of a tree like an exotic bird.
Correen turned her head, and her eyes widened. A lion watched her, his tail twitching in a manner that made her feel like an upcoming meal.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"In my unconscious," Adam knelt by her, taking one of her bloodied feet in his gentle hands. He held it up for the lion's perusal. "I think a hint is in order."
The great animal shook his mane. "An initiation rite is generally accomplished with only divine aid."
Adam rose, anger in his posture. "She has proven her commitment and courage. No child could have endured that!"
"Wait-how-" Correen scrambled up. Adam turned his head toward her but the lion answered her question.
"He is not consciously with you here. But our unconscious selves are connected by the All of the Universe. The more you learn to open yourself to Their Energy, the more you open yourself up to the unconscious of all. You will feel the tides of the Earth, and all of her inhabitants. You can choose to be buffeted like a shell on a shore by it. You can shut it out and be affected by it without knowing why you feel sad or happy at times. You can try to live in harmony with it, which means letting it flow in you and through you, so it does not accumulate as a cancer in your body or leave you behind like a rock embedded in the mud of a river. You have opened yourself up to him more than any other unconscious because you believe in his love for you."
"How can he love me? Does he know who I am?" Correen dug her toes into the grass, feeling the glass splinters she had brought with her.
"Love is a river that runs into itself. You step into its flow at a certain fated point. It does not have a beginning or an infancy. What you feel as growth is simply yourself opening more to the flow of love that has always been there. The river you two share is very old."
"I have to get back to the path," she turned away.
"Why?" The lion rolled over on his back, batting at a hapless butterfly.
"Why?" she echoed, giving him an exasperated look. "Because it's ... the path. The way I'm supposed to go to meet the Gatekeeper."
"Come here."
Adam had vanished. It was just she and the lion now. Correen cautiously crossed a brook that giggled between them. When she emerged from the water, the blood was gone, her feet healed. She sat down next to the lion at his gesture and gave a startled yip as he rolled over and caught her in his paws, buffeting her as he would a cub. "Play with me, little girl," he commanded.
"What?" She ducked under an oncoming paw but got sprawled on her back by the next one. "I don't know-"
"Don't know how to play? Did you never have a cat? However would you have played with it?" He nodded toward the cord around her ankle. "Take that off and dangle it over my head."
Correen stared at him, shocked out of formal speech. "You must be joking." She turned away. "I have to get back to the path. I don't have time for this. It's not relevant."
The lion blocked her path. He laid his ears back and snarled, sending her back several paces. "How are you going to get past the Gatekeeper, little rabbit? You can't trick it twice. Your lover asked me to give you a hint. Very well, I will give it to you. Are you traversing the path your Guides have chosen or the way you have chosen?" The lion bounded over the creek in one lightning motion, all sleek golden muscle and energy. "Why can't you play, sad human? What is it you fear most? Answer that, and you have your key to the Gate."
The lion disappeared. She was back on the path, the shards of glass puncturing her feet. Correen shivered in the cold wind. She looked ahead and could not see the end of the path. Acres of soft, verdant grass framed the torturous road ahead.
She had always viewed the grass as a temptation to trick her from the direction she needed to go. But the lion's words echoed in her head. She thought about the first night Adam had made love to her and how she knew she would have to step to the edge of the fortress she had built and jump, trusting him to catch her as she fell. She vividly remembered the wrenching pain that had followed as her emotions had swallowed her whole. She thought of what she had told the children. When was the last time she had been able to laugh without also wanting to cry?
A little girl had discovered hell in a darkened cellar and it had ripped a fatal wound in her soul. She had been dead since she was twelve, safe in decay, playing possum to the inquiring touch of life. Hell was a breath away. If she sought happiness in rebirth, would she catch its attention again?
"The Gatekeeper has also been called the Guardian." Adam's voice came, warm and husky in her ear. He pressed his bare body against the back of hers and slid his arms about her waist. "It makes us brothers in a sense."
"I can't do this." She lifted her crippled hands, staring at them with sick anger. "I'll never do it. I can't face this!!" She turned in his arms. "I can't be strong! I can't do this alone!"
She slid down to his feet. Her shoulders bucked with the force of unshed tears. Her fingers, clawed already, struck at her face in self-disgust, but his strong hands closed over them, pulling them away.
"Correen," his tawny eyes spilled with love and sorrow for her pain. "How brave must you be? You tried to save your brother. You made a life for the two of you." He scooped her up on his back, piggyback style, and left the road of glass. The butterfly the lion had been swatting appeared before them and Adam followed its wandering path. "When the All divided Itself, it was no accident. Without the pair, there is nothing, no life. We are brother and sister here, childhood friends, husband and wife, lovers, father and daughter, mother and son ... how could any one of us make it without the other? You do not have to do it alone, beautiful swan. I can walk with you, if you but ask."
The simplicity of it numbed her mind for a moment. So that was the way of it. There was no protection from hell. She was trying to protect herself when there was no protection strong enough to keep her safe. If she could accept that, she could let go of her fear and clasp this man's hand. She could lean on his strength and love, and give what she had to offer. She could claim the one prize hell could not wrest from her-unconditional love. It provided no mental or physical protection-just the ability to survive, to take joy in an ocean sunset, or find a moment of laughter in the playfulness of a cat.
Adam was gone again. She stood on the grass. A sob caught in her throat. Correen stood before the Gateway. It was no longer gray and forbidding, but carved of wood and surrounded with the smell of sunshine and fresh grass. Her Gatekeeper was no longer the Grim Reaper but the lion. His golden eyes delved into hers and she heard his words vibrate inside her.
"You have learned what is necessary to enter as you will. Learn, but do not be surprised if the knowledge of healing you gain here is different from what you expect. You have done well."
Hands drew her out of the tub. The chanting surrounded her as she was led into the grove in the backyard. The hands passed her forward, guiding her safely to the ritual site.
"Who speaks for you?" Channa's voice spoke, strong and otherworldly, the Goddess drawn down within her.
"We do."
Correen's throat closed, working with emotion. Alma and Alicia had both spoken. She felt the tip of an athame press into the soft skin over her breast, through a skein of her wet hair. Alicia spoke next. "Though only the God and Goddess can make a Wiccan, this circle will participate in the joyous blessing when one is so called."
Channa took up the formal initiation rite. "This night you officially begin your journey on a spiritual path that will show you wonder and bring you joy and peace, as well as pain and suffering. For there will always be light and dark, and the God and Goddess wear both faces.
"This circle will be your classroom, your army against all harm, your comfort in times of pain and loss. We ask only that you give us your blood and the name you wish this circle to know you by, to show you enter our ranks in perfect love and perfect trust."
Correen spoke the name. She felt Adam's hand touch hers and turn it over. He served as priest at this ritual, the representation of the God to Channa's Goddess. She barely felt the stroke of the sharpened athame over the soft skin of her upper arm. The cool metal of a chalice was placed against it and her blood dripped into the cup.
"So mote it be," the High Priestess said.
Channa knelt and kissed her feet.
"Blessed are these, which brought you down the path of Goddess and God."
She kissed Correen's knees.
"Blessed are these, that kneel upon the Earth."
Her lips tickled the hair over her womb.
"Blessed is this that brings forth life and receives the God."
Her fourth kiss fell in the cleft between the girl's wet breasts.
"Blessed be these, that represent the nourishment provided by the Mother to all children of the Earth."
"And finally," her lips pressed against Correen's, "blessed are these which will sing praises to the All and strive to speak Truth." Her hands lifted Correen's head and took the blindfold away.
Correen blinked in the afternoon sun at the ring of faces around her. The faces of friends, and now of family.
She rose slowly, assisted by their gentle hands, and saw Adam. He stood back, watching her. The fire that belonged to the God danced in his eyes and every line of his body. True to the ritual form, all in the circle were naked. He was all that the Lord of the Hunt he represented was meant to be. Naked and savage, unashamedly aroused by the energy pulsing through the circle, he inclined his head to her and gave her a pure, feral smile of love and congratulations.
Correen bent and placed a hand beneath her feet, another flat on top of her head. "All between my hands belongs to the service of the Lord and Mother of All." She straightened and placed a hand over her heart. "All beneath my palm I share with you. Blessed Be."
Most friends belong to a time or place in your life and you do not feel comfortable being with them after that time or place has passed, though the memories remain valuable. But there must be friends that belong to any place or time, to any lifetime. There is a bond between the two of you that never changes, which always draws you to one another, no matter what happens to change you or your life.
-Prince Adam, Personal Writings
"You know, I could have brought reinforcements," Rob said. The two men went down the dimly lit concrete stairs to Mahatma Hall storage. "The football team can be bought for a six pack. The Womyn's Center would have bought us beer for the chance to beat the snot out of Edward."
Adam stopped at the base of the stairs, probing ahead with the distantly intense stare that Rob respected with momentary silence. I am babbling. Rob's uneasy thoughts danced through his head.
He had embraced the idea of an Aegis and a Continuum with wholehearted enthusiasm, but Goap had shown it for what it was, the wishful thinking of a fantasy lover, a sci-fi enthusiast. That wart-covered nightmare plunging down at him had made it all real. Lanny's screams, the blood of his roommate soaking his shirt ... The whole episode had cut this loose from the realm of Friday night role playing games. Rob was scared. He didn't like it. The feeling sucked rocks.
Adam turned, the naked bulb of the hallway profiling his face. Rob saw him recognize everything going through his mind at a glance. Shit, he's better at that than Lanny. Unlike Lanny, however, the prince knew the male code that circumvented even Other World boundaries. He chose not to remark upon it.
"Snot?" he questioned.
"What? Oh," Rob managed a lopsided grin. "Nose mucus."
A suitably distasteful expression crossed the aristocratic features and Adam chose not to comment on that as well. "If I can't stop Edward, it's unlikely that anyone else can," he said. "It will be better if our reinforcements are at the ritual, where their strength can support Channa."
"So why am I here?"
Adam turned with a surprised look on his face. Rob shrugged. "I was just curious. If Edward can only be stopped by you, am I here to make me feel useful, seeing as I'm an atheist and pretty much useless to the Brigade of Light?"
"Would you prefer not to be here?"
"Absolutely," Rob chuckled. "But that's hardly the point. I'm sure you'd rather be tangled up in the sheets with Miss Seabra all afternoon, ordering out for pizza. If I can say that without offending your Lancelot sensibilities."
Adam turned his head toward the shadows. Niko twitched his nose at them.
"We are coming," the prince waved him on. He looked at Rob again. "I don't know how you can serve your world by being with me," Adam admitted. "I only know I feel better when you are watching my backside."
"Back," Rob corrected, his jaw tensing against the grin. "Fair enough, Don. Lead on."
The door to the storage room had been propped open. Adam stopped, but Rob shook his head.
"A lot of people leave it propped open so they don't have to worry about bringing a key. I don't think it's Edward's way of saying 'come on in.'"
It was strange to think that the lives of his other friends on campus were going on as usual, pulling things out of the storeroom, working on homework, making a run to the local diner for a dinner oozing with grease. Despite his assurance, Rob still entered just as cautiously as Adam, automatically scrutinizing opposite ends of the room to cover any angle of assault. Apparently satisfied that they were alone, Adam headed for the last aisle.
A ruffle of feathers caused by the wind of their passing stopped Rob at the second aisle. He pulled Adrian's staff out of a box of abandoned hockey sticks, baseball bats and brooms. Rob held it clutched in his hand, his thumb stroking the braided ribbons. "All the bastard had to do was wait for her."
"Perhaps we should leave it here."
"It might come in handy," Rob demurred. "I'd get some personal satisfaction out of using it to break a few heads."
Adam nodded and the two men proceeded to the aisle where Adrian had told them she stored her sculptures. Rob frowned at the narrow passageway. Trunks, furniture, sports equipment, appliances, and garbage bags bursting with old clothes choked the corridor. From Adam's intent expression, Rob guessed that his magic-sense radar was being called into play.
"Perhaps she remembered the wrong aisle," Adam frowned after a moment. Rob shook his head.
"Adrian can see this campus better blind than most of us with 20/20."
"All right." Adam regarded the cluttered aisle again. He took a deep breath and everything before him rose six feet into the air. "She said she moved easily in this aisle, except for a tennis racket that got in her way. Edward must have cleared it, like I just did."
Adam ducked his head to move under the suspended items and paced the length of the passage. Mildly annoyed by his stooped position, he increased the force of his lift and the clutter crowded closer to the ceiling.
"So while Adrian was digging around, looking for her pots, they were floating over her head?" Rob cleared his throat, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Yes." Adam stopped and tapped a toe on the floor. "It is a simple exercise. For someone of Edward's strength, keeping the aisle clear even while capturing her would not have been difficult."
Rob reached hesitantly toward a roller skate hovering just above him. He spun a wheel.
"I found it." Adam squatted, ran a fingertip along a cross-section of the wood planks. His finger dislodged a careful layer of dust and Rob could see the line. "It doesn't appear warded, but stand back, just in case." The tawny gaze stilled on the lock, and a click rent the air as he turned the mechanism with his mind. It made Rob feel foolish, handing him his pocketknife, but Adam nodded his thanks, inserted the edge of the knife along a groove and lifted the panel, which came up easily on quiet, oiled hinges.
A gray shadow slipped from beneath the shelf behind them. Niko's rat paw fell upon Adam's hand. Rob knelt on the other side of the large rodent-dragon and smiled as Niko forced his head under his palm for an ear scratching. "I get the feeling he prefers being a rat. Do you ever get stuck half in and half out of the phone booth, Rat-man? The switch gets jammed and you're a fire-breathing rodent with wings and a hairless tail?"
The rat blinked and metamorphosed in just that manner, opening his mouth to belch a playful puff of smoke. Then the large rat was back in his entirety, emitting a snuffling noise suspiciously like a chuckle.
"He understands me!"
Adam dropped through the opening to the cellar level and examined the empty, swept chamber. He laid his palm on the next trapdoor, his eyes thoughtful and probing. He nodded absently. "You should be honored. Metamorphosing dragons rarely make the effort to understand the language of a person unless they like him."
"So he can learn English instantaneously, just by listening?" Rob clambered down next to him and Niko hitched a ride on his shoulder.
"No," the prince removed his hand from the lower door and peered up at them. "Metamorphosing dragons interpret language differently than we do. To us, groups of people share a language; English, Aegean, Italian, et cetera. To them, every living being speaks a different language. They do not listen to the voice for language, but to the mind, and the body, which creates the words that come from your lips. If they care to understand you, they devote every moment to learning your inner voice, from the time they decide to learn your language until they grasp it."
Rob nodded, remembering the hours Niko had perched motionless on the shelf over his computer, peering at him with startling intensity. "I thought dragons were bigger."
"Some are much bigger, but Niko's race is small."
"So we have miniature schnauzers, you have miniature dragons," Rob pursed his lips and squatted next to his roommate. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I keep thinking the alarm is going to go off in another minute and it will be last Monday."
"Would you wish for that, knowing what we face, what your world is facing?" Adam's expression held nothing but curiosity, no clue as to what he might wish his friend's answer to be.
Rob chuckled grimly. "You know, the idea that something awful is going to bring our world to an end isn't exactly a news flash." He shifted. "I'm not a pessimist, but sometimes I think we're so fucked up that the whole world would be better off without us around."
"So why are you here now, if you feel that way?"
Rob shrugged. "I'm not sure. I think I'd lost faith in the possibilities, the chance that things could be better than they are. And then, I'm out tilting at windmills with you, and we're getting the shit beat out of us, and I feel like we might figure out a better way of doing things. Your world did. No offense, but I don't think you and your folks have a cerebral lobe so much bigger than ours. Maybe you just made the lucky choices when they were presented to you, so there you are, and maybe we made the unlucky ones, so here we are. So," he drew a deep breath, looked down. "Enough bullshit. I guess we better do this." Rob reached down and caught the edge of the wooden door, the heavy oak worn smooth from age. Adam lunged at his arm.
When Rob was ten, he had spilled a glass of water down the side of his computer. To prevent an electrical fire, he had closed his hand over the plug of the extension cord, intending to remove the wet connector. The electric current that went through his body then was a kiss of static next to the shudder of voltage that rocketed through his body and snapped every muscle taut. Adam shoved him backwards, breaking the contact. The door dropped back in place with a soft huff.
"Let me guess," Rob managed a few moments later, when the unpleasant throbbing had subsided to a mind numbing ache. "Warded."
Adam helped him back to his knees. "It is as you say. 'He can be taught'."
Rob glared at him, then a reluctant smile crossed his face. The two men knelt by the door again. "So," Rob warily rested his knees far away from it. "What now?"
"I'll 'disconnect' it. I don't believe Edward has returned since Adrian's capture to reinforce it against me. It was meant to harm those who stumbled on it by accident."
Niko sat back on his haunches between them and patiently scratched an ear in the manner of all rodents, the back leg moving so quickly it was a silent pinwheel attached to his hip. "You honestly believe Edward isn't watching this entrance?" Rob asked.
"I'm hoping he can't spare the people." Adam laid his palm on the door, concentrating. "Darius already took one of his circle. He did not waste time to have us pursued any further than the pond, though he recognized us. If he does have someone watching this tunnel, I'm hoping it is someone weak, someone he can spare that we can easily overwhelm." Adam shrugged, and a brief flare of green light seeped out from under his fingers. He looked up at Rob's doubtful face. "Getting captured may be the only way I have to get close to the ritual site, Rob," Adam admitted. "If you don't wish to go, I'll understand."
Rob shook his head. "We've covered that ground, Don. Are you done?"
Adam nodded. "The passage should be safe."
"Safe is a really relative term now."
Adam lifted the door again. Rob switched on the small flashlight he had brought. The two men considered the narrow stone stairs ten feet below that made a steep plunge into blackness. Roaches, centipedes and other denizens of darkness scuttled out of the reach of the meager light.
"I feel like we're visiting hell." Rob cleared his throat. "Last chance, your royal highness. I've got connections. I could get you, me and the girls on a plane to the Bahamas within an hour. We could watch the world as we know it disappear while sipping drinks with little umbrellas."
Adam dropped down into the hole, holding to the edge of the trapdoor before dropping the several feet to the stairs, landing with the light assurance of a cat. "You'll have to go without me, Sancho. My task is tilting at windmills." White teeth flashed in defiance of the darkness around him. "And winning."
Rob grimaced. "I didn't kiss Lanny good-bye."
"That was foolish."
"I know. We're going to die down here."
"No," Adam shifted his weight as Niko sprang from Rob and landed on his shoulder. "She'll be angry when you get back and you won't be allowed to kiss her at all."
"Bullshit," Rob retorted, handing down Adrian's staff. He turned to his stomach and lowered himself through the opening. "She'll be so happy to see my ass in one piece she'll throw herself in my arms. You know how women are."
"Something to look forward to, then." Adam caught his calves and guided his feet to the stairs, catching him to balance the sudden tilt in gravity.
"Hey, weren't you supposed to 'de-levitate' the stuff up top?"
"Oh." Adam closed his eyes and Rob felt a brief "puff" of energy waft by. Adam's eyes opened. "Thank you. I'd forgotten."
Rob chuckled. He used his flashlight to keep pace with his friend as they descended into the bowels of the world beneath Havenwood. There were no wall braziers here, but the stairs were hewn by man, and would most likely take them back to the cavern Rob never wanted to see again. He loosened his grip on Adrian's staff and used his fingers to steady his way along the wall. It was slimy with some underground fungus, but he needed the contact to keep his balance on the narrow, sometimes slippery stairs.
A tunnel intersected the bottom of the stairwell. On the left, it curved around a hairpin turn and vanished. To the right, it angled upward. Adam drew Rob forward by the shoulder and spoke against his ear. "Be on guard."
Rob nodded. Adam chose left. Niko melted into the shadows ahead of them. The rat disappeared around the curve and Adam stopped, waiting. Rob glanced behind him. The tunnel was empty, but that gave him about as much comfort as scanning the recesses of a dark closet had when he was small. He felt eyes, hidden in the folds and shadows of the rock faces. The damp, molding smell of the stairwell combined with the dry, lifeless smell of rock denied the sun for too long overpowered him, brought fear into his chest. He took a deep breath and tried to slow his racing heart. Get a grip, Steigir. Of course, it didn't help that Adam was looking pretty disturbed also. The golden eyes gleamed in the meager light.
"They're here," the prince hissed. "Why can't I feel them?"
A soft shuffle spun Rob around. Nothing but empty tunnel. He held the staff in clenched hands. The muscles in his shoulders were steel bands, ready to snap the weapon up and forward. "Maybe Edward cloaked them," he murmured. "Can you put some warding around us?"
Adam shook his head. "The energy of the air changes. I don't know if Edward can feel it. I don't want them to be expecting us."
"But we are."
A match struck and flames licked around the corner ahead. Edward appeared, bearing the torch aloft. "These caves conduct sound far. The merest whisper," he dropped his voice several octaves, "carries."
Adam's wards flashed up against the light of the flames. Rob heard the hum of its protection, like an electric force field charged to maximum voltage. The prince moved forward several steps. "You've lost your ally, Edward."
The powerful man gave him a peculiar look. Rob watched his eyes carefully, the muscles of his arms and chest, anything that would indicate the moment of tension before attack. "You can't accomplish your goal now."
Edward shrugged. His eyes shifted to Rob. Rob felt an eerie, physical touch from the contact. He also felt some of the force field drain from Adam and increase around him.
Jesus, it's just like the movies. You're the good guy, Adam, and the bad guys always test how far you'll lower your defenses to protect your friends. Keep it all on your side.
The whole situation was unreal. The two men before him had enough power to alter the fate of worlds. They were gods, and he was the token mortal, bearing witness to their battle.
Edward gestured at the walls with his torch, and the flames darted forth, the shadows eagerly grasping at the outline of the two men. "The Catholic Church waged war against the Black School, denouncing them as devil worshipers and practitioners of evil. They had to meet in dungeons, in caves and tunnels like this one."
"Let me guess," Rob spoke, drawing the eyes that reminded him of a corpse. "Your great-great-great-grandfather was one of the poor, misunderstood devil worshipers."
"Real life is not so absurdly coincidental," Edward said mildly. "There was a book of their studies, greatly protected, that passed from generation to generation of the sons of the Black School, documenting their search for the means to release the four kings. Dr. Kenn's grandfather was the last keeper."
"So it wasn't the outstanding athletic program that drew you to Havenwood," Rob offered politely. Adam seemed disinclined toward social chatter, but that was okay. Rob had no problem dealing with the small talk while Adam concocted a plan to save their butts. Rob had survived six-hour congressional cocktail parties. This was a piece of cake.
Edward's lips drew back and the air pressure around Rob went up ten barometric degrees. A shoulder muscle twitched beneath Adam's shirt and the energies fought for a brief, intense moment before the probe receded.
"Had that reached you," Edward said, "you would be dead. Your short, useless life would have been over. Your body would have been carted off by the rats and forgotten."
Rob knew when someone was trying to scare him. To be honest, Edward was doing a pretty good job of it, because he knew Edward could do it. But what the hell was really going on here? Edward didn't talk to people, even to discuss subjects near and dear to his heart like human sacrifice and demons. He was stalling. Or distracting them. And he had come alone. That didn't gel.
Rob spun, and his gaze shot upward. Amelia Blanchard was attached to the ceiling as if her back was lined with glue. It was an unpleasant flashback to Beastmaster, otherwise one of Rob's favorite movies. She was over Adam, a gun clutched in her hand.
"Adam, up!" Rob shouted. She fired. He threw the staff. Adam whirled. The staff and Adam's motion knocked off her aim, and the projectile, a dart, embedded itself in the prince's upper thigh. Rob leaped to Adam's side, snatching up the staff and swinging it at the evil crone. She scuttled back, snarled and pointed a long finger at him.
"No," Edward said. The energy blast from her finger scattered like dust motes. Amelia screeched, dropped like a spider to the floor and glared at Edward.
The protective field died from around Rob. He spun toward Adam. The color had left his roommate's face. Edward's sphinx-like visage appeared before Rob's eyes as the prince fell between them. Rob tried to catch him.
Adam groped clumsily at his thigh and removed the dart. His eyes strained to stay open.
Edward darted to a crouch beside Adam. Rob lunged to strike at him and fists of air clutched his skin, lifted him and slammed him against the tunnel wall, knocking the staff from his hand. Invisible manacles squeezed his throat and he gasped. Dark spots cavorted across his vision.
Edward reached over Adam's body and retrieved the staff, using it to brace himself in a squat. He leaned forward and forced Adam's eyelid to remain open as he roughly rubbed the golden iris.
Adam's head rolled away in reflex, but the odd spinning of the tunnel turned his head back into the probe.
"I had wondered about your eyes," Edward commented. "Since the first day I saw you. The day I should have killed you both." He leaned closer. Adam tried to strike out and Edward watched his hand flap like a fish and bounce off his shirtfront.
Amelia Blanchard blocked Rob's view of them. She slunk up to him, pressing her body against his dangling legs. Her eyes mocked his plight. She held the spent dart in her hand and grazed it over his groin, smiling at his reaction. She traced the dart up his hip, along the inside of his arm. She tightened her grip on the dart and plunged it in. Rob choked on a cry as she brought her mouth down on the hole, sucking it with tiny, sharp teeth.
"Amelia," Edward said, and the woman sprang away. He knocked Adam's flailing hand out of the way and pointed a finger to the opposite wall. "Stand there. We need his blood. Don't tempt me to have your throat slit to retrieve it."
He did not bother to watch to see if she obeyed. It was obvious who held the upper hand over them all. Rob watched in helpless horror as Edward brought his face close to Adam's, peering intently into the glazing golden eyes.
"I meant for her to die, and I wondered who had saved her life, so I waited. I saw you brought out of the hands of death. I heard you speak for the first time." His voice dropped to a rasping whisper. "'No drugs, no hospital'. You used her power to give you the strength to prevent an injection. Of course, I did not know then how great a mage you are. We will drain your blood and use its power, since you deprived us of Adrian's. You are not appropriate, but your power will make up for that."
"But-" Amelia spoke.
Edward glanced at her and the touch of his anger silenced her. He looked back down at Adam.
"I do not know where you came from," he locked gazes with the drugged prince, "but this world is mine."
"You could have been its savior," Adam mumbled.
"I am its savior." Edward's hand closed on Adam's throat. Rob made a sound of strangled protest. Edward did not even glance at him.
"I break the neck of the rabbit who gets his leg crushed in a trap. I turn off life support to the child whose head is broken open by her parents. This world is crying out for the peace of utter destruction. I am the answer to its prayers."
Let there always be dragons.
-Excerpt from a ballad by an anonymous Aegian poet.
Adam stumbled in the corridors of his own mind. Stray thoughts taunted him, eluded his panic-stricken grasp. Strong hands carried him through the mocking eyes of the Judgment Day sculpture and into the chamber meant for Adrian's sacrifice.
He was dropped into the center of the marked circle and the two robed initiates faded out of his blurred vision. Amelia filled it, and he shrank from the knife in her hand. Her lips pulled back in a feral smile, and she used the weapon to cut his clothes off him. She spread his unresisting arms and legs out and staked his wrists and ankles with chains.
Amelia laid small stones on each of the metal bindings and over the marratma of his body. A dead monotone filled his ears. Adam went rigid in pain as burning wires of energy crisscrossed his body, connecting every stone.
Amelia chuckled and muttered to herself, scrambling over him like a crab. She put her fetishes over the stones, simple curses like the ones she had left near him in the infirmary.
Firelight caught the blade of the jeweled knife from the altar and Edward came into his line of sight. Adam tried to jerk his arm away, but the hold of the ward tightened, drawing an agonized groan from his lips. Edward flicked him a glance, then dispassionately drew the knife across Adam's right palm. He stood and spoke the Latin words, knelt on Adam's left side, repeating the process, going counter clockwise. He carved symbols into the prince's head, chest, abdomen, groin, knees and the bottoms of his feet.
There was blood in his mouth. Adam vaguely realized he had bitten his tongue and it was swelling, clogging his throat along with the panic. He could not sense if the moon had begun to rise. Did he doze off? He could not see Rob. He did not know if his friend were alive or dead, but if this was the end of it, it would be better if he was already dead.
Amelia crawled back over him when Edward was finished. Adam stared at the old face. It faded in and out of his vision. She was the polar opposite of Alma. Her evil and madness made the elderly features grotesque.
She looked at the locks of his hair, spilling through her fingers. "Such pretty hair. I'm going to weave it into a cloak. I'll wear it against my bare skin and think of the beautiful god," her tiny teeth came closer to his lips, "whose blood released all my masters."
Edward called her back before her foul kiss could be realized. Adam remembered caressing Correen's mouth. He knew there was something he needed to be doing, but he couldn't remember what. He entered into a waltz of memories with Correen, a heavy sense of futility disturbing the edges of what was otherwise a very nice dream.
The last warm fingers of the sun touched Channa's cheek as she watched the orb descend below the western horizon of Havenwood campus. A warm night had been anticipated, but it didn't affect the fist of ice in her stomach. Adam and Rob had not returned.
Alicia stood at her right, the cowl of her hood crumpled on her elegant shoulders. The dying light etched her golden features, the breeze fluttering through the blonde tresses. She felt Channa's gaze and turned her head. "What is it?"
"It's time to start."
"Without Adam?"
"He said if he wasn't back an hour before moonrise, we must begin the ritual." Because if I am not back by then, I am probably dead and the Circle is the only chance to keep the four kings imprisoned.
It would have been proper to simply think of him as an instrument no longer available to her needs, to mourn later, but the last press of his hand on hers and the thoughtful intelligence of the extraordinary golden eyes passed through Channa's mind and invaded her heart with grief. He had been her lover, and a better friend than she had expected him to be. Even beyond that, she realized now how much his existence as Guardian had comforted her spirit. No matter her conscious doubts and fears, her heart knew he was a true Guardian, and no mistake or clue for political change that the Lords debated. So if the Chosen One of Those Who Are Not Seen had been destroyed, what did that say about their chances tonight?
She touched the jewel at her neck. She had strung Jaiya's wedding ring on a cord, so it would be close to her. She intended to give it back to Corbet, but for now it strengthened the bond between herself and the dead priestess. It would make it easier for her to draw on Jaiya's power through the Veil and aid their endeavors tonight. Channa pushed the pain out of her heart and throat where they would block pathways she needed. Why should she assume Adam was dead? What was the saying? In Aegis, it was "Pray for a good harvest but set a small table." Here, it was "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."
Channa took a deep breath and clicked off the important strategy points for what they might face.
Weather. Clear with a full moon rising in the sky like the backside of a god's eye.
Terrain-they were on the right side of the atrium lobby, a fairly flat expanse of ground that once had been playing fields for the students' informal athletic pursuits, like soccer and softball. Lack of funds had transformed the playing fields into a meadow of overgrown grass and lowlying foliage. Because so many salt deposits remained from the original mine, the ground was white with sand-sized crystals, earning it the name of Snow Field.
In the texts of old folk magic, it was believed that salt repelled demons. If there was truth to that, it was too bad that the caves below had been stripped of the mineral a long time ago. Snow Field was one of the last indicators that they had ever held such a treasure. Channa's lips pulled up in a wry smile; she did not think she'd dissuade the demons with a salt shaker; however, old folk magic usually held wisdom and she saw no harm in having its presence here.
Troops. The coven's circle of thirteen gathered on a raised knoll of ground at the center of Snow Field, the eye of a carefully positioned spiral of 200 students, townspeople and faculty, the multi-denominational group known as the Brigade of Light. From her vantage point, Channa saw jeans, heavy metal Tshirts, Native American headdresses and the black robes of clerics. Excitement charged the air around her. No matter how each participant helped raise it-through the ecstasy of praying, drumming, open chakras-the cone of power would fill them with a rush of utter well-being. Some of them knew consciously what caused the rush.
Raising energy lifted the threads that connected all life to one another and to the earth out of the unconscious and into the conscious mind. Isolation and fears disappeared, and they remembered how Everything began. They lived within the body of God.
Unknown to most of them, tonight they would raise this cone to save their lives, so the seasons and the Wheel of Life could continue to spin.
The Brigade had been arranged so the more experienced were in the inner loops, closest to the core where the power would be anchored. Lanny and Shireva were in the first loop of the spiral outside the center coven circle, close enough that Channa could feel their support and apprehension.
If the worst happened, Channa hoped the Cone of Power would be spiraling at full strength and she could harness it before participants in the spiral panicked. She also hoped the coven would be able to stand fast and help her to direct it.
She surveyed the circle. Thirteen young women, barely more than girls, all aware of what they were about to do in a manner the Brigade was not. She saw it in their faces as fear, excitement, apprehension, and perhaps a little disbelief. Fair enough. After all, talking about the forces of the universe and swaying to an energy pulse in the circle was a far cry from the work she had told them they faced today. Belief would come soon enough. The priestess had to count on their strength and Alma's, especially if she could no longer count on Adam's aid.
The old woman was in the lobby grove. If Edward was successful, and the coven and Adam were not, the old woman would finish the Sealing to prevent the four kings' influence from spreading throughout the rest of the Continuum. Havenwood's grove had always been the primary doorway to Earth-all entry points from the Continuum could be Sealed from there.
Channa noted Martin at his assigned post, near the lobby, facing Snow Field. His reluctant task was to record the events as they unfolded. He understood the need, the learning that could be had no matter the outcome, but it had been hard for him to accept the role he was sworn to fulfill when his friends were risking so much.
Channa signaled the members of the coven to shed their plain outer robes. Spectators murmured appreciatively as the Circle members revealed ritual garments that had been hand sewn for this event. Tunics of silk or soft cotton embroidered with the symbols of their Craft-pentagrams, emblems representing the Lord and Lady, elaborate beadwork depicting the elements. Even the black cords of initiation that tied each robe at the waist were intertwined with beadwork and braided silver threads.
Correen's was the exception. Until the past few days she had been a solitary practitioner, so her rites had been performed skyclad, nothing but moonlight clothing her skin. She had borrowed one of Alicia's robes and the women had quickly hemmed it. She had added only one enhancement to make the ritual garb her own. There were four small cloth dolls spaced evenly on the cord tied around her hips.
When Channa let her robe fall, she expected the sudden hush from the spectators, but even her Circle looked surprised. She had a simple, elegantly decorated robe she used for most ritual work. Today she had chosen to prepare herself as a High Priestess of the Royal House of Aegis.
She would have preferred to garb herself in the trappings of a warrior, but the demons presented a greater magical threat. She had worn what was most charged for ritual occasions. Her tunic was made of a fabric from her world, a sheer silken cloth that caught the barest hint of moon or sunlight and swept the whole garment with a silver pattern of light, picking up delicate thread work that praised the divine, the elements and the world of Aegis. It covered her breasts, though their tips could be seen faintly through the shimmering fabric, and the back plunged to reveal a detailed tattoo between her shoulder blades-a tree whose roots disappeared into the tunic, spreading over the upper curve of her buttocks and hips. The branches coiled up and over the line of her shoulders. The remainder of the fabric fell in points to her ankles, shifting and parting with the breeze. The garment had no sides. The silver teardrop belt rode low on her bare hipbones. Most ritual work in her world was done as Correen practiced it, and the garment was designed to shed easily. On her brow she wore the gold circle afforded her by rank as a priestess and as an adopted member of the Royal Family of Aegis. In her hand she held the decorative sword she used for the casting of circles, but the shedding of her outer robe revealed an additional weapon, scabbarded into a back harness which marred the view of the tattoo.
The hilt was bound in worn, heavy fabric, at odds with the elegant strength of the razor sharp steel blade hidden within the scabbard. The handguard winked with two jewels. One had been given to her by the Lords of the Continuum when she received the dual honor of being recognized as High Priestess and Warrior Commander. The memory of that event passed through her mind and she felt the small thrill of pride in the hard-earned accomplishment as she always did, but the images evoked by the other stone were even stronger.
Cathar had worn the unpolished gem around her neck. It was the last part of the girl Channa had been able to grasp when the mob ripped her friend and fellow priestess from her. The cord came loose from Cathar's throat at the same moment a knife slashed into Channa's chest. She fell under the trampling feet of the maddened crowd. The mob tore Cathar to pieces, and all Channa had left of her friend was the stone clutched in her hand.
She took a deep breath, and felt the scar pull across her breast. Jaiya and Cathar were with her tonight, and in some ways, so was Sephira. She would not fail them. She took a final moment to look at the circle of women she had come to know well over the past year. She respected and obeyed the wisdom of the Lords of the Continuum in all things, but this one time, her heart spoke a different wisdom to her. This world must be saved.
Channa offered her ceremonial sword to Alicia, hilt first. "Cast the circle, sister," she said clearly, her trained voice reaching and stilling the farthest spectator. "Give us a sacred space around the spiral. Cast a second circle around the coven to lend us special strength to guide the energy."
Alicia nodded and moved away through the loops of the spiral. The participants adjusted to ease her passage to the outside. Channa felt the first surge of power waft through her. Two hundred people becoming attuned to the same purpose.
"Reaching the state where the power of the divine may be tapped and channeled for a focused good is called the alpha state," she explained to the spectators and first-time Brigade members. "The wisdom of the universe rests in our minds. We come together like this to find it."
The spectators and participants had quieted so that she could hear the wind moving in the trees at the perimeter of the field. Channa felt another increase in power on the field as the energy waiting to be called became focused on her. She channeled it into her words, weaving each listening spirit into the fabric.
"Much as you have a certain energy in you to run, work, make love, fight or sing, so you have an unseen energy, pulsing within you like blood. We make up the cells and sinews, the face and breast, the heart and lungs of Divinity. We are God, Goddess, Allah, Jehovah, wherever you seek the All, however you pay It homage, it begins within you. For it is written in the charge of the Goddess, in biblical texts, in religious texts in many different faiths-only within will you find what you seek. If you do not find Me in yourself, it will avail you not to look elsewhere. Every living being is a special child of the All; both child of Their Body and the Body Itself."
"As such, when we come together, joining hands like this," she gestured to the assembled spiral, "we are pulling together the body of the All. If we focus the energy that each of us has within us, and unite it for a purpose, we can..." She paused, looking out over the silent spectators, "we will, save your world."
Alicia was calling the western quarter now. Channa saw her outlined in the fading rose hue of the sky. "Those who stand outside our circle, our spiral," she called, "come join us. The spiral is the ultimate shape of life, always returning to itself but going ever outward to encompass more of who we are. Join us in a raising and a calling of the Light. Bring the prayers and wishes of your heart, no matter what religious path you follow. Join us."
Most of the spectators did, moved by the overwhelming sense of oneness emanating from those already within the spiral, and her dramatic words, but also by the strange energy on the wind. They came hesitantly to the outer loops, and were welcomed there, invited to touch hands with strangers. Several of the Brigade briefly left the spiral to bring in two spectators bound by wheelchairs.
The aluminum stands brought from the football field were almost empty. One child stood in front of them. Channa looked for a mother, but the child, no more than five or six years old, stood alone, uncertain.
Alicia closed the final quarter of the circle. As though Channa had tapped on the shoulder of her mind, she saw the child and changed course. The blonde mentally cut a space to leave the circle without discharging its energy and knelt before the young girl, her robes pooling about her.
"Will you come into our circle, little one?" she asked.
The child strained her eyes over the assembled group. "I need Mama," she said plaintively. She looked at Alicia with tremendous blue eyes. "I want my Mama."
It was getting darker. The moon was starting to rise. Alicia reached out, touched the girl's arm. "Come into the Circle and I will find your mother, afterwards."
The blonde lady was beautiful and smelled good. The little girl sniffled and nodded, taking the proffered hand. Alicia returned to her place beside Channa, the little girl between them in the circle. The circle was closed again, with an unexpected but not unwelcome addition.
Channa looked at each woman of the coven in turn, waiting until she had received something in return-a nod, a quick nervous smile. From Alicia she received a gentle look of reassurance and a toss of her blonde hair. I'm here beside you. Let's get to it.
Channa's eyes fell on Correen last. Correen stood in Adrian's point in the circle, directly across from the priestess. There had been an awkwardness between them, the uncomfortable clumsiness between those who had shared the same lover. Now their intimacy with the same man cracked the mask over the girl's emotions. Correen's expression slipped, and Channa realized the blindest moment of passion she had shared with Adam was incomparable to the maelstrom of anguish in Correen's dove gray eyes. She was not the only one who understood the significance of the Guardian's absence, and she could offer the girl nothing in her own expression to contradict the fear.
A sudden flood of power, pure and dense, the perfume of Their language, shot through Channa's senses. She stiffened in its grasp, her motor control taken by its unusual strength. "Healer."
The women bound in the circle tensed, recognizing the voice that commanded Channa when what they named the Goddess was called down into her.
Correen stared at her and the words rolled from Channa's throat, rich with the resonance of the universe. "The River of Healing is not the source of your strength. Do you understand?"
"No," Correen managed.
Channa's beautiful face contorted. "You have the choice you did not have as a child. Neither way is wrong. Do you understand this?"
Correen's gray eyes darted back and forth. "No," she whispered bleakly.
The presence melted and Channa stumbled at the abrupt release of the power. Alicia caught her, steadied her with sure hands. The priestess looked up, met Correen's confused gaze. "That makes two of us," she said wryly.
A ripple of nervous laughter went through the coven and passed through the closer loops of the Brigade. Channa straightened, spun in a wide circle and lifted her arms to the sky. "The favor of the All is with us. Let us begin!"
There were thirteen pillars of black stone around him. No. Adam blinked and they came into focus. Thirteen cloaked figures, assembled within the boundary of blood on the cavern floor. One of the figures raised a hand and, as one, all sank to their knees. "Meditate on what lies before us," Edward spoke from the depths of the cowl. "Observe silence. It begins soon."
When Edward laid the hood on his shoulders, his dead eyes flickered in Adam's direction. "We await your bidding, Master. He is awake."
"I know."
When the chamber had begun to disintegrate from the force of their struggle, Correen's "healing" of the erupting rock had frozen the stone into tumescent stalactites, concentrated around the entrance of the chamber. One huge finger of rock now blocked the being who responded to Edward. The voice was a distorted echo, like a person speaking through a funnel.
An enormous pressure built in the room. Uneasiness, a squeezing sense of panic, appeared to be affecting everyone. Except Edward. The black-cloaked figures shifted restlessly. Adam saw white flashes of apprehensive eyes in the folds of the dark cowls.
"You are probably wondering why you are not dead," the voice continued. "You must realize how easy it would have been to kill you and your friend while you were unconscious." A shadow moved along the wall, heralding the arrival of the body that went with the voice. "We can not make full use of your life-force, your blood, if you are dead or if your mind is blurred by drugs. So you were given the proper dosage to keep you under control. My compliments to you, Edward. Achilles' heel is a piece of timeless wisdom, is it not?"
Despite the magical bond holding his throat, Adam tilted his head backwards, gritting his teeth against the cutting edge of the ward across his chest. Rob was chained against the wall behind him. Blood had dried on his arms where he had tried to pull free of his manacles, but his eyes were alert and hard. There were bruises on his face. He had not been bound without a fight. He nodded to Adam, but did not speak until the figure stepped from behind the spear of rock. His eyes opened wide and he spoke one word, heavy with disbelief and hopelessness. "Tad."
Adam jerked his head down. He saw Tad Williams. Or what was left of him.
The dark eyes wept blood, ruptured by possession. Red fire burned in the remains. Tad's body rippled grotesquely. Cracks all over his skin seeped fluids. Strange ridges lined his bare shoulders and back.
"You bastard," Rob snarled. "Why didn't you come for me instead of picking on a kid-"
One moment the demon stood before Correen's projection of rock; at Adam's next blink he stood chest to chest with the man pinioned to the wall. The red eyes of fire burned into frightened, furious hazel ones. Bloody hands clamped down on Rob's temples.
"You dare speak to me, mortal?" the demon hissed. "You destroyed your friend. Your virus left me nowhere to go, until this child attached himself to his computer. For one moment, you forced the possibility of mortality upon me. For that moment, you will suffer agony. I will torture your body in a thousand ways. Then I will make you torture those you love for my amusement. Your soul will be my slave for eternity."
Adam strained at the magical manacles that held him, but Edward and the demon's combined reinforcement on the wards allowed him no purchase on his own powers, just as it had kept him from detecting Amelia's presence until it was too late to avoid capture. He could sense the source of his powers hovering just beyond his grasp, struggling to reach him. Rob moaned. His eyelids contorted with the effort to shut his eyes against the demon's invasion. His hoarse scream shattered the cavern's silence.
"Stop!" Adam roared. The mortals in the chamber jumped at the thunderous command. Even the demon favored him with an amused glance from the hideous eyes. Rob sagged in the embrace of his chains, panting heavily.
The creature knelt before the prince and Adam gagged at the proximity of the mutilated face thrust into his own. The demon's borrowed shoulder twitched. His attention flicked to it.
"The annoying thing about possession," he commented. "You cannot function without the spirit of the original host accompanying you. It makes a tight fit. However," he brought his empty, burning eyes closer, "it is only temporary." He studied the prince's face, and Adam returned the favor, seeking the substance behind the facade of flesh and hair. It quivered right below the surface, as though maggots feasted within the vessel. The red eyes were windows into hell, and Adam sent a silent prayer of strength to Rob.
"Now I remember where I have seen one like you." The demon passed a cold finger down the line of his cheek. Edward left his place in the circle, unbidden, and stood behind the demon. He watched Adam hold Goap's gaze.
"The face, so classically sculpted. He was darker than you, but the look in the eyes was the same, the spirit from the same pool. His eyes changed, too. They became blue, though he lived in a desert land where all eyes were black or brown. I underestimated him. I thought he was no more powerful than any other. But as you can see," he gestured at the bonds holding Adam. "I have had two thousand years to remind myself not to make that mistake again. His followers called us demons, but he knew us. I suspect you, too, would realize who we are. If you had time."
"Master," Edward spoke. "We must begin."
"Two millennia of waiting for this day, and you think I would forget?" the demon snapped at him. Edward did not respond. Goap emitted a human sigh. "The blue-eyed one thought humans would be 'good' enough to balance our evil, and he used that balance to lock our prison. He did not realize that man is one of our creatures, that he was the exception. Our prison has deteriorated in direct proportion to human society." His face mutated into a hideous smile. "Eventually the gate would have just rotted off. But patience is not our virtue. We were afraid the human race was going to destroy the world before we could take it over. Who would have thought humans would do a more effective job of bringing about their own destruction than us?"
Abruptly, he shoved his face back into Adam's. The red eyes stared into the gold.
"Say good-bye to this world, incarnation of Galilee," he spat. "For two thousand years you counted on the integrity of this species to keep me and my brothers confined. But this species does not want your kind. As Swinburne so aptly put it-'You have conquered, O Pale Galilean, and the world has grown gray with thy breath'."
He rose and went to the northern end of the circle. Edward followed. Adam checked on Rob. His roommate managed a slight nod, though his body still trembled in the grasp of the manacles. There was a haunted expression in his eyes, as unnerving as the free flow of blood from a mortal wound, and Adam wondered if Lanny's arms would heal it. He wanted to give his friend the chance to find out.
Years of training had gone into Adam's use of the powers of Those Who Are Not Seen. As long as Edward and the demon held the wards on him at their present level of strength, his power could not break through, but he still possessed the focus to call to it. He could pound against the wards like a battering ram and force Edward and Goap to divide their attention between the opening of the kings' prison and keeping him neutralized.
He had few other options at this moment, save one. Prayer was denied no man. If You would have me save this world, send me a miracle.
The remaining braziers were lit. Edward and what used to be Tad Williams stood before the altar. Amelia took the sword from it and walked the perimeter of the circle, encompassing Rob in its consecrated area.
"Mark the points," Goap said.
Edward moved to the altar and picked up a dagger and a wooden bowl. He turned and crossed the chamber, headed toward Rob.
"No," Rob shook his head. "Stay the fuck away from me, you-"
Edward stopped before him. There was no amusement in his eyes, no anger. Nothing of what he felt was in his face. Rob yanked left, then right against manacles that did not give an inch. He couldn't do anything but stand there and take it, and the fear started to choke him. "No-"
Rob.
Rob's gaze darted over to Adam. He met the golden eyes and was immediately pulled into the energy of their embrace. Calm pushed the panic back down, let him handle it, not lose it. He was not alone. He was not going to have to go to sleep alone...
Edward slit Rob's shirt up the front in one smooth movement. He twisted the knife and gouged Rob's pectoral over the heart. Rob cried out in shock, but his eyes darted to the wound and saw the strike was shallow, designed only to produce as much blood as possible without doing real damage. Kind of like when you were a kid, and your mom told you a scrape looked worse than it really was because of all the blood.
Mom, cotton swabs and kisses to make boo-boos better didn't quite mesh with his present surroundings. Of course, he should relax-Goap had as much as told him he was going to live forever as his private whipping boy. Great comfort.
Edward returned to the altar and splashed some of Rob's blood over the assorted tools. It darkened the tablecloth and dripped toward the floor.
The members of the circle rose to their feet and began their chant again, increasing the power in the chamber. Edward left the altar and paced the circle Amelia had created, calling out the four quarters, convoluting the traditional reverences to the four elements:
"Zimimar, beautiful and cruel Lord of the North, dispenser of the fatal frosts and commander of earthquakes, master of the acts that force the earth to destroy itself by its own hand, come claim the throne of ice that is yours. We offer you the northern hemisphere of this welcoming world, if you but rise to claim it. Come forth."
Edward knelt. He brushed the first runic symbol of the four kings on the northern point of the circle with a brush dipped in the bowl. He then paced on to the east. Rob turned his head to watch him. The demon had moved to the western point of the circle and was guiding the cloaked participants into a more complicated series of chants that heated the air in the cavern, building pressure on all the occupants.
"Oh, Amaymon, Lord of the East, whose presence is the scent of death on the air, prepare yourself, call your legions from the astral plane, for tonight we win your freedom. Prepare to nourish yourself on the blood of the mighty, and to carry the smoke from charred flesh aloft. Your steed will walk on an avenue of bodies, and you will ascend a throne of bones."
Again he knelt, making the runic symbol for the demon king he called. Amelia moved to light a censer on the altar and the room filled with a rich scent. She turned toward the demon, an expectant look on her face. Her mouth opened. Edward made a sound in his throat. She cowered back against the altar, but looked resentful.
"Gorson, Lord of the South, sweep your mighty glance over this world and watch it burst into flame. Your power forces the world to its knees, they kiss the ground while you stand upon their necks. We call you to us by your other names-Rape, Fear and Burning. Heed us now and come claim your rightful place as a master of this world."
Edward passed on to Adam's left. Goap awaited his approach with a faint smile. Edward knelt and brushed the symbol at the demon's feet.
"Prepare yourself, most mighty of all, Goap of the West, for your brothers come. You will be Master to all those who are before you, and all who dwell upon this world will submit to your greatness or be destroyed."
The demon nodded with polite graciousness. The movement dislodged several drops of Tad's blood from his eyes and anointed Edward's head. "Two thousand years ago," the demon intoned, "the Galilean and his followers baptized thirteen women in the light of thirteen full moons. That circle raised the power to bind my brothers. We have reversed that process. We have shed the blood of the Bitch Worshipers each full moon for the past twelve."
"Two thousand years ago tonight, Jupiter and Neptune aligned on a full moon, a strong omen for the side of Light. Tonight Mars and Saturn align on the full moon, the red and black planets promising destruction and war."
The demon shot a contemptuous look in Amelia's direction. "A thirteenth Bitch Worshipper is required, but we have gained more than that, one whose blood is saturated with the power of Creation, one like the one who bound us so long ago."
"But Supreme Master, I have brought you a sacrifice!" Amelia burst out.
Edward's eyes darted to Amelia, as deadly in their range as a cobra. The old woman fell to her knees and curled into a ball, babbling for her life.
"A willing sacrifice! A Goddess worshiper willing to die for your greatness, Master. Please, she is here-" Amelia choked on whatever she was about to say. The circle continued its chant. Amelia's eyes protruded from their sockets. Liquid emerged from her mouth and nose.
Rob saw nothing in Edward's dead gaze to show that he was causing the woman's distress. Killing her was apparently no more stressful to him than breathing. But then, as one, Edward and the demon's attention released Amelia and snapped to Adam.
"You are becoming almost as tiresome to endure as she," Goap snapped. "Edward, oil the gates to my brothers' prison with his blood. Now, so we no longer have to fight his puny efforts to break our wards."
Edward went to the altar and lifted the honed blade, pausing for a moment to let the red flame from the braziers bathe it. The attention of all in the chamber focused upon it, increasing its potency. He turned, carrying it before him like a poised sword. He knelt in the center of the circle and grasped Adam's hair, yanking his head back painfully against the wards so the jugular vein was exposed.
"No!" Rob fought against his chains. Don't let this be happening...
He expected things to slow down, like when the demon had dived at him in the office, but the knife descended with the casual, frightening speed used to pare fruit.
"Come forth!" Amelia cried out desperately. She screamed as the demon turned in her direction. "Come forth now!"
Melanie stepped out from behind the projectile of rock.
She had stripped herself of her clothes. Amelia had marked her body with the necessary symbols, the same that Edward had carved upon Adam. Her white flesh flickered with shadows from the flames of the torches.
For the first time, Rob registered an emotion on Edward's face. Shock. The man's gaze whipped to Amelia. She shot him a malicious, triumphant look. Her crouched position and the saliva hanging from her mouth gave her the appearance of a rabid cat.
Goap turned to Edward. "This child and woman are yours."
Melanie answered. Her voice quavered only on the first note. She spoke in the distant, sad tone she had used ever since Rob had known her.
"We are," she said. "Both I, and the child I carry within me, belong to Edward. Both are prepared to die to serve his needs."
Rob felt as if he were in a rapidly decompressing airplane. He looked desperately at Adam, still held rigid in Edward's clenched fist. A terrible expression had seized Adam's features, as though this was the blow that resigned him to the inevitable. His fingers fell limp against his bonds and he closed his eyes. Fear speared through Rob's vitals. The circle began to chant again.
Melanie moved forward, toward Edward. He rose and stood as granite, his powerful hands clutched around the sacrificial knife. She looked neither left nor right. Rob wondered if she was even aware of their presence in the chamber. She knelt before Edward, kissing a hand that hung limply at his side. He shuddered. She rose and turned, drawing him with her to the altar.
She used his shoulder to navigate the lift of her body onto the blood-covered expanse, and lay back in it, her eyes never leaving his. Melanie pulled him forward by the wrist, in the manner of a lover inviting him to bed.
"No," Rob's whisper was lost in the circle's rising chants. His eyes filled with tears of rage. "For the love of God, Melanie-" He looked at Adam. The prince refused to meet his gaze. Rob looked at Goap. The demon was as transfixed as anyone in the room.
Rob looked back to Adam. His feverish eyes flickered upwards, as though he could not bear to watch what was happening. Rob followed the line of his gaze.
Niko sat silent and still on a small natural shelf of rock, high up along the wall. The rat lay so flat he seemed a part of the stone, except for his two glittering eyes. They locked on Adam's. Waiting.
Alma is teaching me the eight components of Wiccan ritual. Purification of self, purification of a space, creation of the sacred space, invocation of the divine, setting up the ritual, raising the energy to empower it, grounding the power, then thanking the divine for their aid. Alma recited them to me like a chant. When she finished, she crossed her eyes, spun in a circle and said, "Put it together and what have you got? Bi-bi-dee-bo-bi-dee-BOO!" She explained it was from the Walt Disney movie, Cinderella. She made me go rent it and watch it with her as the conclusion of our evening's lessons. Sometimes Alma is very difficult to understand.
-Correen Seabra, Personal Survival Diary
When Channa had written the words for the Brigade of Light's ritual, she had felt the participation of the All, as she always did when she created magic. But now as she spoke the words and watched Alicia lead the chants and dance steps, she was overwhelmed by the strength of the energy she felt. No matter what else transpired this night, she knew Those Who Are Not Seen wished them success.
The power being raised had begun to swirl around them, moving toward the sky in an imitation of the human spiral turning and spinning below it. Upturned faces and starry eyes told her that many of the participants could see the aura of the power they were raising. From the natural clockwise sway of their bodies, she knew all of them were feeling it, even those who had never experienced the pull of Light Energy before.
The full moon ascended, a pearl gliding gracefully through the colors of the energy fields. It was a beautiful night, a night of hope. Maybe Adam and Rob had stopped the ritual.
The child between Channa and Alicia had followed their direction faithfully throughout the ritual, reassured by their presence and Alicia's promise to find her mother. Channa could tell from her delighted expression that she could see the magic, a feat that took most adults concentrated effort and practice to achieve.
"A cloud," the child said, pointing.
The spiral does sometimes look like a cloud. The child wore a birth stone ring on her pointing finger, the inexpensive, sparkling kind a mother might buy in the checkout line of a grocery store. As Channa watched, the sparkle died out of the stone.
Channa's head snapped up. A wave of black clouds swallowed the moon, overtaking the bright light of the night sky. Their darkness unfurled over the spectators like the cloak of an angry sky god. Channa felt the change in the air, the sense of dreadful anticipation called up from the primitive instincts of every living thing on earth, and knew that Edward's ritual proceeded as planned. The gateway to the four kings was being opened.
"A cloud," the child repeated.
The "cloud" descended, a dark bird of prey swooping for victims. The concentration of the Brigade of Light wavered. The people were becoming uneasy.
Channa caught Alicia's eye and nodded, knowing the gesture was seen by the others in the circle who knew what was really happening. Alma would be feeling it in the grove. The high priestess raised her arms.
"A storm can cleanse as well as destroy," she called out over the rising wind. "You must concentrate. Close your eyes, everyone! Focus on holding the energy in the folds of a spiral, of our spiral. Be ready to release it when I ask. It will fly on the wings of the All, the god of a Thousand Faces, and it will heal our wounds." If this terrible thing must happen, make it soon, before their panic destroys the only weapon we may have.
Edward hesitated, his eyes fixed on the woman who lay before him on the altar.
"She must be treated as all the others," Goap directed. "Her blood must be drained, and she must be drowned."
Edward turned feral, haunted eyes upon him.
"At last," the demon taunted, "I see what can reach you. The Christian God inflicted a similar test on one of his minions, did he not? He demanded the noble Abraham slay his son Isaac. Would you do less? Prove your faith to me."
Melanie looked up at Edward, her skin drawn tight across her features. She deliberately laid a wrist at each corner of the altar and spread her legs so she was open and vulnerable to him. "I love you, Edward," she murmured. A tear slipped from her eye. It rolled down the side of her face and nestled in the hollow of an ear, followed by another, then another, until the pool overflowed and the drops hit the altar.
Edward turned away from Melanie and the demon in Tad Williams' body stiffened. "Mars and Saturn come together in defiance of those who worship the followers of Light, and you would fail me now? You would give in to the face of the Goddess at last, she who has betrayed you over and over?" He stabbed a bloody finger at the girl, trembling against the cold stone. "Her weakest face is bringing you to your knees."
Edward spun to face the demon. Rage contorted his expression into the last thing that many of the victims of the Reynolda Reaper had seen. Melanie did not seem to fear it. Rob watched as she reached up and touched Edward's cheek, her eyes swimming with more tears. Edward quivered. Goap came closer to him. The demon's anger filled the room.
Those not bound as Rob and Adam held their positions, but in a shrinking manner, giving every evidence they longed to flee the presence of the demon's displeasure. Amelia was the exception. Her madness gave her a foolish delight in the sequence of events. She had taken over, directing the circle in their movements and guiding them through a new sequence of chants, her aged voice chiming in with a discordant pitch.
Rob barely heard her, or them. The room had narrowed to Edward and Melanie and the hand she laid against his face. Melanie's knuckles and palm were chapped by dishwashing and laundry done late at night, after a day of studying, attending class, and working a part-time job. Nervousness showed in the chewed-off ends of her nails. It was a plump hand, due to her inability to resist Heavenly Hash ice cream, no time for exercise, and the added weight of the life growing within her.
Her fingers traced Edward's massive shoulder beneath his robe. Her palm descended to his elbow. Her knuckles whispered over his forearm. The demon tensed. Rob didn't think Melanie and Edward were even aware of him any more.
"I love you," Melanie said fiercely.
With the strength of a mother, of a lover, and of the Goddess within her, a strength that defied even Edward's, Melanie seized his wrist and forced him to plunge the dagger into her belly, levering it upward so her body was ripped open from groin to breastbone.
The shriek of a metamorphosing dragon drowned out Rob's cry of horror. Niko dove from the ledge. Goap spun into the talons of the twenty-pound creature of myth.
Adam exploded out of his bonds with a flash of sparks and the shriek of torn metal. Faster than Rob's eyes could follow, Adam conjured his sword from the air and severed the chains holding him against the wall.
"Get out of here," the prince roared.
Niko screamed as the demon seized him by the wings. Heedless of the claws slashing at his mortal face, Goap incinerated the loyal dragon with a contemptuous snarl. He flung the charred body to the floor and whirled into the edge of Adam's sword.
Adam put all his strength behind the decapitation, freeing the soul of Tad Williams and evicting the demon spirit. The mortal body they had shared sunk to the floor. The sword flashed in a circle, encompassing the consecrated ground.
"Heed me, Goap," the Guardian commanded, in a voice that rocked the cavern with the force of its power, "I bind you and all who serve you in this circle and deny you release, in all the names of Those Who Are Not Seen. You will hear and obey, for you have no access to a vessel outside this circle."
The demon substance swirling through the air screamed its fury and shifted into a birdlike monster of vapor. It launched itself at the prince. The cloaked members of the circle charged the Guardian, commanded by Goap's will.
Rob jumped into the fray, swinging the heavy chain still attached to the manacle on his wrist. He blocked off all moral shades of black, white or gray and put one goal ahead of him-to get him and Adam out of the chamber. He looped the links around Amelia Blanchard's throat and jerked, breaking her neck. Don't think about it, just do it.
The demon cloud spun around Adam and lifted him off the ground, inadvertently taking him out of range of the mortal threat. He gets the demon, I get the blood thirsty mortals. We're both fucked. Rob knocked a pimply-faced teenager with a safety pin pierced through his eyebrow unconscious. He ducked the swing of a blunt sword and caught the ankle of its wielder, pulling him off his feet and twisting the leg viciously to break it. Two more neophytes tackled him as the others screamed encouragement and closed in, kicking and punching at him.
The enraged demon crushed Adam against one of the projections of rock Correen had created. Adam slashed at the demon's grip with his charged sword and Goap dropped him. Adam crashed to the stone floor and felt his shoulder jar loose from its socket. He rolled quickly beneath the rock projection and into the cavern entranceway. The bone snapped back in painfully on the roll.
Goap exploded through the man-made stalactite. Adam shielded his gaze from the blinding green light as the demon crashed into the circle's binding, a scant few inches from Adam's face. The demon howled, fighting the Guardian's sentence.
Adam held it firm, shamelessly stealing the power Edward had devoted to casting the original circle. It was a temporary hold, but it would do. The demon's power had lessened considerably without the physical anchor of machine or human. What power it had left had to be used mainly to cling to the lip of the physical world, lest he be sucked back to his point of origin with his brothers. The beast gnashed teeth of air, spitting its rage at him. Abruptly, it froze. A hideous grin split the smoke. The demon spun away from Adam.
Adam's thunderous voice filled Rob's head, uttering one succinct command.
RUN.
Rob had been trying to do that for twenty seconds, squirming beneath a hostile pile-up of blood-crazed, flailing neophytes. Now, they shifted, making it easier. Something tore bodies off him. Something that was not trying to help him. Rob wriggled out from beneath the pummeling mass of arms and legs, snagging the corner of someone's cloak and dragging it with him as cover, refusing to relinquish it even as its previous owner died in Goap's crushing grip. The man's thrashing foot struck Rob in the face and he tasted blood.
Rob scrambled out from beneath the pack, half covered by the cloak. It gave Goap a half second of confusion, a half second lead for Rob from a being that could move at the speed of fire.
Adam hefted his sword by the blade. He charged it with as much power as he could give it in the space of an in-drawn breath, then slung it, end over end.
It arced over Rob, the tip just missing the crown of his head as he threw his body at the boundary of the circle. The demon was so close behind him he felt the heat of its touch sear a burn on his neck.
The sword exploded into shrapnel among the smoke, charging the air with a blood red glow. The cavern trembled with a malevolent shriek of rage. The birdlike form of the demon scattered into wispy feathers of stagnant air.
Rob landed against Adam and the two men rolled into the hallway, out of the immediate sight of the captives in the chamber. "Where the hell is Edward?" Rob panted.
"I don't know." Adam sighted his clothes, lying in a neat pile in the alcove where the initiates had donned their robes. He scrambled across the ground and grabbed them. "We must get above ground to the others."
"What about Goap?"
"He has been sent back to the other kings."
"So we should be okay now."
Adam shook his head. "I don't know," he repeated. "Melanie's disruption of the ritual may not have been enough to stop the energy they raised. The kings may still be able to break free."
Rob turned eyes filled with grief to the prince. "If what she did wasn't enough," he said hoarsely, "then nothing in this fucking world deserves saving."
The cone of power towered over the human spiral, a tornado of energy eager to embrace its goal. The Brigade of Light was one spinning, musical entity. Channa's sharp gaze remained on the sky, still consumed by crimson and black clouds. The crickets and frogs that had accompanied the songs of their power raising had fallen silent. The Brigade sang alone in a world that had grown hushed and watchful, waiting for the outcome.
A rumbling filled the air, momentarily drowning the strength of their music. Most looked up, for thunder. Channa looked down. A second tremor came. This one shook the earth strongly enough to dispel any doubts. Fingers of lightning jabbed out of the red and black sky, covetously reaching for the earth.
The wrongness of what was descending upon them suffused the air and the participants wavered, uncertain what to do. In times of crises, people latched onto the suggestion of safety. Their rational beliefs were set aside in favor of survival, and they obeyed the commands of whoever seemed to know what was going on. Had she not seen as much when Cathar and she went down under the tearing hands of the mob? Channa redoubled her efforts to appear unconcerned, focusing her intent on maintaining the spiral.
Another rumble came from below, and the bank of clouds swept lower, answering the call of whatever moved beneath them.
"Mother, help us," Alicia whispered. The coven members remained steadfast. The spiral of power held. Channa felt a fierce pride in them, thirteen girls held by love for each other and their faith. Sephira and Jaiya had trained them well. In this moment, with the strength of Those Who Are Not Seen flowing around her and through her, Channa remembered them clearly, and all they had shared with one another. The child closed small fingers around the edge of her robe, tightening their circle.
A boy in a rock band T-shirt and a rosary around his neck stood next to Lanny in the circle. He shouted something that Channa could not make out over the whipping wind. He pulled their linked hands up to point. Lights flashed through the cloud cover, a cacophony of greens, golds and blues, commanding their attention. The earth shifted violently and the priestess stumbled. Alicia's arm caught her, and her lips brushed Channa's ear. "This is going to be bad, isn't it?"
The outer loops of the Brigade of Light broke. They ran toward the parking lot, as if the shaking of the earth was a rain shower at a high school football game. The three loops just outside the coven held, closer to the concentration and influence of the energy. They were experienced enough to sense something was wrong and that the energy might help fix it. They kept their focus, and the cone held through the defection.
Channa raised her arms, drawing all remaining eyes to her silhouette. The flashing light etched her against the sky, her hair and the silken gauze of her robe a froth of fire and ice around her.
"Prepare to release the energy, at my command," she shouted, watching the sky. Watching the earth. Watching the sky. Watching the earth...
The child watched in mesmerized awe as the sky got closer, until it seemed like the clouds were no higher than the laundry room ceiling in the basement of her apartment complex. The earth moved in rhythm with her breath-inhale, pause, exhale, rumble. Inhale, tremble, exhale, pause...
The boy in the multicolored T-shirt stretched out a hand, reaching up to touch those sparkling puffs of smoke. The cloud recoiled from him. The lady in white robes tensed and the worst thunder the child had ever heard rent the air. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but something told her to hang on to the women on either side of her, lest they disappear like her mother. Now the clouds were as low as the tallest person, and wisps of their mist trailed shoulders like cobwebs.
The boy pulled his hand free from the girl next to him and reached into the cotton candy. Red lightning split the clouds like a knife drawn across putrefying skin. A funnel of black light exploded out of the wound and sucked him in, jerking him from the side of the stunned, freckled girl. The ground behind them burst like a green and white tumor, swallowing a section of the spiral. Chunks of rock from the crater spat at those just outside the pit's grasp.
"NOW!" Channa shouted, pointing not toward the open wound in the sky, but toward the ground. The earth shuddered. Cracks sped out from the crater like snakes, slithering at lightning speed across the white sands. The grass beneath the priestess' feet peeled away. With a roar, the mouth of the earth opened to devour her.
Correen did not hear the gasps and cries of alarm when the earth and sky exploded. Her spirit had ascended into the subconscious alpha state and left the circle long before the Cone of Power was raised. Her body still stood in Adrian's place, serving as a link in the chain of energy that spread out to others in the spiral, but her mind floundered, caught in the web of words Channa had cast over her. She looked for meaning even as her heart raged against meaning. How could it possibly matter if Adam was dead?
The spiral was made up of people who had something for which to live. But she had nothing, no one. By bringing her back to life, Adam had made her into a vampire. She had to feed on his love daily to live. Without it, she desired nothing but death.
Ricardo would never feel the world end, no more than he would ever recognize her. Perhaps it had ended for the two of them a long time ago, and Adam had just been a clever necromancer. But Death had remembered her and would not be cheated again. She heard it calling her back and responded, leaving her body behind.
A staircase appeared and she followed it into the opening in the sky that bled red mist. Legions of creatures waited topside on the black clouds for the four kings to summon them, a sea of beings twisted by their crimes and inadequacies into monsters, armed with fangs, tentacles, claws and rippling muscles to serve those who could command them.
She did not care about them. She closed her eyes and turned away. When Correen opened her eyes again, she stood before the gateway that she had so often visualized, had once desired so much to reach. She sat down at the feet of the Gatekeeper and looked down. A hole appeared before her like a reflection in a small puddle, showing her the circle far below, where her body still stood. A part of her ached to see it end; Alicia's exuberance, Adrian's ethereal innocence, Rob's reassuring arrogant maleness...
"You spend three days in a cellar refusing to die, and now you wish to give up, just like that?"
The Gatekeeper pushed back the cowl of the robe, revealing the face of a woman so ancient that the bark of centuries-old live oaks would have been modeled from the texture of her skin. Correen nodded, unaffected by the censorious tone.
"Even though he lives?"
Correen's head snapped up. She scrabbled to her feet. "Wha-at?"
"You are so afraid of his death you wish it upon him to escape your fear," the Gatekeeper accused.
"I must go back-"
"No." The skeletal arm rose, in the grand tradition of Dickens, pointing through the red mist swirling around them. "You have things you must do here. The legions but await the word of their masters and they will break free. The priestess will focus the energy you have raised on the gateway of the four kings, within the earth. The combined strength of an attack from above and below will cause your circle to fail. The legions must be turned from this portal."
"But Adam-"
"This is the task you must face. You can do nothing to aid him but this."
"But I can't-"
"You can. They called you here." The Gatekeeper nodded and the mists parted, showing her the simmering legions of unholy creatures. "Walk among them without fear. I can hold them from harming you until their masters summon them. Learn why they called you."
The remaining members of the Brigade of Light scattered in confusion. Cries of fear rode the waves of the gale force wind. Lightning flashed out of the sky, striking down a knot of those who fled.
Alicia's ears resounded with the child's scream as the ground split beneath Channa. "Hold the spiral!" Alicia shouted. She flung herself down on the lip of the opening and caught Channa's wrists.
Channa latched onto Alicia's forearms. The rising wind at Alicia's back pulled the blonde forward. She felt the little girl grab onto her, trying to haul her back. "No, sweetheart-"
"Sorry sugar, can't help it," Lanny responded, her arms suddenly around Alicia's waist, the child mashed between them. The muscles in the track champion's legs contracted and she hauled backwards, giving Alicia the fulcrum to regain her balance. It was not enough to bring Channa up. The three hung there, unable to pull the priestess out of the gaping maw of the earth but refusing to let go of her or one another.
Alicia could no longer see or feel if the coven still held the pyre of energy the Brigade had built. She could not think beyond the feel of Channa's fingers, locked on her wrists.
Channa's head dropped forward. Below her, Alicia saw four mounted figures advancing out of a pool of flame. They charged over the surface of the rock and dirt as though the earth's vertical axis had been turned on its edge and become horizontal.
Channa ripped a hand free. Alicia screamed, losing her grip on both hands. She caught the fingers of Channa's one hand and clung to them with both of hers.
The priestess intoned savagely and pointed at the oncoming demon kings. An electric shock crackled through Alicia's nerve endings, but nothing less than amputation of her arm at the shoulder was going to make her let go.
Rock and earth exploded before the demons. Their unholy mounts screeched and tumbled backwards. The fire far below reclaimed them. Channa twisted her head to look up at Alicia.
"I startled them," the priestess gasped. "They'll be back. Alicia, you have to direct the Cone of Power at this opening, now."
"Lanny," Alicia shouted over the wind. "Is there anyone around to help us?"
"Can you grab her under the shoulders?"
"Not without letting go. Lanny, she's slipping!"
"Alicia." Alicia shut her eyes, but her friend's words of command penetrated the flimsy attempt to shut her out.
"Let go, Alicia," Channa ordered. "This opening must be sealed before they come out. You're the only one capable of directing it."
"Alma, get Alma!" Alicia cried. Channa wriggled her fingers, trying to loosen them.
"No, goddamn you," Alicia said. She tightened her grip, certain she would hear bones snapping. "I won't lose you."
The flashes from the sky above glinted off tears of sadness in Channa's eyes. She raised her free hand, and power rippled through it, as it had before she struck at the demons.
"Don't you dare," Alicia sobbed. "Goddamn it, please-"
Lanny gripped her helplessly, unable to do more than watch and know what was going to happen. The child whimpered in protest as her hold on Alicia tightened. Not both of them, please God.
"Go with the angels, Channa," Lanny whispered.
A weight landed against them. Alicia toppled and Channa's intent was realized. The blow knocked the women's hands apart. Alicia opened her mouth on a scream of protest, a black wave of fear momentarily blinding her.
When it cleared, a bloodstained and dirty Rob lay stretched flat on the ground next to her. He held Channa in a ruthless grip, his hands clasped on her forearms. A grip he shifted under her armpits with one powerful move.
"It's like I told you, Al," he said, between clenched teeth. The muscles in his shoulders contorted. "Let women develop superior upper body strength; then we'll talk equality." A moment later, Channa lay safely on level ground.
Channa leaped up and over the prone bodies of her rescuers. She plunged into the circular flow of the energy spiral. The cone had held. Despite all that had just happened, the coven had maintained their circle and an unbreakable chain of focus. Channa blessed Sephira and Jaiya with all her heart, and the coven, though she could not spare them more than a peripheral glance at the moment.
The priestess's body, long trained to the rhythm of an energy pattern, fell immediately in sync with its movement. She tacked a portion of it down within her open marratma, and made herself the eye of its tornado-strength force. Channa deftly twisted it, as skilled as a weaver at a loom. The funnel arched like a rainbow to the trained eye and plunged toward the opening in the earth. The rainbow separated into strands and began to sew the doorway shut, shaking the earth as it pulled the loops closed with highly charged threads.
It was difficult-the coven had done better than she had hoped in maintaining the strength of the raised energy, but the fear of the many who had helped build it had seeped in and diluted it. The sheer strength of will of the four demon kings fought her efforts. She needed help.
Channa clenched her teeth and opened herself further, pulling from reservoirs of strength her body needed for its own life functions. If she did not have help, it would have to come from her, regardless of the consequences.
A hand descended on her shoulder and Adam's presence filled her. Channa felt his strength interlock with hers, the pure, concentrated flow of power drawn straight from the breast of Those Who Are Not Seen. The chaos of the moment had eliminated everything from her mind, including the significance of Rob's appearance. They were both alive.
The rainbow needle and thread increased its speed and diameter, flashing in and out, healing the Earth's wound. Alma's hand closed on Channa's other shoulder a scant second later.
Channa almost laughed out loud for the joy of it. What priestess had ever had the honor of working magic with two Guardians at once? If only the Lords could feel what she was feeling, they would no longer doubt the motives of their royal Guardian.
Earth was going to survive. They were all going to survive. The wind's howling changed to a song in her ears, even though the skies above showed no sign of clearing.
The earth ceased its trembling. The gap where she had moments before dangled over death or worse closed. The fathoms of rock below the scar fused, locking in their catastrophic contents. The hole in the sky that had taken the boy in the emblazoned shirt still existed, but it had retreated to a less intimidating altitude of fifty feet. Its opening resembled a cleansed wound. The smoky clouds had cleared away so all that remained was a jagged-edged, crimson filled orifice. Whatever it had intended to spew forth was contained, for the moment.
Channa quickly looked behind her. Lanny and Alicia were helping Shireva, who had been struck by spitting rock when the earth exploded, to her feet. Blood dripped from her temple, but her eyes were clear and she nodded at Channa.
The priestess turned her attention back to the Guardians. Alma and Adam studied the opening in the sky, shoulder to shoulder.
"Adam?"
Rob's use of the prince's given name drew all eyes to him. Rob gripped his roommate's shoulder reassuringly, then gestured. "I don't know when he actually arrived, but he hasn't moved a muscle. Neither has she."
The coven still stood in a circle, their hands linked. Exhaustion and uncertainty as to what was required of them next was one reason. Edward Brautigan was the other.
He towered behind Correen on the outside of the circle, wearing only jeans. Melanie's blood stained his bare chest and the denim. One massive hand rested on each of Correen's shoulders. His knuckles pressed intimately against the base of her fragile throat, and he stared at the back of her head with unwavering, entranced dark eyes. He had planted a sword from the underground cavern between his feet. Bronwyn and Grace, the two women who clasped Correen's hands, watched the motionless man nervously. Correen's eyes were closed.
"We were afraid to break the contact," Grace explained. She did not indicate whether she meant the link between the three of them or the hold Edward had on Correen. "We were holding the spiral and didn't see him come up until he was just ... there."
"Are we done, Channa?" Bronwyn spoke, a slight quaver to her voice.
"Wait just a couple more minutes," Alma soothed her. "We'll close the circle soon. You all have done marvelously."
Adam studied Edward and Correen, his eyes darting like a hawk's. Rob, standing at his side, surveyed the field. It had been shredded by the panicked retreat of the ritual participants and the escape attempt of the four kings. Half of the parking lot had emptied while Channa and the coven had fought to contain the kings. Others had remained, too frightened to do more than seek refuge in their cars. They stared at the spectacle before them like a drive-in audience. It suited Rob fine. Fewer people in the way.
"They've gone somewhere up there," Adam said, looking toward the slit in the sky. "But I don't know why." Adam conjured a blade. A spark leapt off the metal and jettisoned to the tip as he charged it. He thrust the hilt into Rob's hand.
"But I thought you-"
"I kept two blades in our room. This is my practice sword." Adam gestured impatiently. "Stand behind Edward. If he rouses, kill him immediately, before he can gain his bearings. Can you do that?"
Rob considered the weapon. Being asked to kill ahead of time was different than taking life in self-defense, and the prince knew it. The lion-like eyes studied Rob's face with brutal intensity, measuring his ability to do as asked. "I won't let him get her," Rob said gruffly. "But if we live through this, you're going to show me how to do this conjuring shit. I sure as hell could use a cigarette."
Adam turned to Channa. "I'll follow them onto the astral plane and see where they are. Then we will close the opening in the sky."
He planted himself before Correen and mirrored Edward's posture. He reached forward and laid his hands on Correen's shoulders, on the outside of Edward's hands. The contact would help him find her, as Edward had known.
"If you need to release her," he told Bronwyn and Grace, "it will do no harm. I won't let her go." He focused on Edward's face, locking the three of them together.
"Don't forget," he said. Rob nodded, though the prince did not look his way. He took position behind Edward. By the time he had assumed his post, Adam had left his body, his eyes as glassy and hard as a figure in a wax museum.
"Why don't I just run Edward through now?" Rob asked.
"Because Edward's spirit could still move freely on the astral plane and destroy her," Alma lifted a hand as though she would touch the entranced girl, but did not finish the gesture. "It's strange, though. He didn't ward himself in any way. Correen's fate appears to be more important to him than his own life."
"Alma, if I'd done what he's done, I'd beg someone to kill me."
The first steps among the demon kings' army brought Correen's heart into her throat. Claws swiped out and fell short of their mark, attempts to seize and rend her with sharp fangs were blocked by an invisible barrier a scarce inch above her astral flesh. The beasts hissed and snarled, flying into fierce temper tantrums and turning on each other. As she walked among them, the pressure of the barrier around her forced them to let her pass. The Gatekeeper was true to her word. Correen got bolder. She peered into the grotesque, once-human faces, into eyes that burned with pain and hatred and the desire to kill. She tried to understand what it was they wanted her to learn.
She wandered so deeply into their midst that there was no space where she could open a hole in the sky to see if the spiral still held below. Correen wryly supposed, if the beings around her suddenly turned on her and tore her astral body to shreds, she would know the circle had been broken and all was lost. She gasped as a tentacle slithered around her feet, but its owner withdrew with a frustrated snarl. She bit off a sigh and looked over the sea of bodies. She felt nothing, saw nothing.
Perhaps she should seek the River of Healing and look for answers in its waters. She was sure she was here to exercise her healing abilities in some manner. She had found the river the first time by tapping her intuition. Now when she touched the doors to her unconscious, they offered her nothing, leaving her with only a sense of sorrow and loss. Had she offended the Crone with her unlawful entry to save Adam's life? Was she being denied access to the River as punishment? Perhaps being surrounded by so much sickness and hate was blocking her senses. She began to seek a way to the outskirts of their company.
A slow resonant rumble rocked the substance beneath Correen's feet, as though a mountain moved. It was similar to the thunderous drum roll that had announced the opening in the sky, only this felt as though a knife sunk deep into the heart of the firmament and slowly pressed forward, severing it in two. Correen gasped. She felt as though oxygen was being sucked from her lungs, and she had never before been aware of a sense of breathing in the astral plane.
Depression and hopelessness had been with her most of her life. It woke her in the morning and went to bed with her at night. That feeling, magnified a thousand times, flooded her now, screaming at her to drop to her knees and simply fail.
Elsewhere on the astral plane, Adam stopped. He turned in all directions, exploring the shape of the pressure in disbelief. He reached out with his senses toward the grove in the darkened foyer of Havenwood, probing. His mind spoke the truth to him, though shock filled him and tried to deny it.
Far below him, on Snow Field, the companions had retreated to the edge of the field to tend to Shireva's wounds beneath the relative protection of a maple tree. Now Alma rose, and spoke the prince's denial aloud to the companions, her voice a whisper of horror.
"The Lords are Sealing your world."
...He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft ... then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and in those days man will seek death and not find it; they will long to die, and death will fly from them...
-Revelations 9:2-6
Before Alma's words dissipated in the still air, the earth exploded, scattering the companions across the grass. The seam of earth ripped open again. The same red mist that vomited from the scar in the sky now billowed out of the earth in clouds of choking smoke. It vanquished the moon and night became as dark as the inside of a coffin. Rob coughed from the smoke, but as he was accustomed to it, he was the first to see the four demon kings make their triumphant entrance.
The movement of their steeds seemed to shake the ground. It could have been the aftershocks of the earthquake that belched them forth, but each hoof beat fell against the ground and echoed inside the hearts of all living things with a dread sense of finality.
Zimimar rode slightly to the front, his beautiful face hard with delight. His grotesque white eyes with pale yellow irises drank in the first sight of freedom in two thousand years. Gorson followed closely. His squat, massive body crouched low upon the neck of his horse. Amaymon trotted alongside. His cloven hooves tapped against the flanks of his restless steed, a chilling, knowing smile on his Pan-like features. Goap cantered slightly apart from the other three, feathers rippling along his bare, muscled back. Amaymon and Zimimar were clad in polished armor, but the less human-formed Gorson and Goap were bare except for some battle trappings. Goap's red eyes alighted on Rob. He reacted to his terrified expression with a laugh that brought defeat and doom to the hearts of all who heard it.
"Humans," Zimimar's voice was thunder, filling the heavens, the earth, and every crack and hiding space. "Your masters are here!"
His words rolled up toward the firmament. The opening in the sky ripped wide to reveal a sky full of creatures milling and tumbling over each other like maggots straining to feast on a carcass.
"Legions! Attend us!"
Adam believed that pivotal events were instruments of fate, offered by Those Who Are Not Seen to sculpt the soul. He had never before felt as he did now, that there were demands that no one, even a deity, had the right to make.
Leave Correen to face Edward alone and she would die. Refuse to return to his physical body to assist Channa and the others and Correen, as well as her world, would be completely destroyed. He had sworn to protect her from all harm and now he had no choice but to leave her in Fate's hands.
Somewhere, one of the mutated humans howled in anticipatory triumph. Adam closed his eyes, willing himself back into his body. He left a savage echo of his thoughts reverberating in the ears of Those Who Are Not Seen. Let her die and I care not for the fate of your Continuum-I will never serve you again.
Except for his vow of love for Correen, he had never meant anything so seriously.
Correen had no illusions that she could defend herself against the empowered army; they could rip her to shreds. Luckily, she found herself more in danger of being trampled. They moved eagerly toward the vulnerable gateway to her world, pushing her to their outskirts. It was a strange sight, her misty figure buffeted about like a rag doll. But something else had occurred when they had gained the power to harm her. She could now sense what moved inside the creatures.
A strange calm swept through her. Correen reached toward one of the passing creatures. When she laid her palm on it, it did not flinch or retaliate; it simply moved onward.
Once on the fringes of the marching legions, Correen turned and walked away from them, holding the hands that had touched the creatures before her. They were somehow connected, her mutilated fingers and this army. The River of Healing would have the answers.
The horrible feeling of finality and doom continued to suck at her, demanding she give up and die. But when it came to enduring futility and depression, no Olympian had ever trained so long and persistently at an event as Correen had done. She was not deterred. Her mind raced to find the River of Healing, but the feeling of blackness was everywhere, interfering. She took a deep breath and imagined the event that had led her to it the first time.
On the astral plane, visualization was reality. As she imagined herself once more racing past the Gatekeeper to save Adam, a dozen of the lower life forms of the astral plane leapt upon her as though summoned. Their bodies brought back the pain of that previous experience. She fought through them as she had before. She was seeking the River of Healing to aid Adam, the tunnel was cracking ... Almost there-she cried out as a beast that possessed a troll's face and eight grasping legs sank fangs into her shoulder.
She fell and was smothered beneath him and his cohorts. Her hand impacted with a splash. She wiggled and clawed forward and sank both of her hands in the water, pulling on its strength to clear away the visualization and leave the current reality around her in its stead. The beings evaporated.
Alma had described the River of Healing as a ribbon of diamond sparkles, lit from the powers it held within. The body of water in which she had mired her hands was black as tar, but it suffused her with the same sunshine of connection and hope she had felt when she had healed the fissure in the rock. Perhaps everyone saw the River of Healing differently. She lifted her hand out of the muck. Suddenly she was frozen in a personal world that had nothing to do with demon kings, the end of the world, or even Adam. Slime slipped off strong, straight fingers. She jerked the other hand out of the water. The scars and odd angles of her fingers had been replaced by beautiful, elegant bones. Correen sat back on her heels and stared at them. She looked at the River. She lowered one hand back in, and then the other. She felt the movement of the current around and over her fingers. What she saw and smelled was sorrow and decay. It had healed her hands.
A breeze rustled marsh grass that suddenly appeared on the banks of the river. There were other things as well, growing out of the ground and on the bank across from her. A human skeleton lay skull first toward the river, its arms thrown open in an exuberant posture, like a child rolling down a hill. An embroidered scarf was impaled on the tip end of a nodding cattail. Broken toys were scattered everywhere. A faded book of poetry was open to a page smeared with the waste of the River. A tree grew out of the ground before her eyes and arched out gracefully over the sludge. The trunk was carved with nostalgic hearts and the initials of lovers. A woman sat beneath the tree, stroking the hair of a sleeping child. The tree nodded in the wind. A piano trilled in response.
Correen's head whipped around. A piano waited, ten steps down the bank. A dog with collar and tags passed, fighting the current of the River, but yipping happily.
The girl rose and walked to the instrument. The air around her was as thick as the sluggish mud of the river. Her heart thudded against her chest when she saw that it was the same. A highly polished grand piano with ivory keys. Sheets of music poked out of the bench drawn up before it. She raised the lid with trembling, whole fingers and a muted moan of sorrow passed through her. Blood was spattered across the pages of music. "Oh, Ricardo-"
She laid the lid down and held the pages to her chest. For once she did not fight the feelings. She listened to the many voices inside her that sang of all the people she was now and once had been. Adam's lover, Ricardo's sister, Alicia's friend, all defined by others. One definition for herself alone. Healer.
Her strength to heal came not from the River of Healing, but from the River of Sorrow and Death. She had never been told of its existence, but with her heart open, it spoke its name clearly to her. Correen opened her arms and the music flew. It glided gracefully over the piano, swirling in an arc on the bell curve of the wind, then it was lost on the current of the sluggish River.
She sat down at the piano and hesitated. Carefully, she laid her fingers on the keys. As the first notes came forth, her face folded together tightly, striving not to break into a million fragments of the most painful joy she had ever experienced. There would be a tremendous price for this moment of wholeness, but she could see the two avenues before her. Bliss from a glorious surge of healing energy flooded her, sharp and poignant as the crippling pain that suddenly returned to her hands.
She could see into the hearts of the kings' army. There were those that held power, captains of the legions. There was nothing in them for her to touch. They recoiled from the notes she poured out onto the astral plane. But through the sensitive fingers of the music she was creating, she could sense what most of the members of the army had once been. One creature was pressed on the outer fringes of his battalion and she enclosed him in a web of melody, subjecting him to a gentle examination. Her music changed.
Now she created a tapestry of songs, weaving them over the tide of beings surging toward the open sea of her world. The tapestry settled down over them. The captains enjoined them to march on. They hesitated.
She remembered the items on the shores of the river. Sorrow and death were the beginning, an end to torment, a beginning to life. Everyone had started in one River. Her, Adam, Alma, Channa, Darius ... everyone, even these beings, even the kings trying to destroy her world. They had been so many that the banks had overflowed. Tributaries had formed, different groups of spirits following different paths. Many had chosen paths that would eventually rejoin the River and flow into the ocean of the All. But the tributaries of those in this army had run too far in the wrong direction and dead-ended in a swamp that had trapped them. They were disconnected, lost from Life. The gift she had to offer them was that she had lived all her life with one foot in the Swamp and one in the River. She and her music were a bridge back for them.
Correen lost herself in the sound, smell and feel of the creatures. She was no longer conscious of what she had left behind or how her actions would impact the future. She took in the substance of the demons' minions and called them. The army halted.
The captains of the legions howled. They used great curved whips to lash their charges back toward the opening in the sky. The troops stood fast, lemmings brought to an uncertain stop.
Correen's fingers flew, dancing a dance that she had been born to choreograph. Her fingers had sung Ricardo to sleep. She had simply known how to weave magic into her songs to keep nightmares from his dreams. Now she called the nightmares to her, offering to transform them into dreams.
Those in the rear guard turned. They moved toward her. She could not see them with her eyes, which were useless here, but with her heart.
The captains ceased torturing their soldiers. They sought the cause of the interference. They struggled through the mob, simultaneously carried forward and blocked by their confusion.
Correen could only feel the army, not those approaching to stop her. Her awareness moved through each one she summoned, a lightning quick touch that offered them the unfamiliar sensation of hope and an individual awareness again. She broke up the cells of a tumor, her touch seeking to heal the mutated cells one by one through restoration, not destruction.
The music rushed through Correen and pulled the closest soldier toward her, and into her. The song surrounded it, cleansed the wrongs of thousands of years, and purified it. The creature stepped free into the River of Sorrow, and dropped like a stone. A spirit of light and mist shot forth, as magnificent as a bird erupting from sun-touched waters. It scattered into thousands of rainbow colored droplets, returning to the great body of the Universe to be renewed.
Correen's eyes overflowed with tears. Another being followed its fellow's lead and plunged through her. The music of her soul took its pain, lived it completely for a full, horrifying second, and then released him to the same wonderful fate.
Pain she might have, but there was this. Renewal. She was a gateway to Life. She was a Healer.
The world had dwindled to the colors of a stark nightmare. Trees groaned and bowed before the wind. Everything was bathed in the gray color of blood before the touch of oxygen. Zimimar stood in his stirrups, thundering a guttural command. Creatures lashed at the army in the sky, driving them forward, but only a few floated to the ground. The rest turned back into the sky toward something none of them could see.
The other three kings seemed less concerned about the army's hesitation. They advanced toward the companions.
Alma turned her back on the kings. "Run to the grove," she commanded. "Shireva will take you through to our world before the Sealing is complete. Otherwise you may remain in the circle's protection as long as it lasts and live or die with your world."
"But-" Lanny gestured listlessly to the knoll in the center of the field, where Edward, Adam and Correen still stood, guarded by Rob.
"Rob has made his choice," Alma said. "And the others must return to their bodies where they were left. Go!"
The hoof beats shook the ground. Goap broke away to bear down on Rob, while the other two headed for the group under the maple. Channa picked up the child clinging to her robe, and shoved her small body into Alicia's limp arms. "Go!" she echoed, in a voice of irrefutable command.
She whipped her battle sword out of the back harness and tore the useless fabric of her ceremonial gown from her body. Channa burst into a run, a wild and savage predator that leaped over the grass, clad only in the hair that flew over the tattoo on her back like spilled flame.
Gorson and Amaymon bore down on the band. Their mounts shied before Alma Jacobsen. Gorson screamed a command and the earth opened beneath the old woman's feet. Alma held firm, suspended in the air. She leveled her hands at them and balls of blue flame shot from the aged palms. One demon veered in time; Gorson took the impact in his chest and somersaulted off his fiery steed. Alma snatched up her staff and swung it over her head. A green flash of light swirled around her and deflected the strike of fire Amaymon ejected from his throat. It struck the ground next to Alicia and the child in her arms screamed.
Alma jerked a quick glance back at the group. They stood, frozen into apathy by the overwhelming hopelessness that flooded their senses with every breath. Blue flame arced from her hands again and blasted each of the companions, rocking them back on their heels. This electrical energy poured a sweet, welcome drink of magic into their veins, and gave them the hope and strength to move.
"Go, damn you!" she snapped.
They obeyed this time, though Shireva had to drag Alicia and Lanny toward the grove instead of the knoll. Gorson regained his feet, snarling, and Alma staggered back against the wave of power he sent against her defenses. Amaymon joined it with fire and she went down on one knee, her nose bleeding from the pressure.
Channa's arms and legs windmilled, her running strides twice matching the thrum of the four hooves of Goap's steed. She knew he could have destroyed Rob with a glance; the demon was merely passing the time, enjoying the sport until Zimimar was ready. It gave her one edge. The other was that his attention was completely on his target. Rob held the sword awkwardly. Goap would feel a moment of Adam's power, but it would not be enough to save Rob's life.
Channa ascended the knoll. She emitted a piercing battle cry that jerked Goap's head around at the same moment she sprang from the knoll and tackled him, knocking the powerful, feathered body from its mount. They hit the ground three yards in front of a trembling Rob and Channa grunted from the impact. Goap's battle spurs raked her bare calves, but he was thrashing for balance. She rolled over, planting her knees into the back of his shoulders. She plunged her sword in between them, charging her blade with as much magic as she could.
The demon twisted around, howling, and struck her in the chest. The blow propelled her twenty feet into the air. He flung the sword away and roared after her. Channa thudded to the ground and scrambled away. Goap caught her ankles and yanked her lower body off the ground, his dagger blade driving down to rape as well as kill. The warrior-priestess propelled her upper body off the ground using her stomach muscles and blocked the knife with a forearm. It missed its mark and drove into her inner thigh. She snarled and clawed for one red eyeball, digging into the orb.
Goap grabbed her throat with his free talon and Channa felt every cell squeezed in the grip of his power. "Bitch Worshiper," he hissed. "You have no strength against me." He lifted her effortlessly in the air and upended the knife again.
"No!" she screamed, kicking.
Rob started forward. A rough grip caught his shoulder and wrested the sword from his hand.
"Allow me," Adam said grimly.
Channa turned her head and tried to sink her teeth into Goap's fingers along her jaw. The demon jerked and a flame erupted from his chest. A silver bladed stem followed the flower of blue light that burst through him. Goap shrieked and dropped Channa, clawing at the blade, but it held him relentlessly. Adam's fingers curled around his feathered throat to give him better leverage as he twisted the sword.
"RUN," he roared at Channa, his features quivering with exertion. "NOW."
Channa obeyed. She yanked the empty-handed Rob after her. She threw a desperate glance over her shoulder at the two Guardians staving off the three enraged kings. Adam flicked a glance at her.
"Trust me. GO!"
She ran.
Adam pulled the blade free and Goap collapsed. Zimimar let out a triumphant yell. Adam's gaze snapped up. A waterfall of death erupted from the sky. The other two kings saw it and spun, leaving off their attack of Alma. The flames of their mounts engulfed Adam and he brought his sword up, but they passed him. They pulled Goap onto the front of Gorson's horse. Goap's steed galloped close behind them, waiting to reclaim its rider.
Adam leaped to Alma's side and pulled her to her feet. "Turn into a bird," he shouted into the rising wind. "Meet me at the grove. We have a chance!"
Her staff thumped to the ground and she took wing against the blood-red sky. Adam snatched it up and followed her, pausing by the only two mortals left in the meadow. He stared into Correen's unblinking eyes.
If he left her here, once the demons had them mobilized, the advancing army would tear her body apart. Better to hope for the miracle chance that she could find her physical body in a different place than to be doomed forever to wander without one, if she survived the astral plane. He lifted her over his shoulder, threw a last, contemptuous glance at Edward, and ran for their lives.
The creatures pushed and shoved like children now, sometimes two at a time going through her to the River of Sorrow. The River boiled like peroxide cleaning an infection. What had been a sluggish ribbon of sludge was now an undulating tar pit with black, sticky geysers baptizing the reborn mists of light. The substance coated her astral form, giving her the appearance of a child gone wild playing in the mud.
Abruptly, the flow of creatures stopped.
Correen lifted her gaze to the opposite bank. Edward stood there, a sword in his hand. Alma had told her a person highly adept at traveling the astral plane could manifest in whatever manner they chose. Correen noted Edward looked as real and solid on this plane as on the physical one. The beings beside her stood frozen and afraid, cowed by the power pulsing from him.
Correen had seen Edward wield a willow-thin fencing lance, and it had seemed incongruous with his pantherish size and power. Even this broadsword seemed a strange weapon for the Reynolda Reaper. Edward leaped to her side of the River.
As long as she could remember, Correen had been able to pick up the notes of any music that fell on her ears. Now she reached out and into Edward, and composed his song. She filled the air with the passageways, journeys, emotions, and actions that had led him to this moment.
Edward's eyes flamed. He flinched at each note. The beings quieted, soothed by her ballad. They swayed back and forth, a meadow of the undead bending in the breeze she created.
Correen's eyes closed, drifting in the melody more than she ever had in the strains of Moonlight Sonata, or Peer Gynt, or Beethoven's Fifth. Those had been creations of the soul. What she played now was the creation of a soul. She immersed herself in its sorrow and complexity.
The night he had been hospitalized for his "biking" injury, Correen had sat by his bed to monitor his rest. There were nurses to care for him, but he was her patient, and she had a moral code with respect to that, stronger than her fear of him. His sleep had been fitful. He flung his arm out, as though warding something away. An animal moan came from his throat. Blood slipped out of the corner of his mouth where he had bitten his tongue.
She caught his flailing hand and patted it, murmuring soothing noises. When Correen reached over him to get a cloth from his bedside table, he wrenched his arm free and yanked her down, pulling her close so his head was buried in her breasts.
Correen pushed, called his name. The unbelievable power in his arms and the drugs they had given him rendered her escape and his consciousness impossible. She laid the cloth back down, the front of her T-shirt having accomplished its task, and tried to calm her erratic pulse. He held onto her, the keening sounds building in his throat.
Compelled by them, she lowered her hand until it touched his shorn scalp. She smoothed it, stroked it, and murmured reassuringly to him, ignoring the rabbit beat of her heart that urged panic at her entrapment.
His moans died to soft whispers against her skin that she could not understand. When he finally released her, the track of a single tear had traced a line in the blood on her shirt.
Now Edward came closer, struggling against the music like the turbulent surf of an ocean. Correen had kept the blood stained T-shirt. She kept many things that would seem odd to other people. As she looked up and down the banks of the River, she understood that the mind of the River collected as she did.
Beneath the layers that sculpted each of them, no matter what path each of them took, was the embryo that passed through the Womb again and again. In the many lives each person would live, each would walk in Edward's shoes, or hers, or Adam's ... In the end, if they all helped one another and struggled for understanding, they would find themselves in the bosom of Those Who Are Not Seen. They would be allowed to come home forever, and to be at peace.
Pain and sorrow will always be the source of your healing. The truth whispered itself to her. In order to heal, she had to cleanse her patients inside the well of herself, and muddy her waters with their pain. She accepted that, and invited Edward's rotting soul into her.
Edward screamed as the music invaded him and spoke its truths in the many hollow corners of his mind. He staggered and fell to his knees, close to the piano bench where she sat. Correen continued playing, only vaguely aware of his outer distress. She delved deep inside his spirit, a dark and fearsome place inundated with blood and terrifying stillness. But in the darkest part of the abyss, she found a tiny silver stream of love to build upon. She did not know the tiny oasis of hope had been injected there by a terrible sacrifice made deep within the bowels of the earth. She was not there to question its presence. She bound her energy to it and formed a healing tonic potent enough to call back the Lord of Darkness from the nightmare of his life.
A cry wrenched itself from her lips that matched his. She tried to draw in his pain, take it from him and heal him as she had the others, but its power was too great. He struggled against her, fighting her for what was his.
A crushing weight fell on her shoulder, knocking her into the piano. The keys jangled discordantly. Correen struggled around, overturning the piano bench, and saw a seven foot tall nightmare of rotted skin and six inch long fangs looming over her, a truncheon poised over her head. "You die!" the captain hissed, and swung again.
She ducked, tried to scramble away. A hand fastened around her ankle and yanked. The weapon narrowly missed her, crashing into the far end of the keyboard. Edward hauled himself to his feet. He caught her body by the waist, raising his grip to her throat.
She was going to die here. Her body would become a living vegetable, like Ricardo. Correen struggled and tried to reach into Edward. The beast raised its weapon for the kill. Edward was closed to her again. She had failed. His soul was walled against her.
Correen stared up into the face of the hideous creature. She had looked into the face of Death all her life. She would not look away now.
I believed once that it was in intellect that man differed the most from animals. I know now this is wrong. The gap between man and animal is widest at the primitive level. Only man kills out of hate.
-Adam Al-Aziz, Age 15
The club fell short of its mark. Edward's blade passed cleanly through the captain's throat. The head toppled off and rolled into the River of Sorrow.
Edward pushed Correen's stunned form roughly toward the piano. "Finish it," he growled, jerking his head toward the confused army. He raised his weapon to face the oncoming reinforcements to the captain's attack.
Correen's fingers came down on the piano with a passionate crash that would have brought music to Beethoven's ears. The beings surged forward again. There was no further hesitation. As Edward battled their leaders, taking twice as many blows as he was giving, the army rushed upon her, fighting their way through her healing embrace.
Correen became a vehicle of their healing rather than their healer. The pain was acute and grew worse, until the passage of each beast was like shards of glass being packed into an open wound. Edward waltzed before her piano, his sword flashing.
An aurora borealis of souls fountained over the River of Sorrow. How many thousands had passed through her? Correen heard the rage of Zimimar's summons increasing below, and she could no longer hold his army from him. She grabbed for a rope of consciousness and missed it.
Her astral form slumped over the piano. Her body jerked with each passing, as the deformed creatures continued to move through her, their bridge to rebirth. Then even her unconscious energy died, and they could ignore the summons to battle no more.
Adam ran for the grove. Correen's physical body flopped against his shoulder, her arms beating against his back in a mockery of her normal premeditated, graceful movements.
The lobby doors had been shattered. He leaped through, sliding and scrambling for balance on the loose glass. It was quiet. The lobby had become a morgue, deserted and waiting for Armageddon.
The companions waited for him, along with a child he did not know. Adam came within the protected circle of the grove and felt the grievous trembling of the powerful old oak. The spirit knew that even its life essence could be made to serve the oncoming masters. Nothing living would be safe. Earth was about to become a Sealed world with no hope of ReOpening. There would be no possibility of cleansing and renewal. Earth would be frozen in eternal bondage to Goap and his immortal brothers.
"A Sealing creates a funnel," Adam said. Rage weighed down his voice like the woman he bore on his shoulder. He shifted his grip so he held her curled in his arms. Alma took her staff from him and Rob reached forward to help ease Correen out of his arms. A sound emitted from Adam's lips, an unmistakable snarl that raised the hairs on Rob's neck. Rob backed off, respecting the command. "Channa," Adam ordered. "Explain what that means."
"All magic is being drawn to the doorways of the Continuum and sucked out of the Sealing world. That's why we're not feeling that hopeless feeling here," she nodded at the Other Worlders. "The magic left is flooding this room and filtering through the grove doorway. It's escaping into the Continuum to redistribute itself."
"Explain how the gateway Seals," he said tersely.
She glanced at him uncertainly. "A Sealing closes the opening to the Continuum and the opening to the Sealed world like two pieces of tape." She demonstrated, placing her palms together.
"And what lies between these ... two pieces of tape?"
Alma watched the younger Guardian with shrewd, thoughtful eyes. Channa shrugged. "Infinite space. Or nothing. It depends on Those Who Are Not Seen or the visual acuity of the traveler." She directed her explanation to the others. "Traveling the space between the Earth and the Continuum feels like stepping out of one room and into another. It's been created that way to give travelers a familiar manifestation, but the doors and hallways simply manage what's really there, vast spaces that could be as large as universes or as small as a palm's breadth."
Adam nodded. "We are going to pull the four kings and their army into the Sealing door and trap them in that space between Earth and the Continuum entrance," he said.
"Can't we stop the Sealing?" Lanny asked.
"No," Adam said. "Once a manual Sealing is started, it cannot be stopped."
"But your world has a chance to revive itself, start over again, if those four aren't in control," Alma said gently.
"Once we've all killed each other. Great comfort," Rob muttered.
"How will we draw them into the grove?" Channa asked. "The concentration of magic here may attract them to investigate it, but why would they ride into the gateway?"
"Because I am going to open my mind to them. I'm going to show them that beyond this grove lies a universe of worlds to rule."
Shireva gasped.
"Just one of those four has the power to destroy your mind if you let him in," Alma said quietly. "Think, Your Highness."
"Adam," Channa stared at him, "if we fail, they'll have access to our world, and perhaps the whole Continuum."
"Aegis was oathbound to protect this world. We will do it, even if the price is our very existence," Adam snapped.
"You are talking about your family, your home," Alma reminded him.
"Aegis was charged to protect the worlds of the Continuum. The Lords have betrayed that trust and it falls to us to fulfill the duty Those Who Are Not Seen have charged to us. You are a Guardian. You know what I say is truth."
Footsteps cracked on the broken glass. The Aegians spun. Adam, Channa and Alma immediately assumed a defensive posture before the others.
Edward Brautigan strode up the darkened hallway toward them. Flashes of lights from the crimson and black sky illuminated his passage. Each shaft flickered off the dead eyes. His attention was fixed on Correen's limp body, held in Adam's grasp.
"Why is he holding his arms like that?" Lanny whispered to Rob.
Adam saw clearly what she could not, the misty outline of Correen's astral form, which Edward carried in a mimic of Adam's posture. Her head hung back in the same lifeless pose as the body left behind.
Adam vaguely felt Channa come and stand by his shoulder. Her blade was lifted. He looked down at Correen's face. He could still faintly smell the perfume she had applied to her skin a couple days before. The medallion had obeyed gravity and slid to the end of its silken cord. It hung behind her neck, tangled in her disheveled hair.
Correen had used her loneliness as a shield to survive, until he came and offered to take its place. They were meant to be together for all the most important reasons, but it was not to be.
Adam laid Correen in Channa's arms. He pulled the sword he had recovered from his roommate out of his belt and dropped it with numb fingers. He did not need a weapon. Each step taking him toward Edward drove out reason and replaced it with the instinct and rage of a wild animal.
His adversary clearly read his intent. His lips moved, but Adam could hear nothing. He was trapped in the silent scream of a broken spirit.
Edward hesitated, clutched Correen's ethereal form closer, and then-he ran. Adam exploded after him. Edward put the lobby sofa in between them, dodging him by slipping between tables and overstuffed chairs.
The mouths of those around Adam were open, screaming. Rob appeared before him and Adam flung him off. Alma put out her hand in warning to Rob, too late. The powers that Those Who Are Not Seen granted Adam were as accessible to him as his ability to breathe. His shove propelled Rob away from him with enough force to carry him up and over the sofa. The trail of his passage was so hot with power the threadbare fabric burst into flame.
Adam leaped through the fire, a golden-eyed demon bursting out of their orange embrace. He landed against Edward's retreating back on the other side. The spirit that had been Correen drifted out of his enemy's grasp and settled on the floor. Edward tried to scramble out of reach again, but Adam tackled and straddled him. He laid hold of the massive man's head. His muscles tensed to wrench his head sideways and snap the powerful neck.
Edward decided that he was through with a defensive retreat. The giant muscles along his chest rolled and bucked, weakening the prince's grip. He arrowed his arms up between the vee of Adam's and punched outward, breaking his hold. Before Adam could regain his balance, his enemy drove both fists hard into his diaphragm. Adam fell back from the impact but recovered rapidly, though he could barely breathe. He lunged for the man again, but a pair of arms encircled his chest, holding him back.
Aside from Edward, Rob was the strongest physical force in the room to deter the prince from his intent to kill. It was not the strength of the arms that stopped him and made the whole world reappear. It was whose arms stopped him. Adam heard voices come from silence, to distortion, to normal cadence. The black curtain of rage he had thrown over the objects and people in the room lifted. He had to be certain, so Adam whirled in the grip of the arms. He knocked Correen in the head with his elbow.
She staggered on already unsteady legs, and he caught her to him. Channa leaned on Alma, both of them breathing heavily. Edward's words that Adam had not heard were that Correen was still alive, but it had taken every bit of strength from the older Guardian and priestess to bring Correen's astral and physical form together and back to consciousness.
Correen stroked dirty, bandaged hands over his shoulders, not minding the pain. She reassured him with her touch and her voice. She could tell it was several moments before he actually heard her words.
"-Here, it's all right, I'm all right..."
He caught her wrists from his neck. She winced and his touch gentled. "Where-" The words came out harsh and guttural, and he stopped, clearing his throat. "Where have you been?"
Correen choked on a laugh. He buried his lips in her palm, and she could feel the shakiness in his touch that the others could not see.
"I love you," she said softly, for the first time. It was no more than a quiet sigh of air in the stillness of the lobby, but he heard her. His grip tightened and his tawny eyes dwelled on her face for a moment.
"I will devote my life to making you happy," Adam said.
Her chin lifted in her characteristic way. "Our lives will be over in about five minutes. That's not a very impressive offer."
He smiled then. Adam touched her face, touched her neck, stroked a shoulder, then he nodded to himself. The tense line of the broad shoulders relaxed.
He turned his attention to extending those five minutes. Alma worried the head of her staff. She had recovered from his violent outburst more quickly than the others. The old woman spoke as if there had never been an interruption. "Your idea might work, except for the part about letting Goap into your mind. He knows you have no reason to open yourself up to him like that. He will sense a trap."
"I'll do it," Edward said.
Adam whirled. Channa had not suffered the same lapse in attention. She held her sword on Edward, her expression leaving no doubt that she would welcome the chance to use it. He seemed indifferent to her threat. In fact, Edward stood motionless, apparently content to fall with the pillars when the lobby came crashing down. His eyes rested on Correen with the same disturbing intensity they always had.
"It's all right," Correen shocked them all by stepping between Channa and Edward. She placed a hand on Channa's blade. "If he says he can help, he will." She looked back at Adam and struggled for the words to make him understand. "He saved my life."
They were not exactly what she wished to communicate, evidenced by the slight curl to Edward's lip, but it bridged the gap between enemy to ally.
Edward reached inside the pocket of his jeans. Correen increased her downward pressure on the flat of Channa's blade as the priestess began to lever it upward again. The dark eyed man gave the warrioress and Correen a contemptuous look and withdrew two cigarettes, looking at them a long moment. He took two steps toward an overturned chair. Rob sat on the arm, getting his breath back. Edward extended one of the cigarettes.
Rob's face registered shock. Lanny stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers tightened on it as Edward's corpse-like gaze rested on her for a chilling moment.
"It's not a peace offering," Edward said to Rob, without inflection. "Take it."
"What the hell," Rob muttered. "Got a light?" he asked, in a strained version of his normal offhand tone.
Edward placed another cigarette between his own lips. There was a snap as Adam flipped open Rob's gold lighter and held it out to the two men.
Edward bent first, holding the tip to the flame, and leaned back, surveying the grove. Rob glanced at his roommate and took the lighter from him. Adam lifted his hand and touched the swelling ridge along Rob's cheekbone, a gesture altogether too gentle for the masculine standards of Rob's disintegrating world.
"If we survive this," Rob ground out, "you and I are going to go a round without the magic shit. I am going to kick your ass to make up for how many times you have hit me, shoved me, tossed me around, and generally gotten on my nerves this week. Okay? And," he jabbed a finger at Correen, ignoring its slight tremor, "will you please stay at home like a proper woman instead of traipsing around the fucking cosmic universe?"
Alma chuckled, and Adam's hand lowered to his friend's shoulder. Rob managed a weak grin. "Now, can we decide what we're going to do? Something that leaves us alive and unpossessed would be a real pleasant surprise."
"You want them to come here," Edward nodded at the oak pillars. "And you think there's something here that can destroy them?"
"It will contain them, which is the best we can do."
Edward paced the grove. He skirted Alma, Shireva and Alicia, throwing the blonde a mocking glance. The women turned with him, not allowing him to be outside the line of their sight.
"There's a space between the opening in this world and the opening of my world," Adam continued, measuring the other man's actions. "I can widen it to accommodate the whole army. We can build a net, anchor it along the passageway and leave it open at this end. By the time the four kings reach that end and realize they've entered a trap, they and most of their army are in the passage. We draw it closed and seal them in."
"It's a snipe hunt and your world's the bait," Rob interpreted. At Alicia's blank look, he made a face. "It's a good-old-boy thing, Wildcat."
Shireva frowned. "But Prince Adam ... how will we get through to the Continuum, before this world Seals?"
"I can enclose you in a protected energy sphere and you will use the strongest force, the final moment of the Sealing, to propel it through the net and out the other side," Alma spoke before Adam did. He looked at her and she nodded. "The binding will be constructed only to restrain the kings and the army. The sphere should be able to exit without breaking the strands."
"We 'pop' out on the other side," Channa finished.
"It sounds like you're going to knit a big tube sock, the bad guys are going to ride into it and you're going to tie it off at this end," Alicia frowned.
Lanny looked between Alma and Adam. "Not only is our world going to be Sealed, those things will be between us and the closed door?"
"Once back in Aegis, we will think of a way to move them or send them back to where they belong," Adam said. "I wish I had a better plan, Lanny. For now, it's the best place to put them."
Edward put a hand against the nearest oak column and drew on his cigarette. "There's a tunnel in this grove that leads to ... other places?"
"A tunnel that will be closed in fifteen minutes," Alma said.
Adam probed and nodded. "Thirteen, I think," he said.
"Nine," Edward frowned, and blew smoke into the sacred center of the grove. "I'm seeing an opening ... narrowing. It feels ... final. Is this the Sealing you're talking about?
Adam came to stand by his adversary. "You feel the Sealing?"
Edward's eyes flickered toward him. "The place beyond this. Aegis." He nodded at the grove. "What does it look like?"
"Am I the only one who sees that he's just killing time?" Alicia burst out. "Adam, he doesn't give a shit if this world is destroyed. He's playing you along until those monsters get here."
Adam tensed at the look Edward turned in her direction. The flat, empty gaze flickered to Correen and calmed somewhat. Edward dropped the cigarette and ground it out, ignoring Alicia.
"I will call Goap. If Goap knows of my betrayal," he nodded to Correen, "he will believe I am attempting to atone for it. If he does not know of it, he will bring them here anyway. He would never accept that I am attempting to aid you."
"Neither do I," Alicia muttered.
Edward turned. He raised a casual hand. Her arm yanked out from her body and twisted to an odd angle. The bone snapped.
Alicia screamed in pain, falling to her knees. As one, Rob and Channa started for Edward, murder in their eyes. Adam was closer. He seized Edward's arm.
The melding of their two powers occurred instantly, as it had each time they had touched. Only this time, both men were ready for it. The surge spiraled around them and pushed the others back a pace.
The grove interpreted the call of their power as a request to cross over into the Continuum. The gateway unfurled visually behind them, like a three dimensional cube of silver white light. It strobed briefly over everyone present, then subsided to the glow of a mirror. Their activated magic and the nature of a Sealing met and the Sealing tried to suck them into the Continuum. Adam resisted the pull of the Continuum, diverting some of his strength to create a temporary shield against the suction. He noted the silver doorway was a third of its normal width. Earth's time was running out.
Edward's eyes glazed in trance. Adam felt his mind open, reach out to the demon kings, to Goap, and show him the prize the lobby contained. He knew the moment that Goap noticed the probe and responded, for Edward stiffened, his grip convulsing on Adam's.
Adam pushed some of his own power across the bridge of their arms, helping to steady the other man. Whether Edward summoned Goap, hoping for the Earth's destruction and the invasion of the Continuum, or he truly meant to aid Adam and his friends, the results were the same. Martin turned from his watch at the window. "They're coming!"
The lobby vibrated under the terrifying movement of thousands. "Inside the grove, everyone," Alma commanded. "Line up on either side of Adam and Edward, between them and the doorway."
"Use my power to do this thing you intend," Edward said through teeth clenched with effort.
"Follow my lead," Adam said. He pictured their two powers as double threads strung through a needle and started to conduct the dance of the spider, weaving a net of strong, unbreakable strands to capture their prey. Keeping their two powers twisted together in the pattern was difficult. Its desire to explode into a maelstrom of wild, destructive energy was difficult to resist. Edward was hesitant at first. Then, as if they had worked magic together all their lives, his energy surged alongside the prince's and Adam had help.
Adam's speed increased. The energy 'sock' lengthened and began to flow back through the threshold. Adam projected the vision of the rune that was the combined power sign of the four kings and Edward helped him brand the symbol along the length of the net, reinforcing and strengthening its binding quality.
The concentration of magic in the tunnel began to aid them. They tacked the net up along the corridor of space between Earth's exit and the Continuum's entrance. Adam felt the doorway narrow several more inches as the Sealing sensed the impending threat of the four kings. He increased his pace. Edward shifted into a higher gear in response.
Once a traveler stepped into the jurisdiction of the threshold, he lost his physical substance for the space of time it took to cross from the world he had left into the Continuum. Adam lengthened the door's silver passageway to encompass all the companions. He anchored it to the portion of the net that Edward and he still held between them. The end result was a tunnel of light whose entry point lay directly between him and Edward. The others lined the inside wall of the passage. He quickly created a false, golden web of light between him and Edward that would look like an attempt to barricade the gateway.
The four horsemen crashed through the lobby windows, knocking loose the few shards of glass that remained. The fear of the companions washed over him, and Adam gripped Edward's arms harder. If he broke free now, the cage of energy they had created would dissipate into the unpredictable savagery of a tornado, serving no one's purpose but its own. Edward did not attempt to pull free. His focus remained locked on their task, as though he was unaware or apathetic to the arrival of the demons and their army.
Goap headed the phalanx of howling creatures. His horse's nose crossed the golden wall that Adam had spun between them, and it broke as planned, allowing him passage. Laughing triumphantly at the flimsy attempt to thwart them, the four demon kings spurred their steeds forward. Adam held his breath as each fiery horse thundered past. The chests of the horses passed through their clasped arms as the animals and their riders lost their physical bodies.
The Sealing's pressure to pull all magic out of Earth increased exponentially. Alma stepped out of line and stood behind Adam. She laid her hand on his shoulder and concentrated on anchoring them against the pull, taking most of the task from the prince so he could concentrate on the trap. The effort created a whirlwind of energy around the old woman that lifted her gray hair from her neck. It pulled loose from its tie-back and whipped about her slight form.
The army entered the tunnel from all directions, passing between and through the mortals. They became ghosts the moment they passed into the silver light, too much under the command of the demons to note the humans were not being trampled by their charge, nor were they fleeing. As the last of the army disappeared through the gateway, Alma moved to stand before the two men. She raised her staff and a sphere of green, protective light clamped down around Edward, Adam, and all who stood behind them.
Adam and Edward instinctively leaned back, drawing their arms taut in the same manner they drew the web of binding taut.
Adam braced himself and felt Edward do the same. The timing was propitious, for just then the lead prong of the demon kings hit the far side. The demon kings whirled and charged back the way they had come, howling their fear and rage. Adam was soaked with sweat and was sure Edward was the same, but the exhilaration of the experience lent him further strength. Their two powers, so completely opposite but so equally matched, interlocked perfectly, as though they were two strands of DNA meant to be intertwined.
The army crashed into the entrance to the energy net, now sealed tight. The demon kings writhed before them, screaming threats. Their misty, enraged faces were only a breath away from the terrified companions just outside their reach.
Adam and Edward wove the net tighter, tying off ends, blocking off weaker points as quickly as a talon or claw slashed through. Their lips moved with the sacred words needed to bind them there. Edward spoke the true names of the demons in his mind and Adam heard them and repeated them for reinforcement. He forced the kings back, shrinking the extended gateway back to the line of the original threshold, which left the grove to the companions.
Alma trembled with the exertion of holding the protective sphere around them. In seconds, the gateway would be Sealed. She shouted something to the others and Correen's arm snaked around Adam's waist, holding him fast. Rob curled his arm around Edward's massive torso. The others completed the chain. With Edward and Adam's hands clasped, the circle was created, creating an additional binding to reinforce the sphere's protection.
Alma nodded and stepped back, outside the perimeter of the grove, mouthing her farewell. Adam heard Channa cry out a protest, but there was no time. Alma was a Guardian. She knew where she wished to be. The Sealing would leave her powerless, without access to the energies and voices that were the largest companionship to being a Guardian. He looked at her for a brief moment. It was a distraction he could not afford, but one Adam could not deny himself. She nodded formally, conveying she understood all he felt.
There had been no time to discuss whether the others wished to come to Aegis or take their chances with their own world. The time to ask permission had passed. He would have to make the choice for them, and Adam chose what he desired-that they live.
He wished he could tell them to take another look at their home, in case it was the last time they ever saw it. In his mind, Adam saw the sliver of light, all that was left of the opening between Earth and the rest of the Continuum, begin to Seal. Edward stared into his eyes and Adam saw that he knew what they were about to do, and that Adam could not do it without him.
They turned to face the gateway like a matched pair of eagles on a runway. The others broke and reformed into a closed circle behind them. Alma raised her staff and swung it wide, severing the anchor on the sphere.
The green globe with its precious contents rocketed forward like a stone catapulted from a slingshot. The doorway sucked it through in a flash of green and white light and Sealed, shutting off Earth from the Continuum.
The speed at which they left the lobby altered dramatically, like a diver going from air to water. All sound was muted. Adam felt squirming bodies pressed against every square inch of his back, the monsters separated only by the thin layer of Alma's protection. The only connection he had to his companions was Correen's grip on his waist and Edward's on his forearms. For once, he could not see. The world was black around him.
The space between the Continuum and the Earth had never seemed more than a step, no more noticeable than a threshold, because indeed that was how it was meant to appear. Now it was crowded with a legion of shrieking, gasping creatures, and the single step to cross dragged into minutes. Adam could not tell if they were moving at all. What if the density of the imprisoned hordes was strong enough to balance the pull of the Sealing door? It would bring the sphere to a halt, like a ship at full throttle going nowhere against a powerful current.
The moment of panic drained only a slight draught from his focus, but it brought a sudden burn to his shoulder, as a creature managed to land one blow on his skin with a slashing talon. His adversaries would tear through the green aura with the eager furor of children over gift wrapping if he relaxed his vigilance. Adam drove the worry from his mind, strove to focus only on their goal. The force of the Continuum connection pulled them jerkily through the vortex, like crab bait passing over sand.
The emotional battering of their surroundings screamed into his brain, demanding he release his hold and break the circle. He was not invulnerable to the mournful cries of the slaves of the demon kings, so like the dirges of a Three Day Mourning, a dirge he would soon hear from Earth.
When he had a molecule of attention to spare to it, Adam would thank Mataya for the endless hours of focus training-do not move your eyes from this butterfly, you must follow it all day, never let your eyes leave it ... Stand on one foot and stare at a window pane of the palace until the sun sets ... Those exercises were the only thing that could have prepared him to ignore thousands of bodies screeching in anguish, and four enraged demons trying to puncture the protection with any magical or physical weapon left to them. His body was shaking, as was Edward's.
Correen's grip slipped from him. Adam broke one arm out of Edward's grasp to grab her. It was a desperate moment, reaching out where he could not see, flailing in a tar pit. He caught something and held onto it. It was coarse and knotted and felt like the fur of a mangy dog. He had a nightmare vision that he might be grasping what had ripped her from him, but he held on, because it was all he had.
Releasing one of Edward's arms knocked their protection off balance. An arm snaked around Adam and yanked his chin back, a blade slicing at his throat. Goap's hiss of triumph roared in his ears and the poison magic in the knife burned like acid.
Goap roared angrily as his wrist was yanked away and the blade turned before it could cut the prince's jugular. Adam felt Edward lean back as he jerked Goap's arm away from the prince with his free hand. Adam pushed himself, increasing the force of the sphere's protection to keep others from squeezing in behind Goap. Edward pulled hard against Adam's grip, using the leverage to hold Goap's blade away from the prince's throat. Abruptly the demon shifted his weight forward, abandoning Adam as a target. Adam tried to entangle Goap or unbalance him by dropping his shoulder, but the demon changed tactics too quickly. It did not matter which of the two he destroyed-killing either one could weaken the net. Adam heard and felt the blade plunge into Edward.
Goap howled in triumph and turned. Adam sensed the blade coming forward to finish him. Edward must have been wounded badly, for his grip had changed so that his arms were now clutched about Adam's waist, his cheek pressed against his abdomen. But his former adversary still maintained the flow of power between them, keeping the circle closed. Whatever else the man was, he was a warrior the likes of which Adam had never met before.
We are getting out of here. Adam reached into himself and called every energy and stream of energy, every scrap of power that Those Who Are Not Seen could offer him, even the vital energies that kept him breathing. He called forth the spirit within him, the great lion, which was the divine power within himself separate and yet connected to Those Who Are Not Seen. Edward's grip tightened upon him. He opened himself to Adam further and the prince packed the offered energy into his weapon.
The point of Goap's blade pricked his chest. Adam launched his weapon, and the explosion lit the surreal world around him for just a moment. He saw the white staring eyes of his companions, the salivating fangs and red, terrified eyes of the trapped army, and Goap's Satanic face. The remaining demon kings screamed, but Goap's painful shriek drowned them out as Adam's power blasted him out of the sphere.
The concussion of the charge forced a momentary clear path among the army and the green globe shot for it. Darkness fell back on Adam's vision. He held Edward hard against his chest with one arm and the slim hope of Correen in his closed fist. He sent one last prayer to Those Who Are Not Seen.
It was his last conscious thought.
We will find Eden when all karmic debts are paid. We are a collective Body. We are all part of whatever each of us may call God, and that Body must be healed completely. Our task is to understand and help one another resolve these debts, whether the debt is our own, or the homeless child's, or even the serial killer's. Just as our souls were all created together, so we must find peace and paradise together.
-Alicia Kingsley, Essay, What is Judgment Day?
Adam's cheekbone twitched, twitched again. He wanted to raise a hand to push away whatever was tickling his lips, but there was some reason he should not use his hands. He opened his eyes, and squinted in the light of a late afternoon sun. What was tickling his lip was a twelve-legged calis bug, the Aegian counterpart to Earth's crab. They were in Aegis, lying outside the western portal, near Mataya's village. He could hear the ocean waves hitting the shore and he felt the light touch of mist, telling him it was high tide. He had expected to emerge into the Continuum, but he was in no mood to complain. They had made it. Or had they?
He raised his head and the calis bug scuttled back to its hole. The prince was not dead, but his body took the opportunity of his movement to inform him that he should be. However, no pain in the world could have prevented him from turning his head to his left. What was in his hand felt like a snarled ball of seaweed. It was Correen's hair, hopelessly tangled and thick with some type of half dried mud. For a moment, Adam could not trust his eyes, that he had caught her before she was pulled away.
Her shoulders spasmed and she moved, awkwardly pushing herself up by her elbows. She twisted her neck to look in his direction as she felt the resistance against her hair. Her eyes coursed over his face, desperately inventorying the wholeness of each feature. She looked down at his chest and blanched.
Adam glanced down. Blood covered his chest and shoulders, dripping down the sides of his body. He bled from the cut in his throat and a dozen other places, but it was Edward who turned the sand red beneath him. The man lay half across his abdomen, his fingers dug into Adam's shoulder blades. Adam's arm still clutched him around his back.
"It's his," Adam told her. He struggled up and she scrambled to her feet. Correen helped him tug Edward away and roll him over onto his back.
The dark eyes flickered open. He focused on Correen, and then saw Adam. "It is done," he whispered.
At first the prince thought it was a question. He nodded. Edward coughed, a bubble of blood coming from his lips, and shook his head.
"The pressure ... there were too many, so I expanded the net with your energy at the end, so it would not break. So we could get through." Edward's face abruptly contorted with pain too great for even him to conceal. Adam's arms tightened around him, holding the massive body until the choking stopped.
Edward had dissected the Continuum. The demons' prison stretched from the Havenwood gateway to the threshold of the Western portal. It had been a high price to pay to contain them. But it was done. With the favor of Those Who Are Not Seen, the prison would hold until a better alternative could be found.
Correen put her hands on the gaping hole in Edward's chest. In a surprising show of strength, Edward caught her hands, thrusting them back at her with a look of revulsion. Correen cried out at the pressure of his fingers and Adam yanked the man's hand away from her.
Edward's dying eyes did not waver from her. "You cannot heal me," he croaked. "When you were at the piano ... you heal sickness. I am not sick."
"But you protected me," Correen said. "When I was playing, I felt something different inside you. Melanie knew it all along, didn't she?"
Pain flooded his face and it did not come from his mortal wounds. "I don't understand that," he murmured hoarsely. "Only this."
His hand tugged free from Adam's. The massive frame was getting heavier, more limp, as though the soul already had one foot through the Gateway Beyond. The prince allowed Edward to pull his hand away. Edward's fingers, clumsy in death, sought upward. Correen caught his hand, steadying it. It moved to her throat. His fingers alighted there, tracing the delicate bones. A feral, unholy expression captured his features.
"I look at your face, and I want to take the life from it. You cannot heal a tree from the sickness of being a tree. You have been in my dreams so long, a nightmare ... I am..." He stumbled, his expression becoming bleak. "I am lost."
"You are found," Adam corrected. He took Edward's fingers from his beloved's neck and changed his position with a grunt. He cradled Edward's body in one arm, the fingers of his other hand interlaced with Edward's. Even now Adam felt sparks of power leap between them and marveled that he had not understood the cause earlier.
"Deep inside of you, there is a light burning that knew your true destiny all along. No one, not even you, could do anything to vanquish it." In the same manner Adam had known that he was a Guardian at the first true touch of Those Who Are Not Seen, he saw Edward immediately understood his words. "That light always knew what you were meant to be. It is that which Correen and Melanie found. I overlooked it, even though a vision was given to me to see it. In our arrogance, we thought Guardians came only from Aegis, this place, and only one at a time. You were supposed to become a Guardian for your people, but your world wasn't ready, and we didn't see it in time to help you."
Adam tightened his grip, squeezing wet blood between their palms. "I will honor what you might have been and mourn what you became. Go find peace."
"It's getting dark," Edward said. "A cigarette. Melanie has one." A strangled sound, like a chuckle, choked out of his throat. "But she's not here."
Adam felt in the pocket of Rob's borrowed jeans and found one, taking it to the man's lips. Edward turned his head away and groped for it with his fingers instead. Adam put it in the blood-soaked hand and closed his own hand over it. "You should be able to see a light, Edward. Do not turn away from it."
Edward did not speak for several moments. Adam searched the flat eyes for a sign of life. The dark eyes stared beyond him. The lips moved at last and Adam bent to hear the slight whisper.
"I cannot go there. Melanie, and ... her child. They're standing in the light. I live in the dark."
"That is your child. They are waiting for you. Take their hands. Let them go with you into the next life, so you may all heal together. Melanie is your soul mate, the spirit who loves you, who belongs with you."
Edward arched suddenly in Adam's arms. His hand grasped toward air. The fingers kneaded the sky, the eyes staring and searching. The hand dropped. Adam saw a brief, surprising spark of life flicker in Edward's eyes, then everything died out of them.
Correen brushed her fingers over the lids, lowering them, letting Edward sleep at last. She looked up at Adam, their faces close.
Adam laid Edward's hand upon his still chest and raised his fingers to her mud-crusted cheek. She pressed tearstained lips to his palm, heedless of the blood there. He leaned forward and kissed her. Their mouths trembled against one another. She was so reluctant to pull back that she did not. She spoke against his lips. "Are we ... are the others gone?"
As one, they looked around them.
They were in the dunes, and the tall grass hid the sand of the beach. The others should have been close, if the circle had held. The prince's eyes rose to the portal. He could see the top half of it from their spot. He remembered it as an ornately carved wooden pair of doors, adorned with gold plating and jewels. Now the wood was charred, burned black from their passing. The gold had melted, running down the door panel in gruesome patterns uncomfortably similar to the faces of those contained behind it. It was as if their faces were pressed against it from the inside, forcing their images outward.
Adam laid Edward to the ground respectfully, but then got to his feet as quickly as his stiff body would allow. He was much shakier on his legs than he would have liked. Correen was no sturdier. By mutual accord they stayed close together, each steadying the other as they staggered and wove their way out of the dunes.
The closer they got, the more they could feel what lay trapped behind the door. Evil vibrated behind it, barely contained by the powerful binding. Correen sought his hand and he took it, holding her fingers as tightly as he could without hurting her.
Adam saw the faces of Rob, Lanny, Channa, Alicia, Shireva, and Martin as last he had seen them in the Havenwood lobby. He thought of them being tortured and torn apart inside the prison he and Edward had created. He would plunge back in to get them if he had to, rather than bear the agony of that image.
As they staggered out of the grass, they saw the other companions lying on the beach. Their clothing was torn, their bodies bloody from scratches and bites that had found purchase. Adam's stomach dropped as he realized how close the margin for error had been. The sphere had broken a scant second before they had passed through the portal to this side. They were scattered within a handful of feet of the doors.
Rob lay face down, his arms outstretched. Lanny curled in a fetal position just outside the range of his fingertips. Alicia and Channa were tangled up in one another like twined roses, the child clasped in Alicia's unbroken arm. Shireva's head was pillowed on the red-haired priestess' hip. He did not see Martin.
Adam turned Rob over, croaking his name. Almost before he had the student on his back, Correen had her head on Rob's chest, listening.
She looked up at Adam, the answer in her face at the same moment Rob's hazel eyes opened for his first look at Aegis. He could not see much of it past two blood-streaked, exhausted and dirty faces hovering anxiously over him. He moistened his lips, not surprised when his voice came forth sounding like a strangled chicken.
"No offense, Don Quixote," he wheezed, "but next semester, I'd really appreciate it if you requested a different roommate."
Correen smiled, pressing Adam's rigid hand. "He's all right."
"Lanny-" Rob thrashed upward like a fish. Correen pointed, moving out of his way. Lanny was sitting up, testing her balance on shaky arms. Rob scuttled onto her like a crab. She returned his fervent embrace, automatically at first, then she went through the same process as Correen and Adam. She realized they were alive. She gripped him harder and returned his kisses with ardor.
Channa, Alicia and the child stirred. Shireva accepted Correen's assistance to a sitting position, tenderly touching her forehead. The eight survivors exchanged amazed, exhausted glances.
"Martin?" Adam ventured carefully.
"He decided it was time one of the Order documented a Sealing from the inside," Shireva said softly. "No one in the whole Continuum could do a better job of it."
"Mama," the child whimpered. Alicia's arm tightened around her.
"Hush, sweetheart," the blonde said helplessly, "it will be all right."
"She was looking for her mother when Alicia took her into the circle," Channa explained wearily to Adam.
"I saw Edward," the child stared about. "He would know where Mama is. She said she was going to Edward. Where did he go?"
Adam closed his eyes. He bowed his head, staying that way for several moments, despite Correen's soft touch and murmured questions. The Guardian rose and stumbled away. He stopped a few paces away from them. The great shoulders began to shake.
"My God, the man has a breaking point," Rob murmured, but there was no humor in his voice. Correen sprang forward to catch Adam in her arms as he fell to his knees. He tried to pull away from her.
"No. No. No." Correen held him close, following him when she could not resist his strength. Rob rose and went to him. He put his arms around Adam and held him steady.
"I could have stopped it," Adam said. "I knew ways to save her, but nothing that would free us as well. I knew her sacrifice would weaken my bonds and free us, and we would have a chance of defeating them ... I finally understood what you meant, about letting others protect me to do what I was born to do." The Guardian paused, and closed his eyes. "In that moment, I felt cursed."
Rob shook his head, with no answer, and held his friend, aching with him for the sad, wistful woman.
Adam drew a deep, shuddering breath and disentangled himself from Rob and Correen. He limped back to the circle with them trailing behind and knelt before the little girl, Melanie's daughter. "What's your name?"
The child turned in Alicia's embrace, looking at the sad, sad man. He reminded her of Aslan the lion in the C. S. Lewis book her mother had read to her. "Molly." And then, as if reminded of how to introduce herself to others, she added, "Molly Sayhber Rawles."
"Molly Sayhber Rawles. Your mother saved our lives." Adam gestured to the group of people around them, but spoke to her still. "Edward frightened you, didn't he?"
The child nodded, glancing around as though the object of her fear would hear her. Adam brought her attention back to him with a touch. "Edward was going to harm us. Your mother distracted him and allowed us to escape." His gaze lifted to the others, who were listening with mixed expressions of shock, sorrow and anger. "She forgave Edward for all the things he had done and took them inside of herself. She healed the part of him that caused him to do bad things." He paused, feeling how complex the explanation was for a small child. He wanted her to understand, to remember. It was important. Adam reached out and touched her small, puzzled face.
"When you remember your mother, always remember this about her. There is no greater magic than unconditional love. She had a faith in it stronger than anyone I have ever met." Adam swallowed, gazing into the blue eyes. "She sacrificed herself ... she died for him, and us. You have a home here for the rest of your life. You aren't alone. We'll love you and take care of you, just as she would have wanted us to."
The child stared at him. A fearful, agonizing grief took over her features, making them as old as Alma's. Correen knelt by the still child and touched her hand. The girl's head nodded forward and she slumped into unconsciousness in Alicia's arms. Correen's face became a mirror of her anguish for a brief, intense moment. "It won't destroy her, now," she whispered, and fainted.
Adam caught her. Shireva came quickly to his side and touched the woman. She nodded to the prince. "It's just exhaustion," she said.
Adam felt a strong urge to join her in unconsciousness. As he stared bleakly at Correen, Rob knelt beside him. "I have someone who may cheer you up," he said.
Rob reached into his torn shirt. For the first time Adam had the leisure of noticing there was an unsightly bulge over his roommate's hipbone, where the shirt had miraculously stayed tucked. Rob withdrew Niko, curled into a charred, spiny ball.
"He's the most resilient little cuss ever born," Rob said. "I don't know what their anatomy is all about, but unless their insides vibrate like a drum after they're dead, the char-broiled Puff is still alive. I rolled over him when I was wrestling with Edward's cronies in the caves," he explained. "I managed to shove him into my shirt. He clung there like a bat, even when you knocked me over the sofa. I'll probably have permanent scars from the toenail punctures."
Adam shifted Correen to one arm. He leaned forward and placed his cheek against the dragon's head.
"Thank you," he murmured to Rob. He blinked unashamedly and looked down at the tiny beast. "Our best healers will see to you," he promised. He lifted the little dragon and laid him in the curl of Molly's arms. "The two of you will heal together. She will need someone with your loyalty and devotion to love her." He looked around him. "I have been overly blessed in that regard."
Hoof beats broke the silence of the companions. Adam turned his head and saw a line of mounted warriors coming down the beach. Mataya was in the lead. They were a few minutes off, but Adam could feel Mataya's worry clearly.
The Guardian got to his feet, bringing Correen with him. He took a deep breath and turned fully toward the oncoming horsemen. Aegis's setting sun illuminated him.
"Welcome, all of you, to my world."
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